We have to accept a particular reality- in much of the world, an American arguing for freedom is seen as a self-serving bastard. The State Department is much to blame here, since they bring up freedom- or the lack of it- whenever they want to interfere with other nations.
There's also this whole arena of Western 'freedom' which is pushed. Sexual deviancy, drug abuse, making up the latest identity and then browbeating everyone who doesn't want to be bothered by it- all this stuff has been labelled as 'freedom', yet it's pretty obvious it is not. People end up with poorer, sadder lives because of it, and it wrecks families, institutions, even nations.
But at the core of any sane argument for freedom, which for governments would probably translate as having as few laws as possible is this:
Iteration.
That's it really, although, obviously, you'd want to include re-iteration, because that's the whole point. As much as possible, let people work through their own problems, and keep trying to improve. Improvement often comes incrementally over time. As far as possible, it's best not to weigh the person down with extra penalties or problems, because it's too easy to discourage improvement- especially if the marginal return on the latest attempt at improvement is completely overshadowed by whatever penalty the government visits upon the person.
I'm sure many want something more idealistic, hyperbolic- whatever- but look, the CCP isn't going to buy your fairy tales, and maybe you really want to convince them of something rather than just trying to make them look bad.
This is more like an engineering argument. Perhaps best understood by people trying to create something. Now, our government seems to be hell bent on destroying everything, but I don't think every nation is that way. Some people are actually trying to do some decent governing, and they may well be the sort of nations that the media yell the loudest about.
No comments:
Post a Comment