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- Path: sparky!uunet!usc!cs.utexas.edu!uwm.edu!ogicse!qiclab!gasco!cepheus!fpf
- From: fpf@cepheus.gasco.com (Frank Ferguson x3584)
- Newsgroups: sci.econ
- Subject: Empty Philosphies
- Message-ID: <1992Aug13.150256.2934@gasco.com>
- Date: 13 Aug 92 15:02:56 GMT
- Article-I.D.: gasco.1992Aug13.150256.2934
- Sender: usenet@gasco.com (USENET poster ID)
- Distribution: na
- Organization: NorthWest Natural Gas Company of Portland Oregon
- Lines: 28
- Nntp-Posting-Host: cepheus
-
- Despite numbering your paragraphs, you've STILL not made
- a single, substantive point. Perhaps discourse, for you, really
- is nothing more than unsubstantiated, declarative statements.
- Well, since logic and demonstration won't do, lets move to a different
- level, the heart.
-
- Let's not talk about what Libertarianism "needs" as an intellectual
- justification, rather let's focus on what it "feels" like as an
- experience. Whatever rhetoric it may spout about "choice" and
- "individual rights" and "Liberty", Libertarianism is a cold hearted,
- almost cold blooded creed. It does not argue against compassion, empathy
- and humanity, it simply has no place for such concepts--save as examples
- of individual consumption decisions, of no particular interest in themselves.
-
- This is a doctrine which flows from the dark side of the human spirit. It
- does not encourage one to ask of his fellows "how do you feel?", "can I help?",
- but rather engenders the "you've made your bed, now lie in it" response.
- This may be sometimes be vaguely satisfying, but it is so in a dark and
- unhappy way. Of course, you will claim I miss the point (or worse).
- Libertarianism (you might well claim) doesn't discourage personal "goodness"
- but merely sees this as another issue outside the boundrys of the doctrine.
- Exactly, being warmly human is something you do outside of your cold hearted
- doctrine, like choosing to play baseball, or buying a piece of bubble gum.
- The creed has no enmity toward "fellow feeling", simply no place nor feeling
- for it.
-
- Bye the way, I really am sorry about the "weasel" bit. It was unnecessary
- and unfair. Still, I really am not at all afraid to tease any weasel.
-