Giuliani -- Threat or Menace

Shorter Wingman --
If nobody gives a shit about your rights, they don't really exist.

 

Ragu --

That argument doesn't even pass the smell test.

Government funding goes to all kinds of things people find offensive.

 

F_B: Har har.

The tradeoff between liberty and security isn't exactly a new thing, philosophically speaking. And the American people and their elected representatives -- except for your boy Feingold, I guess -- are, at the moment, willing to sacrifice some liberty in the hope of gaining security. When they're not, the law will be repealed. It's kind of how the system works, ya know.

Not to threadjack, but I have to ask: Exactly how does the Patriot Act affect your daily life? Or mine? Or indeed anyone's?

Zeke,

Still, the libertarian case against funding for the arts -- offensive or otherwise -- is pretty well-established.

 

People are offended by art all the time. Tough. It's their problem. If they think they're going to be offended by a piece of art they can choose not to visit the gallery. The old "turn the channel" argument.

The fact that the gallery is government funded doesn't and shouldn't enter into the equation of what the curator chooses to exhibit. They're not required to ask themselves, "Gee, I wonder if some taxpayers are going to be offended by it".

 

It's well established--it's just wrong-headed, as a lot of libertarian arguments are.

Governments fund lots of industries--directly or indirectly. Why should the arts be any different.--it is an industry, after all.

 

Fine. So is the libertarian case for closing down all publicly-funded schools. Which is why no libertarians are getting elected to anything anytime soon.

The case for publicly-funding the arts to some degree has a pretty solid track record, too. Backed up by people who have actually governed.

Hell, Ragu, what percentage of Americans are currently "offended" by this war? Does that mean I get my money back? (And not in Haliburton stock, please.)

 

The essence of how you lose civil liberties.

1) We'll give them back when we're done.
2) How does it affect you personally?


Sorry. You can't have them. Nobody else can vote them away. They exist in nature and I own them by virtue of the fact that I'm alive and I'm here. Whenever they are diminished for someone else, they are diminished for me. We are less of a free nation because of it. These aren't abstractions. These are the only things that make this country anything more than Great Britain with better beachfront property.
That we are cowards about it now is not my concern. It does, however, mean that we ought not to elect a nasty little Napoleon who will use that cowardice to feed his own authoritarian appetites.

 

Well, first of all, I doubt the people who were offended by it were a "large segment" of the gallery's customers. A vocal minority, as they say.

I remember pissing off a whole bunch of people when I was a bookseller because I very vocally opposed a "family values" group who wanted to remove certain books from the classroom and school libraries.

But then, I wasn't worried about the effect it would have on our business because most of the really vocal ones probably hadn't read an actual book since grade school

 

They "exist in nature?"

I thought they existed as emanations from penumbras. I'm confused.

As usual, take the appeals to emotion and the Kos-esque ranting out of your post and there's nothing left. Except my quote, that is. And I stand by what I've already said. I repeat myself too much to you already.