Preliminary FAQ
Kevin Dempsey Peterson (kevin@cafe.berkeley.edu)
Sat, 18 Oct 1997 17:18:41 -0700
This posting was created from the HTML source at
http://cafe.berkeley.edu/~kevin/cal-libertarians/faq.html
This is a preliminary FAQ list for the newsgroup
ucb.org.cal-libertarians. It'd be great if you glanced through it
before posting. Don't stress about it, though. We'd be happy just to
get poosts so that this can get off the ground. It's currently
maintained by Kevin Peterson <kevin@cafe.berkeley.edu>, but anyone who
thinks they can do a better job is welcome to it.
Links to sections of the FAQ:
1. Questions about the newsgroup itself
2. Questions about the club
3. A list of organizations of interest to people who are interested
in this newsgroup
4. Organizations (outside Berkeley), the Libertarian Party, FAQs for
mainstream newsgroups
5. Actual question from the newsgroup. We'll fill this in later.
Section 1: ucb.org.cal-libertarians(the links link to themselves for
bookmarking)
Newgroup Charter
ucb.org.cal-libertarians is an unmoderated local newgroup for
the discussion of issues of interest to libertarians and things
related to the Cal Libertarians student group.
Appropriate topics
This is an unmoderated newsgroup, which means anything you post
will make it to the newsgroup. Please don't post totally
unrelated stuff to the newsgroup. You may want to post on
something that you think the readers may care about, but it may
be unrelated to the newsgroup. If this is the case, see if
there is another newsgroup that is more appropriate. If there
isn't (or if the other newsgroup isn't a local Berkeley one),
go ahead and post it. If we get sick enough of it, we'll change
this section.
When posting, please put a decent subject line as well. These
and more hints can be found in all those guides to
"netiquitte". I recommend http://www.clari.net/brad/emily.html
. Emily Postnews is my favorite (and now I can even fail to
understand it in Deutsch).
Examples of appropriate and inappropriate topics:
Good: Great new book on Libertarianism
Bad: Great new biography of Bob Dole
Good: Anyone looking to form a Reform Party Club
There is no Reform Party newsgroup at Berkeley, and this
is probably a decent place to look for people
Bad: New Environmental Defense club.
Not that libertarians don't care about the environment,
but it isn't related to libertarianism
Good: How do libertarians expect to protect the environment
Similar subject to the above, with the exception that it
has to to with libertarianism.
Bad: You're all a bunch of Nazis!!!
For those unfamiliar with usenet, this is called a troll,
from the fishing terminology. If you don't agree with
what libertarians think, go ahead and argue, but do it
civilly.
Good: Libertarians seem to be a bunch of cold hearted bastards
Yes, I call this good. Just present reasons, and then we
can have a good argument on whether they are correct.
Section 2: Cal Libertarians
What is it?
We're a club at UC Berkeley who get together and complain
about how unrealistic politicians are. We have a table on
Sproul sometimes where we hand out flyers and argue with
the socialists at the next table. We occasionally have
speakers come. Last month we had someone who lost an
election for Congress running as a Libertarian.
Contact Info
We will soon have a web site at OCF, but not yet. There
is a mailing list you can join by mailing Dan Burton
<dan@autobahn.org>. All meetings will probably be posted
to the newsgroup, and I'll add them to my events page as
soon as possible.
Section 3: Other Clubs on Campus
Berkeley Libertarian Union
The BLU is a discussion group. We pick a topic for the
meeting and discuss it for an hour or two. The topics are
picked in advance, and there are sometimes suggested
readings. I'll try to post these on my upcoming events
page. The meetings are currently Tuesdays at 7:00pm in
201 Wheeler. I believe Jennie Dal Busco
<minerva@uclink2.berkeley.edu> is "in charge".
Berkeley College Republicans
Not libertarian, but pretty close. They have a newsgroup,
ucb.org.bcr, but that's all I know about them. Hopefully
I can get someone to give me information.
Berkeley Lyceum
I know so little about these people that I don't know if
I spelled that right. I believe this is a dead
Objectivist club. Perhaps someone can send me info. (Even
a confirmation that they are dead would be helpful)
Others?
If you know of any other groups that would be of interest
to readers of the newsgroup, please mail me,
kevin@cafe.berkeley.edu, and I'll add them.
Section 4: Links to Info on Libertarianism.
For now, I'll just stuff in Jennie
(minerva@uclink2.berkeley.edu)'s suggested readings for the
first BLU meeting of the semester. It's verbatim, except for
putting codes around the URLs.
The Readings (read what you like... hey, you're an autonomous being) for
next week (7:00 until... whenever you want to leave because, hey, we value
free will):
I. Libertarianism, described from the inside
A. "Libertarianism: A Primer" by David Boaz, a Cato publication:
Read the excerpts found at
http://www.libertarianism.org/
If your workload is particularly harsh, please focus on "A note on labels,
why Libertarianism?"
http://www.libertarianism.org/ex-3.html
(it's short).
[alternatively, if you want a particularly opinionated little piece, via
usenet news, you can try the FAQ at:
http://www.libertarian.org/libfaq.html
or you can read the short-but-sweet "libertarian philosophy" at
http://www.libertarian.org/libphilo.html ]
I just picked up the Charles Murray "Why I am a Libertarian", and will read
that.
B. How is Anarchism different... or is it? Read the FAQ at:
http://www.princeton.edu/~bdcaplan/anarfaq.htm
II. Capitalism and its role in libertarianism
A. This plays a key role, and a good FAQ is found at:
http://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~shadab/
B. Who is F.A. Hayek (phil)?
http://www.self-gov.org/freeman/8910tayl.htm
C. Who is Ludwig von Mises (econ)?
http://www.mises.org/mises.html
III. Libertarianism viewed from the outside
A. From "Democratic Capitalism Against Conservative Politics"
Pick any:
http://web.cetlink.net/~kellycm/freedom.html
http://web.cetlink.net/~kellycm/lies.html
http://web.cetlink.net/~kellycm/truth.html
C. Conservative viewpoints:
The Radical Religious Right:
http://www.intr.net/tialliance/page4.html
or try The Conservative FAQ
http://www.cs.ncl.ac.uk/people/chris.holt/home.informal/lounge/politics/conser
vativism.html#1.1
Better yet, here's something from The Right Side of the Web:
http://www.rtside.com/rtside/Popu-List/The_Culture/
Section 5: Put real questions here.
Unfortunately, as the newsgroup hasn't been created, we don't
have any questions that have been asked frequently
---End of Cal-Libertarians FAQ---
--
kevin@cafe.berkeley.edu Home: (510)665-9670
http://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~peterson Page: (510)726-8960