[curt]

This is going to get downvoted but...

...welcome to the liberal utopia. Where the 'experts' tell you how to run your business and your live your life. Public servants now think they have the right to violate our rights and freedoms because they know better. Whether its surveillance or the size of a soda can. It's as though we are living in an Orwellian novel. Why can't we just let people live their own lives as long as they don't hurt anyone else.

[tjic]

1) 100% agreed

2) What I find amusing about jwz's blog is that every time he has to interact with government he gets screwed - massively massively screwed - yet he still thinks that anyone proposing less government is self-obviously a nut case.

[smsm42]

There are literally millions of people thinking the same. Of course getting business permit is costly, onerous, full of meaningless bureaucracy and nonsensical rules and power grabs, and sucks the life out of anybody for months - but if you think it can be done otherwise, you're a nut. How one could just come and start a business without some very smart and knowledge people in the government validating him? Then we'd have businesses which aren't perfect!

[cpeterso]

jwz probably does not bother to blog about all the times he interacts with the government and doesn't get screwed.

[smsm42]

So you think if someone is beaten by police and complains, he should also not all the times he wasn't beaten by the police in order to have balance? This is not the case for balance - not being screwed is normal state and you don't need to do anything to not be screwed. It is the cases which one gets screwed which need change and thus need to be brought to everybody's attention. You can't say "the system works" because not everybody gets screwed every time, but you can say it does not when one gets screwed frequently.

[rhizome]

Having a reason to criticize aspects of government has nothing to do with following a small-government philosophy. You may be projecting your own preferences onto his reactions.

[Confusion]

You're assuming that with less government he wouldn't get screwed as much. However, you've provided no reason to assume that with less government, he wouldn't get massively, massively, massively screwed++ by what remains of the government.

[Zak]

The issue as you frame it is not a liberal/conservative issue. It's an authoritarian/libertarian issue. It seems to me that most of jwz's problems are to do with people who are relatively conservative and authoritarian.

[mikeash]

I agree with everything you say except "liberal utopia". Why was that necessary, exactly? Do you think it's a good idea to alienate me from your ideas just because I happen to identify with some liberal ideas?

[protomyth]

At their extremes the modern version of the word liberal and conservative are pretty frightening. Both want to be deeply involved in aspects of your life because they can "make it better". Which aspects depend on right / left bent. The modern liberal is the CA government and Mayor Bloomberg, and this does fit under their purview of things they like to control.

I would imagine when you think liberal (could be wrong), you are thinking freedom of thought and action. That meaning of the word is so long gone (much as "conservative" doesn't mean what it used to).

[mikeash]

Freedom of thought and action, yes, but also a solid social safety net and things like universal health care.

I agree about the extremes, but you didn't specify that before, which made it pretty alienating.

[protomyth]

I wasn't the original poster, sorry.

Having lived under US government-provided health care, I'll skip it and try something else. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rsf9QvZD1Ic

[mikeash]

Apologies for the identity mixup. I've lived under socialized health care elsewhere and it was fine. The US government seems to take the attitude of, "Government doesn't work, let us demonstrate." I think it ends up as a self-perpetuating cycle, rather than anything that's inherent to the idea itself.

[pfortuny]

Because... because... because of THE CHILDREN!

Don't you realize? The children, think of the children!

[raldi]

> This is going to get downvoted but...

FYI, I stopped reading and downvoted at that point.