Friday 2 July 2010

Pith & Pips

There is a revolting little thing going on at Slate in which readers are invited to tweet their own precis of the Declaration Of Independence in time for this Sunday. I say "revolting" because both Slate readers and columnists regularly discuss further infractions to, and violations of, the integrity of the chief principle on which human freedom is predicated - that property must be private and not public.

Christopher Hitchens for instance almost makes me want to weep. How stupid it is that such an intelligent man can be so schizophrenic as to rightfully jeer and ridicule religion for its' latent totalitarian impulse and totalitarian premises and yet be blind to these glaringly obvious features of the democratic socialism he himself supports! Hitchens is overrated, but not for the reasons many conservatives will complain about and least of all those that misnamed "liberals" will complain about.

It seems utterly improbable that my letters to the Taipei Times will achieve anything other than their secondary values (my business, no-one else's). My best ones often go unpublished while my clumsy ones are seized upon and occasionally twisted. Writing them in Mandarin and sending them to the Liberty Times is something I have to start, and I'm probably just about good enough to do it now (with a little help from my friends). Yet it occurred to me the other day when I was out with the camera in Yujing and Nanhua that I could probably do a good job with the combination of pithy photographic backgrounds and Nietzsche-like libertarian aphorisms in Mandarin and English. Printed and distributed. Plastered across posters. Scattered anonymously and planted where there might be soil.

It's an idea...

2 comments:

  1. I hope that's the way it stays. People who advocate property rights shouldn't violate them.

    I think you probably get this already and I apologize if I am stating the blindingly obvious but I thought I ought make the point just in case.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Actually Patrick I don't know what violation of property rights you are referring to... me taking pictures? Slate readers...?

    ReplyDelete

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