Freedom to be stupid?

Gov. Schwarzenegger halts use of welfare debit cards at casinos. Now THAT is a headline that is likely to raise some hackles - whether it be for "Gov. Schwarzenegger" or "halts use of welfare debit cards at casinos". Since the idea of the governator does not bother me - surely worse have been elected by free countries throughout the world - I did have to raise my eyebrows at the idea of people using welfare debit cards in casinos. Isn't welfare intended to help people survive - to maintain their personal and family welfare? I may be wrong, but I feel rather certain that welfare does not include using the money provided by the government to go gambling.

But this does tie back in with some of my thoughts on freedom. What are the actual limits placed on the recipient of the card as to its use? It's called a welfare debit card so the implication is that it is not intended for gambling money, but are there rules that explicitly forbid it? And should there be if there are not? Finally, if there are limits placed on its use, do those limits impinge upon the freedom of the recipient?

I am inclined to argue that beggars cannot be choosers and it is certainly the right of the lender to tell the borrower how they may use the funds. But banks make loans to individuals and companies all the time - with the only proviso that the money must be paid back. The government, however, gives money to people with no such provision or requirement. (After looking through the California Department of Social Services site, I cannot see what the actual rules are for receiving, using or paying back welfare payments.) At most, it appears that the main requirement is that the recipients show an effort to seek work. So does this then grant the government the right to tell people how to spend their money? After all, once the users receive it, then it technically *is* their money.

For the government to assert dominion over how people may spend their money - regardless of where it came from - seems an abuse of power and certainly a restriction of individual freedom. That people should stupidly spend the money given to assist their personal welfare is a choice that they are allowed to make and they should be forced to suffer the consequences. But if that freedom (to be stupid) is taken from them, it is not only the stupid who shall suffer. As I had pointed out earlier, suffering the consequences of one's actions is a freedom.

And, as with most things, freedom can be a double-edged sword.

More thoughts on freedom

In the US, there is a great hullabaloo regarding the reduction of freedoms that were allegedly once enjoyed by the masses. These allegations typically are made by people on the political right as the situation relates to the political ideology of the current administration - both executive and legislative. The loss of freedoms tend to subsist of the argument that there is a greater governmental intrusion into the lives of the private individual - more so than existed in the past. And while there is a certain credence that can be given to this argument, it certainly is not an argument that should belong to one side or the other of the political aisle.

Frankly, it can be argued that there has been a continuous loss of the individual freedoms upon which the US was established. As the government continues to expand its powers over the daily lives of its citizenry, albeit at the alleged benefit of those it governs, it continues to reduce the liberties to which the people once may have had rights. One example, hot button issue though it is, is the right of gun ownership. There continues to be an active movement to restrict the ownership of firearms in order to reduce the violence that plagues many areas in the country. The motivation for this movement is seemingly a pure one intended to help reduce the number of victims of gun crimes perpetrated by criminals with supposedly easy access to guns. To argue against them paints the opponents of gun control as violent fanatics. Yet the purpose of the second amendment of the US Constitution guarantees the right to own firearms not for the purpose of shooting fellow citizens at will but as a guarantee to mitigate the power of the government. A government that has no fear of its unarmed citizens is a government that is either already, or on its way to, a tyranny.

But this does not mean that there are not other ways for the government to exercise its expansion of powers over the daily lives and freedoms of its citizens. And certainly in recent memory, no newly elected leadership has refused the powers that were accumulated under previous administrations nor has failed to increase the powers that it could wield through whatever machinations it could create or twist to its own desires.

Frankly, power begets the desire for more power. And power in the hands of a few, even those who are freely elected, is freedom given to those same few for whatever pittance may be granted in return. So handing over the freedoms that the people may currently possess for whatever meager promises the government may make is a dangerous bargain in the long term. Even Thomas Jefferson knew that

Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.

How much further down the path must the people trod before they are willing to see it?

Disappointment

After having lived through the agony of another match with the Cardiac Kids on the pitch, I am not sure whether to feel upset that they will go no further in this World Cup or relieved that I will not have to suffer a potential heart attack from watching them concede an early goal and wondering if they will be resurrected again by the heroics of Landon Donovan. When they went down by a goal in the 5', I was pounding the floor with my fist in frustration. How could they possibly give up ANOTHER early goal and be forced to play harder to come from beind?!

But the blame here goes squarely with Bill Bradley who must have believed that tweaking the lineup that delivered a victory in their previous match against Algeria would confuse Ghana enough to allow the US a win. His two changes, involving the over-awed Robbie Findley (who could not finish a sandwich let alone a scoring opportunity) and Ricardo Clark (who was directly responsible for the early goals in both the England and the Ghana matches) were incomprehensible to me. The players he had brought in off the bench had been far more effective than those two starters - and they were again today. To his credit, at least Bradley took Clark out before the first half was done; but that meant that another substitution was not available for later. Findley did not come on for the second half but that meant another substitution was also gone (read: wasted). The net effect was that he had only one other sub for the remainder of the game and, when it went to extra time and they gave up another inexplicable goal, there was no energy to get possession and opportunities for a matching goal.

It's still early and the repercussions of these decisions will likely take time before they are made public. This may well have been the last World Cup for stars Landon Donovan and Clint Dempsey - and more is the pity that their efforts and heroics (particularly in Donovan's case) will have been for naught. While getting past the first round was their oft-stated goal, to have then been knocked out in this manner must have been maddening and a sad epitaph on their World Cup ambitions. Perhaps those who follow them will make them proud in the future. We can only hope...

Lessons not learned

Of course I was 100 percent behind everything that happened in the Cultural Revolution — it was a terrific experience.

To offer some perspective for Americans (or other Westerners), the Cultural Revolution is a mix of the most radical aspects of the upheaval of the 1960's and 70's combined with some of the heartbreak that tore families apart during the Civil War (or the War between the States, as it is sometimes known). It would be useless to offer more substantive details when there are several books that detail that lost decade in Chinese history where the country essentially went crazy. A Google search is a good place to start. I would also recommend Nien Cheng's Life and Death in Shanghai, a very moving, personal tale of survival during the Cultural Revolution.

Regardless, I digress. The above quote is attributed to Joan Hinton, a physicist who helped to work on the Manhattan Project who grew disillusioned and subsequently moved to China. Reading the quote at the end of her obituary in the New York Times, however, floored me for two reasons. First, I find it hard to believe that anyone could see any good in the Cultural Revolution - particularly anyone forced to live through it. Second, for anyone to make a comment like that, regarding a decade-long event that ultimately cost the lives of untold numbers of millions and refashioned its survivors into the "Lost Generation", shows a glaring inability to rationalize the theoretical with the practical.

Rarely does anyone who lived through the Cultural Revolution have any desire to discuss it or its impact on their lives. The actions that people took during that time revealed the lowest depths to which people would sink in order to survive. If anything, the survivors have striven to forget. Ms. Hinton's comments reveal a shocking inability to relate to the horrors that others lived through. That Ms. Hinton should have so overtly praised an event (and its creator) that caused so much suffering to an entire nation is, well, mind-boggling. Further, they indicate that she is more tied to an abstract world of theoretical ideas than their impact on the real (and often practical) world and that the reality of the practical application of said ideas apparently held no burden for her whatsoever. While it is one thing to adhere to a particular ideological worldview, it is quite another to impose it upon others when the adherent is unwilling to participate in the suffering if (or, in this case, when) it should go awry. But to praise the Cultural Revolution in the face of overwhelming evidence of its terrible impact is evidence that the power of the idea was more important to her than its practical application.

And yet, it seems that she was more practical than such a comment would otherwise indicate. After all, though she spent most of her later years in China, she never gave up her US passport, claiming that it made travel easier for her. Yet she never failed to condemn US actions regarding the nuclear weapons (her thoughts on the Chinese possession and use of nuclear weapons apparently remains unknown); actions that were, and still are, allowed under US law but would not have been permitted in China under Mao - or any subsequent leader since his death.

While Joan Hinton may have passed on, the ideas in which she believed so fervently over the practical realities of an existence she obviously wished not to see, persist with others who deliberately choose to remain similarly obtuse.

What refunds?

Somehow, I doubt the government would be as forgiving if the situation were reversed. Yet government officials can easily express their sympathies to their constituents who overpaid their taxes and are having their refunds, um, delayed until the beginning of the next fiscal year. People who overdraw their accounts are punished by their banks, credit agencies and other lending institutions. Yet when government does it, "ho-hum" appears to be the majority response. Sure, we're in an economic crunch but the citizens are feeling it as much the government. I'm curious as to what recourse there may be for people who've been denied what is rightfully theirs within a timely fashion. Perhaps if the citizens all got up and declared that they are in an economic crunch next tax season and refuse to pay their (underpaid - since most people have their taxes taken from their paychecks directly) taxes, maybe people would start to realize that it should be they who have the power since they are the ones funding government and not the other way around.

For those incumbents who survive the 2010 elections (on both sides of the aisle), maybe it would be worth stripping them of the monetary accoutrements of power next tax season and see if turnabout is fair play (with the government).