tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24528000.post1786634354488014418..comments2023-10-28T12:01:47.929+00:00Comments on Edward Lucas: New language for a new ageEdward Lucashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11369936559712607693noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24528000.post-37447019481354342782007-10-12T18:38:00.000+00:002007-10-12T18:38:00.000+00:00I would add that "free" is a function of choice. "...I would add that "free" is a function of choice. "Free" spans beyond purely political speech. It covers economic freedom just as much. In a monopolistic environment a consumer of (gas, telephone service, health care, jobs, workforce, food, water, anything tangible or intangible) has less choice then a free market would provide.<BR/><BR/>From this very perspective every society can be classified on a scale of being more or less free. Privatizations and deregulation that are going on in "old, open, western" Europe illustrate the progress and development.<BR/><BR/>Every definition eventually defeats its own purpose, since it freezes a label applied to a developing and changing object eventually producing bizarre and ridiculous situations like in the US where words "liberal" and "progressive" seem to carry negative connotations.<BR/><BR/>Hijacking terminology and labels is nothing new. Along the lines of Putin's managed/sovereign democracy, the Communist Party in the USSR was built on the principle of "Democratic Centralism". The western left calls itself progressive because it draws the notion of progress from Marxist fallacy that socialism would replace capitalism.<BR/><BR/>Values themselves change in time as well. What made core values in even then "open" Europe seem to be changing. Monopolism, nationalism and protectionism seem to gradually diminish with further developed capitalism.<BR/><BR/>Maybe it is time to stop cringe and shiver after maligned and abused "capitalism" and proudly proclaim it for what it is: the progress that brings freedom of everything in the long run, be it political, social or economic choice.Cyrillhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16235160903593940757noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24528000.post-25330031461838457512007-10-12T06:34:00.000+00:002007-10-12T06:34:00.000+00:00I'd like to challenge your definition of "free". I...I'd like to challenge your definition of "free". It's too reminiscent of the old joke about Reagan and Gorbachov, with the former boasting that in America, anyone can publicly say "Reagan is an asshole" and the latter replying that in the Soviet Union, too, anyone can publicly say "Reagan is an asshole".<BR/><BR/>I can't accept that the idea of freedom is in any way encompassed by the right to complain. I've always thought of a free society as one where an individual is allowed to do anything that does not hurt or violate the interests of another individual. A core principle of freedom that my parents taught me back when I was a kid in the Soviet Union (or what was still left of it), was "your freedom extends to within a millimetre of the tip of my nose".<BR/><BR/>The problem with defining freedom as the right to complain is that you can easily end up with a regime where you're allowed to complain all you want, but nobody's really listening.antyxhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06567309109757565293noreply@blogger.com