TakeAStepBack
Gold Member
- Mar 29, 2011
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We might be, unless your definition of freedom is being allowed to sell snake oil "insurance" policies and bilk the unsuspecting in your state, free from Insurance Commission oversights and regulation.
Is that the freedom you lament not having? If not, then consider how liberating it is knowing that you're able to choose more freely between policies, not having to worry that some or all might be junk.
This is worth discussing. My conception of freedom includes the right to buy whatever someone else is willing to sell me. As long as no one else is harmed in the exchange, it's no one else's business.
In this case, that's the freedom I lament not having. And it's a freedom that fans of the regulatory state are loathe to recognize. You like to think that regulations merely constrain the providers of goods and services, but it's a two way street. Regulations that dictate what people are allowed to sell dictate what people are allowed to buy.
The 'freedom' touted by statists is of the sort you highlight here: freedom from worry. And it's not really freedom at all, it's the opposite. Real freedom to choose always implies the possibility that you may choose poorly, and suffer the consequences. The "freedom" to blunder through life with no accountability for the choices you make (because they were all made for you and you were just following orders) is no kind of freedom worth having.
Ask Samuel Gorton, Roger Williams or Anne Hutchinson regarding freedom. There fight was a bit different, but ultimately, it is the same thing.