Subject:
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Re: From Harry Browne
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Fri, 10 Nov 2000 02:08:52 GMT
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Viewed:
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739 times
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John DiRienzo wrote:
> You seem to prefer rewarding people who steal the freedom and trample the
> rights of others. You haven't shown any solutions that address any of this,
> and certainly nothing that changes the true old cliche about rich and poor.
> If you can't discover why that cliche is true, then you don't deserve any
> help. I won't argue with you anymore either, I have written plenty about
> why your so-called solutions are a joke and why Libertarian solutions will
> work, when they are given the mandate by the people to do so. Larry has
> done the same, but of course more clearly.
I see two fundamental understandings of humanity which are the barriers
to understanding the Libertarian perspective (and these really are
almost a single fundamental understanding):
1. The understanding that humans are basically good. The idea that in a
totally free market (society), that for the most part, humans will do
the "right" thing.
2. The understanding that human government is a human endeavor and
therefore can not ultimately do anything any better than any other
structure of human creation (and in fact will do worse because it
ultimately concentrates the decision making into a smaller subset of
people, who then gain power from being the decision makers, who then
have a vested interest in maintaining that power [and this is what will
make it so hard to dismantle government]).
Of course a large number of religious folks would claim that both these
statements are false, or at least #1, they probably agree with #2, but
will posit that the solution to the "problem" #2 lays out is that "god"
intervenes and leads the government to do the "right" thing. Of course
this then opens up the floor to whose "god" is true.
Of course neither #1 nor #2 need be contradictory with the possibility
of religion, and even need not be contradictory with certain
understandings of what "god" might be. In part, I offer my own religion,
Unitarian Universalism, as a case in point. Unitarian Universalism is in
fact a religion founded on the same core principles as Libertarianism,
and if one examines the early history of the US, you will find that many
of the folks who laid out the Libertarian foundations of the US were
also Unitarians - something which always gives me a chuckle when people
call for a return to the religion of the founding fathers... I'd even go
so far as to claim several other religions are actually grounded in the
same ideas, though they may not have explored them to their fullest (nor
have most modern Unitarian Universalists - you'll find many modern
Unitarian Universalists will be very disappointed if/when Bush wins the
election - which is actually kind of funny, if you listen to Unitarian
Universalists talk about the functions of the denominational offices
etc. [and even down to the individual congregation's governance] but
replace all the religious language with that of secular government and
you would think you're listening to Libertarians, but listen to the same
folks talk about secular government, and they're all ready to hand over
control to the government [so long as the government consists of the
folks they chose]), but I would suggest that any religion which operates
on the basis of congregational polity (which the Southern Baptist
Convention is going to start understanding the full implications of over
the next few years I suspect) is in fact based on the truth of the above
ideas.
Frank
who may have just stuck his neck way out...
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Message is in Reply To:
 | | Re: From Harry Browne
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| Uh oh where'd he go? I can't find this other post, though I disagreed strongly when I read it. "Larry Pieniazek" <lpieniazek@mercator.com> wrote in message news:G3rzwM.3H5@lugnet.com... (...) I could have sworn that was one of the current (...) (24 years ago, 9-Nov-00, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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