Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site kontron.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxr!mhuxj!mhuxn!ihnp4!pesnta!pertec!kontron!cramer From: cramer@kontron.UUCP (Clayton Cramer) Newsgroups: net.politics.theory Subject: Re: Democracy vs. Autocracy: "Libert"arian's freedom? Message-ID: <290@kontron.UUCP> Date: Thu, 27-Jun-85 16:54:47 EDT Article-I.D.: kontron.290 Posted: Thu Jun 27 16:54:47 1985 Date-Received: Sat, 29-Jun-85 03:31:05 EDT References: <298@spar.UUCP> <2380037@acf4.UUCP> <166@pedsgd.UUCP> <8414@ucbvax.ARPA> <666@whuxl.UUCP> Organization: Kontron Electronics, Irvine, CA Lines: 98 > > I'd recommend this book to everyone, but RAH espouses things so far out of > > fashion that the left compares him to the Nazis. Just imagine, thinking that > > personal responsibility and meeting your commitments are good ideas. Not to > > mention attacking the church, slavery, and espousing freedom in general > >> > > As I recall it was revolutionaries like Thomas Jefferson and the founders > of this country via Revolution who first advocated freedom of religion and > promotion of free ideas. > It is right-wing Moral Majority followers who are advocating a return to > religion stuffed down people's throats and book-burning. > 1. If you read what the founders of the country had to say about freedom, you would see that while not radical libertarians, they were much closer to the libertarian ideal than modern leftists, primarily because the founders of this country supported individual freedom, not egalitarianism. The most egalitarian of the bunch was doubtless Thomas Paine, who moved away from a support of unlimited democracy at least partly because of the abuses of wage and price controls in Revolutionary Philadelphia. (See _Thomas_ _Paine_ _And_ _Revolutionary_ _America_ for a little background.) 2. The enthusiasm for book-burning isn't confined to fundamentalists --- a lot of feminist groups have been pushing for laws which restrict pornography. Their arguments are identical in nature to those of the fundamentalists --- they feel that pornography damages the society as a whole. 3. The fundamentalists are *not* traditional conservatives --- for all the flaws in the conservative position, conservatives in this country have traditionally felt uncomfortable with the Big Government approach of the fundamentalists. (That's not to say the conservatives, like the left, haven't used Big Government occasionally when it served their purposes.) Significantly, the fundamentalists have their greatest strength in the part of the country that has voted Democrat for a *long* time --- and don't forget that the Democrats have only in very recent history ceased to be the party of George Wallace and Lester Maddox. > As I recall it was those "bleeding heart" "leftist" abolitionists who > advocated the abolition of slavery. The right-wing was content to > hold onto its private slave property. > The abolitionist movement consisted of radical libertarians; their first attempt at politics was the Liberty Party, and I suspect most modern libertarians could feel comfortable voting for the positions that the Liberty Party took. The abolitionists later formed the Radical wing of the Republican Party, withdrawing in 1872 because the corruption that swept post-Civil War America had thoroughly corrupted the Republican Party as well. Remember, too, that slaveowners argued for slavery based on the right of the people to make whatever laws seemed appropriate; the abolitionists argued that democracy was not valid if it denied individual liberties. The slaveowners argued that the people were paramount, and could pass any laws they wanted, even though these laws: a. prohibited slaveowners from freeing slaves without permission of the state legislature (showing that the Southern governments didn't believe in the right of property if "the common good" required differently); b. prohibited anyone, even slaveowners, from teaching slaves to read, again, with the same result as a); c. prohibited free blacks from making contracts (before the war), denying their right to engage in economic activity. Of course, after the war, the Southern democracies proceeded to pass laws "for the public good" that continued to restrict the rights of free blacks to make contracts, own firearms, or be unemployed. > As I recall it was the right-wing Joseph McCarthy who ruined the careers > of thousands because their political beliefs differed from his. > As I recall, Robert Kennedy approved illegal wiretaps on Martin Luther King, and had the FBI roust steel company executives out of bed at 5:00 AM to question them about steel prices. Abuse of power seems to be built in to slimy politicians of all ideologies. (Remember LBJ?) > As we have just seen "Libert"arians like Mike Sykora have no qualms about > abolishing freedom of speech in favor of private property. > This is a blatantly false statement. Sykora, myself, and others argue that freedom of speech does not abolish the right of private property; the First Amendment guarantees that "Congress shall pass no law"; the Fourteenth Amendment extends the protections of the Bill of Rights to the states and their subsidiary governments. Private property owners are no more subject to the First Amendment guarantee of free speech than they are subject to the restriction on "respecting an establishment of religion". Or would you argue that private property can't be used for religious or anti-religious services. > Who really espouses "freedom"? > > tim sevener whuxl!orb It sure isn't someone who wants the government involved in every decision that individuals want.