The masses are truly currently clueless. There is no chance of serious advances toward liberty unless the masses gain a simple fundamental understanding of what liberty is and how it differs from interventionism.
Several years ago I was arguing against compulsory ID cards with a friend, an American who has lived in France since the '80's. His response to me is below, edited. Here's what freedom means to him and in his opinion to most French people.
If confronted with the Libertarian view of liberty would most people accept it and reject the welfare state view described below?
"Personally, I have trouble getting too worked up about the ID card scheme. In France, ID cards are compulsory, but I have yet to meet a French person who had any objection whatever to the system. On the contrary, the French regard their ID card as a practical device that enables them to access services, e.g., doctor/hospital services, admission to national exams, cheque cashing at supermarkets, etc. Put more philosophically, the French view is that ID cards perform an important enabling function that promotes individual freedom rather than diminishing it.
"The fact is that the electronic footprints that we all leave (records/content of telephone calls, credit card/bank transactions, internet access, tax returns) already enables the state to keep track of our movements in the way that Pilger describes. Grayling's point is more fundamental: while we can choose whether to have a bank account or credit card, the ID scheme will eventually become compulsory, and he claims that this places the individual in a radically different position in relation to the state. I'm not convinced by this argument. Almost everyone accepts that they have obligations to the state (e.g., to pay taxes) and to accept state regulations (e.g., traffic laws), and I have difficulty in seeing that the ID scheme represents anything fundamentally different."
A LOT of the people supporting both Trump and Sanders are mostly voting for the nationalistic ending of free trade. Trump is likely to get a lot of those voters, and those voters don't necessarily like a lot of Obama's policies. The massive surge in healthcare costs coupled with the simultaneous drop in associated services and rise in deductibles (we are now paying HMO prices for what is mostly emergency insurance levels of coverage with massive deductibles) has been eye-opening for a lot of people.
The real battle is among the intellectuals. The masses just follow the ideas they are taught.
ReplyDeleteSeveral years ago I was arguing against compulsory ID cards with a friend, an American who has lived in France since the '80's. His response to me is below, edited. Here's what freedom means to him and in his opinion to most French people.
ReplyDeleteIf confronted with the Libertarian view of liberty would most people accept it and reject the welfare state view described below?
"Personally, I have trouble getting too worked up about the ID card scheme. In France, ID cards are compulsory, but I have yet to meet a French person who had any objection whatever to the system. On the contrary, the French regard their ID card as a practical device that enables them to access services, e.g., doctor/hospital services, admission to national exams, cheque cashing at supermarkets, etc. Put more philosophically, the French view is that ID cards perform an important enabling function that promotes individual freedom rather than diminishing it.
"The fact is that the electronic footprints that we all leave (records/content of telephone calls, credit card/bank transactions, internet access, tax returns) already enables the state to keep track of our movements in the way that Pilger describes. Grayling's point is more fundamental: while we can choose whether to have a bank account or credit card, the ID scheme will eventually become compulsory, and he claims that this places the individual in a radically different position in relation to the state. I'm not convinced by this argument. Almost everyone accepts that they have obligations to the state (e.g., to pay taxes) and to accept state regulations (e.g., traffic laws), and I have difficulty in seeing that the ID scheme represents anything fundamentally different."
A LOT of the people supporting both Trump and Sanders are mostly voting for the nationalistic ending of free trade. Trump is likely to get a lot of those voters, and those voters don't necessarily like a lot of Obama's policies. The massive surge in healthcare costs coupled with the simultaneous drop in associated services and rise in deductibles (we are now paying HMO prices for what is mostly emergency insurance levels of coverage with massive deductibles) has been eye-opening for a lot of people.
ReplyDeleteThe masses are asses
ReplyDelete