Thursday, August 09, 2012

Statist Confusion

An awful lot of people have been carefully trained to confuse schooling with education, nationalism with patriotism, compliance with consent, federal reserve notes with money, control with safety, freedom with liberty, "The United States of America" with America, ...and numerous other examples.

Is it paranoid to think this isn't accidental?


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3 comments:

  1. Kent,

    I don't understand the distinction between freedom and liberty. I've always considered them to be synonyms.

    As for federal reserve notes/money, even with my sunny disposition I can't deny that there are many people who wake up in the morning intending to do harm to others.

    On the subject of schooling/training not being equal to education, I'm reminded of Richard Mitchell, who always thought of education as a leading-out-of, something fleeting and difficult to summon, like when we look up from the page and wonder.

    Dave

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  2. The way I see it, freedom is simply doing whatever you want to do. Which could be good or bad, depending on your desires. Liberty, though, is the freedom to do anything that doesn't violate others- anything you already have a right to do. No matter how trivial or important.

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  3. Thanks for the education:
    Your Free-Liberty distinction is spot on.

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