[ExI] META: Overposting (psychology of morals)

[Damien Sullivan]

On Fri, Mar 04, 2011 at 06:30:39PM -0700, Jeff Davis wrote:

> There's something about libertarianism that makes it quite appealing
> to a broad spectrum of folks.  So broad in fact that contradictions
> pop up.  How can Jerry Brown and William Safire both be libertarians?
> Jerry brown has called himself a libertarian socialist (which can't
> help but make other libertarians seriously queasy).  Can you even
> imagine "libertarian" as a modifier for socialist?  Libertarian often

Actually, libertarian originally *meant* socialist -- or rather,
left-wing economic egalitarian anarchist.  Wikip claims this is the
first libertarian:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_D%C3%A9jacque
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarianism#History
They have dibs; it's US classical liberals who hijacked the term in
modern discourse.

>  In the matter of "initiation of force", when do you "start the
> clock"?   Can the native Americans go on the warpath and claim

A very good question.  The inverse is: right-libertarianism has a lot to
say about respecting private property rights and what one can do with
them, but little about how they're allocated in the first place.  Which
is a big gap, since you can make a 'libertarian' absolute monarch by
declaring that the king owns all the land.

> I don't mean to be fussy, but I'm inclined to think Humpty Dumpty was
> speaking libertarian when he said:

Almost all political and philosophical labels are subject to drift if
not hijacking.  At least most libertarians mostly agree on "personal
liberties", even if they differ on the nature of property.

conservative: someone who dislikes change, a defender of King and
Church monarchy and aristocracy, or someone who likes small government?

liberal: right-libertarian or social democrat?

socialist: Leninist central planning, democratic central planning, or
progressive income taxes + public services + leaning on market
mechanisms to make them come out better?

feminism: that women can do math and logic as well as men (and certainly
have every right to try), or that math and logic are male and
patriarchal ways of thought women shouldn't be expected to adhere to?

many-to-many bidirectional mapping of terms:

USA           Europe/world
liberal        social democrat
libertarian    liberal
socialist      libertarian
anarchist      libertarian
socialist      social democrat
conservative   liberal [small gov't]
conservative   crazy   [God and race, or really small gov't]
crazy          conservative  [church and king]
socialist      conservative  [universal health care]
anarcho-capitalist  crazy

-xx- Damien X-)