Sorry being so late getting back with you. I hope the fire hasn't been put out of our discussion because we had a good framework for working through it.
Last I recall, our disagreement as to whether republicans were too complacent or libertarians were too utopian pivoted on the question of whether or not we're in crisis and rapidly loosing our freedom. And the reason we saw it differently was because in political sense you defined freedom as "liberty", and I defined it more broadly as both liberty and opportunity.
Freedom = Liberty vs. Freedom = Liberty + Opportunity
I mentioned that I subscribe to the wider definition because government has a role in creating opportunity. Therefore it's politically relevent. Although you recognized the role, you disagreed because government does not "create wealth". I don't think that’s required in order to accept the broader definition, as long as governments role is justified. So if you accept that, we're left with that question. Is it justified?
It looks like you steered away from justifying it on utilitarian grounds by suggesting another measure using Rand's words referring to a moral rather than material justification for capitalism. But that gets very circular because Objectivist morality's based on what's in man's rational self-interest. There's a very fine line between that and the utilitarian ideals, as I understand it, in that Objectivism only goes beyond utilitarianism's economic agnosticism by attempting to demonstrate that capitalism is the best political system for man to live in accordance with his nature. So if morality were the criteria for justifying governments role, we'd be reduced to claiming that freedom's synonymous with liberty simply because of belief in an economic theory that says it should be. That's circular to the max…
Therefor, I think we can say that Libertarians think we're in a freedom crisis because the libertarian ideology defines freedom that way. And because most people don't subscribe to the ideal of pure capitalism, I think that we can also say that liberty is not the common or "conventional" definition of freedom, even in a political context.
I haven't logged on to Free Republic much lately - esp. after I started getting censored by JimBob in very autocratic fashion, for simply posting non-profane, non-pejorative sentiments he disagreed with. So I got your reply late. Some comments:
To say I "recognize the role" that government plays in creating opportunity - or when I say government "plays a role" - that doesn't mean that they create anything or actively do anything, unless one considers that act of not doing anything to be actively doing something. The role they play, or that they're supposed to play, is to stay out.
I think that government's active creation vs. it's active non-involvment has much to do with our definition. So I would need you to clarify this:
"I don't think that’s required in order to accept the broader definition, as long as governments role is justified. So if you accept that......."
I don't accept this, based on my current understanding of your position.
I didn't mention Rand so much as an opener for a discussion on justification so much as I did it because you claimed to be an Objectivist. That statement shows that Rand, the founder of Objectivism, sees liberty and opportunity as two separate ideas that do not add up to freedom.
Let me try to explain my position with the aid of an article I recently came across, which I think has parallels to our discussion.
A guy named John Ross, the "gun culture" author who I really like, recently made a speech in which he claimed that "In many ways, things are better for us gun owners now then they ever have been in the past".
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/929857/posts Basically, if you read his arguments, much of what he cites to corroborate his claim has to do with the availability of guns in the marketplace. For example, since we have more and better semiauto centerfire rifles today compared to yesterday, and since we have magnum factory rifles that didn't before exist at all, we as gun owners are "better off" today than say, in 1932, in 1962 and in 1982.
I think this argument has many parallels to what you might say about freedom in general.
Of course, I might ask Mr. Ross, "What do you mean by "better off"? What "things" are "better" than before?"
In other words, as I said before, wealth will always increase on aggregate due to increases in technology, creative energies etc. In the case of guns, we have more and better guns today than we had 100 years ago, and it is safe to say that, 100 years from now, there will exist better guns than those that exist today. But while it might be correct to say that, with respect to gun availability and quality, that gun owners are "better off" today, it is not correct to say that gun owners are more free (though some of Ross' arguments deal directly with laws and this could be debated).
100 years ago, you could own the same weapons the government had without going to the State, on bended knee, and submitting your fingerprints and ID and all the other nonsense, that you must do today. While you may think that this is necessary, the point is that items that comprise "wealth" cannot be included in the freedom equation, since they exist and improve despite what government does to regulate them, though their improvement can be much reduced by burdensome laws.
Government did nothing to create those new guns - au contraire, it's laws have unintentionally prevented the design and creation of better, more advanced weapons.
And since we are talking about politics and hence necessarily the role government plays, for example, in relation to the individual's "gun rights", we need not bother talking about gun creation, advancement and availability when considering gun freedom - since government did nothing to actively affect (in a positive sense) the role of creating guns for individuals.
Said more directly, when we ask if gun owners are more or less free than they were 100 years ago, what we want to know specifically is the role government plays in restricting the individuals' creation, transfer, and ownership of guns today, compared to the role it played 100 years ago. We don't care to mention the obvious fact that today's weapons are better then they were yesterday.
In other words, if Sarah Brady's agenda of disarming the entire country were to come true in five years, following the fear generated by the creation and availability of a more lethal and efficient pistol caliber, I doubt that gun owners would respond by cooing about how much more "free" they are because of the new invention - though I wonder if many would respond with more than just trite grumblings........
It occured to me that you might be thinking along the lines of Mr. Ross in your argument - that though increasing government restriction is worrisome, "things are still better" when you look at the country. Though this viewpoint is relative to the speaker, it may in fact be true - but not because of anything to do with government.
Furthermore, if the last paragraph is an accurate summary of your argument, why cannot our new level of "freedom" be attributed to the Democrats as well as to the Republicans, as this freedom was gained while they played a role in the political process as well?
Finally, I was curious to see if you had any thoughts on Bush's recent government-largesse proposal concerning Medicare.
http://reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtmltype=politicsNews&storyID=2963415 Do you feel betrayed by this, or is this behavior not a problem since health care here is still better here than it is in Canada?