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I've said what the problem is: the problem is fundamentally social, the way in which American values have proven their own undoing. There's no quick fix. In the short run, the budget should be balanced through a combination of cuts, tax increases, and changing the dynamics of some programs such as Social Security and the military.
In the longer term, the electoral system needs to be reformed and there needs to be more government action aimed at stabilizing society. I believe that is is perverted values and disinformation that rides on a polluted culture that undermines the debate and thought processes needed to sort out what is wrong with our country. Greece is a far more extreme example of this: why is corruption such a way of life there? Because of their values, their ways of life. We have the same problems but in different respects - a problem with values that prevents superficially economic or political problems from sorting themselves out. This is also why people vote against their own interests.
That is the failing of the libertarian viewpoint. The paradox that individual freedom to make one's own choices is a false one. No one can be free from the world that other people construct from their own freedom, and the world with the greatest individual freedom isn't necessarily the most individually free. The best example of this, is, of course, corporate America and things like Wal-Mart or Facebook or Microsoft or Moodys. Those things are the product of other people's freedom, and even without direct violence they undermine the freedom of a great many people.
The libertarian viewpoint is also faulty because people are the product of their environment - we live in a world of ideas, always have, and always will, whether we realize it or not - and individual freedom allows everyone to affect that environment, to the detriment of individual self-determination, which is also a form of freedom. Fox News is the most apt example. So is World of Warcraft - how it has changed since Vanilla in response to Blizzard's decisions, how people believe their own lies and shills for their petty behavior because they buy the "party line". There are innumerable more subtle examples - the connection between consumerism and cultural change over time. Or how "freedom" results in a national political dialogue that is neither free nor fair nor true nor relevant. That "freedom" limits the freedom of the world we as individuals live in. It negates our freedom to ascend.
I believe that the solution in the longer term is to promote freedom by promoting the essential prerequisites for freedom - responsibility and the means to power - which in practice often means making society less free. It is a paradox but an indisputably true one.
In sum, I challenge what I see as the folly of the uniquely modern American brand of anything-goes libertarianism. I believe that a society that is to be viable in the long run and offer a good and free life for its citizens must also have laws and regulations to keep things on track. To keep what is good and to cast out what is bad.
Banning the tabulation of information about private individuals by NGOs is a limit on freedom that makes people more free.
Taxing the wealthy and shackling the powers of banks so as to fund universal healthcare and daycare and education and interest-free loans is a limit on freedom that makes people more free.
Banning insurance and mandating that licensed doctors must accept patients on a double-blind basis (forcing them to accept people with state healthcare by ensuring they don't know their patients before they meet them) is a limit on freedom that makes people more free.
Banning campaign donations is a limit on freedom that makes people more free.
Banning cars and individual housing that waste urban space, creates noise and pollution, beholdens us to foreigners and makes housing a massive drain on national resources, is a limit on freedom that makes people more free.
Banning crass, tasteless or violent TV programs is a limit on freedom that makes people more free.
I strongly feel a number of new legal devices need to be introduced, amongst them a writ of nil obstat - with this device, signed by a new class of magistrates, all procedural obstacles preventing an action that is not inherently illegal are instantly negated and the action must go forward under threat of contempt of court. This would mostly be connected with things like licensing firms and creating infrastructure.
Another legal device I feel needs to be introduced is that any public statement or mass transmission must have a seal connecting ultimate responsibility for that statement or transmission to a licensed individual (and to be licensed requires a certain interest in the business; i.e., must be executive-level). This means, for example, if a petitioner is trying to get signatures, or you get junk mail, or a false bill, or an attempt at unlawful connection, a particular individual who signed for it can be indicted if it appears that the statement was in some respect unlawful, due to being false, in violation of business law, under false pretenses, or consisting of some form of racketeering. This would also apply to almost everything connected with banking.
My single most fundamental belief driving all this:
A free society is a society that allows people to grow to their potential and weigh values and arguments independently of the power or prestige of any faction. Sometimes this means undermining the cruelty of unlimited freedom. Those limits on freedom are a reality of any society whether we realize it or not. Of course this is an ideal that finds its extremes in Republic and Anthem.
I am not so naive as to believe that we can build a utopia within our lifetime if ever. However, I am wise enough to appreciate that the positive examples that have been laid out for us by those who dared to make history and those who dared to at least think the hard thoughts have utility and have the potential to continue to guide us to a better tomorrow.
Aestu of Bleeding Hollow... Nihilism is a copout.
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