Big Or Small L Libertarians?
I was asked yesterday whether I consider myself a big or small L libertarian. I suppose you'd first have to describe what a big or small L libertarian means and I'm not sure exactly what the differences are.
I would normally say a big L libertarian would be one who consistently holds a libertarian position on pretty much all issues. Since even Libertarians disagree on some issues, that might still be tough to use for a criteria. But, I'll go ahead and label myself a libertarian if for no other reason than I don't agree with the "open borders" position the Libertarian Party holds to. I kind of agree with that Libertarian statement, "Peaceful people should be able to immigrate and emmigrate freely.", but that's a bit simplistic to me. There has to be some control over who and how many come to this country to live, especially in these dangerous times. What those controls should consist of? I don't know, but to paraphrase past LP Presidential hopeful, Aaron Russo, " A country isn't a country unless it has clear and enforceable borders...". 'Nuff said.
I suppose I differ on some other issues as well but, just off the top of my head, can't come up with any specifics. Give me time. The thing is, we're so far away from even coming close to some things Libertarians propose, there's almost no sense in arguing about them. We can't even slow down growth of government, much less reduce it, without certain interest groups screaming bloody murder. So it seems to me small or big L libertarian doesn't make much difference. You can only do so much and mostly all that you can really do is write or speak and be a lone voice in the wilderness.
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I spoke with Hank Sims, of the North Coast Journal, yesterday. He asked me if I would be interested in writing a short piece for the Journal for next week. I was honored but politely declined, at least for the time being. I would love to do that but didn't have anything off the top of my head to write about. That, and it's a bit of a pain writing on this computer with no spell checker or word count. But I could still do it. Any suggestions?
As I wrote some time ago here, I started this blog, in part, because I wanted to get used to writing and being able to put out letters and commentary relatively quickly. That started after I got a similar request for commentary from The Advocate newspaper. Don't know if blogging has achieved my original intent as I'm not sure if any of the stuff I posted here is something worthy of publication. I guess I do well enough though.
Hmmm....what's going on here? I can't get the paragraph breaks into this draft, even if I triple space the paragraphs. Oh well, let's see if it shows up right after publishing.
Now, to figure out something to write for the NCJ...
posted by Fred Mangels @ 8:38 AM
3 comments
3 Comments:
Fred,
I only found out I was a libertarian 9 years ago after being in a discussion (shoutfest) with a lefty wing nut. When he questioned most of my positions on: welfare, taxes, guns and government regulations he decided I was a "right wing" wacko and asked my views on drugs and abortion. When I replied it was no one's business what an adult put into their own body and that no one should be forced to have an abortion, he yelled: "You're a God damned libertarian!" I hadn't thought much about it prior to that but shortly therereafter became a Libertarian by sending in dues payments. Having said that, I find I am in dissagreement with the "peacenik" wing of the movement who have lately begun hurling the epithet "neocon" at anyone failing to subscribe to their "preemptive surrender" philosophy. Has the movement adopted the "Aliens" policy of "eating their wounded" as evidenced by recent events at Lew Rockwell's site?
Oh, I don't know Allen, I think that comes from both sides. I think a lot of the LP's membership losses are a result of those in the War Party (like that any better than neocon?) bolting the LP after 9/11.
Then again, as one of the big wigs at LNC said, the LP did lose a number of people because of the stand on 9/11 and Iraq. But it was a diverse group: Some thought the LP was too pacifist, others thought we were too hawkish.
The "Aliens Policy" Libs seem to be the most vocal group, just from what I've read online. The War Party Libs seem to be keeping fairly quite compared to the others. I rarely hear anything from the WPs, like Art Tuma, Aaron Starr and Bruce Cohen, to name a few. When you do hear from them its usually in response to something the anti war crowd has written.
Go for it Fred! I would rather read your writings, with or without spell checking, indentations, spacing, whatever, than the usual crap out there.
On the issue of "open borders":
who decides where the borders are? and what are they borders between? I would like to take a moment here to send off a big single-finger salute to the mafia known as the "State," regardless of which state we may be discussing. Tyranny is tyranny, and if immigrants of European descent come out to the west coast, murder the indigenous population and drive them out of their homelands, and then "establish" "borders," well, that's tyranny.
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