I feel rather sad that the only thing that keeps most Americans moving - intellectually - is that old canard of liberty. Liberty is a bullshit metaphor - what it really means is that businessmen are free to do whatever they want without being accountable to any authority, and the grunts are free to think that they too can become rich one day. That kind of thinking is the foundation of neoliberalism.
As for myself, I find this preoccupation with liberty pretty irritating.
It is knee jerk reaction of immature youth rebelling against their parents and teachers glorified to the level of anti-statist ideology. It shuts down any critical thinking how much "liberty" do we really need. I tend to believe that most people do not need too much of it - just enough to carry out their daily lives without undue interference. It is the businessmen that need a lot of it to carry our their money making scams and laugh all the way to the bank. Ordinary people are in a far greater need of good life, food, shelter, public services, access to health *care* (not health business), social safety net, personal security, - not some bullshit abstraction cooked up by reactionary philosophers.
That good life is not affected in any way by some government agency
collecting information about people's daily lives for a very simple reason - that information is the Library of Babel http://www.thecriticalpoint.net/index_files/libraryofbabel.pdf. The more information they collect, the less actionable it is. By sheer law of probability, most people will be unaffected - only libertarian freaks may have nightmares about all that "government power." Contrary to libertarian canards, police states do not need to gather information - they make it up to frame someone. The difference between a police state and a democracy is how that information is used, not how much of it is collected. So if that information is used to prevent some terrorist from killing people to "make a statement" but there is a due process to challenge that information-
that is a net gain in a democracy.
This whole affair is a sad manifestation of American knee-jerk anti-statism and libertarianism. It is really sad that they rally against the government (that safe scapegoat of businessmen) in the name of a bullshit concept of liberty rather than, say, that of "good life" or "health care and social security for all." For that reason, when I hear about liberty in America, I want to puke (elsewhere, it might be a different story).
Long live Hobbes. And send all liberty lovers to a reeducation camp where they can learn the virtues of solidarity and reasonable limits on human capacity to act ;).
On Tue, Jun 11, 2013 at 12:22 AM, JOANNA A. <123hop at comcast.net> wrote:
> In addition, everyone should watch the 12 minute interview with Snowden
> posted on the Guardian.
>
> It's one of the most impressive things I've ever seen.
>
> Joanna
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> I just thought about and then watched an old movie, Enemy of the State
> (1998), with Mister Clean, Will Smith, Mister Grit, Gene Hackman, Mister
> Asshole Jon Voight, and Lisa Bonet who looks like Michelle Obama.
>
> It's free here:
>
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0MX38ShoCI
>
> If you haven't seen it, it's a fun flick.
>
> CG
>
>
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>
-- Wojtek
"An anarchist is a neoliberal without money."