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To: Jacob Snyder who wrote (64)	6/15/2004 8:50:38 PM
From: Sun Tzu	Respond to of 123

The problem you are describing is better described as "description" rather than "discipline". I am well familiar with it because in a (very) past life I was very active in organizing socio-political demonstrations. The reason you find "conservatives" or "fundamentalists" or whatever "strong" group you want to name being disciplined is because they have "clarity". When a PETA activist or a Muslim fundamentalist or Christian Conservative or Jewish Settler takes a stand, they do not draw strength from the contents of their belief. Rather it is the clarity of the belief (in their own mind) that gives them strength which in turn gives them discipline. A truly religious man always knows what is right and what is wrong and in the rare instances he is unsure, he asks his priest/mullah/rabbi/etc. This clarity turns every day social interactions into a battle ground from which he often gets confirmations of his beliefs and identifies the obstacles to his path. But your "liberal" friends (I hope you meant libertarian) lack such clarity. And that is why they have a hard time to commit. This by the way is not just the problem with your group. There are many ideas floating around which suffer from this. I could name patriotism, goodness, and terrorism among them. So long as they are defined as being in the eye of the beholder, you will have as much success finding a strong footing for/against them as the supreme court has had in fighting pornography. The day you can crystallize your ideas into a few principles and articulate them clearly, is the day you will begin to have dedicated members...and this has nothing to do with how "liberal" your beliefs are. best regards, Sun Tzu