From: Michael S. Lorrey (retroman@turbont.net)
Date: Tue Oct 12 1999 - 21:12:29 MDT
"E. Shaun Russell" wrote:
>
> Fred Moulton wrote:
>
> >I would expect to see a beer chugging team sponsored by the Temperance
> >Union at about the same time as I would expect to see a political party
> >sponsored by the Extropy Institute.
>
> I agree. Philosophies and manifestos which are developed into a political
> framework have a history of compromising their initial values. For a
> politic to have any public weight at all, it must either mirror the
> feelings of a significant portion of the population, or adapt its core
> values to those needs. Given the fact that Extropy has existed for 12+
> years (longer conceptually) and currently has well under 1000 members, its
> support as a politic would be negligible.
Not necessarily. The Libertarian Party got its first two million votes
in an election with less than 1000 paying members of the national
organization.
Moreover, Fred's statement is just as applicable to Libertarianism, as
one party delegate said once when someone complained the party needed to
get more organised:"If we were more organized we'd have to disband."
Yet there is such a party, and the pary's main goal is to change
government to such a point where a Libertarian Party is not necessary.
An Extropian Party should have a similar goal.
>
> As I have said for years, the immersion of extropian values into mass
> culture must be done very carefully --at this stage of extropic
> development, all it takes are a few boisterous "kooks" to hinder the public
> perception of our philosophy.
I don't think Ron Paul is a 'kook', despite the LP's pro-pot stance, nor
do a large percentage of the general population. Ventura is more of a
kook than Paul, and look at him. Maybe its the sort of time that a few
kooks could make it into office....
Mike Lorrey
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