[ExI] General comment about all this quasi-libertarianism discussion

[F. C. Moulton]

On 03/01/2011 10:26 AM, Samantha Atkins wrote:
> On 02/28/2011 11:21 PM, F. C. Moulton wrote:
>> The early USA was not even close to libertarian.  Just think
>> for a moment about the huge number of slaves, the second class legal
>> status of women,
>
> Actually, in that it strongly supported freedom and individual rights
> it was extremely libertarian.  That the slavery and women's rights
> things were not also worked out yet was an artifact of the times.  

Just saying that it was an "artifact of the times" does not somehow
cause the early USA to be more libertarian.  Was the Comstock censorship
just an "artifact of the times"?  Are we in a situation where any
historical example I bring up is just called "an artifact of the
times"?  Is "an artifact of the times" some general excuse that negates
any evidence?

It does no good to point to the early USA and mistakenly claim that it
should be considered as a libertarian example.  That can lead to
confusion and as we have seen from recent discussions on this list there
is too much confusion about the nature of libertarianism already.

>> Just because the early USA might not have been as bad as some other
>> countries does not mean that the early USA was libertarian.
>
> As the term was not even invented yet it would have been difficult to
> be more rigorously "libertarian".

You need to take that up with Kelly because Kelly is the one who
mistakenly brought the Early USA and libertarianism.

Fred