[net.politics.theory] Democracy vs. Autocracy: "Libert"arian's freedom?

orb@whuxl.UUCP (SEVENER) (06/25/85)

> 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
> 	<mike
> 
 
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.
 
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.
 
As I recall it was the right-wing Joseph McCarthy who ruined the careers
of thousands because their political beliefs differed from his.
 
As we have just seen "Libert"arians like Mike Sykora have no qualms about
abolishing freedom of speech in favor of private property.
 
Who really espouses "freedom"?
 
                tim sevener whuxl!orb

mwm@ucbvax.ARPA (Mike (I'll be mellow when I'm dead) Meyer) (06/25/85)

In article <666@whuxl.UUCP> orb@whuxl.UUCP (SEVENER) writes:
>> 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
>> 	<mike
>
>Who really espouses "freedom"?
>                tim sevener whuxl!orb

You're right, tim - it was the indeed the "left" who did all those things.
Then again, if you read RAH, you'll find that he does indeed take the stands
I claim he takes. So why does the left (or some members of it) denigrate
him? Maybe it's the "personal responsibility" and other such libertarian
notions that bother them.

	<mike
-- 
After 5 years, a quote worthy of Netnews (and it works as disclaimer!):
"Truth is variable."

baba@spar.UUCP (Baba ROM DOS) (06/26/85)

> Then again, if you read RAH, you'll find that he does indeed take the stands
> I claim he takes. So why does the left (or some members of it) denigrate
> him? Maybe it's the "personal responsibility" and other such libertarian
> notions that bother them.
> 
> 	<mike

One of the few things I can think of that is sillier than taking Ayn Rand
seriously as a political philosopher is to confer the same status upon
Bob Heinlein.  I found the "Notebooks of Lazarus Long" in Time Enough for
Love to be occasionally witty, incredibly pretentious, and consistently 
shallow.  Oddly, I didn't even bother to analyse it in terms of left-right.
I just felt sad that the old master had slipped so far.  I'm told that his
writing *did* improve a little after the brain tumor was removed (between
Time Enough for Love and Number of the Beast), but I haven't found time
to check for myself.

					Baba

cramer@kontron.UUCP (Clayton Cramer) (06/27/85)

> > 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
> > 	<mike
> > 
>  
> 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.

mms1646@acf4.UUCP (Michael M. Sykora) (06/28/85)

>/* orb@whuxl.UUCP (SEVENER) /  5:41 pm  Jun 24, 1985 */

>As we have just seen "Libert"arians like Mike Sykora have no qualms about
>abolishing freedom of speech in favor of private property.

Actually, I never said this. . . . but since you brought it up, my position
is that "Freedom of Speech" means that the government has no right to stop
you from saying anything so long as you are not violating anyone else's rights.
You have the right to say what you want, but it is ludicrous to suppose that I
have to supply you with the media.
 
>                tim sevener whuxl!orb

						Mike Sykora

orb@whuxl.UUCP (SEVENER) (07/02/85)

> 
> Actually, I never said this. . . . but since you brought it up, my position
> is that "Freedom of Speech" means that the government has no right to stop
> you from saying anything so long as you are not violating anyone else's rights.
> You have the right to say what you want, but it is ludicrous to suppose that I
> have to supply you with the media.
> 
> 						Mike Sykora

In other words, you can have a soapbox to debate political issues in
the narrow space of your own home but to provide public parks to allow
anyone to speak or to provide access to TV and radio for all public views
is wrong?
Instead one should allow public debate to be decided by the democracy of money?
 
Is public debate and the right to circulate opinions and views served 
when two candidates from major parties for Senator of California are
not placed on Los Angeles TV stations to debate because the TV stations
could  make more money with commercial programming?
 
Do workers have the right to discuss unions at their place of work?
Or does "free speech" stop at the edge of private property?
 
                         tim sevener whuxl!orb

mms1646@acf4.UUCP (Michael M. Sykora) (07/03/85)

>/* orb@whuxl.UUCP (SEVENER) /  8:45 am  Jul  2, 1985 */

>In other words, you can have a soapbox to debate political issues in
>the narrow space of your own home but to provide public parks to allow
>anyone to speak or to provide access to TV and radio for all public views
>is wrong?

You seem to have excluded the possibility that a property owner sympathetic
to the cause might offer property for these purposes as well as the
possibility that the group could puchase or rent property for these purposes.
I see no reason for such exclusion.

>Instead one should allow public debate to be decided by the democracy of money?

If people wish to discuss what they perceive to be "the issues" or anything
else before voting, no one will stop them.
 
>Is public debate and the right to circulate opinions and views served 
>when two candidates from major parties for Senator of California are
>not placed on Los Angeles TV stations to debate because the TV stations
>could  make more money with commercial programming?

What right to circulate opinions and views?  What does such a right entail?
 
Did it ever occur to you that the reasons the broadcasting of such debates
doesn't yield as great a profit as other programming is because the
public prefers watching other things?  Should we force them to watch
these debates because you and others deem them important.  Could such
actions be defended in the name of "freedom of speech?"  Hardly.  They
could in fact be attacked on the grounds that they violate this freedom.
(Note that I haven't said anything about how boring political debates
are. :-)

>Do workers have the right to discuss unions at their place of work?

That depends on the terms of the contract they voluntarily entered into with
their employer.  Note that this is the same principle that would govern
all contracts in a libertarian society.  Thus, in such a society organized
labor has no special priveliges.

>                         tim sevener whuxl!orb

						Mike Sykora