Freedom and Judgement

"The state’s decriminalizing of an activity or substance doesn’t transform that activity or substance into a moral, healthy or admirable one. And libertarians don’t have to act like it does. You can celebrate the fact that people are free without celebrating all the dumb things those people do with their freedoms." - David Harsanyi

Something is wrong when we make the State the arbiter of morality. In so many ways we end up viewing expressed disapproval as an assault on someone elses freedom, and why? Because we've bought into the assumption that approval or disapproval, right and wrong, must be expressed with the coercive power of the State. There is no live-and-let-live if every judgement is reflected in law.

Comments

Tyranny.gov vs Tyranny.com

Compulsion is Compulsion, no matter who does it. This is Brilliant Theft is Theft, no matter who does it. Freedom of Association has no room in it for *private* action that takes that away Freedom of Association. If I have a business and have voluntary associations such that I choose to serve some people and to not serve others, that might make me a jerk and it might lose me business, it might make me smart and it might gain me business, but it's got to be my choice. If I would normally serve the current disliked minority in my shop except for the fact that if I'm SEEN to serve them by the wrong people I'll have a private campaign against me as those people do everything possible to ruin me by preventing me from doing business physically or by attacking my customers or suppliers, then I am NOT free to make those choices. Does it really make a difference to losing my CHOICE to voluntarily associate if there's a law that says I may not serve "those people" o...

Some times some people.

What Cancel Culture is NOT

Maybe we should talk about what cancel culture isn't. It's not a boycott. It's not deciding to no longer go to a business. It's not giving a bad review for bad service. It generally involves two things. First, the offense is a matter of opinion. Second, secondary or even tertiary targets are threatened. Cancellation does not need to be successful, and often with very famous and wealthy people it is not successful. But it serves as a warning to vulnerable people who are not in a position to weather that kind of attack. The goal is terroristic in that it's about forcing social behavior in people who are not currently the subject of the attack. The message is always, this could happen to you. And the tactic invariably includes seeking out vulnerable people to threaten in order to put pressure on businesses or on the target of the attack. So it works like this: JK Rowling is invulnerable. But they can try, right? So what they do is they find out who works for the pub...

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