I’ve tried the new moon tilted in the air
Above a hazy tree-and-farmhouse cluster
As you might try a jewel in your hair.
I’ve tried it fine with little breadth of luster,
Alone, or in one ornament combining
With one first-water start almost shining.
I put it shining anywhere I please.
By walking slowly on some evening later,
I’ve pulled it from a crate of crooked trees,
And brought it over glossy water, greater,
And dropped it in, and seen the image wallow,
The color run, all sorts of wonder follow.
'The Freedom of the Moon' Robert Frost
BEFORE READING THIS BLOG...
...answer me this...
What is freedom to you...and...do you believe that we have relative freedom in our democratic society?
What does it mean to be free?
1. The power or right to act, speak, or think as one wants without hindrance or restraint.
2. Absence of subjection to foreign domination or despotic government.
Freedom vs. Democracy
Whatever its virtues, democracy is not freedom. As the 19th Century French philosopher Alexis d'Toqueville warned in his classic Democracy In America, a democracy can be just as tyrannical as a dictatorship once the voters decide to vote themselves money from the treasury.
Democracy is a method of deciding who shall rule. It does not determine the morality of the resulting government. At best, democracy means that government has popular support. But popular support is no guarantee that government will protect your freedom.
In a democracy, if most voters support freedom of speech, press, religion, association and enterprise, their elected government will probably respect such freedoms.
But if voters prefer that governments impose a welfare state and confiscatory taxes, ban unapproved drugs, impose censorship, imprison critics, seize the property of unpopular groups, torture prisoners, and draft the young, a democratic government will likely grant those wishes also.
Democracy is a method of deciding who shall rule. It does not determine the morality of the resulting government. At best, democracy means that government has popular support. But popular support is no guarantee that government will protect your freedom.
In a democracy, if most voters support freedom of speech, press, religion, association and enterprise, their elected government will probably respect such freedoms.
But if voters prefer that governments impose a welfare state and confiscatory taxes, ban unapproved drugs, impose censorship, imprison critics, seize the property of unpopular groups, torture prisoners, and draft the young, a democratic government will likely grant those wishes also.
Is freedom a democratic society?
So....... this is our free society?
This starts looking more and more desireable as an alternative...
ANARCHISM (from the Gr. αν, and αρχο, contrary to authority), the name given to a principle or theory of life and conduct under which society is conceived without government - harmony in such a society being obtained, not by submission to law, or by obedience to any authority, but by free agreements concluded between the various groups, territorial and professional, freely constituted for the sake of production and consumption, as also for the satisfaction of the infinite variety of needs and aspirations of a civilized being.
And so... I pose the question again...do you believe that we have relative freedom in our democratic society?
