On Saturday, April 21, 2001 2:00 AM Chris Rasch crasch@openknowledge.org
wrote:
> There seem to be more social-democratic/left-leaning extropians on the
list now
> than when I last subscribed (sometime around 1993-1994 as well.) An issue
that
> has always interested me is the question: why do reasonable people of
good
> intent often arrive at sharply differing political philosophies? In my
own
> case, I was raised in a Republican household in southern Idaho. No doubt
some
> of my antipathy toward governmental solutions to social problems
originated in
> my parent's political philosophy, though I would now label myself an
> anarchocapitalist of the David Friedman/Murray Rothbard variety. (See
below
> for a few of the reasons behind my dislike for government and many
left-leaning
> organizations.)
>
> I often wonder however, if I had been born in a intellectual Jewish
household
> in Brooklyn of 1900, instead of a Mormon household in rural Idaho in the
> 1970's, would I now be an ardent Marxist, instead of an anarchocapitalist?
My family was always pro-government and mostly Left-leaning, from being
California liberals to Marxist sympathizers. Yet, my political views are
basically libertarian anarchist with a highly Objectivist base.
I also know many more people of Leftist backgrounds who became libertarians.
I tend to think that the Old Left was at least semirational, partly because
it was mostly atheist. So that left people following its tenets open to
other ideas that those on the Right would dismiss outright. Does this make
the Left right? Hardly, though, on the whole, I've met more self-proclaimed
Leftist who are openminded, thoughtful, and reasonable than self-proclaimed
Rightists. This might be a sampling error on my part. Or maybe it's just
that the atheism part makes for more antipathy...
I also vehemently disagree with James J. Hughes' seeming painting of
libertarian thinking as ignorant and just a fad. His statement that certain
people [here?] have "a studied ignorance of inequality and oppression" to
mean is pure ad hominem. Everytime I look at my paycheck or get the news, I
see oppression in action. I see a lot of government oppression, from
America to Indonesia.
Inequality, too, is problematic. I assume he does not mean the old
classical liberal notion of equality before the law, but the more modern one
of equality in outcome. I contend the only way to maintain equality in
outcome is through some form of oppression, though I don't want to see
another flame war.
Cheers!
Daniel Ust
http://uweb.superlink.net/neptune/
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