On Wed, 12 Apr 2006 20:27:41 -0000 "Terry L Parker" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > This also includes juvenile gossip and witch hunts about WHO iz, > or iz not, a libertarian.
In my experience, it's rare for people claiming to be libertarians to not be such. However, there are many forms of libertarians, and discussion of what they are, or recognition of one's own position within that range, could stand to become more common as well as an active subject of discussion. The current Advocates for Self Government "World's Smallest Political Quiz" has been improved compared to older versions, though it's pretty biased to reflect hypothetical US law, and not realistic applications of it: http://www.theadvocates.org/quiz.html A far better model is found here: http://www.politicalcompass.org/ As a slightly left of center, strong libertarian personally, I find many people wrongfully presume all libertarians are represented by a politically active cluster of far right economics oriented libertarians, who are fairly mild libertarians but fairly far right. They tend to be closer on the political compass to right wing fascists like George Bush or John Kerry (yes, one challenge in US politics is such candidates being so similar, not different as media portrays), than to strong centrist libertarians, or strong left mild libertarians. Far right libertarians tend to not see economic policy as just as much a tool or social justice or injustice as directly coercive law, or legal process to protect against misuse of such law. Left libertarians tend to see government as obligated to consider the "force" behind economics systems in Western society, and address that in balance with laws directly backed by police gunpoint forms of "force". To some extent schools like Austrian, Hayek, et al allow classification of common libertarian variants, though many of us don't fit such molds well. There's another issue whereby libertarians are often politically weak. Among those who are slightly left or right of center on the political compass, but strong libertarians, there can easily be disagreements over desirable social policies that sound similar to the uninformed as debates among GOP, Dem's, RCP (Revolutionary Communist Party, left-fascist, versus GOP and Dem's both being right-fascist), et al. The fascists tend to think their ideas should be coerced on others, whereas the libertarians tend to have favored ideas, but think they shouldn't be enforced on others. That tends to leave us under represented in government, where one of our common values reverses an old saying: "There oughta be no law." (at least over issues that are either not rightfully a government authority, or over issues where law is obligated to remain neutral or not violate privacy....) Terry . ForumWebSiteAt http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Libertarian Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Libertarian/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
