In case you had concluded that John Edwards’ vocabulary was limited to such words as poverty and despair, in this piece he actually uses the word freedom. You see, he doesn’t want people to think that only Republicans are concerned about it.. Democrats are also committed to it, he says.
The trouble is that no where do you see anything in his speech to indicate that he has any real appreciation for freedom. He chatters away about the need to improve public schools, for instance, but that has no more to do with freedom than opera has to do with fishing. Public schools are intrinsically hostile to freedom, from their compulsory attendance laws to their coercive financing. Now, if we allowed students and taxpayers the choice of dropping their connection with public schools, that would be freedom. And it would actually improve educational results if we relied on the free market to provide education. But Edwards would rather have all his hair fall out than say something good about educational freedom, which would immediately arouse the ire of the public education establishment.
He’s right about one thing, though. Republicans don’t have a monopoly on concern over freedom. Most of them do no more than pay it lip service, just like the Democrats.
