Posted on 12/17/2010 9:14:32 AM PST by decimon
Who here loves freedom?
Everyone raised their hands, I see. Well, you’re all liars!
Here in America, we’re trained from birth to say we love freedom, but is freedom really what we’re all about? What do you like about freedom, anyway? That you can do whatever you want? Well, what do you want to do? You want to go out to eat? Well, whatever you eat is regulated by the FDA, health inspectors make sure you won’t get sick, and everyone working at the restaurant falls under various laws protecting their jobs and wages.
Do you want to drive? Well, then you certainly need to follow all the regulations specified for government-owned roads while using a government-approved vehicle. Do you want to use some consumer electronics? Those are regulated to make sure their signals don’t interfere with each other, and laws protect you to make sure they aren’t dangerous. And in everything you might do there are lawyers everywhere making sure all are following the rules and working together.
Do you see much freedom there? Maybe not, but then what is freedom? When you boil it down, freedom is people being served rotten food and getting sick and dying. It’s people driving polluting cars the wrong way down a street. It’s consumer goods that kill you while corporations laugh at your misfortune. It’s racist armed militia members not paying social security. It’s polluted lakes and dead baby polar bears. It’s poorly built buildings collapsing on you. It’s homophobic bullies. It’s obese children waddling down the street as they stuff their faces with trans-fats. It’s filthy. It’s chaos. It’s not civilized.
(Excerpt) Read more at pajamasmedia.com ...
Radical Islamo-Fascists and Radicalized Marxists in the White Crib are Freedophobes, Libertiphobes, and Capitalistophobes.
Oh, Goody! Utopia is just around the corner!
The writer seems to think that freedom is synonymous with anarchy. Freedom is good and is best expressed through Conservatism. Russell Kirk's ten principles of Conservatism contains this:
NINTH Conservatives perceive the need for prudent restraints upon power and upon human passions. When every person claims to be a power unto himself society falls into anarchy. A state in which an individual or a small group are able to dominate the wills of their fellows without check is a despotism. The conservative tries to limit and balance political power. Power the revolutionaries thought oppressive in the hands of an old regime, can become worse in the hands of tyrannical new masters.
They are creating a false dichotomy that freedom means rotten food or bullies because they aren’t regulated away. The reality is freedom, in a free market, means that the market wouldn’t stand for someone serving rotten food. Instead of imaginary minimums of quality, those competing in the market would compete to provide the highest quality at the best prices as demanded by the consumer. It could actually set the bar higher.
What the article calls “freedom” is actually anarchy. Fact is, there are some “common good” laws needed, but at the state level. One reason for that is that it keeps the bureaucracy relatively small and close, and causes states to compete: If one state has a really “sweet” welfare deal, pretty soon anyone paying for it has moved out.
BTW, life is risk. Freedom really DOES mean more danger. But heck, if we really wanted total security, why would we ever leave home?
I just noticed who the author was. Frank J. Fleming writes political humor at IMAO.us. Most of his writing is a parody of leftist belief.
See #7
We don’t live in a free country. Americans don’t want it.
We are regulated from dawn to dusk. Just the way we like it.
Streets are crawling with armed government thugs with a code book so large you can’t fit it into the back of a squad car.
No product goes to market without navigating a maze of tax and regulatory hurdles.
Land of the Free, home of the regulated and fearful.
We live in tough times for satire. The reality is so bizarre, that satire is often hard to recognize. For that reason, I find satire to be an ineffective means of humor or political commentary.
The author is using sarcasm to pillory the myth of “freedom loving Americans”.
>>We don’t live in a free country. Americans don’t want it.<<
I firmly agree with your whole post. Fred explains what happened pretty well in an article called “The Suicide of Marlboro Man”:
http://www.fredoneverything.net/Liddy.shtml
You’re right. Bad companies skate from responsibility by minimally complying with regulations.
That this was on Pajamas Media clued me in before reading. Otherwise, it does get harder to tell who is serious. Take Joe Biden...please.
Frank J. Fleming writes political humor at IMAO.us and has been hostile to reality ever since it took away Santa Claus.
That’s depressing. But true.
I guess still parts of northern Alaska so cold nobody will every develop. But then, I would be in northern Alaska...
But in truth freedom is cultural. The city, and “civilization” don’t like it, don’t teach it, don’t want it. It is intentional.
Fact is, Lefties don't really want to regulate everybody - they only want to regulate you. They really do believe in freedom for themselves, and that extends to a complete freedom from the stricture of law and morality, especially insofar as the latter stems from religion. Not for you, however.
Freedom is the reason that my constitution prohibits counties or municipalities from “regulating, in any way, an incident of the right to keep and bear arms”* and yet every city- or county-courthouse I’ve seen has a big NO WEAPONS sign on the building.
[/sarc][/cynic]
If this had been on an unfamiliar site, I'd have read it more carefully to decide if he is serious.
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