The World Needs a Philosophy of Liberty Communicator
Posted by CircuitGuy 5 years, 5 months ago to Philosophy
Someone from the Venezuelan diaspora (can we call it that?) told me flatly he’s not into economic philosophy but he knows communism means “no jobs”. He said he’ll go back to Venezuela when Maduro’s gone.
This got me thinking about claims that US is closer to dysfunction of that nature than it seems. I thought there would be a backlash against President Trump’s antics, deficit spending, nastiness, lying, and many appearances of impropriety. But there really hasn’t been as much as I thought. Democrats are lining up with large gov’t programs like the so-called Green New Deal that attempts to sell socialism by tying it to one of the biggest problems of our time, global warming. Using the problem to sell socialism is worse than pretending it’s not there.
It sounds like a cliché, but I’m worried there’s no philosophy of people solving problems without government force. That idea won’t die, but I see the US as carrying it forward. I have a borderline-nationalistic feeling no one else will do it right. Americans have that expansive and sometimes annoying attitude: “Don’t look to others. What are your dreams? Anything is possible!”
I hope I’m wrong and we soon see that attitude that I see in my American colleagues in US politics. Or if we don’t see it, then maybe President Trump’s antics and this Green New Deal and Medicare for All crap are all just rhetoric. Maybe when crisis strikes, people suddenly get serious. I don’t like that because seriousness in a sudden crisis usually means more government intrusion.
It seems like the world needs a great Ayn Rand communicator, not a politician, but an intellectual that reaches that average non-philosopher person. It doesn’t even need to be a person. It could be a hit TV show. I have no idea what form it would take.
I have been concerned about all the people who want government to solve their problems uniting together since I read an article by Bernie Sanders in 2015 praising Trump. It’s easy for me to imagine selling protectionism to socialists; and its easy to imagine selling socialism to deplorables. The key is “someone else is to blame for your life’s problems.”
The good news is my predictions are wrong at least half the time. People respond telling me, no, no, they’ll stay fired up blaming different groups for their problems and that will keep them apart. I hope so. It doesn’t seem sustainable long-term. As ewv said, tricks won’t cut it. The world needs a solid foundation of a philosophy of liberty.
This got me thinking about claims that US is closer to dysfunction of that nature than it seems. I thought there would be a backlash against President Trump’s antics, deficit spending, nastiness, lying, and many appearances of impropriety. But there really hasn’t been as much as I thought. Democrats are lining up with large gov’t programs like the so-called Green New Deal that attempts to sell socialism by tying it to one of the biggest problems of our time, global warming. Using the problem to sell socialism is worse than pretending it’s not there.
It sounds like a cliché, but I’m worried there’s no philosophy of people solving problems without government force. That idea won’t die, but I see the US as carrying it forward. I have a borderline-nationalistic feeling no one else will do it right. Americans have that expansive and sometimes annoying attitude: “Don’t look to others. What are your dreams? Anything is possible!”
I hope I’m wrong and we soon see that attitude that I see in my American colleagues in US politics. Or if we don’t see it, then maybe President Trump’s antics and this Green New Deal and Medicare for All crap are all just rhetoric. Maybe when crisis strikes, people suddenly get serious. I don’t like that because seriousness in a sudden crisis usually means more government intrusion.
It seems like the world needs a great Ayn Rand communicator, not a politician, but an intellectual that reaches that average non-philosopher person. It doesn’t even need to be a person. It could be a hit TV show. I have no idea what form it would take.
I have been concerned about all the people who want government to solve their problems uniting together since I read an article by Bernie Sanders in 2015 praising Trump. It’s easy for me to imagine selling protectionism to socialists; and its easy to imagine selling socialism to deplorables. The key is “someone else is to blame for your life’s problems.”
The good news is my predictions are wrong at least half the time. People respond telling me, no, no, they’ll stay fired up blaming different groups for their problems and that will keep them apart. I hope so. It doesn’t seem sustainable long-term. As ewv said, tricks won’t cut it. The world needs a solid foundation of a philosophy of liberty.
