I Blamed the Victim (a parable)

Edward walks through my town carrying a whip. Every Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, he makes us go in the whip house and make whips. It’s important that we make these whips because society would fall apart with out these whips. Plus, every week Edward takes some of the whips, sells them, and throws us a party.

Ronald, who works beside me, is a doctor. One day he didn’t show up to make whips because he wanted to earn more money to help out one of his patients. Edward came to find Ronald and make sure that he went to the whip house. Ronald was upset that Edward was going to whip him for not working, and whipped Edward. Edward was harsher than I’ve ever seen him and Ronald ended up in the hospital. Ronald was upset because Edward would whip him if he didn’t make whips. Edward was worried that other people would also not want to make whips so he had to be harsh on Ronald.

How could we have a party if Edward didn’t have these whips to sell? Well, after Ronald’s outburst Edward was worried that someone else would attack Edward like Ronald did. So Edward hired Frank to be his bodyguard, and carry a whip too. Frank was big, strong man, who was not as smart as Edward. One time I walked toward Frank to ask him a question and he lashed me across the cheek. Now, I try my best to stay away from Frank. It’s a good thing that we have Frank though, because if more people didn’t make whips then Edward couldn’t throw us a party. We now have parties only three times a month, so that Edward can afford Frank. It’s a good thing we have Frank though

One Friday night I overheard some people chatting.

I heard Sara say “Edward is a mad man.”
“Oh, but Frank is worse.” Ted said in a harsh voice.
Sara’s husband noted “If we all didn’t work for Ed than he wouldn’t have any whips to whip us with.”

Most of the people talking were quite respectable people, but Ted who thinks that Edward is part of a secret society that is secretly trying to kill everyone. Once I asked him who was in this society. He said Edward, Frank, and other famous people some of whom were dead. Then Ted started to tell me some things that didn’t really make sense. I smiled and said that was interesting, and tried to end the conversation. To this day I doubt Ted’s intelligence.

The truth was that Ed and Frank were in an organization, and it wasn’t secret but it wasn’t advertised. Ed and Frank belonged to the national union of order and parties. This union wanted to hire a bodyguard for Edward before Frank was hired. Frank was also a member before he was hired.

The next Monday the twenty I overheard in that room didn’t show up to make whips. Most people didn’t notice, but some people asked Edward where they were. Edward said that that wasn’t important, and that he would look into it. The next day Edward came with Ted and lashed him so that we all could see. Ted screamed about some secret society that we didn’t know existed. It was difficult to understand what Ted was thinking. Then a funny thing happened. I could see that Edward was whipping Ted, and Edward hadn’t whipped anyone, but I blamed Ted for his plight.

Introduction to liberty

So today we will actually discuss liberty. Liberty is a philosophy where you are free to do what ever you want, really. The main objection with this definition is that "you can't go around killing people". This objection while valid doesn’t apply to most people. Most people want to be liked or loved by other people and will work toward being a liked or loved person.

So here we are, free to do whatever we want. So we pose a question. If you could ONLY do one thing what would that be? Well, I don't know about you, but I'm going to eat. So I can either grow my own food or trade something of value for food. Most people trade their time (work) for the necessities of life. Now that we got the basics out of the way we can spend our time doing other things. Some people might want to work more so that they can obtain more goods. Other people might want to read books, hang out with friends, or read blogs. What ever you want to do you have the liberty to do it. The main thing is that everything that transpired is voluntary. Your employer wanted to hire you and you wanted to work for that pay. The only limit is what other people will agree to do.

Now say someone wanted to come and take the fruit of your labor. You might not agree to give up your goods. So it might happen that the person will threaten harm if you don't cooperate. This is an example of a violation of liberty. If someone threatens harm you they are infringing on your liberty. It makes no difference whom does the threatening or how they threaten. An example of a liberty violation is taxes. If you want to pay taxes then your liberty is not being violated. If you don't, then your liberty is being violated.

This idea is a little hard to wrap your head around at first. Life without taxes, what would it be like? Am I crazy? Perhaps, but then again the United States didn't have a peacetime federal income tax until 1913. Over one hundred years without any federal tax, and America seems to have done alright.

In later posts we will discuss some of the ways that securing liberty for ourselves should change our social institutions. Ultimately, with true liberty, society will be much more flexible.