Posted on 11/18/2002 7:26:58 AM PST by Jack Black
My comment was directed at a single person--not a group of people, and certainly doesn't jive with your blatant mischaracterization of libertarianism in general. I'd venture to say that you probably weren't "head of the class", and the combination of your ignorance and dishonesty is an odious mix indeed.
Sorry, it was outlawed along with the other forms of slavery by the Thirteenth Amendment.
The Thirteenth Amendment hardly outlawed slavery or involuntary servitude. It just made them government monopolies.
Amendment XII:
Section I: Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
Section II: Congress shall have the power to enforce this article by appreopriate legislation.
Note that slavery, *as punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted*, remains legal in the United States...if the government does it.
-archy-/-
Very possibly. Interestingly, Wyoming is a possible *goal state* choice, a state that sends two senators to congress, but only one representative. Even I can remember that my congressman represents the First Congressional District when there's only one.... I'll even put him on my Christmas card list. [Well, actually *her*: Republican Barbara Cubin holds the seat at present, and I don't think she has too much to worry about from a challenger, though when she steps down, her replacement may face a challenge.]
And don't expect the locals in a thinly-populated area to greet 20,000 outsiders with hosannas and hymns of thanksgiving.
Some will view them somewhere between a plague of locusts and an outbreak of political rabies, I'm sure. But there will likely also be a few businessmen and merchants who might see 20,000- or more- new customers as their potential salvation.
-archy-/-
Indentured servitude isn't punishment for a crime.
Read a book.
If the economy can absorb 20,000 new customers in a relatively short period of time--which is something I strenuously doubt. Like I said, there's good free market reasons for low-population states to have low populations.
Oddly, so did the Founders....
Uh, I believe that in their time, they were actually proponents of thirteen free states. But they certainly had high hopes for the political adventure upon which they were embarking, and the Constitution they eventually adopted contained the provisions that made the addition of more states than they'd originally gathered a possibility.
They were, indeed, farsighted. I do not intend to stand by and do nothing and watch as the gifts they presented us are devoured by insects or diluted to nothinglessness.
-archy-/-
Sure, but varying demographics can alter those reasons, and technology advances can cure some of the limitations. Lawrence of Arabia said that it wasn't machineguns or mortars that made the Arab Revolt against the Turks and their German masters feasable, but the availability of tinned beef, giving the tribesmen the opportunity to wage war without having to forage for rations. Amateurs and junior officers study strategy and tactics, successful generals and professionals sweat the logistics....
Still, you'd think the sharpie native Paiute or Goshute who first noticed the Mormons a-coming to the Salt Lake area could have done real well for himself with a couple of lemonade stands along their route....
I predict there'll be a couple of Home Depot managers somewhere who'll have their year-end figures looking a LOT better than they'd envisioned before too awfully long....<p. -archy-/-
If you're talking demographics, your timescale just jumped to generations, and that might have its own problem, as I will discuss below.
As for technology: can it cure enough of the limitations?
One thing I have noticed--maybe it's an anomaly and you can correct me on this--is that there is one event that turns libertarians into mere conservative Republicans, and that's becoming a parent. In short, every active libertarian I know has ZERO minor children.
Where does the next generation of libertarians come from? Most libertarians I know became such due to exposure to YAFF in colege--they usually don't have libertarian parents.
I'm sure Jefferson did not intend that to mean laws such as mandatory seatbelt wearing and drunk driving laws (obviously those things did not exist back then, but I'm referring to laws of that type). For, taken to its logical conclusion, liberty could be entirely regulated out of society in the name of prevention. In other words, if you're drunk and accidentally stab me with a pitchfork, you'll likely be convicted of involuntary manslaughter--but there is currently no law forbidding such an action, nor should there be. The same principle works in the cases you've mentioned: the law proscribing punishment for the resulting act is sufficient.
Socialism is in the interest of the political classes and that of incumbent businesses.
Check out the article in my profile entitlted "corporatism" for an excellent articulation of the problem.
The genesis of the reports of *Bush being AWOL* are from a May 2000 Boston Globe newspaper account by Walter Robinson, though it should be noted that the *Glob* is no friend to Republicans in general nor to Bush in particular, and the piece as a pre-election revelation run six months before the election, long enough for follow-up stories from other sympathetic sources, but not long enough for any likely successful court challenge for libel to be mounted.
The gist is, that while a Texas Air Guard pilot and officer, Bush requested duty with an Alabama unit while he had relocated to that state while working on a political campaign for one of his father's friends there. The question is whether he ever attended Alabama Air Guard training sessions as ordered, was given a verbal or other authorization to miss some sessions. By August 1972, Bush's flight physical had expired, as did shortly thereafter that of his longtime friend and later business partner James Bath, who would go on to develop Houston-area SPX Airport with Saudi financeer Salem Bin-Laden, brother of Osama, later killed in an aircraft accident. Bush was a First Lieutenant at the time.
So far as I'm aware, Bush never flew as a military pilot after that time, nor do I know if he's rated as a private civilian pilot, though I'd expect he's gotten at least a little right-hand seat time in smaller aircraft during campaign hops and during flights as Texas governor.
Most of the claims about *Bush being AWOL* are stretched pretty thin for partisan political purposes, but Bush could have answered them by releasing copies of his records but has yet to do so. Likewise, though there are several thousand dollars offered [2K$ in Texas and 1,000 in Alabama, IIRC] for any photo or documentary proof of Bush performing his duties in Alabama or later in Texas following that reassignment and return to Texas NG control in his last days as a guardsman, noone's stepped forward to claim it yet.
Our only real weapon is the truth. It can be a powerful one, if we allow it to do its job.
Where does the next generation of libertarians come from? Most libertarians I know became such due to exposure to YAFF in college--they usually don't have libertarian parents.
Interesting. I don't consider myself a L/libertarian, so can't at all offer my own 18-year-old kid as an exception to any lack of future generations of those inclined. Most of the generally young libbies I've exchanged thoughts with over the FSP are first or second hitch military personnel, not a real great climate for having kids without some serious reflections on both family priorities and military career/s impact, so I don't expect they're particularly good examples either. You reckon the kids of Libbies will rebel by becoming liberal socialists?
But it wasn't YAFF, the Ayn Rand Discussion Club or other college influences that got my interest in the possibility that there was more to libertarians than doctrinal theorization. My late pal Mark Penman, a FReeper who wrote as laissezfirearm traded multiple e-mails with me, and caught my attention with his thoughts on the theory, if less so with examples of such thought in action.
Mark committed suicide in the Summer of 2001, and I miss him still. I'd dearly love to know his thoughts on the FSP had he been around to consider the idea, and I'd dearly have loved to have had him as a neighbor.
But if a new town or community emerges in that hoped-for experiment, and they're looking for a good name for it, my suggestion will be *Penman.* He had offered something pretty close to the FSP idea back in 1994, and whether a case of others swiping his good idea or great minds thinking alike, I wish he was along for the ride to see how it panned out.
No kids left along the way he travelled, so far as I know. He liked the ladies, but the one to complement his days never happened his way, it seems.
But perhaps he's found her now.
-archy-/-
Now you one one....I have two chilluns, aged 2 and 4.
EBUCK
And therein lies the rub. How do you know what Jefferson intended or didn't intend with that statement? I'm sure Jefferson did intend to mean laws such of this type were part and parcel of good government. The fact is you don't know with any greater certainty than I do, or anyone else does, for that matter. You're not any more privy to what Jefferson would have thought about modern laws than anyone else. You, just like me, are perfectly free to believe what you'd like about Jefferson intended to mean--and my belief counts equally as yours. I said before that divining the intent of the Founding Fathers is dangerous for the Libertarian, and it is the very heart of my disagreement with the Libertarians. You don't know how any of the Founding Fathers would have felt about many of our modern laws--the best anyone can do is guess. Some guesses are more educated than others, but even an educated guess is not a certainty, but Libertarians, more than others (at least here on FR) try to pass their guesses off as concrete fact, and they aren't. You haven't cornered the market on the Constitution, no matter how much you try to convince everyone you have. The best any of us can do is say, "This is the belief that I'm going to act on. This is what I believe is the best way to do things."
I agree that, taken to its logical conclusion, just about everything could be a crime in the name of safety. But that doesn't mean we throw the baby out with the bathwater. We do need some laws for specific actions, especially when the unique circumstances (i.e. driving a motor vehicle) may reasonably require a different burden of proof, than say, for example, the "generic" brand of the same type of crime. Thankfully, the back and forth tension between, say, your position and the left's position is great enough that it will never go all the way one way or another, because society is never all one way or another on any subject. Never has been. Thankfully, the circumstances are looked at on a case by case basis.
Did you not say ever?
Now, if you had said "Fringe parties crop up now and again, and they haven't gotten anywhere in 100 years; except as spoilers." I wouldn't have even brought it up. But you said ever and I called you on it.
Further, the Republican party did not elvolve exclusively from the whig party and the whig party was around long after the pubbies were formed. The (R) party of today formed from abolitionists on all sides of the isle (occupied mainly by Whigs and Democratic-Republicans)
The original cast...
Alan Bovay, Jebediah Bowen, Amos Loper, Abram Thomas and Jacob Woodruff.
Said Mr. Bovay, "We went into the little meeting Whigs, Free Soilers and Democrats. We came out as the first Republicans in the Union."
March 20, 1854.
EBUCK
That is simply not correct. The Founding Fathers worked to implement a very definite philosophy in the Constitution, which you may learn about by studying how they were influenced by Locke etc. The Constitution was not designed to be an open document that anyone may foist his every whim or interpretation upon. The fact that your view has prevailed in the last century is exactly what has lead us into the mess we're into today.
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