[protomyth]

Interestingly, yes, quite a lot actually. Oh, they say they support the individual, but they are the first to cry "Think of the children". Bloomberg is one of the poster children.

The general position is safety and forced health on everyone. It is a basic control of person issue. You cannot do anything that I don't approve of. It is quite a pain in the US with all the petty tyrants running city or school boards.

[ap22213]

Ok - I understand, now. You mean the people (with power) who impose rules on others (without power). They, by imposing rules, are working against _other_ people's individual liberties.

Yeah - I can buy that.

But, most people (because most of us don't have power) are generally for more liberties, right?

Unfortunately, where there is power, there are people who want to impose rules. And, like you, I hate rules.

But, how do we get rid of power? People have tried to do that for ages (with often monstrous results).

The democratic republic system seems best, in theory: A bunch of people without much power, individually, band together and grant their aggregate power to a trustworthy person to act on their behalf. That sounds pretty awesome.

But, it doesn't work too well in practice. The powerful just end up electing themselves (or their proxies).

[hga]

As you note, we don't get rid of power. Sounds flatly impossible, not to mention dystopian as you note (insert here any one of several SF works that e.g. make the healthy and fast wear weights so they're slow).

The partial answer I prefer is the Right to Keep and Bear Arms (RKBA) and a well armed citizenry. It puts a ceiling on the tyranny the "powerful" can impose, by allowing empowerment of the less powerful.

For the most recent recognition of this concept, note that one of the many, many rules ISIS is imposing is that nobody else can own guns: http://claytonecramer.blogspot.com/2014/06/totalitarian-gove... (link to a blog so you won't use up your Torgygraph monthly quota; the author is very reliable). Even the anti-gun US authorities, when occupying Iraq, allowed each household to own one AK-47.

Before you have to resort to that, note e.g. Heinlein's advise that you can almost always vote against someone. As long as the system allows negative votes to oust the powerful, they too are working under a ceiling, although of course they frequently don't realize it until it's too late, e.g. ask Eric Cantor, the first House Majority leader to lose an election since the office was created in 1899. Cost the powerful power, and they'll change their ways or continue to lose power.

[protomyth]

> But, most people (because most of us don't have power) are generally for more liberties, right?

Most people are for liberties that they want to exercise in the way they want to exercise them. I would say the number is much closer to 50/50 on things they don't want to exercise. There are quite a few busybodies out there.