Jonah Goldberg has returned from his family tragedy to provide some thoughts.
The four strains of English culture that settled the Americas all had different conceptions of the meaning of the word “liberty,” and that tension between them remains very much at play in today’s politics.
I’ve been thinking about writing a post about ‘what is a nation?’ Sparked weirdly by thoughts on IP. People are a reality. Nation is an idea before it’s a reality. There are a lot of assumptions in the concept that need exploring.
I’m not sure I’m up to it (actually not being much of an essayist, I’m sure I’m not.) I’m researching and this article helps.
Rand, I think I’m on my third blog you pushed me to start (I’m thankful) but couldn’t you use your influence to get somebody that can actually write to blog, say Carl (hint, hint.) I mean, while I like having you club me over the head from time to time (yeah, we all know I’m weird.) You should use your power for good and get Carl blogging (even if his posts are rare and infrequent their potency would be of value.) Come on, you’re now a board member of a hopefully influential organization. Use the force, Rand.
Unlike, SDB, I believe Carl would not find leftard comments to wearing his resolve. I still miss SDB, but wish him well and respect his decision to mothball clueless. We need more giants to combat the pygmies.
It occurred to me the other day that I don’t even know where to go to get leftist rhetoric.. I’m awash in a sea of conservatives and libertarians but it seems that either the left doesn’t have a common story of “what we believe” or they don’t feel the need to scream it from the rooftops – to me that indicates they think they’ve won, but I don’t see that either.
Other than Mike Moore that is.. but I rarely come away from his work with any idea what he thinks the state is for… except maybe treating everyone as helpless and taking care of them – an idea that insults my dignity – and that brings us back to the article 🙂
A man is no less a slave because he is allowed to choose a new master once in a term of years.
–Lysander Spooner