Cafe Hayek - Latest Comments in De Tocqueville on the Intrinsic Value of Freedom

Re: De Tocqueville on the Intrinsic Value of Freedom

Duncan Brown — Wed, 22 Mar 2006 04:38:01 -0000

Chris's blog is a piquant blend of travel writing and photos with outraged diatribes on the Bush Administration. In case you're wondering: http://expatriaterumination...

Re: De Tocqueville on the Intrinsic Value of Freedom

Duncan Brown — Wed, 22 Mar 2006 04:22:58 -0000

I'm sure your life is really hard! I find much of your blog to be fresh and relevant, but this post is kind of a paranoid rant: "Now such men and women who love freedom so dearly [/why are you so self-congratulatory?/] are easily accused, chastised, castigated as being ideologues -- as if commitment to some non-material value is shameful or evidence of simple-mindedness."

Alexis de T. was surely a prophetic thinker. I've read and reread Democracy in America over the years, but not the other book.

My nominee for freedom's big prize in 2006 is my brother Chris, who worked productively, saved, and lived frugally, and then retired to Merida, in the Yucatan, because he finds American puritanism and hyprocrisy cramping his style. He started a weblog last may (on blogger called "Ruminations of an Expatrriate." It's way more relevant.

Re: De Tocqueville on the Intrinsic Value of Freedom

Swimmy — Tue, 21 Mar 2006 08:29:54 -0000

Cannot the Iraq war be justified with this belief?

Re: De Tocqueville on the Intrinsic Value of Freedom

sourav — Mon, 20 Mar 2006 18:33:28 -0000

I would argue that the "charm" of freedom is, in fact, an extrinsic value.

Re: De Tocqueville on the Intrinsic Value of Freedom

Robert Cote — Mon, 20 Mar 2006 15:16:05 -0000

Alexis de Tocqueville had the luxury of a pressure valve. Vote with your feet and reject the restrictions of a Republic. Where should we modern day de Tocquevilles go?