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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: neolib who wrote (7780)	12/21/2005 1:26:35 PM
From: Lane3	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 541978

First it seems like you don't get a culture, rather you have multiculturalism. That's such a loaded word that I'm going to try to not use it without definition. If you mean multiculturalism in the sense of variety (I wanted to say "diversity" but that's a loaded word, too.) then, yes, that's what you get. Lots of people doing their own thing short of imposing on other people. You have people who choose rock concerts where they get to feel the vibe and people who choose symphony concerts where they get to sit down and actually hear the music, thus a lot of color and texture in your culture. I think that's a good thing. If you mean multiculturism in the sense of identity groups with their own collectivist, activist, subcultures, it's actually a contradiction. You only get that kind of multiculturism when you have a dominant culture imposing itself and its rules on minorities so the minorities join into collectivist groups to rebel and assert themselves. In a libertarian environment, identity groups are moot because the culture is based on the individual and there's no set of rules against which to rebel. In the abstract, at least. Most people recognise this, and as a consequence, democratically vote to restrict or regulate those areas they deem necessary to promote a safe and stable society. Indeed. The question is how far you take it. Obviously we have to have rules of the road, for example. It really doesn't matter if people drive on the left or the right but it's unsafe to mix the two. So we pick a side and everyone adheres. But do we really need laws about how many and what kind of tchotchkes people put on their lawns? With a collectivist mentality creating a law is the default. It's automatic. The only question becomes what process to use to create the law and what its particulars would be. There's an assumption that some kind of regulation of tchotchkes is expected. It's a mindset that inevitably expands it's scope. It's addictive. A libertarian mentality automatically goes to letting people do their own thing unless there's some important damage to other individuals in leaving it unregulated. And if it needs to be regulated, it should be regulated at the lowest possible level. If a subdivision wants to outlaw lawn gnomes, then fine. But restricting lawn ornaments at the federal level is authoritarian to the max. Libertarianism cannot be divorced from its stance on freedom of action in the economic and property spheres. Even if it could be, it shouldn't be. I don't know why anyone would want to. If free speech is a good thing, then why not apply that to economic activities and property? What is the there about being able to say what you think but not being able to put gnomes on your lawn if you like gnomes? Yes, I realize that gnomes are an exaggerated example. Just trying to make an abstract point.

To: neolib who wrote (7780)	12/21/2005 2:44:22 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 541978

First it seems like you don't get a culture, rather you have multiculturalism. Unless you want to define culture as the culture of multiculturalism. The fact that you don't get a cultural boundaries defined by law or regulation doesn't mean you don't get a culture. Even in very regulated states many aspects of culture are not determined by, or even connected to, the legal regime. You could easily get a culture that has an open mind about other cultural ideas, but is that a bad thing? Also that result is hardly automatic. You can have a libertarian society that is anything but multiculturalist, you can even have a closed off isolated, culturally rigid, libertarian society. Freedom of expression, at least in western culture arouse, largely as a reaction to dogmatic religious control in the middle ages. This exists entirely independent of the other political aspects of libertarianism. All different restrictions on liberty have all different sources, and the oppositions to them have histories that aren't always closely connected. But libertarianism implies opposition to all or most of these restrictions or at least to intrusive and heavy handed restrictions. Yes its possible to be against some restrictions without being against others. Its possible to care about free speech, without supporting strong property rights. Its possible to want low taxes without wanting drug legalization. But that hardly means that these ideas are not part of libertarianism as well, or that they can not or should not be considered in the framework of libertarian thought. Libertarianism cannot be divorced from its stance on freedom of action in the economic and property spheres. Its those spheres that become impacted in high density situations. Libertarianism is not incompatible with high density living situations. Some high density situations have indeed been rather libertarian, or in extreme situations even anarchic. Look at it this way, you support democracy, but you don't think every issue should be directly voted on or that anything passed by elected officials should automatically go in to effect. Our constitution has a number of examples where democracy is limited in order to protect rights. Some people might support redistributing income, to help the poor or in an attempt to create more equality, but only extreme ideologues would argue that all income should be shared. Most people, including most libertarians, are not the most extreme form of ideologue. They have ideas, philosophies and values, but they recognize that in the real world their values should not normally be taken to the extreme degree regardless of practicality or other values. The practical situation of living in Manhattan would suggest that more restrictions and control are needed then in the middle of Alaska. But the level of control and regulation hardly needs to be anything like the level currently existing in Manhattan. Limited government and a large degree of individual freedom is not incompatible with living in a city. Tim