The Twisted Hypocritical Illogic of the Republican Position on “Personal Liberty”

There’s been no more popular complaint among so-called conservatives than “government over-reach,” going back at least as far as the Civil War. Ask any neo-Confederate who insists “it wasn’t about slavery” what it WAS about and you’ll hear “federal government over-reach.” Listen to any Confederate talking in the Sam Elliott-Tom Berenger movie “Gettysburg” and you’ll hear the same thing: for example, in the famed “fighting for our ‘rats’” scene:

For our rights. Why is it you folks can't just live the way you want to live… and let us live the way we do? ‘Live and let live,’ I hear some folks say.”

More recently, you’ve heard the same complaint about Obamacare, civil rights legislation, mask mandates, vaccines, environmental regulations, and so on.

So it’s evident that all these conservatives have a strong principled belief that the government should not be inserting itself into private medical decisions, which should remain strictly between the patient and the doctor. “Our bodies, our decision,” “Walk in freedom,” etc. No mask mandates. No mandatory vaccines. First step down the road to tyranny. The deaths of nearly a million people are a small price to pay for our liberty. This is surely a strong opinion but at least it has the value of absolute moral clarity.

And nobody is louder or more consistent in this view than our gubernatorial candidate, Doug Mastriano, the man who practically invented the idea that masks and vaccines intended to save lives are actually tyranny.

Except, of course, when they believe the exact opposite. You see, there’s one category where none of this high-minded rumination about liberty and walking in freedom applies: women’s decisions about their own healthcare, if it might terminate in an abortion. Here, the right doesn’t just reverse its position on personal liberty and turn it on its head. No, in this case, the “conservative,” limited government position is to demand a government so powerful and over-bearing that it can monitor every medical practice and every pregnancy. At the extreme, the State would be able to demand to review every miscarriage, or pharmacy prescription writing. And just wait until the court gets its hands on the decisions about contraceptives, gay sexual relations, and gay marriage. Those who call for criminalizing abortion would bring the criminal justice system into this vast expansion of government powers.

Mastriano promises basically the nation’s most draconian abortion laws if elected governor.

Get this straight, when a so-called conservative says “it’s different because abortion is murder,” that’s a value judgment, not a statement of fact. If you cite your religious belief, that’s just another way of saying “I insist that my religious views should be crammed down everyone else’s throat – and I expect the government to take my side to the exclusion of all others.”

So who believes in personal liberty and limited government now?

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This series is written to promote political discussion and organizing. Permission is given to use this in fact sheets, talking points, letters to the editor, etc. We’d appreciate if you notified Gettysburg DFA (leonsreed@gmail.com) of any uses. Written by Leon Reed.

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