A Beer and Wine TalkTopic

From The Tempest to Robinson Crusoe to Lost Horizon to  Atlas Shrugged and others, works of fiction have given us numerous examples of people living by choice or necessity in isolated and hidden places  apart from the world at large and its events. It makes an interesting topic for conversation among friends to ask the question:  if you could go away with selected family and friends to a self-sufficient hideaway and live there among congenial company in comfort, safety, and all around well-being but also in isolation, would you want to? For most of my adult life, my answer would have been a definite no. The world was too rich, too deeply interesting and exciting, too full or promise and opportunity, and too open to improvement to consider abandoning.  Now though, I am not so sure. The idea of leaving the present political, social, cultural, and intellectual mess for a Shangri-La or Galt’s Gulch of some sort has more appeal than at any time I can remember. I really don’t know what I would say to the question. I have a guess many others would feel the same way and more than a guess that such feelings are not a good  thing. 

Democracy on July 14

The goals of political action should be to achieve the maximum amount of liberty, justice, and respect for individual rights possible within a given context and to alter the context over time to allow for more liberty, justice, and respect for individual rights in the future. Forms of governments should be judged by the degree to which they aid or harm the achievement of these goals.  A constitutionally limited republic with democratically elected officials and mutually constraining centers of power will generally be a structure better than others in this regard, provided the limits and constraints are taken seriously.  With democracy as such, the results are less predictable and far more variable. The results of any voting depend on the character and knowledge of the voters. Democracy alone  guarantees nothing about the quality of a government and can produce results less desirable than other forms. For example it would be better, not good but still better, to reside in a monarchy ruled by a Frederick the Great or  an aristocracy run by the sort of people who led the old Dutch Republic than in a democracy which gave great power to  an Adolf Hitler.  

Politicians who extol democratic processes as an end and justification while showing no regard for constitutional and republican restraints are ignorant, dangerous, or both. There are plenty of them out there these days. They run the risk of putting democracy at odds with liberty and forfeiting the legitimacy of the state in the eyes of those who pay attention and care.