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Quote:
Originally Posted by NYCdood
This is an interesting toppic. I hate to be captain obvious, but the dilemma seems to be whether you risk alienating fellow human beings (who are honestly down on their luck) in order to stop panhandling, or to give generously and risk becoming a victim of fraud. I don't want to get preachy, (I'm going to, though) but it seems some introspective thinking might be necessary. Are you your brothers keeper?
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That's not it at all.
Let us presume, that in some fashion, YOU, alone or with like others, make a determination one way or the other. Which way is irrelevant. Your reasoning and arguments are irrelevant.
What is important is FREEDOM!
Whether ANYONE, or any group, for whatever aims, has the right to impose their value and judgement upon anyone else.
Do you *think*, of course I ask the question with the assumption that you are a thinking person, that there is some public good, the value of which is worth some degree of your and my Freedom?
Is the price worth the benefit?
How does one judge the balance of Price vs Benefit? What degree of Freedom? How much? What level?
MOST IMPORTANTLY, **who** makes the determination and judgment? What incent s/b weighted highest? Public Good vs Individual Freedom? Public Good vs the People's Freedom?
How is the choice of Public Good to be enacted when I or some group refuses? It only takes a single descenter. I will not cede my Freedom, my Individuality, for the Public Good. What then?
The ONLY solution; the ONLY way, is FORCE! There is no other.
Freedom is THE sacrafice necessary for the Public Good.
The OP's post purely demonstrates that. As well as the others that seek to impose fine or other penalty. They wish this soley upon their, personal, judgment. Descent is penalized!
So, in the Order of Life, Society, G_d, in order to ensure Freedom, which s/h the greater weight, the Public Good or the Right of Descent?
THIS is the ultimate question which hangs over American and Western politics today. It is the basis of our culture war. It is the basis of red vs blue, Conservative vs Liberal. It is the ultimate question of how we are to be governed AND who will govern and lead.
How will it be? If neither red nor blue will cede to the demands of the other? What is the resolution?
Does the Right have a solution? Does the Left? I will put to you that they, ultimately, that they do. Condensed, Red believes in the Right of the individual over the Pubilc Good. That individual freedom is the ultimate right, that it must be preserved at great cost and that FREEDOM is the foundation of this nation. Red believes in the PRESERVATION of our basic, political, societal and cultural foudations.
Blue, believes in the Public Good. That the good of the many is greater than the freedom of the few. That the sacrafice of some degree of freedom is worthy of the public benefit. That there is a manner and way to make the judgment of degree. That there are qualified individuals (or groups of indviduals) who can and should make determinations. Be it the President, the Congress, Parliment or the Politburo. Blue believes in the EVOLUTION of our basic, political, societal, and cultural foudations.
I hope you all can see that, ultimately, these positions are fundamentally opposed and there is no compromise. The American political system and culture based upon compromise cannot resolve this conflict. It cannot as it is at the most base human level.
Freedom or not.
Red has the example of The American Experiment, Jefferson, Madison, and the founding fathers, great thinkers (and flawed people) who have already shown the way to Freedom. They devised a system allowing for great freedom, even to detriment, while allowing for correction and the growth of knowledge and experience.
Blue has the philosphy of Marx, Engles, and the example, of Hitler, Lenin, Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot. There is also Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Blue has the doctrine of Socialism---the Public Good. Blue has the proscribed evolution of Socialism, the ultimate Public Good---Communism. The manner, the method, the way has already been proscribed by the authors, that is 'The Dictatorship of the Prolitariat'. Dictatorship, as proscribed by the authors, is the evolution of Socialism and the Public Good, resulting in Communism.
These are not my words, nor conclusion, they are the doctrine of Marx and Engles.
In a post feudal world, in a modern world, the danger is from the Left, from the Public Good. The Right simply wants to do as they individually please, and ultimatley do not want to be dictated to. They want the least laws and the most freedom.
Again, the danger is from the Left, they will take your Freedom for your own good, and without your choice, nor consent!
THIS is the message of the OP's post, pure and simple. The stench, the unpleasantness, the inconvenience of the homeless, is the price of Freedom. Yours and theirs.
If the freedom of the people is to be curtailed, then to what degree? Who makes the determination? The OP? Laws don't make us safe, (possibly) only enforcement. Logic dictates the greater the enforcement, the greater the safety.
Will we have such great safety, will we place such a priority upon safety, that we will, eventually, enforce away our freedom. Create so many laws, that the entirety of life is regulated, regemented, and without freedom. Indiv idual freedom lost
Such was the way of the Nazi and the Soviet.
The Soviets all other Socialists and/or Communists imposed themselves upon the people. Save the National Socialists, of whom the German people ceded their freedom willingly. How shall it be for us?
*****
The above is a fairly clear, though simple, articulation of why I am not an Obamamite. Why I did not vote for him, and will not vote for him.
To the person who, ignorantly, called me an 'Uncle Tom', in another thread, dumb ass!
