On Feb 11, 1996 14:06:45, 'tcmay@got.net (Timothy C. May)' wrote (among other things):
I rarely understand the points "tallpaul" makes, but this one is
especially
confusing to me:
I'll close on this point.
At 7:59 PM 2/11/96, tallpaul wrote:
I do seem to observe strange sounds of silence from lib'bers on the cypherpunks list about the legislative body who passed the law, although they must know about the law since they blast the "libera;" to "socialist
statist" President who signed it.
I seem to observe similar sounds of silence from people who get upset at ostensibly liberal Tipper Gore's godlike powers to implement, as a single
individual, some form of record labels while remaining silent about the conservative forces supporting Gingrich clustered around fundamentalist christianity who were calling for censorhip.
As a card-carrying "lib'ber," it seems to me that I have written more than
enough articles denouncing the CDA, making fun of it and Congress, etc. And so have numeous other "lib'bers" on this list, including (but not limited to) Bill Stewart, Duncan Frissell, Jim Ray, Rich Graves, Sandy Sandfort, Vince Cate, and others too numerous to mention.
tallpaul must be reading a different list than I am reading if thinks those he dismisses as "lib'bers" (in his other posts, and this one) are somehow in league with the Christian Right in supporting censorship.
I suspect that T.C. May and I are reading the same list just as I suspect that Alan Pugh and I are living in the same country with the same shared press corp. But I do not dismiss people as "lib'bers;" I merely call them that. I have noticed that a large number of libertarians are fans of Rush Limbaugh and chuckle a lot when Rush refers to women like Andrea Dworkin and her supporters as lib'bers. I also find that the people opposed to Drowkin & Co. are upset at her use of demagogic language, private dictionaries, and the like. So am I, and started long before Rush got his TV shows. I am, however, equally (if not more upset) by what I perceive as similar demagogic etc. behavior by many libertarians. In short, I do not seek "to dismiss" libertarians as "lib'bers." I am not a magician and do not believe that complex issues go away through magical chants (around which T.C. May has correctly written.) But I do call them "lib'bers" much as Ruch Limbaugh uses the term in other areas. Do some people not like this? I imagine so. Do they have the right to complain? Absolutely, and I support their right to so complain. Do they really have a right not to be styled "lib'bers?" No, I do not think they have that right. Put another way, what is sauce for the goose cannot be slander for the gander. I do not believe that all lib'bers are in league with the Christian right; I am distrubed, however, by the large numbers of lib'bers who strangely never mention the existence of the fundamentalists in the ultra-conservative ultra-private-property camp. I am equally concerned with some leftists who consider every example of authoritarian behavior as "fascism" as I am with 'ib'bers who lump everyone who argues for social responsibility as a "socialst statist." One difference I see is that I am willing to criticize both groups while many (but not all) lib'bers are again strangely silent at least the "statist" side of the equation. I am sorry that T.C. May frequently has problems understanding my posts. Both of us frequently use sarcasm and rhetorical hyperbole to make our points. Witness his excellent _reductio ad absurdum_ post on warning labels for every group around the orld who believes that his or her personal folkways and mores are deserving of unique consideration. However, this in itself does not reduce the confusion. Let me then offer a possible compromise to reduce the confusion. If T.C. May makes a special effort to better identify sarcasm when people such as myself use it and rhetorical hyperbole, I in turn will make a special effort to be more sarcastic and more hyperbolic in posts containing both. --tallpaul Internet sports fan: Go Big Red! Smash State!