Posted on by Nathan Riley

Why We Need Freedom Democrats

A big issue in the presidential election is abortion. Democrats, quite correctly, want to keep the government from interfering with the patient. It’s up to the woman to reach the decision with her doctor. Should she choose, she can invite other persons to participate.

In this country, by custom and law, the mother must raise the child, and it is only fair that she also has the responsibility to weigh the pros and cons of motherhood.

This is a radical principle. It makes the individual consult a doctor before reaching a final decision. Before making that decision, the woman has sex, and we think it common sense that this decision doesn’t require a visit with the doctor. We don’t have to justify this privacy principle.

The problem is the Democratic Party doesn’t go far enough, and Democrats who believe in freedom need to stick together and persuade other Democrats that freedom works. If a guy or a gal says, “You want to fuck? That will cost you.” This contract should be private and legal. If you’re making love to your hand, it is only your decision about what pictures to watch. Don’t let false sympathy for the performers in porn allow you to bring government regulation into the pictures that get you hot when you masturbate.

Condoms prevent the spread of venereal disease, but history has shown that many men and women don’t use them; they are willing to take their chances about catching venereal disease. 20th century medicine stopped syphilis from being a lifetime ailment. Cures are available for other V.D.’s. However well intended, a requirement that sex workers use condoms is false sympathy because in truth going bareback almost never results in V.D. This is not the recommended health message, but it is factually accurate.

We can’t get rid of government, and we shouldn’t. Properly done, government does good things. In the case of condoms, a performer must have the right to say, “I want a raincoat.”  The maker of the porn must say, “Sure thing, no problem.” Once again, we are dealing with questions of freedom, privacy, and the right to choose. The X-rated industry is huge and poorly measured; $10 billion is a common guess for the total spending in a year.

These jobs don’t require a college diploma, a drug test, or a check of your police record. From this perspective, they are some of the most desirable jobs. Taking off your clothes and doing sex that a director selects is work that most people will not do. That is one of the undesirable parts of this job.

Freedom Democrats support porn and worry that diehard opponents of dirty pictures will be out to get porn. They will be endlessly creative in their efforts to make us suspicious and hostile toward pictures that the Romans put on their walls for decoration. Not everybody likes porn, but enough people do that they should be supporters.

Prostitution allows fat, old men to have sex with fine looking people. There is something perverse in saying, “This is wrong.” Shouldn’t older men, even widowers, be allowed to enjoy this pleasure? In a free society, the answer would be obvious. It seems reasonable to concede that turning this most intimate of acts into a business should provoke societal concern.

But it is difficult for sex workers to get good advice about separating their work from their love life. A sex worker or a john is going down a rocky road if he or she thinks that love is developing. A sex worker who had a hard life growing up can easily believe that life would be much easier if this person made him or her a partner. The benefit that a sex worker gains from going into another person’s fine home can include tidbits of knowledge. In fact it is fair to say the more willing the john is to talk, the greater the benefit from the visit.  The relationship doesn’t have to be full-time, and indeed it is more than likely that the sex worker and the john would be unhappy living together.

The right to choose should be guarded zealously in a free society. On this issue, the Democrats are likely to be on the side of the angels.  But when we move to sex work, porn, and drug use and apply similar principles, the Democrats need convincing.

This is the principal justification for creating the Freedom Democrats; they must convince other Democrats to respect private choice and freedom.

Posted on by Nathan Riley

Stranger Danger

          Joe Biden’s troubles shouldn’t change Freedom Democrats’ minds. We support him even with health problems.

Stranger danger is one reason for staying away from Republicans. It’s a basic Republican principle that strangers should make decisions that in a free country should be the responsibility of one person.

Becoming a mother is a responsibility that lasts decades. It should be the mother who decides to accept this responsibility, but Republicans insist that government—that is, the strangers—law enforcement, and churches should be equal partners. Although the fetus never expresses an opinion, right-to-life sympathizers inject themselves into a decision that realistically is the responsibility of the mother. These strangers believe they know what will protect the child and in fact that they can ignore the mother’s choice.

This is absurd. Consider a good thing; a referendum proposal in Arkansas that would permit  abortions up to sixteen weeks and in cases with special medical needs. This is a good faith effort to find a middle ground between pro-choice advocates and right-to-life diehards by permitting a procedure. If the bill gets on the ballot, it should be supported.

However, four months is a reasonable period for an adult comfortable with her body, but what about a fourteen-year-old girl who has an irregular menstrual cycle? She could easily take more than four months before she recognizes her pregnancy. These types of problems are aggravated by stranger danger. At least to my mind, I don’t want a child to become a mother unless her family is willing to accept the responsibility. This is just one of the dozens of real-life examples that make it difficult, if not impossible to write rules about the complexity of human relationships.

In a free society, the mother should choose. Strangers have no business making rules about complicated problems like this. It’s already a difficult decision, and allowing strangers to make it more difficult is destructive and impinges on freedom.

This is only one of the areas where thoughtless government officials and their public supporters allow private matters to become the business of strangers.

These decisions can be fatal. When it became clear that OxyContin was making some users have a compulsive habit, little help was offered to them, and public wrath was unleashed on pharmaceutical companies for making the drug.

Users were simply told, “Stop!” To nobody’s surprise, while some stopped others entered the illegal market. Politicians thoughtlessly expanded crime. Nobody tells a heavy person, “Stop eating!” But the powers that be, without thinking, huffed and puffed and said, “No more. You can’t get this drug. We’re going to make it illegal.” By doing this, the government forced drug users to enter the illegal market and get close fentanyl. Thousands have died because strangers thought they could tell a person what pills they can use.

What’s worse is that the strangers are accepting magical beliefs in the power of these illegal drugs. People who use drugs have individual reactions to their choice of highs. Some drug users go to work, live responsible lives; others get wrapped up in depression, and the law cruelly magnifies their problems. Very few homosexuals are child-molesters, and the number of drug users whose lives are ruined  by their high is far smaller than lawmakers claim. Once again, strangers who have little experience are making life-and-death decisions that properly belong to the individual and his doctor.

Sex work also runs the gambit of human behavior. Some are graduate students working on their PhD. Others are homeless and distressed. Making their life illegal allows strangers to interfere in private concerns, when the object in a free society would be to help people live their lives even if they rent their bodies, abort their pregnancies, or choose to take drugs.

Obviously, the Democrats are only occasionally helpful on drugs and sex work. They almost universally want to keep strangers away from decisions about pregnancy.

The key difference between the Republicans and the Democrats is a willingness to learn. At one time, many Democrats were against abortion-law reform; today, the party is nearly unanimous. In the areas of drugs and sex work, many Democrats are open-minded. Democrats are far more willing to consider stranger danger than Republicans, who self-righteously insist they know how individuals should live their lives.

Posted on by Nathan Riley

Compromise and the Right to Choose

Freedom Democrats received a demonstration of their power and, what’s equally important, its limits in Florida.

The top court accepted a ban on abortion after six weeks; this law is an outrage for many reasons, including that many women don’t even know they’re pregnant in such a short period.

At the same time, the court offered voters a way out. They authorized two referendums where voters can allow abortion and legalize marijuana.

Full access to reproductive rights and pot are core issues for Freedom Democrats, and these referendums allow the voters to bypass politicians and write into the constitution the rights of all Floridians to legally access pot and pregnancy care.

Writing reproductive rights into the Florida Constitution is a compromise measure. Child-bearing women would lose their right to privacy if it was determined that the child could live separately from the mother. By including viability, the Florida referendum accurately reflects public opinion. Unhappily it will mean that judges will be forced to make decisions on the thorny question of viability.

For many Freedom Democrats, women should have an absolute right to privacy. Expectant mothers should be able to consult a doctor, and the final decision is exclusively up to the woman who is expected to raise a child.

The proposed constitutional amendment breaches the right to privacy and allows strangers to give the go, no go decision about ending the pregnancy.

This is why Freedom Democrats should get organized, because the Florida compromise reflects a common political dilemma. If you can’t get everything you want, do you accept less? The Florida compromise is indeed better than the virtual ban imposed by the politicians in Florida law.

The Florida compromise infringes on a woman’s right to privacy, but it offers women many weeks to make up their minds about continuing their pregnancy. This is a far better result than the law offers.

If Freedom Democrats were a powerful member of the groups supporting a woman’s right to choose, they would have a say in the actual language of the constitutional amendment. But once you participate in these negotiations you become obligated to accept the group’s decision, even if you don’t like the language of the amendment and its focus on the viability of the fetus. Under existing American practice you become obligated to accept the compromise. This emphasis on compromise in the American political process is often painful, but it falls into the category of playing well with others.

By joining other groups seeking to protect a woman’s right to choose, Freedom Democrats also agree to accept the group’s decision, almost all the time. A breakup of the coalition can lead to anger, even hatred. That is a high price to pay.

Further complicating the decision for Freedom Democrats is divisions within the group. Many Freedom Democrat members will like the idea of protecting the fetus once it is viable. Managing the disagreements between the members of Freedom Democrats may be difficult.

In previous articles I have emphasized the role of weekly parties as the way to recruit new members. Making the decision about an absolute right to privacy or a compromise that improves life without solving the problem is a task of politics. Freedom Democrats cannot exist on parties alone. They must think, choose, and confront the compromises that drive American politics.

Making choices doesn’t require a college degree, but it does require common sense. Freedom Democrats should be on the lookout for people blessed with this quality.

Posted on by Nathan Riley

Freedom Democrats: Medical Care for All

It must be repeated over and over again that the way voting works small groups can have big impacts on elections.

The United States has 330 million people, but as few as thousands can change election results. That is because elections divide the nation into districts. The largest are the 50 states, the smallest are election districts, which pool voters from a neighborhood or a small town.

Only a few thousand voters can decide who wins.  Freedom Democrats are not trying to take over the country they are trying to be heard and persuade.

Getting started requires no special skill; people who party should throw a party. Weekly parties allow people who share common interests to get to know each other. The objective is to get a group with different skills and backgrounds working together. Most political groups are only for serious people; the kind who debate if a proposed law is a good or bad thing.

The weekly party allows such people to attend but the main event is a party—dancing, chatting, having a good time. A specific attraction is no cover charge; the group pays for soft drinks or, if they choose, beers. Obviously a party that only has soft drinks can attract a younger crowd. If beer is served the group should consult a lawyer to learn how to throw a hassle-free get-together.

Small steps like this are called “organizing.” It gives everybody a chance to see who is helpful and finds things to do even for people who promise to do something and then don’t deliver. Excluding people for their weaknesses makes no sense when it comes to political organizing.

The object is to attract the maximum number of people who support full rights for people who party. Once the group gains momentum, it can decide what steps to take. It could be simple, like asking the police to change their enforcement policy, or it could be a big deal, like asking the state legislature to legalize drugs or sex work.

The proposal I have made stresses that drug users are denied medical care and this is a violation of their rights. In most places in the United States, the facts will be on your side.

According to the latest U.S. data, more than 109,000 drug users died in 2022, “a new record.”  Many of these deaths were associated with the use of fentanyl, but the law interferes with the doctor patient relationship when it comes to individuals who get high. Freedom Democrats believe that drug using patients should enjoy the same right to privacy as any individual who visits a doctor. Regulating patient-doctor relationships with people who get high makes no more sense than using the law to interfere with women seeking abortions.

In fact, women exercising their right to choose are more likely to find a doctor than patients who use mood-altering drugs. The law used to forbid women from getting medical advice on difficult pregnancies. When the law stopped doctors from providing treatment, women died. Today, drug users have limited choices in the kind of assistance they can receive from doctors. Many doctors don’t trust the intense supervision exercised by agencies like the Drug Enforcement Administration and simply don’t treat these patients.

This is a grievous violation of the rights of drug users. Doctors should have every right to work with users on a course of treatment. That right might include helping drug users get high in a controlled environment. Getting high is a basic human freedom and claiming that this behavior negates a person’s right to medical care is foolish. Thousands who would live are dying. Allow doctors to treat drug users like any other patient.

Freedom Democrat parties are for people who support the right of everyone to get medical care.