On 1/2/07, Mark Lause <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
As I've been saying, I have no interest in quibbling over words when the issue is really substance. When you discuss things like "the idea of checks and balances," you are making the entire question abstract....
Well, philosophy is necessarily abstract. A case can be made that philosophy doesn't matter to social movements, but I believe it does. When Marxists defend civil liberties, for instance, on what grounds do they defend them, a Marxist philosophy or a tacit liberalism?
The concrete historical experience of "checks and balances"--or the institutionalization of "the majority rule"--regularly set aside those "inalienable" rights and liberties in which say liberals and libertarians share a belief.
Quite so, but in the case of state socialism it was and is still not a matter of setting aside the legitimating ideals of liberalism. It's the case of not having the same legitimating ideals as liberalism to begin with, categorically saying no to checks and balances, etc. -- Yoshie <http://montages.blogspot.com/> <http://mrzine.org> <http://monthlyreview.org/>
