More Timely Than Ever!

Saturday, January 24, 2009

Question

If people can't be trusted with freedom, how can they be trusted with power?

11 comments:

AzraelsJudgement said...

I make this exact comment all the time with no answer from statists that makes sense.

Anonymous said...

Lock them up in freedom power cages!

mrlukeduke said...

But but but... THINK OF THE CHIIIILDREEEEN!!!

Sheldon Richman said...

Fingolfin, they'll just have to fend for themselves.

Anonymous said...

If we could just have the "right people" in power, things would be wonderful. There would be no need for freedom. Right, Sheldon?

Sheldon Richman said...

Are there "right people"?

Anonymous said...

I was being facetious. But I think that's exactly what many people believe. I remember when I was a child my parents said that the only way communism could work is if God was in charge. That reasoning applies to any form of monopoly government. So, there are no "right people" that are fit to govern anyone else.

Anonymous said...

I think the implication is: *You* can't be trusted with freedom, but *I* can be trusted with power.

Anonymous said...

Current research indicates that thirty-eight percent of all wrong-thinking people are right.

Unknown said...

Damn that must be a profound question (for statists)!

Hat tip to ya on that one Sheldon.

Anonymous said...

When I was still in high school, before I became fully convinced of the necessity of the anarchist position, that basic ultimatum kept coming up in my thinking. I was trying to hold on to minarchist thinking (though I didn't call it that, it was a very loose kind of constitutionalism) but the foundations were rapidly slipping away. When I finally confronted the question, the last bits broke. I've never been able to reconcile the basic ethical, consequential and moral considerations in my thinking with any kind of political government, and I do not think it will ever be possible.