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

To: Lane3 who wrote (7820)	12/21/2005 4:51:15 PM
From: neolib	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 541957

They do so fluidly and promiscuously. Thats the start anyway. Groups evolve cohesion, or splinter into smaller groups that do, which grow by attracting like minds. However, for practical matters, multiculturalism in the USA is a matter of diverse groups living together, but maintaining old cultures. Religions are the exception I guess, since they recruit members from outside their culture. I'm a big Ayn Rand fan. It was she who introduced me to these notions forty years ago. I think your statement is something of a caricature, although I agree she was stern and dogmatic in her beliefs and writings. You can subscribe to those basic ideas, though, and be more mellow about it. The problem is that all the other Libertarians live in her shadow. I've searched, but without much luck for a modern expose of Libertarianism which is grounded in reality. I've found a few articles that give a nod to the realities of collective response in society, but very little meat. What Libertarians really need is a full blown country and 50 years or so. Has not be done AFAIK. A heavily progressive tax rate would be a mitigating opposite to bankruptcy The connection you're making there is not apparent to me. Our current system is very asymmetric with regard to risk/reward. If you have bankruptcy to collectivize negative numbers, why not have a 100% tax to collectivize large positive numbers? Or alternately, why not do away with collectivism on the negative side, and make all debts and damages one might cause in one’s life be part of one’s estate? I once floated the logical extension of monetarizing everything on the POP thread, but it didn't get a welcome reception. Basically we replace our current monetary system with metamoney, which simply tracks all economic interactions, and maintains a lifelong record which becomes inherited by your heirs as well. You and your heirs reap all rewards and all risks for the some total of all your lifelong actions. You buy nuke energy today, and 50 years from now, the cost of waste disposal goes through the roof, and your heirs find themselves penniless. That would be pure economic Libertarianism, which I could respect, since it places equal weight on rights and responsibilities. Most of the Ayn Rand Libertarians I know are large rights, and small responsibilities types. I don't like the asymmetry. On your last paragraph I pretty much agree completely, since that is the lesson from biology. Better to run many experiments rather than one.