Policy is broad discussion I’m not going to get into at this point. I’ll stick to morality, freedom, and coercion.
You posting here contradicting me makes me feel not free. You are now taking my freedom by posting. You now need to stop posting to stop infringing on my freedom.
Not the question. No rich guy has all the money. You have 2 cars. I need a car to get to work. I can carjack you?
I am pretty sure Sloth knows this. He is making a cultural criticism of the US and the privileges many people seem to equate with actual, real freedom, which leads to the Nanny State encouraging them to let it all go.
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This is actually ehat he is pointing out–the difference between “feeling” free because you can do whatever you want like a child and actually being free. He is saying society and particularly young people are accepting the first definition–disguised authoritarianism–because it makes them FEEL good and free. Unless I quite misread him.
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You’re rich enough to afford bodyguards and personal security and live in an exclusive gated community. Is it theft that your tax dollars fund law enforcement for me and others who can’t afford the above?
Of course. It’s not a matter of me messing up and switching. I’m pointing out the reality that even the definition of freedom can be highly…individualistic. And frankly some definitions are less appealing, while others can sound rather liberating, to a society that has idolized individualism.
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Pretty much. To most people it isn’t the ability to afford vacation homes which feels like fundamental and foundational freedom. It’s the ability to ignore Custom (which used to at least dampen if not route the consequences of nature for society), AND have the basic natural conflicts secured (food, shelter, medicine) so one can put those worries aside and get down to “being an individual.” Because those worries aren’t an individualistic experience. Since that’s the case, one must first have security. Once that is accomplished, one can worry about what pronoun they’ll use to describe their gender/non-gender. “Experiments in living.”
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This is a separate argument. I do not like the analogies of theft being used to describe taxation and redistribution. Nearly everyone who does this ends up supporting courts, law enforcement, and a military. And no, being ‘constitutional’ doesn’t change the fact that you’re still taking the revenue “by gunpoint” and redistributing it.
Unless one is an absolute anarcho-capitalist, one favors some amount of “theft and redistribution.”
That is a twisted view of liberty.
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Libertarianism is a political philosophy SOLELY concerned with the proper use of force(I have paraphrased Dr. Walter Block, I believe.) It is not concerned with how to take care of the poor-that is up to individuals. It merely holds that it’s illegitimate for money to be forcibly redistributed. It’s not concerned with how something indirectly benefits or negatively affects others. It’s no more proper for you to use force to ensure that your neighbor pays for the defense of his property than it is to use force to ensure that your neighbor mows his grass(barring some explicit agreement with said neighbor).
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Well, I agree, but that’s just it: that’s the view that a lot of people hold. And its an easy, easy sell when the reality is hard work.
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But that’s just it, I’m not excluding people who are already “working hard.” There are people (many people) doing actual back-breaking work who could easily be financially ruined by a sick child. A sick elderly parent for whom they’re the only family to shoulder the entire cost. I don’t know that smaller government can ever be a reality, but it’ll only happen if the traditional institutions that provided a buffer between man and state regain their prestige. Such as the extended intact family. Both biological parents in an intact home provide better outcomes and at least one income. Multiple children provide a broader base to take care of elderly parents. Multiple uncles, aunts, nephews nieces…At least, more so than now. We’re highly atomistic, unanchored, mobile and restless. It’s individualism that is the problem. Hell, we even decided marriage (the institution we needed to concentrate on) was simply an opportunity to express our individualism, instead of being a SOCIAL institution that actually provided critical SOCIAL goods. Better start considering the social groups, units, and institutions more than the individual if you want to unwind the Nanny State at all. But it won’t happen in our life times. Sorry folks, the social aspect matters.
I follow you. I was trying to communicate it to others having difficulty.
I don’t agree that “individualism” is the problem per se, but I follow your argument.
Why are you still here obstructing my freedom? Do you not care about my freedom?
I’m merely describing harsh reality. Sorry, but “fiscal conservatism,” otherwise known as Libertarianism, or simply economic liberalism (and not progressive), is dead. You have the wrong social structure in the way of ever unraveling the nanny state.
That does it. I’m calling the government. Expect gestapo at your door shortly. But don’t worry, they are there to keep you “free”. So sit back and enjoy your freedom chains and freedom bars.
But that’s not the reality. I’m actually describing reality. I’m describing the “freedom” that won.
No, you are describing the loss of freedom being replaced by it’s opposite, which in newspeak is also called freedom.
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No sir, I’m describing the most attractive and seductive definition of individualistic freedom. The kind that provides at least some security/insurance for human needs (including education, or so it’s pushed), so that one may focus more on expressing oneself as an individual. Government is the great liberator. Freeing us from nature, our weaknesses, Custom, and fears.