[extropy-chat] Re: bloodless revolution

Al Brooks kerry_prez at yahoo.com
Fri Dec 30 20:16:56 UTC 2005


  By now you must see how slowly most people are evolving, and how the past is the reference point for nearly everyone. However pure libertarianism has a powerful potential in freeing a great number of the population. The unconscionable slavery of military conscription can be firmly opposed from a pure libertarian perspective.The legal obligations of the past towards minorities can be promoted (not with any real success, mind you) on pure libertarian grounds, i.e. the obligations of the government to provide land to former slaves ("forty acres and a mule"); that which is owed to native Americans, and so forth.
  I don't know what countries you fellows live in, but in the US the past in general, and legalistic precedents in particular, are far more important than progress, morality, education, aesthetics, the pursuit of happiness, and even the institution of the family itself. Americans are nothing if not pushy & determined-- determined to base the future on the past, on the Constitution, on legal precedents. This is, I guess, is what those of you living in more civilized nations don't understand about the US, you might understand America vis a vis its economics, but you may not fully appreciate how we do politics here. Americans aggressively check power seekers to obstensibly forestall anyone from obtaining too much power. Naturally it doesn't actually work out that way, many do obtain excessive power, yet as said previously, most people here are firmly wedded to the past. The US is a young, gigantic, "culturally aggressive" (i.e. extremely pushy) nation drunk on its 'glorious' past. 
  When I visited northern europe the residents couldn't understand state capitalist America anymore than I could understand social democratic northern europe. They couldn't connect the fact that Europe has existed for over a thousand years with the fact that America has existed for two hundred thirty years. The US is still in an untamed state, in many ways with the mindset of 1776 rather than 2006, and you cannot politically debate Americans head-on, in has to be done in the jargon of the past, deriving from precedents and legalistic formulas, concerning the Constitutional rights of all citizens to smoke all the tobacco they want and drink all the alcoholic beverages they want to drink. And to praise God in whichever house of worship the family chooses. We Americans work hard and have the God-given right to mediocre schools and toxic culture.
  It could be that you here are so sophisticated you can't see how just plain old fashion my country is. Amen.
   
   


		
---------------------------------
Yahoo! for Good - Make a difference this year. 
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.extropy.org/pipermail/extropy-chat/attachments/20051230/8bcf43b9/attachment.html>


More information about the extropy-chat mailing list