What Is Freedom? by Winston Churchill

What is freedom?

There are one or two quite simple, practical tests by which it can be known in the modern world in peace conditions -- namely:

Is there the right to free expression of opinion and of opposition and criticism of the Government of the day?

Have the people the right to turn out a Government of which they disapprove, and are constitutional means provided by which they can make their will apparent?

Are their courts of justice free from violence by the Executive and from threats of mob violence, and free from all association with particular political parties?

Will these courts administer open and well-established laws which are associated in the human mind with the broad principles of decency and justice?

Will there be fair play for poor as well as for rich, for private persons as well as Government officials?

Will the rights of the individual, subject to his duties to the State, be maintained and asserted and exalted?

Is the ordinary peasant or workman, who is earning a living by daily toil and striving to bring up a family free from the fear that some grim police organization under the control of a single party, like the Gestapo, started by the Nazi and Fascist parties, will tap him on the shoulder and pack him off without fair or open trial to bondage or ill-treatment?

These simple practical tests are some of the title-deeds on which a new Italy could be founded.

-- Winston Churchill 1944.

These same questions can be asked of any modern democracy.

Of particular concern today is political influence over judicial proceedings, the justice of laws and a legal system that can be adapted to charge and convict just about anyone given a sufficient search of the legal codes, extra-judicial punishment, and mob behavior whether by individuals, politicians or corporations.

Will China be more Democratic than America?

A brutal and saddening truth that needs no WikiLeaks to reveal it is that democratic sentiment is more powerfully held in China these days than it is in America and other democratic nations.

It took columns of tanks and merciless infantry in 1989 to stop the pro-democracy protesters in their tracks. But all it will take is duly constituted action by democratic institutions to quietly quell and kill off the peaceful blooming of Internet inspired democracy on its yet green vine.

The Chinese government is so frightened of underlying democratic sentiment that it has responded in no uncertain terms to the awarding of the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize to one of its own citizens Liu Xiaobo. Many countries (approx 19) were "persuaded" to not attend the award ceremony, Liu Xiaobo is behind bars, and his wife was put under house arrest. The government is clearly worried.

And where did those sentiments come from? Western democracies beginning with the ancient Greeks, flowering in England, America, France, and many other nations. And in recent times thanks to Ronald Reagan and the United States winning the Cold War and unfreezing the latent democratic instincts of Poland and other Eastern Bloc nations.

The Statue of Liberty and the "soft power" of American culture (fortunately it's not all hamburgers and drug culture) inspire those abroad who aspire to freedom and justice and democracy in their institutions of government and society. Can you think of a better way to discourage democracy in the USA and elsewhere than by going after WikiLeaks?

The thing is, the democratic sentiment in our very own democratic nations is weaker than in places like China and Burma. Going after WikiLeaks may be discouraging to the Chinese democracy movement, but when you've faced down tanks, that's not going to stop it.

But it will dampen democracy, and in particular investigative journalism, in our own democratic countries. Our proud Western history of progress against the darkness of feudalism, poverty, censorship, patriarchy, slavery, prejudice and wrongful punishment and imprisonment will be tarnished for all the non-democratic governments to see and cheer and toast our pitiful downfall with glasses of vodka and jasmine tea. They have their intelligence services to pass on diplomatic "secrets". It's we the people who will be left in the dark.

Who would have thought in 1978 when Deng Xiaoping launched the Four Modernizations, that two decades later China would have a vibrant state run capitalist economy that some believe could eclipse the USA in twenty or thirty years? The natural market affinity of Chinese peasants (where many of the reforms began) was alive and well after thirty years of Communist rule.

We can be confident that the hard-won democracy of Taiwan just across the Straits from mainland China will continue to be a beacon of democracy for the many Chinese who travel between the two for commerce and family visits. Two or three decades hence, the great irony will be that America was once a great moral and materiel supporter of Taiwanese democracy.

Is it unthinkable that China in two or three decades might be more democratic than America?

That would be good for China and the Chinese. But not for America and the rest of the Western democracies. It's no longer unthinkable.

Could China Be More Democratic Than American in 20 Years?

If America continues to harass WikiLeaks, and by direct implication threaten very effective investigative journalism, American democracy and its shining example to the world may be heading for a deeply dark period.

It will be bad enough for Americans if China surpasses America economically. But just imagine how bad Americans will feel if China in 20 years overtakes America in terms of the health of its democratic institutions and freedom of the press?

Why Do We Elect Our Governments?

In theory our governments are elected by us to server our interests. They're supposed to balance our competing demands (lower taxes, higher expenditure) and keep us individually and collectively safe at the very least (the minimalist night-watchman theory of government).

The executive government (such as prosecutors and police) are not there to selectively apply laws and principles to only those people and activities they especially disapprove of.

Why is Julian Assange being prosecuted, but the majority of those whose wrongdoings WikiLeaks uncovered are NOT being prosecuted?

And going deeper, if there are laws which are capable of resulting in negative outcomes for democracy, surely they themselves should be immediately up for review and retro-active application. If a law intended to safeguard our nation has the negative side-effect of concealing wrong-doing and anti-democratic behavior, then we need to review that law, and then review potentially wrong convictions that were based on it.

Support American Democracy

American democracy (like any other democracy) has its share of democratic and anti-democratic forces (people, groupings) in the executive, legislature, and judiciary. In anti-democratic countries such as China, there are the same forces operating both within government and in the population.

In recent years and during other periods (e.g., the McCarthy era) the anti-democratic forces have had the upper hand, and seem capable of mostly silencing the more democratic forces.

The American founding fathers (such as Thomas Jefferson) saw that it would be a constant struggle to preserve democracy.

What the founding fathers may not have foreseen is how complicated it would be for American democracy and freedoms when America is a superpower. Democratic principles have been described more as a luxury rather than a right.

The catch is that a superpower is almost always on a war footing. That’s unavoidable. And one of the main reasons why America is hated by despots (of all stripes) is its example of freedom and openness which the despots don’t want to see sprouting up in their own country.

The pendulum in American politics has swung too far toward the anti-democratic extreme. The shear viciousness of attacks on WikiLeaks (extra-judicial cutting off funds via Visa, MasterCard, and PayPal, removal from Amazon web hosting, removal from its DNS domain name URL) should send chills up American spines. Who will be next? When will they come for your rights? And consider how strong the anti-democratic forces are right now to get away with such tactics.

Don’t believe that just because WikiLeaks-like sites are springing up, that American doesn’t have a serious internal problem with the quality of its democracy.

America and Americans need all the support that can muster to defend the quality of American democratic institutions and principles.