"Stuart & Kathryn Fields" wrote in message
.. .

"Ed Huntress" wrote in message
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"Stuart & Kathryn Fields" wrote in message
.. .

snip

Ed: We are driving a 2003 Jetta TDI at least one occasion have seen
55mpg on a 500mile trip. The worst was 47mpg driving 80mph into a 25mph
headwind. However, California made them illegal in 2004.

I saw your comment about that before, Stuart, and it's remarkable. If
diesel wasn't so ridiculously overpriced I'd consider it. My former
neighbor has a turbodiesel New Beetle of about that vintage and he says
he gets 45+ mpg with it, too.

Also BTW I will take the "illegal profiteering" if it means the bloody
incompetent federal government will keep their bureacratic noses out of
our everyday business: FEMA is dictating building codes out in the
desert and establishing "Flood Plains" where there is no record of
anykind of flooding in the past 75 years. I was told that I might be
required to raise my existing structure (40X72 steel building setting on
a concrete slab) 1.5' above the existing ground grade!!! Libertarian?
You bet. After seeing the government in action with Star Wars (I was
involved in Star Wars for 6 years), the current Iraq farce, BATF, DEA
etc etc. I don't see how anyone could avoid Libertarian leanings.

Leanings, yes. Most Americans have a little streak of libertarian in
them.

Political party or ideology, no. Political candidates -- well, it keeps
the libertarians from voting for jerks like Bush. g

I'm reminded of one of the complaints registered in the Declaration of
Independence: "He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent
hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their
substance." If that doesn't describe our BLM, FEMA, BATF, DEA etc. etc.
We interfaced directly with FEMA in support of disaster relief in the
Marshall Islands for two years and were sick and tired of apoligizing to
the Marshallese people for the stupid, arrogant behavior of FEMA.
Libertarian? And the alternatives are?

It depends on what you want. If you want to grumble and have nothing
happen, libertarianism is great. It's the ideology for people who won't
be happy no matter what happens.

This is probably true since the "something that happens" is generally
being done by people who want to exert power over someone else. Waiting
for the government to make "something happen" is guaranteed to yield
"something" that will be resented in the near future. Most of the
Libertarians see the problems that need solving are problems better solved
by something other than an agency whose existence does not depend on their
competence.

Like what? Do you mean the "free market"? If that's the case, are you
willing to live with what the "free market" decides?

The few such as the highways and national defense are a few of the
problems needing a more global approach offered by the Feds. Even then
look at the military industrial complex and at just one example of fraud,
waste and abuse created by the military being forced to deal with
"expiring funds".

It is, and if you have a solution, a lot of people will be interested.
Libertarians don't have solutions. They have faith.


But it's a mish-mash of different ideas that just don't fit together.
Basically, self-styled libertarians are pure moralists, who have a
patchwork quilt of moral principles that depend on everyone else thinking
precisely like them.

Yep. Somewhere we need to start with a guiding principle that we can all
agree on. Otherwise we just have a morass not unlike looting.

That's libertarianism: Everyone tries to loot everyone else.


Of course, this is the opposite of what libertarians claim. But look at
the current example: calling a fortuitous profit "profiteering," and
favoring making it illegal. If those same gas stations got caught short
with long-term oil purchases, while one guy in town was buying spot-market
oil when it was on the way down and dropped prices below the cost of the
other guys, and they all took a bath, the anti-profiteering "libertarians"
would just shrug and say "that's the market for you."

It's a moralism of convenience. Libertarians will claim that it isn't
true, but few of them think it through sufficiently to recognize what
they're doing.

Ed: This can certainly be said for all of the political parties and
especially our "Representatives"

Then what's different about libertarianism?

The current state of our society is to a large measure the result of our
society allowing the people who "make things happen" to run loose. The
constantly increasing size of government to do for people what they should
be doing for themselves and the things like the Iraq war, the War on drugs
which is costing a bunch and not yielding any significant results. Who is
thinking their way thru to these results?

What I hear, Stuart, is that you don't like the way things are going and
that you think they'd go better if the government did very little. As I
said, that's faith, not a solution. There is no example in modern history
that supports the libertarian view -- except for tribal societies run by
warlords.

Like most philosophical, political ideologies, libertarianism is based on a
mistaken view of human nature and a nearly complete disregard for the system
of incentives that results from the libertarian plan. Free-market
philosophies lead to the incentive structure that gave us Enron and the
mortgage debacle. Most of those atrocities were *not* the result of breaking
fundamental laws. They were examples of exploiting the weaknesses of
markets, especially in today's complex economic world.

Libertarianism itself is a prescription for chaos. The "guiding principles"
you mention bear further exploration: if you sort out what they really mean,
you'll find that you're founding your system on intellectual conservatism,
which leads inevitably to a much more restrictive society than the one
you're talking about. The libertarian principle is more like what Thomas
Jefferson proposed, when he said that we should scrap our Constitution every
19 years and write a new one.

I'm sure that's not what you have in mind. g As I said earlier, the small
streak of libertarian leaning shared by most Americans is a common and a
good thing. But it's not a system; it produces all truly stupid party
platform; and it's unworkable. With apologies to Jean Kirkpatrick, it
amounts to a letter to Santa Claus.

I took a course in the Weapons Systems Acquistion Management put on by
DoD. The word results was almost never used. The whole thing was about
the process and making the process fit some model. The students didn't
have a clue as to whether the results would solve the original problem.
In fact they were all relatively ignorant and didn't care what the
original problem was. Think their way thru? A very rare activity in my
experience with the Federal Government and one usually only used in
programming a path to promotion.
One thing lacking in all of the political parties that I see is the lack
of a guiding principle. Looking on the internet for expressions of
guiding philosophy of the Democrats, the Republicans and the Libertarians,
the only one with a clear statement of philosophy was the Libertarians.

That's the problem. They're about a philosophy, not about running a
government. Government is about assuring that the structure of incentives
produces a beneficial result -- maximum life, liberty, and pursuit of
happiness.

I get the impression that both the Democrats and the Republicans are for
whatever will get them elected. The Constitution, Declaration of
Independence and even the Articles of Confederation don't seem to provide
a clear statement that we are going to use as a guiding principle. At
present, our basic principle seems to be: "Whats in it for me?"
I know a bunch of people who are really for the government controlled
health care. They ain't thought that thru very far. They are blinded
with "what it can do for me" and ignore the myriad of examples of
government incompetencies and costs demonstrated over and over again. The
long range effect of some of these social programs is the reduction in the
need to fend for yourself and will ultimately lead to the downfall of the
nation. Who was it said the death of democracy is ordained when the
people find out that they can vote themselves money.

An old fool who said that before he got a chance to see what actually
happens. In the US right now, it's the rich who tend to vote themselves more
money. In any case, it doesn't work the way democracy's detractors thought
it would.

I tend to agree the formal Libertarian party seems to be just a "spit and
whittle" kind of organization. I offered to start a fund raising pyramid
to raise funds for Libertarian candidates and got zero response. I know
that I'm tired of bureaucrats stripping my freedoms away and forcing me
to pay for the process.

Maybe you should re-name it the Grumbler's Party. Then you'd probably get
more takers. g

--
Ed Huntress