Scratch a Conservative and You Find a ...
From Thomas Sowell:
When I see the worsening degeneracy in our politicians, our media, our educators, and our intelligentsia, I can't help wondering if the day may yet come when the only thing that can save this country is a military coup.You fill in the blank in the title.
My REPLY to the above posting from Sheldon Richman:
Maybe I am not sufficiently aware of the literature, but it seems to me that libertarians need to go beyond their pertinent criticisms of contemporary democracy and produce a positive account of democracy's role in a libertarian society.
I do not endorse Sowell's statement, but coup-type action can certainly bring freedom to a people - however, not for long, because freedom is an educational challenge of massive proportions, especially today, when too few people understand the prerequisites of liberty and wealth.
Germany has seen a libertarian coup in 1948, staged by Ludwig Ehrhard, a lonely liberal (European meaning of the word), whose policies of legalizing competitive conditions created a libertarian's dream - especially in the face of an inadvertently minimalist state left over after the country's war-induced total collapse, and given the entrepreneurial drive ubiquitously unleashed as everyone was suddenly left to their own devices.
But the German people - traditionally socialist-minded - did not understand the freedom they were handed, and when they got rich only 10 or 15 years later, they called the outcome a "miracle" (something one does not understand) and went on to use their wealth to create a somewhat more sophisticated form of socialism.
Almost nobody in Germany understood then or understands now the inseparable twins - capitalism and the rule of law. That's why there cannot be a free society in Germany today.
A coup will never be good enough for liberty (not to mention the inherent problems of coup-type action).Understanding freedom, restoring and maintaining it is hard work that must be taken up every day by every one of us.
The present blog - let me say this in its first post - is a humble effort at this.
* The number in brackets at the end of the title represents a serial count of my posts.
5:13 PM
Maybe I am not sufficiently aware of the literature, but it seems to me that libertarians need to go beyond their pertinent criticisms of contemporary democracy and produce a positive account of democracy's role in a libertarian society.
I do not endorse Sowell's statement, but coup-type action can certainly bring freedom to a people - however, not for long, because freedom is an educational challenge of massive proportions, especially today, when too few people understand the prerequisites of liberty and wealth.
Germany has seen a libertarian coup in 1948, staged by Ludwig Ehrhard, a lonely liberal (European meaning of the word), whose policies of legalizing competitive conditions created a libertarian's dream - especially in the face of an inadvertently minimalist state left over after the country's war-induced total collapse, and given the entrepreneurial drive ubiquitously unleashed as everyone was suddenly left to their own devices.
But the German people - traditionally socialist-minded - did not understand the freedom they were handed, and when they got rich only 10 or 15 years later, they called the outcome a "miracle" (something one does not understand) and went on to use their wealth to create a somewhat more sophisticated form of socialism.
Almost nobody in Germany understood then or understands now the inseparable twins - capitalism and the rule of law. That's why there cannot be a free society in Germany today.
A coup will never be good enough for liberty (not to mention the inherent problems of coup-type action).Understanding freedom, restoring and maintaining it is hard work that must be taken up every day by every one of us.
The present blog - let me say this in its first post - is a humble effort at this.
* The number in brackets at the end of the title represents a serial count of my posts.
5:13 PM
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