Hobbes, of Calvin and Hobbes? Sorry, man, I couldn't resist. Another book to consider, if your curious, from the other side of the fence: Levin's "Ameritopia". From an interview about the book...2012: http://rightwingnews.com/interviews...-new-book-ameritopia-the-unmaking-of-america/ In talking about Hobbes, you noted that, “Hobbes seemed to be saying that man’s nature cannot be trusted but the nature of a ruler or a ruling assembly can be trusted. How so?” Along similar lines, you noted that Utopians viewed governance like so, “The individual is to be governed, not represented. His personal interests are of no interest. They are dismissed as selfish, unjust, and destructive.” Isn’t this a constant failure of Utopians? They believe we can’t trust individuals to make their own decisions, but government officials and bureaucrats in DC can be trusted not only to make the right decisions for themselves, but to make the right decisions for everyone, everywhere, all across the country? That’s quite right. It really is bizarre that we live in a society in which we have enough wisdom to choose our rulers, but we don’t have enough wisdom to choose our light bulbs. This is intentional. It’s not so much, I don’t think, that the Utopian mindset believes that individuals are incapable of making decisions. It’s more that the mastermind, the self-appointed, really delusional masterminds who manage to get in very significant positions; positions of great power, that they think they’re smarter than everybody else. Not based on any record or experience or knowledge or anything of the sort; just based on the fact that they have this notion of how people should behave, in the ideal society. So they seek to as Obama said, “fundamentally transform” — and I will say destroy this society, reject our history, reject our legacy and start with something new. And they believe that something new is a model society and that you cannot have individuals on their own acting freely, pursuing their own interests and reach the Promised Land. That is, accomplish something that cannot be accomplished and never will be accomplished, and that is the construction of a paradise. It’s an impossibility and yet it is an abstraction, it is a dogma and it is where they seek to take us. If you asked the Left Wing Utopians, they’d tell you they’re just trying to make people’s lives better and fair. They’re not hurting anything. Everything they do is positive. There are no negatives to what they’re doing. Describe some of the real world consequences in this country that have occurred because of the Left’s quest for Utopia? First of all, let me say that totalitarianism is often dressed up as compassion and humanism. And it’s neither. Let’s take a look at our society today. We have a massive federal bureaucracy — what I call the fourth branch of the government, this administrative state which issues thousands of laws every year and increasingly so. And they’ve piled upon law and piled upon law and these laws have penalties and fines which include criminal penalties for which people are held strictly liable and can be imprisoned. So it is a complete disconnect between enfranchisement, that is our ability to influence our government, and what our government is doing to the people. So when we vote every election cycle, the fact of the matter is there is a significant part of our government that is largely unaffected. This is why, among other reasons, I talk about us living in a post-Constitutional America. We’re not strictly a Constitutional republic anymore because so many of our so-called leaders have managed to evade the Constitution. This has been a process that’s been going on gradually for about 100 years and it’s more aggressive today. We’re not really a federal republic anymore because the states that gave birth to the federal government are now really the children of the federal government. And we’re not really a representative republic for the reasons I just said. So much of what goes on in the government has nothing to do with who we vote for or how we vote or whether we vote at all. So the Utopians pushing this radical statism have institutionalized their policies in this sort of permanent part of the government. So where are we? And I think we are more an Ameritopia than an America. I’d like to see us get back to an America, obviously. But I think we’re more of an Ameritopia. We are deviating in many respects from the Constitution. As a result, we have individuals making decisions that are imposed on us because they think they know better than us. Barack Obama’s State of the Union speech is a perfect example of this mentality. He goes on and on and on about who should have money, who shouldn’t have money, which businesses we should support, which businesses we shouldn’t support, how he’s going to rearrange the deck chairs on the deck and on and on and on. You think to yourself, “Gee, I look at the Constitution and the president doesn’t have the power to do all these things. He shouldn’t have the power to do all these things and yet he does these things. And if he could do more, he would do more of those things.” ...
Sometimes you astonish me. The Founders were largely rich landowners. They had it made, revolution or no revolution. They risked everything. The Constitution they came up with recognized the flaws in pure democracy. You cannot build a successful society without protection for property rights. It shows how far we have fallen that a presumably educated person like you can see that as some early form of class warfare.
You know, I've really tried to cut you slack because occasionally you come up with some good posts. But the signal to noise ratio is just so low with you, it's not worth the effort.
Hobbes advocated a monarchy so powerful that the populace would find it "sublime", in the sense that it would generate simultaneously fear and awe. Society would be orderly, because the king would be unchallenged. So while men would not be completely free, they would have more practical freedom than they would under the chaos that is nature, red in tooth and claw. This is fine for the sake of discussion and exercise, but like I say, I have not finished reading yet. But it's been enlightening. ; )
The Founders themselves were more secure than the three generations immediately before them. Their memory was keen. They did recognize how dangerous, to the wealthy class, democracy can be. On that point you are accurate. They had little interest in "the people", they had great interest in hanging on to their property.
Yes, extremely enlightening. He eventually evolves to a kind of monarchy that derives its power from the people, and therefore if something goes wrong it's the peoples fault, which is beautifully applicable to our present day.. and suggests to me that education is supremely important. Anyone who reads those two guys, Hobbes and Locke, will come to the realization that there is nothing new under the sun.
Anyone who's read many of Loyek's posts must realize by now that there are great kernels of deep wisdom, let's call them little rabbit droppings of smart, smothered by great piles of steaming horse manure. This kind of fertilizer can only come from someone who has lived a rather rich and varied life, one fed more by oats and molasses than by grass. I find it worth digging through all that shit to find those rabbit droppings.