Make America Free Again
I wrote the text below in response to a commenter on Joel Salatin’s1 blog. In Joel’s article, he explained how he wanted to Make America Free Again as opposed to making America great or healthy again. Josh, the commenter I responded to, was confused about a few things Joel had said.
Joel had explained that to Make America Free Again, Americans would need a sound moral compass. He said our broken moral base defines the greatest failings of American culture: “broken treaties with the Native Americans; slavery; Jim Crow; abortion; taking the 10 Commandments out of schools; Godlessness; unpunished crime; pornography; drugs.”
Josh’s comment
Josh, the commenter (not Joel 😉), said that Joel was mixing his personal sense of morality with the “separate ideas of ethics, conviction of belief, and social liberty.” And that his list of moral failings (above) were just things that went against Joel’s personal ethics.
In addition, Josh thought Joel believed that while people should have freedom, they should also be regulated by Joel’s sense of morality. After sharing that thought, Josh said, “Pure freedom would be anarchy, and pure regulation is tyranny. I don’t believe you are advocating for either extreme, but I am unclear on the exact degree to which you believe a government should enforce an ethical framework for its populace.”
At the end of his comment, Josh asked Joel two questions about the balance between pure freedom and pure tyranny, which were the issue of drugs and an aquifer. Should people be able to use what drugs they want and use as much water as they want, or should the government stop that from happening?
You can read Joel’s article here and Josh’s comment below.
Click to read the original comments
I appreciate and agree with your call for increased freedom and principled morality, but I am confused by your argument, as you seem to be conflating morality with the fundamentally separate ideas of ethics, conviction of belief, and social liberty. Your list of cultural moral failings is in fact a list of personal and social actions you find at odds with your personal ethics. This presents an implicit contradiction in your argument, where you on one hand assert an individual’s right to freedom and on the other hand imply a requirement for ethical regulation and enforcement via some undeclared societal mechanism. Pure freedom would be anarchy, and pure regulation is tyranny. I don’t believe you are advocating for either extreme, but I am unclear on the exact degree to which you believe a government should enforce an ethical framework for its populace.
Let’s take the issue of drugs, for example. In a free society, an individual could purchase and consume any substance he chooses (you already mention “elixirs”). In a tyrannical society, the government regulates the availability of certain substances and enacts punitive measures against any person who possesses or ingests those substances. Which do you support?
In a different context, I am also curious about your thoughts on shared resources? Let’s say a town sits above a large underground aquifer. Each resident can drill a well on their own property, which taps into that aquifer. One resident begins using a disproportionate amount of water, which may or may not deplete the aquifer and eliminate the resource for the entire town. Should the government regulate his actions to prevent this from happening? Would that limit his personal freedom on land that he owns?
Since I know a lot about what Joel thinks, I was pretty sure I knew what he would say. Plus, three people had replied to Josh’s comment saying they really wanted Joel to respond. But, because Joel Salatin has been getting hundreds of comments lately, I knew it was unlikely he would say anything.
It was too tempting. So this is what I wrote…
My Response
A lot of what Joel says can sound crazy at times (he calls himself the lunatic farmer 😀), especially because of his Christian and libertarian ideas. Once you understand the framework he’s working with, though, his thoughts begin to make a lot more sense (even if you might not agree with him).
Make America Moral Again
First of all, because of Joel’s Christian convictions, he would most likely say that his list of moral failings are not just contrary to his sense of morality, but that those things are objectively morally wrong. Christians believe that God sets the standards on what is right and wrong, and when someone breaks one of God’s commands, that they have committed evil.
What Joel was trying to say is that it “is up to each” person in America to start being moral so that they can be free. And that the reason why America descended into tyranny is because America has become more immoral over time. Thus, he’s arguing that to “Make America Free Again,” each individual must “Make America Moral Again” by changing their thoughts and actions.
Libertarianism
As a libertarian, Joel would most likely agree with this statement as a definition of freedom: “Let anyone do anything he pleases, so long as it is peaceful (Leonard Read).” So in Joel’s mind, a free land is not one where anyone can get away with anything, but rather a land where anyone can get away with anything that won’t hurt other people.
Many libertarians also dislike all forms of regulations, and they like to distinguish between preventative justice and retributive justice. Preventative justice basically describes all regulations. It’s when a behavior that can lead to crime or harm (e.g., drug use, selling raw milk, or Pesticide Tolerance Standards) is punished before any harm is done to other people. Many libertarians would argue that preventative justice is immoral because it punishes people who have done nothing wrong.
On the other hand, retributive justice is when someone is punished for knowingly (or through purposeful neglect) causing harm. For example, stealing something to buy more drugs, selling milk from a cow you knew was sick, or poisoning your customers with a toxic amount of pesticides.
Abolishing regulations
Throughout his life, Joel has oftentimes advocated for the abolishment of many regulations. On his blog, he has an article called Try Freedom Instead of Regulation where he promotes his Food Emancipation Proclamation. The proclamation he has in mind involves getting rid of a lot of food regulations. Abolishing the USDA was on his 2023 wishlist. But the most anti-regulation work I have read from him is his book, Everything I Want to Do Is Illegal. In the book, he gives countless examples of regulations he despises.
Joel has also said things that make me think he believes the government’s main (or really only) business is to enact retributive justice. In his article titled Role of Government, he agrees with the verse that says the government’s role is “to punish the evildoers and to praise those who do good.” Joel then says, “It’s quite simple, really. I don’t see anything there about safety.”
To summarize, Joel does not advocate for an extreme of pure freedom or pure anarchy, but rather for an ideal: that evil would punished and that people would be free to do anything that is peaceful.
Another thought
P.S. This comment got really long, but I’ll try to quickly explain what Joel might think about shared resources. The common libertarian solution to shared resources is privatization, where everything becomes private property. I know Joel is sympathetic to this libertarian solution because in Everything I Want To Do Is Illegal he said he thinks the education system and social security should be privatized.
I haven’t read this other book, but there is a libertarian book that argues that all bodies of water, including aquifers, should be privatized. I’m not sure how that would work, but you can look into it if you’d like to know.
M.A.M.A.
A few hours after I posted my comment, Laura wrote:
So, instead of MAGA, MAHA, or even MAFA, make your mama proud and Make America Moral Again (MAMA)!
Notes
- “Joel Salatin, 64, calls himself a Christian libertarian environmentalist capitalist lunatic farmer. Others who like him call him the most famous farmer in the world, the high priest of the pasture, and the most eclectic thinker from Virginia since Thomas Jefferson. Those who don’t like him call him a bio-terrorist, Typhoid Mary, charlatan, and starvation advocate.” – About The Lunatic Farmer ↩︎
