Somebody somewhere wants to force you to work for them
Some would consider me a right winger. Actually, I’m a libertarian. I spend zero time wanting to force other people to do something. But somewhere, right now, there are many leftists up late scheming about how to force me and you to do any number of things.
I’m very unlikely to join a school board. I’m extremely unlikely to run for Mayor. The idea of working as a bureaucrat in government appalls me. I view the government as unfit in many ways and really want no, or as little as possible, involvement with it. Were I to join government, say Governor “Blago” appoints me to the Illinois Senate seat, I’d focus on minimizing it.
Now flip my views. Let’s say I’m a socialist, a hard core left winger.
Not only do I view government as great place to work, I believe in the work it does. I’m extremely likely to join a school board, to run for Mayor, to be a bureaucrat, or to be a journalist. I have no problem using the force of government to force my views on you.
Who worries you more?
Yet somehow people worry that right wing Christian kooks are going to make you not have sex or fun. That’s crazy.
When was the last time a Christian kook made you do anything? Hell you don’t even have to say the Pledge of Allegiance if you don’t want too.
I guarantee the last person that forced you to do something was a leftist. Who forced you to recycle? Drive 55? Pay for a welfare recipients abortion? All leftists.
Leftists are about force. Right wingers are about freedom.
Right now, a leftist somewhere is scheming to force you to do something. Yet I worry you? Are you stupid?
December 30th, 2008 at 9:56 pm
Left-Right, Hegel’s followers got this ball rolling by placing Marx on the left and Protestants on the right. His predecessors Luther, Descartes and Hume spent their efforts on why/if “free will” than the act of “freedom” being exercised. Kant and Hobbes then Mills made the State a big player. Nietzsche really cut out ordinary folks as losers implying they always needed the State.
“Morality makes stupid.– Custom represents the experiences of men of earlier times as to what they supposed useful and harmful – but the sense for custom (morality) applies, not to these experiences as such, but to the age, the sanctity, the indiscussability of the custom. And so this feeling is a hindrance to the acquisition of new experiences and the correction of customs: that is to say, morality is a hindrance to the development of new and better customs: it makes stupid.”
from Nietzsche’s Daybreak,s. 19, R.J. Hollingdale transl.
Dewey made morality relative giving us today’s spinning compass. We’re not stuck on stupid, but we’re sure circling and low on gas.
December 30th, 2008 at 11:25 pm
I actually don’t like “left” and “right”. I’d prefer “forcers” and “liberators”.
This probably boils down to basic human psychology. A lot of people seem to be willing to trade freedom for perceived security – even if facts indicate the security is baseless and likely to be abused.
It really isn’t about good or evil. I ask if people are stupid because being forced to do stuff isn’t in your own best interest. Even ignoring the merits of life having “purpose” it just seems insane to willingly let people force you to do their will.
Whether it be forced trash separation, or working to pay taxes through the end of July, it just seems a bad trade.