From: Alan Olsen <alan@ctrl-alt-del.com>
Date: Tue, 19 Nov 1996 01:19:42 -0800 (PST)
To: amp <amp@pobox.com>
Subject: Re: Extreme Left/Right
Message-ID: <3.0b36.32.19961119011826.00ff1400@mail.teleport.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


At 02:59 AM 11/19/96 -0400, amp wrote:

>I first saw mention of a chart similar to this in the 60s. It was a way of 
>describing beliefs politically that was put forth by Jerry Pournelle. (Who 
>is available on the net btw.)  

That must be one hell of a download...  ]:>

>> When I used to listen to a certain "leftist" radio station broadcasting 
>> out of New York City, they would talk about "left-wing", communist 
>> dictatorships and "right-wing", fascist dictatorships.  A dictatorship is
>> a dictatorship!!!  The "wing" that it comes from makes no difference!! 
>
>Yup. You hit the nail on the head here. This is something that any thinking 
>person should recognise. The basic way we are taught to understand and 
>reference politics =makes=no=sense=.

The question is whether you wish to be tortured by the Government forces or
the Peoples Revolutionary army.  (I guess is comes down to which side has
had more practice this week...)  Also, will this be deliberate torture or
the accidental kind.  ("Oops.  Sorry.  We were actually after a dully
elected representative of the four horseman.  You just got in the way.
Maybe it will grow back...")

>>  The 
>> way the media defines these things makes no sense; you can't have a 
>> dictatorship on BOTH sides of a POLITICAL SPECTRUM no more than you can 
>> have YELLOW on both sides of the COLOR SPECTRUM.
>
>Take a gander at the libertarian's chart. I think it is a more accurqte way 
>of describing people, and in fact is similar in some ways to what you 
>describe. A philosophy is charted based on how one views personal and 
>property rights.

This assumes that there are only two basic axises that rights are based
opon.  Some of those can get pretty fuzzy.  To properly describe how the
system works would require an n-dimensional hyperpolygon of indeterminate
size.  (Kind of like describing the black budget.  You know it is there,
but looking at it is difficult, and if they catch you looking the hounds of
tindalos will be coming at you out of every corner of the woodwork.)

Personally, I am a political non-euclidean.


---
|  "Remember: You can't have BSDM without BSD." - alan@ctrl-alt-del.com  |
|"The moral PGP Diffie taught Zimmermann unites all| Disclaimer:         |
| mankind free in one-key-steganography-privacy!"  | Ignore the man      |
|`finger -l alano@teleport.com` for PGP 2.6.2 key  | behind the keyboard.|
|         http://www.teleport.com/~alano/          | alano@teleport.com  |