Kucinich moves for Cheney Impeachment

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Yeah, that pith is only good if it's out of a sago palm or something.

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.

Oh, er. I'm sure that was awkward! There's not much to disagree with in HLJ's exerpt, though. It's essentially a martial-artist's viewpoint, or a policeman's, not merely a soldier's, and it is often cited by gun-rights people discussing the philosophical and moral bases of civilians practicing concealed carry, inasmuch as there's hardly a gun-rights advocate who'd disapprove. I've had that sheepdog mindset internalized for more years than I care to count. I see a powerful pro-libertarian, pro-democracy (in a broader sense than I reckon you're using it) effect in encouraging the sheepdog's values throughout the entire populace.

Turning in charity from that towards literary tastes -- for me, Starship Troopers was unmistakeably seminal, but I think the best thing RAH ever wrote was Time Enough For Love. Libertarians love that crack about strong drink.

I can accept the many can have a claim on the one with the proviso that the one has a reciprocal claim on the many. The social contract, in a word. Otherwise you end up with a rationalization for the damnedest degree of selfishness you ever saw, and it's the sort of thing a half-bright sociopath would come up with.

Communism failed in giving the individual's reciprocal claim sufficient weight, and this imbalanced condition helps to wreck Communist social orders.

I'm not persuaded politics evolves, nor that sociopolitical orders simply evolve -- these being human constructs both fleshly and abstract, they are highly influenced by the actions, the exertions, of humans involved in them and in their making. People make these things happen and exist, and people's efforts are the one reason they do.