We have a somewhat anarchic belief that most people want as much freedom as possible, at least in the “West.” But this is an overly generous and somewhat narcissistic belief. There is more historical and empirical evidence that when it comes to choosing between security and freedom, more people prefer the former, perhaps because they have no alternative, but often because they have been persuaded to give it up for their own good.
During the Covid pandemic we are witnessing the rapid abandonment of basic freedoms such as movement and assembly without any real need.
Fear of freedom is easy to cultivate and spread. The result is not a more responsible and secure society, but one that is more cowardly and powerless in the face of abuse, corruption and despotism. That is why every authoritarian movement tries to convince people that there is too much freedom and that it is worth giving up a little of it for the good of all; as they do. Sanchez and his cronies, he is called solidarity, coexistence and progressand the matter is settled.
We don’t need to go back to the communist and fascist calamities to see this. During the Covid pandemic we witnessed the rapid surrender of basic freedoms such as movement and assembly without any real need, and the abundant volunteer “balcony police” who sprang up to denounce the debauchery of others. And these days we witness the spread of induced fear of tourism, so closely linked to personal freedom despite the inconvenience it causes when it is mass-produced.
But the great enemy of freedom is not so much the common people as the elites or interest groups with perks and privileges that they consider sacred. Cutting back on the freedom of the plebs, always arguing that it is for their own good, as the enlightened despotism recommended, is a powerful instrument for preserving endogamous privileges. In short, as taught by Mark Twainelites – and not just political ones, but all of them – should be changed as often as diapers, and for the same reason.
The overthrow of foreign authority
In my time at Franco’s high school (which was much more comprehensive than today’s, it must be said) we schoolchildren suffered the repetition of the moralistic mantra according to which debauchery or abuse of freedom, whether political, sexual or of conscience, was a very serious danger that justified prohibitions and guardianship. We longed to live as free as our French neighbours, but priests, friars, nuns and, of course, most families insisted that we enjoyed more freedom than we were capable of virtuously managing.
The dark obsession with libertinism turned out to be a complete disaster: the most restless of us came to the opposite romantic conclusion, namely, that all freedom was too little and too limited. We understood it not as a personal and social capacity to choose and make plans, but as the overthrow of foreign authority: all power was illegitimate and oppressive by nature. A little civic education in the principles of reasoned freedom would have been better for everyone; perhaps in my COU course in 1975 they would not have agreed. a future ETA leader and a band activist who enjoyed universal support and sympathy when he fled to France after collaborating, at the age of seventeen, in the kidnapping of a businessman who ended up murdered.
In line with his party in Catalonia and Spain, the Catalan socialist Borrell has succeeded in getting Europe to prefer reforming the gang of drug traffickers and murderers that is plundering Venezuela rather than having it replaced by a peaceful and responsible opposition.
The fact is that the privileged elites are once again on the offensive to restrict freedoms, naturally for our own good and using the frog-boiling method: little by little. One of the most active institutional spheres in this reduction is, alas, the European Union.
Josep Borrell has managed to make the European Commission the most miserable democratic world power in supporting the Venezuelan opposition after the electoral fraud of the dictatorship. In line with his party in Catalonia and Spain, the Catalan socialist Borrell has managed to make Europe prefer reform the gang of drug dealers and murderers that is plundering Venezuela to be replaced by a peaceful and responsible opposition, but perhaps insensitive to the dangers of the disorder typical of an open society. That is why Borrell only believes that “it seems” that the oppositionand not Maduro, is the electoral winner.
Borrell has preached, like the Pope, the old recipe of Fictional dialogue, imposed agreement and opportune forgetting of crimes of dictatorship as a recipe that, while not guaranteeing freedom, at least prevents (as in Catalonia) the dangerous libertinism of democracy without restrictions or innate and eternalized oligarchies. Someone could argue that the Spanish Transition would not have been very different, but there is this crucial difference (among many others): the Francoism never called elections to legitimize itself through one of the most scandalous frauds in electoral history. It simply collapsed and was replaced by a pact with the opposition.
Elon Musk interviews Trump
Another European Commissioner, the French-Senegalese Thierry Bretonof the Internal Market, wrote a public letter to Elon Musk disapproving his interview with Donald Trump on the social network X and warning that European regulations do not accept bad uses, such as that one in particular. Breton has a glittering elitist resumewhich makes his position (later disavowed by the Commission) all the more illustrative. Like other Eurocrats, Breton does not seem to care that the jungle of European regulations and the weakness of national economies have frustrated potential European digital social networks. On the contrary, He seems satisfied that the exuberant prohibitionist regulations will threaten freedom of expression… if it prevents debauchery.
There is no more alarming symptom of the anti-freedom trend in Europe, the cradle of the very concept, than being forced to choose between the European Commission and the Musk-Trump tandem. Trying to prevent the former from interviewing the latter, however repulsive it may seem to us – to me, very much so and very dangerous – is not only arrogant and dictatorial: it implies allowing someone to decide for us what we should know and what we should not, repressing our freedom.
In fact, Musk’s interview with Trump did little to help the irascible and Europhobic candidate by revealing his Support for Putin, Maduro and Xi Jinpingamong other gems; sorry Elon, designing rockets is not the same as doing good journalism and attacking wokism is necessary, but it is not the same as defending democracy. So It was an interview as legitimate as it was timely. Whatever authoritarians, gloomy pessimists and fearful people may say, when it comes to freedom, abundance is always much better than scarcity.
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