In a message dated 7/4/01 4:45:34 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: << But seriously, where exactly should I place the libertarians and liberals in the US political spectrum? Somehow I had the idea that libertarians were left-of-center, but from your post I get the idea that they are extremely right-winged. >> It depends. There are liberal libertarians, in the sense that they are passionate defenders of civil liberties and keeping the government out of people's private affairs. But most US libertarians are such fiscal conservatives - opposing almost any government regulation on private economic choices - that they generally end up on the right wing. There is also a very extremist libertarian fringe that is incredibly selfish and almost Social Darwinist in its belief that the poor deserve absolutely no consideration or assistance - they produce nothing therefore they deserve nothing, and those who produce the most deserve the most. There are traditional conservatives who believe the same thing, but they are a bit hamstrung by their at least professed belief in Christianity, with its tiresome and useless stricture that all human beings are equally blessed and deserving in the eyes of the Lord, Christ's outdated notion of "blessed are the poor", and similar impedimenta. Tom Beck traditional US liberal with some libertarian tendencies - but not too many
