The Wall Street Journal and Washington Post Are Standing for “Freedom” and “Free Markets”?

In an editorial this week, the conservative Wall Street Journal chided Jeff Bezos, the owner of the liberal Washington Post, for Bezos’s announcement that henceforth the Post would be standing for “personal liberties and free markets.” The Journal pointed out that Bezos’s phraseology is remarkably similar to that employed by the Journal, which is “free markets and free people.” The Journal wanted to remind people that they were first to promote this freedom and free-market philosophy but also wanted people to know that they welcome the Post serving as their new ideological “wingman.”

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There is just one big problem, however, with the Journal’s and the Post’s devotion to “liberty” and “free markets.” That big problem is the matter of definition. Their definition of liberty and free markets is the opposite of the libertarian definition of such terms, which is the genuine definition of liberty and free markets.

Without delving into the positions that the Journal and the Post take on specific issues, let’s examine generally the governmental programs that conservatives and liberals (i.e., leftists or “progressives”) favor as part of what they have convinced themselves is “liberty” and “free markets.” Generally speaking, both conservatives and liberals favor the following 40 things:

1. Social Security and Medicare, which are the crown jewels of American socialism.
2. Farm subsidies, education grants, FDIC, SBA, and other welfare-state programs and agencies.
3. SEC, OSHA, bank regulation, health regulation, and other agencies and programs that manage, control, and regulate economic and healthcare activity.
4. The Federal Reserve System.
5. America’s monetary system of paper money.
6. Public (i.e., government) schooling systems.
7. Compulsory school-attendance laws that punish parents who do not send their children into the state’s “educational’ system for indoctrination and regimentation.
8. A compulsory military draft that forces people to serve the state.
9. Wars of aggression.
10. Undeclared wars.
11. A national-security state.
12. Mass secret surveillance.
13. The arrest, prosecution, incarceration, and fine of people who ingest substances that the state doesn’t approve of.
14. The criminalization of possession or distribution of substances that the state doesn’t approve of.
15. Occupational licensure.
16. Mandatory registration with the federal government of certain people and certain businesses.
17. Laws and regulations that destroy financial privacy.
18. Asset-forfeiture laws that empower government officials to seize people’s property without charging them with a crime.
19. Immigration controls.
20. A border police state.
21. The criminalization of peacefully crossing a political border to enter the United States.
22. The criminalization of American employers who use their own money to hire unapproved foreigners.
23. The criminalization of people who transport unapproved foreigners.
24. The criminalization of people who care for unapproved foreigners.
25. The criminalization of people who provide food or shelter to unapproved foreigners.
26. Violent raids on American businesses to search for unapproved foreigners.
27. Warrantless searches of ranches and farms near the U.S.-Mexico border to search for unapproved foreigners.
28. Forced deportation of unapproved foreigners.
29. Highway checkpoints where officials demand to see identification of travelers and where officials conduct warrantless searches of vehicles.
30. Forcing foreign companies to divest themselves of ownership of Internet sites to protect Americans from the Reds.
31. Presidential power to impose taxes (e.g., tariffs) on the Americana people to any extent without specific legislative approval.
32. The omnipotent power of the national-security establishment to assassinate people, including American citizens.
33. The omnipotent power of the national-security establishment to jail people, including American citizens, for the rest of their lives — without a trial.
34. The omnipotent power of the national-security establishment to torture people, including American citizens.
35. Trial by military tribunal rather than by jury as required by the Bill of Rights.
36. Punishing Americans with jail and fine for trading with people in unapproved countries.
37. Punishing Americans who travel to and spend money in unapproved countries.
38. Ordering American businesses to shut down in the name of “public safety” during health “emergencies.”
39. Mandating people to take vaccines.
40. Gun-control measures.

Needless to say, libertarians oppose all of the above. That’s because our definition of liberty and free markets is completely different from that of both conservatives and liberals. The way I figure it is: With friends of “liberty and free markets” like conservatives and liberals, who needs enemies?