Free Will

I've ended up reading about three different items in the past week on this particular debate, which has raged for centuries, if not millenia. Essentially, it goes like this:

1. The universe obeys certain fixed laws.
2. Our minds function in our brains, according to those laws.
3. The laws of the universe dictate the functioning of our brains.
4. Since our brains work by those laws, so do our minds.
5. Since our minds work by fixed laws, our choices are determined by fixed laws.
6. Since our choices are determined by fixed laws, we cannot have chosen otherwise.
7. Therefore, free will does not exist.

The point of this argument is to show that free will is incompatible with determinism. In other words, it tries to show one of the following:

1. Free will does not exist, or
2. Some part of our humanity exists outside the realm of the physical.

Usually it's those on the left trying to show item (1), with those on the right trying to prove item (2). The above argument has existed in multiple forms ever since scientific thought actually began to show some success in working out the way the world actually functions.

A variation on this argument, of course, goes roughly like this:

1. God is omniscient (all-knowing).
2. Thus, God can see the future with certainty.
3. If God can see the future, he can see the outcomes of our choices.
4. Therefore, God knows what we will choose.
5. Therefore, we cannot choose otherwise.
6. Therefore, no free will.

Let's take a simple example. Let's say you're trying to decide whether to eat dinner, or skip it and go straight to bed. This isn't a huge decision in the grand scheme of things, but enough to illustrate our point.

You're hungry, but you're also tired. Plus, there's no real food in the house. And you ate a really late lunch, so you aren't all that hungry. Based on all of this, you decide to go to bed and just get up a little early and have a good breakfast.

Now. The opponents of free will argue that since you chose to go to bed, you could not have chosen otherwise. Their evidence? You didn't choose otherwise. Of course, had you chosen to eat a light supper before bed, the would have argued just as strenuously that you could not have chosen to go to sleep -- because you didn't.

Scientific Determinism

Determinism is the notion that, given knowledge of the initial state of a system, we can work out the later state at any point in time you care to name. Because the laws of Nature of known, anything that obeys those laws must be predictable.

When it comes to free will, though, there are several possible problems with this.

Chaos Theory

The first is chaos theory. To summarize, chaos theory works with iterative systems, which are systems where the "next" state is based in some way on the "current" state. In theory, any set of equations can be written in an iterative form. The exact methods are beyond the scope of this post, of course.

A system is said to be chaotic if the outcome can vary widely based on small variances in the initial conditions. This is best explained by contrast. If I throw a ball, and I'm wrong by, say, 0.1 percent about how hard I throw it, then in general I'm going to be wrong about where it lands by roughly 0.1 percent. It might be a little more, might be a little less, but in general: small initial error, small error in result.

A chaotic system doesn't work like this. It says that if I'm the tiniest bit wrong about how hard I throw the ball, the ball could end up in China instead of across the street. Now, naturally, balls don't work like this. But some systems do. The weather is a perfect example -- small disturbances in the atmosphere can, given the right circumstances, turn into a thunderstorm. Or not. It's hard to tell exactly what will happen.

All the information we have indicates that the brain is just such a chaotic system -- that a small question concerning whether or not a neuron quite reaches the threshold needed to fire can determine whether or not a whole train of thoughts or sensations occurs. It's hard to tell.

Chaos theory is still deterministic! It is still based on fixed rules. What it says, though, is that in practice we can never make good enough measurements to truly predict the outcome of a system down the road. That even though we may have a snapshot of how the brain is right now, that predicting your thoughts a week or even a few minutes later may well turn out to be impossible.

Quantum Theory

Quantum theory was developed during the first half of the twentieth century, and there have been a lot of people who have misinterpreted it to attempt to prove philosophical points. However, I won't be using it to try to prove deep fundamental principles, but instead simply to make some comments about chemistry which, after all, underlies the way the brain works.

Quantum theory, fundamentally, says that once you get down below a certain size, that events become basically random. Science can no longer tell you what will happen, but instead can only give probabilities. This is based entirely on the particle's mass, and electrons definitely fall within this mass range. This is called the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle and is a core principle of quantum theory and the standard model, and has been verified by a huge amount of experimental data.

This is not just a limitation on our ability to measure things! As far as we can tell so far, this doesn't come from us just not having good enough instruments, but instead from a fundamental limitation of the physical laws of the Universe.

If everything's based on quantum mechanics, and quantum mechanics says that we can't predict the behavior of individual particles, then how can we predict anything? The answer comes from probability theory.

Let's say you flip a coin. I can't tell you much of anything about the outcome of that particular flip. But if you flip it 1,000 times, I can tell you that you're going to get about 500 heads and about 500 tails. I can even (assuming it's a fair coin) give you a pretty decent idea of how much away from 500 it's likely to get.

Likewise, we can't tell you what a single electron is likely to do. But when we have a million of them, their behavior becomes quite predictable and orderly. The chances of them doing something odd becomes vanishingly small -- small enough that we can ignore it. And when we're dealing with the everyday world, where we're talking about billions of billions of atoms making up a baseball, we can pretty much ignore the uncertainty principle and just use good old Newtonian physics to describe the path of a fastball.

The more we learn about the chemistry of the brain, however, the more it appears that quantum effects may play a role. By being poised on the edge, so that a few electrons either way can make the difference between a neuron firing and not firing, a certain degree of uncertainty enters the calculations. Note, of course, that they are still deterministic -- these are fixed laws describing our universe and all the matter within it. But we can't narrow it down any better than to a given probability.

The exact implications of this are still being researched, but it does not body well for being able to make firm predictions about a person's thoughts from first principles.

Emergent Behavior

Emergent behavior is a characteristic of complex (and chaotic) systems that involves a feedback loop of some kind. Emergent behavior means that a system can implement some very simple rules and from those rules come up with astonishingly complex patterns, patterns that might not be readily apparent from those rules.

A group of engineers decided to implement an evolutionary model of circuit design using a computer. The idea is that they wanted a circuit that would generate one result when it was fed a signal at, say, 1 KHz, and another result when it was fed a signal at 10 KHz. This is a fairly simple circuit.

They programmed a computer to basically build circuits and test them. At each stage, it would introduce random variations into the circuit, and it would then test each of those, and pick the one that it considered to be at least moving in the right direction. All the circuits were simulated in the computer, using standard electrical engineering rules.

The end result? After about 1000 iterations, the computer produced a circuit that functioned flawlessly, and was basically identical to the circuit that an engineer would have produced. Nothing huge there, right?

However, here's where it gets fun. Another researcher read about this, and realized that since the computer was working with theoretic circuits, that they came with a lot of theoretical assumptions. So he set up his own experiment. In this experiment, he used PLA (Programmable Logic Array) devices -- real, physical devices that can be 'rewired' under computer control. It used that as the test-bed, but used the same evolutionary strategy as before.

This time, the computer took a lot longer to come up with the result. But the result it came up with was very surprising. It worked flawlessly -- and used roughly a quarter the number of gates as the equivalent design that a human engineer created. Analyzing the circuit, though, gave no insight into how it worked. In one test, the circuit that was produced had a loop of a few gates that weren't connected to anything else in the circuit, nor to any of the inputs or outputs. It didn't appear to do anything -- but if it was removed, then the circuit stopped working.

The theory, of course, is that that loop of gates formed a 'resonance' component inside the circuit that was used to recognize the pulses. It's something no human would have done (because if you tried to use a different brand of PLA, it wouldn't work). But in this case, it represented a very efficient solution to the problem. Nobody could have predicted it, and it was still hard to figure out how the circuit actually worked.

It appears that the brain is just such an emergent system -- that our minds develop based on similar sorts of feedback loops that develop over time. The complexity of such systems can be many times that of the individual components, and just understanding how the components work can give you no real insight into what is really going on.

This, also, does not bode well for being able to predict the development of a mind.

Prediction versus Determinism

So what if we can't predict the outcome? We're still obeying fixed rules, and that means we could not have chosen otherwise.

The trouble, though, is that that definition of free will, in itself, outlaws determinism. By saying that we could not have chosen otherwise, it essentially demands that our choices be utterly random. The only time that free will exists, by that definition, is if our decisions are based on no reason whatsoever!

It's a circular argument. If you chose option (1), then your choice was fixed. If you decided to just be contrary and choose option (2), then your choice to be contrary was beyond your control. If you decided not to be contrary and choose option (1), then your refusal to be contrary was beyond your control. And so forth.

In other words, the only evidence they have that you were required to choose as you did was that you did choose as you did. Your inability to change the past after the fact is taken as evidence of a lack of free will. That hardly seems fair.

The usual response is that in order for us to have free will, then we must have a soul, something that is outside the usual definitions of space and time and not subject to the laws of matter and energy. That it must be metaphysical and distinct from our brains. Needless to say, religious types like this argument a lot. So do others intent on showing that there is a spiritual dimension to things. And the best part is, of course, that they don't have to show how it's possible, how this soul could work -- because the instant we can show how it works, it becomes subject to physical laws, and thus, non-deterministic.

Another response, of course, is that there is no soul, and therefore our choices are not governed by free will -- and thus, it makes no sense to punish, for example, criminals for their actions. Is it morally right to punish those who make wrong decisions, or reward those who make right ones, if there's no free will? This is used as the argument for various kinds of socialist agendas.

My Response

There are basically three rebuttals I can give against this argument, which, as I said, is employed by both sides, each anxious to prove their point.

Practicality

Because of the following:

1. We certainly believe we have free will.
2. Other people appear to have free will.
3. We cannot, in practice, predict much of anything about what somebody will think based on deterministic priniciples,

It makes sense to say that, in effect, it doesn't really matter if we have free will on the metaphysical, esoteric plane. We certainly seem to act that way, and while certain external events affect our choices (e.g. I don't tend to eat a lot of food when I'm not hungry), and yes, certain events on our past may make the 'right' choices easier or harder, until such time as science can come up with a good, solid mechanism for predicting people's thoughts, acting as if people have free will is probably the simplest course.

And, based on what I said above, the trick of figuring out what people will think based on scientific principles may be a lot harder than it might first appear. The brain is a chaotic, emergent system with at least some degree of quantum effects. Don't expect to see any solutions to this problem anytime soon. We may be able to identify influences, but that's a long way from being able to say that we can 100 percent predict anybody's thoughts.

In addition, one must also consider that even if we do not, in the metaphysical sense, have true 'free will', having a system of rewards and punishments is certainly a powerful incentive structure that affects people's choices. Whether or not we have free will is irrelevant to the fact that, were this structure torn down without something that we know would work better to replace it, the results would probably not be desirable.

Execution

This is a fundamental question that goes to the heart of free will, and the definition that gets used. I'm going to argue here that the definition that is being used is flawed, in the sense that it doesn't mean what people think it's supposed to mean.

To begin with, let us talk about the nature of a decision, of a choice. Let's say we program a computer in such a way that a light will turn off if a number fed to it is greater than or equal to zero, or on if it is negative. This is a very simple rule, and in fact can be solved without the use of much of any components (hint: for standard integers, wire the most significant bit to an LED in series with a 100-ohm resistor to control current).

Feed this thing numbers, and the light will obediently turn on or off. Has a decision been made?

This is arguable. It's the same level of "decision" as a light bulb "deciding" to turn on or off when a switch is flipped.

However, let's extend the definition. A decision means that something must alter its behavior based on the outcome of that choice.

Let's make the computer more intelligent. Let's assume that if it receives a negative number at its input, then it will begin to flash a series of lights from right to left. A positive or zero number causes it to flash the series of lights from left to right.

Now, did it make a decision? It has altered its behavior based on an external input. Did it make a choice?

By the old definition of free will, it did not. Its programming was such that it could not have chosen otherwise. Therefore, it did not choose. Why? Because, based on the programming, the other choice would have been incorrect.

Let's assume that instead, what the computer does is subtract two numbers it is fed. One is stored in memory, and represents a temperature. The other comes from a thermometer. Every so often, the computer subtracts the second number from the first, and if the result is negative, it sends a signal out that, in turn, inserts control rods to shut down a nuclear reactor. In other words, if the temperature recorded by the thermometer is above a fixed value, shut down the reactor.

Now, let's assume that those events do indeed happen. Did the computer decide to shut down the reactor? Once again, the advocates of the old definition of free will would say, no. The computer did not make a decision.

But I argue that it did, very definitely. The decision may have been hardwired, but the simple fact is that a device changed its behavior based on a series of external events. Whether or not it could have chosen otherwise is irrelevant. An input was received, and based on that input, the computer changed its behavior. That is all that is required.

Likewise, if you punch two numbers into a calculator, does it truly add those numbers? In reality, the circuits go through a series of oscillations based on their design, and once they settle down they control a series of LED elements (or LCD elements) that we interpret as a number. I argue that even though the device is following its constraints, it nonetheless took two pieces of information and combined them to reach a result. It added the numbers, and it made a decision.

Now, I am not arguing, of course, that computers have free will. But what I am saying is that just because something is deterministic does not mean it cannot make choices. And when you are dealing with a system that is chaotic, emergent, and potentially exhibits quantum randomness, it is capable of integrating a lot of inputs, transforming them in strange and difficult-to-predict ways, and changing its behavior based on them. And if it isn't free will, then it's something so close that we can't tell the difference.

Useless Definition

Finally, I would argue that the traditional definition of free will is such that anything can be included or excluded at the whim of the person arguing. That makes it a very poor definition, because one criterion of a useful definition is that a third party should be able to tell you whether something does or does not fit into a category based on its definition.

The definition of free will as "the ability to have chosen otherwise" applies, in effect, to nothing. The only things that, by that definition, would undeniably fit would be hypothetical entities that could, on a whim, reverse time and change their decisions, and find a way to provably show you that this had, in fact, occurred.

In fact, amusingly enough, the only things that we know of in this world that fit the criterion are those objects small enough to be subject to the rules of quantum mechanics. In certain cases, an electron can retroactively change its spin in such a way that that decision seems to propagate backward in time, retroactively. Discussing these experiments and what they actually mean is well beyond the scope of this article, but it makes for fascinating reading.

Humans, though, like other macrophysical objects, make decisions based on their perceptions. If you blindfold me and then tell me to guess a card you are holding up, my "decisions" will be no better than chance. And I fail to see how a disembodied soul could do any better. Having the soul outside the body doesn't even solve the problem of free will -- after all, one could argue that the soul's decisions, having been made, could not have been otherwise. One just can't involve the rules of science to try to prove it.

It all comes down to the old question of proving sentience. How can we determine if a computer is sentient, an alien race, or an animal? Come to think of it, how can we prove that any other humans are conscious and experience a sense of self like our own? We assume that they do -- they are people, we are people. But it was not always the case. How long ago was it that some people regarded those of a different race as subhuman and lacking true feelings?

The best definition of free will comes from Alan Turing, widely regarded as the father of computer science, who devised an experiment to determine if a computer program could be regarded as sentient. Basically, you connect somebody via a terminal to the program on one hand and to a real person on the other, and you have the person text message back and forth, with suitable delays as needed. If the person can't tell which is the computer and which is the person (or if a good-sized group of people cannot, on average, do better than chance), then we must regard the computer program as sentient.

There is no other objective criterion. If it acts sentient, then we must consider it to be. And likewise, if it appears to exhibit free will, then we must consider it to possess it.

Implications

This basically applies to anyone who would like to use the free will argument to prove something and recommend policy decisions based on it. It applies to religious types who want to try to show that the soul exists outside our bodies, and thus proves the existence of God. It applies equally well to religious types who want to say that our having free will contradicts God's plan. And it applies to those left-wingers who want to make a case against punishing crimes on the basis that the criminal could not have chosen otherwise.

And finally, it also defies anyone who wants to defend indoctrination programs, whether for conservative or liberal values, who uses the defense that all behavior is programmed and there is no free will, so it's not about whether to brainwash but simply the content of the brainwashing that is under debate.

Flag Burning

This has been hot in the news recently, where our government tried to push through a Constitutional Amendment to ban the burning of the flag.

First, I'm glad to see that our government has solved all the other pressing issues of our day. Obviously Social Security is in the clear, the Health Care system is in perfect shape, and the War on Terror is well on its way to being won. Obviously the problems of the economy and the recession are well under control, and all the other social problems have been solved. Right?

Luckily, the measure failed to pass, and I'm very gratified to see it. I'm also desperately frightened by the fact that it only failed by one vote in the Senate.

Why am I frightened? Was I planning on going out and torching Old Glory? Of course not. I have the utmost respect for the flag and what it stands for -- and it is for that exact reason that I am strongly against outlawing the burning of the flag. I believe that you cannot protect the flag by destroying part of what it stands for -- and part of what it stands for is freedom of speech.

What the Flag Means
This is, of course, a deeply personal thing for all of us. The flag, very simply, is the symbol of our country. It is the symbol of everything this country stands for and has stood for. It represents the revolutionary concepts of liberty and justice, and equality before the law, that were so revolutionary (literally!) in the founding of this Nation.

It represents our continual striving to do the right thing. More than any other Nation, we as Americans have tried to do the right thing, even when we have had little to gain. We have rushed to other Nations' defense against evil even when we ourselves were not involved. We have sent millions if not billions of tons of food to countries that were starving. We are the most generous nation on the planet in terms of aid sent to other places on the globe.

It represents our founding principles, the idea that people can be free to make their own choices. It represents an ideal that people have fought for and died for, laying their very lives on the line to defend. It is the symbol of our nation, of all the people who make up this great country. It is a rallying point for all those who believe that this is the greatest country on earth, and who believe in the principles which we share.

And one of the principles that that flag represents is the First Amendment. For those who may have forgotten it, here it is:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or
prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of
the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the
government for a redress of grievances.

Yet here, we have Congress making a law that abridges the freedom of speech.

Flag burning, however much I might dislike somebody doing it, is a form of speech. It is a very powerful, very provocative statement, and that statement is: "I hate the United States of America, and I wish it would be destroyed."

Do I agree with them? Hell, no. Do I like them saying this? Hell, no.

The reason that we dislike the act of burning the flag is not because the act itself is heavily dangerous. We are not attempting to ban the burning of any piece of cloth, but instead a piece of cloth with certain markings upon it. People aren't trying to make a case for it because flag burning is dangerous, or because it emits toxic fumes.

The reason they dislike the act is because of what it means. They dislike the message that is being spoken. And they wish to deprive anyone within our borders of the right to send that message. In short, they are asking the government to make the expression of a message that they do not like a crime.

And that is precisely what censorship is. We don't need Freedom of Speech to protect popular ideas. Nobody is trying to ban Mickey Mouse (All right, somebody, somewhere probably is, but it certainly isn't the majority opinion).

Tolerance
Freedom of Speech means that we must tolerate precisely those ideas which we dislike, which offend our values, our culture, our ideas, and our beliefs.

Does the principle of tolerance mean you have to accept those ideas? No.

Does the principle of tolerance mean you have to like those ideas? No.

Does the principle of tolerance mean you have to stay quiet when those ideas are expressed? Definitely not!

Does the principle of tolerance mean that those ideas are accepted while other ideas are suppressed? Again, no.

Tolerance simply means that you do not use acts of force against those you disagree with. I don't like people burning the flag. It makes me angry on a deep, fundamental level. I'll say it here -- any American citizen who torches the flag is a hypocrite and a whiny maggot looking for attention, and has no concept of what is really at stake. And Freedom of Speech gives me the right to express that opinion.

But if I want my right to express my opinion to be protected, then I must grant others that same right. Even if I disagree with them. Even if I consider them the biggest flaming moron ever to have lived on the earth. Even if I consider their ideas dangerous.

Ideas need to be fought with ideas, not with guns. And since every government action is taken at the point of a gun (ultimately), government has no business promoting or punishing ideas. And that includes religious ideas, political ideas, scientific ideas, and social ideas. It has no business declaring certain speech to be off-limits. It can restrict the venue of said speech in some circumstances, potentially; it can restrict speech that is not an expression of an idea but instead nothing more than an incitement to riot (shouting 'Fire' in a crowded theater).

But the Government has no business telling people what ideas they can and cannot express and, so long as no harm is done to others, telling people how and where they can and cannot express them. The Founding Fathers felt this was an important enough idea that they wrote it into the First Amendment. They recognized that ideas are where change begins. They just finished a bloody war with England over ideas -- specifically, the idea of who a man belongs to. The ideas upon which this country was based were actually illegal to express, because those who held power in England disliked them and feared what they represented. They recognized that the suppression of ideas that the majority disagreed with would suppress not only bad ideas that had no merit -- but also good ideas that needed to be heard and considered.

In essence, they created a free market in thoughts. They distinguished between thoughts and actions, and declared that there would be no restrictions upon the former. If you hate a particular candidate for office, you can express that opinion all you wish. If you attempt to translate it into direct action -- for example, shooting the candidate -- that is bad and will be considered attempted murder. But the opinion itself, and the expression of it, was considered to be protected.

What does this mean? It means that the KKK and the NAACP both have the right to their point of view, and the right to express it peacefully. It means that the NRA and the advocates of gun control both have the rights to talk about the pros and cons of their position, and neither side has the right to try to force their opponents to shut up. It means that pro-life and pro-choice both have the right to express their views.

Those with the wisdom to see past the immediate issues will recognize that as soon as government gives into popular demand to censor things that the majority, today, disagree with -- that tomorrow, a new majority may be in power, and use that precedent to censor things that today's majority hold sacred. Once the principle is compromised it becomes worthless, and creates nothing more than mob rule in the realm of ideas.

And that benefits no one -- except those who would use that power for their own benefit.

Who Owns a Person?

This is one of the fundamental questions of cultures throughout history. Who owns a person? Who does a man (or woman) belong to?

There have been a lot of answers throughout the years. In the beginning, one belonged to the tribe. Cooperation between individuals was the key to survival, and nobody could be allowed to jeopardize that. Everyone had to work together. It was a very simple form of communism, which can work on a small scale - as long the group is small, everyone has something to gain, social pressures can easily be brought to bear on nonperformers, and the need for pure survival is strong. Everyone belonged to the tribe -- because if the tribe died, all the members died. It was that simple.

Once agriculture was invented (and yes, it was an invention, one of the first of the world-changing creations of humankind), one belonged to one's family. Men toiled in the fields, while women worked in support roles: cooking, preserving food, creating clothing, weaving cloth, bearing and raising children. The family was the unit of survival, and children belonged to their parents.

Religion has always been with us, but as it grew more organized so did the notion that one belonged to God, that we are all servants of whatever God or Gods held sway at the time. That our labors and efforts were to benefit Him or Them.

As societies grew more complex, feudalism developed in parts of the world. One belonged to one's Lord, almost as property. One's efforts, one's labor was done for the benefit of that Lord, almost exclusively. And at the top of the ladder was, of course, the King or Queen, the ruler of the country.

Feudal society gave way over time to other notions, as society became more mercantile and, later, industrialized. One's efforts belonged to one's country, to the nation and to its rulers. Patriotism in its purest form -- that nothing mattered except the State, the Country, the flag.

The shameful practice of slavery brought with it the notion that some human beings can belong to other human beings, explicitly as property. That they can truly be bought and sold like livestock. That a human being can be owned by a Master.

And in modern times, we have the notion that one belongs to Society. Notice the capital letter. That each one of us belongs to the Society we all share, and thus it is that Society that we should obey, and for whose good we should devote our highest attention. At its highest level, of course, we belong to Humanity, the Society that spans not just one nation, one race, one culture, but instead all of humankind.

And, of course, another trend arose -- that we belong to the Earth, that we belong to Nature. That we are part of Nature, and thus that we have our highest duty to serve the Earth and the natural order of things.

All of these things share common traits: tribe, family, God, Lord, King, country, Master, Society, Earth. Of them, the most honest are that of Lord, King, and Master -- at least there it is explicitly stated that, at least in the belief of those in control, that one human being belongs to another. The others are trickier -- they, too, mean that one human being owns another. The others are abstract concepts -- the Earth does not give orders. Instead, some people claim to speak for the Earth, and in its name to demand our obedience. The old notion is still there.

I'm oversimplifying above, of course -- there are thousands of years of history that I'm summarizing in a few paragraphs. I'm omitting many things, of course, and glossing over the details. But the fundamental elements remain unchanged.

Locke and the Rights of Man
There is one brief shining exception to this concept, however -- the writings of John Locke and those who followed him. Locke suggested a revolutionary notion -- literally so, since it led to the revolution that began the United States of America. The notion was simple on the surface, but breathtaking in its scope. A human being owns himself. It is such a profound, deep statement at so many levels that it bears considering.

All previous philosophies had proclaimed that a human being belonged to someone else, or to something else -- which amounts to the same thing, since in effect those who claim to speak for that something else are the ones who are asserting their claim to power. Locke's idea that a man belongs to himself defied all this -- and further, claimed that it was the natural order of things, and that any philosophy that contradicts this goes against the natural order.

This was a profound statement, and one that caused massive upheaval. Many fought against it, because it threatened their power, or the power of the order that they served. Organized religion hated it, because it denied the power of God -- and thus of the priesthood -- to give orders. Kings and royalty feared it because it threatened the Divine Right of Kings. And even after the great experiment based upon it -- the United States of America -- succeeded beyond anyone's dreams, still others with dreams of control have fought against the notion, tried to discredit it.

Locke proposed a system of negative rights. Negative rights, as opposed to positive rights, simply state that your right precludes somebody else doing something to you. A positive right requires them to provide something for you. For example, a negative right to life means only that other people shouldn't kill you, while a positive right to life would imply that it is their duty to make sure you don't die.

Among the rights that Locke proposed were the rights to life, liberty, and property. The idea of course was that, ethically, it was wrong to kill someone, imprison or restrain them, or take their property from them unless they were -- or had -- violated someone else's rights. It was a system that was beautiful in its simplicity.

The Role of Government
What purpose does government serve in such a society? Government's purpose is to protect the rights of man, and to avoid infringing them.

The concept of this was, again, revolutionary. Prior to this, the notion had always been that the government -- and by extension, those who ruled -- were above the law. The law was something that they created and enforced on others. Being in government meant you could do whatever you wanted. The only restriction on the powers of governments was, of course, those of other governments, who might declare war on you if you weren't careful.

Needless to say, those who were involved in government disliked this idea. The notion that the laws would apply to them as well, and that their powers would be circumscribed by the rights of their subjects, was not a popular concept.

The United States of America
A group of wealthy landowners in the British colonies in the New World were enamored with Locke's ideas, and they pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor to attempt to establish a society based on these rules. They were idealists, but their ideals were unusual in themselves -- the desire to create a government whose express purpose was not to have all the power.

Revolutions had happened before, but it was always a matter of one group seizing power from another. Nothing really changed except the question of who was in charge. Instead, you had a group of people who were risking their lives in order to give the power to other people -- or at least part of the power. Who were determined to create a system by which everyone would have a chance to participate in government.

I doubt anyone could have phrased it better than Thomas Jefferson:

We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal;
that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights;
that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that
to secure these Rights, Governments are institituted among Men, deriving
their just Powers from the consent of the governed.

There is so much packed into that one sentence that it deserves being considered line by line. All of this should have been covered in school, but lately the fashion has been to gloss over these documents without considering their meaning too deeply.

What a subversive document! First, a veiled insult -- claiming that one should easily be able to see the justice in the words. Second, declaring that Rights aren't privileges to be bestowed or withdrawn by a King or by government, but instead something inherent to the human race, to each and every one of us. It then goes on to state three of those Rights -- though property was curiously omitted from the document. And finally, the most important phrase: the purpose of government.

It negated the Divine Right of Kings. It stated that what gives a government its legitimate authority has nothing to do with power, has nothing to do with divinity, but instead that governments are answerable to the people they govern. It places the government into the role not of master, but instead of servant, and explicitly states that their duties involve the protection of the Rights of those under their control.

Naive? Yes, in a way. And the exclusion of women and the slaves was also not exactly the most just -- but at the same time, progress doesn't happen overnight. Just because they didn't carry the concept as far as it should have been taken does not diminish what they did accomplish. And they laid the groundwork for later abolition of both of these injustices.

The Constitution
Once the revolution was successful, and the Constitution was written, most of these same notions were translated into the supreme law of the land: the notion that individual rights, freedom, and a limited government were to become the basis of this new nation. It was among the grandest experiments in the history of human culture, and it has been wildly successful.

I firmly believe that the United States of America is the greatest country on the face of the planet, in principle. And I believe strongly in the values that were part of its founding. But at the same time, over the years, those initial principles have been eroded for various reasons. Even today, it continues.

Those on the Right wish to use the powers of Government to force compliance with their moral agenda. In the name of Patriotism, they wish to overrule freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, many of the guarantees of the Constitution against illegal search and seizure, all in the same of increasing security and protecting us from threats both internal and external.

Benjamin Franklin gave an answer to this long ago:

They that would give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.

There will always be threats from abroad or from within. But it is important to maintain the principles of freedom even in the face of these threats. Whenever you allow expediency to override your principles, they cease to be principles. A principle is worth dying for. It doesn't mean we have to commit suicide and roll over for aggressors, but it means that these principles have to be held in high regard and considered in every decision. Once we cease to defend principles, they become meaningless words. Or, as another wise man once said,

It ain't a principle until it costs you money.

Those on the Left, however, see a different series of threats that require the erosion of our freedoms. Convinced that people left to their own devices will commit various atrocities and injustices, they seek to substitute their own judgement for that of their fellow men. Believing somehow that they know best, they seek to protect us from ourselves, to establish rules that violate people's freedom, especially economic freedom. They commit the same mistakes as the right-wingers they oppose -- but then propose to do the exact same thing, simply with different issues.

Both sides have forgotten much of what it is to be an American, and that is what I want to talk about in this series of posts. They have misused science to try to confuse the issues. They have used scare tactics to try to trump up support for this measure or that measure, all of which is either "The War on Whatever" or "The Whatever Crisis". I'm probably guaranteed to make a lot of people fairly mad with what I say here, but I feel like, for better or worse, it needs to be said. A lot of people may find themselves agreeing with things that I say, as well. But whatever happens, if it encourages people to think in a new way about issues, then I'll consider it a success.

Thanks for reading!