That's a nice post. That seems kind of simplified, though. I think the US government, right now, is top heavy with Liberty. And I mean that in the way that you describe the root of Libertarianism.
Depends on how you look at it. Relative to other nations, is Liberty a priority in America? Sure. Relative to Libertarian standards, is Liberty a priority in America? No way.
Depends on how you look at it. Relative to other nations, is Liberty a priority in America? Sure. Relative to Libertarian standards, is Liberty a priority in America? No way.
Then you're outmanaging your own government management with that thinking. "Liberty" comes up in election years as a sort of nice side dish, true, but, it is this LAND that our Federal government manages that is really at the root of it all, not liberty. America is a big country, and most of us want to keep it that way. Do you?
This blog was just posted to an Objectivist thread I subscribe to, and I thought I'd repost it here considering the discussion over the last few hours and the fact that its content is primarily Libertarian:
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Soft Pedaling Coercion
by Tibor Machan
Those of us who travel by air have probably come across those announcements in airports about how smoking is forbidden. If airports were private facilities, I would have no problem with this. And, in fact, since I don’t smoke, I am not personally put out by those bans, either.
What is, however, very irksome is that most of the announcements pretend to be requests. This is evident from how they end, namely, with “Your cooperation is much appreciated,” “We thank you for your cooperation,” or some such thing. And this clearly is a ruse, since when something is a government mandate, cooperation is not relevant. Compliance is.
When people cooperate, they do this only voluntarily. They freely take part in an endeavor with others who also do it of their own free will. That’s what cooperation involves.
When, however, one is ordered by the police or some other government agency that has the legal option to back its order with force, one has no option but to go along. Otherwise one will be fined and if one resists, one can even be shot. Instead of refusal or cooperation, what one faces is resistance or compliance. And the former can come at a very high price.
At commercial airports, for example, one may not even voice one’s negative opinions about, say, the conduct of the TSA personnel. Not long ago I mumbled something under my breath as one of the more eager-beaver uniformed TSA officials ordered me to remove my sandals — I was annoyed since TSA demands this in some but not in other airports.
Sure enough, the official heard my indistinct utterance and wanted to have me repeat it so as to learn whether it was anything critical of TSA. I refused to repeat myself and, fortunately, wasn’t bothered further. But had I said anything at which the TSA official took offense, I could have been barred from boarding my flight.
In any case, why don’t those announcements come right out and order people and stop pretending to be making a civilized request of passengers? Why the “Thank you for your cooperation” when, in fact, the officials care not a whit about our cooperation, only about our compliance?
My suspicion is that this pretense at dealing with passengers as if their cooperation mattered comes from the TSA’s and similar agencies’ awareness that all this ordering us about is a bit odd in what is often proclaimed to be a free country. (This is also why some people who support taxation keep insisting that in some convoluted fashion paying taxes is done voluntarily.)
I do not have the resources for it but I would be willing to bet a sizable sum that a systematic study of this kind of behavior on the part of government officials would show that they want it both ways, issuing their orders and pretending that those aren’t orders but requests. So as to disguise that they are involved in regimenting millions of supposedly sovereign citizens, these officials and their spin doctors sugarcoat the policy with euphemisms and outright linguistic distortions.
Maybe I am making too much of this but my impression is that this fits the picture of a society slowly but surely transforming itself from being relatively free to one where the population will pretty much be regimented in most realms of life.
If we can be convinced that following orders at the point of a gun amounts to cooperation, then the police state implications of these policies might be successfully hidden from us. Never mind that in the process the English language itself is being corrupted.
One reason I tend to be on alert about this kind of government behavior is that where I lived in my childhood, in a communist state, the practice of Orwellian language-corruption was rampant. Slavery was called “freedom,” one party rule was called “democracy,” coerced marches were called “parades,” and so forth.
I suppose when you have been through that, you become rather skilled at perceiving similar tendencies even while others may simply dismiss them as innocent misuses of words. I suspect they are anything but.
This blog was just posted to an Objectivist thread I subscribe to, and I thought I'd repost it here considering the discussion over the last few hours and the fact that its content is primarily Libertarian:
+
+
Soft Pedaling Coercion
by Tibor Machan
Those of us who travel by air have probably come across those announcements in airports about how smoking is forbidden. If airports were private facilities, I would have no problem with this. And, in fact, since I don’t smoke, I am not personally put out by those bans, either.
What is, however, very irksome is that most of the announcements pretend to be requests. This is evident from how they end, namely, with “Your cooperation is much appreciated,” “We thank you for your cooperation,” or some such thing. And this clearly is a ruse, since when something is a government mandate, cooperation is not relevant. Compliance is.
When people cooperate, they do this only voluntarily. They freely take part in an endeavor with others who also do it of their own free will. That’s what cooperation involves.
When, however, one is ordered by the police or some other government agency that has the legal option to back its order with force, one has no option but to go along. Otherwise one will be fined and if one resists, one can even be shot. Instead of refusal or cooperation, what one faces is resistance or compliance. And the former can come at a very high price.
At commercial airports, for example, one may not even voice one’s negative opinions about, say, the conduct of the TSA personnel. Not long ago I mumbled something under my breath as one of the more eager-beaver uniformed TSA officials ordered me to remove my sandals — I was annoyed since TSA demands this in some but not in other airports.
Sure enough, the official heard my indistinct utterance and wanted to have me repeat it so as to learn whether it was anything critical of TSA. I refused to repeat myself and, fortunately, wasn’t bothered further. But had I said anything at which the TSA official took offense, I could have been barred from boarding my flight.
In any case, why don’t those announcements come right out and order people and stop pretending to be making a civilized request of passengers? Why the “Thank you for your cooperation” when, in fact, the officials care not a whit about our cooperation, only about our compliance?
My suspicion is that this pretense at dealing with passengers as if their cooperation mattered comes from the TSA’s and similar agencies’ awareness that all this ordering us about is a bit odd in what is often proclaimed to be a free country. (This is also why some people who support taxation keep insisting that in some convoluted fashion paying taxes is done voluntarily.)
I do not have the resources for it but I would be willing to bet a sizable sum that a systematic study of this kind of behavior on the part of government officials would show that they want it both ways, issuing their orders and pretending that those aren’t orders but requests. So as to disguise that they are involved in regimenting millions of supposedly sovereign citizens, these officials and their spin doctors sugarcoat the policy with euphemisms and outright linguistic distortions.
Maybe I am making too much of this but my impression is that this fits the picture of a society slowly but surely transforming itself from being relatively free to one where the population will pretty much be regimented in most realms of life.
If we can be convinced that following orders at the point of a gun amounts to cooperation, then the police state implications of these policies might be successfully hidden from us. Never mind that in the process the English language itself is being corrupted.
One reason I tend to be on alert about this kind of government behavior is that where I lived in my childhood, in a communist state, the practice of Orwellian language-corruption was rampant. Slavery was called “freedom,” one party rule was called “democracy,” coerced marches were called “parades,” and so forth.
I suppose when you have been through that, you become rather skilled at perceiving similar tendencies even while others may simply dismiss them as innocent misuses of words. I suspect they are anything but.
Fair enough. But if that's the case, we better be open to the idea of society being less than it's parts, or even completely non-existent.
Oh, it is. There is not very much doubt on that. Exactly what it is, is very much up for debate.
Newspeak is not euphamistic. Newspeak is when the application of a word destroys its definition. "War is peace" is newspeak for that reason. "Property is theft" is newspeak for that reason. The common socialistic applications of the terms "cooperation" and "contract" are newspeak. Neo-conservative applications of the term "compassion" are newspeak.
"Market value" is not newspeak, since both values and markets are upheld and required by the application of the term. And to say "market value" is almost to say "the rich will pay what they see fit". More accurately, however, it is "anyone will pay what they see fit". The poor are not somehow immune from market value considerations in their purchases or sales -- they simply make less of them. Certainly a poor man in America will not sell his labor for $.01 / day -- he understand the market value of his labor and that salary. He might, however, sell his labor for $25 / day based on the same considerations. A socialist would call this robbery. I'd simply ask what is being stolen?
Well, the way the word "market" and related concepts are used these days, if compared to the ideal types I know you have presented before, I can't see how it can not be newspeak. You have also an ideal type of market value. All very well and good. However, where today do you find pure, undistorted markets? Where do you find markets where the actors dont use or try to use their market share to control the market 'till it fits them? Given that context, removing all regulation and what have you and give it all up to the market to fairly distribute, how long will it take for the market to be dictated by those with power both physical and economical? How long till those with the capital is calling the shots by virtue of their market share alone? It may be viewed as a mere transition of power from one place to another, and that may be true. However, I am far more comfortable with democratic organizations calling the shots, rather than profit-maximizing hierarcic corporations and business leaders who in no way have to care about anything but their own objectives.
They are different ways of looking at it. However, Libertarians would simply counter the above by questioning what your idea of "welfare" truly is, and at what cost it would come.
I would gladly expound on what I think welfare is, and what it will cost. I happen to think it is well worth the price.
Anyway, we're down to detail bickering really. That, or we really blow this place up with text.
Peace
Dan
"YOU [humans] NEED TO BELIEVE IN THINGS THAT AREN'T TRUE. HOW ELSE CAN THEY BECOME?" - Death
"Every judgment teeters on the brink of error. To claim absolute knowledge is to become monstrous. Knowledge is an unending adventure at the edge of uncertainty." - Frank Herbert, Dune, 1965
Well, the way the word "market" and related concepts are used these days, if compared to the ideal types I know you have presented before, I can't see how it can not be newspeak.
Now this I can get on board with. For example, yesterday I heard a politician extol the virtues of "market forces" while discussing a "privatization" plan his state had concocted to provide welfare services. Since this plan was the granting of a monopoly and supported by stolen property, he was very much a newspeaker.
However, where today do you find pure, undistorted markets?
Black markets, of course. Places where people produce and exchange goods outside the direct auspices of government. Few "pure, undistorted markets" exist outside of basic barter though, since even in a black market one can introduce the indirect effects of government.
Where do you find markets where the actors dont use or try to use their market share to control the market 'till it fits them?
Please expound on this. How is using one's market share to affect the market a bad thing, by default?
Given that context, removing all regulation and what have you and give it all up to the market to fairly distribute, how long will it take for the market to be dictated by those with power both physical and economical?
I'm not sure I understand this question. It sounds like you're asking "why try to stop a rapist when there is another behind him?"
How long till those with the capital is calling the shots by virtue of their market share alone?
Exactly at the point that the market believes capital is static, of course.
Please expound on this. How is using one's market share to affect the market a bad thing, by default?
I'm not saying it is by default, but it lies wide open for abuse.
I'm not sure I understand this question. It sounds like you're asking "why try to stop a rapist when there is another behind him?"
That's a bit over the top dramatic way of putting it aint it?
Anyway, I am saying that the way I see it, the current democratic order seems better to me than an undemocratic order decided solely by resources and money. If the goal is to get rid of the opression, I say it won't work, other than move that oppressive power to undemocratic hegemonic businessmen.
Anyway, it seems you get what I'm saying, since this was all you commented on. We don't agree, of course, but that's hardly a surprise.
Peace
Dan
"YOU [humans] NEED TO BELIEVE IN THINGS THAT AREN'T TRUE. HOW ELSE CAN THEY BECOME?" - Death
"Every judgment teeters on the brink of error. To claim absolute knowledge is to become monstrous. Knowledge is an unending adventure at the edge of uncertainty." - Frank Herbert, Dune, 1965
Comments
Depends on how you look at it. Relative to other nations, is Liberty a priority in America? Sure. Relative to Libertarian standards, is Liberty a priority in America? No way.
Then you're outmanaging your own government management with that thinking. "Liberty" comes up in election years as a sort of nice side dish, true, but, it is this LAND that our Federal government manages that is really at the root of it all, not liberty. America is a big country, and most of us want to keep it that way. Do you?
all posts by ©gue_barium are protected under US copyright law and are not to be reproduced, exchanged or sold
except by express written permission of ©gue_barium, the author.
all posts by ©gue_barium are protected under US copyright law and are not to be reproduced, exchanged or sold
except by express written permission of ©gue_barium, the author.
+
+
Soft Pedaling Coercion
by Tibor Machan
Those of us who travel by air have probably come across those announcements in airports about how smoking is forbidden. If airports were private facilities, I would have no problem with this. And, in fact, since I don’t smoke, I am not personally put out by those bans, either.
What is, however, very irksome is that most of the announcements pretend to be requests. This is evident from how they end, namely, with “Your cooperation is much appreciated,” “We thank you for your cooperation,” or some such thing. And this clearly is a ruse, since when something is a government mandate, cooperation is not relevant. Compliance is.
When people cooperate, they do this only voluntarily. They freely take part in an endeavor with others who also do it of their own free will. That’s what cooperation involves.
When, however, one is ordered by the police or some other government agency that has the legal option to back its order with force, one has no option but to go along. Otherwise one will be fined and if one resists, one can even be shot. Instead of refusal or cooperation, what one faces is resistance or compliance. And the former can come at a very high price.
At commercial airports, for example, one may not even voice one’s negative opinions about, say, the conduct of the TSA personnel. Not long ago I mumbled something under my breath as one of the more eager-beaver uniformed TSA officials ordered me to remove my sandals — I was annoyed since TSA demands this in some but not in other airports.
Sure enough, the official heard my indistinct utterance and wanted to have me repeat it so as to learn whether it was anything critical of TSA. I refused to repeat myself and, fortunately, wasn’t bothered further. But had I said anything at which the TSA official took offense, I could have been barred from boarding my flight.
In any case, why don’t those announcements come right out and order people and stop pretending to be making a civilized request of passengers? Why the “Thank you for your cooperation” when, in fact, the officials care not a whit about our cooperation, only about our compliance?
My suspicion is that this pretense at dealing with passengers as if their cooperation mattered comes from the TSA’s and similar agencies’ awareness that all this ordering us about is a bit odd in what is often proclaimed to be a free country. (This is also why some people who support taxation keep insisting that in some convoluted fashion paying taxes is done voluntarily.)
I do not have the resources for it but I would be willing to bet a sizable sum that a systematic study of this kind of behavior on the part of government officials would show that they want it both ways, issuing their orders and pretending that those aren’t orders but requests. So as to disguise that they are involved in regimenting millions of supposedly sovereign citizens, these officials and their spin doctors sugarcoat the policy with euphemisms and outright linguistic distortions.
Maybe I am making too much of this but my impression is that this fits the picture of a society slowly but surely transforming itself from being relatively free to one where the population will pretty much be regimented in most realms of life.
If we can be convinced that following orders at the point of a gun amounts to cooperation, then the police state implications of these policies might be successfully hidden from us. Never mind that in the process the English language itself is being corrupted.
One reason I tend to be on alert about this kind of government behavior is that where I lived in my childhood, in a communist state, the practice of Orwellian language-corruption was rampant. Slavery was called “freedom,” one party rule was called “democracy,” coerced marches were called “parades,” and so forth.
I suppose when you have been through that, you become rather skilled at perceiving similar tendencies even while others may simply dismiss them as innocent misuses of words. I suspect they are anything but.
the defiant rebel ruse.
woohoo. i love james dean.
with a cigarrette hanging out of his mouth.
like it meant something.
all posts by ©gue_barium are protected under US copyright law and are not to be reproduced, exchanged or sold
except by express written permission of ©gue_barium, the author.
juvenilistic.
all posts by ©gue_barium are protected under US copyright law and are not to be reproduced, exchanged or sold
except by express written permission of ©gue_barium, the author.
Well, the way the word "market" and related concepts are used these days, if compared to the ideal types I know you have presented before, I can't see how it can not be newspeak. You have also an ideal type of market value. All very well and good. However, where today do you find pure, undistorted markets? Where do you find markets where the actors dont use or try to use their market share to control the market 'till it fits them? Given that context, removing all regulation and what have you and give it all up to the market to fairly distribute, how long will it take for the market to be dictated by those with power both physical and economical? How long till those with the capital is calling the shots by virtue of their market share alone? It may be viewed as a mere transition of power from one place to another, and that may be true. However, I am far more comfortable with democratic organizations calling the shots, rather than profit-maximizing hierarcic corporations and business leaders who in no way have to care about anything but their own objectives.
I would gladly expound on what I think welfare is, and what it will cost. I happen to think it is well worth the price.
Anyway, we're down to detail bickering really. That, or we really blow this place up with text.
Peace
Dan
"Every judgment teeters on the brink of error. To claim absolute knowledge is to become monstrous. Knowledge is an unending adventure at the edge of uncertainty." - Frank Herbert, Dune, 1965
Now this I can get on board with. For example, yesterday I heard a politician extol the virtues of "market forces" while discussing a "privatization" plan his state had concocted to provide welfare services. Since this plan was the granting of a monopoly and supported by stolen property, he was very much a newspeaker.
Black markets, of course. Places where people produce and exchange goods outside the direct auspices of government. Few "pure, undistorted markets" exist outside of basic barter though, since even in a black market one can introduce the indirect effects of government.
Please expound on this. How is using one's market share to affect the market a bad thing, by default?
I'm not sure I understand this question. It sounds like you're asking "why try to stop a rapist when there is another behind him?"
Exactly at the point that the market believes capital is static, of course.
That's a bit over the top dramatic way of putting it aint it?
Anyway, I am saying that the way I see it, the current democratic order seems better to me than an undemocratic order decided solely by resources and money. If the goal is to get rid of the opression, I say it won't work, other than move that oppressive power to undemocratic hegemonic businessmen.
Anyway, it seems you get what I'm saying, since this was all you commented on. We don't agree, of course, but that's hardly a surprise.
Peace
Dan
"Every judgment teeters on the brink of error. To claim absolute knowledge is to become monstrous. Knowledge is an unending adventure at the edge of uncertainty." - Frank Herbert, Dune, 1965
http://www.lpboulder.com/quotes/ while loosing precious time over the internet.