The Right To Be Let Alone
By Steve Pomper (01/18/05)
Justice Brandeis exalted our, “right to be let alone.” The good Justice referred to this right as the most comprehensive and most valued by all civilized men. Comprehensive, is an apt description.
It seems to me that the majority of the troubles in the world, from mild annoyance and crime, to atrocious tyranny, stems from the violation of Justice Brandeis’ contention. In plain English: Some folks simply refuse to leave other folks alone. They endeavor to impose their will on others through intimidation and violence; and policy and law.
The concept of, the right to be let alone, has been predominantly used to argue privacy rights usually against intrusive government. However I think the concept can be stretched more broadly.
How about the micro-managing boss: our own personal petty tyrant. He diminishes our daily contentment and pursuit of happiness; he won’t leave us alone. The wastrel on the street interrupts your day and begs you slap some of your hard-earned money into his gritty palm; you say, “No.” He presses, imposing on your peaceful pursuits; he won’t leave you alone. Thieves and robbers intrude into our lives and take by deception or violence that which they refuse to earn. That the pedophile, the rapist, the murderer, the terrorist intrude horribly into our lives needs no elaboration.
In too many parts of the world, the Middle East in particular, peaceful people, people who want nothing more than to live their lives and raise their children unmolested, are blown to bits while riding the bus to work or school, sitting in a park, or enjoying a slice in a pizza parlor, by barbarians who, through the practice of human sacrifice, wish to impose their religious and political beliefs on others, and in gross understatement, simply won’t leave people alone.
And finally the preeminent offender against peaceful people in everyday life: The government. That obnoxious and useful tool of those who refuse to let us alone. Nancy thinks that it is a good idea to wear a seatbelt, so she wears one every time she drives; good for Nancy, right? No, that’s not good enough for Nancy. Not being able to leave you alone, Nancy beseeches liberal Representative J. Do-Something to act on her “good,” idea. Rep. Do-Something sees the vote potential and being the astute crisis entrepreneur that he is, seizes on Sally’s political snake oil, and eventually buckling becomes law. Your ability to think and make decisions for yourself is poisoned by a government that refuses to let you alone.
You’ve invested in your land all your life. Land handed down to you by your parents and to them by theirs. Your property is your unassailable legacy to promote and ensure family unity, continuity, and financial stability for generations to come, or so you thought. But the government cannot leave you alone; they’ve decided that you can no longer use sixty percent of your own land, (at least in King County, Washington) essentially seizing a majority portion of your property absent compensation or due process. This method of land-grab by policy is growing like a socialist fungus across our great nation.
I could go on and on with examples from the mundane to the insane, but time and ink are a premium. The point is that we are not being let alone, as Justice Brandeis recognized as supremely important to a free society. Every time we turn around we bump up against another rule, regulation, or law preventing, precluding, or prohibiting us from doing some peaceful activity, which we’d been doing unmolested for years.
Recently in the Wall Street Journal, Mary Anastasia O’Grady reported that the United States, supposedly the beacon of liberty, the freest nation on the face of the Earth, had dropped to 12th place in the world, tied with Switzerland, in the 2005 Index of Economic Freedom rankings. Why? It is primarily due to over-regulation and high corporate and individual tax rates. What else can we call these regulations and taxes? How about, the government not leaving its people alone to pursue the American dream, which if we’re not careful may become less desirable than the Chilean (#11), or the Estonian (#4) Dream.
Twelfth place out of one hundred and fifty-five countries may be acceptable to other nations, but it should not be to the United States of America. The index indicates that the U.S. is not climbing back to the position where America should be, number one by a long way, but we’re actually declining, dropping as each index is published. We only have to go back to 1998 to find the U.S. in the top five and now America has slipped from the top ten for the first time in the eleven years that the Heritage Foundation has been publishing the index.
Administrative rules and regulations can quash freedom as surely as any tyrannical government’s army or secret police. Although less overt and obfuscated by its ostensible legitimacy in that the bureaucrats are appointed by our elected representatives, over-regulation brutally assaults and weakens American liberty.
Are we destined to become what Sheldon Richman referred to in the title of his book as, “Tethered Citizens?” We should begin in our own lives and recognize when we should just let people alone.
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