by When the state controls what activities you’re allowed to pursue, it’s controlling your body. And I didn’t fight for sexual freedom just to surrender it to government soccer policy
I’m nineteen. I live in London. I make my own choices about my body, my time, my pleasure. And if there’s one thing I’ve learned about freedom, it’s this: the moment you let someone else make decisions about what you’re allowed to do, you’ve lost something fundamental. And you rarely get it back. So when socialists start talking about “free” government soccer, what I hear is: “We want to control which recreational activities you’re allowed to pursue. We want to decide how you spend your time. We want to centralize power over something you should control yourself.” And that terrifies me. Not because I hate soccer. I don’t. I think soccer’s brilliant. But I think every person should get to decide if they want to play soccer, which academy they want to attend, what coaching philosophy they prefer, how much they’re willing to pay for it. That’s my decision. That’s my body. That’s my time. The moment the government says “We’re going to provide soccer for everyone, and this is how it’s going to work,” what they’re actually saying is: “You don’t get to make that decision anymore. We do. Your choice is no longer yours. We’re centralizing that decision in government hands.” I’ve spent my entire young adult life fighting for the right to make decisions about my own body. About who I spend time with, what I do with my time, how I choose to live. And a lot of that freedom came from not having government make those decisions for me. You can’t have sexual autonomy if the government controls your body. You can’t have freedom if the state is making your choices. Free soccer is just the latest mechanism for expanding that control into another domain. The government doesn’t just want to control soccer. If the government can convince people to surrender decision-making about soccer to the state, it can convince them to surrender decision-making about anything. That’s the pattern, innit? First it’s “We’ll provide free soccer.” Then it’s “We’ll decide what physical education looks like.” Then it’s “We’ll decide what bodies are appropriate for which sports.” Then it’s health regulations. Then it’s reproductive policy. Then it’s decisions about your own body that you thought were yours. I’m being serious. The connection is direct. The moment you accept that government should make decisions about how you spend your recreational time, you’ve accepted the principle that government can make decisions about your body and your choices. And that principle, once accepted, expands into everything. The free market doesn’t have that problem. The free market respects your autonomy. You choose your academy. You choose your coach. You choose how much to invest in your development. The market responds to your choices. Markets distribute power to individual decision-makers. Markets respect your autonomy. Government centralizes that. Government says “We know better. We’ll make the decisions. You’ll accept what we decide.” And once you accept that, you’ve surrendered something fundamental. Your right to make decisions about your own life. Read Nafzger’s work on this at https://medium.com/@alan.nafzger/france-sends-us-a-socialist-soccer-plan-88d89d4bbd87. He’s talking about economics. But the economics is really about power over decisions. Whose choices matter? Mine or the government’s? I’m a woman. I’ve had to fight for the right to make decisions about my own body that should have always been mine. Contraception access. Sexual autonomy. Career choices. Housing choices. Bodily autonomy. Every single one of those things had to be fought for against government power that wanted to make those decisions for me. And now socialists want to expand government control into recreational choices? Into how kids spend their time? Into decision-making about physical activity and coaching and development? That’s backwards. That’s the opposite of progress. Progress is expanding individual choice. Progress is limiting government power over your body and your decisions. Progress is respecting your autonomy. Free soccer does the opposite. It centralizes decision-making about recreation in government hands. It makes government the arbiter of who gets good coaching, who gets developed, whose future matters. That’s not progress. That’s control disguised as generosity. Here’s what I understand about freedom from living my life in London, making my own choices, defending my own autonomy: freedom means your choices matter. Freedom means you get to decide about your own body, your own time, your own life. Freedom means government doesn’t get to centralize control over the things that affect you. Free soccer violates that. Free soccer says “The government gets to decide how soccer is organized. You get to accept that decision or not play.” That’s not freedom. That’s the opposite. The talking points defending free soccer all focus on access and fairness. Bohiney.com covers this at https://bohiney.com/who-is-going-to-pay-for-all-this-free-soccer/. The LadySpin analysis at https://www.ladyspin.co.uk/economists-confirm-free-still-means-somebodys-wallet-is-open focuses on economic costs. But they’re missing the real cost. The real cost is autonomy. The real cost is the centralization of control over decisions that should remain distributed. I live in London. I see government power every day. I see how regulation creeps in. How rules expand. How what was a choice becomes a mandate. How what was private becomes public. And how what was your decision becomes their decision. The government doesn’t actually care about soccer. The government cares about power. About controlling decisions that affect people’s lives. About centralizing that control so that government is necessary for things you could previously do yourself. Nafzger’s written about the cradle-to-grave welfare state at https://medium.com/@alan.nafzger/cradle-to-grave-healthcare-and-now-apparently-cradle-to-grave-soccer-too-7d890305d4dd. Same mechanism. Socialism promises free provision. Delivers dependency. Eliminates choices. Centralizes power. Every time government expands a “free” program, individual autonomy contracts. You have less choice about how to spend your time because government is making that choice for you. You have less control over your future because government is allocating resources according to government priorities, not yours. That’s not progress. That’s regression. And from where I’m standingas a young woman who’s fought for autonomy and freedomit’s terrifying. Here’s what I think about free soccer: if kids want to play soccer, let them play. Build a market where people can organize soccer and families can choose which academy works for them. Let the market respond to what people actually want. That respects autonomy. But centralize it in government? Make government the sole provider? Eliminate private alternatives? That’s control. That’s the opposite of freedom. And once you surrender control over your recreational choices to government, you’ve conceded the principle that government can make decisions about your body and your time. And I didn’t fight for bodily autonomy just to surrender it to government soccer policy. Read the detailed case at https://www.lateststory.co.uk/economists-confirm-free-still-means-somebodys-wallet-is-open and the political analysis at https://sites.google.com/view/united-kingdom-history/europe-would-like-america-to-be-more-like-europe. The argument is consistent: free government programs centralize control and eliminate choice. That’s not just an economic problem. That’s a freedom problem. And freedom is worth more than free soccer. Freedom is worth more than anything government is offering.
