Why is freedom such a hard sell?

Most people view their own self interest as at least a bit sacred.

 

I am going to chalk this up to "I have no idea what the third choice would be ".

 

My favorite is cutting hair without a license. Keep in mind, I can have liability insurance, business license, wheelchair ramps, etc.. Yet, if I don't have a license to cut hair, then I am up creek as far as revenue for my barber shop.

There are thousands of similar issues.

 

I think you are waaaaaay off on this.

I think you don't understand the argument at all. Go read post #41. It is a pretty good place to start clearing the fog.

I would say that you are currently part of the problem. You can remedy that.

 

Please list the alternate choices so that we may discuss those as well.

 

I am sure that those in which he is dependent upon would argue against their enslavement if forced to subsidize Mr. Dependent's existence.

 

IMO, the OP is right on. It is the basic question of the ages.. the choice that is ALWAYS before us.

The contest for ages has been to rescue liberty from the grasp of executive power. ~Daniel Webster

There has never been but one question in all civilization-how to keep a few men from saying to many men: You work and earn bread and we will eat it. ~Abraham Lincoln

The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire. The former are idealists acting from highest motives for the greatest good of the greatest number. The latter are surly curmudgeons, suspicious and lacking in altruism." ~Robert A. Heinlein

 

So, you willingly admit that those that wish to impose tyranny have actually managed to seize control of the US, and those of us supporting liberty must seek an alternate geographic location to restart the grand experiment?

 

It seems that a movement towards an agricultural approach to society is used in the US in a tandem approach by the ruling class, elected officials and government bureaucrats. It is almost like the discussion surrounding the origin of the modern dog. Did man abduct puppies and through breeding develop man's best friend, or was early man an easy source of food eventually leading to an evolution into a subservient relationship of wolf to man? I don't find that to be the compelling discussion. Regardless of origin, is the modern dog a more successful species than its wolf ancestors?

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It is mob rule.

 

Right. Jack Nicholson said as much in Easy Rider.

 

They submit in exchange for the scraps not consumed by the political class administering the entitlements.. They are virtually powerless.

 

Well, since the modern dog drags his human around the park on the end of a rope, forcing his human to collect his feces in little baggies, then gets served his dinner in a silver bowl before lounging on the sofa, I'd opine that the modern dog is far more successful than the wolf ancestors, in almost every aspect except for one: reproduction (snip! snip!).

 

Now you're catching on.

 

The bourgeoisie cannot be overthrown without first dismantling the state, yes, but bourgeois resurgence is a serious danger for a time afterwards. They will struggle to regain power, and for that a workers' state is necessary.

Classes enslave people. Government is a tool of the class system.

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The tests will be abused. We implemented that before, and it was used to make deliberately impossible tests so that even the most educated person to walk into the building could be failed if they happened to be black.

I think that people who take part in politics should be educated on these topics, but I think that this would be better accomplished by improving public education than by making a test mandatory to vote.

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I'm free to choose to get shot rather than give up my wallet to a mugger. If you claimed that was a free choice, you would still be stupid.

Similarly, that's freedom only by the most deliberately obtuse interpretation of the word. It's still coercion, the threat is merely indirect. It's more heinous than direct violence, because direct violence doesn't give the illusion of freedom and people are quicker to rebel against it.

 

Examples?


What would you put in place of government?

 

I agree with you here. I should have couched my comment by "in a perfect world"

My test would consist of such basics that only the most illiterate and intellectually challenged could fail. The real purpose would be to educate folks in the basics.

I agree. What should be mandatory is that the aforementioned basics should be taught in school. Instead it seems that most or all forms of these basics have been eliminated from the curriculum.

I would really like to hear from an Education professional what their argument is for (through 12 years of school) not teaching kids the basics in "how to think for themselves" - What constitutes a valid argument, logical fallacy and so on.

 

You want to know why teachers don't teach students how to think for themselves?

think about that for a second... or two...

 

Where did I say that?

My post just proposed that freedom is a limited quantity, and, thus absolute freedom is not attainable. Like everything, there is a large grey area between absolute freedom and absolute tyranny. Neither of these two extremes are desirable, although the libertarians, like the OP, always dream of the former and try to impose that ideal of a society on everyone else.

Americans have the luxury of dreaming of freedom because the population density is low. That's not a common, nor sustainable condition. Try to move to Bangladesh or the Gaza strip and talk about freedom then, when people live on top of each other in these places. Our government "tyranny", prohibiting people to pollute the environment as they wish, or enforcing property law, is mild compared to those places.

 

What inherently limits freedom?

 

Whoa, whoa.

When I wrote "you" I meant a generic "you", a dummy pronoun (i.e. "one") not you personally. It's not my fault that colloquial English doesn't have enough pronouns. Read my post as "when one considers" then.

 

Obviously I have my theories, having thought about this issue for much more than a second or two. The first thing that pops into mind is that ignorant sheep are easier to control.

My question however, was directed towards how an educational professional would respond.

 

Ya ya... I did not take it as a personal "YOU"

Your post seemed to be responding to a bunch of stuff that my post did not contain and that was why I was confused.

 

I was just criticising the liberal idea of freedom for not considering the notions of the varying "values" of freedom or of collective freedom.

 

You are pathetically naïve. The workers party, once in power will become the ruling party. You have the example of a thousand revolutions to prove that fact. Not once has power not corrupted a government once it was established, not once.

It is government which give the wealth their power over the working class.

 

Sounds like you are trolling for a teacher to admit that they are part of a teacher's lounge conspiracy to not teach kids logic because they want to keep their students dumb and numb.

That is your theory, yes?