<p><a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/04/opinion/the-downside-of-liberty.html?_r=1&hp[/url]”>http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/04/opinion/the-downside-of-liberty.html?_r=1&hp</a></p>
<p>I like this article and I like the quote… From Jefferson…</p>
<p>I think the writer is correct…for better and worse…</p>
<p>Fabulous. Needs saying. Of course, the context always matters, the pressures, fears and developments in a generation or a decade. The cultural values, mindsets and work ethics of the new flows of immigrants. But a great, thought-provoking start.</p>
<p>Yes…I think the writer explains a lot…</p>
<p>“From the beginning, the American idea embodied a tension between radical individualism and the demands of the commonweal. The document were celebrating today says in its second line that axiomatic human rights include Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness individualism in a nutshell. But the Declarations author was not a greed-is-good guy: Self-love, Jefferson wrote to a friend 38 years after the Declaration, is no part of morality. Indeed it is exactly its counterpart. It is the sole antagonist of virtue leading us constantly by our propensities to self-gratification in violation of our moral duties to others.”</p>
<p>I think Jefferson is correct.</p>
<p>Therefore, we must be selfish to survive.</p>
<p>Compared to many other cultures around the world, mainstream American culture places a high value on independence. Asking for help is considered embarrassing. A college graduate living with his/her parents is considered a failure. We’re supposed to “pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps.” Many of us have never met our neighbors.</p>
<p>In this kind of society, you had better be selfish. Nobody else is looking out for you, so you need to look out for yourself.</p>
<p>We don’t live in isolation.</p>
<p>The last graduation I went to…there were 6,000 graduates…not 1 graduate.</p>
<p>It is very hard to live a life by yourself. I guess you can go live in the woods somewhere. Better not get sick…</p>
<p>So…</p>
<p>“In this kind of society, you had better be selfish. Nobody else is looking out for you, so you need to look out for yourself.”</p>
<p>I find this kind of sad. </p>
<p>We all share a time together. As a group…this makes our group unique.</p>
<p>Very thoughtful and balanced article.</p>
<p>We are in a libertarian era.</p>
<p>^^ Yep, we are. And that will be our downfall.</p>
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<p>And if, as seems likely, one of those graduates did not have a constructive activity (job or graduate program) to go to after graduating, the other 5,999 and their families certainly did not feel any obligation to help this person find an opportunity. The idea that it is best for the community if all graduates have opportunities to support themselves and contribute to the community has not taken hold. </p>
<p>There may have been 6,000 graduates, but in many ways, each of them was on his/her own.</p>
<p>As I see it and at the risk of sparking a war, I see much of American libertarianism as a way to bind self-interest to some devout form of Christianity. The former is an ideology which places the economic interests of the individual at the highest rung. Graft that on to devotion and you are able to impose your moral beliefs while overriding the personal liberties of others. Take what you want from one and add on the other to justify what you want.</p>
<p>I find it hard to blame libertarianism- attaching a specific label soft pedals the fact that many are just plum self-centered or narrow thinkers. </p>
<p>You don’t have to be selfish to survive. We all depend on others. I am grateful for a good protest. Wish more folks would get involved. That’s what excited me about the Occupy movement- I never heard much that sounded well thought out, but was delighted that, for a while, we moved back to our protest roots.</p>
<p>Btw, the individualiam of the colonist or out on the frontier was pretty socially constrained, not counting renegades. No?</p>
<p>Selfishness is not necessarily consistent with any particular political ideology. Most people will say that they want lower taxes, oppose cutting back government programs that they use (“hands off my Medicare”), and hate it when politicians cannot balance the budget.</p>
<p>Marian, the extension of your philosophy is embodied in the depravity of the world banking system, which has been exposed as nothing more than a means for bankers to enrich themselves at the expense of everyone and anyone else. There are profound consequences to this type of antisocial world view. The average working person in the United States today makes no more in real dollars than the average worker in 1968. “Up by the bootstraps” is for rubes who don’t realize the transfer of wealth that has taken place right under their noses. There is an old saying about poker: if you are sitting around the table and you don’t know who the sucker is in the room: it’s you.</p>
<p>I agree 100% that there are striking parallels between libertarianism and fundamentalism. Those who wield economic clout are playing that for all it is worth.</p>
<p>“Many of us have not met our neighbors”, i can say wholeheartedly, we meet and know every neighbor we have ever had…Most,if not all, have shared a meal in our home over the years…i will say we are also the most unselfish family i know…</p>
<p>We’re supposed to “pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps.”</p>
<p>I think we really forget this: “It’s all right to tell a man to lift himself by his own bootstraps, but it is cruel jest to say to a bootless man that he ought to lift himself by his own bootstraps.”
― Martin Luther King Jr.</p>
<p>The irony is that it appears to me that my children’s generation has had community service obligations drilled into their heads - completing a minimum number of hours is a high school graduation requirement where we live. There is a very competitive annual award for the student who completes the most hours. Top colleges supposedly encourage and covet it. </p>
<p>Our country was founded by colonists and rugged frontiersmen and outcasts who survived due to their self-reliance and self-determination. That is our roots. Maybe it is anachronistic now, but it feels disrespectful to label it selfish.</p>
<p>I don’t have any friends who are selfish. I choose to be around people who value the community over the individual. I do have family members who are selfish, but you can’t choose your family.</p>
<p>I think it’s a mistake to think there is one American culture that applies across the board. I’ve lived in the suburbs, in the inner city, and in rural America. The lifestyles are different, but so are the values. In rural America, there is still a sense of community, of all being in the same boat, that I never found in suburbia. Marian says we don’t know our neighbors. Let me assure you, when you live in a small town, you do.</p>
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<p>Ah, yes, the people who invented the barn-raising, the quilting bee, and the town meeting form of government,just to name a few traditions. Just going it alone…</p>
<p>“As I see it and at the risk of sparking a war, I see much of American libertarianism as a way to bind self-interest to some devout form of Christianity.”</p>
<p>Google “dominionism.” And after you’ve scared yourself, then add “Erik Prince” and “Blackwater.” It’s crazy that all of this is happening with so little media attention. And yes, it is extremely selfish and antithetical to both our nation’s founding principles and the basic tenets of Christianity.</p>
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<p>Right, and when they decided to venture out, each family took its own wagon and set out completely alone. When trouble came, they circled the wagon.</p>