consequences..................

 

You are free to do whatever you like.  You need only face the consequences.

-Sheldon B. Kopp

On free speech......................

 Whether Trump’s policies turn out to be right or wrong evidently matters. But the resumption of the great American debate, of speech that is unencumbered and unafraid, of a Jeffersonian open society, matters much more, since it will enable progress.

-Martin Gurri, from here

It's a conundrum...................

 ..................Arnold Kling gives some thought to our health care system:

The most important policy problem is that people want unlimited access to medical services without having to pay for them. When the political system tries to accomplish this, the result is excessive spending on medical care.

Martin Gurri.........................

..............................on the New Censorship:

 A remarkable transvaluation has occurred since that idealistic time. In essence, the postmodern establishment Left has reversed the terms of the Jeffersonian ideal. The threat to democracy is now society—a realm of injustice and oppression, in which human wolves perpetually devour the weak. Trump and Musk stand as archetypes of the predator. They represent the authoritarian impulse, and they can manipulate the dull-minded masses, even unto insurgency, by spreading falsehoods and fake news. The pandemic showed them willing to kill with their lies, to undermine the authority of science.

Only a powerful, watchful government, in the hands of the Party of Truth, can impose democracy on a troubled society by controlling the words said, as well as the means of communication that convey them, to the public. A wise guardian class, advised by specialists, must be mobilized to assume control of politics and culture. In this framework, opposition can never be legitimate—it belongs to the Party of Lies. Those who follow Savio’s exhortation and throw themselves on the gears of the great institutions will be ground to pulp—for their own good.

On being unmoored..............

      It is impossible to be one's own pope.  For some, the moral life becomes an endless, solipistic quest to figure out "what my true self stands for."  Many feel they have to reinvent the moral wheel daily, which is the height of arrogance, not to mention utterly exhausting.  Still others externalize all of the conscience's furies, directing them against the faults of others or those of social and political systems.  Worse, too many simply learn to tune out the conscience's voice, now lowered to a murmur for lack of authoritative supports.

     The think-for-yourself culture celebrates all of these groups for their "free minds."  Yet we know that most people sway, feather-like, to the prevailing winds of news and social media, fashion and fadism, public and "expert" opinion, P.R. and propaganda.  Large corporations, especially, what nothing more than for our minds to be independent—that is, unmoored from absolute, unbendable moral authorities that might challenge corporate agendas.  And how much the better for the powers that be if pliant consumers and docile workers fancy themselves rebels and radicals.

-Sohrab Ahmari, The Unbroken Thread:  Discovering the Wisdom of Tradition in an Age of Chaos

partial, imperfect fulfillment.........

         By contrast, the African-American poet Langston Hughes sang in 1935: "O, let America be America again— / The land that never has been yet— /And yet must be—the land where every man is free."  Free to move, to invent, to persuade, to offer a dollar, with no master in charge.  The result of liberal democracy's partial, imperfect fulfillment has been a slow but in the end spectacular approach worldwide to flourishing, in which fewer and fewer people are pushed or bossed around without their voluntarily given consent or contract.

-Deirdre Nansen McCloskey,  Why Liberalism Works:  How True Liberal Values Produce A Freer, More Equal, Prosperous World For All

Ideal..........................

      The American ideal is about your liberty, not their power.

       It's no longer Republican versus Democrat.  It's not about good government or bad government.  It's not even "liberal" versus "conservative."  It's about limiting the government's monopoly on force and unleashing our freedom to try, to choose, to take responsibility, and to make things better.  It is about the political elites and the insiders they collude with versus America. 

-Matte Kibbe,  Don't Hurt People And Don't Take Their Stuff:  A Libertarian Manifesto

The interesting thing..........................

 .........................................about feed-back loops:

Find a feedback loop and you will find people who underestimate how crazy prices can get, how famous a person can become, how hard it can be to change people’s minds, how irreparable a reputation can be, and how tiny events can compound into something huge.

Freed.............................

"Refusal to forgive leads to a self-imposed imprisonment.  It's time we freed ourselves by letting old pain dissipate into the darkness, so that new opportunities can take us to greater heights of joy."

-Marc & Angel Chernoff,  1000+ Little Things Happy Successful People Do Differently

slow but spectacular.................

    By contrast, the African-American poet Langston Hughes sang in 1935: "O, let America be America again—/ The land that never has been yet—/And yet must be—a land where every man is free."  Free to move, to invent, to persuade, to offer a dollar, with no master in charge.  The result of liberal democracy's partial, imperfect fulfillment has been a slow but in the end spectacular approach worldwide to flourishing, in which fewer and fewer people are pushed or bossed around without their voluntarily given consent or contract.

-Deirdre Nansen McCloskey,  Why Liberalism Works:  How True Liberal Values Produce A Freer, More Equal, Prosperous World For All

Free speech..................

..............what follows is a longish excerpt from a read-worthy Jason Richwine essay on the subject:

Presumably, the founders believed open debate is essential to a free society, and the threat of government persecution would discourage that debate. Of course, the First Amendment restrains only the government, but if we take the wisdom of it seriously we should value its principles more broadly. After all, if open debate is truly desirable, we should be concerned not just about government suppression of unpopular views, but about non-governmental suppression. As chilling effects go, “I would speak out, but I don’t want to risk going to jail” is not all that different from “I would speak out, but I don’t want to risk losing my friends and my livelihood.” The end result is the same—less speech, less debate, less openness.

Some people assume non-governmental censorship limits only a vitriolic fringe. I see no evidence of this. James Damore hardly expressed a fringe or hateful perspective when he internally criticized Google’s diversity ethos, but the company fired him anyway. Mozilla CEO Brendan Eich donated to a ballot initiative against same-sex marriage that won, but he lost his job anyway. The message from both companies was that people with contrary views—even widely-held contrary views—should get with the ideological program or lose their jobs.

Another misleading assumption is that private-sector censorship is only about defending the powerless from harassment. Actually, it’s often about defending the powerful from criticism. CNN once threatened to dox a blogger who had created a pro-Trump meme mocking the network. It backed down only on the condition that the blogger apologize and promise never to do it again. Who exactly was the powerless one in that situation? Dr. Noah Carl was fired by St. Edmund’s College because his research on group differences was “problematic,” but the administration cited no actual errors in his work. Was the university speaking truth to power, as the saying goes—or speaking power to truth?

via

"Milkshaking"..........................

………………………………...is not such a new thing:

Subjectivity........................

      One of the laws of consciousness is:  We are only subject to a negative thought or belief if we consciously say that it applies to us.  We are free not to choose to buy into a negative belief system.

-David Hawkins, Letting Go:  The Pathway of Surrender

David Kanigan posts a quote................

..............on his wondrous Thrive that sure sounds familiar:

 Bob Marley..............................................Redemption Song

 

Close enough..........................

via

On being careful what you wish for...........

...........................................Here are two wee excerpts from an essay on free speech found in The Chronicle of Higher Education:

Barring speakers or preventing hate speech does not safeguard the oppressed. It empowers the oppressors...

Free speech is the greatest single ally of social justice and, even at its most noxious and repulsive, is often a catalyst for reflection and remediation. It is easy to mistake it for a tool of repression when, in fact, it is the antidote.

Full essay here

On the voluntariness of rituals........

"Anyway, I was thinking about this in the case of Colin Kaepernick, the NFL quarterback currently employed by the 49ers but expected by many to be released (ie fired) in the coming weeks.  Last weekend he stirred up controversy when he refused to stand for the national anthem to protest treatment of blacks in America.   Personally, I barely noticed, as I am not a big fan of enforced loyalty oaths and patriotic rituals, finding these to historically be markers of unfree societies.  For these sorts of rituals to have any meaning at all, they have to be voluntary, which means that Kaepernick has every right to not participate, and everyone else has every right to criticize him for doing so, and I have the right to ignore it all as tedious virtue-signalling."

-Warren Meyer, as excerpted from here

While we are touching the subject, another interesting column on standing for the National Anthem may be found here

Thinking about free will and the Clock Maker...

The concept of free will can be confusing.


  Stuart Schneiderman reports:  "Apparently, neuroscience has looked into the workings of the brain and has not seen anything that looks like free will. That is, scientists do not see a mental action preceding the brain function that directs a physical action."  


He quotes Stephen Cave as saying, "The sciences have grown steadily bolder in their claim that all human behavior can be explained through the clockwork laws of cause and effect..."  "


Actually, Cave's essay in The Atlantic seems more nuanced than Schneiderman gives him credit for,  As they say in the neighborhood.  Read the whole thing.


The following passage from Cave's essay raises a much more important question:  is Cave channeling Dilbert, or is Dilbert channeling Cave?:


"Philosophers and theologians are used to talking about free will as if it is either on or off; as if our consciousness floats, like a ghost, entirely above the causal chain, or as if we roll through life like a rock down a hill. But there might be another way of looking at human agency."

Free for all..........................

On free thought.....................

"Whoever is acquainted with the history of philosophy for the last two or three centuries cannot but admit that there appears to have existed a sort of secret and tacit compact among the learned, not to pass beyond a certain limit in speculative science.  The privilege of free thought so highly extolled, has at not time been held valid in actual practice, except within this limit."

-Samuel Taylor Coleridge