Home » Where we’re headed regarding liberty – and half the population is just fine with it

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Where we’re headed regarding liberty – and half the population is just fine with it — 30 Comments

  1. To paraphrase Benjamin Franklin, those that would sacrifice freedom for security deserve neither. Maybe we should designate some state like California to become a gulag, so people can experience what the total deprivation of liberty means.

  2. Near 2 decades ago I was working on a small team which included a guy from China. We were on travel in Indiana eating dinner, and he made the point that in practice China was freer than the US, since in the US due to tech there is much more information gathered on individuals.

    IIRC, this was triggered by paying for food with credit cards.

  3. Alan,

    It appears to me that the divide is between those who want liberty, and those who see themselves as part of a separate tribe (The Science/government tribe). Those on The Science tribe don’t see that they are giving up liberty. They think their tribe is winning/dominating.

    There are some “good liberals” who might be feeling hesitation, but they are scared of being kicked out of The Science tribe.

  4. There are some “good liberals” who might be feeling hesitation, but they are scared of being kicked out of The Science tribe.

    It’s not a Science tribe, only a caricature. Science is professionally skeptical and willing to yield to better evidence – NOT louder arguments.

    They’re just good old-fashioned claim-jumpers, attempting to accept credit for the last century of scientific advancement, but simultaneously elbowing aside the few scientists who pursue new discoveries, or worse, discoveries countering their tribal idols and beliefs.

  5. Petty tyranny in the area of consumer goods is where I notice it the most, now that the lockdowns are (only temporarily, I’m sure) over and done with. Gas stoves, gas hot water heaters, air conditioning, ICE vehicles, and now incandescent light bulbs: is there nothing that nosey parker bureaucrats can’t regulate or ban outright? As Neo notes, most of these new rules are capricious.

    Meanwhile, of course, no one interferes with shoplifters, porch pirates, car and catalytic converter thieves, and other blights on the local neighborhood. I notice that the number of complaints about these issues has skyrocketed on the local Nextdoor network in the past year, with the most common single comment being that the cops won’t do anything about the problems. But of course the most important measure EVAH is to ban incandescent light bulbs.

  6. My hubby is a car guy. Back in the 90’s he built an older Chevy pickup with fancy paint job, duel carbs sticking out of the hood, and a big block engine. It was a huge crowd favorite wherever we went. Boys little and big flocked around it constantly.

    One day we were in a tourist town and when we parked the usual crowd started to form. Two guys who said they were from Belgium asked him to do a burnout for them in the parking lot. He obliged.

    “In Belgium, that would be Verboten!” They said. “America is great.”. They took pictures because their friends would never believe such a thing existed.

    Little did we know that, “It is Verboten!” Would be coming this soon, or ever, to America.

  7. Idiocracy was supposed to be a spoof set 500 years in future, not a documentary in the current year.

  8. You can’t make people free against their will. And if people who prefer lack of freedom predominate, they can make the rest of us unfree against our will.

    Best you can do in that situation is congregate with enough like-minded people in small enough areas that we do predominate SOMEWHERE, and in that place maybe things can be freer THERE.

  9. “Best you can do in that situation is congregate with enough like-minded people in small enough areas that we do predominate SOMEWHERE, and in that place maybe things can be freer THERE.” — Frederick

    But the classic Galt’s Gulch hideaway is, at best, a holding pattern — the attempt to keep the best virtues alive and enjoy the highest values, foregone or prohibited elsewhere.

    It is place of refuge. But what comes later? Rebuilding, just like after some natural catastrophe.

  10. he made the point that in practice China was freer than the US, since in the US due to tech there is much more information gathered on individuals.

    IIRC, this was triggered by paying for food with credit cards.

    One of my favorite novelists is PT Deutermann, a retired Navy Captain who writes about the Navy and about Washington DC where he spent a lot of time. He is pleasantly cynical about government, including the higher echelons of the Navy. I was just re-reading a book called “Sweepers” in which a character discovers that Google searches are much easier and more complete than federal databases.

  11. I think this applies to the Left nowadays.

    “Theocracy is the worst of all governments. If we must have a tyrant a robber baron is far better than an inquisitor. The baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity at some point be sated; and since he dimly knows he is doing wrong he may possibly repent. But the inquisitor who mistakes his own cruelty and lust of power and fear for the voice of Heaven will torment us infinitely because he torments us with the approval of his own conscience and his better impulses appear to him as temptations. ”

    The Left today, as it was when Robespierre was in power, is a theocracy of a religion all their own. It is not exactly Marxism but it is related.

  12. What was once okay is now criminal, and what was once a crime is now okay.

    Saying that an election was rigged or stolen was okay until 2021. Now it’s considered a serious crime. Two major indictments of Trump and others to show that wonderful new idea.

    Private property ownership used to be a valued thing and theft was considered to be a crime. Now stealing property is tolerated as long as it’s not too much at one time. In San Francisco $980 a day of theft isn’t a crime. How many of us can earn $980 a day? Yet, the police can’t/won’t arrest perps or even investigate such crime. “It’s only property,” they say. Stealing cars isn’t considered a big deal now. “They’re insured,” they say. How long before insurance companies refuse to insure property in high crime locations?

    The standards of what’s a crime have been turned upside down.

    So, crime is okay, and now pays much better than working. Free speech can be considered a crime.

    Our brave new world.

  13. ……Soooooo ! I had a question for my credit card company today , I never am in contact with them…..(maybe once a year) and was informed that “voice recognition” will now be used when one calls in…? no ! they did not care what i thought about it…DISCOVER , has a whole new meaning now….

  14. Biden’s not a communist, or even a socialist, in the dictionary sense of the word, but when I saw this it occured to me that perhaps in this century socialism refers to social credit and ESG scores, DEI, cancel culture, and the 24/7 surveillance society, rather than to state ownership or worker control of the means of production. Just as the 20th century spawned various new socialist orthodoxies and heresies, the 21st century has created its own, in both “democratic” and “authoritarian” countries.

    London has tradititionally ranked very high on the list of most surveilled cities in the world (most CCTV cameras per 1,000 people). I suppose Chinese cities could have completely displaced it. American cities are still far down on the list. From what I’ve been able to figure out, NYC, LA, and Atlanta are among the most surveilled US cities.

  15. Some interesting observations were noted above.

    ” The COVID lockdowns showed how compliant most people are …”

    ” … they have no trouble with petty and pervasive tyrannies as long as they are tyrannies that fit their own belief system and desires. ”

    “You can’t make people free against their will.”

    “… if people who prefer lack of freedom predominate, they can make the rest of us unfree against our will….”

    Now, I’m going to post this line of commentary for a second time here and then drop it.

    But, in the context of Neo’s observation, think for a little while on the apparent influence which emotionally depressed and mentally unstable women – and males too – have had in our culture and our politics in recent years; as we have simultaneously and apparently “coincidentally” moved politically away from a regime of liberty, and toward one of socially mandated collectivism. A moral framework which advances the social valorization of inclusion, affirmation, and unconditional acceptance over freedom; and one promoting the devaluation of formal structures once sacrosanct, boundaries, and settled law as impediments to its realization.

    This does not mean that there would not be an elite in such a termite heap or leper’s orgy. It just means that the commands of the ‘general will’ so-called, and framed, malevolently and jealously penetrates to every nook and cranny of individual life without moral hindrance or let.

    Why, we ask, would anyone have a “taste” for such a state of affairs in the first place? How could they see it as good? What could it do for them, apart from “privileging” them in some dismal, nihilistic, herd-affirming way.

    Well, it just might be that these people are busy shaping the environment they need in order to survive their innate tendencies toward mental instability.

    “Culture-gene coevolution of individualism-collectivism and the serotonin transporter gene.

    ” … we examined the association between cultural values of individualism-collectivism and allelic frequency of the serotonin transporter functional polymorphism (5-HTTLPR) as well as the role this culture-gene association may play in explaining global variability in prevalence of pathogens and affective disorders.

    We found evidence that collectivistic cultures were significantly more likely to comprise individuals carrying the short (S) allele of the 5-HTTLPR across 29 nations.

    Results further show that historical pathogen prevalence predicts cultural variability in individualism-collectivism owing to genetic selection of the S allele.

    Additionally, cultural values and frequency of S allele carriers negatively predict global prevalence of anxiety and mood disorder.

    mediation analyses further indicate that increased frequency of S allele carriers predicted decreased anxiety and mood disorder prevalence owing to increased collectivistic cultural values.

    Taken together, our findings suggest culture-gene coevolution between allelic frequency of 5-HTTLPR and cultural values of individualism-collectivism and support the notion that cultural values buffer genetically susceptible populations from increased prevalence of affective disorders

    https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19864286/

    In other words,

    ” ‘Culture of We’ Buffers Genetic Tendency to Depression
    October 27, 2009 | by Pat Vaughan Tremmel
    EVANSTON, Ill. — A genetic tendency to depression is much less likely to be realized in a culture centered on collectivistic rather than individualistic values, according to a new Northwestern University study.

    In Western populations, the short allele leads to a phenotype of major depressive episodes when people who carry it experience multiple life stressors.

    Previous research shows that nations in the East Asian region have a disproportionate number of short allele carriers …

    What surprised them was the robust association they found between the degree of collectiveness of a particular nation and the degree to which a disproportionate number of people carried the short allele of the STG. Collectivistic nations were found to have significantly more individuals who carry the short allele of the STG.

    Even more remarkably, they found, collectivistic nations, such as East Asia, where nearly 80 percent of the population is genetically susceptible to depression, the actual prevalence of depression is significantly lower than in individualistic nations, such as the United States

    https://www.northwestern.edu/newscenter/stories/2009/10/chiao.html

    How is that trick of not being depressed managed when you and your closest psychological allies actually carry the gene for it?

    Simple: You foist collectivism on everyone in order to solve your own anxiety and depression problem.

    Or that is one plausible, if disconcerting, answer.

    Because how do you reason with a morally alien need: when they insist on having from you, what you neither want nor need, from them?

  16. @ JackWayne > “Do you remember There Oughtta Be A Law?”

    Used to be my favorite part of the comics as a child, better even than Peanuts (which may explain why I’m addicted to political discussion boards). Kind of a simpler ancestor of Babylon Bee.

    However, as with Orwell’s books, it was supposed to be a warning, not an instruction manual.

    I blame the downturn on HOAs.

  17. Re: “Do you remember There Oughtta Be A Law?”

    JackWayne, AesopFan:

    Was that the one which contained amusing scenes from Hell — devils, pitchforks plus unfortunate humans who chose poorly? Somehow those fascinated me as a child.

    As Dante proved with “The Inferno,” Hell is way more interesting than the Other Places.

    There was a similar strip titled “They’ll Do It Every Time.” Maybe Hell was there.

  18. @ huxley > the Law was a one or two panel cartoon mostly focusing on petty domestic issues, things that happen between neighbors or sometimes in small towns, about irritating things that aren’t illegal, but gosh darn they ought to be!

    One that sticks in my memory is a scene of two backyards with a fence down the middle. Neighbor A is on a ladder pruning the other guy’s tree limbs that extend over the fence.
    In the next half-panel, Neighbor A’s red union suit is drying on the clothes line (that’s how old the cartoon is) and the legs are blowing over the top of the fence, so Neighbor B clips them off.

    The “message” of the cartoon, as best I can tell, is that life happens, so don’t try to make everything into a lawsuit.

    Other suggestions where “there oughta be a law” are similar, but the gentle humor suggests we should just work things out amicably, and be tolerant (in the classic sense of the word), because if there is something that annoys you, chances are you are doing something that annoys someone else.

  19. @ Neo > “Now they have no trouble with petty and pervasive tyrannies as long as they are tyrannies that fit their own belief system and desires.”
    @ Alan Colbo > “To paraphrase Benjamin Franklin, those that would sacrifice freedom for security deserve neither.”

    Another favorite Franklin maxim from “1776”, which I paraphrase often, might say, “Tyranny is always justified in the first person — our tyranny. It is only in the third person — their tyranny — that it is unjustified.”

    Original quote: “Rebellion is always legal in the first person — our rebellion. It is only in the third person — their rebellion — that it is illegal.”

    I haven’t found it in any quote collections yet (so maybe it was just theatrical license), but here are a few more along the same lines, and some graphics.
    https://fee.org/articles/17-benjamin-franklin-quotes-on-tyranny-liberty-and-rights/

    azquotes has even more, but there are precious few citations attached to any of them.

    https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Ftse1.mm.bing.net%2Fth%3Fid%3DOIP.4LH4k9qgQGh1O3FdfitRTgHaFa%26pid%3DApi&f=1&ipt=045b1e55def647ff5e32ebfe85d734c05eec87958d4759db842d763fb9c5945e&ipo=images

    https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Ftse2.mm.bing.net%2Fth%3Fid%3DOIP.isJVq17Q-Wkjf1BKmm7mvgHaD8%26pid%3DApi&f=1&ipt=b0a124aafd14d4137b0f6cb12c274bf656a84720f1aeff6adf8e7d3fd78eda5b&ipo=images

    And some Jefferson for good measure:
    https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Ftse1.mm.bing.net%2Fth%3Fid%3DOIP.faXh4AYz2KIccHeC0UYyLwHaDf%26pid%3DApi&f=1&ipt=e3111ba62e22af805ad1bce8dec3ee1bb008957fd003d9b4c83425c51f865ded&ipo=images

  20. @ huxley – thanks for the note and link; the art style of the two comics is indeed very similar. Wikipedia even describes the topics and formats almost identically: “The gags illustrated minor absurdities, frustrations, hypocrisies, ironies and misfortunes of everyday life. These were displayed in a single-panel or two-panel format. ” AND “The gags illustrated minor absurdities, frustrations, hypocrisies, ironies and misfortunes of everyday life, displayed in a single-panel or two-panel format. There Oughta Be a Law! was similar to Jimmy Hatlo’s They’ll Do It Every Time.”

    I don’t think our newspaper carried Hatlo’s (TDIET), just the other one (TOBAL) by Harry Shorten and Al Fagaly (who both also wrote Archie comics).
    The Hell scenes (Hatlo’s Inferno) only ran from 1953 to 1958, so they would have been over before I could read them for myself anyway.

    Nice walk down memory lane; that may be why I feel such an affinity for Aesop – he would have enjoyed both comics.

  21. AesopFan and others.
    “ Alan Colbo > To paraphrase Benjamin Franklin, ‘those that would sacrifice freedom for security deserve neither.’”

    Just desert. Traitors to liberty don’t deserve to be secure. And Franklin as a Founding father was surely wise, so it must be true.

    This is a phrase that’s become virtually a guiding principle among isolationist libertarians (and certainly at FEE.org).

    However, I did some research on Franklin’s quotes (or variants using these words). Looking at the three or four contexts he employed this line, it is unclear what Franklin meant.

    Was is just a witticism attacking fair-weather friends? And undermining their authority or seriousness? Doe it really mean “You are committing treason to our cause? Or is it intended as an insult? A catcall?

    These nuances and distinctions, I found, become equivocal when read in context.

    Therefore, I’ve ceased to use it, even as much as I wish Franklin meant what I want to say, and gave us a serious guidepost to follow. Unfortunately, he did not.

    Franklin was more instrumental and pragmatic than, say, Tom Paine or Patrick Henry. Franklin, like Mencken, simply went with the Bon Motte.

  22. TJ said :

    “I did some research on Franklin’s quotes (or variants using these words). Looking at the three or four contexts he employed this line, it is unclear what Franklin meant.”

    Right. Smart stance.

    This was not a “now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their country” moment.

    I was shocked when I read, possibly in a D. H. Fischer work, that the original phrase was formulated in a dispute with the governor of Pennsylvania over the funding of the defense of the frontier … inhabited in measure by Scotch-Irish for whom the Quaker dominated Assembly had little sympathy.

    It seems that the governor was vetoing a tax on the Penn family holdings, and the Assembly was refusing to allocate funds for the defense of the western settlements unless the Penns were also taxed.

    In other words, we will not vote a tax bill to fund frontier defense, and I am sure those dying there would not want us to anyway.

    “Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.”

    Placed in context, Franklin’s remarks seem less than noble. The Overmountain men of a couple decades later, knew better than to wait on the aid of the easterners.

    ” … surely the Proprietaries Conduct, whether as Fathers of their Country, or Subjects to their King, must appear extraordinary, when it is considered that they have not only formally refused to bear any Part of our yearly heavy Expences in cultivating and maintaining Friendship with the Indians, tho’ they reap such immense Advantages by that Friendship; but they now, by their Lieutenant, refuse to contribute any Part towards resisting an Invasion of the King’s Colony, committed to their Care; or to submit their Claim of Exemption to the Decision of their Sovereign.

    In fine, we have the most sensible Concern for the poor distressed Inhabitants of the Frontiers. We have taken every Step in our Power, consistent with the just Rights of the Freemen of Pennsylvania, for their Relief, and we have Reason to believe, that in the Midst of their Distresses they themselves do not wish us to go farther. Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety. “

    https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Franklin/01-06-02-0107

    A number of the founding father’s were not entirely admirable, to say the least, once their entire lives or careers are taken into context.

    If the totality of Franklin’s quotes on various topics are taken as accurate, he was quite a puke.

    Hamilton, despite his courage at Washington’s side in battle, was an apparent head case, vainglorious, hyper touchy, and probably dishonorable in many ways.

    The only lastingly good thing Aaron Burr did was to put the quietus on Hamilton.

    And of course there is Benedict Arnold, who if he died at Quebec, as so many have previously pointed out, would have gone down as one of the greats.

  23. @ DNW > “And of course there is Benedict Arnold, who if he died at Quebec, as so many have previously pointed out, would have gone down as one of the greats.”

    It’s all in the timing, and it ain’t over till it’s over.
    IMO, had JFK lived out his full second term, I believe that his legacy would be a lot more tarnished and problematical than it is.
    The myth of “Camelot” was a deliberate invention to gild his halo.

    https://people.com/politics/jackie-kennedy-invented-camelot-jfk-assassination/
    “Just days after JFK’s assassination, Jackie Kennedy crafted a glittering fairytale about his presidency that would captivate the nation for decades to come”

    The Guardian thinks Kennedy was better than the myth, without citing any examples of why that might be true; granted, the mything does muddle up the mundane reality, whatever it might be.
    The post does have a good history of the real & fictional King Arthur and Camelot myths.

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/nov/21/jfk-jackie-kennedy-camelot-myth
    “The source of the Camelot reference is a story of failed idealism. It, like all mythology, distracts us from the whole story of Kennedy”

  24. Another what-if about presidential assassination.

    As a Confederate sympathizer, Booth would have done better to shoot Johnson and leave Lincoln alone.
    The recovery of the South would have been faster and less fraught, many believe, had Lincoln handled it instead of his Vice President.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Wilkes_Booth
    (the rest of his plot did include killing Johnson, but wasn’t carried out)

    Forty years later, when the centenary of Lincoln’s birth was celebrated in 1909, a border state official reflected on Booth’s assassination of Lincoln: “Confederate veterans held public services and gave public expression to the sentiment, that ‘had Lincoln lived’ the days of Reconstruction might have been softened and the era of good feeling ushered in earlier.” The majority of Northerners viewed Booth as a madman or monster who murdered the savior of the Union, while in the South, many cursed Booth for bringing upon them the harsh revenge of an incensed North instead of the reconciliation promised by Lincoln.

    Somethings I didn’t know, but which might have some bearing on his decision to kill Lincoln himself, rather than assigning that to others involved in the plot.

    While attending the Milton Boarding School, Booth met a Romani fortune-teller who read his palm and pronounced a grim destiny, telling him that he would have a grand but short life, doomed to die young and “meeting a bad end”. His sister recalled that he wrote down the palm-reader’s prediction, showed it to his family and others, and often discussed its portents in moments of melancholy.

    In all, Booth performed in 83 plays in 1858. Booth said that, of all Shakespearean characters, his favorite role was Brutus, the slayer of a tyrant.

    Booth then jumped from the President’s box to the stage, where he raised his knife and shouted “Sic semper tyrannis”. (Latin for “Thus always to tyrants,” attributed to Brutus at Caesar’s assassination; state motto of Virginia and mentioned in the new “Maryland, My Maryland”, future anthem of Booth’s Maryland.)

    On Booth’s support for the Confederacy, which was at odds with the rest of his family. He was very, very, very wrong about this, but he was not unique in that opinion.

    And looking upon African Slavery from the same stand-point held by the noble framers of our constitution, I for one, have ever considered it one of the greatest blessings (both for themselves and us,) that God has ever bestowed upon a favored nation.

    (In) his diary, where he had written of Lincoln’s death, “Our country owed all her troubles to him, and God simply made me the instrument of his punishment.”…”God is my judge. I love justice more than I do a country that disowns it, more than fame or wealth.”

    Booth’s nemesis believed the same thing from the other direction.

    My concern is not whether God is on our side; my greatest concern is to be on God’s side, for God is always right.” ? Abraham Lincoln

    It’s a fraught task, to discern which side is God’s and which is just your own, but I try to remember this test (from a source since forgotten): “If you conveniently discover that God hates exactly the same people you do, you should probably reconsider.”

    On the proximate cause for the assassination plot.

    The likelihood of Lincoln’s re-election filled Booth with rage towards the President, whom Booth blamed for the war and all of the South’s troubles.

    Booth had hoped that the assassinations (of Lincoln, Johnson, Grant, and Seward) would create sufficient chaos within the Union that the Confederate government could reorganize and continue the war if one Confederate army remained in the field or, that failing, would avenge the South’s defeat.

    Booth’s plans depended on something over which he had no control.

    Booth learned of the surrender of Johnston’s army, the last Confederate armed force of any size. Its capitulation meant that the Civil War was unquestionably over and Booth’s attempt to save the Confederacy by Lincoln’s assassination had failed.

    This precedent should be considered by those who might be influenced by the fire-brands calling for the assassination of any public figure.

    Booth was surprised to find little public sympathy for his action, especially from those anti-Lincoln newspapers that had previously excoriated the President in life. News of the assassination reached the far corners of the nation, and indignation was aroused against Lincoln’s critics, whom many blamed for encouraging Booth to act.

    Words are cheap, if you never expect to put them into action yourself.
    However, words do have influence, and consequences.

  25. TJ on August 18, 2023 at 3:51 pm
    In your search of that Franklin quote on liberty and security, did you perhaps also find this version or interpretation? https://www.npr.org/2015/03/02/390245038/ben-franklins-famous-liberty-safety-quote-lost-its-context-in-21st-century
    This view is a little more subtle, and from a liberal Brookings personage, but still also seems reasonable.

    If I understand it correctly, DNW’s comment is not quite in sync with the above link, either.

    Apparently the issue was trading off:
    1) the willingness of the Penn family to pay a sum for the colony’s defense as a gift, but thereby they avoided accepting that their holdings were also subject to taxation by the legitimately elected legislature of Pennsylvania. This provided the “safety” or “security” in Franklin’s remark, if they accepted the gift to fund the desired defense rather than pursue taxation.
    2) But accepting the gift rather than forcing the Penn holdings to be taxed in accord with law and precedent also meant the Assembly was giving up their “liberty” as free men to create and support a government by the consent of those so governed.

    Franklin was urging the Assembly to reject the Penn family’s gift and pursue the taxation path as needed to fund the Western colonists defense.

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