[ExI] GOV _ TRUMP

Fri Mar 31 20:35:53 UTC 2017

On Tuesday, March 28, 2017 7:39 PM John Clark <johnkclark at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Tue, Mar 28, 2017  Dan TheBookMan <danust2012 at gmail.com>wrote:
>> Slaveholding George Washington 
> All rich men in Virginia were slaveholders at the time, and as
> Virginia was largest and richest state the first commander and
> chief was almost certainly going to be a slaveholder. And unlike
> Jefferson at least Washington freed his slaves when he died.
> Hey, better late than never.  

My point: he wasn't a radical here. He was part of those same upper classes, which were not much interested in radical politics and were more fearful of the lower classes overrunning them. In fact, overall, they were quite conservative. Even supposed radical Jefferson was quite the moderate and more so later in life. (Of course, one can expect moderation or dilution of views.)

>> wasn't a radical.
> The British though otherwise. If Washington has lost the war he
> would have been hanged. 

You're conflating being a traitor with being a radical. The case is often made that selecting Washington to be the military leader was more an attempt to get both an experienced person in the position AND someone who wasn't a radical.

> > Had history been slightly different
> George Washington would have been the first king of the USA,
> instead after 8 years he chose to give up power and go home.
> That is very rare.  

You again trimmed what I wrote. Let me rectify that:

"Had history been slightly different -- for those who actually read history -- Washington might have simply ended up as an officer in the British military. That was childhood dream. Even in the context of American politics in the 01780s, Washington was no radical."

Note again, it was his childhood dream to be an officer in the British military.

Being of an aristocratic bent, too, isn't at all keeping with wanting to leave office -- to retire to his estates. Also, another thing you trimmed:

"We can maybe credit him for not being as harsh as other elitists (Hamilton comes to mind), especially in putting down the Whiskey Rebellion. (Washington not being bloodthirsty like Hamilton didn't call for executions.)"

To me, it appears you trimmed that because you want to depict my view not as nuanced, but rather as my view as being Washington was completely evil and the worst man possible to put anywhere near power in the 01780s. When my point is rather that he wasn't the worst, but let's not fall over ourselves in praising him or the system he was a part of.

> > Also, libertarianism as a form of radical politics isn't
>> about seizing power.>
> 
> Then libertarianism is a trivial movement that should be of
> no interest to a serious minded individual.

See? You said you were a libertarian, sometimes even claim you are one (as you do below), but you believe, in your heart of hearts, that seizing power if the important thing. Well, the important political thing from a libertarian perspective is that everyone be free -- not that any movement have power over everyone else. If your goal is to seize power, then you're really an authoritarian.

> > It always is funny in a way that makes me want to puke how
>> self-proclaimed libertarians don't know this.>
> I've always been a libertarian but at one time I was a radical
> libertarian like you, and I thought government should go away
> entirely, but over the years I've come to realize like it or not
> government simply isn't going away this side of the singularity,
> so I just must learn to live with it.

Well, we can agree to disagree on the permanence of the state. The state certainly has staying power, but right up until slavery was abolished, there were quite brilliant people arguing that it was a permanent institution. Then in about a certainly the institution went into a global decline from which it never recovered. A similar thing was said by many bright folks about the Soviet empire right up until it went. Heck, for years after its fall, some not so stupid people were argue it was just a ruse, that it was rise again.

> Yes if we were starting
> from scratch we could do better, but we're not starting from
> scratch.

Who argued anything about starting from scratch? Again, I find you read positions into others that they simply do not hold. Of course, you trim approach to responding to others -- clipping mid-sentence -- might blind you to this.

Regards,

Dan
  Sample my Kindle books via:
http://author.to/DanUst

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