Yup. You’d like Morgenthau. His book Politics Among Nations is considered to be the seminal work of political realism.
I’ve got huge problems with him, myself.
Sua:“When you deliberately misstate my argument, and then mock the misstated argument, you are debating in an immature manner. I assumed the immaturity reflected youth. My mistake.”
I didn’t deliberate misstate it. I misunderstood it. I was arguing that our freedoms are much more regulated. You were arguing that we have more overall freedoms. We were both correct and I admitted that in my last post.
If you werent so arrogant you would have seen that I corrected my mistake.
Immature? Interesting input from someone who can’t finish reading before posting.
Sua:“And what is your opinion about whether the laws and regulations affecting these new technologies represent an increase or decrease in freedom compared with 100 years ago, Grandpa ? That is the debate going on here”
Oh, that is the debate. I see, you decide exactly what we are debating. I didn’t realize that you were Mekhazzio as well as Sua. We can only take go where Sua is leading us in this conversation. I see. Again, this person claims to be mature.
So here is my opinion since you asked. My opinion is that we do not have more freedom. You really consider a car a freedom? No one has the right to own/drive a car. It isn’t a freedom. If it was then blind people would be on the road.
I consider gun rights a freedom and that is why I brought it up.
Sua:"This thread is a debate about two assertions made by aynrandlover’s:
- The American Government are more concerned with removing freedoms than restricting freedoms; and
- American society is less free than it was 100 years ago.
It’s been a pretty good discussion so far, and I ask that you not highjack it."
OK. Again here is Sua defining the argument that he was in. Not the OP question.
My opinion is that we aren’t as free as 100 or 200 hundred years ago. That is why I brought up guns.
Cars don’t make us more free. They make us able to do more things but not more free from the government which was the original question.
The telephone gives the ability to call overseas but doesn’t make us any more free. If anything the government regulates this makes us less free to make phone calls or own vehicles. Some in Government want to control/regulate/profit from many of these things.
A piece of advice Sua. Lose the superiority complex. You didn’t start this thread. Every debate doesn’t modulate in tune with your opinion of the argument.
Ya know, son, I think you have a problem with me. I’m glad that in the approximately two days you’ve been here, you have had the insight that I’m immature, arrogant, and have a superiority complex. I also am glad that you have the self-assurance to either misstate or misunderstand my argument, and than mock me based upon your, er, misunderstanding.
Please, please, please don’t take this as me arrogantly directing you in a superior manner, but on this board, if you have a problem with another poster, you don’t interfere with an ongoing thread. Instead, you take it to the Pit. If you want to discuss all of my many failings, please start a thread there.
Sua
Sua:“Ya know, son, I think you have a problem with me.”
I don’t have a problem with you. I just believe that you are wrong. And again I am not your son. If you were my father I wouldn’t have my ability to form a rational thought.
If you define freedom as the collective of everything that you can do then why are we even talking about this?
How is a car a freedom?
I thought that being free was being able to to do as you please with out interference.
I understand that we shouldn’t be in Anarchy but too many of our regulations are nuts.
That is why I said that about the guns.
Sorry if you think that I am somehow against you but I am not. I just think that you need to give a little consideration to what others say and stop the “SON” reference.
No, obviously no problem with me. :rolleyes:
One more time.
- The propostion has been made in this thread that laws forbidding speeding, reckless driving, drinking and driving, etc., are restrictions on freedom. I agree.
- If these laws are restrictions on freedom, what freedom are they restricting? The right to vote? I don’t think so.
- Logically, the freedom that is being restricted is the freedom to drive a car as you see fit.
- Since the car didn’t exist until the 1890’s, then the freedom to drive a car as you see fit didn’t exist until that time.
- Ergo, the invention of the automobile created a new freedom.
I hope my use of the terms “Logically” and “Ergo” didn’t make me sound superior.
Sua
I see what you are saying there. I just don’t agree with it.
I think that freedom is one thing. We don’t have hundred of freedoms but we have rights rights.
Some of these things that I can do are rights and some I am allowed to do by permission. I.E. Driving is by permit and is not a Freedom.
Owning a gun is a right and not a freedom.
There is no such thing as the freedom to drive.
There is no freedom to shoot my gun at my local range but I have the right to do it.
Of course you have less total freedom when you are given a speed limit to abide by but driving is still a permission and not a single freedom.
Does this make sense? I’m very tired so maybe my point isn’t gett across but I can try again some other time.
Well, I suppose one can define freedom in such a way that any law by the government restricts it, but IMHO, that is a pretty silly and useless definition of freedom. And, I think the point needs to be made that under any more expansive definition of freedom, this freedom can be restricted by others…not just the government. In fact, the government, in the best of circumstances, can try to take a role in helping to expand the freedom.
In particular, I speak of the restriction of freedoms by money and the economic power, often in the hands of, say, corporations. And, I know the libertarians out there like to argue that this is not a restriction of freedom because you have control over the market by how you make your purchases, blah, blah, blah. And, I happen to think this argument is as naive as the claim that a democratic government can’t possibly restrict freedom because it is “by and for the people.” No, I take that back…It is probably even more naive.
jshore, nice to read that second paragraph. I get pretty peeved when someone rolls their eyes at a “big government” comment but then feels free to say things like “big business.” If dal is to be heard we would see little difference in them. 
However, I would wonder what exactly you mean by freedom if laws down’t restrict them.
Agreed. This debate is quickly devolving because we can’t agree on what “freedom” means. I’m gonna start a new GD thread to try to get a consensus on that.
Sua
Aynrandlover, in fact, I can think of lots of cases where I would like to restrict the power of government over people’s lives. Can you think of lots of places where you would like to restrict the power of “big business” over people’s lives?
I don’t roll my eyes at the idea that government can sometimes be malevolent and, at other times, benevolent in its intent but bureaucratic to the point of causing more harm than good. However, I don’t believe that government has the monopoly on bureaucracy. In fact, the company that I work for seems to have a pretty good share of that market! (We may not be struggling to maintain share in other markets…but in that market, we’re doing just fine!)
As for how my freedom is restricted by non-governmental forces, I think I have gone into this with you before. One example is that my freedom to get around in the manner I would like to and to breathe clean air is restricted by other’s choices to drive around in their monsterous vehicles which are effectively being subsidized by their not paying the full costs associated with them. If you look at the causes of this, I think a good part of the blame lies at the corporate doorstep, or at least at government’s unwillingness to correct the externalities that exist in the “free market”. (Thus, the lack of some sort of taxation or regulation is restricting my freedom.)
My freedoms are also restricted by a corporate media that has managed to control the discourse on political issues to the point where they get their way on public issues such as sprawl, the regulation of markets, etc. etc.
Anyway, I could go on and on … but I will leave it at these examples for now.
i Might like some of Morganthaus ideas if i read him, it is very unlikely i would love him. one of the reviews mentioned the idea that MAN is basically EVIL. i regard this as christian nonsense. i’m not a christian. i think the system runs on reincarnation. the world is currently dominated by the european paradigm of reality. although i think human beings play power games most play them badly because information hiding is the most common strategy. imagine everyone in the world playing chess against each other and most people don’t know how the pieces move. the internet is a way to tell everyone about the game. everyone can theoretically become a power player.
i consider economics and technology more important than politics. nobody knows what the internet is going to do to us.
i’ve read
POWER by Adolf Berle, an advisor to Lyndon Johnson
GAME OF NATIONS by Miles Copeland
i’m doing my bit to mess with the mind of the world.
http://www.spectacle.org/1199/wargame.html
maybe the car companies will hire someone to bump me off.
Dal Timgar
Rights are derived from the government. For better or worse, the government has enough soldiers, police, and lawyers to pretty much make you do whatever they want. The real issue isn’t that the government takes away rights because they don’t let us live by the law of the jungle. The issue is how do we select a government that acts in the best interests of the entire nation as well as individuals.
Going back to your original statement
Our system of government assumes that right to govern is obtained from people. The founding fathers knew, however, that allowing the entire population to vote on every law or decision is both impractical as well as dangerous. They knew that the mob does not always act in its own best interest.
To say that government is more concerned about removing freedom than protecting it is a gross oversimplification. The government removes certain “rights” and protects others based on what elected leaders feel is in the best interest of the country (or more specifically, the voters).
The problem is, as was mentioned before, that sometimes ones group’s “rights” have to be taken away to protect anothers.
ie:
Every citizen should have the right to own a gun for home defense or hunting. On the other hand, is it in the best interest of the country to arm the entire population with every imaginable type of handgun, assault rifle, flamthrower, and grenade launcher?
Its usually not a black and white issue of giving and taking away rights.
“All warfare is based on deception”
-Sun Tzu, The Art of War
Wow!!
Freedom is the sum. The total of everything that you are either allowed or limited in doing.
Jshore:“Well, I suppose one can define freedom in such a way that any law by the government restricts it, but IMHO, that is a pretty silly and useless definition of freedom. And, I think the point needs to be made that under any more expansive definition of freedom, this freedom can be restricted by others…not just the government. In fact, the government, in the best of circumstances, can try to take a role in helping to expand the freedom.”
Did you read that?? Here is an excerpt.
Jshore:“this freedom can be restricted by others…not just the government”
What are you talking about. There are not several freedoms. Freedom is collective.
This fact is not debatable as Sua insinuates. Freedom is one. Freedom is the sum of everything. There are rights and permissions but freedom is static. Yu can take a little away or give a little back but freedom is not a seperate item.
Gomen.
I would argue with almost this entire statement. Many rights are not derived from the government but secured by it. That is, we take the freedom of speech as protected by the government as opposed to protecting ourselves every time we have something to say that may be off color. But the government did not create the freedom of speech.
The right to a speedy trial, however, is created by the government because without a government this right is meaningless.
“Don’t let us live by the law of the jungle” ??? This is hardly the case. Man, almost as a rule, likes structure and security. The government provides this. I don’t know if this is what you are implying, but you make it sound like without government we’d all run amok. The government is not our caretaker or kind parent. It is us.
“The issue is how do we select a government that acts in the best interests of the entire nation as well as individuals.”
That is an issue, but before that can be decided one must decide which is more important: the whole of society or the individual, because there are times when it is an either-or proposition. I find a tone of “the good of the many outweighs the good of the one” in your response. I’m pretty sure I don’t agree with that as a rule.
Yeah, and? Are you agreeing with me
Rats. Well, at least we see the good of the many made concrete here. What I don’t understand is how you feel the second sentence there shows that my “government is more concerned” quote is an oversimplification. I am speaking factually, not trying to ascertain the relative good or bad qualitites such laws may have. Without value judgements it is not a gross oversimplification, it is a fact. Laws remove freedom from someone.
If I’ve got a gross oversimplification, this is a gross overexaggeration. Again, it boils down to whether you feel this is a reasonable removal of freedom. Remember, in this particular case the right is removed from private individuals, the government is not impeded. This is a difference between merely removing freedom and creating a priviledged class by law.
I was not trying to imply that the goverernment creates the freedom of speach. The point I was making is that we have rights becasue the government allows us to have them. Our system of government is based on a complicated system checks and balances that prevent leaders from arbitrarilly signing laws that take away certain rights. If we lived in a dictatorship, the government could simply revoke our right to free speach at will.
Maybe you were just stating that laws take away freedoms because they restrict certain behaviors. No argument here. I think some of the other posts imply, however, that many of the rights laid out in the Bill of Rights are being systematically taken away by Big Government. I don’t believe this is the case. Going back to the “gun control” example: The government passes laws to restrict certain guns (like assault weapons) because lawmakers receive pressure from voters and special interest groups. People want to live in a safe society so they are willing to give up some of their rights in order to feel safe. Other groups don’t want to give up those rights.
So, yes, government does take away certain rights, but only because we (or a large and vocal enough portion of us) allow it to.
Not exactly. Even without a central governent, people would still create some kind of social order. even if it is a very simple tribal structure. There would still be some running amok, though.