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It’s
hard to win the war on ideas when your only strategy is to hurl insults, not
solutions, at those who find themselves off the beaten path of “conventional”
norms.
The past two weeks,
the outrage mob has spat poison at Lisa Simpson, hotel shampoo, Kanye West and
a prom dress.
In today’s world, this seems to be a losing strategy for winning
hearts and minds. (On the political front, it’s in large part why the Democratic party is losing millennials in droves.)
For example…
Three things
happened these past two weeks that, in my eyes, should inspire optimism in
anyone who wishes for a better, less venomous future.
Kim Jong Un
considers peace -- and was giddy as a schoolgirl when he rode a roller coaster
with a British diplomat.
Kanye West delivers a message of free thought and radical
tolerance (yes, he loves Trump, but it’s my firm belief a man should be allowed
to love whoever he wants. It is 2018, after all).
Candace Owens, who
has risen to become a popular voice in conservative circles, talks about black
empowerment through prison reform, education reform and strengthening community
and familial ties (her main talking points).
Notice the difference.
These are concrete, potential solutions regarding longstanding
problems.
Not outright demands on any one person or group of people.
Opportunities for discussion.
Of course, within the Mass Media Complex, these things have
either been downplayed or met with sheer outrage. No synthesis. No picking
apart the ideas. Just junk.
“I think there’s a tremendous opportunity here,” Candace Owens
said during her interview on the Rubin Report. “The media is dying a slow and
painful death… Hollywood is losing power. People are hungry for truth. People
are waking up.”
The tremendous opportunity people are waking up to, from our
vantage point, is something that, in the marketplace of ideas, libertarians
have known all along:
Good ideas don’t require force. If you want to do something,
effect change, you don’t need anyone else to change first.
Sure, there are plenty of reasons to be pessimistic and
outraged. And if you look for what you want to see, you’ll always find it.
But, while the political sphere has completely melted down and
those who wish for more government control have become more and more bitterly
incoherent, liberty, behind the scenes, has made great strides.
Today, on that note,
we invite Geoffrey Pike of the Libertarian Investment blog to the show.
Acknowledge the
gains for liberty, says Pike. Never tire of winning
ACKNOWLEDGING THE GAINS FOR LIBERTY
By Geoffrey Pike
Sometimes we forget to take a step back and look at the big
picture. This can happen in our personal lives, but it can also happen when
looking at the world around us.
Libertarians in particular tend to be pessimistic. The large
majority of articles focus on the infringement of our liberties by the
government. There is only a small percentage of libertarian articles that focus
on the net gains for liberty, or are just optimistic in nature.
It is true that the
U.S. empire continues its attempts to expand. It is true that the surveillance
state has grown with technology that has allowed the government to perform mass
spying. It is true that we live in a litigious society where bakery owners can
get sued for not associating with gay people who want a wedding cake. It is
true that we live under an administrative state with tens of thousands of pages
of bureaucratic regulations. It is true that the national debt goes much higher
every year.
With all of that said, we still need to step back even further
and look at the whole picture. The U.S. empire cannot dominate as it did during
the world wars, as it faces guerrilla warfare and social resistance from other
nations.
The surveillance state may have grown, but technology has
allowed the massive decentralization of communication. It has also enabled us
to record things in public just by carrying around a smartphone. That is the
reason we see so many instances of abuse by police.
We may have a litigious society, and we do not have full freedom
of association, but even here technology is minimizing the impacts and will
continue to do so. People can do business across the world and mostly avoid
government meddling.
The same goes for the massive number of regulations. Although
they are burdensome and hamper our economy, actors in the marketplace are
always innovating ways to get around the regulations. Again, technology plays a
major role here.
And with the national debt, this will eventually be “solved” by
economic realities. If interest rates spike and the government is essentially
forced to dramatically cut spending, we will benefit greatly in the long term,
even if there is short-term pain.
Technology, coupled with the somewhat free market, is changing
everything, even if we don’t recognize it day-to-day. Email has already made it
clear that the Post Office is unnecessary. And if you need to mail something,
there is no reason you can’t use FedEx or UPS or some other carrier.
Even in regards to
the disastrous education system, we now have private schools and homeschooling as
legitimate alternatives. Homeschooling parents could essentially put together a
free curriculum using YouTube videos and other sources on the internet, as long
as they have a computer (or tablet) and an internet connection.
We should also recognize that, despite the politically correct
world we live in, we are actually a more tolerant society than what existed
before. Most people believe in individual rights at least in the sense that
individuals should be treated equally before the law, regardless of race,
religion, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, etc. I know there are many
exceptions here, but consider that we mostly have free speech. During Lincoln’s
war in the 19th century, people were locked up for expressing dissent,
including journalists and politicians. And it was
just in the 1940s when Roosevelt rounded up Japanese-Americans and others and
essentially kidnapped them just because of their ethnicity.
If you look at living standards, the last 100 years have seen
the greatest improvement ever in terms of people around the world getting out
of extreme poverty. The majority of people on this planet actually have access
to relatively clean water and food now. They also have access to smartphones.
While the welfare state has grown in the West to a certain
extent, we also have to recognize the collapse of communism. The Soviet Union
died in 1991. The Russian people are far better off now, and the former Soviet
satellites that are now independent nations are mostly better off. This
amazingly happened very suddenly and with virtually no violence.
China is still communist in name, but it now resembles more of a
Keynesian/ mercantilist command economy than an actual communist economy. The
Chinese people are better off for it. They would be even better off if they had
a more free market system, but at least there are now hundreds of millions of
people who have been able to leave the rural areas of extreme poverty.
And now, in 2018, it looks like the Korean War is finally
coming to an end after nearly 7 decades. There has been an armistice since
1953, but the war never officially ended. We may soon see denuclearization, and we
can hope for the eventual withdrawal of American troops. It is possible things
could reverse back, but the signs are promising. What looked like an escalation
a few months ago has now turned into peace.
And if North Korea and South Korea join together, you can bet
which one will have a greater influence on the other. As libertarians, we
usually favor decentralization. But in this case, the combining of the two
states will likely lead to an increase in liberty. North Korea is really the
last and closest thing to communism, and that is about to end. The South
Koreans are not going to give up their improved living standards to live under
a communist regime. If anything, the North will free up its economy.
In conclusion, there
are always going to be ups and downs for liberty. But we should recognize that
we are getting gains in liberty if we step back and look at the big picture. It
is easy to call attention to the times when government grows and liberty wanes,
but we don’t always see the net gains in liberty.
We don’t always see
the idea of free markets spreading through the world. We don’t always
appreciate that technology can slowly replace and crowd out state interference.
Final Notes…
Contributors and subscribers enable the Poor Man Survivor to post 150+ free essays annually. It is for this reason they are Heroes and Heroines of New Media. Without your financial support, the free content would disappear for the simple reason that I cannot keep body and soul together on my meager book sales & ecommerce alone.
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2 comments:
Over the past 15 years or so I've watched as the media, colleges, Democrats and others have skewered all that is good about this nation. Revisionists going back to Stalin and Hitler have always banned books and people they don't find 'politically correct' - now ever the new 'Scouts' have bowed to pressure to become diluted - I wonder if the GSA will allow boys into their club?
The Left will never run out of steam-they are fanatics and well funded by jerks like George Soros, and other wealthy patrons of anti-America doctrine.
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