[MD] Value and the Individual

[Arlo Bensinger]

[Platt]
"We the people" put the reigns on government, using it to protect 
individual liberty and, as Pirsig points out, to protect the 
intellectual level from the forces of collectivism.

[Arlo]
Right. Balance. Just as "we the people" put the reigns on an 
unregulated free market, using it to promote openness to DQ and, as 
Pirsig points out, to protect us from the "the age old exploitation 
of the poor".

[Platt]
The only crises of identity is your own.

[Arlo]
It's not me who makes ridiculous "government is evil" statements on 
the one hand, while proclaiming how patriotic and unquestioning we 
should be on the other. If the government is so evil, so inept, so 
malicious, so enslaving, so bungling, so preposterously "bad", then 
why should I fall lockstep with that government when it wants to take 
me to war? Or why should you, if you really believe that bunk, run to 
the government for help when a motorcycle with loud pipes drives by your house?

[Platt]
Right, like it was in Communist Russia, Socialist Italy and Nazi Germany.

[Arlo]
So Finland and Japan are one-step away from mass graves and genocide 
because they value education as a community? Yikes! Let's invade them!

[Platt]
"The most terrifying words in the English language are: 'I'm from the 
government and I'm here to help.'"  -- Ronald Reagan

[Arlo]
The most terrifying words in the English language are "Let me quote 
Ronald Raygun".