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1997-12-26 - Re: Censorial leftists (Was: Interesting article)

Header Data

From: Kent Crispin <kent@songbird.com>
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Message Hash: 860d126a84b9bfe5174ccbd65ca97195a467b2aceba0d4742b34b0aa32c87b9e
Message ID: <19971226092752.62182@songbird.com>
Reply To: <Pine.LNX.3.95.971203175851.581C-100000@is-chief>
UTC Datetime: 1997-12-26 17:51:39 UTC
Raw Date: Sat, 27 Dec 1997 01:51:39 +0800

Raw message

From: Kent Crispin <kent@songbird.com>
Date: Sat, 27 Dec 1997 01:51:39 +0800
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: Censorial leftists (Was: Interesting article)
In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.3.95.971203175851.581C-100000@is-chief>
Message-ID: <19971226092752.62182@songbird.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



On Thu, Dec 04, 1997 at 09:10:25PM -0500, frissell@panix.com wrote:
> At 10:50 PM 12/3/97 -0800, Kent Crispin wrote:
> 
> >Interesting.  I was absolutely dead center.
> 
> Why do I not find this surprising?
> 
> >Centrist 
> >
> >Centrists favor selective government intervention and emphasize 
> >practical solutions to current problems. They
> >tend to keep an open mind on new issues. Many centrists feel that 
> >government serves as a check on excessive
> >liberty. 
> 
> Then there are those who feel that liberty is a check on excessive 
> government.  I have yet to see many examples of people damaged by 
> too much political liberty.  Perhaps Kent can fill us in.

Depends on what you mean by "damage", and what you mean by "liberty", 
does it not?

Using the quasi-religious meaning for "political liberty" that you
imply, of course it is impossible for for there to be too much of it:
"political liberty" is just another term for "The Good", and there can
never be too much of The Good.

On the other hand, if by "political liberty" you mean "activity
without any politically powered constraint", then, arguably, *every*
action where a bad thing, done by a person, could have been prevented
through the exercise of political power is damage due to political
liberty.  That is, every common murder and robbery, every crime of any
sort, is damage due to political liberty.

If you are free to postulate a perfect state of liberty, I am free to 
postulate a perfect political system.  Neither exists in the real 
world. 

-- 
Kent Crispin				"No reason to get excited",
kent@songbird.com			the thief he kindly spoke...
PGP fingerprint:   B1 8B 72 ED 55 21 5E 44  61 F4 58 0F 72 10 65 55
http://songbird.com/kent/pgp_key.html

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