And All This Time I Thought I Knew What Freedom Was

Posted by PBS Mind | Rudy Giuliani spoke at a forum about crime in cities recently, sponsored by the New York Post and reported by the New York Times. During this event, he said:

"What we don't see is that freedom is not a concept in which people can do anything they want, be anything they can be. Freedom is about authority. Freedom is about the willingness of every single human being to cede to lawful authority a great deal of discretion about what you do."

Now, I get that. I get that my freedom to drive in an uninterrupted line between my house and my grocery store must, for the social good, be curtailed in the form of traffic lights. I get that my freedom to spend my income must be curtailed by taxation and, as I actually like having roads, getting mail, and entertaining the thought that 20 years from now our public schools will actually still be rendering a few people literate enough to get into med school, I don't mind that. I believe it's right that my freedom to swing my fist stops at the other guy's nose.

So to a great extent, Giuliani is merely stating a fact.

The problem I have with Rudy's statement is that his history indicates he doesn't seem to know where to draw the line, and he leaves me inclined to believe he doesn't think he has to.

See these excerpts from a piece about Rudy's history in the Colorado Springs Independent News.

During Giuliani's term, police wore T-shirts with intimidating statements, such as the Hemingway quote, "There is no hunting like the hunting of man."

But most of the crime reduction was achieved during his first term, when the economy was faring well. By the second term, Giuliani's agenda became bizarre, including outlawing ferrets.

"For Rudy, governing New York was conquering New York," Mitchell Moss, a professor of urban planning at New York University, told Newsweek. "He thrived on confrontation." 

Giuliani's zero-tolerance "quality-of-life crackdown," which allowed for anyone to be stopped and patted down, even raised the ire of the police.

James Savage, then-president of the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association, told Daily News, "If we don't strike a balance between aggressive enforcement and common sense, it becomes a blueprint for a police state and tyranny."

 

Comments

[The Crux]

GREAT piece, PBS Mind.