Love it, improve it

I’ve seen it several times recently, and I don’tknow what to make of it. I’ve read two remarks by members ofthe Young Conservatives of Texas in which they claim to besupporting freedom and/or liberty. Reactionary radio talk-show hostSean Hannity claims to favor “liberty over liberalism.”And Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia recently mocked theCourt’s recent decision overturning state sodomy laws when headdressed a convention of a right-wing organization that claims toadvocate personal freedom. What is going on here? I’m a”man of the Left,” so to speak, precisely because Ivalue liberty so much.

There are certain freedoms I don’t believe in. Idon’t believe in the freedom to pollute, though our currentvice president evidently does, if his votes against the Clean Airand Clean Water Acts earlier in his political career are anyindication. I also don’t believe in the freedom to killworkers who strike. That happened in this country more than once.For the most part, though, I support a freer world. I think theNetherlands provides a fine example of what I‘m talkingabout. That must be one of the freest societies in the entire worldand, in the parlance of our times, one of the most”liberal.” The Dutch government has essentiallydecriminalized most “soft” drugs. Instead of beingbanned, prostitution is carefully regulated. Comprehensive sexeducation is subsidized by the government, and is mandatory in allschools, all of which are free and theoretically equal in quality.Like all other First World countries other than the United States,the Netherlands has universal health care. Euthanasia is legalunder certain conditions. Capital punishment and private handgunsare both forbidden. The Netherlands was the first country in theworld to legalize homosexual marriages of one form or another.It’s worth noting that assassinated anti-immigrant politicianPim Fortuyn was specifically bothered with Muslim immigrants, dueto the attitudes many of them seemed to hold regarding women andhomosexuals. Pim Fortuyn was gay.

Compared with the rest of the First World, the Netherlands hassome of the lowest rates of drug deaths, abortion, teen pregnancy,AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases, murder and otherviolent crime and imprisonment. The United States is at or near thetop of the list in many of these undesirable categories. It shouldcome as no surprise, then, that much of the rest of the First Worldseems to be gradually following the Dutch example.

I have deeply mixed feelings about gun control, since, althoughI would love for the United States to have only a couple dozenhandgun deaths per year (like Japan), I also feel that the workingclass should be armed against both the ruling class and theiragents, the police. That aside, I would love for the United Statesto follow the Dutch example, and not just in the realm of socialpolicy. Last year the entire Dutch government resigned and calledfor elections after the truth came to light regarding an incidentduring the fighting in the Balkans. It seems that a company oflightly-armed Dutch peacekeepers failed to stop the Srebrenicamassacre of 1995, when thousands of Muslims were killed by BosnianSerbs. The Bush administration, in contrast, has awarded jobs toseveral war criminals, and many others (both Americans andforeigners) live comfortably within our borders. The Bushadministration has even threatened to invade any country attemptingto conduct war crimes trials of Americans. Since any such trialswould probably occur in the Hague, the current American governmentis on record as having threatened to invade the Netherlands.

Clearly, the American right wing does not care for theNetherlands on several levels. It claims to value freedom andliberty, and yet its ideal country looks something like SaudiArabia. Women are oppressed, suspected homosexuals are persecuted,everyone dresses the same, the government has enormous policepowers and executes people with impunity, workers have few rightsand the country is awash in religious fanaticism. The 7,000-memberroyal family reaps the benefits of the country’s oil wealthand spends much of the rest of it on weaponry. Saudi Arabia is oneof the most conservative countries on the planet and, as such, isone of the least free. The Saudis claim to have very low rates ofmany social ills, but at what cost?

It’s become fashionable for American right-wingers toclaim they endorse freedom. As usual, they either knowthey’re lying or they don’t.