-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- In <3485D7B7.E444A846@cptech.org>, on 12/03/97 at 05:05 PM, James Love <love@cptech.org> said:

Declan, apparently having missed the fab 50's, seems to be enjoying his use of the "leftist" word lately. Since this seems to mean quite different things to different persons, perhaps Mr. McCullagh can define his terms. What exactly is a "leftist" in 1997, in his opinion?

The Left-Right paradigm is hair splitting on which topics they use in their FUD campaigns for greater power. Typical Left FUD ================ EEO Social Security Universal Health Insurance "It takes a village" Global Warming "Gay Rights" Blah, Blah, Blah Typical Right FUD ================= NAFTA GATT Family Values War on Drugs Blah, Blah, Blah Quite often camps from both the Left and the Right will come together on various issues. This can become confusing to some and blur the lines between the two. Once one gets past the FUD spread by members of both groups one realizes that both groups are STATIST and SOCIALIST. All the bickering is not over the right and wrong of Unconstitutional State intervention into the lives of the citizens but over who gets how much of the pie and who to steal the pie from. In thinking over the Libertarian Party Political diamond I find it to be quit flawed. It makes the false assumption that state intervention in personal matters is independent from state intervention in economic matters. The two go hand in hand. I consider the following a better representation: C G D P R L Statist -|---|--|-|-|----------------------------|--------- Anarchist N D=Democrat R=Republican L=Libertarian G=Green P=Perot C=Russin/Chineese Communism N=German/Italian/Japanese Fascism Positioning on the graph represents current party leadership philosophy. Since these groups philosophies are so close you will find individual members that will fall on either side of the parties plank but will rarely fall very far away from it. An intriguing side note: Libertarian != Anarchist. This is a distinction that several members of this list have missed. Most Libertarians favor a limited government kept on a short leash but are unwilling to go as far as the anarchy of mob rule. - -- - --------------------------------------------------------------- William H. Geiger III http://users.invweb.net/~whgiii Geiger Consulting Cooking With Warp 4.0 Author of E-Secure - PGP Front End for MR/2 Ice PGP & MR/2 the only way for secure e-mail. OS/2 PGP 2.6.3a at: http://users.invweb.net/~whgiii/pgpmr2.html - --------------------------------------------------------------- -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.3a-sha1 Charset: cp850 Comment: Registered_User_E-Secure_v1.1b1_ES000000 iQCVAwUBNIZ8lY9Co1n+aLhhAQKRBgQAzGjCsC4kfN/rPxZPGXtFVFhQWzUdi4O+ W1rDf/gXs4zCYRT1g3Rw4Op9cRBivgZe8YtnFJa3JdB8HqD3rKqPwjPIw2AvbDE3 IOEkUkDqpsQBfKKx1/+uEFZfOZB6pAqKpA+dP6LxySNXy067F4y2bBCDVYbdBhVq aIydEowN5f0= =3+f/ -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

Declan McCullagh wrote:

Jamie, I may have missed the fab 50s but I suspect you spent a little too much time in the psychadelic 60s.

In fact, there was quite a bit of red baiting in the 60's. We (this country) actually fought a war in Vietnam, in part because many American political leaders didn't want to be accused of being soft on communism. Red baiting, making non substantive and usually irrelevant accusations about one's values (and loyalties), was a popular sport then, for certain demagogues. Nixon was good at this, in both decades. In the late 60s and early 70's, there was also a time when anyone with a necktie was in danger of being called a fascist. Much of this wasn't anything to be proud of either. The 90's don't seem to me to be a period when labels from the early part of this century are the most telling. I'm often surprised to find what people really think or want, once you move away from older battles or stereotypes. I think its safe to say that stalin-like communism isn't an appealing future for anyone I know. I find these increasingly frequent references to "leftists" or "fellow travelers" (something I recall from an earlier thread) a bit odd. One one sense, it is a form of content labeling, designed to get people to filter out or ignore certain information. On the other hand, it seems designed to polarize communities that often have much in common, even as they disagree on other points. Mr. McCullagh isn't the only one who does this. I'm sure I do this in my own way, from time to time. But perhaps from having lived through more decades (and fads) than Mr. McCullagh, I increasingly find this counter productive. Jamie -- James Packard Love Consumer Project on Technology P.O. Box 19367 | Washington, DC 20036 voice 202.387.8030 | fax 202.234.5176 love@cptech.org | http://www.cptech.org

someone masquerading as truthmonger wrote:

LISTEN UP!!! (I'LL TYPE SLOWLY...) Faster horses, older whiskey, younger women, more money.

Democracy is a political system designed to put Fascism in the hands of the people. Fascism is a political system designed to take Democracy out of the hands of the people and into the hands of the Machine.

etc

NEWS FLASH!!! Whether you are forced to 'do right' or forced to 'do no wrong' will depend on whether the 'leftists' or the 'rightists' have the most money and guns.

NEWS FLASH ADDENDUM!!! Those seeking to 'save' you are likely to afflict as much damage to your rights and freedoms as those seeking to 'oppress' you.

NOTE TO BOY SCOUTS!!! If an old lady doesn't want to cross the street, that is an act of 'passive aggression' and you have a right to use as much force as necessary to get her across the street.

Is there a difference in the degree of 'dead' between a person shot by a left-hander and one shot by a right-hander? Do you have a preference for having an individual, a government or a corporation as your dictator/oppressor? Is it of great concern to you to be allowed to 'vote' as to which person gives you an unneeded prostrate exam?

Truthmonger: you wouldn't happen to be a member of the subgenious would you? if so, say hi to rev. ivan stang.... jim

Declan McCullagh wrote:

Jamie, I may have missed the fab 50s but I suspect you spent a little too much time in the psychadelic 60s. In 1997, a leftist can best be defined as a big government fetishist. :)

A "big government fetishist" is cute, but it seems fairly non-specific. Are moral majority types leftists? Are the supporters of the Department of Commerce leftists? Are supporters of a bloated defense department leftists? Can't get enough of that CIA funding leftists? IMF supporters are leftists? FED lovers are leftists? Groups that lobby for higher crop supports are leftists? S&L bail out supporters are leftists? Supporters of GATT are leftists? Are supporters of more NIH funding leftists? (how about the PhRMA support for this?) Supporters of aggressive new government programs to define (and enforce) new Intellectual Property rights are leftists? I think the term "leftists" must mean something more than "a big government fetishist." Frankly, I know of few persons who are consistently advocates of big government, but I know lots of groups, many certainly not leftists, who have their favorite government programs. Maybe, however, you think all these folks are leftists? Jamie -- James Packard Love Consumer Project on Technology P.O. Box 19367 | Washington, DC 20036 voice 202.387.8030 | fax 202.234.5176 love@cptech.org | http://www.cptech.org

On Wed, 03 Dec 1997 19:14:21 -0500, James Love wrote:

But if you think you can really explain what constitutes a leftist, in your view, I'm ready to read it.

Canni try? Leftists believe in progress; Rightists believe in regress; I believe in egress. Ie: repurposing archaic terms not my applet of tea. Paul http://www.nihidyll.com/gallery/Tornado.jpg

On Wed, 3 Dec 1997, James Love wrote:

Declan McCullagh wrote:

...

Jamie, if you're seriously confused about the differences between left-wing and right-wing groups I can help educate you, perhaps with a few rules of thumb. But I suspect that you really don't want a serious answer.

I didn't think the big government fetish answer was very good. I don't want to put words in your mouth. But if you think you can really explain what constitutes a leftist, in your view, I'm ready to read it.

Jamie

Man! Talk about burning bandwidth on politics 101. The problem is that you're both stuck using Orwellian newspeak for political classification. If people only have a single dimension to classify political beliefs then there can't be very many beliefs. Multidimensional political beliefs systems don't hash into the one dimensional left/right axis very well. The collision rate is too high. For a somewhat better map at least check out the Nolan chart. http://www.self-gov.org/lp-quiz.shtml enjoy jim

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- At 03:02 PM 12/4/97 -0500, J. Lasser wrote:

And Singapore survives quite well being a totalitarian capitalist society. Sure, you can pick nits and claim that Singapore's not entirely capitalist, but it's more capitalist than this country and certainly less free, too.

The fact of the matter seems to me to be that most people are perfectly satisfied to be passive consumers. While they like to be free, that means free to make purchasing decisions. They also like to be safe, and if they have to lose civil liberties to be safe, then they're all for it. Just so long as they can buy what they want. That seems to me to describe the essence of the Singapore problem, and I'd bet it holds true for the U.S. (and many other places) as well.

Forty years ago Singapore was poor and at risk of being wiped out by Malays or Commies or both. (Maylays killed 1 Meg of their own Chinese in the '60s.) I'm sure that a few decades of being rich and safe will engender in that population a liking for social freedom. They are currently more economically free than we are. We rate 5th and they are 2nd or 3rd on the two indices of economic freedom. They have many personal freedoms as well. They have speech restrictions but are quite outspoken in any case. The gum and spitting and smoking restrictions are no different than the smoking bans and such we are coming to live under. We have one-party rule too. DCF -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: PGP for Personal Privacy 5.0 Charset: noconv iQCVAwUBNIdmioVO4r4sgSPhAQGt+AQAuKrTJTWfuUjDSNZO7l0ZyKFJ1UViAU+v IsnmkcSoFSYok+1Etzo/x7t2z1wY9zVN5Smi2w2kzZRoymLS41LMZW7DvBEob7yw Ur18j2fLdYG2hIkcXiAkQaTY96SYfmLRnIESc107Xtmgt00OTVBfDyi3QUbwID0v 349sPDAohIs= =ceec -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

On Thu, 4 Dec 1997, William H. Geiger III wrote:

As I stated in my previous post the Nolan chart is flawed. In it's attempts to be "two-dimensional" it artificially separates interdependent philosophies. Economic Freedom = Personal Freedom. You can not have one without the other. The major failings of the socialist is their unwillingness to accept this fact. A free society can not survive under a socialist regime any more that a totalitarian society can survive under a capitalist one.

I agree with your assessment of the interdependence of economic freedom and personal freedom. But the Nolan chart itself is not flawed - the political belief systems that it describes are flawed. That is, any political belief system that advocates different levels of governmental control for the two - that belief system is flawed. The Nolan chart does a much better job of describing them than the traditional left-right spectrum does. Nor have I seen a better descriptive device. Incidentally, here is my score: Your Personal Self-Government Score is 100%. Your Economic Self-Government Score is 100%. ______________________________________________________________________ Jon Galt e-mail: jongalt@pinn.net website: http://www.pinn.net/~jongalt/ PGP public key available on my website. Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner. ______________________________________________________________________

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. DCF

On Thu, 4 Dec 1997, J. Lasser wrote:

And Singapore survives quite well being a totalitarian capitalist society. Sure, you can pick nits and claim that Singapore's not entirely capitalist, but it's more capitalist than this country and certainly less free, too.

http://cgi.pathfinder.com/netly/editorial/0,1012,266,00.html In some ways, Singaporeans are more free than U.S. citizens. Income taxes and sales taxes are lower. Prostitution is legal. The government does not impose rules on whom private landlords can and can't rent to. Unlike some cities in the states, Singapore has no curfews. Being able to walk outside safely at night in any area of the city, even the poor excuse for the city's red light district, has its attractions. -Declan

On Fri, 05 Dec 1997 15:27:45 -0500, Duncan Frissell wrote:

And there is a difference between "political rights" and liberty. I care about the latter and not the former. Plenty of tyrannical democracies. I judge governments by how much they leave me alone not by their form.

Don't lecture me. I said "political freedom" by which I mean the liberty to speak, assemble, &c. I thought that was clear from the contextual reference to "civil liberties". By the way, do you want the government to leave others alone as well? To murder you, for example? Libertarians want a government capable of, & focused on, protecting their interests -- just like everyone else*. The question is: what *is* in my interest: long-term, thought-through, really?

Certainly today's economic and technological freedom gives individuals vast money and vast power. This increases their ability to tell their governments to go fuck themselves. Whether they will choose to exercise this power, they certainly have it.

Many of those vastly empowered individuals *are* the government. Recall that I wrote in opposition to the rosy scenario whereby economic progress inevitably leads to political liberty. Here are a couple of other scenarios: 1) The progress collapses in the face of massive corruption. See Malaysia. I'd be curious to know if you think this is more or less likely in a fascist state. 2) The government uses it's newfound technological & industrial capacity, & taxbase, for nefarious purposes. See fascist Italy, Germany, Japan. Once again, more or less likely in a fascist state? I'm no opponent of economic or technological progress, that would be silly. It engenders greater practical, not just theoretic, freedom (e.g. the ability to speak globally), goodies are fun, & even basic liberty is much more difficult to preserve when people are hungry. We can certainly agree on that. I also oppose large portions of the U.S. government, its criminal & regulatory structure. I'd like to see it move in the *direction* of Libertopia. True, I wouldn't want to see it get there, but we can agree on most short-term & mid-term issues. But once again, articles like Declan's "hey, Singapore may be 'Disneyland with the death penalty' but the trains sure run on time" piss me off. The implied valuation miscalculates my interest, & Declan's also, in my opinion, to the point of "brain rot," as Seth used to say**. Is a tax cut worth the enormous increase in arbitrariness in an authoritarian state? Apparently, the Joos are responsible for the crisis in Malaysia. Or so the Grand High Mystical Wizard who heads the country has suddenly decided. Wanna live there? As Libertarians point out, there's a huge difference between economic pressure (e.g. to purchase Windows) & being shot in the head. Abstract it out a bit -- it applies to comparisons between governments as well.

No they criticize [corporate welfare] because they don't like to *pay* for it. They believe in lower taxes and smaller governments.

Non-sequiter. You confuse net with gross. Paul *An anarchist believes the most capable, focused government *is* herself. **Yes, I support Declan's right to make up his own mind on such matters, but: 1) I believe he may be wrong. 2) I'm not the apologist for authoritarianism. http://www.nihidyll.com/gallery/Tornado.jpg

On Thu, 4 Dec 1997 17:22:23 -0700 (MST), Jim Burnes wrote:

In either case, the act of buying and selling things is the ultimate expression of free association/assembly. I voluntarily associate with the guy who makes my pizza, builds my car, mows my law etc.

Really? I avoid associating with those who mow my laws. Ha ha. Seriously, I've never lived in Sweden or Singapore -- if I do, I'll get back to the list on which I prefer -- but I'm troubled by the tendency of Libertarians to err on the side of big business fetishism rather than civil liberties. Both are part of the Doctrine, of course*, but I often hear them argue that wild-west capitalism inevitably leads to political freedom -- so, not to worry -- but rarely that political freedom invariably leads to laissez-faire capitalism (so, not to worry). You might say that the latter is NOT TRUE. Well, right-o, but neither is the former. Economic progress under a fascist regime leads inevitably to political freedom? You guys actually make this argument. Paul *Yes, Libertarians criticize corporate welfare, but just because it corrupts the notion that a person's entire worth can be summarized in a stock portfolio. http://www.nihidyll.com/gallery/Tornado.jpg

On Fri, 5 Dec 1997 18:50:16 -0500, Declan McCullagh wrote:

You should read the complete article (I provided the URL, after all) before complaining that I'm somehow not critical enough of Singapore.

I've read the complete article twice, & I still somehow don't think you're critical enough of Singapore. Oh well, maybe I'm turning into a pissy, rabid, anti-authoritarian ideologue in my late youth. It's possible -- besides, I hate Christmas. I'd kiss your P.S. under the mistletoe ["I value economic freedom quite highly. Besides, it's part of other freedoms....Forget fetishizing "democracy," already, and give me freedom!"], though we might tussle over the exact shape of the Tax Rate vs. Economic Freedom curve. But that's for another week, & perhaps another mailing list. Time to get drunk & stumble out into the cold... Season's greetings, Paul http://www.nihidyll.com/gallery/Tornado.jpg

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- In <3.0.2.32.19971205152745.036de494@panix.com>, on 12/05/97 at 03:27 PM, Duncan Frissell <frissell@panix.com> said:

...

*Yes, Libertarians criticize corporate welfare, but just because it corrupts the notion that a person's entire worth can be summarized in a stock portfolio.

No they criticize it because they don't like to *pay* for it. They believe in lower taxes and smaller governments.

I think this shows a misunderstanding of the Libertarian philosphy. A Libertarian opposes the theft of property from one person for the benift of another. It doesn't matter if is for the benifit of the bean picker in So. Cal. or for the owner of the bean farm. It is the *theft* at the point of a gun that is objected to. - -- - --------------------------------------------------------------- William H. Geiger III http://users.invweb.net/~whgiii Geiger Consulting Cooking With Warp 4.0 Author of E-Secure - PGP Front End for MR/2 Ice PGP & MR/2 the only way for secure e-mail. OS/2 PGP 2.6.3a at: http://users.invweb.net/~whgiii/pgpmr2.html - --------------------------------------------------------------- -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.3a-sha1 Charset: cp850 Comment: Registered_User_E-Secure_v1.1b1_ES000000 iQCVAwUBNIjosY9Co1n+aLhhAQIogwP/aiVuLBfSWHGZdyAERGjkGZC7/kr2+DX9 o/QSNcw5tJqpBLwrgyA5VwQEC/+hQg3Yi9rAFNP9OQrB1kqLjyGDPOSwm4vzUxPE 4pe7Ktg0DShuyz/LsOmtPgZqGgrGImhkJYdgbax1dojwc29vz/s29YW/uOMxT1Ab HtNFTQaTj/8= =e7rX -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

On Thu, 4 Dec 1997, Kent Crispin wrote:

On Thu, Dec 04, 1997 at 05:22:23PM -0700, Jim Burnes wrote: [...]

...

...

And Singapore survives quite well being a totalitarian capitalist society. Sure, you can pick nits and claim that Singapore's not entirely capitalist, but it's more capitalist than this country and certainly less free, too.

hmmm.. no one says that singapore doesn't work anyomore than that they say that a team of horses under a whip doesn't work. the difference is that in singapore the policeman is inside.

Nope. I have several friends who are from Singapore, and that is simply not the way they see it. They like their country, and they are proud of it. They know it isn't perfect, but they think it is pretty damn good. From their perspective your statement simply reflects the narrowness of your point of view.

Nice try, Kent. This is to be expected by people who have the internal policeman. This is like a kitchen slave that says they like their kitchen. From a kitchen slave's point of view a wandering minstrel that doesn't eat as often or as well may not be as well off. That just means the kitchen slave is fatter not more free. Just wait until they try and leave the plantation. Indeed this is pretty much the viewpoint of every person in every country unless the authoritarians have really clamped down. My country good or bad with exceptions.

[...]

...

there is a fundamental flaw your case. economic freedom is really the same as social freedom.

This also represents a terribly narrow view of the world. Freedom is psychological state as much as it is a social or an economic one.

Only from someone who doesn't understand the basics of economics. I am differentiating between freedom and hapiness. I start from the premise, "as it harms no one, do as you please". How many nation states allow this? Freedom is the opposite of slavery. I don't want happiness. I don't want the nanny state. I want freedom. It is a real state, Kent. I want to do everything I'm personally capable of short of harming others...and that better be real and tangible harm. Lets think about this, Kent. I am showing you that it has real, tangible properties -- not some myth or religious belief. Take an example citizen unit "Sally". Sally want's to contract with a company to provide programming services. She doesn't want social security. She justs wants all the money she contracted for. Nothing more, nothing less. The amount she contracted for has real tangible benefits. Food she can buy, free time, better clothes, better education for her kids etc.... Mr Big Brother steps in and takes a big chunk of it without her permission. This decreases the net number of hours left in Sallys life. She must work longer hours now. If Sally is not the person who decides how the hours in her life should be spent she doesn't even own her own life. Who owns it? I'll give you one guess. I'll give you the fact that Sally is permitted (at least in most Nation States) to become a hermit and own herself again. But remember we're talking about the freedom of a society. I'll also give you the fact that she is limited by other things like environmental factors, acts of god, her own emotional decisions to support her parents or something. These are all voluntary decisions.

...

In either case, the act of buying and selling things is the ultimate expression of free association/assembly.

Nonsense. The ultimate expression of freedom is skinny dipping in a mountain lake.

I'm sorry Kent, but that is a NOP. Go back to the hermit argument. Besides, who now is talking about feelings.

...

I might mention, since this is the cypherpunk list, that crypto is *exactly* what big brother is afraid of because we might realize what *kind* of slaves we are and what kind of masters they are. Incidentally it might actually free us from this prison some day. The first step to escaping from your jail cell is understanding that you live in a jail cell and what kind of cell that is. Most new citizens units have a room reserved from birth. (slave: birth to grave)

Freedom to make purchasing decisions is *the* major component of freedom in any advanced society. It is the medium by which we interact with society at large. Red Hat software doesn't know who the hell I am and they probably can't afford to care that much. What they do know is that if they configure a really decent version of Linux that I will give them $50. It allows me to do my thing and it puts food on their table.

Economic freedom is what makes it possible for society to evolve into to something better. Lack of it eventually dooms the inhabitants to decide whether to become a hammer or an anvil -- a host or a parasite.

If you don't think that the population is prevented from making purchasing decisions then you better get the sleep out of your eyes and take a good, hard look.

</pedagogy>

Actually, it's dogma, not pedagogy. The notion of "freedom" to a libertarian is like the notion of "faith" to a Christian -- a self-reinforcing mental trap, a span of circular thinking that is just a little too large for them to notice and say "Haven't I been here before?"

Allright, Kent. Lets play a little thought experiment. Sometimes its helpful to remove extraneous bullshit from an argument. Lets start with the most obvious cases of non-freedom and work outwards. (1) You are dead (2) You have been kidnapped, bound by duct tape into a chair - hand, foot and mouth. (3) You are a physical slave. Being unlucky enough to be born into a slave society or captured during warfare you grow up a slave. Your life is at the disposal of your owner. You are probably well aware of your condition, but have not the resources do alleviate it. ..tell me when to stop, Kent.... (4) You are a psychological slave. Having let someone else make your decisions for you, your mental and physical faculties are at the the disposal of the meme controllers. (5) You are an economic slave. Having the misfortune of your wealth being tied to the fiat of a nation-state, the value of your time and the stability of your day-to-day world are at the disposal of those who worship power. Each of these forms of servitude requires more and more information to detect. Many citizen units, like fish in a fishbowl, endlessly swim in circles, happy and content -- never seeing the fishbowl until they bump straight into it. The usual reaction is to say, "hmmm...thats strange" and then they go on swimming in circles again. Eventually the housecat comes by and eats the fish next to them. This is scary for the fish, but bound by the limitations of the fishbowl will simply assimilate it and chalk it up to an act of god.

Like moths they flit around the bright emotional icons that blind them, define their world, and trap their thoughts in endless repetition.

Very pretty, Kent. You get an 'A' for prose, but an 'D' for reasoning. OK...I'm flitting about those bright emotional icons. Feeling pretty good. I don't like slavery, Kent. Why? I don't know. I'll admit it. Is it rational? I don't know. I am a human being with my own will. I don't like slavery and submission any more than I like a hot poker in the eye. If I am bothered by it and continue returning to contemplate it, please forgive me. Maybe that makes me human. I prefer to voluntarily serve my fellow citizens. If you prefer to serve in the kitchen, no matter how well stocked or lavish, then I pity you. Did this stuff bother me before I saw it? No. Did it affect me? Most definitely. But I've always had an extreme dislike for bullys. Maybe thats another emotional icon, Kent.

For all the brave words about reason and logic, and all the endless discussion about it, libertarians don't ever actually sit down and think "what does the word 'freedom' mean, anyway?".

OK. I think we took care of that. Freedom doesn't mean external factors. Freedom means living in an environment and having the ability to alter or manipulate that enviornment and expand beyond the environment. Obviously the jail cell is only free until you get to the bars or wish to be free from them. Maybe were getting somewhere here.... Freedom is relative to your desires much as wealth is. (desired actions - external-human-imposed-limitations) = slavery (desired wealth - actual wealth) = poverty If you are a totally integrated Zen monks who has achieved enlightenment maybe you could be very happy in a jail cell. If you play video games all day and eat pizza all night you are free. If you discover the limitation that have been imposed on you and think they are nonsensical, artificial and human imposed then you are a slave...unless you don't care to explore beyond those limitations. What kind of human do I want to be? I don't want to escape into the internal. I don't want to permanantly bury myself in hedonistic pleasure (but the thought has occurred to me) I don't wan't to immerse myself in 9-5 wage slavery. I wan't to explore the internal and the external. I wan't to become more than I am. I realize these things are available in this world. Its just that I don't want to subject myself to the psychological subjugation that it takes. Read that "kissing up". I've almost reached the point where individual effort can max out without massive kissing up. Perhaps that's my own self-imposed prison, but I'd prefer to advance by serving others in the free market. But don't worry, I'm still trying.

Instead, their thinking goes down to a point where they can repeat some mantra like "Freedom to make purchasing decisions is *the* major component of freedom in any advanced society", and they never realize the exact circularity involved.

Maybe you could explain it. I base my beliefs on the fact that any civilization beyond a few thousand people must interact via some type of money, or stagnate. If you don't understand mutual coincidence of wants, I could explain it to you. The society is then defined by the dynamics of that currency because it defines the nature of free association beyond the boundaries of the merely personal (ie: families, friends, jumping in mountain lakes). Who or what guarantees the integrity of that money(s) defines the nature of the civilization. Whether it grows or contracts, whether the people save their hard-earned cash or spend it, the nature of level of debt, waste, etc. Notice I'm not suggesting we all return to gold. But the above observations still hold. Who or what guarantees the moeny? Does the president guarantee it, the banks individually, the banks severally, the central bank, the head of the central bank, or emergent market forces? And people who believe that money is root of all evil are simply falling prey to psychological slavery. That meme must have been invented by people threatened by freedom. Money simply allows you the freedom to interact with the society at large. It allows you to do anything you would normally do - good or evil. It might as well be "Freedom to worship the

Lord is *the* major component of freedom in any advanced society." Or "Being a slave to purchasing decisions is *the* major component of slavery in any advanced society." Thinking in platitudes is not thinking.

Well I suppose you could argue this, but its provably wrong. Proof by counterexample: There are places where you are free to worship the lord, the devil, the trees or the cracks in the sidewalk if you like. Without economic freedom, the freedom to sell or not to sell, to purchase or not to purchase we'd be living in little mud shacks without many of the modern advances of civilization. Money enables large sectors of the populace to interact without barter. These large sectors then specialize and the results of this specialization and advancement are the history of science. Personally I like those advances. Other than that I will agree to disagree with you, Kent. Have a better one, jim

On Wed, Dec 03, 1997 at 06:10:32PM -0700, Jim Burnes wrote: [...]

Multidimensional political beliefs systems don't hash into the one dimensional left/right axis very well. The collision rate is too high.

For a somewhat better map at least check out the Nolan chart.

http://www.self-gov.org/lp-quiz.shtml

enjoy

jim

Interesting. I was absolutely dead center. 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. Your Personal Self-Government Score is 50%. Your Economic Self-Government Score is 50%. -- 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

[Can we quit using cypherpunks@toad.com please ... it is no longer the active list address. (Substituted cyberpass.net).] James Love <love@cptech.org> writes:

...

a leftist can best be defined as a big government fetishist. :)

A "big government fetishist" is cute, but it seems fairly non-specific. Are moral majority types leftists? Are the supporters of the Department of Commerce leftists? Are supporters of a bloated defense department leftists? Can't get enough of that CIA funding leftists? IMF supporters are leftists? FED lovers are leftists? Groups that lobby for higher crop supports are leftists? S&L bail out supporters are leftists? Supporters of GATT are leftists? Are supporters of more NIH funding leftists? (how about the PhRMA support for this?) Supporters of aggressive new government programs to define (and enforce) new Intellectual Property rights are leftists?

I think the term "leftists" must mean something more than "a big government fetishist." Frankly, I know of few persons who are consistently advocates of big government, but I know lots of groups, many certainly not leftists, who have their favorite government programs.

You have a sucking big cancerous growth which is the government, it provides legalised theft services, and the politicians acts as power brokers in bartering back the stolen money to special interest groups. The huge burgeoning unproductive work force which ineptly administers this monster is a large burden on the economy. Those persons you describe who inconsistently advocate big government is natural enough -- they are sucked into the game, they are lobbying in their special interest groups for some of the stolen loot to be handed to them. A leftist is someone who buys heavily into the legalised theft concept. Charity taken at the point of a gun is not charity, it is theft. And the stolen funds are used incredibly inefficiently, mostly having the opposite effect to the claimed problem being solved, for game theoretic reasons. Adam -- Now officially an EAR violation... Have *you* exported RSA today? --> http://www.dcs.ex.ac.uk/~aba/rsa/ print pack"C*",split/\D+/,`echo "16iII*o\U@{$/=$z;[(pop,pop,unpack"H*",<> )]}\EsMsKsN0[lN*1lK[d2%Sa2/d0<X+d*lMLa^*lN%0]dsXx++lMlN/dsM0<J]dsJxp"|dc`

Killer post! We are all in constant danger of convincing ourself that 'we' are a "kindler, gentler Nazi." Personally, I have always been of the opinion that the Pacifist movement would be more effective if they owned more weapons. TruthMonger William H. Geiger III wrote:

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In <3486262E.C70FF40@cptech.org>, on 12/03/97 at 10:40 PM, James Love <love@cptech.org> said:

...

Now, if one sees the burning issue of the day the fight to rid the world of government as we know it, maybe right left labels make sense. By defining both the left and the right as groups who advocate increasing government control over private actions, you describe what seems most important to you. I found this characterization of "leftists" as shallow as Declan's, however.

There is no difference between the "left" and the "right" in Amerika politics other than which tit on the federal sow they wish to suck on and which "buzz" words they use in their FUD campaigns to hurd the sheeple in support of their cause celebre.

The one unifying principle of these "leaders" is the acquisition of power and the using of the Federal Government to get it. It doesn't matter if it's a Tree Hugging Communist like Ralf Naider or a Religious Nut like Pat Robertson. Their agendas are the same, their modus operandi are the same, and their results are the same: They get more power, the feds get more power, and the "people" get fucked once again.

- -- - --------------------------------------------------------------- William H. Geiger III http://users.invweb.net/~whgiii Geiger Consulting Cooking With Warp 4.0

Author of E-Secure - PGP Front End for MR/2 Ice PGP & MR/2 the only way for secure e-mail. OS/2 PGP 2.6.3a at: http://users.invweb.net/~whgiii/pgpmr2.html - ---------------------------------------------------------------

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