You're drawing conclusions on the basis of historical meaning of "freedom" that no longer exists.

I can see how it helps you create an artificial argument in favor of the Democrats.

But it would be more honest if you were to simply state the choice as collectivism versus liberty, because that's what your description of the Obama plan really is.

Don't pay any attention to Lalo. He just likes to pick apart the way you say something so he doesn't have to acknowledge that WHAT you say is right. I've noticed twice today he accused people of being dishonest. Projection much?

I thought your points were interesting. I also read somewhere (and everyone's probably heard this before) that Americans tend to discuss freedom as license, ie: Freedom TO do something. People who have lived under repression tend to discuss is as a protection, ie: Freedom FROM (opression, etc). I think that is how the Founding Fathers thought of freedom, based on the way they wrote their documents.

I agree with you about trying to read their minds, though not because we didn't vote for them; because they were downright wrong about some things, like slavery and voting rights for two things. They were very forward thinking, but all people are limited by what is in front of their noses.

I think it makes sense, when specifics are called for, to go back to their basic precepts -- All men are created equal -- (with the current version changed to perhaps, "humans" and going from there. Because even after they said it, when they got down to specifics they just couldn't pull it off; so much for examples of consistency. We've been working on that with amendments and such, but we haven't perfected it yet.

It always strikes me as comical that the right-wing bring out the bible and the Founding Fathers to discuss such things as abortion, which is mentioned by neither. Then these war-monger, death penalty proponents go on to say they are "pro-life," without any embarrassment at all.

Now we talk about health care, and those of us on the left want everyone to be treated as equals, and for the entire country to be better, safer, and more competitive in the world market because of it. The far right says, "NO!" It'll cost too much! So much for doing the right thing. Or, "NO!" the government will take over and intrude into your privacy -- the very people who don't want women to have a medical choice she and her doctor agree on for her -- and the same ones who don't want consenting adults of the same sex to do what they want behind closed doors.

I hear them say frequently that anyone can have health insurance; they just have to pay what it costs, (as though those very Congressmen don't have THEIR health care subsidized by all of us). They are just for freedom, they say --

"Let them have Health Insurance."

I have some advice for them. Read up on French History and see where a similar conceit got Marie Antoinette.

Eric, thanks very much for this post. I just ordered the book. I think words are very important, and although the distinction between "freedom" and "liberty" may be lost on most people today, the meanings of these words 230 years ago are still germain to our current struggle to maintain our republic.

And your effort to understand the "other side" in these terms is admirable. The only thing I would say differently is that Republicans frame the health care debate as a liberty issue, in order to incite a constituency who don't see any gray in an issue, and to activate in them a fear response, all designed to attain their overall goal -- which is much less about liberty than money (not to mention raw political power -- which, to them, is basically the same thing as money).

-- ARG

Interesting. I incline toward the balance scales occupied on one side by liberty/freedom and on the other by security. I view the left and right going from one side of the scale to the other based solely on the issue. And I think sometimes that the thumb on the scale is what group gets to benefit and whether or not that group can pay.

Take health insurance. To me it's a personal security issue and everyone really agrees that each person should have insurance. The differences are who pays for it and who has earned it--the right says pay for it to earn it and the left says that this leaves out folks who cannot pay for it and don't make enough money to earn it. I view the "freedom/liberty" issues surrounding this debate as a simple smokescreen full of politically acceptable terminology.

My two cents....

I don't know if the monday rain has gotten me in a curmudgeonly mood, but I'm going with Lalo on this one. Eric, you're trying to base your whole argument on the 3000 year old etymological origins of the word 'freedom'. It's really twisting the meaning of the wordg and its connotations. Trying to base the argument for universal health care on the value of freedom, because freedom actually means love and friendship just doesn't make any sense. Freedom isn't the value underlying the case for reform. Sorry.

It's about basic human dignity and the rights that flow from it. It's about basic human decency and the obligations that we as a society have to fulfill. Playing Orwellian games with words is not the way to go here. Conservatives do not believe in these values. And it serves no purpose to try to convince them that they on pain of inconsistency MUST do so. Conservatives, insofar as they don't believe that the poor 'deserve' health care, are a bunch of immoral shitsacks. Call them out on it.