Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/5/84; site godot.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxj!ihnp4!godot!bruce From: bruce@godot.UUCP (Bruce Nemnich) Newsgroups: net.politics Subject: Re: Libertarianism in One Lesson Message-ID: <275@godot.UUCP> Date: Sat, 20-Oct-84 00:46:53 EDT Article-I.D.: godot.275 Posted: Sat Oct 20 00:46:53 1984 Date-Received: Sun, 21-Oct-84 14:16:00 EDT References: <28100018@uicsl.UUCP> <287@whuxl.UUCP> Reply-To: bruce@godot.UUCP (Bruce Nemnich) Organization: Thinking Machines, Cambridge, MA Lines: 38 Summary: Tim, You must not understand at least one of the two doctrines (libertarian and conservative); they are not at all the same. I am a libertarian, but I disagree with most conservative doctrine. If I had to choose between the major-party presidential tickets, I would vote for Mondale; but I don't, and I shall vote my conscience. Re the leaders of the American Revolution, I paritally agree with what you say. There was a tremendous amount of powerful and original political thinking going on in revolutionary America, though, and many libertarian ideas have their roots therein. A quick example from by far the most influential political writing of the time: "Some writers have so confounded society with government as to leave little or no distinction between them, whereas they are not only different but have different origins. Society is produced by our wants, and government by our wickedness; the former promotes our happiness *positively* by uniting our affections, the latter *negatively* by restraining our vices. The one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The first is a patron, the last a punisher. Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil, in its worst state an intolerable one; for when we suffer or are exposed to the same miseries *by a government* which we might expect in a country *without government*, our calamity is heightened by reflecting that we furnish the means by which we suffer.... Here then is the origin and rise of government, namely, a mode rendered necessary by the inability of moral virtue to govern the world; here too is the design and end of government, viz., freedom and security." --Thomas Paine, *Common Sense*, 1775 -- --Bruce Nemnich, Thinking Machines Corporation, Cambridge, MA {astrovax,cca,harvard,ihnp4,ima,mit-eddie,...}!godot!bruce, BJN@MIT-MC.ARPA