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Culture War Roundup for the week of July 3, 2023

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You and all the other drivers tacitly accepted those conditions when you applied for a licence to drive on the state's roads. You're free to walk at whatever speed you like.

The democratic sausage machine aspires to the freedom to be user serviceable, the other sausage machines don't. It's not like you can get away from the butcher.

You and all the other drivers tacitly accepted those conditions

Certainly I did not.

when you applied for a licence to drive on the state's roads

Suppose I'm driving without a license? Does that mean I am free of other traffic laws?

The democratic sausage machine aspires to the freedom to be user serviceable, the other sausage machines don't. It's not like you can get away from the butcher.

I need not ascribe moral authority to the butcher, and I do not.

It's not moral authority, it's regular authority. A tyrannical monarch could write a law that says "all gold belongs to the king" with no reference to morality.

I don't understand what you're driving at, if you'll pardon the phrasing. My starting point was that we're not free in the west/democracy, we're free-er, and that there is no radical freedom where we can do whatever we like under any system or lack of system. That's omnipotence.


You and all the other drivers tacitly accepted those conditions

Certainly I did not.

I feel this is straying further from my central point but what kind of christmas cracker cereal box licencing body grants licences that don't require abiding by the rules? It doesn't make sense to me. If they don't require abiding by the rules what's the point of a licence? It would be no different to not needing one. The first rule of licence club is "you need a licence". The second rule is "if you don't have one you're not authorised to do it". The third rule is "if you break the rules you lose your licence; refer to rule two".