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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