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From: hibbert.pa@xerox.com
Newsgroups: mod.politics
Subject: Re: libertarianism
Message-ID: <12233500751.16.MCGREW@RED.RUTGERS.EDU>
Date: Sun, 24-Aug-86 22:26:41 EDT
Article-I.D.: RED.12233500751.16.MCGREW
Posted: Sun Aug 24 22:26:41 1986
Date-Received: Mon, 25-Aug-86 19:29:09 EDT
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To: power.Wbst@Xerox.COM


        "Two - I don't seperate people's talk from their actions, or
        rather I feel that what people say is only meaningful when one
        also knows how they act.  The few libertarians I know are
        racist, although they talk a good non-racist argument."

It's hard to refute personal experience.  Few of the many libertarians
I know are racist.  It seems similar to the proportion of the
population at large.  All of the libertarians I know defend people's
right to be racist, which is unlike the proportion at large.

        "The basic tone of the libertarian philosophy has strong
        elements of social darwinism in it, long used as a scientific
        veneer for racist thinking.  (I'm perfectly willing to defend
        this assesment of social darwinism if anyone wants to debate
        it.)"

As far social darwinism goes, I'd argue that a better approach to
defeating racism is to let the market act.  Racism is an inefficient
business practice, and is self-defeating.

        "Three ... To me [liberttarianism] has a very fundamental flaw
        in its premise; the same flaw as in true Marxism, ... among
        others.  It's a very simple flaw: ...  In libertarianism the
        false picture is to deny the existance of society as a sum
        greater than the whole of its parts (people) ... "

This is an interesting argument.  I don't claim that individuals don't
gain anything from society, but I do believe that groups of
individuals have no rights they aren't ceded by their members.  I'd be
interested to see a further explanation of what rights groups should
have over their members and why.

Someone else asked about the applicability of libertarian principles
to "the community of nations".  My response to that is that nations
aren't rational creatures, and that's the root from which I draw human
rights.

Chris
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