Here’s the Friday open comments post.
Today’s suggested topic — are we more are less free today, as against a decade, or a generation, ago?
Are we freer today?
Here’s my take:
Yes, of course, if one looks at times when whole groups of people were denied liberty. From that vantage, we’re far better off today than 1810, 1910, or even 1960.
Yet, recently developing risks to freedom are considerable. Both government officials and major institutions often oppose the empowering technologies that allow common people to express themselves. It all seems so disorderly and chaotic — and challenging — to those who started their careers before these technologies existed. They expected a different world, one of deference (nearly to the point of servility), and it’s not the world in which they now work. They’re ill-suited for the new climate, but rather than recognize their own limitations, they work to limit speech and action to prevent discussion of those limitations.
There’s a pose in all this, that father knows best, and that ordinary Americans are simply unruly children. It’s nonsense, and just a conceit to which mediocre managers and officials cling to comfort themselves: It’s all so hard, people are so savage, and we’re misunderstood.
There’s a generational problem, but not only a generational problem. Some of these officials are men in their fifties, or older, who came of age believing in horse carts, only to find that Americans came to adopt automobiles, so to speak.
What do you think? Freer, less free, about the same?
The use of pseudonyms and anonymous postings is, of course, fine.
Although the comments template has a space for a name, email address, and website, those who want to leave a field blank can do so. Comments will be moderated, against profanity or trolls. Otherwise, have at it.
I’ll keep the post open through Sunday afternoon.
Have at it.
Good morning, Mr. Adams
The Freeman is almost a forgotten treasure. It’s worth reading, but nearly lost alongside Reason.
We are freer, but nevertheless it’s a battle between inexpensive & encouraging technology and costly & discouraging “opinion makers” and politicians.
There will always be people who would prefer to be an integral part of a bad culture than to encourage a good one. They will always favor fitting in, and they sometimes go farther by expecting everyone else to stop talking.
We’re better off fighting than switching.
taxes are going up again = not free
remember when dissent was the highest form of patriotism? not anymore it’s not.
We’re freerer as long as we give politicains the money they want to spend on what they want.
we are definitely more free since we can say what we want easily on the web and in email
We are freer because of the right to post cat videos Thank you
After Patriot Act III or IV, discussions of freedom will ahve been baned. Air travel will be gone long before that, with private homes and personal privacy or property also. Then we won’t have to wory about freedom at all.
We all willingly make ourselves The Prisoner by participating in My Space, Twitter, Facebook, Google, et. al. We are all out there for capture in cyberspace…
Miss Rand — We are better off fighting than switching.
Cat Lover — If we should be freer, then it’s another gift that felines give to humanity, beyond their mere presence (itself a great gift).
Anonymous(es) — Our economic freedom is reduced significantly through taxation and state interference in private, productive activity. We find ourselves arguing over 23 or 21% of the economy is enough for the federal government — as though the lower figure is truly low in any real sense.
Phantom Stranger — True, indeed — we are all under the possibility of becoming The Prisoner. Who, though, is Number 2?