Friday
(0)At last! A how-to seminar for friends of freedom and limited government: the Cato Institute's October 20-23 seminar on "How to Win Arguments, Win Allies, and Win Friends".
A free republic rests on an informed citizenry, but more important, it rests on a citizenry willing to resort to persuasion rather than force. And for freedom to persist, freedom's advocates must acquire the skills of advocacy.
October's Cato University is a weekend long intellectual feast where you can make new friends, renew your commitment to freedom, and hone your skills as an exponent for liberty.
Speakers include Reason's Nick Gillespie, the Objectivist Center's David Kelley, Don Boudreaux of George Mason University, the Cato Institute's David Boaz, Gene Healy, and Tom Palmer, among others.
Sessions will be held in the F. A. Hayek Auditorium of the Cato Institute in Washington, D.C., as well as at the historic home of George and Martha Washington, Mount Vernon, just across the river from Washington in Alexandria.
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A free republic rests on an informed citizenry, but more important, it rests on a citizenry willing to resort to persuasion rather than force
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Does it not also depend upon a citizenry willing to use force when their freedoms are threatened?
Posted by quentin at September 9, 2005 06:35 PM
"Does it not also depend upon a citizenry willing to use force when their freedoms are threatened?"
All too often the freedoms are threatened in various ways, none of which are egregious, yet cumulativly represent huge losses. Machiavelli pointed out well that a people will generally endure many transgressions so long as the hurt is slight. When each transgression is brought to us as a "reasonable retreat" from freedom to that of.................. ,(insert word of the moment) with the promise of greater security, the noose tightens anew. In no time freedom and liberty become magic words, thrown about as if by saying them we are what those words convey.
I doubt that secure, happy people would be willing to use force any longer.
Posted by John Galt at September 10, 2005 04:55 AM
Government spending continues to increase (especially on the "entitlement programs" the great cancer of the Western world) and new regulations are imposed almost every day.
Even leaving aside the matter of the fiat-money credit bubble financial system. It would seem that the Cato Institute has not had great success in convincing people to return to the ways of the old Republic.
Perhaps things would be even worse without Cato. But even if this is so (even if Cato and others have helped slow the drive to ever more statism) it simply means that Cato has helped delay collapse rather than prevent collapse.
Reform is possible but only (and here the Cato people agree) if people want reform. In reality what most peopel want is more "help for the poor" (Medicare, Social Security and the rest of the destructionism), "low interest rates" (more destructionism - a messed up capital structure and a boom-bust cycle) and more laws against things they do not like ("they must do something" is the great cry of the world).
Sadly it is not really a question of wicked politicians acting against the will of the people. Most of the people are no good either.
"But this is because they have not heard our arguments".
Let us hope that is so.
Posted by Paul Marks at September 10, 2005 10:28 PM
I dunno. If you're looking for people from whom to learn how to win allies and persuade people, Objectivists and Libertarians aren't exactly the first people that jump to mind...
Sad, but true.
Posted by Mastiff at September 11, 2005 07:37 AM
True, especially since many don't seem to realize that "winning" arguments is no way to make friends or allies.
Posted by michael farris at September 11, 2005 09:35 AM
