Neolibertarian Network
Beck reports on the new Neolibertarian Network. I don’t know as I would join formally, but it’s an interesting idea, and describes me rather well.
I was once a card carrying member of the Libertarian party; literally, as when I joined they still had membership cards on which you certified that you were opposed to the initiation of force, whatever the exact wording was.
I’ve long noted that I look at things with duality. On the one hand, I see how things ought theoretically to be if they could be, which actually gives something of a target for the rest. On the other hand, I look at how things are and, given the framework we are in, how best to do things in context, and how best to improve if never perfect the context.
Thus I can say, for example, “the government shouldn’t be in the business of running schools.” At the same time, I can see that since the government is running schools, here is how it should be improved or done more efficiently. Since the latter is the reality, it might look like a conservative’s approach if you only know the latter as my opinion, but it tends to be pragmatic libertarian. On other matters, I might sound like a flaming liberal hippy. However, it’s nothing if not reasonably consistent, if pragmatic in the face of our non-utopian reality. I hate inconsistent, whimsical “beliefs” based on “I want” rather than “at the core I believe.”
Hardcore, utopian Libertarians tilt at electoral windmills (or sit politics out entirely) and get nowhere, apart from what ideological influence spills into the mainstream, and that’s not a bad thing (having the subtle influence, that is; a tradition of third parties).
I think 9/11 and events since have brought the differences into sharper relief, or even made some choose one way or the other when they hadn’t consciously done so before. The fantasy nineties were a whole different reality.
My utopia includes open borders everywhere and peace through freedom. Even in the real world, I have always embraced “two hands, one mouth.” Defense, the reason to have a government, given the state of the rest of the world, means strong border security rather than free movement. Since there isn’t freedom and reasonable self-government everywhere, encouraging that is part of our defense and of creating a future that comes closer to the ideal. The ideal can’t happen by itself.
You could say a neolibertarian is a security libertarian, or a pragmatic libertarian. How can you have freedom without a modicum of security from those who hate the concept even more than the worst elements in our own government?
I could go on, but I need to go now. Check out the post by Beck for the requisite links and details. Not to mention his post on the end of internet anonymity, such as it was.
Don’t know if you’ll join? What are you waiting for!? You’ll fit right in. Or just drop by the chat room.
Posted by Beck on 03/15 at 07:32 PM
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