Speak for Yourself, John; R. Foley, Jr.

Mr. Foley, a partner in Souther, Spaulding, Kinsey, Williamson & Schwabe, practices law in Portland, Oregon. 522 for others, to bind their fellow man and to restrict his choice. In so doing, they render their neigh bor less of a human being. A litany of the mundane but eternal acts of speaking for others boggles the mind when viewed in the glare of searching analysis. I band together with like-minded souls and use the coercive force of government to ban highway ad vertising in the form of billboards, all in the name of ecological sanity and environmental beauty. No matter that some travelers along the freeways which crisscross our nation find billboards illuminating, educational and relaxing. No con cern that the farmer along the road may put the income from the signs painted on his barn to good use, like buying penicillin for his enfeebled wife, or educating his children. I choose to speak only incidentally for myself; I assume the arrogant pose of expounding for the weary traveler and the embattled farmer.

1974 "SPEAK FOR YOURSELF, JOHN" REVISITED 523 Meddlesome Neighbors Again, I gather with my neigh bors and either directly or indi rectly vote to impose an income tax increase upon all persons within a given category for the laudable purpose of donating funds to the underprivileged. No matter that the coerced "donors" may pre fer to choose their own charities. No concern that the recipients of the largess may feel demeaned by being made objects of welfare (one can give and receive assist ance more gracefully and humanly sans bureaucracy). I speak for all - mulcted and demeaned, creative and needy - when I choose the cou;rse which I demand that th~y follow. A third example from the my riad ones which abound these days: I plunder the liberty of others by prohibiting them from engaging in pursuits which ap peal to them and which neither coerce nor defraud others. I close movie houses showing X-rated films to adults; I impede farmers from exceeding an arbitrary grain or beef allotment; I bar Ameri can citizens from fleeing fiat cur rency into gold; I demand that homeowners with septic tanks hook up to a sewer line. In each example I speak for others, and bind their actions as surely as if I chained them.

Notice that when we tax or regulate those less potent than our selves we often do so in their name and for their own good. We as sume, like little dictators, that we know better than anyone else how their lives should be lived. We are so certain that we, and only we, know what constitutes goodness, rightness, justice and truth. Bib lical testimony applied an apt label to people like us: righteous. The term came to encompass the pe jorative sense of self-important little creatures unaware of their own finiteness. My words have been chosen carefully to this point: for several paragraphs I have employed the first person singular; the last paragraph I switched to the first person plural. Two reasons for this grammatical choice merit ex amination. First, I use the word "I" ad visedly, for no one of us lives without sin in this regard. Each of us, even the strictest libertarian, harbors secret projects within his breast which "justify" a suspen sion of the rules. Damn all the taxing authorities and their petty schemes, but salvage the local art museum operated at public ex pense because I think it is so worthwhile that it must survive and it cannot survive without coercive exactions.

The moral? Each of us must constantly guard against the very 524 THE FREEMAN September human tendency to make excep tions and each of us must seek consistency as his banner. Each erosion of freedom, no matter how slight, chips away at our vital transcendent rights, our human ness. No liberty stands alone. If I may make an exception for my art museum, you may make an excep tion for your import duties, and the fellow down the street may argue for a law which requires gun registration. Second, I switched to the term "we" in order to emphasize that man tends to salve his conscience when he performs unjust and im moral lootings by committee. Somehow, it doesn't seem so evil to deprive a citizen of his life, his liberty, or his property if "all of us" do the' trick together. Yet, in final analysis, each man must bear full responsibility for the conse quences of his own acts, no matter if they are performed in the name of a politburo, a committee, a cor poration, or a state. Thus, I tax, spend, and destroy if I support the policies, elect the officials, hesitate to criticize, stand mute, or benefit from this organized corruption. I can't hide under "we" for "we"

is just a "bunch of 1's." Self-Exemption An additional noteworthy fact appears when we deliver more than a cursory glance at the problem: we are really speaking for a neigh bor alone in most instances and not for ourselves. We tend to leave ourselves out of the picture. The man advocating increased aid to dependent children most often fa vors the collection of funds by means of an income, sales, or prop erty tax which will fall more heav ily, or totally, upon someone else. He may possess the purest motives and the most desirable goals but he wants someone else to pay. I do not contest the right of a wealthy politician to give away his estate to needy orphans; I rather resent it when he gives away m,y estate against my will and raises his own salary in· the process. Perhaps we tend to forget why we should speak only for ourselves and not for others. Simply stated, not one of us possesses any innate gift which enables him to deter mine the destiny of another human being. Each of us can run his own life better than any other person, better than Albert Einstein, bet ter than John Stuart Mill, better than George Washington. Picture the most brilliant and incisive in dividual you can conjure up; he still falls short in capacity to gov ern the life of another individual because of his finity, his inability to creep into the mind and soul of the other. Anyone who has ever acted as executor, trustee, guar dian, attorney, or fiduciary can 1974 "SPEAK FOR YOURSELF, JOHN" REVISITED 525 attest to the difficulties inherent in managing the business and per sonal decisions of his ward.

Consider what transpires daily when we arrogate to ourselves the power to speak for those who have not given us authority to represent them. On the one hand, one, who speaks for another as sumes unwarranted control over the life and liberty of his subject. At the same time, he tends to as·· sume that he is entitled to greater worth and stature than those lowly persons who are benea th him. On the other hand, the object of such intervention starts to feel alien~ted and demeaned; he be comes less of a human being be cause others deprive him of one essential element of humanness: the meaningful power of choice and control over one's own life. Feeding and care of hungry dere licts may constitute a worthy goal; the acting individual gains greater meaning and lives a higher life when he helps others by virtue of his own decision than when he acts under duress and compulsion. True charity exists when I help my neighbor in need; false charity appears when my neighbor steals my property to give, like Robin Hood, to the "poor."

Furthermore, enforced choice creates an alienation and anonym ity all its own. When we purport to speak for our neighbors, we do not think of them as human beings, as friends, as relatives, but rather in an abstract sense. When I participat~ in these acts, I limit my hrother's freedom, not just the liberty of some faceless stranger. In final analysis, each of us should speak for himself alone and not for others in society when there is no voluntary agreement with those others to allow us to represent them. We should be proud of our choices and willing to live with their consequences, but we should avoid at all costs the arrogance which encourages us to declaim for others. ~ IDEAS ON LIBERTY Leo Tolstoy FROM THE DAY when the first members of councils placed exterior authority higher than interior, that is to say, recognized the de cision of men united in councils as more important and more sacred than reason and conscience,. on that day began the lies that caused the loss of millions of human beings and which continue their un happy work to the present day.