Liberty Minute August 13 2014

For decades, left-leaning Americans have treated loyalty oaths as a symptom of McCarthyite authoritarianism. Leaving aside the fact that Senator McCarthy never endorsed the use of such measures, that critique is sound: Since governments draw their legitimacy from the consent of the governed, a government that requires a loyalty oath from its citizens is not worthy of that loyalty.

Now that an authoritarian leftist is in the Oval Office, the left has rediscovered the supposed virtues of loyalty oaths as a way of deterring what Mr. Obama calls ?corporate deserters? from moving off-shore to avoid punitive taxation. Writing in The Daily Beast, Jonathan Alter calls for the creation of a corporate ?non-desertion agreement.? He also suggests that Obama sign an executive order imposing a mandatory non-desertion oath on any company that has a federal contract.

Such an executive order might have the healthy effect of inspiring corporate leaders to renounce federal subsidies ? something increasingly difficult to do as the federal government absorbs nearly all of the capital in the American economy. Or it might prompt many corporations to flee in search of a less authoritarian country. The only way it could be enforced would be to create the economic equivalent of the Berlin Wall.

Let us take back the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free.