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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Bill who wrote (712682)	11/14/2005 6:33:36 AM
From: DuckTapeSunroof	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 769667

Re: "Can one be a true environmentalist and a true libertarian at the same time?" I believe most of those TV pundits said things like "I'm a Libertarian -- Sort Of". None of them that I'm aware of ever claimed to be 'pure Libertarian' in all their beliefs... only that they often leaned to the Libertarian side. In Crier's case, all she said was: "No, no, no. I'm not -- I am a former Texas Republican judge. I have never been called a liberal. I am a libertarian, if anything." As far as your specific question "can one be a Libertarian AND and environmentalist" the answer is unequivocally "yes". I see no conflict at all between the two (after all, the "tragedy of the commons" is a real aspect of human nature, and of basic economic theory... and a basic tenant of Libertarian philosophy is that "he who does harm should pay for the harm"). So, no conflict at all, in my mind. Although, I'll freely admit that it would be easy to find many people who claim to be 'environmentalists' and yet share little or nothing of Libertarian philosophy... often leaning to 'Big Government', command-driven solutions from on high for the 'environmental wrongs they would seek to undo or prevent. And it just as likely that one can find Libertarians who are not very well-versed in the science of ecology, or who hold knee-jerk types of opinions of the kind like 'what's good for GM is always good for America'. Unthinking or ill-reasoned positions such as these are more the exception than the rule, I hope.