What does all this say about us and about our choice of freedoms? In the end, how important is public freedom? In Britain pockets of civil society remain strong. But how much change has it really brought about? How many fall into the category of troublemakers? What percentage of the population consists of NGOs, defence lawyers, dissenters or investigative journalists? How many people take part in marches? Participatory democracy has all but disappeared. And even where it has occasionally broken through into the mass consciousness, such as the huge anti-war march in London in 2003 on the eve of the Iraq conflict, it made no difference.
Will a new generation of world leaders produce something different and more inspiring, a post-crash version of freedom that inspires and addresses the many iniquities around the world? I fear the answer is a resounding “no”, although I hope I am proven wrong. People’s priorities reflect the socio-economic conditions of their time. So although it may have been the bankers and hedge fund managers who caused the immediate mess, the bigger culprits were we, the people, particularly in the West, for allowing democracy to mutate into something it should never have become ”” a vehicle to deliver consumption.
In Britain, as elsewhere around the world, a critical mass of people vested in their leaders almost unlimited powers to determine questions of liberty. In return they were bought off by a temporary blanket of security and what turned out to be an illusory prosperity.
“Those who trade liberty for security have neither.” ~ John Adams
Actually, it was Ben Franklin, although Thomas Jefferson is also reported to have said something similar.
“Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both.â€
and he put a variation on it later:
“They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”
Jim <><
“Freedom is not empowerment. Empowerment is what the Serbs have in Bosnia. Anybody can grab a gun and be empowered. It’s not entitlement. An entitlement is what people on welfare get, and how free are they? It’s not an endlessly expanding list of rights — the “right” to education, the “right” to health care, the “right” to food and housing. That’s not freedom, that’s dependency. Those aren’t rights, those are the rations of slavery — hay and a barn for human cattle.”
PJ O’Rourke
It is really annoying to keep hearing people say that “we” did this to ourselves. “We” didn’t. I voted for Ron Paul, the only candidate that wanted us to follow the Constitution. Don’t get me wrong…many that voted for other candidates did so with good intent. They were lied to. When leaders lie without compunction, when they do so pathologically, what are the people to do? Should they empower themselves (as did the Serbs)? What is the solution for an ongoing series of lying politicians from both sides of the political spectrum? The Agenda keeps going forward no matter who is elected. Personal freedom, prosperity, and safety continue to erode under both the Left and the Right. Very few of us vote for alternative candidates.
Bottom line: “We” didn’t do this to ourselves. Folks that voted for the Obamanation are the culprits today. Folks that voted for Bush did it yesterday. Folks need to stop believing the lies from the Left and the Right and start voting for alternative candidates. I am very conservative, but I would rather see an honest Ralph Nader in office than a guy like Dick Cheney. I would much rather see a guy like Ron Paul in office than a guy like Obama. We have to stop the Federal juggernaut. We have to return to the original design of the country. I think that the path back home is the 10th Amendment and the rest of the Bill of Rights. We need to roll back many of the SCOTUS decisions through the power of the Legistative branch…whether by law or amendment. Support groups supporting the 2nd Amendment. Support groups like the Concord Coalition, pushing for a balanced budget. Support groups like the ACLJ (NOT the ACLU).
And quit dodging responsiblity by saying that “we” did this to ourselves. If you have been avoiding voting or voting for folks that keep doing this to us…if you don’t support organizations that stand for freedom on behalf of the people…then YOU did this to us.
[blockquote]I think that the path back home is the 10th Amendment and the rest of the Bill of Rights.[/blockquote]
Personally, I think the BoR is the problem in a lot of ways, the major one being what Alexander Hamilton pointed to in the Federalist. He said that a BoR would be superfluous insofar as it would supposedly protect liberties in areas where the federal government had no authority to act in the first place. He illustrated his point with the freedom of the press, saying that since no branch of the federal government had been endowed with the power to regulate the press, ratifying an amendment to prevent such regulation was, at best, redundant.
The “at best” part is salient here: Hamilton went on to say a BoR would actually be dangerous in that it would invert the intent of the Constitution from being a short list of powers granted to the federal government, with the remainder reserved to the states and/or the People, to a short list of rights retained by the People (as called out in the BoR), with all remaining powers reserved for the central state. It’s the difference between sending your kid to the grocery store for milk, bread and coffee and sending him with the instructions to [i]not[/i] buy lighter fluid, tomato sauce and T-bone steaks in hopes he comes home with your milk.
To push the federal government back into its Constitutional box, we have to stop focusing on the BoR, instead stressing what powers are actually conferred by Article I, Section 8.
Yes, and the 10th Amendment is the tool to force the Federal behemoth to be contained by Article I, section 8. Otherwise, the argument against government expansion is the argument of silence. “The constitution doesn’t say we can do [i]that[/i]. Yes, but neither does it say that we [i]can’t[/i].” Well, the 10th Amendment does say that they can’t.
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
32 states have reasserted the 10th Amendment and the limitations on Federal powers.
I know what you’re saying, S&T but even the Federalists – the big-government guys of their time – agreed that the powers conferred on the federal government were “few and defined,” even without the 10th Amendment. A10 reinforces the intent of the Founders, it doesn’t subvert it.