CLINTON'S NOT PLAYING WITH BOTH DICE IN THIS MONOPOLY GAME

by Charley Reese
Columnist, Orlando Sentinel

According to the May 8, 1998, issue of The Wall Street Journal, the Justice Department is on the verge of launching a massive anti-trust suit against Microsoft, one which will allege anticompetitive practices, unfair competition, predatory conduct, forcing PC makers into accepting Microsoft's Internet Explorer and limiting consumer choice.

In my November 2, 1997, article on Microsoft (The Silence of the Damned), I stated that the enemies of Microsoft were winning the public relations campaign against Microsoft by providing new definitions for key concepts, specifically: "... 'force' and 'freedom.' The entire battle against Microsoft will be won or lost on the issue of these definitions."

Statists have succeeded in getting most to accept the notion that "force" is synonymous with "limiting choices" and that "freedom" is synonymous with "having choices."  These are disastrous ideas, the equivalent of an intellectual nuclear bomb, ideas which will spread future devastation to what remains of America's freedom, if these notions continue to be accepted by a majority.

No matter what the society, your choices are always limited.

In a free society, your choices are limited to what others voluntarily agree to do for you or to what you can do for yourself.  You do not have the option of picking up a government gun to force others to provide you with more choices in the form of different products or services.  If someone refuses to make a certain product available to you, your choices in the marketplace have been limited but you have not had physical force used against you and your freedom has not been limited.  Someone, such as Microsoft, refusing to provide you with a product you want is not a deprivation of your freedom.  Freedom is the ability to act without the initiation of force (or its threat) being used against you.

A statist society, such as we have today, presents you with a category of choices not available to you in a free society: the state uses its power of force to compel others to provide you with money and/or products they would not otherwise voluntarily give you.  Statists deny free choice to producers, forcing them into a kind of involuntary servitude--which means: statists have established the premise they can force you into involuntary servitude, that they have the right to control the choices you make in your life.  Has your "freedom" been limited by the automobile manufacturer who doesn't manufacture a car in a color you prefer?  Yes!, statists will proclaim--and they will force that manufacturer to provide the color you want and declare you now have more choice, and more "freedom," in the market. 

The grim irony of the assault against Microsoft is that statists are, in fact, guilty of all of the charges they have leveled against Microsoft, yet the majority of the public seems oblivious to this fact.

Janet Reno and her gang of statists are the ones who are guilty of using force--literal, physical force, the power of a government gun--against Microsoft and PC manufacturers.  True, Microsoft has presented its customers with limited choices in terms of its products, but it has applied force to no one.

Statists are the ones guilty of anticompetitive practices: they are attempting to forcibly undercut Microsoft's ability to compete in a free marketplace.

Statists are the real enemies of choice, the only kind of choice which is morally proper--those choices available to you in a free society: uncoerced choices, free choices made by free individuals.

And statists are the ones who are guilty of forcibly limiting your choices in the marketplace, revealing they don't give a damn about your freedom of choice. They only want to extend their power over you.  Want a car without a driver-side airbag?  Want to use an experimental drug to fight some deadly disease ravaging your body?  Statists have made it illegal for you to pursue such options, unless you get their permission, bringing death to an untold number of individuals.

Now, as Charley Reese observes in his timely article, several states, obviously smelling blood, are jumping into the fray, hoping to perhaps replicate their successful extortion of the tobacco industry.  And they are doing so because they are sensing that most of the public has fallen for the old statist trick of corrupting the meaning of concepts, that most now believe if someone limits their choice, they have been "forced" and their "freedom" has been limited.

If America continues down its current path, on some dark day in the future, you will wake up to discover that all choices are forcibly dictated by the state.  On that day, freedom will be entombed--and it will have been buried largely in the name of providing you with more "choices."

Fulton Huxtable
May 10, 1998