I’ve been thinking about my question, and the responses so far, for some time. Still not sure I have anything useful to say, but I’ll ramble for a bit anyway.

Pint, thank you; it was a very nice time. But your answer confuses me; the state offers fear? My thoughts regarding that concept generally run to state solutions taking advantage of our basic fears, or sometimes creating fears where none necessarily need exist (viz., USSA involvement in the Russia–Georgia situation). At best, state-based solutions offer a false security for our fears.

The petty bureaucrats are usually just ordinary people. Since they work for the state they have a vested interest in seeing it continue, but for the most part, they are not personally evil. The work they do is evil, but they do not see it that way.

Jorge, this is an excellent point, but it begs several questions. Does any “ordinary” person view their work as evil? If so, how could they keep performing it in good conscience? Interesting as defining evil might be, I’m not keen on pursuing that path today.

To quote P.J. O'Rourke "One of the annoying things about believing in free will and individual responsibility is the difficulty of finding somebody to blame your problems on. And when you do find somebody, it's remarkable how often his picture turns up on your driver's license."

It is more that annoying for most people. It is intolerable.

I can see that ... I don’t understand it, but I can recognize that this state exists. The problem is, that kind of individual seemed not to be as common just 60 years ago, let alone 100 or 200 years. People recognized that they were on their own to a fair degree—they sank or swam by their own lights and it was a good idea to be a good neighbor to others who were sinking, in case misfortune placed one in that same position. From my perspective, the handout mentality is the major cultural shift over that time, and that was fostered by state intervention into private lives. So there’s nothing inherent in individuals today that lead to such differences in thinking, it seems to me; it’s largely a cultural phenomenon that many simply don’t think about, much less try to get outside of. All that said, you are surely right: there are many explanations.

Before I forget, thanks to you and everyone who offered birthday wishes to the family. They’ve been passed along and the recipients say thanks, too.

Shaun, do you have any thoughts on how a “childlike frame of mind” has come to be so accepted in adults? That used to be considered a sign of diminished mental capacity, or whatever similar term one might wish to use for it ... but it certainly wasn’t considered rational or responsible, and wasn’t a desired frame of mind in a grownup at all. (Come to think of it, it wasn’t tolerated in children either, back when children were expected to work to help provide for their keep.)

Laura, thank you for your insights. While I do have some difficulties with Maslow’s hierarchy, your mentioning that strikes a chord: might part of the puzzle be that today’s world is so dizzyingly complex—connection-wise as well as technologically—that it is a sort of self-protection mechanism to turn over some part of one’s decision-making to others? Yeah, the gov may suck at a lot of things, but so far the infrastructure is holding up and relying on it is preferable to trying to solve all the puzzles of plumbing and electricity and heat oneself ... I can see that kind of shallow cost-benefit analysis going on. Relying on what exists frees up time and energy for other pursuits.

As I newbie, I think I hear freedom thinkers saying – Hey government doesn’t work! We freedom lovers also want what is best for the good of people. I know, I know, you’re all supposed to be about the individual, but I think that lens shortchanges the effect. At the end of the day, freedom for individuals produces the best end result for everyone. What I’ve learned from reading here and on other blogs, seems to suggest that many of you believe that if each individual is just in charge of himself, the world would work better.

Hmm. You’ve touched on a lot of possibly sensitive issues in this paragraph ... there are factions in The Family that prefer to keep the focus on the individual, while others recognize our inherent social nature and try to weave a pro-freedom fabric that has individualism as warp and community as weft. And of course, many outsiders view that “to each his peaceable own” perspective as a thin veneer for racism, sexism, and any other manner of unacceptable “discrimination”—forgetting that in a truly free marketplace, such behaviors could very well cost an actor more than they might gain him. A politically incorrect disciminatory attitude might be held by some individuals, but again, in those cases it is an individual choice, not a community-wide standard coercively foisted upon everyone.

I think you’re right that an individualistic focus can make it harder for some to extrapolate and see how that can yield better communities. I honestly don’t know how to address such a situation, though.

I think at least some people hold the political beliefs that they do out of love and respect and desire to help – the exact same things that I think motivate some freedom lovers – Sunni I know has said she has this deep respect for people. Perhaps I am only speaking for myself, but as a former fan of big government, I can honestly say that I still want the same thing I always wanted, for life to be as good and decent as it can be for most people. The only thing that I have changed in switching to freedom thinking is that the path to that desired end is entirely different.

It seems to me that other proponents of coercive governance have those motivations as well. But here’s the rub, as I currently see it: how can they genuinely claim to respect another if they’re unwilling to let him make his own choices, and take all the consequences? Being a parent also, I know you know how difficult it can be to allow a child to experience an unpleasant or painful situation—yet those uncomfortable lessons are often the best ones. What ground, in love and respect and concern, is there to thwart another’s choice? I would be content to be left alone by statist proponents, so that a voluntaryistic community could be attempted; and I would leave alone those who wanted to be governed by whatever coercive layer(s) of government that exist. But that isn’t possible in their model—I must be subjected to their rulers, for my own good and out of their concern for my welfare.

I have strayed quite far from the question as I originally intended it ... I have moments, when I am not distracted by nonsense, fear-mongering, or my own negative internal commentary, when I feel fully alive and competent to meet the challenges at hand. As I described above, often they come when I am out in nature, but working on things will bring them too—accomplishing something on my trailer, or cooking, or helping Darlin’ Daughter with her reading, or even tidying my things. I feel my own competence and the beauty of what’s possible, and the joy of those things leads me to want to reach for more. To me, that is freedom. Is it possible that many individuals have never felt a similar thing?