Re: Censorial leftists (Was: Interesting article)

["J. Lasser" <jon@lasser.org>]

In the wise words of William H. Geiger III:

> As I stated in my previous post the Nolan chart is flawed. In it's
> attempts to be "two-dimensional" it artificially separates interdependent
> philosophies. Economic Freedom = Personal Freedom. You can not have one
> without the other. The major failings of the socialist is their
> unwillingness to accept this fact. A free society can not survive under a
> socialist regime any more that a totalitarian society can survive under a
> capitalist one.

I think the Nolan chart is flawed because the questions are all worded
in a leading manner, personally.

And Singapore survives quite well being a totalitarian capitalist
society. Sure, you can pick nits and claim that Singapore's not entirely
capitalist, but it's more capitalist than this country and certainly
less free, too.

The fact of the matter seems to me to be that most people are perfectly
satisfied to be passive consumers. While they like to be free, that
means free to make purchasing decisions. They also like to be safe, and
if they have to lose civil liberties to be safe, then they're all for
it. Just so long as they can buy what they want. That seems to me to
describe the essence of the Singapore problem, and I'd bet it holds true
for the U.S. (and many other places) as well.

And, regardless of whether the two are actually separate, the Nolan
chart is intended to measure peoples' _beliefs_ and _feelings_ about
economic and political freedom. And those, as this discussion proves,
are clearly separate.

Jon
-- 
Jon Lasser (410)383-7962                             jon@lasser.org
http://www.tux.org/~lasser/                     PGP=2047/0x4CDD6451
      "Flap your ears, Dumbo!  The feather was only a trick!"