this came from http://www.usnews.com/usnews/php/photo-galleries/political-cartoons-june/bigpicture.php?image=3&s_cid=3
July 2, 2009
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Plano Texas Politics 
The word you’re looking for is “responsibility”
Comment by Simon — July 14, 2009 @ 6:06 pm |
What do you mean?
Comment by jdalley — July 14, 2009 @ 6:09 pm |
The easy part of freedom as a political philosophy is that it’s a clear idea.
The problem with having that as your only philosophy is that it negates responsibility. The US is not a small country of idealists. It is the richest, most powerful, most militarised, most influential and most complicated country in the world. It’s easy to say “less government” but in actuality what are you asking for less of?
Less police? Less road maintenance? Less charitable work? Cancel the post office? Who’s gonna educate your kids? Who’s gonna make sure you have adequate protections from foreign invaders? Who’s gonna make sure you have something to live on when you retire? Who’s gonna help you, in short, when personal responsibility or circumstances work against you.
Responsibility, in short. That’s what government is for. Some of you think that because the government want to help regulate the environment or under-wrote the banks that this destroys your freedom but you’re not looking at it in the long term. Like what about the freedom of your kids to not be afflicted by soaring rates of childhood asthma due to polluted air? Or what about the freedom of your relatives to build a life and not have their house foreclosed because their bank collapsed and no-one saved it.
These are the realities of living in a complex society. We all want to be free to live our lives, do what we want to do and prosper. I see nothing in the Obama legislative plans that prevents that. What I see is a lot of people afraid of what *might* happen but really what you need to do is become more engaged in the complexity of the issues first before complaining about them
Comment by Simon — July 14, 2009 @ 6:33 pm