Not for the First Time...

March 22, 2006
...Dilys cannibalizes something tossed off elsewhere.

Over at Will Wilkinson's place, Peter Singer is quoted interrogating the wisdom of market pricing, or something (we couldn't stay awake to the end). Dilys, in a comment actually better suited to WW's Happiness Blog, observed:

What Singer misses is that the universe of property rights & markets that matches the goods of sellers with eager buyers (and the vague attentions of buyers with sellers’ perishable inventory), itself has a product: Hope & Creativity. Without either of which the human spirit (or whatever term materialists like to use to talk about that reality) sickens and collapses, as the Marxists say, “alienated” to the max.

Schmidtz’ redefinition [of "society" to "property rights"] is a sort of micro-advancement of the argument. But it is an advancement over “society,” a term that makes me nervously finger a small, self-defense-oriented handbag revolver.

As it turns out over at Happiness Central, measureable economic freedom is closely related to self-perceived well-being: 

The results suggest that people unmistakably care about the degree to which the society where they live provides them opportunities and the freedom to undertake new projects, and make choices based on one’s personal preferences.

The right to vote, per se, does not have much impact. Personal freedom via civil liberties does.  That's why the Abdul Rahman problem in Afghanistan is so troubling.

Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. An inspired and perhaps unitary trinity.

The violation of the sacrality of opinion, ultimately, cumulatively, has consequences every bit as devastating as any transgression against any Holy of Holies.

This last courtesy of YARGB on the pathetic capitulation of the Church of Wales to embarrassment before the ever-touchy mullah+OneWorld faction.

Dilys is blue, pinkly embarrassed for her patria, the last venue expected to be dainty and ecumenical.

Comments

[Wahrheit]

The way things are going, I hope it's of at least .38 calibre.

Thanks for all the good links!