Tuesday, April 2, 2013

Freedom Loses One


Today's editorial by David Brooks in the New York Times describes people as much more at liberty to follow their desires unhampered by social and religious convention and yet with the gay marriage movement it appears that some now are willing to reverse course and constrain their freedom with fidelity and responsibility. I think David has hit on the prejudice that Libertarians are for a free for all chaos of individuals reaching as far they can go in expressing their freedom but from which not much could be depended upon for the long term.
I believe that the Amish, thank you PBS American Masters, are a very good representation of liberty despite the initial belief to the contrary. They are a religious sect practicing a freedom that is restrained and communal, but taken as a whole completely detached from government and expressing a freedom more complete than many who think they are free could hope for and on the other side more faithful, responsible and civil than any on the authoritarian side could hope to be.     

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