Tuesday, April 20, 2010

Speaking of staying off my lawn...

Donny Baseball says The Hummer Was Stupid, but It Meant You Were Free: "
Penn Jillette mourns the imminent death of the Hummer. I do too, although it was never my cup of tea. Jillette mourns because the Hummer was a form of stupidity that reaffirmed our freedom because we are never so free than when we are being stupid...or, as I put it here, 'Maybe freedom means being able to be a fat, artery-clogged slob who gets winded climbing stairs if one so chooses.'
The point should be obvious. There are a million things that, arguably, we ought to be doing as individuals that would make us assuredly better off. But the fact that we don't is a sign of our freedom, but as laws and mandates and other 'nudges' tackle more and more if these millions of little behaviors we lose our freedom. When do we go from freedom to something else? I'd argue we're there already, living in a country overcome with petty tyrannies moving toward actual tyrranies, which is why the Tea Party movement has come on like a tiger. The loss of the Hummer won't get people too excited, nor will incandescent light bulbs, but the ObamaCare health insurance mandate sure does as the creeping tyranny no longer appears to be creeping and petty tyrannies aren't looking so petty these days.
I never had the slightest inclination to purchase any of the "Hummers", H1 through H3, largely due to bad experiences dealing with the mil-spec version of H1.

But they (Donny Baseball, Penn Jillette, and John Stossel) are right.  The right to do stupid things is inherent to a free society.  Feel free to tell me I'm doing something stupid, but as long as I am not endangering anyone else, get out of my way.

BTW, it may come as a surprise to hear Penn Jillette (and partner Teller) espousing libertarian principles, but... courtesy Fortis Security Technology, here they are explaining the Second Amendment in 60 Seconds:

2 comments:

Don said...

They can have my incandescent light bulbs when they pry them from my cold, dead fingers!

BTW, I'm thinking of mailing my CFL bulbs (only used in outdoor lighting) to Nancy Pelosi to dispose of them when they burn out. Anybody with me? Let her figure out what to do with the fraking things.

Drang said...

I like it!