Decline of the Cypherpunks list...Part 19

[Tim May]

On Dec 7, 2003, at 7:15 PM, James A. Donald wrote:
>
>> And, as many have noted, very few of the "kids" today are
>> libertarians (either small L or large L).
>
> When you were a teenager, everyone thought that Ho Chi Minh was
> the greatest, had a picture of Che Guevera on their wall, and
> thought the Soviet Union was going to win.

Nonsense. "Everyone" did not think this. Far from it. YAF was going 
strong back then.

Of 8 of us who rented a place, 6 were fairly extreme libertarians, one 
was confused but went along, and one was apolitical. (One of these guys 
wore a dollar sign pin and subscribed to Nathaniel Branden's 
newsletter.) This, was, by the way, when we were 18-20 years old.

The Libertarian Party started at about this time, in 1972, and nearly 
all of the volunteers, spear carriers, etc. were in their 20s. This is 
very well known.

(And today most of the LP volunteers and spear carriers are in their 
40s and 50s. A correlation here.)


>   I would say that
> the kids of today are a damned lot more libertarian than when
> you and I were kids.

Quite likely you, as you have said you were a Marxist. I never went 
through such a phase, having started reading Heinlein and that crowd 
when I was around 11 or so. It always seemed self-evidently silly to 
think that "From each according to his ability, to each according to 
his need" could be taken seriously by anybody.

And I remember taking some cheer that day in November, 1963 when the 
Big Government guy was zapped. My family left the U.S. that afternoon 
and did not return for 13 months.

I was a Goldwater supporter in 1964, when I was 12. (Goldwater was way 
too liberal for me in many ways, but he was against the "Civil Rights 
Act" and other such Marxist nonsense, so I supported him. I didn't care 
for his Vietnam views, except I agreed with him we should either fight 
to win it very, very decisively, or get out.

Still think most of the baldies of today, with rings through their 
noses, marching against Coca Cola and Intel and Big Business, and 
arguing for affirmative action are "more libertarian"?

Again, apparently more so than you. In any case, saying "everyone 
thought that Ho Chi Minh was the greatest" is silly.


>
>> This shows up in the fact that protests against global
>> capitalism draw vast crowds of young people, and even several
>> subscribers to our list have nattered on about the dangers of
>> globalism and free trade.
>
> The cartoonist in "reason" (or perhaps "liberty" not sure
> which) depicts these protests as being dominated by old farts
> about your and my age, with the young folk in reluctant tow.
> I suspect if you and he attended the same demo, he would see a
> crowd of old farts, and you would see a crowd of young punks
> with nose rings.
>

This is certainly so. But it doesn't dispute my point. In fact, it 
supports it.

My generation was very active, on all sides. The droids born after 
about 1980 are mainly followers. Probably what the nose rings are for.


--Tim May, Corralitos, California
Quote of the Month: "It is said that there are no atheists in foxholes; 
perhaps there are no true libertarians in times of terrorist attacks." 
--Cathy Young, "Reason Magazine," both enemies of liberty.