Kucinich moves for Cheney Impeachment

[Griff]

There is a line of thought running all through UG's writings. There is this idea that the individual cannot take care of himself and his. He doesn't seem to understand that all of us are fully capable of violence. If we keep that capability for ourselves, it is governed by our ethical considerations. If we hand our capabilities over to others with their own set of goals, we have divorced morality and action. That is why soldiers fight for each other in government's wars rather than for government policy. They are putting their actions on a moral footing by fighting for someone they know.

Your fundemental contempt for the individual is what separates you from libertarian thought. This is not some high brow argument for wonks. This is about viewing the world as a place where each individuals choices matter and have impact rather than a world where ant armies battle for their queen. In psychological terms, I want a society where people have an internal locus of control not external. That is the thing that used to make Americans different. We really believed in our own abilities. Now we shift that belief to the State, that is not libertarian.

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Originally Posted by Griff

There is a line of thought running all through UG's writings. There is this idea that the individual cannot take care of himself and his.

I don't have that idea, and wonder where you ever got that notion. Prove it if you think you can.

He doesn't seem to understand that all of us are fully capable of violence.

Another notion unsupported by the evidence of my writing. I understand this fully.

If we keep that capability for ourselves, it is governed by our ethical considerations. If we hand our capabilities over to others with their own set of goals, we have divorced morality and action. That is why soldiers fight for each other in government's wars rather than for government policy. They are putting their actions on a moral footing by fighting for someone they know.

I think this part makes sense.

Your fundemental contempt for the individual is what separates you from libertarian thought.

As a libertarian, I do not have a fundamental contempt for the individual. That is why I'm a libertarian. I also am freethinking enough not to trust lockstepping philosophically with any political group -- which is what annoyed Radar so much, I think. He became angriest with me on that score. I do not treat political attachments as a form of religion -- I don't have to sign off on all thirty-nine Articles of Faith, and I will shred the man who insists I do.

This is not some high brow argument for wonks. This is about viewing the world as a place where each individual's choices matter and have impact rather than a world where ant armies battle for their queen. In psychological terms, I want a society where people have an internal locus of control not external. That is the thing that used to make Americans different. We really believed in our own abilities. Now we shift that belief to the State, that is not libertarian.

These points are well made. I pin my hope of a better world on my faith in our own ability to swing the pendulum of this trend back the other way. The individual's choice not to permit any queen's ant armies to kill him, by destroying that ant army and that queen, is to my view highly libertarian and ought therefore not to be disparaged by libertarians, small L or large.

For libertarianism to grow up sufficiently to take its place among the major players, it will need the ability to destroy its bitterest enemies. This isn't really even in dispute between us, being I think self-evident.

[Urbane Guerrilla]

So far, Griff, you're not doing a very good job of rebutting my essays this thread. Come to it, you're not doing any sort of job of it at all. You can't show I'm wrong.

You've been trying with notable absence of success to persuade me I'm something other than a libertarian. The reasons for your failure are manifold: first, I believe in libertarianism's value to the global body politic and in its goodness. I prefer libertarianism to any other variety of political opinion. While I never vote a straight ticket for any party whatsoever, I pick my other-party favorites by how nearly they approach libertarian-type thinking. Some parties have a more or less libertarian cast of thought and others do not -- any guesses which ones don't get my support? This is an active practice of libertarianism.

That there is a considerable strain of neoconservatism -- even unto PNAC -- in my thinking is not an impediment to my libertarianism, but is recruited in reinforcement of it. To the degree that neoconservatism is statist, I dislike it, but statism is not the only thing neocons are about, as doing some reading of neocons will soon show. To the degree that it supports individual liberty and intiative, I support neoconservatism. As I said elsewhere in this forum:

Humanity is better when it prospers. Less-than-democracy is invariably associated with less than prosperity. Any in doubt could look it up. Respect free expression and property rights. Stay armed enough to make genocide impracticable and you additionally benefit from making crime impracticable too. That government that governs least, or least needs to govern, is that government that governs best.

Do these things in governance and you've covered a lot of the essentials.

In view of this, I come to a second point: there's no argument you can make to show me I'm not a libertarian. The only something you can make from nothing is a fantasy. That I don't happen to be your exact sort of Libertarian I won't dispute, but libertarian I am nonetheless. Mere repeated insistence that I'm not a libertarian when the truth of the matter is I'm not a clone of you isn't going to carry the day in debate.

A party is created in considerable part to address questions and problems, by making or influencing policy for those problems that may be addressed by policymaking. Put more briefly, people congregate in parties to make a better world. However, success at making a better world through officeholding comes only when a party's adherents actually hold an office. So then, the vexed question remains before the Libertarian Party: are you going to have a debate club or are you going to have libertarianism abroad in the land and the law of the land? If the latter -- where the fuck are you?? If you want to win for your party in a representative democracy, you've got to win elections. The LP has been around since 1975. The LP should at least be campaigning for policymaking positions in the more economic corners of officialdom, like harbor commissioners, business/local government interfaces, and such -- anything to do with helping the people make livings, while keeping the balance that prevents abuse of any other portion of the electorate. Again, this is mostly in upholding the rights of a minority, and in respect for the importance of property rights, which is the single most important thing a government can do to promote the people's prosperity.

Turning to ZenGum while I'm scrolling this thread: yes, it is intended quite literally. Ascendancy over competing ideologies should be approached holistically, as it were: by all paths, in every way, eschewing no option whatsoever.

I'll close with this: Griff, I really don't think you have any direct understanding of neocon thinking. If you have any understanding of neocon philosophy from the neocons' pens themselves, I wish you would display it. Don't go by reputation; do your own reading.

[ZenGum]

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

Turning to ZenGum while I'm scrolling this thread: yes, it is intended quite literally. Ascendancy over competing ideologies should be approached holistically, as it were: by all paths, in every way, eschewing no option whatsoever.

Genocide? Chemical, biological, nuclear weapons? acts that are unarguably torture? Suspension of all civil rights (both inside and outside the US?)
No doubt you see my drift: what is the point of defeating fascists if we become fascists to do so?

[Griff]

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

I don't have that idea, and wonder where you ever got that notion. Prove it if you think you can.

This was going to be really easy until I realized it was HLJ who posted the nonsense article in the 11/11 thread not you.

(I didn't read your previous link yet so if this is the same ground bear with me.) I think our views on Heinlen probably illuminate our differences. In terms of philosophy, I think The Moon is a Harsh Mistress was his best work, but would expect you to be a Starship Troopers guy. My problem with Troopers is that we have this worst case scenario where one species is going to wipe out the other. This justifies a lot of government action.

Let's look at the two stupidest cases in US history. Was the Kaiser really going to destroy democracy? This seems unlikely. The war was a stalemate. What democratic movement that was afoot was in opposition to dying for the old order, while democracy developed. In the States, going on a war footing trained the people to respond to bugaboos with submission to government. This was an awful precedent which continues to be abused by left and right alike. The Kaiser did not pass the alien insect test.

The second bit of nonsense is Iraq now. The bugaboo is terrorism. Bin Laden is invading the US when? Our control seeking government's response to terror is a much bigger threat to the Republic than any backward looking Islamist. Bin Laden, while a belly crawler, does not pass the alien insect test.

The right continues to pretend that we came into this war with clean enough hands to assert some moral authority in the mid-East. Our historic opposition to democratic movements, due to their easy infiltration by totalitarians, in the region undermines our authority. Neutrality would have been a good idea before and is a good idea now. Iraq may yet choose democracy, as our ancestors did, but it won't be on our timetable and the results will not be pretty. The only sure thing is that our government will try to grow and attempt to control more aspects of our lives. The question is whether the development of ideas and technologies which enhance or preserve freedom will outpace the governments attempts to subvert them. Militarism has undermined the foundation of American conservatism by creating the illusion of necessary government action. The optimism of the American Right has been replaced by fear-mongering.

To answer Mill:War in defense of the Republic and its people is justified. Offensive war brought on by fear-mongering and corrosive of the Bill of Rights is not justified.