To watch this trailer, one may get the feeling that this, while sad, is remote. These are people in a distant land, practicing a different religion, wearing different cloths, living under different rule. And yet we are so close to living in this kind of state. It's happening right under our noses.
Americans love spectacle. The biggest issues of the day are secret service agents and Columbian prostitutes. People are outraged by either side of the gay marriage debate -- and justifiably so. But we need to get some perspective. Our most fundamental freedoms are being stripped away right now.
Before we get into the evidence, we should mention that Frances Fox Piven seems to be conflating colonialism with capitalism. If, for example, property rights institutions provide a basis for any free enterprise system, it's difficult to see how commerce could have amounted to peasants losing their farms (unless, of course, by lose she means sold). When peasants have their land taken, it's always by governments or cronies colluding with governments to undermine property rights.
But back to the question--relatively speaking (because there is no perfectly free system on earth): Do the most economically free countries tend to produce more freedom and equality?
Here's a great video for the libertarian philosophers among you. The question is: if value is subjective, how can we have a system of objective rights and rules? Aeon Skoble lays it out nicely in this video. And I think for an introduction to the question, this is a tidy talk. I do, however, have some concerns.
It's not just that U.S. colleges are propaganda factories. They are. It's also that they are censoring speech. We should be concerned that college campuses have "free speech zones," especially public universities.
Do you have kids or know people in college? Please let them know about this...
A condition of freedom is rare, says Milton Friedman. And he's right. In order to preserve it -- and especially to restore it -- we've got to celebrate it. We have to celebrate its meaning for us and its implications for the rest of humanity (especially that portion of humanity that still lives under tyranny). That's what Milton Friedman did in his life. Because of his work, people are still rising out of poverty and servitude today.
So how can you celebrate? There are a number of ways...
In a rare bit of good news, the EPA has lost in the Supreme Court. This is not a death-blow for these Gruene Polizei, but it is certainly one step towards putting the regulatory daemons back into Pandora's Box. Here's what happened...
A lot of people think they have to pay full attention to the big-picture stuff -- like the national debt, international affairs, or the failure of fed policy. But some of the most egregious affronts to individual freedom happen right next door.
The Institute for Justice is doing a great job of defending people from petty fascism while telling the stories of the victims. If we don't start looking immediately around us, we may miss what's going on in our back yards -- and fail to defend ourselves and our neighbors from the local dictators.
Hillel the Elder -- an ancient Rabbi -- said: "What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow: this is the whole Torah; the rest is the explanation; go and learn." It doesn't get any simpler than that. I don't want to wax too idealistic. But what if everyone practiced Rabbi Hillel's version of the golden rule? Really, this is the essence of libertarianism. We also call it the non-harm principle. What if everyone practiced it?
I don't smoke. I used to. And I like it. But since I quit I don't much like walking into a smoky bar and have to smell it, get it in my clothes, etc. Do my preferences supercede the property rights of the bar owner--which may include allowing people to smoke?
This video is probably supposed to be funny. But it's not. Not at all. When a generation has lost its connection to the institutions that made its country great and prosperous, that generation is on its way to losing those institutions. This is what the U.S. public education system has wrought. Is it by design? (International readers: please forgive the focus on U.S. civic literacy.)
