Freedom

I was having a conversation about freedom, last night, with a friend of mine and her dad. And I think I made the argument about as plain as possibly could.

The truth is that we have had freedom, free will, since the beginning of humanity. There's plenty of power and control that has figured into that, too, and, when properly understood, it becomes clear that it is all that power and control that has forever fucked up humanity and made people more likely to do all of the most awful and tragic things in our history. Nazism, Communism, The Holocaust, Imperialism, the Crusades, the oppression that has undermined humanity for most of its history.

All of that power and repression has been driven, fundamentally, by a fear of that freedom, that free will.

But the truth is that it has never left us. We have always had it. We have always had all of the freedom that the world has had to offer. To do good. To do bad. All of it.

And since the beginning of humanity, with all of that freedom, and all of the risks that it has always carried, we have always done much good and much bad.

But freedom has always carried with it responsibility. And it is that responsibility that more real freedom better and has always better facilitated that has made us decent people, improved our lot, and produced real progress in our lives.

It clearly always has. More liberal societies, for all of their many, many faults, have clearly been more responsible in looking out for humanity and correcting for its mistakes than any other society in our history. And illiberalism has forever been the mistake most in need of correction. And so it is today.

Freedom offers us the clearest path to responsibility for every problem that humanity faces. Especially the problem of when and how frequently, and more to the point, how infrequently, force is used when it is needed. Liberal democratic societies will correct for this mistake, just as they have corrected for every other mistake that liberal democratic societies have corrected for. Because that is what it means to be liberal democratic. It means to correct our own mistakes and get ourselves on the better path towards real progress.

I better head down to Massachusetts Street, here. It sounds like KU beat North Carolina. And there is a whole lot of freedom and debauchery likely to take place downtown, tonight, for everyone celebrating.

I love this fuckin' country.

Into the Wild

I finally saw Into the Wild. If you haven't seen it, it's Sean Penn's labor of love. It's quite the love's labor, too. I definitely recommend it.

I won't tell you how I came to see it. I've actually been wanting to see it since I saw it in the video store.

But yesterday I happened on a recommendation for it by an old friend. She was right. It's a nice reminder of the stuff that really matters in life.

She read it as a reflection on how little material things mean in life. It's definitely that. But it's more than that. It's a story about freedom. And to what lengths some of us will got to get it.

I hope that something better comes along

"A skunk was badgered. The results were strong."

That's fuckin' hilarious. I've watched the Muppet Movie fuckin' 600 times and I never noticed how fuckin' piss-my-fuckin'-pants funny that fuckin' line is.

It's my favorite scene in the movie. It's why I bought the Muppet Movie, actually.

Did you know that I spent about 6 months in grad school seriously exploring puppeteering I fuckin' love Jim Henson and that fuckin' movie so much?

If you haven't seen the Muppet Movie in a while and your wondering what is worth emulating in this world fucked up by self-centered, power, money, status and sex-obsessed adults, check it out, when you get a chance. It's the gold standard of children's entertainment, as far as I'm concerned.



Rowlf: Eh, broken heart, right?

Kermit: Does it show?

Rowlf. Listen. When you've been tickling the ivories as long as I have, you've seen a broken heart for every drop of rain. A shattered dream for every fallen star.

Kermit: Exactly. She just walked out on me.

Rowlf: Yeah, typical. That's why I live alone.

Kermit: You do, huh?

Rowlf: You bet. I finish work, go home, read a book, have a couple of beers, take myself for a walk and go to bed.

Kermit: Nice and simple.

Rowlf: Stay away from women. That's my motto.

Kermit: But I can't.

Rowlf: Neither can I. That's my problem.

Classic.