Mob Liberty! - The Twin

Mob Liberty! - The Twin Cities Women's Press offers a fine perspective on Identity Feminism.

In this month's issue, Susan Raffo writes n article snarkily entitled Arnold offered Californians the American dream: freedom for me [and the faulty capitalization is theirs; the TCWP is edited worse than the average blog].

Let's see how far we get:

The Terminator is now governor of California.

Whoah, that wasn't long.

No, Susan; Arnold Schwartzenegger is now the Governor-Elect. "The Terminator" was a character he played in a movie.

He won this new position with a platform based on movie quips and vague references to freedom, democracy and the sacredness of individual choice.

Remember; this is the Twin Cities Women's Press. I'm actually impressed that "Freedom" wasn't in scare quotes.

In 1991, Arnold Schwarzenegger was taped as saying, “I come from Austria, a socialistic country. There you can hear 18-year-olds talking about their pension. But me, I wanted more. I wanted to be the best. Individualism like that is incompatible with socialism. I felt I had to come to America, where the government wasn’t always breathing down your neck or standing on your shoes.”

Schwarzenegger is only the most recent—and possibly most celluloid—proponent of this idea that freedom is something that can best and maybe only happen when it happens for an individual.

I'm going to try to meet Mz. Raffo halfway here.

Perhaps she means to say "Success is something that can best and maybe only happen...". Because "Freedom" is something that can only happens to an individual; there is no meaningful freedom that attaches to groups that mustn't start with the individual.

If freedom, or "Freedom", were not a matter of the individual, then the freedoms of speech, press, religion and assembly would only apply to politicians, the institutional press, established churches and the legislature.

No, Freedom is always individual.

Everything else boils down to a mindless collectivism that forces people to make decisions that are not in their best interest.

Strawman. Or, since this is the Women's Press, "Strawperson".

While conservatism is certainly focused on the dignity as well as liberty of the individual, there is nothing about any flavor of conservatism short of anarcho-libertarianism that doesn't note the need for a society that upholds the things individuals need to protect their freedom - the rule of law, the security of the society's freedoms. Stating the case as an either-or is absurd and meaningless.

WARNING: The standard lefty strawman - the "Rugged Cowboy", is about to be invoked. Normally when a lefty invokes TRC, my internal logic circuits overload and I revert to full O'Rourke snark mode. I'm going to contain myself:

The cult of the American individual, the rugged cowboy on the edge of the great frontier, the come-to-America-and-get-rich dream of doing it alone, making it alone, is the great myth that’s stuck to our national shoes like gum that’s long dried solid.

Even while the cult of those who pooh-pooh individualism suppurates like old chaw on a hot sidewalk, separating into even portions of tobacco juice, saliva and snot.

Oh, wait - I thought I'd wandered into the simile workshop. I'm sorry.

We return to Mz. Raffo, who seems to be confused:

The problem with this U.S. ideal of individual freedom is that it depends on someone being generous towards those who don’t have as much private time or ranch land. An individual is only ever as generous as the mood they’re in. There are a lot of ranchers who would’ve left me on the side of the road with no way home simply because they were tired, they didn’t like my looks or they had too many other things to do.

Get that? Freedom depends on unanswered charity!

No, Mz. Raffo. Freedom depends on the "generosity" that comes from a free association of equals (or people willing to work to become equal) deciding to co-exist in a society they rule together. Not handouts.

Freedom is not analogous to getting to the destination of some vacuous hitchhiking trip; it's the act of being able to decide to take the trip in the first place, and risk the consequences depending on your own motivations and talent.

Mz. Raffo goes on - and this part almost made me spit coffee on my monitor:

The American dream has worked for Arnold. A mostly untalented Austrian with well-worked muscles, iron discipline and focused willpower came to the United States and became a multi-millionaire and international celebrity.

Get that?

He had "iron discipline" and "focused willpower" - which made him one of the most successful people in Hollywood - but he's "mostly untalented!"

I suspect that in Susan Raffo's world, discipline and willpower aren't talents - but mindless adherence to cant (see Martin Sheen) are.

He’s perfected the art of self-marketing, running his gubernatorial campaign like a movie premier and thumbing his nose at politics-as-usual.

(Both of which sound like talent to me!)

Schwarzenegger’s taken the overcrowded California dream of forever sunshine and turned it into a Hollywood snapshot. You work real hard and deserve to kick back in your fence-enclosed backyard sipping a margarita by the pool.

O rin your communal kibbutz, or apartment in Pomona, or artist's loft in Lowertown - whatever you choose to use your talents to work toward. That's part of being free, or "free" if you prefer!

This is the dream that bought Arnold an election.

Receipts, please!

The dream of a world where you can have neighbors who never bother you, unless you want them to. It’s a great dream, I suppose, until you’re the one standing on the side of the road waiting for a rancher to go a hundred miles out of his way, hoping he’s in the mood, and with no other way home.

And Mz. Raffo again mistakes "freedom" - the right to hitchike into the middle of the Montana desert - for "charity" - the rancher's unbidden desire to bail her out of the mess she got herself into.

I cut liberally from the article. You may read the rest at the link above - but you're also free not to.

Posted by Mitch at November 4, 2003 06:00 AM