This stupid Dodge commercial–which shows a Dodge Challenger arriving bearing American flags to save the day against the British Redcoats in 1776, ending with the narrator saying “America got two things right: Cars and freedom” is a sad statement about America. We have given up our freedoms and cling to mere words and slogans. We think we are the land of the free, when we have, like the frog in the slowly warming pot of water, allowed the state to ratchet up its depradations of us; and to cheer on, like redneck Wayne’s World rubes when we bomb innocent brown foreigners in the name of “freedom.” In fact, we haven’t gotten freedom or cars right: the former was sacrificed for the sake of the US auto industry in any number of ways–extorted taxes handed over to the auto companies as “bailouts,” protectionism, and the like.
Stephan is an attorney and libertarian writer in Houston, Director of the Center for the Study of Innovative Freedom (C4SIF), and the founder and editor of Libertarian Papers. His most recent book is Property, Freedom, and Society: Essays in Honor of Hans-Hermann Hoppe (co-editor, with Jörg Guido Hülsmann; Mises Institute, 2009).
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Of course you’re right about not really getting freedom or cars right… but come on, it’s still a pretty fucking cool commercial.