The Smallest Minority

Readers should note that the point of no return for the Rousseanian path is different from the point of no return for the Lockean path.

Rejecting a Rousseaunian future is necessary, but not sufficient for a Lockean future.

I thought Sowell's Visions trilogy was fantastic. Definitely a must read.

Changed the way I viewed some things and gave clarity and definition to many things I already believed.

So, let me just double check here. First, Obama is going to re-distribute wealth and turn our country into a socialist state. Everyone will be equal and there will no longer be any wealthy people.

Second, countries will be allowed to acquire nuclear weapons and turn them over to terrorists who will threaten us even more than we are right now.

That about sum your belief?

I was wondering how Markadelphia would digest that. Not much surprise, he's a firm believer in the unconstrained view.

That said I'm not sure I agree with Sowell on the predictions, even though I do agree with his basic premise. Yes the Democrats will push the govt deeper into our economic lives, and any protest at all from the Repubs will be feeble and half-hearted. That is definitely not good and won't change until the Repubs return to a belief in limited govt and actually work to that when they are in power. My biggest fear is that that message may no longer resonate with the people (or I should say enough of them that vote).

I strongly disagree that Obama will be softer on nuclear proliferation then McCain (or anyone else for that matter). Now, I suppose you could argue that he's a risk to run a Chamberlain-esque policy of appeasement, but I'm not sure I'd even buy that. I would assume if anything that the greater national security risk of the coming Obama administration will be interventions in places completely lacking American interests (other than pure humanitarianism). Back to liberal nation-building in place of neo-con nation-building - not that the results are likely to be any better, but it's all about good intentions, right?

"...it's all about good intentions, right?"

Yup. See the post immediately above this one.

"and won't change until the Repubs return to a belief in limited govt"

We're not going to see that happen; The American belief in limited government was a consequence of conditions, such as an expansive frontier, which can no longer be replicated. Which governments won't PERMIT to ever be replicated, as witness the non-colonization of Antarctica.

We might see a revival when mankind expands into deep space, but not here. There really is no going back.

The American belief in limited government was a consequence of conditions, such as an expansive frontier, which can no longer be replicated.

I assume you're predicating this on the "vote with your feet" option? I don't think I agree. Sure the West allowed people to move into places where they could be pretty much left alone. But live free or die was the ethic of New England even when there was no expansion possible there. It was much more the Progressive movement then the closing of the frontier that shaped where we are today.

Juris,

To be fair, one of the things that made the Free Labor (i.e. unregulated labor relations) system work without turning into exploitation of labor was the presence of an alternative. If someone felt they were getting a raw deal and were motivated enough, they could go out West and claim land that was free for the taking.

We don't have that option today. We do have the new trend of forming small businesses, which some have suggested plays a similar role; but that only started recently, and there is an entrenched educational gulag meant to discourage that sort of initiative.

There is no doubt whatever that redistribution of wealth is Obama's goal. We have it straight from his own mouth. This is an excerpt from a NPR interview in 2001.

The money quote (emphasis added):

"If you look at the victories and failures of the civil rights movement and its litigation strategy in the court. I think where it succeeded was to invest formal rights in previously dispossessed people, so that now I would have the right to vote. I would now be able to sit at the lunch counter and order as long as I could pay for it I’d be o.k. But, the Supreme Court never ventured into the issues of redistribution of wealth, and of more basic issues such as political and economic justice in the society. To that extent, as radical as I think people try to characterize the Warren Court, it wasn’t that radical. It didn’t BREAK FREE FROM THE ESSENTIAL CONSTRAINTS that were placed by the founding fathers in the Constitution, at least as its been interpreted and Warren Court interpreted in the same way, that generally the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties. Says what the states can’t do to you. Says what the Federal government can’t do to you, but doesn’t say what the Federal government or State government must do on your behalf, and that hasn’t shifted and one of the, I think, the tragedies of the civil rights movement was, um, because the civil rights movement became so court focused I think there was a tendancy to lose track of the political and community organizing and activities on the ground that are able to put together the actual coalition of powers THROUGH WHICH YOU BRING ABOUT REDISTRIBUTIVE CHANGE. In some ways we still suffer from that."

To condense that, he wants to bring about "redistributive change" and it doesn't matter to him that the Constitution contains "essential constraints" against it.

It's worse than that DJ.

Obama in that quote basically said that constraints on the government are so called "negative liberties" He goes on to imply that postive liberties would be ones that the state would pay for or require, ie. health care.

This is anathema to everything this country was founded on.

How can a liberty be something that is given to you? To give someone this so called positive liberty, the state has to take from and restrict someone elses liberty.

Obama has everything exactly backwards. His positive liberty should be called anti-liberty because it would suck dry all of the real liberty(which he calls negative liberty) that exists.

The Bible is the most effective demonstration of the differences between the constrained view and the unconstrained view. When people deny their natural impulses and follow God's teachings, (the constrained view) there is peace and harmony. When they give in to their natural impulses, and make gods of themselves, (the unconstrained view)there is strife, tribulation, and war.

I can't help but think that Sowell's view of Obama and of the terrorists getting nuclear weapons is leading right up to the Great Tribulation in the Book of the Revelation. The Bile is God's Word, and it is true. Keep your powder dry, but be ready for God through Jesus. He is the way of salvation.

Crotalus-

Many if not most of the readers/commentors of this blog are agnostic or atheist, including myself. Not the Dawkins type - much more amiable. I have no issue with what you believe as long as you respect my beliefs (or lack thereof). We can agree on a cultural/political level even if we disagree on a spiritual level.

I don't buy the notion that Obama is going to look the other way while terrorists acquire WMD. If that is preventable at all (and it may not be), I see no reason why he should be blase' about it.