I’d say just let people wear their big kid pants and do what they want, and everybody else wear their big kid pants and know that you don’t have to like or love how other people spend their time.Nah, that'd never work. Everybody tends to be really cool on the idea of other people not telling them what to do, right up until they get to the part where they don't get to tell anybody else what to do themselves. That 's where it all falls apart, right there.
I dunno why we have this little tyrant gene in us, that so many people are so utterly incapable of ignoring. But it certainly seems that most everybody wants to tell everybody else how to live their life. Like it's not hard enough to run one's own.
ReplyDeleteMost social primates spend an amazing amount of time monitoring each other. Robert Sapolsky once said of baboons that their foraging and group defense system is so efficient they have all the free time to be unpleasant to each other that a stress researcher could ever want.
ReplyDeleteToo easy.
ReplyDeleteWe were all kids once, our parents ( those of us who turned out ok) told us to siddown, shut up, brush your teeth, take out the garbage, etc...
Those of us who became parents, now do the same thing to OUR kids, about 17x an hour.
Seeing adults act like kids brings, the "oh, for heavens sake, siddown , stop that shit..." on like an autonomic reflex.
Also some people are little proto-Stalins who get off on that, rather
than just get dog tired and annoyed.
"There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences."
ReplyDelete- P.J. O'Rourke
I find it horribly ironic that my desire to have everyone learn to think for themselves rather than having someone else tell them what to do would be viewed as telling them what to do.
ReplyDeleteI made the QOTD from a real-life Comic Book Character!
ReplyDeleteHey, could you give Tony Stark one of my cards?
As I've said until I'm blue in the face, freedom is not about doing what you want, but as you eloquently point out, it's about your worst enemy doing the thing that you hate, right in front of you, and you can't do a thing about it. No, most can't even consider it.
ReplyDeleteI think there's a clarification in order here. You're still free to tell people what to do - they're simply under no obligation to listen to you unless you convince them that you're right.
ReplyDeleteAnon
ReplyDeleteBut convincing people is HARD!
I know I'm right, and if they don't listen to me that just proves how wrong they are.
Isn't it better to just force them to be good?
...
Yeah the whole moralizing while holding the billy club irks me.
I don't care if it's God, Gaia, or the People but if your idea of charity or morals hygiene requires force then you're just a jumped up tyrant.
I recall someone saying "your right to swing your fist ends at the end of my nose". I also recall someone saying when you legislate away someone else's rights, you legislate away your own rights.
ReplyDeleteOh, so academically right, mustanger.....but in practice, so "some animals are more equal than others" wrong....
ReplyDeleteOh. Well, I guess now I know.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I just found a dress for Tam: http://gizmodo.com/5915994/this-dual+action-dress-flips-from-wookie-to-ewok-in-under-12-parsecs
:D
Ah, the busybody gene.
ReplyDeleteMost Libertarians work and think in a lone wolf predator mind set.
The problem arises that we come from social primates that work in packs/groups, and any deviation from group norms could be detrimental to the group so they must be called out and corrected. We come from social animal background where group think is a reality, and conditioned hard.
We a rational being do have the ability to realise that our own survival is tied directly to the groups survival.
This natural tendency to observe the world around us and to pull order out of chaos can lead to some really bad things for the individuals of said group if the groups well being is put first.
Hmmm... This sound correct to me, but must be taken with a grain of salt as just pulled it out of my head based on how I think the world works.
Ps. Predators like a big game cat, other than Lions, do not rely on groups to pull resourse and sustenance out of their enviornment.
Delete"damp green marijuana buds"
ReplyDeleteIf that is what you're smoking, you need a new dealer. Unless you like the grassy taste of uncured buds, that is.