[652] in libertarians
Re: Harry Browne for President
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Vernon Imrich)
Sun Feb 12 19:32:38 1995
To: libertarians@MIT.EDU
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Sat, 11 Feb 1995 13:38:23 EST."
<9502111838.AA23650@blizzard.lcs.mit.edu>
Date: Sun, 12 Feb 1995 19:31:09 EST
From: Vernon Imrich <vimrich@MIT.EDU>
|> Raymie Stata <raymie@larch.lcs.mit.edu> wrote:
|>
|> > The LP has problems to be sure. Sorry to say it, but IMHO most of
|> > them come from hard liner objectivists.
|>
|> What is the basis of this claim? And what is a "hard liner
|> objectivist" anyway? It can't be Piekoff/ARI Objectivists because
I said this in another post, but let me reiterate, since I appear
to have come across wrong. The "hard-liners" are "hard line libertarians"
in that they oppose most changes to the LP (such as removal of the Pledge).
My statement was that these hard line libertarians are people who claim to
be objectivist (and defend themselves along those lines so I doubt they
are lying). I have no idea whether or not there is even such a thing as
"hard liner objectivist" though I guess ARI could be seen as such
given things I've heard from others.
I pointed this out because in the context, I found it to be ironic.
A poster (rosed?) had said something about the LP not being as
respectable as CATO. I agreed but replied that it was hard liners who
resist changes in the LP that keep the party from being able to
reform itself. In my experience, particularly over the Pledge issue,
those against change in the LP structure are objectivists.
I guessed (again in the other post) that this was because they had
misapplied some of the Randian "no compromise" position into something
resembling "all or nothing."
|> they stay away from the LP.
Actually, this is just what I tell them. They seem to me to be ARI
types who, rather than give up on the LP, think they can shape it
up through procedural things like the Pledge and other "purity" tests.
Often, when I bring up ARI's position on the LP, they disappear.
|> So you must mean people who believe that
|> capitalism can't flourish when defended by one-liners and statistical
|> one-upsmanship, people who believe in egoism and individualism and who
|> believe that, to be a stable system, capitalism requires wide-spread
|> _moral_ acceptance and commitment from a large segment of the
|> population.
Look, I have no problem with objectivism, objectivists, or any of that.
I may be a Christian, but I came to the LP through an objectivist group
at Berkeley. My main disagreement with O-ism is on epistemology (and
thus atheism) and on tactics (i.e. can you work with those who disagree
with you?).
All the objectivists I know personally are competent, good debaters
and generally very productive towards furthering the libertarian
ideals.
|> It seems to me that having the LP-fringe include nihilists, the MBLA,
|> socialist-anarchists, and other such kooks is a much bigger problemm
|> than objectivists.
I agree. The problem is, the more the hard liners try to "purify"
the party with unrealistic all-or-nothing documents, the more they
drive off all the people who expect more rational approaches (like
the CATO publications) and leave only the kooks behind (who don't
respond to things like "purity" pledges anyway). A similar phenomenon
was described by Mark Twain in regards to jury selection. By trying
to get only people who'd not heard anything about the case, they
ended up only with liars (or idiots). All the honest people who had
heard of the case, but pledged not let it interfere, were not
believed. His point was "who is more believable?"
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| Vernon Imrich | market failure, n. The inabilty of the |
| MIT, Dept. OE | market to recover from a blow by |
| Cambridge, MA 02139 | intervention. (The Exchange) |
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| MIT LP: http://www.mit.edu:8001/activities/libertarians/home.html |
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