The Freedom To Make Bad Decisions
Alternate Title: Libertarians and Puritans
I am typically a pretty concrete writer. I write about things I have done, things I am doing or the like. I am far more likely to be talk about how to pack a bag, ways to get in shape or how to improve your finances than some philosophical or political stuff. These are my strengths and the things that typically interest me so I play to them. Today we are going in a whole other direction. I posted a picture recently (probably a couple weeks or even months by the time this posts)that basically said if you don’t want people telling you what to do don’t try to tell them what to do and it brought a lot of discussion. I replied to folks in the comments section but it got me thinking.
The thing about freedom is that it isn’t just about good decisions. In fact I would argue that it is mostly about bad ones. Also there is the thorny issue of which omnipotent power decides what exactly constitutes a good decision and what gives them the right to tell anybody else what to do.
Everywhere you go there is some darn politician or expert who wants to be able to tell people what to do. Now I like experts. I have a money person, a weight training person, a conditioning person, some tactical training people, etc. The thing is that I choose to solicit their advice and follow it if I want to, for as long as I want to. If someone wants to tell me what I HAVE TO DO that is an issue for me.
Who the hell do they think they are? Why are they so inherently superior to me that they can tell me what I have to do? If their argument was actually convincing I will probably have gone along in the first place and they wouldn’t need a regulation or a law at all. I don’t think anybody has my best interests at heart more than I do. More to the point if I am doing something that isn’t clinically and scientifically perfect but I really enjoy it then why should they get to tell me that I can’t? It could be smoking or drinking or eating ice cream or whatever. If I want to spend my time and money on something to try and bring some enjoyment or happiness to my life it really isn’t anybodies business.
Look at the First Amendment to our Constitution, freedom of speech and religion and a bunch of other stuff. You never hear about a freedom of speech case where a nice woman said something polite to her friend. Freedom of speech is about Larry Flint offending just about everyone and the Westborough Baptist “church” spewing ignorant hate at military funerals. These things are offensive to any reasonable person.
Not many people would like to have Larry Flint over for Sunday family dinner. Pretty much everybody hates that “church” full of idiotic hate mongers. If 20 rough men with ax handles showed up at their next funeral protest and cracked some skulls I would be fine with that, and I don’t think I would be alone. The thing is that the freedoms built into our governmental protect those idiots. This is a good thing. It is built on centuries of accumulated customs and philosophy which culminated in the great nation of America. Really if you want to get deeper I believe these rights come from God.
The point of freedom is that you can do what you want unless it infringes on somebody else directly. Not “well studies show” or “second order effects of” or “society” but directly. Obviously Rapist Jim’s desire to rape doesn’t allow him to infringe on Suzie’s right not to be raped. More to the point as long as I am not threatening, menacing or vulgar I can tell anybody what I think of them at any time.
I can quit my job and start hitchhiking around the country like some 50’s beatnik. If I could physically do it I could smoke a whole carton of cigarettes in a day. I can wear my shoes on the wrong feet and tap dance in the rain. I can borrow money I know I shouldn’t for stuff I don’t need.
All of the things I talked about are stupid. Quitting my job to chain smoke cigarettes and hitchhike around the country tap dancing in the rain while running up a huge visa bill would be stupid all around. The point simply put is that it is my life and I am free to do with it what I wish, good, negligible or bad.
I can bust my hump, save like crazy, start a business, invest wisely and then make huge money or I can get a shack in the woods, have a still and some chickens and get drunk in a hammock during the summer and a recliner in the winter. It is my life to do with what I wish.
The thing about freedom is that it doesn’t mean freedom from consequences. I am free to tell a 6’8” 400 pound biker covered in prison tattoos that black leather and motorcycles are just a sad cry for help based on impotence, homosexual tendencies and mommy issues but I doubt that would end well. I am free to tell my boss what I really think of him and after that I would be free to find a new job. I am free to eat McDonalds twice a day every day if I want, and I will become obese and probably have a heart attack at 50. I am free to blow my earnings on gambling knowing full well the odds aren’t in my favor and if I play long enough losing is a virtual certainty but I have to deal with the after affects. I am free to neglect my family and start chasing cocktail waitresses but that is going to cause issues in my marriage and likely I would be doing it from a half empty studio apartment before long.
For everything we do there is a consequence or more accurately numerous ones. There are first, second and third order affects of everything we do if you look hard enough. Take enough simple little decisions like charging a nice dinner out or hitting the gym and skipping desert and they add up to huge things.
To say you believe in freedom except for this that and the other thing doesn’t work. Really that is just “I am right and you are wrong”. To think that everything you believe is good should be allowed and everything you think is bad should be banned is the most egotistical and idiotic political philosophy out there. My son thinks that way. He will move things or throw them to suit his desires. He will hit people or try to move them or harass them if they don’t want to/ can’t pick him up or otherwise are bothering him. Whatever he wants is right and what he doesn’t is wrong. This is ok because he is a one year old and thinks the world revolves around him. Over the next few years he will grow out of this. I expect it from him so I don’t think it is too much to ask of adults.
That reminds me of the Puritans who fled England because they were persecuted and ultimately came to America, where they promptly persecuted anyone who didn’t believe exactly what they did. I find the comparison between the modern religious right and the pilgrims to be striking. They have strong beliefs and think they should be able to force you to have the same beliefs. Moreover they think they have the right to punish you if you do not have those beliefs. At least the pilgrims went to a new place to force everybody to act like them (though they did it because they were persecuted back home) unlike the religious right who think they can make everyone act like them wherever they are.
My family is very socially conservative. This is for a lot of reasons but it boils down to us believing it is the right way to live. Other than the various sects that say we can’t have booze and have to do other wacky things we live a lifestyle that meshes quite well with conservative republican/ Christian standards. That isn’t the issue. The issue is that we choose to live this way; we don’t do it because somebody told us to or wants to compel us.
I have realized recently that I can’t even call myself a Republican with a straight face anymore even though I may (or may not) vote for them. There are probably some republicans who are not fascists or puritans but they have been keeping a low profile for awhile now. Is it too much to ask for a candidate who isn’t a shameless whore to big business (crony capitalism, not free markets) or an evangelical who wants to force me to live by his particular religious code?
I just don’t see why anybody has the right to tell me what to do with my own life, money and body and by logical extension I don’t get to tell them what to do with theirs. When it comes to some religious issues I do not see why it is any different. I’m certainly not going to live under Islamic law and someone who is a Buddhist or an atheist shouldn’t have to live under a set of rules they don’t agree with. Also I tend to think that religious issues get sorted out elsewhere.
I have a live and let live philosophy about other people’s beliefs and ways of life. This extends from whacky religious nut jobs and vegans all the way people into weird sex stuff, drug users and the like. To paraphrase Commander Zero “I don’t really care if people have gay orgies while snorting a mountain of cocaine on top of rocket launchers as long as they do it on their own land and kids are not involved.” It doesn’t mean that I approve of it, just that it is none of my business and as such I stay out of it. We all have to bite our tongues now and then but we get to do what we want, seems like a fair trade off to me. Also life is short and if a person thinks something will make them happy then I wish them the best.
In closing the freedom to make bad decisions is something I firmly believe in.
America’s Debt Crisis
It is nice to start things off with a quote. This one sums the situation up pretty succinctly.
“Right now, it doesn’t look like anybody up there can add, whether they’ve got an R or a D.”
-Dave Ramsey
I am seriously concerned about America’s debt. There are all kinds of worst case scenarios that are maybe’s but THIS IS HAPPENING. I know we are past the point of a painless fix. At some point we will get to a place where there isn’t a fix.
You can read a draft of the proposed report here. I appreciate that it is a slide show type presetation versus a dry and wordy mess. It doesn’t take too long to look through. There were all kinds of ideas; some of which were pretty blah and others were more interesting. Huffington Post highlighted some of them.
•Reduce farm subsidies by3 billion per year by reducing direct payments and other subsidies;
•Achieve 100 billion in Illustrative Defense Cuts;
•Reduce corporate tax rate to 26% and permanently extend the research credit;
•Gradually increase gas tax to fund transportation spending.
There were definitely some good parts to this whole thing. First and probably most significantly we are actually talking about our deficit problem in a broad and public venue. Next I really enjoyed that this effort was at least fairly bipartisan. Both sides of Congress and the parties they represent and really ever national level elected official except Ron Paul is to blame. You could even argue that Ron Paul shares some blame for not doing a good enough job of convincing his co workers to get on board with sound monetary/ economic policies. More significantly the suggestions which stemmed from this Commission seem to me pretty bipartisan. It suggests cuts in just about everything and is sure to have an idea or two which makes just about everybody annoyed.
Americans have a serious issue of wanting services and social type support networks but not wanting to pay for them. We want first class infrastructure and the benefits of a psuedo welfare state but want to pay the taxes of a your on your own Carribean tax haven. Americans as a group need to come to terms with the simple fact that we are going to get the government, services and benefits that we pay for.
The real issue isn’t so much coming up with ideas but making those ideas palitable to enough people and actually getting them implimented. Politicians hate the idea of losing the earmarks which let them bring bacon to their home districts and keep the businesses which fund their campaigns happy. Just about every group of citizens has some pet tax credit or another which to them is untouchable such as “earned” income credit, mortgage interest deduction, capital gains, etc.
I am not an economist or an accountant or a financial genius. However like most other people I have had to balance budgets and deal with bills and all that. Like anyone else I have had times when I didn’t pay attention or made mistakes and lived beyond my means. I think the first and most significant step is realizing you have a problem, if just a temporary one. Next you look at what kind of income you have coming in. You put your expenses and obligations onto a list in terms of priority. WHAT DO YOU REALLY NEED? A place to live, utilties, fuel and food are quite important. After that you pay whatever bills you have. Additional money can be used to try and pay off debt and have a little bit of fun.
What does this have to do with anything? The same train of thought could be made in terms of our national budget. We need to cut out fancy stuff like foreign aid, farm subsidies and meddling in health care and focus on basic services, reasonable defense and just plain getting our house in order. The situation is that we need to get our own house in order and that might mean we can’t do all kinds of things we like doing.
Personally I have some thoughts on how to deal with our debt. In no particular order:
- It is absolutely imperative that we get entitlements under control. I say again, it is absolutely imperative that we get entitlements under control. While a few hundred million for this project or a billion for a bailout catch headlines but Social Security, Medicare and Medicade are going to bankrupt us. At the same time we need to honor our promise to individuals already recieving these benefits and those who will start to collect them soon. However those under a certain age (somewhere around 52-55) have time to adjust their plans. Then some smart people could sit down with an actuary table and figure out how to fund benefits for those who were close to collecting. We have to bend the bell curve or it is going to destroy us.
- We need to have a serious discussion about if we can afford to continue our overseas adventures; particularly Iraq and Afghanistan. Without even talking about if these wars are good or meaningful we need to talk about how to pay for them. The idea that we can fight wars and not actually pay for them just doesn’t mesh with reality. Our overseas footprint in general should also be up for serious articulate discussion. Having some strategic bases as well as prepositioned logistics makes sense. I would be willing to would wager that we could dramatically decrease our overseas presence at little or no cost to our real military capabilities. Europe and Asia can afford to pay for their own defense and if they should choose not to well that might play out badly for them. I am stationed in Germany and I hate to tell you but the Russians aren’t storming through the Fulda Gap any time soon. North Korea doesn’t have the fuel and rations to invade anybody and why should we care if they invade South Korea anyway?
- We need to motivate businesses, particularly the kind of manufacturing that provides decent paying jobs in medium to large numbers to stay in or move to America and make things which people want to buy. This will go a long way toward fixing our import/export problem. This whole idea of an information or finance or service economy isn’t working well. Of course all those things occur in any economy but we have just got to start making stuff that people in other nations want to buy. At least if we ever want to fix our trade situation.
- We need to admit that we cannot afford to continue foreign aid on anywhere near the current scale. Buying a few million pounds of rice so hundreds of thousands of people in some crappy African country do not starve to death is to me acceptable and in the big scheme of things isn’t a drop in the bucket. However we do not need to be giving money to nations like Russia, India, Egypt and Indonesia. We just can’t afford it.
- Farm subsidies in the USA are just rediculous. If I were in charge I would cancel them all immediately. At a minimum we need to stop paying massive agri businesses a whole bunch of money that was meant for small family farms. Also the idea of paying people essentially not to produce food on a given piece of land is rediculous. I mean heaven forbid we piss off Iowa because they have the first primaries and all but this is just completely and totally stupid.
Maybe we can fix this and maybe we won’t. I sort of suspect we will fix it but it is just a question of how painfull it will be. I would say that my outlook is slightly optomistic but I am of course hedging my bets with precious metals, ammo and assorted other stuff.
I’m Back and Republicans Won The House
Our internet was down for a few days. I enjoyed spending extra time with the family and also was able to catch up some on my reading. During that time the Republicans won back control of the House of Represenatives. I am particularly happy that some Tea Party type folks won. Having a Paul in both the House and the Senate is going to be really fun. I anticipate at least double the long winded speaches nobody pays attention to and numerous bills which will never get out of commitee. Seriously though I think this represents a shift in a significant part of the “conservative” side and that is a good thing. We have had about all of the crony capitalism this country can handle. If this newfound majority can do a few things to get governments hands out of peoples pockets while starting to get our deficite under control that would be great. If they can at least mount an effective defense against any more madness that would be OK too. Personally I have rather limited expectations. If they can manage to act fiscally conservative some good stuff might happen. Time will tell.
There is all kinds of stuff in my head but I worked a super long day and am beat. Thoughts are not cohesively forming. You will get a few good posts over the long weekend I am sure. Have a good night.
The Different Types of Liberterians
I think Naive is probably my favorite. These people don’t know anything about the real world and think that if America cowers in the closet every asshat in the world who hates us will somehow go away. That just isn’t reality. You can scare people into leaving you alone or kill them but just wishing they will go away doesn’t work. The bizarrely hypocritical are fun also.
For My Buddies Down South, Because This Is How They Roll
Are you a Democrat, a Republican, or a Southerner?
The answer can be found by posing the following question:
You’re walking down a deserted street with your wife and two small children.
Suddenly, an Islamic terrorist with a huge knife comes around the corner, locks eyes with you, screams obscenities, praises Allah, raises the knife, and charges at you…
What do you do?
…………………………………………………………. THINK CAREFULLY
THEN SCROLL DOWN:
Democrat’s Answer:
- Well, that’s not enough information to answer the question!
- Does the man look poor or oppressed?
- Have I ever done anything to him that would inspire him to attack?
- Could we run away?
- What does my wife think?
- What about the kids?
- Could I possibly swing the gun like a club and knock the knife out of his hand?
- What does the law say about this situation?
- Does the pistol have appropriate safety built into it?
- Why am I carrying a loaded gun anyway, and what kind of message does this send to society and to my children?
- Is it possible he’d be happy with just killing me?
- Does he definitely want to kill me, or would he be content just to wound me?
- If I were to grab his knees and hold on, could my family get away while he was stabbing me?
- Should I call 9-1-1?
- Why is this street so deserted?
- We need to raise taxes, have paint & weed day.
- Can we make this a happier, healthier street that would discourage such behavior.
- I need to debate this with some friends for a few days and try to come to a consensus.
- This is all so confusing!
BANG!
****************************************************************
BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!
BANG ! BANG!
BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!
BANG!
BANG!
BANG!
BANG!
BANG!
BANG!
Click
Daughter: ‘Nice grouping, Daddy!’
‘Were those the Winchester Silver Tips or Hollow Points?! ‘
Son: ‘Can I shoot the next one?!’
Wife: ‘You ain’t taking that to the taxidermist!
Rapidly Becoming Apathetic
I was filling out one of those online things and it asked what my political preference was. Not sure why but I gave it more consideration than necessary. I realized that things are kind of sucky and I just don’t care. Seriously I don’t see any of them making things better. The R’s and D’s have both had a shot recently and just done a bang up job. I am not sure our system will leave anybody willing to deal with our issues (mainly massive unfunded entitlements) because to do so would be political suicide. Getting any politician to do that is unlikely, let alone a majority.
I bet some folks on one side are getting a good chuckle at folks on the other who thought the cozy government + business relationship would change. They both take money from the same big corporations that like pet legislature as well as capitalism on the way up and socialism on the way down.
Some folks think maybe the Libertarians will save us but I am not so sure. It is pretty easy to be noble when nobody is offering you anything. It is equally easy to offer outside of the box solutions when you aren’t responsible for anything and can just Monday morning quarterback it. Also as far as I know the Libertarians have never gotten anybody elected to anything more than (if even that?) county dog catcher. Even if they got ANYBODY elected to a meaningful position I don’t think that would change anything. I love Dr. No (Ron Paul) as much as anybody could but aside from voting no on everything and proposing bills that doesn’t every go anywhere what has he done?
Seriously on the national or likely even state level I am not so sure I see anything good coming. On the local level more grass roots stuff involving real people has some promise but I move around a lot now so don’t really care about that.
I make predictions of what is coming here or there, no need to rehash. I think I’ve given up caring until something worth caring about starts to happen. I am not holding my breath.
quote of the day
“We’re not going to save our way out of this recession. We’ve got to spend our way out of this recession, and I think most economists know that.”
–Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.)
I Just Don’t Know
So I was reading Galts Gulch earlier today. There was a post about some political stuff, sorta looking at different philosophies. There were some great points about the Neo- Conservative movement and also Libertarianism. I wrote this as a comment: I just don’t know. Voting libertarian gets nothing done because they don’t win anything and all voting Republican does is keep those darn Democrats out of office. While better than nothing it sort of makes my skin crawl to have such limited goals.
My lack of any good answers has lead me to putting time and energy into other areas. Caring less about what they do and more about what I do is my personal answer.
I thought about this on and off through the day. I just don’t see a great answer. That has made my thoughts and energy’s turn more inward. Instead of being politically active or whatever I worry about and focus on how to make our place in life better.
The blogosphere has a combination of predominantly preparedness/ survivalist and liberty/ libertarian/ political folks. Not an unnatural combination as the two do blend but it is distinct all the same. Many folks who are hanging around here and are on the facebook and such are really political. Some of them are very involved in grass roots efforts for candidates that share their beliefs and they have faith in.
I applaud these folks and really with them the best. Personally I have a hard time putting energy or effort into ventures where the likelihood of success is minimal. I occasionally think and talk about politics but that is about it. As someone who is pretty dispassionate about things I have a hard time ‘just believing’. Even if thousands of liberty loving people managed to each genuinely convert one other person every week it would be YEARS before anything close to a significant voting block. My desire to spend time and energy on something that seems futile just is not there.
This is amplified by my current somewhat nomadic existence making city, county and even to a certain degree state elections largely meaningless. I live someplace for awhile and don’t get to really pick where then after awhile we move somewhere else. When I move to a place and grow some roots then who is elected to the city council or county commission or even to state office. If a place decides to royally suck I will just not move there.
Thoughts?
quote of the day
“Which is harder to believe, Massachusetts elects a Republican or Chevy makes a truck that goes 200,000 miles?”
-David Letterman
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