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I was about to revise it and add that! Creepy.

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republican nut
Mon, Jun 8th, 2009 @ 12:24pm

hey. socialists arent very common. glad to see another intelligent left wing advocate on the site...other than myself. id like to think of myself as a trapped in the closet socialist myself.lol

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xdt84x Democratic,
Tue, Sep 15th, 2009 @ 02:08pm

Finally a breath of fresh air in this place. How you doing sir?

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37 friends

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An excellent and poignant post.

However, I have to disagree with your main premise. If I am reading you correctly, you have characterized the right-left divide in this country as being a struggle between socialism vs. freedom. I wish that were true, because it would be a far better and optimistic appraisal of the situation.

I believe that it is not a matter of the Left (people who want freedom from want) vs. the Right (people who want liberty). It is a matter of the Left vs. Right, except the following: the Left wants to use the state to achieve their specific moral ends and the Right wants to use the state to achieve their specific moral ends. It is really a matter of version "A" control versus version "B" control. The result, ironically, is that neither side gets what they want. The result is that the most well-connected and powerful get access to the bloated power of the state - we get corporatism. The press sells this debate as Left vs. Right as if it were actually being played out in the halls of Congress and in the White House. It is all about power and maintaining power.

There are good signs, though they are few and far between. Ron Paul's Audit the Fed bill is getting very close to being put up for a vote in the House. The Fed is really at the heart of all of these issues. It is the oil for the machine, to be sure.

However, I predict that things will have to get far worse before people in really large numbers start to react strongly. The Tea Party movement has signs of encouragement, but I have also seen really bad signs coming from these protesters, such as people saying "get the government off my Social Security", etc. Many of them also seem to be advocating a lot of what I referred to as version "B" control. That's not any better than version "A".

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Your first sentence distinguishes Freedom from Want, and Freedom from Coercion. That contrast embodies quite nicely what you wrote. Problem with the first, freedom from want, is an expectation for a collective everyone to readily provide those wants, rather than the want satisfied through personal effort. Had we, US, been not so busy freeing ourselves from want during the past several decades ("The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not." – Thomas Jefferson), perhaps we would have been containing our government. ("The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases." – Thomas Jefferson) thereby guarding our freedom against coercion.

"We should oppose such a consolidation of power in the hands of ANY party, ANY President or any small group of unaccountable people who think they can make decisions for 300 million people better than we can for ourselves." That s a good quote, too, Freedommm/

It strikes me that the change in relationship between individuals and their government referred to, are exaggerated (in contrast to the past several decades) by the Community Organization experience. Considering his academic background and associations it is reasonable to opine that the president really believes it a good idea for government to look after our every want, in exchange for the power to make every decision in our lives, thereby reducing our freedom from coercion. (I'm trying to decide if he really believes it, or is just in the elite Have group wanting more power.)

The quotes in the closing paragraph are well worth writing on the wall. Seems our representative form of government is morphing into a big Community. In a recent presidential address an invite to "join the Community of Nations" was extended. The skill of a Community Organization, to readily organize a community, US, can readily bring freedom from want at the expense of freedom from coercion. Those are good words, Freedommm.

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Well written observation.

"Feed a starving man a fish and you feed him but once; teach that starving man how to fish and you feed him for the rest of his life."

Those who want freedom from want must learn that they should not seek a solution to their wants in seizing the property of others: "No man should remedy his own misfortunes by harming another." (Marcvs Tvllivs Cicero, "DE.OFFICIIS" [On Duties], 44 B.C.). By empowering the government to seize the rights and property of their neighbors they likewise empower the government to seize their own property and rights.

Those who are already free from want and support this folly reduce those in need into a state of perpetual dependency and render them into a class of parasites living off of the sweat of others. From this they derive power as their dependents have no option to but to obey and take the pittance they receive from fear of its loss.

By feeding that starving man a fish they own him. They then deride as cruel and selfish those who who want to teach him how to fish instead.

Their choice is slavery of dependency, or independence through knowledge and work.

They have chosen.

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How interesting that Limbaugh would state this when the conservative movement is the forerunner of trying to legislate morality to the masses. Did he forget who he represents or maybe just who he is.

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When one of the main components to conservatism is passing laws to teach abstinence only in schools, passing laws to make all abortions illegal, passing laws to teach ID or creation in schools. Pray tell is that not legislating morality?

Thinking of my own side and projecting? Really? I'm not the type to tell others how they need to live and how stupid the other party as a whole is.

You make a mistake in the assumptions department. Encouraging one to do something and then getting upset when they don't do it is the same as forcing your will on others just in a passive way. Making it so there is no other alternative is the core of conservatism. Do it God's way or don't do it at all. Embrace capitalism or we will mock you and try to humiliate you by forcing others to believe you are an enemy of the state. Don't help others before you help yourself. Prohibition. The war on drugs. How we react to inhuman acts that other countries do to their citizens not ours. Etc, etc, etc, etc.... Like I said: Conservatives would love to legislate their morality upon everyone. It's those that are intelligent enough to see past that and think for themselves.

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