Source: Rights being eroded

Recently I had read a blog from Libertarian57, in this article, he asked the reader to share their thoughts on how our rights are being eroded.

Here was my response,

A good post and a good question.

I had lived and worked in Berlin Germany, back when it was still West Berlin during and after the Cold War.
Being a strong-headed younger man, I was convinced that the solution to my families woes was to have a State provide our health care. Boy, was I wrong!

A government provided health care system is akin to eating at a fast food restaurant. Care was extremely impersonal. Costs were very high for taxpayers. Anything beyond a doctor’s office visit became a huge drama, usually ending up with hit-or-miss results. No thanks!

Moreover, my ability to freely purchase what I wanted, travel where I wanted, partake in outdoor activities, or do anything that was deemed as fun, was also hampered to one degree or another.

Although the war was over and the Allies won, Germany is still the bureaucratic headache that Bismark had left in place over 100 years ago.

I drove semi-trucks through many different countries during my 11 years in Europe. Some countries were nicer than others. Some were more controlled. But, freedom is an illusion in Europe.

After returning to the US in 1993, I found myself in a changed country. Having had personal experience under a State run society in Germany, I found America traveling head-long down the same road. Many of my friends and family hadn’t noticed. They were unaware of how the State was incrementally removing their natural (negative) rights by imposing more and more regulations (restrictions) and positive rights. Think, a frog boiling in a pot.

In 1993 I had Democrat leanings. I quickly switched to Republican. After reading “Creature From Jekyll Island” and “What Has Government Done With Our Money”, I became libertarian. That lasted only a few months. Rothbard and Hans-Hermann Hoppe convinced me that the answer was anarcho-capitalism. No matter who wins whatever election, the country is on a set course for socialism and a fascist-corporatist run economy.

My question is, how do we get from here to a stateless society? Most people don’t want freedom and liberty. They want to be coddled and protected from failure. The longer the current state of affairs goes on, the harder it gets to change minds. My only summation is that as life becomes more controlled and people begin to lose the ability to have fun without the State hampering their attempts, then maybe these types will wake up, as I did. Sometimes, it takes losing something before you actually value it. Hopefully, enough people will eventually value the freedoms they had lost and then, possibly then, will something positive come from all of this.