Everyone loves freedom, but what exactly is freedom?
We believe that freedom is a natural state that everyone should be in. Or, we can say that freedom is a part of being human. As Tocqueville once said, freedom is “the joy of speaking, acting, and living freely, under the rule of God and the law.”
Everyone also seeks democracy, but what is democracy?
We believe that democracy is a way people use in society to protect freedom. In other words, it is a tool. To put it another way: freedom is the goal, it is the state that people should be in, and democracy is the method or tool we use to achieve this goal.
Freedom isn’t necessarily good or bad. It just is. Without freedom, people would live in a prison. Even though people can misuse freedom, we can’t give it up just because of that. The misuse of freedom should be managed by morals, not by laws. People have the right to misuse their freedom, and others have the right to criticize or even offend those who misuse their freedom. Morality is built through this back-and-forth of criticism and offense between people.
When people have freedom, society won’t become a prison. This isn’t some high standard, but the most basic expectation. If people are also moral, then society becomes even better. But can we use laws to make people morally good and make society better? We have seen that when a society tries to use laws to solve moral problems, that society becomes full of hypocrisy. People start acting noble and kind only to avoid breaking the law, but at the same time, they act selfishly and immorally for personal gain. When people become obsessed with publicly showing off their nobility and kindness, the ‘public opinion’ they create becomes fake. This fake public opinion can influence how democracy works, making it unable to reflect real opinions. Eventually, this leads to the failure of democracy.
As mentioned earlier, people’s good intentions can backfire in this way: by using laws to solve moral problems, or by publicly performing their goodness, they suppress the real opinions of people in society. This makes it impossible for real views to be expressed, and even worse, it silences some people’s real opinions. In the end, democracy fails. When some people can’t express their true views, everyone’s freedom is already damaged.
When we pursue democracy, we must never forget about freedom. Democracy can both protect and take away freedom. The process of democracy should be neutral, meaning it should simply allow true public opinions to be expressed. Only then can it lead to good results. But if the process of democracy isn’t neutral and is instead used to force good results, then real public opinions won’t be expressed, which leads to bad outcomes.
Real public opinion isn’t the same as real information. Getting rid of false information won’t automatically make public opinion real. In the real world, there’s no perfect way, or a single person, who can check all the information and decide what’s true or false. Real public opinion depends on citizens who have independent thinking. Citizens with independent minds can tell what’s true or false and form their own opinions based on the truth. Their ability to freely express those opinions without interference is the greatest protection of freedom.
