Freedom of association shouldn’t come with caveats

George Jonas:

If liberty’s watchdogs agree that the exercise of individual rights and freedoms can be suspended in case of an “urgent need” as long as the authorities come up with a persuasive argument to support it, we’re back in the 17th century. Saying to campus bullies: “Sorry, your arguments don’t meet the test needed to justify compulsory student unionism,” is just an invitation to come back and keep arguing until they get it right. But the case for voluntary student unions isn’t based on anyone’s failure to make a case for involuntary student unions; it’s based on the impossibility of making a case for compulsion in a free society. As Frontier’s press release notes, with masterful understatement, “it is morally problematic to compel individuals to belong to and pay dues to organizations whose views and actions they do not agree with.”

You can say that again!

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