I'm reading The Collapse of the Third Republic, journalist William Shirer's 1969 study of the political, economic, and cultural factors that led to France's swift and crushing defeat at the hands of Nazi Germany in 1940. About a tenth of the way into this meaty tome, Shirer notes that, in la Belle Époque, the peaceful, prosperous, wildly creative period before World War I, the French "enthroned, cultivated, practiced, [and] respected" individualism perhaps more than any other nation. They rejected the conformity of the "business-minded, mechanized world" in favor of the fullest realization of the individual liberty their Revolution had promised over a century before.
Yet Shirer thinks this strong individualism weakened France against its pending enemies:
Yet, did not this cult of the individual, so strong and so extensively cultivated in France in these years, contribute to the weaknesses of the nation and the society, which Frenchmen thought better and more blessed than any other? Did it not make for an undue selfishness of persons and closely knit families which some foreign friends thought they saw in the French? The practice of charity, for instance, of which the Anglo-Saxon were so proud, scarcely existed among these people. And did this fierce individualism not almost fatally weaken the state by weakening it government at a time when a strong state with a strong government was necessary for national survival? There was no doubt that this individualism led most Frenchmen to subscribe wholeheartedly to the axiom that the best government was the one which governed least. Anatole France never tired of reiterating that the Republic was the best regime for the French because it was the most feeble; it weighed least on the individual. "All the bonds are relaxed," he said. "And while this enfeebles the state it lightens the burden on the people.... And because it governs little, I pardon it for governing badly" [William Shirer, The Collapse of the Third Republic, Simon & Schuster: New York, 1969, pp. 109&ndash110].
I cherish individual liberty. But I also cherish a healthy social contract that makes liberty possible. How do we find the proper balance?
--I cherish individual liberty. But I also cherish a healthy social contract that makes liberty possible.
A "social contract" is only valid when all parties agree to it. There is no effective or enforceable "social contract" when one must pay taxes, or when Nazi Pelosi says that you have to pass the bill to know what's in it.
You use the phrase "social contract" as if you know what it means--it's a malleable tool of convenience for you to support whatever you support and to oppose whatever you oppose.
In reality and in practice, social contract=socialism. And as such, there is no "individual liberty", for when one is forced into a "social contract", there is neither a contract nor individual liberty.
Look, I do not know where you picked up on this "social contract" that you keep raving about (Zinn? ), but you REALLY need to understand it and all of its implications as socialistic theory.
School's out, son.
Red state Wyoming's single-party rule fracturing, too:
http://wyofile.com/2012/08/conservative-group-seeks-to-rid-wyo-gop-of-rinos/
Memo to Julie re: Social Contract
1. When cave bear come, we all fight so it not eat us. You in Julie?
If no, okay, fight cave bear yourself.
2. When we kill mammoth, everybody eats. You in, Julie?
If no, okay, kill your own mammoth.
3. When cave get funky, we all help clean and fix up. You in Julie?
If no, okay, go find own cave.
4. When Grudznik tribe comes to steal women and kill children we fight. You in Julie? If no, have fun with Grudz.
Regards,
Mogur
In each case Bill, you sought my blessing.
When for example, Obama wishes to use tax money to fund activities that I or others object to as a matter of conscience, the contract is broken. Period.
ACA was negotiated by a representative democracy: not by executive order.
The Emancipation Proclamation was an executive order, Alaska purchased concurrent to the ratification of the 14th Amendment.
"Julie"=PP.
End funding for the military: i object to it.
p.s. Julie can leave cave any time. No problem.
Ever wonder why "Julie" never appears at the War Toilet?
America: arms dealer to the world, manufacturing death every day....
More info for Julie:
http://www.iep.utm.edu/soc-cont/
Bill,
Under the traditional social contract theory, blacks and others should accept their slave roles in society since that would be the state of nature in a well-ordered society.
Surely you are aware of that.
--p.s. Julie can leave cave any time. No problem.
Yes, but I cannot leave the US gov't behind: I cannot escape the cave of taxation or the dark coercion of Obamacare.
Understand?
I would be happy to leave your cave or to decline your protections but your cavemen thugs will drag me back in and force me to protect the cave at the expense of my liberty, life, and treasure--that's not a social contract.
Romney's LDS social contract certainly teaches that Negroes:
"According to Mormon history and authoritative Mormon teachers, the Negro, as they were referred to, are a cursed race because they were not faithful to God in their first estate (the pre-existent life with God). Hence, when they are born they are born in black skinned families."
http://carm.org/mormonism-and-the-negro
Negroes were imported to the Americas by christians because the First Peoples that they enslaved died from malaria.
Resigning from America's social contract is Julie's right as an American, but it betrays her intention to be irresponsible and unAmerican as a citizen.
What's so unAmerican about Julie's sentiments is they defy the result of the last Presidential election. They deny the transfer of executive power from Bush to Obama, as mandated by a large majority vote of the American people. They (the Republicans in Congress) have done everything possible to obstruct the economic recovery of our nation because they thought it would ruin Obama's chance for re-election.
As Rush Limbaugh said as Bush transferred power to Obama and dumped his two wars on the credit card, tax cuts for the 1 percent, Wall Street ripoffs, and the financial collapse of our nation and its resulting job losses and foreclosures, "I hope Obama fails." It became the dog whistle to Mitch McConnell and John Boehner to make sure Obama fails and become a one-term President.
Here's what these unAmerican GOP jerks really meant: "We hope America fails." Their actions have consistantly proved they are unAmerican. So far, they have held our nation underwater, preventing a quicker and deeper recovery from the Bush/Cheney Great Recession.
I predict that with Ryan on the ticket, Americans will throw these bums out precisely because the American people will see clearly the GOP agenda has been to force America to fail, no matter how they try to rig the 2012 vote with Jim Crow laws like voter ID.
Julie, you can expatriate any time you please. No one is going to "drag you back." If you can find a society that supports your anarchist instinct better than the US, go for it. I hear Somialia is nice this time of year.
Somalia... typo, sorry.
Unpatriotic deficits:
"The problem is, is that the way Bush has done it over the last eight years is to take out a credit card from the Bank of China in the name of our children, driving up our national debt from $5 trillion for the first 42 presidents – #43 added $4 trillion by his lonesome, so that we now have over $9 trillion of debt that we are going to have to pay back — $30,000 for every man, woman and child. That’s irresponsible. It’s unpatriotic."
BHO, 7/3/2008
Since BHO has added 6.5 TRILLION to the debt in less than 4 years, he must be less patriotic than Bush!
I just love using this idiot's words to bash his Believers.
--Julie, you can expatriate any time you please.
So if I use the "social contract" to force you to pay taxes to fund my Church of Bush the Greater, and you object, it's good enough just tell you to either love America or leave it?
Come on, we're better than that. I cannot believe that you're so intolerant.
I'm not intolerant, Julie. I'm 100% tolerant of your immaturity, idiotic notions, and half-baked theories, just as I have been with all my children and grandchildren. You stated that you were trapped here. And I that you are free to stay or leave as you please. That's all there is to it. Now run along. Grampa has to do his morning Triple-S routine.
Julie, can you give us the detail on the 6.5 TRILLION that President Obama added to the deficit? How much was from the two wars? How much from the unfunded medicare part D program? How much is from the Bush (and now Obama) tax cuts? How much is from TARP? The auto bailout?
Maybe it would have been easier if I would have just asked how much of this debt did "Fiscal Conservative" Paul Ryan vote for?
Sure makes calling Ryan a fiscal conservative seem kind of meaningless...huh.
The French soilders fought valiently with half as big of tanks as the German Panzers. But when the German Stuka(dive bomber) dove straight down on the French tanks they had no defence at all and lost quick. If they French had emphasised all guns and no butter they might have done better. But the Germans had been made into slaves of a military machine and did not lose quick as the French but lost horribly in the long run. They had to recruit twelve yearolds for the military since they run out of adults.
In the old Testament(Jews might know this already) they were safe when they trusted God and obeyed him but King Ahab died in a battle with over one million troups of Jehosaphat backing him up and four hundred(all except one) prophets thought God was on his side.
German city recognizes Muslim holiday: SpiegelOnline.
"Man is born free and everywhere he is in chains." JJR
Ms. Gross is obviously off her medications. I suggest an extended time out while she rediscovers reality.
--I’m not intolerant, Julie. I’m 100% tolerant of your immaturity, idiotic notions, and half-baked theories, just as I have been with all my children and grandchildren.
I'm sorry that you were able to procreate. I'm even more sorry you found someone to receive you.
--You stated that you were trapped here.
Strawman.
--And I that you are free to stay or leave as you please. That’s all there is to it.
Gee, thanks for stating the obvious. Such wondefrful insight. The sky is blue. Stars twinkle. Currency is green.
We were discussing how Cory's "social contract" theory is inevitably bouyed at the expense of individual liberty. Care to discuss that or to call me more names?
--Julie, can you give us the detail on the 6.5 TRILLION that President Obama added to the deficit?
To remind you:
“The problem is, is that the way Bush has done it over the last eight years is to take out a credit card from the Bank of China in the name of our children, driving up our national debt from $5 trillion for the first 42 presidents – #43 added $4 trillion by his lonesome, so that we now have over $9 trillion of debt that we are going to have to pay back — $30,000 for every man, woman and child. That’s irresponsible. It’s unpatriotic.â€
BHO, 7/3/2008
NO ONE asked for the same detailed accounting from BHO in 2008 as you are asking of me now.
Why is that?
Yes, we fought two wars with funding approved of time & time again by Senator Barry So, BHO owned part of that $4 trillion, plus anothere $6.5 TRILLION as president. So why wasn't/isn't he even more unpatriotic BY HIS OWN STANDARDS?
But I doubt that such facts bother you much, or BHO.
Larry,
From my reading of history I thought that the First People violently resisted slavery to such an extent that the plantation owners were unable to use them as slaves and had to resort to Africans.
Oh our dear Julie...in regards to the current deficit, certainly you see the Bush and the GOP (including 100% participation from Ryan) contribution to the deficit was like a book club membership that President Obama was stuck with. Never mind...you probably don't have that understanding.
No one has asked President Obama for an accounting of his spending...Really? Julie...Really? None of us are naive enough to believe that line.
p.s. China doesn't hold all of our debt...so lighten up on the Red Scare stuff.
You aren't exactly setting a new standard in assailing the debt under Obama...but you knew that. As a matter of fact, I'm guessing it's those email chains that are so popular in the radical side of the GOP that are fueling your angst.
From a critique of 1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created, "West Africans have an inherited immunity to malaria, the disease that beset early colonists and their indentured servants and then the native people of the Americas they originally enslaved to work the malarial-ridden fields of sugarcane, tobacco, and rice.
Mann argues persuasively that there is a connection, though he is quick to point out that it would be simplistic to say that malaria caused slavery, and is just as quick to say that slavery would have existed in the Americas without it." source
Julie should maybe switch meds to the ones Sibby takes. His hallucinations are a lot more interesting and colorful.
Ms. Gross (NE)
I have several questions.
When you discuss social contract theory are you implying that the founders did not draw from Locke, Hume, and the Iroquois Federation?
You also dismiss Howard Zinn who certainly has some ideological blind spots. Are you advocating David Barton's reading of history?
You repeatedly use President Obama's middle name? Do you also call Mitt Romney by his given name Willard?
You have used excerpts from President Obama's speeches to indicate he has not lived up to his promises. Paul Ryan voted for TARP and both wars that were conducted off the books. Do those votes make him as culpable as Obama's rhetoric makes him?
Mitt Romney's Massachusetts heal care reform is the model for Obama's reforms. You believe Obama to be a socialist. Do you also believe Romney to be a socialist.
Just curious
"health care reform is" not "heal care reform"
lk you should also add that Ryan voted for Medicare Part D and the unfunded Bush tax cuts, including several renewals. He also supported both wars fervently.
So despite citing "failed policies", the math shows that he voted for most of the failed policies that have led to the deficit.
Larry,
Just downloaded it to my Kindle. Thanks
You're welcome, Sir: the author, Mann, was on a rebroadcast of WHYY's Fresh Air the other day:
http://www.npr.org/2011/08/08/138924127/in-1493-columbus-shaped-a-world-to-be
I'll have to get to this book soon. I thought 1491 was a fascinating read.
I second LK's questions. Brilliant. The social contract theory I espouse would have been right at home at the big table in Philadelphia in 1776 and 1787.
--When you discuss social contract theory are you implying that the founders did not draw from Locke, Hume, and the Iroquois Federation?
The Founders did not draw from the Iroquois federation.
--You also dismiss Howard Zinn who certainly has some ideological blind spots. Are you advocating David Barton’s reading of history?
The first has little to do with the second, other than extremists are extremists. So, no, I'm not advocating either's reading of history.
--You repeatedly use President Obama’s middle name? Do you also call Mitt Romney by his given name Willard?
Why would I bother? Romney is not the president. I've not said much at all about Romney, if anything.
--You have used excerpts from President Obama’s speeches to indicate he has not lived up to his promises.
We could fill the ocean with such "excerpts".
--Paul Ryan voted for TARP and both wars that were conducted off the books. Do those votes make him as culpable as Obama’s rhetoric makes him?
Ryan is 1 out of 435. Obama was 1 out of 100 and running for president, later to be 1 out 1 as president. So, it's difficult to equate their influence and their responsibilities.
--Mitt Romney’s Massachusetts heal care reform is the model for Obama’s reforms. You believe Obama to be a socialist. Do you also believe Romney to be a socialist.
I don't think I've called Obama a socialist. Feel free to correct me, but I don't think it's there. Secondly, my postings have been about BHO, not Romney, so please try to stay on topic.