>From: Spudboy100@aol.com
>Subject: Re: Confronting The Singularity Conference
>Date: Sun, 4 Jun 2000 08:14:04 EDT
>
>In a message dated 6/4/00 12:22:56 AM Pacific Daylight Time,
>philosborn@hotmail.com writes:
>
><< Then, the free-wheeling discussions began to be taken over by organized
> intellectual purity squads - best exemplified by the "New Libertarians"
> connected with Sam Konkin and his trigger man enforcer, Neil Shulmann.
>If
> anyone said anything deviating from the official agorist line, they would
>be
> instantly pounced upon and literally shouted down. The LP similarly
> rejected topics that were not oriented toward strictly political ends.
>We
> now can see where this got us.
>
> Let's try to not repeat mistakes... >>
>Sounds just like Ayn Rand in attitude (or the old soviet bolsheviki) who
>had
>a tendency to be Absolutist in action.
I've noticed this in a wide variety of organizations of many
political/philosophical stripes. When the agenda shifts from intellectual
inguiry to political success, the bludgies move in. Sam's agorist crew got
a whole lot of things right - in my opinion - regarding the actual
anarchocapitalist theory. Then they decided that if they just suppressed
the idiots/devils who disagreed with them, the revolution would be
immediately upon us.
They also tried this in science fiction fandom, with truly disasterous
results. FANs were by and large mostly libertarians to begin with, with
many strongly libertarian authors and novels to draw upon. Sam's crew would
attend some seminar at an SF con and start harrangueing the speaker,
interrupting them and refusing to shut up or let them continue.... For a
while, even mentioning you were a libertarian could get you excluded from
parties.
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