[FoRK] Bring on the robber barons. Oh, wait...

[Jeff Bone]

On Feb 4, 2008, at 6:42 PM, Jeff Bone wrote:

> Now just sit back and watch while that same moral busybody attitude  
> infects and ruins all kinds of other freedoms.

BTW, this is spot-on what we've become:  a nation of moral  
busybodies, a nation that fundamentally and nearly-universally has no  
ability whatsoever to grok the value of "mind your own business" or  
"live and let live."  It's epidemic, infecting everything from what  
you can do at the pub down the street to who you can marry to whether  
or not it seems like a good idea to invade some other country just  
because.

I blame the Boomers, aka "The Worst Generation."

Their parents, "The Greatest Generation," largely did not have this  
problem.  They had a deep-seated appreciation for minding your own  
business.  In large part this explains our late-ish entrance into WWII.

But not their kids.  While their younger and wilder days were devoted  
to "ME" they have, in their later years, decided that everybody  
else's business was just the business they wanted to be in.  And  
their kids -- Gen X (like me, barely), Gen Y, gappers, etc. --- well,  
fuck, we've never even hardly heard the phrase "MYOB" --- much less  
had it instilled in us as a "value."

It's no fucking wonder that America's in the morass that it's in, in  
almost every area.

This isn't THE root cause of all problems --- but it's ONE of them.

Sadly C. S. Lewis didn't make it to see a time when the robber barons  
and the moral busybodies were often one and the same...


jb

---

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may  
be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons  
than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber barons cruelty may  
sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but  
those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end,  
for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.

     -C. S. Lewis