Good evening again, Robert!
My original message, as I received it in return reply fashion,
got hacked pretty badly below, so I hope the reader can find some
continuity in all of this, sorry. Your segment seemed to make it
through much better than did my original for some reason.
Robert Goodman wrote to Frank Reichert...
We are, as a society anyway, bei>ng
indoctrinated into accepting a police-state mentality in America today
th>at
somehow has all of the pre-disposed answers to all of our society's.
Thi>s
doesn't differ very much honestly, with fascist mind control over a
gener>al
population.
To which, you answered:
True. However, at the same time, we are getting what I think to be an at
least equal amount of propaganda extolling the value of freedom. For
example, these days perhaps more than usual, TV advertisers have been
making freedom of choice a major theme. Even the Media Partnership for a
Drug-Free America has a new campaign emphasizing freedom of
decision-making!
Well maybe, at least in part, but I would hasten to add here,
that I doubt the message is 'equal time' in any respect. I do
however sense that a small shift may be arising that might be
starting to question just why America today is still supporting
the assumption for militarization in the first place, and it is
still far too early to tell where that might go in the mid term
to distant future.
When I examine the poll results (and these results might not mean
very much since they seem to change rather dramatically depending
upon the current emphasis by the mainstream media), there seems
to be a greater skeptism by the general public on the
justification for going to war, particularly in Iraq today than
ever before. However, before jumping on the bandwagon and
sensing a repeat of the Vietnam War era, I would rather take a
far more measured assessment that by in large, this is probably
simply political posturing. But probably not entirely either, as
many GOP politicians are starting to take notice that a lot of
this so-called justification for war has been largely misleading
to be sure.
Of course, the idea of freedom conveyed by much of this material is not the
same as our idea; in some cases it is peripheral or tangential. However,
there is also considerable message-making which is exactly, or nearly
exactly what we have in mind, and some of it is the same sort of criticism
Frank gives above.
I don't know what the net result is.
I am currently at a loss too, largely because American public
opinion usually shifts with the wind. I guess my greatest fear
is that we have perhaps lost a tremendous distance since 9/11
from what our libertarian goals might have been prior to that,
and anything less, even in incremental terms, will take a
tremendously long time to arrive at even where we were prior to 9/11.
As Libertarians, we have a realistic assessment in terms of both
economic and social liberty. You can't have one, and at the same
time surrender the other. We may be currently making a lot
[maybe I ought to qualify that too, but at least some
progress...] of progress, at least in some respects on the social
liberty issues. By that I mean we seem to be coming to terms with
the Bush Administration's desire to reshape the Supreme Court. I
doubt if we have been as successful in realizing very much
progress on the ongoing assault over our economic choices, and
that includes personal ownership over our own income, private
property, and related issues. I notice that the provisions for
drilling and oil exploration in Alaska and other areas have been
deleted by this Congress (mainly by back sliding Republicans).
There are a lot of other related economic issues as well.
Perhaps one that might tend to be in our favour is the reluctance
of Latin American countries to go along with moving forward the
Bush agenda of the so-called Free Trade Agreement Treaty that
would essentially further erode free trade, or at least impede to
a great extent individual economy and choice.
One of the things that stand out, at least for me, is the
absolute disaster of allowing a mob to decide such things for
individuals participating, or trying to do so, on an even playing
field. Usually at least, that is defined by Democracy.
Democracy has always been a total disaster. Democracy always
leads to totalitarianism, and that is especially true today, just
as it has been through all of the discourse of recorded history.
Whenever Democracy becomes the deciding force on the manner in
which ultimate decisions are made, it becomes totalitarian, and
individuals as self-governors over their own affairs take the
back seat to the mob's decision over individual's own right to
exist as they choose to exist, and usurping that basic right and
authority.
That is the saddest commentary of our time. We may never under
any political environment in America today, ever recapture these
basic rights to govern ourselves. We lost most of that during
the last century, and I seen absolutely no progress at all in
recapturing that idea in the 21st Century.
Maybe this might be a great subject for starting another thread,
concerning mob rule, or Democracy, and how that ultimately leads
to the loss of individual freedom and personal choice.
I'm all for that, if anyone here cares to champion moving into
such a discussion!
Kindest regards,
Frank
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