Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!allegra!bellcore!decvax!cca!ima!inmet!nrh From: nrh@inmet.UUCP Newsgroups: net.politics Subject: Re: Libertarianism & freedom Message-ID: <1876@inmet.UUCP> Date: Mon, 14-Jan-85 03:46:11 EST Article-I.D.: inmet.1876 Posted: Mon Jan 14 03:46:11 1985 Date-Received: Wed, 16-Jan-85 04:42:30 EST Lines: 62 Nf-ID: #R:gargoyle:0:inmet:7800270:000:2711 Nf-From: inmet!nrh Jan 11 12:00:00 1985 >***** inmet:net.politics / umcp-cs!flink / 9:13 pm Jan 10, 1985 >[Summary: non sequitur detected] > >In article <2673@ihldt.UUCP> stewart@ihldt.UUCP (R. J. Stewart) writes: >>Actually, this has been explained on the net, but with the high volume >>in this newsgroup it may have been missed. The axiom that Libertarians >>believe in (even more basic than the non-initiation of force), is: >> >> There are about as many views of "right" and "wrong" as there are >> people in the world. None of these can be shown to be better, in >> any objective way, than any other. >> >>Given that this is true, libertarians then reason that it is wrong for >>one person, or a group of persons with similar views, to force their >>(rather arbitrary) set of values on other people. Non-coercion follows >>from this reasoning, it does not drive it. > >In order to show that the conclusions R. J. Stewart draws from this >"axiom" don't follow, I thought the following quotation might be >instructive. Benito Mussolini drew some very different conclusions >from that relativistic axiom: > > If relativism signifies contempt for fixed categories > and men who claim to be the bearers of an objective, > immortal truth ... then there is nothing more relativistic > than Fascist attitudes and activity. ... From the fact > that all ideologies are of equal value, that all ideologies > are mere fictions, the modern relativist infers that > everybody has the right to create for himself his own > ideology and to attempt to enforce it with all the energy > of which he is capable.* > >* Benito Mussolini, _Diuturna_, pp. 347-77. Quoted from Helmut Kuhn, >_Freedom Forgotten and Remembered_, Chapel Hill, NC: University of North >Carolina Press, 1943, pp. 17-18. > > --the aspiring iconoclast, > Paul V. Torek, (moving to) wucs!wucec1!pvt1047 >---------- > Goodness! That Mussolini draws such a conclusion from relativism doesn't impress me much. That it impresses YOU, on the other hand, is most interesting. Are you saying that Mussolini's logic was correct? It sure doesn't seem so to me, particularly the bit about "enforcing" one's ideology on others. While we're at it, I'd like to point out that your summary at the top: >[Summary: non sequitur detected] Is quite apt with regard to your own article. Your quote from Mussolini begins: > If relativism signifies contempt for fixed categories > and men who claim to be the bearers of an objective, > immortal truth ... then there is nothing more relativistic.... I think it quite clear the the libertarian logic begins with a LACK of contempt for the beliefs of others (and, of course, an unwillingness to have others beliefs forced on one).