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2010-01-05 Home Front: Culture Wars

John McLaughlin: Freedom is 'Most Overrated' Political Concept

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Posted by Fred 2010-01-05 00:00|| || Front Page|| [11131 views ] Top

#1 I saw this on t.v. - the writer is distorting a bit - John McLaughlin was actually being sarcastic. He meant that a lot of people talk big about freedom until it comes to a truly free market and then they want the nanny state to step in to save them when things don't go peachy. He doesn't think "freedom" itself is truly overrated.

Posted by Broadhead6 2010-01-05 00:15|| 2010-01-05 00:15|| Front Page Top

#2 BTW - I can't stand Eleanor Clift - I don't think the woman ever had an original thought - 90% of the drivvel that comes out of her soup-cooler is nothing but dem talking points.

Posted by Broadhead6 2010-01-05 00:17|| 2010-01-05 00:17|| Front Page Top

#3 FOX NEWS AM > GLENN BECK Show = THE "SOCIALIST TRANSFORMATIOJN OF AMERICA" IS GOING ON, right now as we speak???

Posted by JosephMendiola 2010-01-05 00:36|| 2010-01-05 00:36|| Front Page Top

#4 The reason the democratic revolution has been so successful, since the US got the ball rolling way back when, is *not* freedom and liberty.

They are just necessary side effects of democracy. The real selling point, that is obvious around the world, from peasants to kings, is that democracy is more "efficient". It works better, for everyone, than the alternatives of monarchy, collectivism, theocracy, even technocracy.

It is such a potent idea, that even pure tyrannies like North Korea must pretend to be democratic, to adopt the labels of democracy, even if they are nothing of the sort.

Compared to this, the concepts of freedom and liberty are nebulous indeed. I like to cite how Germans "cling to" their precious high speed Autobahns, as a cherished freedom. But Americans in America see it as rather silly and even dangerous. Certainly it couldn't work here, because our vehicular maintenance doesn't come close to Germany's.

Posted by Anonymoose 2010-01-05 08:58|| 2010-01-05 08:58|| Front Page Top

#5 Anonymoose, I agree mostly, but does North Korea really have a pretense of Democracy to those within the country or did they just name themselves that way to help manipulate useful idiots in the western world (like the PRC and DDR).

Posted by rjschwarz 2010-01-05 10:09|| 2010-01-05 10:09|| Front Page Top

#6 Braodhead6-
The male (I can barely say that) version is Allan Combs on Fox...he's the most pathetic wonk ever...also never an original thought with him.

BTW - I can't stand Eleanor Clift

Posted by HammerHead 2010-01-05 10:15|| 2010-01-05 10:15|| Front Page Top

#7 It seems that the broad support in opposition to governmental policies, expansion, and spending is a strong statement about loss of freedom.

Posted by JohnQC 2010-01-05 10:30|| 2010-01-05 10:30|| Front Page Top

#8 The McLaughlin Group is still on the air? Eleanor Clift is still alive, let alone employed?

Yet more proof that the world isn't fair.

Posted by Mitch H. 2010-01-05 16:42|| http://blogfonte.blogspot.com/ 2010-01-05 16:42|| Front Page Top

#9 Moose, the founders mostly disagreed. That is why they formed a republic with balanced monarchical, democratic and oligarchic features, most assuredly not a democracy which they feared. From their reading of Polybius they understood that Monarchy degenerates into tyranny, aristocracy into oligarchy, and democracy into savage violence and chaos

The balanced mechanism the founders developed was eroded by the Progressives, particularly the 16th and 17th amendments, in the name of greater democracy. Having established the democracy that knows that the majority of the poor can steal from the minority of the wealthy we are now headed to the savage violence and chaos that will inevitably follow the bankruptcy of our citizens, states and nation.

Posted by Nimble Spemble 2010-01-05 18:16|| 2010-01-05 18:16|| Front Page Top

#10 The universal direct election of Senators was as much to get around the utter corruption at the State level as it was about democracy. Machine pols who controlled the state governments controlled who those states sent to Washington. The Senate got what the controlling state party thought would represent their interests and damn anything else. You wouldn't have a Lieberman in the seat from Connecticut today under those conditions.

Posted by Procopius2k 2010-01-05 20:01|| 2010-01-05 20:01|| Front Page Top

#11 The party would represent the state's interest as well as the party's. So we wouldn't have unfunded mandates on the states or a Department of Education or a nationalized health care system with Medicare costs shoved down the states' throats. The federal government would be controlled to some extent by the states. Now the states have been subsumed under the federal government such that they are little more than administrative districts. Do as Uncle tells you or your funds are cut off. Yeah, I'd trade a Lieberman to get back some state power.

Posted by Nimble Spemble 2010-01-05 21:28|| 2010-01-05 21:28|| Front Page Top

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