Travel, projects (personal and professional), and an unplanned disaster has compressed the time I had available for extracurriculars over the past month. Today I find myself back in Rochester, NY celebrating my daughter, R's graduation from Nazareth College (first of the offspring to complete their undergraduate studies, hoorah). Still with some time, some sleep, and a general predisposition to mulling over what germinated in my mind some weeks ago, I've decided to complete and publish these few entries (which sort of follow my recent thinking on the limits of federal government and the proper mitigation of public risk), just ex post facto.
Some weeks ago I came across an essay by Penn Jillette in the weekend interview in the Wall Street Journal which I think addresses an important, pragmatic essence of liberty. At its most basic, liberty is the freedom for an individual to pursue his or hers prerogative, even when the outcome is stupid. Of course for most of us, putting up with our fellow citizens stupidities (which are so much worse than our own) is the biggest trial of liberty. If only those other idiots could be more like us. If you can, follow the link and read the essay.
Penn Jillette's Homage to Hummer - WSJ.com
I worry our preoccupation with better outcomes (particularly the ones learned experts prefer), with maximizing the government planner's capability to forbid bad outcomes, and with our desire to control the free agents (out of either jealousy or a desire to control what is perceived as chaotic, and therefore, undesirable) will result in a loss of liberty, in a loss of those attributes of freedom which make so much possible in this land. Ironically, although some classical liberals (which Penn Jillette always seemed to me because of his contempt for all religions) and authors like Kurt Vonnegut (whose work I got to love in high school) do seem to recognize the threat to our liberty implicit in following these preoccupations to their logical ends. In light of that observation, one of Kurt Vonnegut's earlier short stories, "Harrison Bergeron", is probably worth reading as a chaser for the Penn Jillette essay.
Harrison Bergeron
What do I conclude? Hang on to your stupidity and the unfairness of life, if the alternative is the sacrifice of your liberty.
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