Posted on 02/21/2013 4:53:19 PM PST by Starman417
It's been 80 years since Stalin's brutal reign. Close to 150 years since the end of slavery in the States.
But now we have progressives arguing a way back to slavery and communism...for our own good of course: (h/t JeffG)
...[John Stuart] Mill offered a number of independent justifications for his famous harm principle, but one of his most important claims is that individuals are in the best position to know what is good for them. In Mill’s view, the problem with outsiders, including government officials, is that they lack the necessary information. Mill insists that the individual “is the person most interested in his own well-being,” and the “ordinary man or woman has means of knowledge immeasurably surpassing those that can be possessed by any one else.”When society seeks to overrule the individual’s judgment, Mill wrote, it does so on the basis of “general presumptions,” and these “may be altogether wrong, and even if right, are as likely as not to be misapplied to individual cases.” If the goal is to ensure that people’s lives go well, Mill contends that the best solution is for public officials to allow people to find their own path.
Yes. Government does NOT know best, the individual does.
But wait....argues Cass Sunstein....maybe that's not correct:
Sarah Conly’s illuminating book Against Autonomy provides such a discussion. Her starting point is that in light of the recent findings, we should be able to agree that Mill was quite wrong about the competence of human beings as choosers. “We are too fat, we are too much in debt, and we save too little for the future.” With that claim in mind, Conly insists that coercion should not be ruled out of bounds. She wants to go far beyond nudges. In her view, the appropriate government response to human errors depends not on high-level abstractions about the value of choice, but on pragmatic judgments about the costs and benefits of paternalistic interventions. Even when there is only harm to self, she thinks that government may and indeed must act paternalistically so long as the benefits justify the costs.Conly is quite aware that her view runs up against widespread intuitions and commitments. For many people, a benefit may consist precisely in their ability to choose freely even if the outcome is disappointing. She responds that autonomy is “not valuable enough to offset what we lose by leaving people to their own autonomous choices.” Conly is aware that people often prefer to choose freely and may be exceedingly frustrated if government overrides their choices. If a paternalistic intervention would cause frustration, it is imposing a cost, and that cost must count in the overall calculus. But Conly insists that people’s frustration is merely one consideration among many. If a paternalistic intervention can prevent long-term harm—for example, by eliminating risks of premature death—it might well be justified even if people are keenly frustrated by it.
...A natural objection is that autonomy is an end in itself and not merely a means. On this view, people should be entitled to choose as they like, even if they end up choosing poorly. In a free society, people must be allowed to make their own mistakes, and to the extent possible learn from them, rather than facing correction and punishment from bureaucratic meddlers. Conly responds that when government makes (some) decisions for us, we gain not only in personal welfare but also in autonomy, if only because our time is freed up to deal with what most concerns us
You see, when the Roman empire, when the Egyptians, when Europe and the States had slavery it was really only for their own good. It freed up their time to do really important stuff. No more mundane stuff, that was all decided for them. Sounds swell. I mean it's for your own good. All those government workers are sooooo much smarter than you and have only your best interest at heart.
(excerpt) Read more at floppingaces.net...
But I don't agree. What then?
Yeah, that's pretty much what I thought.
Is she using a justification for slavery from Aristostle? Or from; (you know who)... his last name rhymes with Jitler, I know, really, I did not want to go there but seriously. Do all these progressive live in the land of the lotus eaters?
And how much has the high-carb food pyramid from the FDA contributed to obesity? Or the sugar tariffs that led to the use of high fructose corn syrup?
The government has encouraged debt, and discouraged savings. Some folks have stayed out of debt, and saved, but for most it's kind of hard to do. For most countries, 20% is sufficient savings for a decent retirement. In this rich country the 13% SS takes should be enough, except that it is siphoned off and the retirees end up on a cat food diet. Even if you save another 7%, the government will do their best to take that from you too.
The problem isn't that folks can't or won't do the right things to take care of themselves, it's that it is damned hard to do so when the government is pushing them into going the other way.
Liberals look like idiots, always striving to fix the problem that they caused in the first place. Liberals are evil, in that they damned well know that they caused the problem in the first place. If they didn't know it was their problem in the first place, they would be more honest in examining where the problem came from. But they don't go back to real history, they just blame it on Emmanuel Goldstein and come up with a new program that increases state power.
All societal ills caused by government coersion. Social security gives people the false impression they need not save. Inflationary monitary policy and progressive taxation deter savings further. Government intervention in interest rates makes debt cheap and obtainable even to the non-creditworthy. Foodstamps, forcing hosptials to treat people who cannot pay, and a myriad of other measures to strip people of personal responsibility have resulted in many unhealthy modern lifestyles.
Typical fascist playbook. Create policies that encourage poor choices, espescially for stupid people, then blame freedom of choice for the problems that arise.
What’s the point of saving when interest rates are so artificially low to keep our fiat currency system from collapsing under its gargantuan weight?
What’s the point of saving when interest rates are so artificially low to keep our fiat currency system from collapsing under its gargantuan weight?
5.56mm
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