I have a hard time trying to understand people who either do not have goals for their lives and or do not pursue those goals with some amount of motivation. It isn't so much about what the goals are. Some folks want to reach certain professional goals like advanced degrees or lofty positions. Folks may want material things of one type or another be it a fancy condo in the city or a nice little farm or Corvette or a studio to pursue their passion behind their place. Other folks might want to travel the world or volunteer in Africa, learn Chinese, run the Boston marathon or win a Judo competition, a High Power or 3 gun match or whatever. Folks with whacky goals make more sense to me than ones without goals.
Even stranger to me are folks who have goals but absolutely no drive to do anything towards them. This group is probably more common than the previous group who do not seem to have any goals. Most folks have goals, even if they do nothing towards them. I don't really get this. No matter where one is in life I have a hard time seeing how somebody would not want to improve their situation. Maybe it is about upbringing and a sense of work ethic/ motivation but I want to be in a better place next week/month/ year than I am today. Since nobody is going to do that but me I had better do something about it. The apathy towards their lives that I see in some folks saddens me.
Liberty is a concept that I have been thinking about recently. Arctic Patriot who arguably should be renamed Far Northern Plains Patriot in light of his recent move back to the lower 48 got me onto this train of thought. To me liberty in the most basic sense is that I can do what I want unless it hurts somebody else. It means I can live, pray, eat, drink and spend however I want. If I want to get some land and turn it into a redneckeriffic junk yard that is my business. If I want to live in a tent or a teepee it is my business. If I want to buy something and another person wants to sell it, or give/ receive loans on whatever terms then I fail to see why that is anyone else's affair. So long as everybody involved is an adult and willing game on for whatever. I think you get the idea. Most folks who read this blog agree to these basic concepts.
Where the whole thing goes to heck in a handbasket is that by basic common sense if I get to do whatever I want that doesn't hurt anybody other folks get to do the same. Many people think that whatever they do is just great but somehow what other folks do is bad. This is fine and good. Lots of folks do in fact make choices which are stupid. Where things get problematic to me is when people try to tell other folks what to do. Obviously we need some laws to punish folks who hurt other people, steal, etc. We also need laws to prevent people from doing really dangerous things that clearly endanger others like say driving a hundred miles an hour in front of a school with a handgun shooting at road signs.
However to say that you are free to grow corn in your front yard but the neighbor shouldn't be able to have a car he has been meaning to restore up on blocks is, in my humble opinion hypocritical. To say you should be able to homeschool your kids but the neighbor shouldn't be able to enter into a mutually agreeable contract is hypocritical. To say you should be able to sell raw milk but the neighbor shouldn't be able to grow a little pot is IMO hypocritical. I could go on but you probably get the point.
In particular I have an isssue with people trying to force their values onto others. This is particularly prevalent in some socially conservative circles where people may even claim to be liberterians. Most of these folks are good, decent people and even well meaning. The thing is that their pastor/ decon/ priest/ whatever has absolutely no right to tell me what to do. They can (and very arguably should) try to convince people of the value of good traditional ways to live. However I see attempting to use the force of law to compel people to act a certain way as equally unacccepable from conservative's as communists or statists. Promoting your views by selling them to people is great, voting with your paycheck and feet is fine too but forcing folks to live your way is just wrong.
As to the pursuit of happiness. I wish that I had some great answers. The best I can say is to stop worrying about what other people think and do what you enjoy. Also be sure to plan some time in your schedule, and if possible a few bucks too, that can go towards whatever it is that gives you joy.
Hope you all have a great Saturday
Even stranger to me are folks who have goals but absolutely no drive to do anything towards them. This group is probably more common than the previous group who do not seem to have any goals. Most folks have goals, even if they do nothing towards them. I don't really get this. No matter where one is in life I have a hard time seeing how somebody would not want to improve their situation. Maybe it is about upbringing and a sense of work ethic/ motivation but I want to be in a better place next week/month/ year than I am today. Since nobody is going to do that but me I had better do something about it. The apathy towards their lives that I see in some folks saddens me.
Liberty is a concept that I have been thinking about recently. Arctic Patriot who arguably should be renamed Far Northern Plains Patriot in light of his recent move back to the lower 48 got me onto this train of thought. To me liberty in the most basic sense is that I can do what I want unless it hurts somebody else. It means I can live, pray, eat, drink and spend however I want. If I want to get some land and turn it into a redneckeriffic junk yard that is my business. If I want to live in a tent or a teepee it is my business. If I want to buy something and another person wants to sell it, or give/ receive loans on whatever terms then I fail to see why that is anyone else's affair. So long as everybody involved is an adult and willing game on for whatever. I think you get the idea. Most folks who read this blog agree to these basic concepts.
Where the whole thing goes to heck in a handbasket is that by basic common sense if I get to do whatever I want that doesn't hurt anybody other folks get to do the same. Many people think that whatever they do is just great but somehow what other folks do is bad. This is fine and good. Lots of folks do in fact make choices which are stupid. Where things get problematic to me is when people try to tell other folks what to do. Obviously we need some laws to punish folks who hurt other people, steal, etc. We also need laws to prevent people from doing really dangerous things that clearly endanger others like say driving a hundred miles an hour in front of a school with a handgun shooting at road signs.
However to say that you are free to grow corn in your front yard but the neighbor shouldn't be able to have a car he has been meaning to restore up on blocks is, in my humble opinion hypocritical. To say you should be able to homeschool your kids but the neighbor shouldn't be able to enter into a mutually agreeable contract is hypocritical. To say you should be able to sell raw milk but the neighbor shouldn't be able to grow a little pot is IMO hypocritical. I could go on but you probably get the point.
In particular I have an isssue with people trying to force their values onto others. This is particularly prevalent in some socially conservative circles where people may even claim to be liberterians. Most of these folks are good, decent people and even well meaning. The thing is that their pastor/ decon/ priest/ whatever has absolutely no right to tell me what to do. They can (and very arguably should) try to convince people of the value of good traditional ways to live. However I see attempting to use the force of law to compel people to act a certain way as equally unacccepable from conservative's as communists or statists. Promoting your views by selling them to people is great, voting with your paycheck and feet is fine too but forcing folks to live your way is just wrong.
As to the pursuit of happiness. I wish that I had some great answers. The best I can say is to stop worrying about what other people think and do what you enjoy. Also be sure to plan some time in your schedule, and if possible a few bucks too, that can go towards whatever it is that gives you joy.
Hope you all have a great Saturday
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7 comments:
Great post Ryan. Exactly my way of thinking. Now, back to work toward my goal : )
Craig, Thanks. I am enjoying following the progress. Can't wait to read that you got it into the water and made a few bucks!
The 1st example of doing what you do on your land has some corollaries for me. No problem as long as these do not effect others the neighbors. A pig farm odors those downwind? A person running a grinder at 2:00 a.m.? Some dumping noxious poisons into the creek ?
The problem with "libertarianism" is that it pretends it isn't "statist". On a notional yard-long continuum between Anarchist and Tyrant, the "conservatives" are about a half-inch to the right of "libertarians".
Everybody except those at either end thinks some amount of government interference in our lives is okay (as opposed to either "none" or "total"). It's just a question of degree, and to what value system you genuflect.
Hypocrisy has no part in this. It's about whether you favor a speed limit of 25, 55, 70, or the speed of light, and usually, whether you can get 51% or so of those with a vote to agree with you.
-Best Regards
Aesop
@8:36, Yeah dumping toxic chemicals or having a dozen tigers and a low rent fencing system from Walmart or whatever wouldn't work.
@Aesop, I have to disagree. To me the whole point of the laws a system has or would have is different. For example a conservative might be for enforcing helmet laws on motorcyclists. A liberterian would see that a motorcyclist without a helmet is only going to harm himself.
The issue of hypocrisy and the points theiron are to try and get through to a few people that to have a system where THEY GET TO DO WHAT THEY WANT they have to accept that OTHERS CAN DO THE SAME.
Or a conservative might be for enforcing a helmet law, because a bunch of socialists had already agreed that medical care for jacktard drivers paralyzed for life would be borne by himself, and decided the lesser harm was to inconvenience the rider rather than rape his own wallet.
There are multiple players in the game.
Ideally repealing the health coverage, and even allowing paramedics to refuse to treat unhelmeted riders might be more ideologically pure, but there's always the question of getting to 51%.
At any rate, while one could plausibly argue something done would only harm himself in 1787, the same argument in 2012 would find precious little personal activity of any kind where that would be the case. Like you I suspect, I want all the elbow room I can get for personal freedom, but the country has gotten vastly more populated, and orders of magnitude "smaller" functionally. A man could be a drunk in his wilderness cabin a century ago, and it was no business of anyone's. Let a man try that now, where you and I have to live with the aftermath of its impact on his children, including turning them into scumbag spawn on the dole, or in prison, at taxpayer expense, and I can make a reasonable argument for horsewhipping that man in the town square today for the same behavior.
We can bemoan the creep of statism, but putting the toothpaste back in the tube would require a bloodbath of biblical proportions. Blame your grandparents for not hanging FDR, or their grandparents for not running Lincoln out of the White House on a rail, or their grandparents for not stringing Washington up for leading troops against the Whiskey Rebellion.
-Aesop
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