David McElroy

Can you tell me the difference between freedom and democracy? I’ve tried this with dozens of people over the years. They almost always look at me blankly, because they’ve been taught the words mean exactly the same thing. They were taught a lie.

I’m reminded of this because of a great article my friend Zachary Caceres published Wednesday that centers around mainstream intellectual ignorance on this subject. (If you’d like to know more about where Zach is coming from, check out his TED talk last spring about free cities.) If you’re already familiar with the difference between freedom and democracy, you’ll find his article a treat. I urge you to read it.

If you’re not already familiar with the differences between freedom and democracy, everything in the article is going to sound perplexing, so let’s take a look at what the words mean. Here’s what my dictionary says about the two:

Freedom — the power or right to act, speak, or think as one wants without hindrance or restraint.

Democracy — a system of government by the whole population or all the eligible members of a state, typically through elected representatives.

In other words, freedom is about the individual. It’s about what he has the right to do. You can argue about where rights come from, but the concept of freedom is purely about the rights of the individual to be unrestrained by others. Democracy, on the other hand, is about the collective “people,“ not about individuals. A democracy is the dictatorship of the majority.

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We see programs today encouraging kids to ride bikes to school — just like the Beaver did years ago — but the Nanny State in Elizabethton, Tenn., apparently thinks that a mother can’t be trusted to decide whether her 10-year-old daughter is mature enough to ride her bike to school.

The mother says she’s been threatened with being charged with “child neglect” for allowing her daughter to bike a mile to school and back each day. Teresa Tryon tells her story:

“On August 25th my 10-year-old daughter arrived home via police officer, requested to speak to me on the front porch of my home,” Ms. Tryon said. “The officer informed me that in his ‘judgement’ it was unsafe for my daughter to ride her bike to school.”

Ms. Tryon called the mayor’s office and the chief of police office in order to determine what laws she was breaking by allowing her daughter to ride her bike to school.  Her daughter’s route to school was reasonably safe.

Major Verran of the police department returned Ms Tryon’s call.  She said he told me, “He had spoke with the District Attorney’s office, who advised that until the officer can speak with Child Protective Services that if I allow my daughter to ride/walk to school I will be breaking the law and treated accordingly.

She asked, “What law she would be breaking, to which the answer was ‘child neglect.'”

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If California Democrats have their way, hiring babysitters and nannies is soon going to get pretty complicated. It’s going to take more than a spoonful of sugar for this medicine to go down.

California Assemblyman Tom Ammiano (D-San Francisco) has proposed legislation that would require any adult hired as a sitter to be paid at least minimum wage, but the bill would also require parents to “provide a substitute caregiver every two hours to cover rest and meal breaks, in addition to workers’ compensation coverage, overtime pay, and a meticulously calculated timecard/paycheck.”

The bill has already passed the lower house of the California Legislature and is on its way through the Senate now. The only good news so far is that the Senate has stripped out the part about paid vacation days.

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