The Responsibility of the Free World
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CLOSED: <2020-04-11 Sat>

By measures such as global warming and the depression epidemic, the world is not getting better–at least not immediately. But for the most part we are chugging along the tracks of human progress just fine. We are becoming less violent and prone to war¹, less tribal², less nationalistic, less religious, and more scientific. One of the most important things progress has yielded is the empowerment of the individual. In the first world we don't look to monarchs for holy decrees or cower under the will of warlords, we vote in (hopefully) fair elections and participate in a democratic policy making process which encodes, albeit not yet perfectly, the will of the people. It's important to get the causality right here. It is not that first world countries just happen to become democratic bastions of individual liberties, countries first respect individual liberties then enter the first world as a result. The world has become more free and where it has become more free certain values can be identified as the causes.

If you were born in a free country as I was, you may be prone to taking such values for granted. You may expect that if a crime is alleged against you that you will have the opportunity to prove your innocence in a fair trial. You may expect that when a crime is committed against you that there is infrastructure in place to protect your basic human rights. You might not think about your ability to access education, to vote in fair elections, to associate with whichever group you see fit, and to participate in public or private discourse of any kind (including criticism of the government) with impunity. This is the kind of progress free societies have made³. Unfortunately this is not the case for many places on Earth.

If you were born in a country with restricted personal freedoms and a disregard for human rights, you may be familiar with the concept that certain ideas are harmful and should not be discussed, that the law should not be questioned, that the litany of injustices committed by the government are necessary for the security of the rest of the population, and that there is nothing telling about your glorious leader's disembowelment of term limits or farcical electoral displays (sometimes interspersed with the "disappearance" of political opponents). In such environments one is likely never to hear a dissenting opinion publicized in the media. Some of my friends and acquaintances in China feel the need to keep their mouths shut when it comes to discussing politics due to the fear of punishment (not just the fear of disrupting a family dinner). Some embody the "I'm free if it's not me" mentality when it comes to their government's inhumane practices. Some even deny any shortcomings of their government whatsoever. Unsurprisingly, these are the loud unsuppressed minority for which the autocracy has "worked". In other words they played by the dirty rules and got ahead while being forcibly or willfully misinformed regarding their government's dark side. The confirmation bias at play is similar to some opinions I have heard out of America regarding their healthcare situation: "It works now, why do you want to change it?" Clearly, it doesn't work for the people who want it changed.

This brings us back to the importance of universal personal freedoms. Considering an injustice against you or your family as equally appalling to an injustice against a stranger ("It could be me, so I'm not free") is the mindset that leads us toward a free society.

If you've met enough people from varying backgrounds, you know well enough that we are all human and we are much more similar than nationalists and ethno-centrists would have you believe. Upon observation, the differences in the behaviour and beliefs of other humans become so trivial that it's almost an unconscious exercise to put yourself in their shoes. One can then understand how vicious it is to be ripped out of their home, away from their children and family, and taken to "re-education camps" on the basis of their culture alone (see the persecution of Uyghurs). The result of pondering the trivial nature of human variance is the emergence of human rights. Because humans do not get to choose where they are born, what gender they have, what cultural norms they will be exposed to, what knowledge they will have access to, what intellectual capacity they have, et cetera, we construct a set of universal rights that dignify each human equally. I don't even have to argue that all humans deserve these rights–it's a premise that requires an extreme amount of apathy to reject.

Then what should those of us in the most free countries do with our freedom? We should remember the values that provide us such freedom. We should not ignore the struggles of people who hold the same free values but are under attack by oppressive autocracies (e.g. the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong). We have a voice when countless others do not. We must not allow our greed to cheat fellow humans out of their freedom. Think international businesses that rely on violating human rights (directly by exploiting lax worker's rights or indirectly by kowtowing to tyrannical trading partners) or even something local like the democracy-undermining corporate lobbyists. We should not allow ideologues to convince us that freedom comes secondary to a grander goal. These are our responsibilities.

Put simply: freedom is necessary for upholding human rights, therefore if you agree that human rights are important, so is freedom. Stand up for it.