Best article I ever read on the subject. This should help people fight back the Bush rhetoric about 'freeing the world' for our own good. http://bad.eserver.org/reviews/2005/tavel.html
yes. however, it is not best when you force liberty on people, because that defies the definition of liberty. It’s like saying "do what you want, or else I will kill you!"
Liberty is the best thing. I don't know what perverted form of it Bush has invented, but the first idea of it was the best. The freedom to do as you please(as long as this doesn't harm others). The freedom to live your life without a slave driver. The purpose of our country, as stated in the preamble, concerns only the U.S. The purpose of our country is NOT to save every country from every oppressive dictator. If some dictator was to become a threat to us, then we can step in.
Emma Goldman's grave, Chicago, Illinois: "Liberty will not descend to a people, a people must raise themselves to Liberty."
Liberty is great for me. Liberty is not great for those who would harm me in any way, tese are the guys who should be kept in small boxes and tortured in the most gruesome way imaginable. "Liberty to do anything that doesn't harm anyone else in any way" is a nice compromise, I think. Is that TRUE liberty, though?
It should read " fleecing the World " and Bush does not have a monopoly on this its as old as civilization itself.
It is impossible to impose or force liberty. Liberty is the natural state of man. Only other people or governments can take liberty away. It's like saying you can impose air on someone, It’s like saying I am going to force you to breath. Liberty and freedom is part of our beings. No man can give you freedom, only take it away.
Liberty includes the freedom to choose your own form of society and government. Many people prefer to have their lives structured by outside forces in the dimensions that they don't want to have to fuss with. A lot of people genuinely appreciated living in the Soviet system and not having to choose among a bewildering array of breakfast cereals or deciding where to go on vacation. I've said this here before: My friends in Bulgaria complain, "For fifty years the Russians made us live in a communist dictatorship. Now the Americans want us to live in a capitalist democracy. Neither of you seems to notice that for about a thousand years we were a kingdom, one of the most stable and peaceful nations in Europe. Can't we please just have our bloody king back? Does "freedom" to you mean that you get to choose how everybody else's life works even if they don't want it that way?"
Yes, it's an excellent article - the best aspect is the skillful weaving of the historical parallels. I sincerely hope that this is a review for most of the posters in this forum. Anyone who bothers to engage their brain will quickly reach the same conclusions as Tavel. I'm a little confused about your question though, which does not seem very directly connected to the topic of the article, which was primarily focussed on the gutting of American investigative journalism. The elusive concept of "liberty" is many-faceted - are we talking about individuals, religions, corporations, or governments? In general I think that we can see that "liberty" has provided a unique opportunity to increase wealth, at least in the US. In other words, corporations profit from a free society that needs their goods and services to maintian their style of liberty (automobiles, for example). However, corporations for the most part do not profit from the liberty-lovers who seize the opportunity to become anti-consumerists. So, in that case, the liberty that is good for the individual is in conflict with what is good for the corporation. So, in answer to your question, is liberty the best thing? It depends on who you ask.
Liberty is a foolish thing to force on people. Before liberty movements, such as the French and American Revolutions, things were going swell. The Enlightenment was a time of rationalism, reason, liberalism, and genius. It was brought to a crashing end by the French Revolution. Napoleon temporarily brought back the idea of Enlightened Absolutism, but it again crashed due to liberty movements. The 1848 Revolution was the only liberty-based movement that comes to mind that would have wielded good results.
Was that true for all the people? Or just for the wealthy, the educated and the higher classes of people? The people means more than just those who are privileged, doesn't it? Or does it? Does "We, the people, ..." mean only those wealthy, educated few? Kinda' difficult to talk about liberty and only talk about a few people, ain't it? Baron Max
America was pretty sweet for most of the populace until the cold war era. We were largely agrarian and the government just let people to their thing without too much hastle. Thats liberty enough for me. Then things got complex. Despite this, we are still better off than 95% of the world. Reasonably low taxes, social supports for those who really need it, decent employment, yadda yadda yadda.
Reading between the lines, it sounds like you are prepared to kick back and wait and see, after all "we are still better off". In my opinion it is time for action and activisim, not passivity, based on recent events. You KNOW that the trend is clearly downward for the US in every meaningful measure - you stated as much in the first paragraph. I am not sure why you are not more concerned about this direction and why you are not involved with something - your community, politics...
Well, who the hell else matters besides the nobility and the educated? Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! I'm desended from Scot Nobles, and for one do not care about the lowly peasants, a.k.a the common man.
