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From: flink@umcp-cs.UUCP (Paul V Torek)
Newsgroups: net.politics.theory
Subject: Re: Listen here, Paul V Torek!
Message-ID: <1412@umcp-cs.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 27-Aug-85 17:33:01 EDT
Article-I.D.: umcp-cs.1412
Posted: Tue Aug 27 17:33:01 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 28-Aug-85 22:20:11 EDT
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Organization: U of Maryland, Computer Science Dept., College Park, MD
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fagin@ucbvax.ARPA (Barry Steven Fagin) writes:

>(Insert (:-) wherever necessary)
>
>Okay, Mr. Torek: enough's enough.  I've been watching you post your
>centrist drivel for the past few months, and I've had it.  As a
>self-proclaimed iconoclast, you have taken pleasure in punching
>holes in libertarian arguments wherever you can find them (although
>to your credit you admit it when you cannot).  Well I've
>got news for you: there is *no* philosophical doctrine that is
>without flaw.  

Methinks some flaws are worse than others.  Libertarianism applied to
pollution would result in a tyranny of the risk-averse (if applied
consistently, with no fudging like your idea that the risk-averse
would pay extra for it (which we discussed in mail, electronic &
otherwise)).  I still think it implies (taken as a morality which
individuals must follow) that it's not OK to piss.

>Libertarianism seems to me infinitely better than any of the
>alternatives, so I support it.

If you mean libertarianism as a plan for a government, I might on 
blue moons come dangerously close to agreeing.  But as a philosophical/
ethical position, it's at best groundless.

>However, as a committed wimp, (excuse me, centrist), you get to 
>survey the intellectual frontier, picking and choosing the ideas you
>like.  So let me put this to you: which of the following doctrines,
>in your opinion, should we draw the most of our ideas from if we're
>going to solve as many problems of the world as possible?
>
>	1) conservativism 
>	2) liberalism
>	3) libertarianism
>	4) populism
>	5) other (*NOT* centrism, please.  Centrism has no ideas of
>		 its own)

I suppose I'm closest to liberals out of the above; tho I do often agree
with libertarian conclusions on government policies (e.g.: oil and gas
price controls.  Comparable worth.  Social Security...).

A political viewpoint can be analyzed as a set of assumptions about "values"
and another set of assumptions about "facts".  It is the "values" area that
I disagree most severely with libertarianism on.  Non-interference is
called for most of the time (due to the *consequences*), but I just don't 
see putting such an overriding emphasis on it.

--Paul V Torek, umcp-cs!flink