Archive for February 10th, 2007
James Bovard brilliantly expands on the thought that liberty does not require the approval of the 51% majority.
What are the mechanics by which majority-mandated shackles liberate the individual? How does a shackle supported by 51 percent of the populace affect an individual differently from one endorsed by a mere 49 percent? Is the secret to democracy some law of inverse political gravity—so that the more people who support imposing a shackle, the less it weighs? Are citizens obliged to pretend that any restriction favored by the majority is not a restraint but instead a badge of freedom? Shackles are shackles are shackles, regardless of what rhetorical holy water they are blessed with. (emphasis mine)
People are taught that, thanks to democracy, coercion is no longer dangerous because people get to vote on who coerces them. Because people are permitted a role in choosing who will be in charge of the penal code, they are free. Being permitted to vote for politicians who enact unjust, oppressive new laws magically converts the stripes on prison shirts into emblems of freedom. But it takes more than voting to make coercion benign.
The fiction of majority rule has become a license to impose nearly unlimited controls on the majority and everybody else. The doctrine of “majority rule equals freedom” is custom-made to turn mobs of voters into spoiled children with a divine right to plunder the candy store. The only way to equate submission to majority-sanctioned decrees with individual freedom is to assume that individuals have no right to live in any way that displeases the majority.
Read it all: Democracy versus Liberty
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I’ve been watching the news reports of snow, especially in the Southtowns. The amount of snow that has fallen in North Buffalo is miniscule in comparison. Yesterday I took a drive out to Alden to visit my dad and upon entering the village I thought, “holy crap, they got some snow out here!” I wasn’t really expecting to see much snow because Alden is more east than south of Buffalo. I shouldn’t have been surprised knowing that many times the eastern tip of the snow bands affecting the Southtowns extend into Alden.
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MUNICH, Germany - Serial numbers and other markings on bombs suggest that Iranians are linked to deadly explosives used by Iraqi militants, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said Friday in some of the administration’s first public assertions on evidence the military has collected.
Of course there will be evidence of Iran contributing to the violence in Iraq. Iran is Iraq’s next door neighbor and has a vested interest in the outcome of Iraq. This must be viewed in its proper context, that our country invaded a foreign nation and unleashed the powers causing the violence.
While the Bush administration and military officials have repeatedly said Iranians have been tied to terrorist bombings in Iraq, they have said little about evidence to bolster such claims, including any documents and other items collected in recent raids in Iraq.
National security officials in Washington and Iraq have been working for weeks on a presentation intended to provide evidence for Bush administration claims of what they say are Iran’s meddlesome and deadly activities.
“Working for weeks on a presentation intended to provide evidence” - We’ve been down that road before. It is eerily similar to the road followed that led us to topple Sadam Hussein. Bush unleashed the monster in the Middle East and continues to feed it. He fooled us once, don’t let him do it again.
If George Bush manages to engage Iran militarily, the Iraq debacle will begin to look a picnic compared to the turmoil that will result.
The voices of reason have been describing all along how George Bush is planning to involve us in an attack on Iran. Recent personnel moves in the military and naval ship deployments all support the obvious.
. . . Bush is putting in place military assets that will enable him to order and effect the rapid nuclear castration of Iran. But scarcely a peep of protest has been heard from our congressional leadership.
Observers have noted the dispatch of minesweepers and another U.S. carrier to the Persian Gulf, the naming of Admiral Bill “Fox” Fallon to head CentCom, which today manages two ground wars, and the return of U.S. fighter-bombers to Turkey. In March’s Vanity Fair, Craig Unger reports:
“The same neocon ideologues behind the Iraq war have been using the same tactics – alliances with shady exiles, dubious intelligence on WMD – to push for the bombing of Iran. As President Bush ups the pressure on Tehran, is he planning to double his Middle East bet?” [Is Bombing Iran Bush's Call?]
Bush fooled our country once, don’t let him do it again!
Source: Buffalo News - U.S. says evidence shows Iran tied to Iraq violence
I find it amazingly ironic that George Bush would be accused of racism for describing Barak Obama as articulate.
Well, not quite. But, one of my photographs is featured on the front page of this week’s Buffalo Rocket.
Every time I turn on the news it seems like a new regulation of our behavior is being proposed and/or implemented by the government.
. . . promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
The preamble to the Constitution talks about general welfare. That does not mean government should address every detail of society that some might find objectionable. Next it speaks of individual liberty and guaranteeing it for future generations. General welfare means an equal opportunity, not socio-economic equality. It means anyone can be a doctor or a lawyer if they work at it. It doesn’t mean some people should get special privileges to make it easier. The only thing special privileges do is devalue the accomplishment.
Yes, there are injustices, but you can’t legislate injustice away. You can, through determination and perseverance, overcome injustice. That is an accomplishment no one can deny and something to be truly admired.
Next, the preamble speaks of securing the blessings of liberty to ourselves. That is individual liberty. It does not say that individual liberty requires the approval of the majority. It does not justify acts such as smoking bans, cell phone restrictions, trans fat bans, foie gras bans, iPod restrictions, mandatory injections and any other cause of the day proposed by the Nanny State. In fact, the preamble talks about posterity, guaranteeing our individual liberty for future generations.
Lord Acton described the problem with our government quite succinctly in a letter to Bishop Mandell Creighton in 1887.
“Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men.”
We are now reaping the harvest of absolute power. Every time we give in to another Nanny State law, we are giving away our freedom and nurturing the absolute power of the State.
Would our founding fathers have supported a law prohibiting conversation with passengers while piloting a horse drawn carriage? I don’t think so.
Thomas Jefferson summed it up best in the Declaration of Independence.
We hold these truths to be self-evident,—that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
If we examine that statement we see unalienable rights. In other words, rights that can not be taken away. Among those rights, we see liberty. Let’s take a closer look at liberty.
lib·er·ty (l?b‘?r-t?)
n., pl. -ties.
- The condition of being free from restriction or control.
- The right and power to act, believe, or express oneself in a manner of one’s own choosing.
- The condition of being physically and legally free from confinement, servitude, or forced labor. See synonyms at freedom.
Common sense tells us that Government regulations of behavior have not only crossed the line of individual liberty, but has rendered the line barely visible. Not only must this trend be stopped, it must be reversed. Our future generations are in danger of not even understanding what will have been taken from them. Many people willingly cede their liberty to the trust of the State, resulting in the damnation of those who fought to secure their liberty.
