Our highest values.

I’m particularly done with people who explain that our rights and our values only apply to government and that it’s okay when it’s private citizens who try to punish their neighbors and family members for exercising those rights.

I’m legitimately libertarian-ish and yes, I believe that all relationships should be voluntary. BUT!

Free speech and liberty are an *ethos* that is not limited to government. Our rights can’t be limited to government and still exist as protections or even concepts.

People are openly calling for the government to make laws against all sorts of speech they don’t like or opinions they view as bad for society. (I read my Dem Senator’s facebook.) Why do they think it’s okay for government to have laws to silence the bad people? Because they don’t *personally* value free speech or liberty AT ALL.

The private and public on this can’t be divided because all that’s necessary to violate what ought to be our principles is for government to look the other way while the violations are outsourced to the mob.

EXACTLY what Gina’s meme-share was talking about. Nazi Germany didn’t start with government rounding people up, the road to that horror started with neighbors or family turning on people, stopping them from working or taking care of their family or even turning them into the state. And evil government could never have rounded people up had the private sector not cooperated fully.

The woke sin-seekers today make this delegated mob action their purpose in life and they don’t like if someone doesn’t praise them for their virtue.

How can something that is contrary to our most important formal statement of values be bad when the government does it but virtuous when off-loaded to the private sector?

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...

Synova

Search This Blog