On the Tyranny of Many
“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”
– C. S. Lewis
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Hmmmm…I wonder if that has any implications for the current administration. <sarcasm>Probably not.</sarcasm>
Current and previous. Both stripped liberties from the people. Both did so “for our own good”. And we cheered them as they did it.
I’m actually nearly certain Obama’s administration will be subtly worse than Bush’s, as not only does he favor the standard liberal incursions into constitutional rights, but he’s backtracking to the point of reversing his position on the abolishment of the neocons’ favored incursions as well!
THANK YOU for saying this! I’m so glad I’m not the only one who has been thinking this lately. We’re not coming home from Iraq … none of the programs that violated the 4th amendment have been discontinued … democrats in the Senate killed Ron Paul’s bill to audit the Federal Reserve …
The two parties are one in the same. If I ever doubted it before, those doubts are certainly gone now. As you said, when we change leadership, nothing gets reverted, and new encroachments are introduced. You would be hard pressed to find an administration in the past 100 years of which this is not true.
I suppose one can only hope that Obama (his administration and sidekicks in the Congress) go SO far that it actually pisses off regular people. If the stars align, the right candidate comes along, and enough people are pissed off, we might just have a good chance for a new revolution of philosophy in Washington.
Nathan, you’re a programmer, so you understand systems. You understand the difference between the idea and the implementation. I believe that some ideas are good, some bad. The implementation of most ideas (on all sides) seem to be faulty, ie, Bush AND Obama. The problem is with an unchecked free market tycoons, the Wall Street guys, because they are frauds. A free market needs regulation: no lying, no deception, no coercion, free participation (or not), all relevant info available to both parties, among other things. Reading Adam Smith’s book: The Wealth of Nations, he tells that publicly funded education is a requirement to a capitalist society.
Any libertarian worth his salt knows the rule of law is vital to a free society. Freedom can’t be unbridled, but the limitations should be reasonable and few. Of course we have to punish fraud and theft. But we can’t protect people from making bad decisions.
I’m not an anti-regulation guy … I just don’t want the regulations to be unreasonable (or unconstitutional). Punish fraud, deception, theft, etc. I’m all for that. But I’m afraid that this isn’t enough for some people. Some people think it’s immoral for credit card companies to charge 30% interest. I say they have a right to charge me 30% interest, and I have a right to never use their card. That’s economic liberty.
What they shouldn’t be allowed to do is contractually agree to 10% interest, then jack it up to 30% on my balance without telling me. That’s fraud.
Agreed, I just want people to know not to defend fraud because they’re confused about their right to charge 30%. Its the deliberate calculated deception that pisses me off about those credit card companies and mortgage lenders. I think we agree on that. I’d like them to use our tax money to get those criminals rather then waste it on wars.