5. Does Freedom Work (Part I)?

I'd ask you to consider the premise that sums up my thinking in these first few entries:  Freedom works.  The reason why we as a nation have made this amazing leap in a such a short time is that we developed a system of political economy that respects the dignity, liberty, and autonomy of the individual.  Only in so doing do we create a climate in which individuals thrive, express their creativity and passion, and create the kind of abundance and opportunity that we enjoy.  It is a society in which irrespective of our parents, our neighborhood, our gender, or our ethnicity, the greatest obstacle to success is ourselves. 

If you believe freedom works, you naturally fall into the camp of the constitutional conservative.  You believe that government's primary role is to protect God-given rights, not invent new rights such as a right to healthcare or a right to free condoms.  In fact, in the classic American view (borrowing from Locke's Second Treatise on Civil Government), government is not even a party to the social contract.  Rather that is a contract struck between free citizens who agree to divide up the physical, intellectual, and emotional labor of being human in order to derive mutual benefit.  Rights are God's to ordain through creation, not government's to invent in order to garner popular support and win elections.

Government is a derivative mechanism rendered necessary by the fact that men are not angels and just might not keep their contracts.  Government does not exist to provide a vision for a better future of hope and change, it is a necessary evil that should be viewed with suspicion because it holds a monopoly on the exercise of legitimate violence.  Government at its best provides a context in which 300 million Americans can conceive and pursue 300 million unique visions.  Free people do not look to Barney Frank, Anthony Weiner or Richard Nixon for their meaning in life.  They find their own.  They expect their government to let them.