David M. Brown said: “Communication is a large part of the bulwark of liberty, else that First Amendment thingie wouldn't be so important. Censorship is always at the top of the totalitarian to-do list. I suspect Tibor Machan doesn't spe nd a lot of time in rallies or on commando missions, or even putting together mailing lists. Is he wasting his time "just talking"?”
Uhm… in case you haven’t heard, the First Amendment is dead. D-E-A-D. Want to prove it to yourself? Look no further than McConnell v. Federal Election Commission (a.k.a. McCain-Feingold), Irwin Schiff, and Larken Rose (though not directly related to the First Amendment, as the states each have their own version of the First Amendment, you can also look here). The First Amendment is completely useless unless you protect it. You don’t protect it by “just talking.” You protect it by ATTACKING those who destroyed it (based on your comments below, you’re obviously a war monger, so I would expect you to get this). So, yes, to a certain extent, anyone who is not taking DIRECT ACTION to protect their freedoms is uhm… “wasting his time.”
David M. Brown said: “The reductio here is that we're supposed to go out and Do Something Concrete about each of the many, many injustices per day that arrive in the IN box, and are morally remiss if we do not.”
To see what is right, and not to do it, is want of courage or of principle. – Confucius
Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom, must, like men, undergo the fatigues of supporting it. -- Thomas Paine
David M. Brown said: “So I think the pessimism is unwarranted, even if we all don't regularly send around updates about what we're up to. No, not everybody is an activist. But let's not cash in our chips therefore just yet.”
Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of liberty. -- Thomas Jefferson
We are apt to close our eyes against a painful truth. -- Patrick Henry
David M. Brown said: “As long as we're talking about defending heroes and heroines, though, let's hear more support from Rational Review of the soldiers fighting terrorists out in the field in Afghanistan and Iraq, dodging bullets and sometimes getting hit by them. These guys and gals are risking their very lives to Do Something and could use the moral support.”
You’re (not we’re) talking about defending so-called heroes and heroines; I’m talking about FINDING them. REAL ones. I don’t consider those “soldiers” fighting so-called “terrorists out in the field” as heroes and heroines. The WAR is back HERE… the terrorists are HERE – not halfway across the world. They should be HERE fighting the ONLY REAL terrorists that exist – “our” fascist government stooges. Here they’d be “risking their very lives to Do Something” that benefits their families, supports their children’s futures, and making a real difference in the quality of life for themselves. There they are just putting themselves in harm’s way for no morally proper reason (and, no, it’s not even altruism, not that altruism would be a morally proper reason anyway).
I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics, philosophy, geography, commerce and agriculture, in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture... -- John Adams
- B.
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