libertarian, conservative, or individualist

Hi, I am posting some of my discussion from a thread in the "political conservative" group because it more rightly belongs here. I am hoping that a few others who participated will copy and paste over here, too.

oakesspaulding (hope you paste your great post here)-- hear him, hear him...he has outlined libertarian thought quite well. Now, I personally do not believe libertarian thought to be abstract except that it is abstracted from direct observation of what people actually did when they were set free to do it...this began back in the 15th century with the building of merchantilism, trade routes, a banking system, the switch to Arabic numbers to figure compound interest, etc. At that point, Martin Luther nailed his 99 points to the church door and within 40 years !!!! the Protestant Revolution had altered human expectation forever. Along with this came the publication of the Geneva Bible--a revolutionary translation that was the Bible used by the Puritans in America (as opposed to the King James version which was not a very long diatribe against the tyranny of kings as was the Geneva Bible.)

What our framers did was look around at the activities taking place, as the sorts of protections denied the productive in European, England, and elsewhere. The ownership of property-- and inheritance; the right to bear arms by individuals as a front line defense against any tyrant taking power; a judicial system to uphold property rights--including intellectual property rights (the first in the world) ; a government far-sighted enough to buy land and then sell it cheap to anyone who would develop it (a first in human history);the sacrosanct right to pursue "Eudeumonia"(happiness we say, but it is really better translated "a good life for a human being" or "flourishing") was supposed to set the stage for the individual to receive all the compenserate rewards inherent in offering the free marketplace or creative place your goods or services.

It is the fairness factor that is often missing in the dialogue today. What is fair and when it is fair?

Okay, enough of a history lesson...my main point is that libertarianism unlike all other politicla theories is based on the facts on the ground of human exchanges, what keeps the violence down and the prosperity up. All other philosophies believe this is a zero sum game--some losing in direct proportion to some winning. NONSENSE!!!

Here is the libertarian answer to doing what you want as long as it harms no one else. Let us same that you own a factory that emits toxin smoke, the libertarian would say that as long as the smoke stays within your property boundaries you are welcome to it; if it crosses those boundaries, that's a different story since your neighbors have a right to enjoy their property in their way. Thus the appropriate use of the judicial system.

As for parks, living in Oregon where 65% of the land is owned by one public entity or another, I can speak with some authority that the property is constantly being exploited and not in a good way--multiple use being want it is. The best preservation of nature taking place here and else where is through private agencies like the Nature Conservancy because prive ownership of pristine watersheds and wetlands and old growth forests ensures that they remain and are maintained as such.

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his IS a great discussion! I wish everyone had shorter names, though.

To markmobley: I was brought up in a very Christiam environment; my mother was born again when I was four years old and my brother and I were part of her spiritual journey thereafter. As poor as we were financially, we still grew up in a rich atmosphere of serious philosophical discussion'; that such matters as critical thinking were to be taken seriously. I never believed in a god myself, and I do not believe in any sort of "original" sin. I believe that each person is born to be perfectly themselves--that the tensions and violence in this world come from the fact that most people are dissatisfied to a lesser or greater extent from being forced to conform one way or another.

Each one of us is inherently built to KNOW the facts of this universe: We have eyes, ears, nose, skin, tongue in order to see, hear, smell, sense the facts all around us. The universe is silent, yet it speaks volumes if we will but look at it!!!! The universe does not require our faith or belief; stuff of its stuff we have all we require to know all about the circumstance in which we find ourselves.

Any human education starts with learning to experience the world as yourself. To interact with it with the specific gifts you were given, and not envy those of everyone else! Only in the past 20 to 25 years when the marketplace shifted from manual labor to intellectual labor have we become remotely interested in understanding the differences between intellectual gifts, temperatments, personalities, timing signatures and all the other impediments or assistances to communications. Never before have we had to understand our how differing attributes actually might work together to gte the project done. It is an exciting time to be alive.

My belief is that all "civilization" so far is built on a "tribal" chasse. Every kind of institution and philosophy we have invented is tribal in nature. The key characteristic of the tribal is subjugation of the individual to the tribe--each member of a tribe is a fungible part of the whole. The survival of the tribe IS survival. No wonder we are at each other's throats!

Clearly our life form--our species, is not a "colony" species. We are meant to not just survive but thrive as individuals. Don't you think it odd that we are the only species that does not teach its young (male or female) how to be what it is? We hamper our young from the beginning by creating a false dependence; what did Gide say about cutting off all the branches on one side of the tree?

What we are experiencing right worldwide now is the global tribal civilization (and all its myriad institutions large and small), at odds with what is now emerging: a civilization based on the individual WHICH IS OUR LIFE FORM! Look at the tools we have created, for a simple piece of empirical evidence.

Many people believe that individuals are inherently selfish and self centered; yet, in my experience, the more autonomous and self governing a person is, the more benevolent they are, and the more connected they feel to others and to our human history. When you value the life within you, when you love the life within you, you cherish the life within others.

If humanity has a problem it is that we do not take ourselves seriously. We have no awe about the thing that we are and the place we find ourselves.

People are, can be greedy. But it's not my business if they are, until I enter an agreement with them. Otherwise I can associate myself with whom I see fit, virtuous or not as the case maybe.

I think maximizing choice allows us to vote with our feet, and so we can less concerned with depending on the benevolence of others. With maximum choice, we can limit our exposure to coersion (unless, you know, that's your thang).

I do agree that the more we can act in our own interest, we do tend to act more empathetically (apologies to any Objectivists reading this).