A Dawkins No-No

[RCSaunders]

We gotta start lookin' behind the curtain and we best do it now.

OK. You've looked behind the curtain and you've discovered what's really going on. What do you do about it?

Not looking for generalities. What specifically should you, or I, or Veg do about it? Do you really think you can fix it?

Stop complyin' with 'em....not in dribbles and drabs, either.

Civil disobedience.

Well, if that's your answer, OK, but can't see how that is going to change anything.

If civil disobedience means, "in your face defiance of government," good luck. You'll lose, probably everything, including you life.

If civil disobedience just means living your life as you choose, evading government wherever possible, you don't need a party, or program, or movement to do that. It won't change anything except what matters, your own life, so long as you don't make the mistake of advertising it.

Freedom is not, "living in a free society," some imagined Utopia where oppression is impossible and never is heard a discouraging word and skies are not cloudy all day. There will never be a free society (in the political sense).

Freedom is living your own life as you choose. That you can work for and actually achieve. Worrying about societies and government is just a diversion from the work of making yourself free. So long as you worry about politics, and participate in it, you make you self a slave of the state.

[RCSaunders]

We gotta start lookin' behind the curtain and we best do it now.

OK. You've looked behind the curtain and you've discovered what's really going on. What do you do about it?

Not looking for generalities. What specifically should you, or I, or Veg do about it? Do you really think you can fix it?

I was just about to say you won't get any specifics from Henry but he got in first

His vision is so vague and general it makes a vauum look substantial. His utopia is simply the law of the jungle, which is unworkable because even in the jungle humans lived together in societies--we've simply made things a whole lot more comfortable for ourselves. What Henry envisions would only end up as the dictatorship he claims to despise so much. The only 'freedoms' that matter are free speech and freedom of the press. Any society with those are 'free' societies.

I agree with much of that. I don't quite agree: "The only 'freedoms' that matter are free speech and freedom of the press. Any society with those are 'free' societies." If a free society were possible, those would certainly have to be, but I would hardly agree that one was free if they were forced to serve in the armed forces, had their income taken to be used by government for wars and oppression, or were required to conform to million little regulations their entire life, no matter how free they were to talk and write about it.

I really do not believe most people really want to be free. What most people want is security, safety, and guarantees that their life will be easy and not too much trouble. Most people would be terrified of having to be totally responsible for their own lives. They like having someone tell them what to believe and what to do. I have exactly the same view the H.L. Mencken had. While I believe freedom is an absolute necessity to human life and could not myself live without it, as much as I love freedom, I would not force it on anyone else.

[henry quirk]

Freedom is living your own life as you choose.

Yeah, RC, I know.


evading government wherever possible

As a free man I ought not not have to sulk around...if I do, then how free am I?


You'll lose, probably everything, including you life.

Mebbe...isn't freedom -- ownness -- worth the fight?

And if government -- any government -- were the all-powerful institution you imply, we'd still live with the overt tyranny of the slaver-king instead of the soft tyranny of agitprop and slight of hand.

I believe you're American, yeah? A fight is brewin' and if you won't fight, then hunker down and stay clear...I'm fond of you and would prefer you be around awhile.

[RCSaunders]

I don't expect any perfect governments...or even near perfect ones. I expect flawed ones that will periodically have to be stopped, reigned in, checked, and even replaced when they become defective.

That has never happened, unless you call the fall of a government from its own inevitable corruption a, "correction."

There is no way to, "stop, reign in, check, and replace, " an oppressive government. Look how well that's working out in Venezuela and Burma. Besides, almost no one wants the kind of freedom you imagine under you minimal government. That's why they never remain, "minimal?"

[RCSaunders]

As a free man I ought not not have to sulk around...if I do, then how free am I?

...

And if government -- any government -- were the all-powerful institution you imply,

First of all, you are the one that thinks government is so powerfuel one has to, "sulk around," to be free. I do think a government has an power individuals don't wish to grant it. Government if a real fact, like any other dangerous fact. Its some rational thing you are going to reason with. (Politicians are incapable of reason). You don't deal with the irrational by fighting it. You not going to tame hurricanes, earthquakes, or vicious animals. Dealing with them in a way to protect yourself from them is your freedom, but you have to do it. No social or political system is going to do for you.

Make yourself free or remain a slave, and you don't have to make anyone else free to be free yourself, especially the majority of others who have no interest in real freedom.

[henry quirk]

I really do not believe most people really want to be free.

Disagree...generations have been taught to ignore their own intuitions about themselves...have been taught to see self-direction and self-responsibility as dangerous...despite the fact this project to domesticate man has goin' on for decades, world-wide, the results are uneven and fragile...just when a population seems well-trained, some agent of chaos comes along and gets a significant number thinkin'...questions are asked of TPTB and no answers of value are given...justifications are sought from TPTB and none are found or offered...freedom breaks out in big sloppy ways.

Even a casual review of history shows this to be the case...the path meanders, doubles back, peters out, appears elsewhere...over the long haul it moves away from the slave-king toward individual liberty.

It's inevitable: man must be, is, free...he fights for it, dreams of it, lives it as he can.

No man craves the leash unless broken and driven mad (as so many have been...is it mere coincidence that so many are depressed, neurotic, nutty, and well-medicated for all of it? Or that obvious insanity is not treated but catered to? These broken people are the direct result of generations bein' taught they are cogs instead of persons [of bein' made to equate personhood with coghood]).

[henry quirk]

First of all, you are the one that thinks government is so powerfuel one has to, "sulk around," to be free.

I'm not the one to describe it as sumthin' to be evaded.

I do think a government has an power individuals don't wish to grant it. Government if a real fact, like any other dangerous fact. Its some rational thing you are going to reason with. (Politicians are incapable of reason). You don't deal with the irrational by fighting it. You not going to tame hurricanes, earthquakes, or vicious animals. Dealing with them in a way to protect yourself from them is your freedom, but you have to do it. No social or political system is going to do for you.

I have no interest in reasonin' with or tamin'...I want them broken and eliminated.

Government is men...men die, no matter their gifted or stolen status.


Make yourself free or remain a slave, and you don't have to make anyone else free to be free yourself, especially the majority of others who have no interest in real freedom.

I am free and I aim to stay that way. What I choose to obligate myself to is not your concern, however, in the unlikely event I should come across you as you're held by another, I'll be sure not to interfere...wouldn't wanna infringe on your freedom to not be rescued.

[RCSaunders]

I am free and I aim to stay that way. ... in the unlikely event I should come across you as you're held by another, I'll be sure not to interfere...wouldn't wanna infringe on your freedom to not be rescued.

Good. I wonder why you don't see the contradiction. Freedom means free from the uninvited interference of others in one's own life. I do not want anyone giving me anything or in any other way interfering in my life, (especially if it's called, "help") without my invitation or that I cannot exchange something of equal value for.

If I would like your service, and you choose to provide it, I'll pay for it, or go without. That's freedom. If the only way I can live is by having someone else protect me, when I haven't asked for (or paid for) that protection, I am not free and my life is not worth living.

It bewilders me why so many who claim they are for individual freedom always end up defending some reason to interfere in others' lives, depriving them of their freedom.

[vegetariantaxidermy]

OK. You've looked behind the curtain and you've discovered what's really going on. What do you do about it?

Not looking for generalities. What specifically should you, or I, or Veg do about it? Do you really think you can fix it?

I was just about to say you won't get any specifics from Henry but he got in first

His vision is so vague and general it makes a vauum look substantial. His utopia is simply the law of the jungle, which is unworkable because even in the jungle humans lived together in societies--we've simply made things a whole lot more comfortable for ourselves. What Henry envisions would only end up as the dictatorship he claims to despise so much. The only 'freedoms' that matter are free speech and freedom of the press. Any society with those are 'free' societies.

I agree with much of that. I don't quite agree: "The only 'freedoms' that matter are free speech and freedom of the press. Any society with those are 'free' societies." If a free society were possible, those would certainly have to be, but I would hardly agree that one was free if they were forced to serve in the armed forces, had their income taken to be used by government for wars and oppression, or were required to conform to million little regulations their entire life, no matter how free they were to talk and write about it.

I really do not believe most people really want to be free. What most people want is security, safety, and guarantees that their life will be easy and not too much trouble. Most people would be terrified of having to be totally responsible for their own lives. They like having someone tell them what to believe and what to do. I have exactly the same view the H.L. Mencken had. While I believe freedom is an absolute necessity to human life and could not myself live without it, as much as I love freedom, I would not force it on anyone else.

If you have genuine free speech then the rest goes along with it, which is why I didn't specifically bring up conscription.
I agree with all you've said here, which is why I normally put ' ' marks around the word 'freedom'. I'm not happy for any of my taxes to go on the military, yet it's the ONE thing that Henry doesn't mind paying for. How surprising.

I don't feel 'unfree'. A reasonable tax rate is a small price to pay for the 'freedom' to get hospital care if I need it, the 'freedom' to take my grandchildren to the park/library/museum etc, the 'freedom' to be able to go for a walk without being attacked by a pack of dogs (or humans for that matter) or having to step over beggars... I would definitely rather pay my reasonable taxes than have to pay some scummy, self-serving corporation for the 'privilege' of things we should take for granted, or have to look at McDonald's logos on the playground equipment...

Americans are naturally stupid, so it's understandable that the poor dears don't even know what they mean themselves when they bleat on about 'freedom'. It usually has something to do with guns

[vegetariantaxidermy]

Veg, you truly don't know what you're talkin' about. I'd correct you but I don't think you want correction (so, I can't see wastin' time).

Instead: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=32w456

Bastiat sez everything I would.

Still no specifics on how your utopia would work, just a lot of boring waffle that has the nerve to bring god-bothering into the equation. Call yourself 'free' when you have a god-daddy to tell you what to do

I'm a deist, not a theist. My God is silent; he left me no holy words or holy men; I have no church.

He gave me a body & soul, a free will, and a moral compass.

And: you didn't read but a pargraph or two of The Law...you got no cause to say diddly about it till you do.

How good of him to 'endow' you with those things. Just like a benign dictator....

[Immanuel Can]

I don't expect any perfect governments...or even near perfect ones. I expect flawed ones that will periodically have to be stopped, reigned in, checked, and even replaced when they become defective.

That has never happened, unless you call the fall of a government from its own inevitable corruption a, "correction."

Actually, it has. Unfortunately, revolutions are almost always worse than the governments they replace. And at most, they reset the timer on the corruption, but ultimately fail to eliminate it. The American Revolution might be an example that looked, at least temporarily, like a success. The French Revolution, not so much, because it decayed into The Terror, and then into Napoleon.

So long as any government exists, that is the cycle with which we live. But the best insurance against it is a strictly limited government. At least a government controlled by checks-and-balances decays more slowly, and its decline can be more quickly noted and addressed. But there is no way to stop human governance from decaying. Entropy is everywhere, in this world.

...almost no one wants the kind of freedom you imagine under you minimal government. That's why they never remain, "minimal?"

That is true. People are terrified of their own freedom, and do not want the responsibility for their own lives. So they keep resorting to governments to provide them with the security and freedom-from-responsibility they crave.

Yet another reason why big government cannot ever be trusted.

[henry quirk]

I wonder why you don't see the contradiction.

Cuz as I reckon things, there is no contradiction.

I belong to me. You belong to you. Veg belongs to Veg.

This, to my thinkin', is indisputable, evident, irrevocable.

As a fact, it establishes what is permissible among and between men. It establishes what I see as obligation to myself (to defend my life, liberty, and property). It establishes my obligation to others (to not misuse them, prey on them, or view their lives, liberties, and properties as resources for the takin'). Further, it imposes on me (not you) a limited obligation to step in when circumstances are heavily weighted against another (for example, I come across an old man gettin' the shit kicked out of him by a younger man...me: I'm gonna step in [and if the old man, spittin' out teeth, tells me to buzz off, I will]; but if I come across two men of apparent equal ability layin' into each other, well, I think, I'd let that play out).

Perhaps compassion is a failing, makes me inconsistent: I don't care.

[henry quirk]

Still no specifics on how your utopia would work, just a lot of boring waffle that has the nerve to bring god-bothering into the equation. Call yourself 'free' when you have a god-daddy to tell you what to do

I'm a deist, not a theist. My God is silent; he left me no holy words or holy men; I have no church.

He gave me a body & soul, a free will, and a moral compass.

And: you didn't read but a pargraph or two of The Law...you got no cause to say diddly about it till you do.

How good of him to 'endow' you with those things. Just like a benign dictator....

How is a Maker who promises no punishment or paradise, who endows man with a moral sense and the capacity to ignore that moral sense in anyway a dictator? A practical joker, mebbe, but, no, not a dictator.

[henry quirk]

the military, yet it's the ONE thing that Henry doesn't mind paying for

Wrong again. All taxation is thievery and the military is an occupyin' force.

Really, if you're gonna mock me, you oughta at least stay in the ballpark of what I believe.

[henry quirk]

People are terrified of their own freedom

That ain't so.

We get hoodwinked by snake oil salesfolk that to preserve freedom we must give it up.

Of course, the salesfolk aren't that obvious about it, but that's the essence of it.

People want freedom: they've just been fooled into thinkin' they need overseers to have it.