Malcolm is a brilliant writer, teacher, philosopher and a good man on top of all that. Here’s a thought provoking post that will challenge your understanding of freedom in the USA.
In the U.S. the boundary of space within which we are free to make our own decisions is shrinking year by year. In daily life we face a bewildering array of restrictions on our behavior. The government now dictates what medications we can purchase, the size of our drink cups, what advertisements we can see, whether we can eat fatty foods, what kind of milk we can drink, under what conditions we can or cannot own a gun, how and who we can marry, how we divorce, what jokes we can tell at work, what kind of medical care we receive, what the interest rate on our mortgage is, what kind of education our children receive, and which legal pleasures such as cigarettes and wine, are to be discouraged through higher taxes. Indeed it is difficult to find a meaningful choice that is not monitored by a bureaucracy and covered…
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Malcolm seems like a very smart person. I like that traffic light experiment!
I think he’s very smart and he expresses himself so well, not always an easy task when you’re passionate about your subject, which he obviously is. I wish he had been my teacher – I would’ve learned so much.
Truth. But he can be your teacher now! 😀
True! I think he is!!
“The problem remains however, that when government forces people to do what it thinks is right, it prevents them from developing the instinct for learning what is right”–
Amen to this…
Good post and thanks for sending me over there Lisa.
I’m glad you agree. He’s a smarty pants and a very kind person on top of that. I think philosophical people often are.
you should know 🙂 as in you just described yourself
🙂 Thanks, my friend.
We continue to walk in spiritual lockstep…thank you…our hearts and prayers are still with you…be encouraged!
“Spiritual lockstep.” Ooo! I like that!
Thanks to both of you for being so thoughtful.
Lisa
Interesting.
One of the things notice is that we as people seem to go along with everything. There seems to be no common sense anymore. I know that everybody has a different point of view and has different experiences in life but there used to be common thought process. That ended for me about 20 years ago when the great jockey Bill Shoemaker tried to sue the state of California for not making roads safe enough for him to drunk drive on.
Living in one of the biggest nanny states there is. I see all the laws put in place to protect the ones who act the dumbest around us. I hate to say this but we put in laws to protect the stupidest and dumbest around and these laws are put in by screamers and yellers who do not want to engage in any rational discourse but want everybody to live with their beliefs.
I mean we have a state senator here in California that has put forth a bill called “The Homeless Bill of Rights”. I mean in this state our schools are in the toilet, our roads suck, the mental health care sucks in this state and we are worried about that because this state senator is.
I agree. Remember when we were kids and we’d be in gym class, and some goofy kid would do something stupid, and then the gym teacher would punish everyone for that kid’s behavior? That’s what it sort of feels like to me. Like we’re all being punished. We need to start thinking independently, find our voices — to hell with those who try and intimidate us. I blame the media in a big way, too. We’re losing our freedom and our democracy- I no longer recognize this country as the one we grew up in.
What an interesting read… Just got in from work but will take a deeper read.
Tell Malcolm thanks for sharing (and you too)
🙂
It’s just another way to look at things and challenge ourselves. I think we need to start thinking more independently –Think outside the box. We’re a smart country but some how we’ve become complacent and dumbed ourselves down. We’re slowly losing our instinct for learning what is right, what works. We rely too much on what we’re told is right.
He raises some interesting ideas.