Adam Bellow, ed.--"New Threats to Freedom"

just notes

The war on negative liberty

The concept of liberty enshrined in limits on the government

Demanding the gov leave us alone to do our own thing

Brooklyn applied for a ban on ice cream trucks, lest children demand ice cream and suffer the evil consequences. Mothers turned to the state to take their place and take responsibility for saying "no" to their children.

Freedom has been subtly redefined to mean "security and safety"--secure in our jobs and in our unaffordable mortgages but not in our homes, and safe from the perils of actually seeing a gun.

We had two hours of sexual harassment training. We can't have children sit on our laps.

guest: "What a shame."

Book title:
New Threats to Freedom

Ms. Christopher Norwood, pioneer in social services to the poor. After observing for decades the funneling of millions of dollars, she has decided that the true purpose of this aid is not to help the poor so much as to create new classes of dependency.

Thank God, a whistleblower. I never was sure if that was the intention of the people who fought so hard to institute these programs, but it sure is obvious that this is the effect, and this is why we who truly care about the poor would like to see these programs ended. But, sadly, those who care more about the programs than about the people the programs are supposedly helping, fight with the usual "shut up" tactics:

First, stop the opposition from talking in the first place by demonizing them with labels like "hateful", "the party of no", and always "racist". Who wants their friends to think they're racist? Who wants to be driven out of society because they're so disgusting?

Then discredit everything they might say in the future by tarring fully half the people in this country before they even open their mouths. Then call them more names. "Conservatives, as everyone knows, want the poor to starve, conservatives are racist, conservatives are selfish, rich, in it for themselves, big businessmen, conservatives hate everyone..."