Liberty, the Moral Choice.

For the premise of my commentary, I must first familiarize everyone that reads further with a quote from Ayn Rand, I am of the knowledge that some people do not like her, but this is the assumption on which the foundation of my commentary sits, and I fully believe this assumption to be true as it is not open to contradiction.

Achievement of your happiness is the only moral purpose of your life, and that happiness, not pain or mindless self-indulgence, is the proof of your moral integrity, since it is the proof and the result of your loyalty to the achievement of your values.

Ayn Rand

As happiness is the moral purpose of your life, happiness is a prime value, not sacrifice, and not mindlessness, this leads to the question of how one stands the best chance to achieve happiness. For the purpose of this proof we are going to examine liberty and its opposite, slavery, logically if I am to prove liberty is the moral choice I must examine slavery as a moral choice and be able to denounce it as false. Slavery offers no happiness, we do not achieve happiness at the sacrificial alter of the looting and mooching people demanding our best effort as their right offering nothing in return. Liberty requires our best effort, our best virtues, as liberty grants all the freedom of existence, but the responsibility to not take the existence from others.

Slavery as a moral choice was defended in the centuries past as the burden of those that have beset on them by their slaves, that the slave is merely a moocher that offers poor and forcefully provoked labor in return for the necessities of life. The slave sees that none of his effort is his own and he is the property of the whip holder, in current times slavery has changed in form but never in function. This is an important truth folks, slavery exists today as it had at this country’s founding, instead of the slaves being brought in on ships from Africa, they are born here, of all races and genders. The only marked difference in this is the hand holding the whip, for now it is the federal government, and it has been since 1865, it started then as a small snowflake sliding down the mountain, now we have a full blown avalanche on our hands. The illusion of freedom has been the subject matter of the public education system for some time, the declining quality in education, force-feeding the new American ideology on the students. Children are being manipulated to accept slavery, this is a key point to the amorality of slavery; if it cannot come natural to a child there is an issue with it, and our schools are demanding children to not question authority, to obey unflinchingly, as one would expect from a slave. One must then ask, is there happiness in this tactic for training the children, does the result produce happy individuals? If a teacher is happy producing a mindless drone, than they are the most evil creature ever to exist on Earth, the kind of sadist that enjoys with glee the handle of the lash as they strip away the minds of the future. There is no joy to be had in slavery, in any form of justification it is a burden, on both the slave and the master, each is forced to produce for the benefit for another, and never truly owns his own production. Slavery is therefore removed from the moral choice and into the realm of the amoral, as it achieves no happiness for any but the most depraved sadists, and it as an institution, past and present, has no value to humanity.

Liberty, in all beliefs that are true and just to humans, is the ideal, some are flawed in their methods, but they do all recognize the benefits of liberty. The religious believe that man is gifted life from a creator, and only reason dictates that if we are all children of a true and just "God" then one must accept, as we are his children, that this creator will want the best for us. What better opportunity than in liberty is presented to reach this goal, and in reaching the best for us, would that also dictate that there is happiness in the result? Atheists believe there is no such creator, and that life is the result of random action, does this deny that liberty is the best option? I would think not, as one's happiness is one's own responsibility, not having to answer to a "higher" being, the atheist should look to all opportunity to achieve happiness. Moral virtue is more than a religion can own, it is a value, and all value has a way to be exchanged, happiness as a moral value is exchanged only by volition. Take the example of the business owner and the employee, the business owner is made happy when his business thrives, and in order for this he requires the effort of men that are motivated to the task. The employer will, in true appreciation of value, reward the diligent and able worker, both are happy, the employer, as his business will prosper through better quality product from his employees, demanding a higher price for his product, and the employees, as they are finely rewarded in a just manner for their best efforts. This is directly opposite of slavery, slavery requires that someone must sacrifice value in order to provide for others, only in liberty can this scenario be made possible.

Logically, if happiness is a value to humanity, and to achieve one's values is a moral virtue, than choosing the best chance to achieve happiness must also be a moral choice. There is little argument that the end of a whip provides happiness, for either participant in the act, the whipped is obviously not in agreement, and the whipper is never pleased with the product. The only conclusion is that liberty is the only moral choice, further the only choice that will achieve any moral value, as any choice that is not liberty must be bought at the price of chains on someone, somewhere.