From: Steve Davies (steve365@btinternet.com)
Date: Wed Jun 20 2001 - 12:26:25 MDT
-----Original Message-----
From: Spike Jones <spike66@attglobal.net>
To: extropians@extropy.org <extropians@extropy.org>
Date: 20 June 2001 04:55
Subject: Re: Political views?
>> Spike Jones wrote,
>> > Libertarian, but still carrying some heavy Republican baggage.
>> >
>> Wonderful description, Spike! I am the opposite: ... I come from a
Liberal
>>
>> background and can slip back into it when I'm not thinking.
>
>Right on, Harvey. Libertarians who arrived from the left are different
>from those who arrived from the right.
I think this is very true. Most of the libertarians I know in Britain come
from a Conservative background - and it shows! My own background is quite
different (I decided when I was about 13 that I was going to be liberal, not
labour or conservative and then spent several years discovering what that
meant. I soon realised it certainly wasn't what Americans use the term to
mean.)
>My efforts to jet the republican baggage took a double setback.
>The person who introduced me to libertarianism recently apostatized
>back to the far right, damn him.
I think that since 1989 "right wing" politics have been fragmenting and one
of the key issues is precisely the one of stasism/dynamism. There are many
people who, while libertarian on many issues are basically libertarian
conservatives and find the whole prospect of profound change in the human
condition deeply threatening. They're often alarmed by globalisation as
well-one trend among many British libertarians is towards a kind of English
nationalism which I find simply pathetic.
Secondly, this last U.S. presidentialelection, I am convinced that the
second place finisher of that struggle,
>{whose name escapes me at the moment} cheated even more than
>the winner of that contest {whose name escapes me at the moment}.
>However libertarianism won as much as libertarianism ever does this
>time, for the total power of the U.S. presidency will be reduced.
>
You should be so lucky! Seriously I can well see why anyone given the choice
between Bush and Gore would go for Bush - just. (There are particular
reasons for anyone on this list to want to see Gore stuffed of course). But
here in Britain we have just had a truly impossible choice between two
utterly repulsive options. As Dr Johnson said "Sir, there is no point to
establishing a matter of precedency between a flea and a louse". The good
news is 40% of the electorate took that view.
Steve D.
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