Daddy Bloomberg sometimes knows best.
“I do think there are certain times we should infringe on your freedom,” NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg said during an appearance on Meet the Press.
Here’s a question: do you believe that any person has some inherent attribute that makes him superior to you, and therefore innately bestowed with the right to rule over you?
Bloomberg does. He believes that by virtue of something – and only he knows what – a group of people, known as we, elevated to positions in government, somehow know what’s best for you and me. Not only that – this special, certain something endows him and his fellow “we people” with the power to force you to follow their vision for your life. When you distil Bloomberg’s rhetoric down to its most basic element, he believes he has the authority to place you and me under his power.
This is antithetical to the most basic principles America was built upon. Out political system was built on the idea that each individual has fundamental rights that no other individual may violate. We can list many such natural rights, but at their core, we find the idea of “freedom of conscience.” We have the right to think, reason and believe autonomously, and without interference. From freedom of conscience, freedom of action naturally follows. If we can’t self-direct our actions, what good is liberty of conscience.
Bloomberg doesn’t care. His worldview substitutes the judgement of government for my freedom of conscience. John Locke would go as far to call Bloomberhg’s assertion an act of war.
And hence it is that he who attempts to get another man into his absolute power does thereby put himself into a state of war with him; it being to be understood as a declaration of a design upon his life. For I have reason to conclude that he who would get me into his power without my consent would use me as he pleased when he had got me there, and destroy me too when he had a fancy to it; for nobody can desire to have me in his absolute power unless it be to compel me by force to that which is against the right of my freedom – i.e. make me a slave. To be free from such force is the only security of my preservation, and reason bids me look on him as an enemy to my preservation who would take away that freedom which is the fence to it; so that he who makes an attempt to enslave me thereby puts himself into a state of war with me. He that in the state of Nature would take away the freedom that belongs to any one in that state must necessarily be supposed to have a design to take away everything else, that freedom being the foundation of all the rest; as he that in the state of society would take away the freedom belonging to those of that society or commonwealth must be supposed to design to take away from them everything else, and so be looked on as in a state of war.
