Re: Left, Right, Up, Down--Libertarian Ideas

Tim May writes:

>Check out the "Nolan Chart," which is a fairly common classification
>in _two_ dimensions. Libertarians often use it to recruit members, by
>showing that the views of people they ask ("Do you favor legalizing
>drugs?" etc.) are often more similar to the libertarian position than
>to others.
>
>In fairness to my left-leaning friends (Dave Mandl as a good example),
>the questions in the Nolan Chart test are designed to make almost
>anyone appear to be a libertarian.

Yeah, I agree.  It always seemed like a tremendous kludge to me.

But anyway...In case my point was misunderstood, I should clarify.  I was
not trying to enforce conservative/liberal distinctions, which (like most
people on this list) I think are fairly meaningless.  The world is much
more complicated than that; though there are minor real differences,
supposed distinctions between "conservatives" and "liberals" are for the
most part an illusion--part of the "spectacle," to use Situationist jargon.
I responded the way I did to John Kreznar's post precisely because it
looked identical to standard Republican-style leftist-baiting, which I
unfortunately see too much of every day on the net.  John cleared this up
in personal email.  Apologies if I misunderstood or misconstrued what he
was saying.

   --Dave.

--
Dave Mandl
dmandl@panix.com

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> I responded the way I did to John Kreznar's post precisely because it
> looked identical to standard Republican-style leftist-baiting,

Actually, I _was_ deliberately baiting leftists, but I was doing so to
challenge their conceit that a liberal State is more congenial to
individual liberty than any other kind of State and therefore ought to
be less hostile to cryptography.  Remember Mike Schenk's original words:

> I have always thought that the Netherlands was a very liberal country.
> But now the government is proposing a law that totally outlaws the use
> of encryption methods.

Last I heard, the Netherlands is a State.  (So he's apparently talking
about ``liberal'' as a kind of Statism, not as a synonym for anarchism
as I would prefer.  Mike Schenk, are you there to clarify?)  A State is
a State.  The purpose of a State is to supplant personal choice with the
State's choice.  (To the extent that the State is a democracy, this
means supplanting personal choice with collective dictate.)  ``Liberal''
or not, a State is threatened by strong cryptography because it helps to
enable a person to choose for himself in spite of the State.

	John E. Kreznar		| Relations among people to be by
	jkreznar@ininx.com	| mutual consent, or not at all.

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