Just for the record, I will be traveling to Hyderabad for the next couple of days and will not have the opportunity to write and respond to the comments on my recent posts.
Be well, do good work, and keep in touch.
The Freedom to be Offended — Part 2
In a comment on my previous post, Nath declares that the “tough part is choosing where exactly to draw the line between legal and illegal.”
It is tough only if that line is arbitrarily drawn according to the whims and fancies of mobs. In most societies, it is drawn after due consideration and enshrined in some institution often called the constitution.
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The Freedom to be Offended
“If a nation or an individual values anything more than freedom, it will lose its freedom; and the irony is that if it is comfort or money it values more, it will lose that too.”
– W. Somerset Maugham
The story is pretty simple. A Danish newspaper, Jylland-Posten, published in September 2005 a dozen cartoons depicting Muhammad after a writer complained that nobody dared illustrate a book he was writing on Muhammad. The newspaper pointed out “that the drawings illustrated an article on the self-censorship which rules large parts of the Western world. Our right to say, write, photograph and draw what we want to within the framework of the law exists and must endure – unconditionally!”
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Something fishy in Denmark
I am waiting to read reports of people rioting in India any day now. A bunch of innocents will get killed. An already poor India will slide epsilon-degree closer to chaos.
The Indian Economy Blog
For a multi-faceted view of matters related to the Indian economy, I recommend the aptly named Indian Economy Blog. It is a group blog and the contributors are well-known and well worth reading. I am listed as a regular contributor but I am afraid that I have not contributed much regularly. I intend to rectify that error shortly.
IEB is brought to you by:
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Back on the Road to Bondage
A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largess of the public treasury. From that time on the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury, with the results that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world’s great civilizations has been 200 years. These nations have progressed through this sequence: from bondage to spiritual faith; from spiritual faith to great courage; from courage to liberty; from liberty to abundance; from abundance to selfishness; from selfishness to complacency; from complacency to apathy; from apathy to dependency; from dependency back again to bondage.
Sir Alex Fraser Tytler (1742-1813), Scottish jurist and historian, professor of Universal History at Edinburgh University.
An NRI MP from Andhra Pradesh
Along the lines of my earlier post on new political parties, here is another item from the news related to Indian politics regarding an NRI member of the Indian parliament from the Toronto Star. (Hat tip: Reuben Abraham.)
The man, Madhu Yaskhi, moonlights as an MP for the Congress Party and his day job is being an immigration lawyer in Manhattan.
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A Slow Sort of Country
Since moving from the Movabletype platform to the WordPress platform, posts prior to the reform appear all misshapen and ugly. I am fixing then as time and mood permits. Recently worked on a post from over two years ago called India’s Wonderful Reforms. Nothing much appears to have changed.
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The Lights to Navigate By
In a comment to the post on political parties launched by entrepreneurs, “Seven Times Six” wrote:
I don’t think renunciation and self-sacrifice is necessary for a nation to prosper. What is required is the exact opposite — a strong avarice and ambition to promote one’s well-being.
Continue reading “The Lights to Navigate By”
