By Ed Sharrow Santa Monica
Freedom is under assault in the United States. Local ordinances range from banning smoking in outdoor locations to effectively preventing individuals from protecting their rented property from destruction caused by gangs or the homeless. The state restricts “privileges” from riding a motorcycle without a helmet to nude sun-bathing. The federal government mandates too much minutia from the best sources for prescription drugs to the manner in which local governments must spend their tax dollars on education to a minimum drinking age.
While the bare threads of a democratic republic still exist, following are a few legislative changes that I’d like to see passed: If you can grow it or mine it, you may cure it, distill it, smoke it, drink it, eat and sell it (buyer beware) to those of us who don’t have the space to grow, mine, cure or distill our own. Naturally occurring herbs and substances may be refined and ingested by a free people.
If our taxes support it, then it must be tolerant of all choices that individual citizens may make. If a social program or tax break is good for one group, then equal access to it is good for all. If our taxes maintain public services and open spaces, then all individuals must have access whether they are handicapped, smoke or prefer nudity. Free communities are tolerant.
Constitutionally limit the power of government, corporate entities and large groups joined together for any purpose. Freedom is best protected by small, local involvement. The federal level of government should be limited to support the broadest ideals and to coordinating minimal national objectives. It should not get involved in the specific implementation of any issue. States and corporate/institutional legal entities should be limited both in size and scope. Freedom is denied when a single corporate or state decision is allowed to impact the lives of millions. Local governments should bear the greatest responsibility and accountability for all public services. Free societies limit the accumulation of (and subsequent corruption of) wealth and power.
Finally, we must hold individuals accountable for their own actions. The key to enduring freedom is personal responsibility. Reduce our bloated, slow-moving legal system by allowing the real lessons of freedom, the joyful and painful consequences of one’s choices, to be felt by each citizen.
By limiting the size and scope of the legal entities governing society while at the same time enforcing personal responsibility, we can restore and increase freedom for all.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on April 29, 2004. Read the original PDF.