Thanks for posting and the ping, Smooth.
Thanks for posting and the ping, Smooth.
The intelligentsia often refer to government by the euphemism "society" – as in President Johnson's "Great Society" (read that as Johnson's "Great Big Government). Sowell notes that "what is called 'social' planning are in fact government orders over-riding the plans and mutual accommodations of millions of other people."The use of the word "society" as a euphemism for government is pervasive leftist thought, and it is worth considering what the precise relationship is between the two. IMHO "society" and "government" could only be co-extensive in the absence of freedom. "Big government" could be as big as society, but no bigger - and freedom exists only to the extent that society is bigger than government.
Johnson's promise of a "Great Society" was, from the conservative POV, nothing more than the hubris of supposing that he could make a great government. That, and the presumption that American society wasn't great to begin with, and was susceptible only of improvement. That presumption is of course evident in even more extreme form in the attitude of our current president.