Freedom is the Right to Obey the Police?

A quick post on my recent reading of Bertrand Russell on Jean Jacques Rousseau

"Hegel, who owed much to Rousseau, adopted his misuse of the word 'freedom,' and defined it as the right to obey the police, or something not very different." — Bertrand Russell, A History of Western Philosophy, 1945.

Here, Russell is referring to Rousseau's Social Contract of 1762, which "involves that whoever refuses to obey the general will shall be forced to do so. 'This means nothing less than that he will be forced to be free.'"

I'm as pro-police as the next conservative, but I also know that you never talk to the police without a lawyer. At the same time, I don't believe in defunding the police. And those two positions are perfectly compatible with individual rights and that the government's primary role is to protect those rights.

Progressives, on the other hand, simultaneously believe in defunding the police, and that government both creates rights and must, as its primary duty, enforce group rights.

But how can we the people (aka "the government") defund the police and also enforce community rights? One Progressive response is to "hire more social workers," but the crime wave engulfing America right now should tell you something about that idea.

The hard truth is that the Progressive positions, which appear to be contradictatory, are also perfectly compatible once you understand these facts: that you will be pigeonholed into a "community" not of your choosing; that your community will force you to obey; and that your obedience to this "collective police" will make you free.