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Politics : Libertarian Discussion Forum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Richard Babusek who wrote (2538)	4/27/1999 6:37:00 PM
From: Neocon	Respond to of 13062

Richard--- At the moment, I am under time constraints, but I will get back to you:-)...

To: Richard Babusek who wrote (2538)	4/28/1999 12:27:00 AM
From: Neocon	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 13062

Richard--- I promised to get back to you when I had a bit more time. First, if you have read the most recent posts, they have all been essentially personal, since awhile back MeDroogies accused me of bad faith and word- twisting, and more recently on several occasions The Street has accused me of lying, and so I have been trying to defend myself. If you will go back aways, there are more substantial posts on some of these issues, although I don't have the numbers at my finger tips. Perhaps I'll suggest some numbers later. Anyway, I am sorry that you have stumbled on all of this unpleasantness. Actually, until accused of bad faith, I took relatively little offense, so unless you are prone to accuse people of such things, you have little to fear from me. Everyone, of necessity, has a world- view, and deserves a certain degree of respect. However, not all are philosophers, which is a more disciplined undertaking. In any event, people who would never think to assert that they were physicists without years of hard study think that they can claim to be philosophers when almost totally ignorant of the subject. Just because there is no authoritative philosophy does not mean that there has been no progress in the analysis of problems or attempts at solution. It is not arrogant to have respect for the discipline, and for the great minds who have formed it over the years, nor to be irritated with those who think that Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Kant, Nietzsche, Hegel, Kierkegaard, and the others are dispensible. Would it be arrogant if my expertise were in physics and I finally got irritated at all of the uninformed meandering that laymen engage in? Some of us have taken the trouble to study, discuss, write about, and think about these matters seriously. There is, indeed, such a thing as unwarranted complexity. But there is also unwarranted simplicity. The goal is to reflect reality. The position that people are naturally good is taken by libertarians to buttress the belief in the corrupting influence of society. Most people would acknowledge the need to socialize children, so that they learn how to control their impulses. This doesn't require the view that they are "naturally evil", merely that they have all sorts of impulses that may require discipline. It makes a great deal of practical difference if you see yourself as primarily responsible, or primarily a victim, since the whole basis for exerting yourself against circumstance can be undermined by the victim mentality. I am a conservative, and I believe that we have a responsibility not only to ourselves, but to our society. The only negatives may be when we become to intrusive or intolerant, but I believe that there is now more reason to fear a laissez- faire attitude in morality than to fear authoritarianism...I hope that is enough for you for now!