From: Mike Lorrey (mlorrey@datamann.com)
Date: Wed Jan 09 2002 - 10:36:09 MST
Amara Graps wrote:
>
> From: Olga Bourlin (fauxever@sprynet.com), Tue Jun 19 2001
> >Having been under the impression that I came to my own liberal foreground
> >because of a propensity to think (at least I've thought so, all these
> >years), I decided to investigate libertarianism a bit, and what I found were
> >many sites where libertarians, gun advocates, Branch Davidians, homegrown
> >militias and the like are linked.
>
> I know very little about the good Internet Web sites for
> libertarianism, (and sorry to hear about the above)
ANY philosophy that embraces the idea that indidividuals should be free
to pursue their own political development free of the oppression of
political correctness is going to evolve many instances of crazy
aunts/uncles and familial black sheep. As a libertarian, I am far more
embarrassed by those libertarians who continue to cling to pet memes
that continue to embrace oppression of thought, expression, or
posession, which, IMHO is far more prevalent on the left end of the
libertarian world than that of the right wing, but that is because I
came to libertarianism from the Republican world. The fact that such
black sheep exist and flourish on both ends of the libertarian spectrum
is a credit to the philosophy, not a debit against it.
I am sure that Olga, being of a left wing origin, was far less offended
by those libertarian web sites on the left who embrace forms of
oppression that agree with her own prejudices, like those that promote
the seizure of private property, the denial of individual right of self
defense, and the radical enforcement of economic homogeneity while
embracing social diversity.
> however, the
> following books are the first that I recommend to anyone who is
> interested in investigating libertarianism:
>
> David Friedman: _Machinery of Freedom_
> (see: http://www.best.com/~ddfr/#mybooks)
>
> Henry Hazlitt: _Economics in One Lesson_
> (see: http://www.hazlitt.org/)
>
> If you still are interested to learn more of the political
> libertarianism philosophy, then continue with the great classic:
>
> Frederick A. Hayak: _The Road to Serfdom_
> (see: http://people.clarityconnect.com/webpages3/davek/docs/HAYSERF.HTML)
The thing is that all of these references find much more agreement from
those who sponsor the websites Olga was offended by (gun advocates,
Davidians, militias, etc) than those on the left end of the libertarian
spectrum. Most left libertarians vehemently oppose the arguments of
Friedman and Hayak, and vociferously claim that people like Harry
Browne, author of "How I Found Freedom In An Unfree World" are not
'true' libertarians, but just right wing neo-nazi bastardizations of
'real' libertarianism.
What this says about the dedication of the left to libertarian
principles about non-initiation of force is left to the reader.
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