[283] in libertarians
Re: liberals support civil liberties?
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Kevin THEOBALD)
Wed Sep 28 16:39:12 1994
From: theobald@duke.cs.mcgill.ca (Kevin THEOBALD)
Date: Wed, 28 Sep 1994 16:32:36 -0400
In-Reply-To: Vernon Imrich's message [Re: liberals support civil liberties?] as of Sep 28, 16:03
To: vimrich@flying-cloud.mit.edu (Vernon Imrich), smcnair@willamette.edu,
tjic@icd.teradyne.com
Cc: libertarians@MIT.EDU
| tjic>
| >Given that the judiciary tends towards left-wing activism, I agree
| >with Vernon that rightists in the executive and judiciary aren't as
| >dangerous as leftists in these posts: the checks-and-balances (also
|
| I didn't say that. I think it was Kevin.
|
| >known as Gridlock(tm)) of the constitutional system result in less
| >extremism being enacted.
|
| Historically, this has not been the case. It was only a few decades
| ago that the conformist 50's were the norm. All alternate opinions,
| lifestyles, or questioning of authority was branded as subversive
| and dangerous. The "chill factor" (to speech etc.) was incredible
| compared to today.
Right. (Pun intended.) The balance changes over time, just like in the
Iran-Iraq war.
| Now, I agree that we probably have to support the "right" more now, since
| they are the weaker of the two majors (with balance of power being the
| objective). However, it is very naieve to think they are not VERY serious
| about setting national moral standards and eroding numerous civil liberties
| protections.
I realize that trying to support the weaker side, in the hope that the two
sides will cancel each other out with gridlock, might backfire. They might,
instead, agree to take away *all* of our freedoms!
Consider this imaginary scenario (you figure out what D, R, L mean):
D: The State should give lots of welfare to everyone who needs it!
R: Why should I have to pay for someone else to churn out lots of babies
that I will have to pay for?
D: Oh, that's so racist! Why should you infringe on the right of someone
to have children just because they are down on their luck?
L: Abolish all controls on family size! Abolish welfare!
R: Shut up, crackpot! OK, I don't like all these welfare babies, but I
don't want people to starve. So let's raise the welfare payments but
require the women to use Norplant(TM)!
D: OK, but that's still unfair to poor people. We should make it fair --
let's require *everyone* (except Congress) to use Norplant(TM)!
R: Agreed!
A silly example, but it shows how sometimes, two semi-statists will
try to answer each other's objections by getting rid of *al* freedoms.
| One could argue that the Left is already reeling economically from the
| collapse of communism. Many of them are running as "New Democrats" with
| much more of a Keynesian "public-business partnership" approach than the
| adversarial pure socialism approach. Really, the biggest remaining
| "new deal" democrats left are Ted Kennedy and Mario Cuomo, both of which
| are in serious trouble. Thus, it could be that leftists are the ones
| looking for new economics right now (though old habits die slowly),
| while the conservatives -- content with the success of their economics --
| feel no compunction to give in on social liberties issues. Also, if they
| are true to their name, liberals would be the more likely to change their
| mind (about anything) than conservatives.
An intriguing idea -- could we sway the liberals? I think, though, that too
many of them still have the "government knows best" attitude. I also suspect
that much of the apparent new conservatism on the part of Demo candidates
is just campaign fluff.
- Kevin
