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Thoughts on Freedom, Equality and Socialism
Perhaps it’s really the conservatives who believe most in equality. Is that why they get so upset when people speak of welfare programs? Because they assume everyone is like them in ability and that any failure must be a conscious choice?
No, not most of them. That would be too easy. This doesn’t account for environmental disadvantages (or advantages) cultivated over generations.
Perhaps it’s the liberals who deep down think that we are not created equal, and that the weak must be protected. And perhaps too much freedom simply pulls these differences into focus, and magnifies them, resulting in harmful outcomes. Hence the need for socialism.
But there’s a problem there. Responsible socialism would put controls in place to prevent those in the most pain from reproducing and creating more pain. That’s the step we’re lacking in our liberal systems today. We need to both help up AND discourage the manufacture of additional suffering.
Is the call for complete freedom, a la Ron Paul, i.e. a lack of government regulation, etc., simply a call for social Darwinism? Is it a sly acknowledgment that we are not all equal, combined with an expectation and hope that the weak will simply fail and die off? If so, someone should come out and state as much.
It’d be honest, if nothing else.
More later…ideas still forming…