(11-11-2018, 01:43 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: We seem tp have two people who want and are pushing for different things. To some extent, they speak for the many, and they represent the demonization, the speaking past each other.
Many on both the libertarian and red fronts will speak of freedom. As much as possible, the government should do as little as possible to not limit the freedom of the people. Freedom can easily be treated as a virtue. To a good extent freedom is something to be sought, something that many seek.
If anything, government at its best facilitates freedom, including prudent risk-taking. If I fear being hit by a car, then I might not cross the street. Ability to cross the street may allow me (in some places) an opportunity in which to transact business.
Quote:Freedom does not guarantee the ability to harm others. Freedom ends as soon as you might hurt another. In Pbower's road example, no one is proposing an end to the right to travel. Some will advocate an to attempt to travel safely. The federal, state and local governments that have built and maintained roads have also attempted to police them. The try to prevent among other things speeding, the running of traffic lights, and driving under the influence. In general, they correctly limit the freedom of travel to prevent folks from driving irresponsibly, from doing harm to others.
Indeed. Even in medieval times, governments sought, arrested, and executed the highwayman who robbed the merchants of the time. Governments established laws that prohibited people from selling stolen goods and had courts to determine ownership of property from goods in transit to land. It is worth remembering that even the institution of property that is essential to libertarian theory is itself a creation of government. Even such environmental laws are protection of the property of others. I obviously have no right to dump mercury, arsenic, cyanide, or dioxin into a stream that is someone else's water supply because others have a right to use that stream as a water supply. I also have no right to vent a large quantity of hydrogen sulfide (a highly-toxic gas) into someone else's airspace.
Quote:In general, I can advocate both things in spite of the apparent conflict. Freedom is good. It is right to limit the ability of the government to restrict the freedom of anybody. If government restricts, raise a red flag. I would lower it however when you can see the possible harm to others. It is correct for government to attempt to limit harm to its people.
It is also possible to work for the general welfare. They are supposed to be doing just that.
But back to the enhancement of liberty through the government: ignorance, hunger, mental illness, gross exploitation, criminal victimization, and debilitating disease do not constitute freedom. Weak government typical of the feudal era could do little about such except to leave the clergy to tell people that all of those were the Will of God. Government that fails to relieve people of such things is either ineffective or perverse.
Quote:And I would attempt to do this while minimizing demonization. I would not paint someone advocating either freedom or the prevention of harm with a harsh brush. It is possible to recognize noble intent of what other extremists are trying to advocate.
The line between positive rights and negative rights is thin, of course.
Quote:Yet, we are in the habit of demonizing. In the Industrial Age, violence was generally necessary to resolve conflicts. This may no longer be the case, but here we are painting those who disagree as the enemy. We are doing nigh on as much as we can to treat them as the enemy, to justify the use of murder against them. We are seeing too much violence. We should stop.
I have no desire to be an Inquisitor. We need remember that democracy implies the right to debate economic realities, but not the right to a result. To say as libertarians seem to, that people have all sorts of personal rights except to challenge some economic ideal is to compromise democracy without good reason. Governments must levy taxes so that they can do what governments decide.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.