I believe in liberty. I believe that within every soul lies the capacity to reach for its own good, that within every physical body there endures an unalienable right to be free from coercion. I believe in a system of government that places that liberty at the center of its concerns, that enforces the law solely to protect that freedom, that sides with the individual against the claims of family and tribe and church and nation, that sees innocence before guilt and dignity before stigma.
I'd like to think this ideal transcends geopolitical borders.
Saturday, July 12, 2008
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16 comments:
Yeah, but then a couple of chicks minding their own business want to get married and those that clamor loudest for freedom and the pursuit of happiness can't wait to tie a noose on the nearest tree. Freedom as it manifests itself here is the freedom to do what I want, not what you want.
That last sentence expresses Pepe perfectly.
Late in life, Pepe finally and sheepishly gets it, puts away his hand, and begins to know himself in the way Socrates intended.
It'll be interesting to see how intrusive the government will get in our lives when healthcare is made universal. You know those cigarettes and ribeye steaks that are so good? I foresee a day when a government bureaucrat says to a bunch of government doctors, "Yes, let's just have everyone eat lettuce now... it'll lower heart disease and everyone will be happier..."
It's an argument that's been around since F.A. Hayek at U of Chicago, and elaborated on by the late Milton Friedman ever since. In fact, Milton Friedman would agree with you, Pepe, as he had no libertarian problem with two chicks getting married.
And Pepe, Milton Friedman or myself would have absolutely no problem if these nice ladies wanted to marry each other. We do think a Rosie O'Donnell-Rosanne Bar union is a bit vulgar, though (how's that for a mental image?).
Apropos your first, MFT, have you been keeping up with what has been occurring in England the last few years?
As for your second, although Milton Friedman would have no problem with Pepe and Kayla doing the Brandon Tango in their own nook, and mouthing whatever sweetbreads their fancy jollied up, I am not sure he would have joined in with the notion of Pepe looking fondly into Kayla's three eyes before a judge or Imam of this land, saying "I do", and getting legal writ of being bound in matrimony.
And if he would, I would in turn disagree strongly with him there.
Why? The essential reason comes down to this: Liberty can be utterly maximized, allowing full license to all appetites and play of the human imagination, only for a very brief moment. It becomes then just the last saturnalia before profoundly barbaric forces bring and end to all notions of liberty but that of the whim of the mighty.
What is needed is a society which is able to sustain life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. To sustain it through time, through many generations, through and to a lasting civilization, against a world full of forces deeply antagonistic to the very idea of individual liberty.
And to be sustained a society has to keep a clear distinction between what is permitted and what is honored. The marriage of man and woman has been, from the earliest known history, one of the great honors of society. It is not a question of license to mate, it is a question of the civilization in which you live saying "there is a good thing. There is the way of life". Whatever ties of friendship bind Le Pew to Le Skank is their business, but to have society be forced bestow it the status of The Good is something completely different.
Yes, I know, why is the marriage of a man and a woman to be considered "a good thing", "the way of life", whereas homosexual or polygamous or polyandric marriages are not to be so considered? A short answer would be that I believe long human experience has shown that dissolving marriage into some amorphous "legal approval for fucking" becomes soon enough deadly to any society that cares deeply about human freedom. This is something Marx fully realized, and why he made the dissolution of the family one of the three central tenets of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat [the other two being the annihilation of the notion of private property, the other being the total power of the dicatatorship].
In truth the answer above is far too short. It is in fact a claim, not an argument. I am prepared to fully engage in that argument, once this summer is past [for many reasons], if Le Pew is capable of putting out arguments beyond the stale slogans of Danny the Red.
Married or not, vulgar is the word. But I don't understand who I am to have an opinion as to whether or not they should wed if they wish to do so.
aa, there is much more to gay marriage than getting the stamp of approval you mention. There is a slew of legal considerations such as access to health care, and estate which are difficult to refuse to people in what one would understand to be a fair society, solely on the basis of their sexual orientation.
your argument is also entirely theoretical and you do not argue as to what impending doom is soon to befall us if the marriage of a few homos were to be legalized. Would you care to explain what mechanism you fear will be triggered by its adoption and what its consequences will be?
here's where i am going with this: without a specific argument as to where the danger lies, amorphous impending societal doom statements have a strange whiff of the interracial marriage calamity of a few years back.
MFT, I am not sure I understand your concern about universal healthcare, particularly in view of the disastrous existing system, but I do believe that those in academia have a sheltered status when it comes to coverage and aren't necessarily aware of how bad things are in the private sector, with coverage ever-shrinking and prices soaring. Perhaps it isn't a good idea to generalize from one's experience, but the coverage I can offer my staff is worse every year (to a point where I just had someone quit over it), and I have no option but to go with the one system in place. Private coverage wouldn't be an option with those with pre-existing conditions.
You example of the socialized coverage dictating people what they should do with their lives isn't what you find in Western Europe (I am not sure whether you are referring to a particular system or whether you are just swallowing the right-wing-manufactured boogey-man).
One thing is for sure: if I had an average income, I would much rather be sick in France than in the US. If I can afford world-class treatment, certain institutions in the US might be preferable but if we aren't talking about medicine, but health coverage, it is difficult to conceive of a poorer system than in the US with ridiculously high prices, limited care (ever got a home visit ? You can get one here for 20 euros extra or so), red tape and exclusions out the wazoo (I don't think there is a word here for "pre-existing condition").
aa, there is much more to gay marriage than getting the stamp of approval you mention. There is a slew of legal considerations such as access to health care, and estate which are difficult to refuse to people in what one would understand to be a fair society, solely on the basis of their sexual orientation.
This is where it gets interesting, because while the economic libertarian Friedman would not object to the consumation of one homosapien to the next, he would be bothered by that consumation providing a door by which others suddenly have access to -- ahem -- "free" healthcare. It's quite the paradox, as the humanist in me says, "Yes, I don't want to see someone in pain and thus want them to have healthcare..." The rational intellectual libertarian counters with, "But how many 'freebees' can any society grant without imploding on itself?" I'm willing to admit my own contradictions and the paradoxes inherent -- to varying degrees -- with a variety of human decisions. To protect individual liberty causes mft to say, "Yes, go marry whomever you want..." However, just because mft says this doesn't mean he's going to stand idle while dogma -- from Imams or wherever -- spreads across the land and planet, unchecked.
As I've said before, David Hume in one hand, and Springfield armory in the other.
Pepe said, You example of the socialized coverage dictating people what they should do with their lives isn't what you find in Western Europe (I am not sure whether you are referring to a particular system or whether you are just swallowing the right-wing-manufactured boogey-man).
Please, Pepe. Please. Don't do that. With the Right Wing Boogey Man kind of stuff. It's incredibly unattractive. I have a very short (if it even exists) record of ascribing these RIGHT WING CAPITALIST PIG or LEFT WING COMMIE PINKO labels to anyone on this board. I'm interested in dialog, period. Now, if you want an example of Western Europe/Great Britain leading the Social Re-Programming, then why did Ireland ban smoking in all public and private establishments before California did? And what about France? Can you smoke anywhere you want there, Pepe? Not from the accounts I read. So no, I'm not basing my observations of ideology. I'm seriously trying to have a conversation about this, without shouting, and am interested in counterpoint if you have it. But if you provide counterpoint, please at least admit the smoking ban is at least one empirical example to the theory I forwarded (the origins coming from Hayek and Friedman and Adam Smith).
I'm always amazed by how ideologues claim to endorse theories they have never -- and I mean NEVER -- read in the original. A minor but related tangent: after seeing the bumper sticker, "Darwin's theory of evolution is like Newton's theory of gravity," I asked the girl driver if she ever read The Descent of Man. I admitted I was on chapter 4. She said, "Is it good?" Inside, I lowered my head in disappointment. Here was her bumper sticker, proclaiming her a Darwinist. Yet she hadn't even cracked the original, let alone Darwin's latest biographer, Edward Wilson. I joked with myself, "Maybe she's waiting for a better English translation..."
Shame, shame, shame on her, and on academia, and on Western Civilization. Shame on me, too, for getting to her only now. We've turned into nothing but a bunch of parrots.
Time lag in response due to 7h difference with the US.
mft - the smoking ban is kind of silly but it has little to do with socialized medicine. As a matter of fact, the only thing wrong with socialized medicine is the terminology, cleverly crafted to conjure up visions of stalinian boots up & down the streets of suburbia.
The only argument I have heard you make against it (and I might have misunderstood your statement) was about the red tape associated with it. As if the same red tape was absent from the US system. In any case it is a small price to pay for healthcare for all.
Now you might make the argument that since wealthy people have access to better education, housing, food, schools for their kids, they might as well also have access to better healthcare and live longer lives. But I think it's kind of cold, particularly in an economy that can afford equality of chances when it comes to life and death. your buddies here understand that this is the sure sign of adherence to stalinism. But it really is the minimum that a civilized society ought to bestow upon its citizens. What does the right to pursuit of happiness mean if those that are poor can't have the same chances to survive as the others?
Time lag in response due to 7h difference with the US.
No worries, there. I still haven't any internet hooked up in my new flat, so I can only occassionally respond when visiting my parents.
...the only thing wrong with socialized medicine is the terminology, cleverly crafted to conjure up visions of stalinian boots up & down the streets of suburbia.
The only argument I have heard you make against it (and I might have misunderstood your statement) was about the red tape associated with it. As if the same red tape was absent from the US system. In any case it is a small price to pay for healthcare for all.
Now you might make the argument that since wealthy people have access to better education, housing, food, schools for their kids, they might as well also have access to better healthcare and live longer lives. But I think it's kind of cold, particularly in an economy that can afford equality of chances when it comes to life and death. your buddies here understand that this is the sure sign of adherence to stalinism. But it really is the minimum that a civilized society ought to bestow upon its citizens. What does the right to pursuit of happiness mean if those that are poor can't have the same chances to survive as the others?
Regardless of the system, there is going to be red tape -- whether it's government or private sector. In my own profession, I act as a private consultant, a liaison between that private sector and public agencies (whether city, county, state or federal). I see private engineers wanting to blow through the red tape, and they use the Big Government as their witching stone: it's the cause of all their problems. This is what happens when the Bigger Picture is lost in the micro and immediate. Last week I logged something like 54 billable hours in a five day span. That was just what I logged, nevermind the professional preparation that just goes with the program. So I talk with state workers, and they say they don't care to work more than 40-45 hours/week. But they do go above and beyond the call quite often (at least in the disciplines of archaeology and history where it's common to work 11-13 hour days for 10 days straight; then two days off; then back to 10 days straight). I'm not saying this to bitch, no sir. But the state and federal government is good at getting us to slow down, because, afterall, Life isn't ultimately about Work (at least not mine). I need my own time to, say, finish Darwin on the weekends; put on a good drunk; or buy that pretty girl a round (not necessarily in that order).
On the Big Government Side, though, they often look disdainfully at my private trade. Here I am trying to look out for all parties interested, and often end up taking that fun mediary position between private and public agencies. The private sector wants it done as quickly as possible while the public sector wants to make certain everything is in order -- everyone is understandably looking out for their own asses; hardwired for selfpreservation and such.
So you can't say there's ONLY red tape with the American predominantely private system and just a streamlined utopia with the French model. Even Michel Houllebeque (your compatriot exiled to Ireland because he did something revolutionary with his novels: he told the truth) would call bullshit on that. And for a time he worked as a bureaucrat for the French government. I think Kafka worked like a mule for the Italian and Bohemian gov'ts, too.
Anyhow, I'd love to talk about how Americans work so much, but as one I need to get back to work.
And no, I don't want to see anyone without medical treatment. And that's not what I'm getting at (and certainly not what I'm trying to convey) when I critique any of the proposed systems, public or private.
so what is your objection ?
Taxation without representation, Pepe. It's an old theme, but I'd much rather donate money on my own terms (I'm speaking as though I have money, ha!) than have the government siphon it off, and then redistribute it. Call me a local donor, or whatever.
In a country that encourages us to MAKE MORE MONEY! it's often easy to forget the willingness of private donors. They are often unnoticed.
Extraneous question: have you ever found the time to check out one of Houllebeque's books? Such shit literature out there today, that it's unusual to see someone still being thoughtful with their words. Check him out sometime if you get a chance, Pepe.
I have read two of Houellebecq's. les particules elementaires & extension du domaine de la lutte.
Is the latter title "Platform"? (in English translation anyhow) I'm good enough with English and etymology these days where I can take in a French Lemonde article and understand about 75% of it. Maybe I ought to give more works a go of it in the original?
Anyhow, any impressions of Houllebeque? Death, sex, and Islam? Mortality, penetration and Militant Religion are real good conversational topics for the Christmas Eve or Thanksgiving dinner table.
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