On Civil Liberties and Morality

F. A. Hayek

Just some thoughts today on the link between civil liberties and morality. It was Edmund Burke, the 18th Century conservative, who noted:

Men are qualified for civil liberties, in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon their appetites: in proportion as their love of justice is above their rapacity.

Huh. Burke tied the concept of liberty directly to a moral base indicating that liberty cannot survive rapacity. John Locke, the17th Century liberal promoted this concept:

Where there is no property, there is no justice.

Meaning that anyone, or anything, which could take away property was bound to take away justice as well. Darned radical thought. F. A. Hayek, the 20th Century economist, made the axiomatic observation:

Sooner or later, however, [governments] tend to abuse...power and to suppress the freedom they had earlier secured.

Without moral restraint, government takes power and property from the very citizens it should be protecting. Without moral restraint, justice dies and rapacity wins.

How long must Americans listen to the members of Congress and the president wrangle and quibble over how much property the government needs to take from the people, or how much property will be wasted in the name of entitlements and programs, or how much liberty is taken away from the common voter in order to promote a Brave New World? How long will America sleep while its wealth and resources are spent and thrown away as casually as toilet paper?