What, then, is the nature of the contentions so rife among us? The arguments, stripped of all their semantic inaccuracies, boil down to: How cheaply can freedom be bought?-although it is rarely so stated. Is freedom something that can be had for the wishing? For casual effort? Is it a prize to be won by delegating the chore to some hired hands? Or, is the price of freedom an intellectual and spiritual renaissance with all the hard thinking and difficult introspection required to energize such a revolution in thinking?
Some believe that freedom can be had simply by uncovering card-carrying communists and then calling them names. To these people, our ills originate in Moscow. Be done with Soviet agents and, presto, freedom!
Others believe that the loss of freedom stems from what they call "the ignorant masses." Merely finance educational programs aimed at "selling the man in the street." Teach this ignoramus that there is no such thing as a free lunch or some other such simplicity that can be grasped as he passes a bulletin board or drowsily reads baby talk literature in a barber's chair. Gain freedom by writing a check!
A considerable number offer political action as their highest bid for freedom. Organize "right down to the precinct level" and elect "the right people" to public office. As if freedom could be had by activating the present absence of understanding, so as to shift existing ignorance into high gear!
Another group believes that the price need be no higher than the cost of beaming radio reports behind the Iron Curtain-relating to those slave peoples how luxuriously we Americans revel in our gadgetry. Freedom as a consequence of exciting international envy!
Then there are those who would insure "a free world" by having the federal government coercively take the fruits of our own labor to subsidize foreign governments. As if friendship could be purchased for an exchange of cash; as if subsidized relationships were the essence of freedom; as if this kind of communism at home would discourage world communism!
The highest priced bid, in dollar terms, is the resort to the sword. Outdo the godless states in the hardware of mass slaughter and American freedom will remain intact!
Preservation-or Restoration? But it is useless to name all the various panaceas as proffered as our bids for freedom-bids aimed at the mere preservation of individual freedom. For we cannot preserve that which has already been so largely lost. We have a restoration job on our hands. Freedom must experience a rebirth in America; that is, we must re-establish it from fundamental principles. Most of the bids aimed at a renewed freedom are far too low. If this were not a fact, freedom would have been restored by now. Indeed, it would never have been lost. The price of freedom is not increased political activity or even economic understanding, nor can the cost of freedom be stated in dollar terms.
Political collectivism, the antithesis of individual freedom, can be likened to a cancer. It is not like a skin cancer that can be treated with relative ease; it resembles the type known as "metastasis"-the wildly spreading kind. The disease has spread through the whole body politic, a fact not likely to be observed except by those who work full time on behalf of freedom. Nothing short of the best therapy ever known to man can cope with this problem!
Freedom To Become What? Libertarian leadership depends on finding an answer to the question: What is man's earthly purpose? Acknowledged, no two of us can reach precisely similar answers. Nonetheless, the quest and the finding of an answer satisfactory to each of us-this intellectual and spiritual effort-is a part of the price we must pay for freedom. Without a purpose in life, a fundamental datum line, a basic point of reference, no effort aimed at restoring freedom makes much sense. Man needs to be free in order that he may fulfill the demands of his nature. Freedom to become what? is the only relevant question.
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