On Thu, Dec 04, 1997 at 09:10:25PM -0500, frissell@panix.com wrote:
At 10:50 PM 12/3/97 -0800, Kent Crispin wrote:
Interesting. I was absolutely dead center.
Why do I not find this surprising?
Centrist
Centrists favor selective government intervention and emphasize practical solutions to current problems. They tend to keep an open mind on new issues. Many centrists feel that government serves as a check on excessive liberty.
Then there are those who feel that liberty is a check on excessive government. I have yet to see many examples of people damaged by too much political liberty. Perhaps Kent can fill us in.
Depends on what you mean by "damage", and what you mean by "liberty", does it not? Using the quasi-religious meaning for "political liberty" that you imply, of course it is impossible for for there to be too much of it: "political liberty" is just another term for "The Good", and there can never be too much of The Good. On the other hand, if by "political liberty" you mean "activity without any politically powered constraint", then, arguably, *every* action where a bad thing, done by a person, could have been prevented through the exercise of political power is damage due to political liberty. That is, every common murder and robbery, every crime of any sort, is damage due to political liberty. If you are free to postulate a perfect state of liberty, I am free to postulate a perfect political system. Neither exists in the real world. -- Kent Crispin "No reason to get excited", kent@songbird.com the thief he kindly spoke... PGP fingerprint: B1 8B 72 ED 55 21 5E 44 61 F4 58 0F 72 10 65 55 http://songbird.com/kent/pgp_key.html