Historic Quotations Post II:

[underlankers]

In terms of a defense of democracy and its virtues, I can think of no greater summation than the Four Freedoms speech made by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in January of 1941:

Comments

[sandwichwarrior]

Roosevelt's "4 freedoms" always made me uncomfortable for some reason. Something about them struck me as looking and sounding moral/correct and yet somehow profoundly wrong. An intellectual analog to "the uncanny valley" if you will.

I stumbled across this blog post durring the most recent gun control push and it perfectly articulates the objection that I have always felt, but never quite been able to put my finger on.

The only real place where Roosevelt's four freedoms are relaibly met is prison.

[underlankers]

Point the first, WWIII would have been a lopsided nuclear exchange solidly favoring the USA for most of the Cold War's span.

Point the second, the USSR knew that more than the USA did.

Point the third, by the time the Soviets could have defeated us in nuclear war their whole system was on the verge of falling apart and did fall apart.

Point the fourth, the USA's the only state able to destroy human civilization right now and the absence of another enemy able to match us in aid destruction makes it harder to have one state self-terminate humankind.

Point the fifth, nihilism is for pussies who are self-absorbed and think real life is all about them getting what they want when they want it.

[sandwichwarrior]

Point's 1 - 4 would seem to imply that humans, on the whole, ARE NOT irrational, and are not particularly eager to engage their darker impulses, or in self destruction.

You can't have it both ways so which is it?

[underlankers]

And guess how much the Founders gave a damn about a minority that didn't want to pay more taxes?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whiskey_Rebellion

As I said, I can respect people's rights to believe any nonsense they want to believe but nonsense it remains.

[sandwichwarrior]

...and because they didn't we shouldn't either.

Is that the argument that you are making?

[underlankers]

No, but it does call into question why we are expected to take as gospel words that were not actually implemented by the people who wrote them when push came to shove. We are no different than they were, and if they, who wrote these words, could not actually implement their own ideas........

[sandwichwarrior]

Why bring it up then?

Isn't it better to aspire and fail than to not aspire at all?

[underlankers]

Why bring it up? Perhaps because you're the one arguing we should base our actions on what they said and ignore what they actually did, which is relevant to what they meant when they said it.

[sandwichwarrior]

I still don't see how that is relevent.

Does the fact that Jefferson was a slave-owner really make the ideals espoused in the Declaration any less noble?

Do we consider NASA to be a force for evil it's scientific advances suspect because one of it's founders was a former Nazi?

[underlankers]

You don't see how it's relevant when you're quoting the Founders on a liberty they didn't believe in themselves when standing on principle would have cost them something? OK.

[sandwichwarrior]

No, I don't.

Seems to me that rather than adress the content of the argument you have instead decided to attack it's origins. There is a name for that, and you should know better.

[underlankers]

If coercion is inherently wrong, is it wrong to coerce a Ku Kluxer from lynching a black man or a Soviet apparatchik from starving a Kazakh?

[sandwichwarrior]

In an ideal world you'd be trying to convince the black man not to kill the Klucker who just tried to lynch him. However, we do not live in an ideal world.

Did you consider appeals to reason or emotion?

Granted, those appeal will in all likelyhood fail at wich point you will be faced with a moral dilemma. Just how committed are you to your own beliefes? How do you measure the value of one life over another? These questions do not have easy answers.

[underlankers]

I consider that appeals to reason probably don't work with homicidal maniacs. Appeal to automatic rifles when he has a shotgun tend to work better.

I'm aware I believe several things that to many people would be nonsense of the highest sort, so in my case I see no contradiction between allowing people to say nonsense. If they take their own nonsense seriously enough to murder people, however, they deserve just what they get.

[enders_shadow]

prisoners are not known for their lack of fear.

not to mention, your ignoring that the way they are said requires it (at least first two) to be worldwide

[sandwichwarrior]

From the blog i linked to...

…prison was kind of a relief. Look, I get clothing, three squares a day, and a roof over my head. I get medical and dental free of charge. I can even go to a shrink, a social worker, whatever. I can take college courses if I want-all for free. Outside, I gotta hustle day and night for stuff like that.

“What about freedom?” I asked.

“You know what we call prison?”

I shrugged. I had no idea.

“Home, we call it home.”