Re: Cal Libertarians Information
Daniel C. Burton (dburton@ocf.berkeley.edu)
1 Feb 1998 22:52:46 GMT
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Kevin Dempsey Peterson <peterson@autobahn.org> wrote:
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: I've updated this for spring, and will start posting it regularly. When I
: get the CGI script to add people to the list, this will be sent to
: subscribers also. I'm thinking of posting every Sunday, with expiration
: set to midnight of the next sunday. Anyone who feels inclined to write a
: cron script to send this out from the callib@ocf account with correct
: headers and all (I think you'll need to use sendmail) should let me know.
: Anyone who thinks something should be changed (even little things) before
: we start sending this out should reply so we can argue. Should I put up a
: Word version to do nice printouts for flyers?
When we have the real e-mail list up and running (and the OCF staff should
be getting it going pretty soon), we won't need to do this because it will
have it's own document sent automatically to new subscribers.
: Cal Libertarians Information
: This is a short information sheet about Cal Libertarians, a
: libertarian student group at UC Berkeley. It is posted regularly to
: the ucb.org.cal-libertarians and ucb.politics. Originally, we were
: going to have a FAQ for the newsgroup, but there aren't any questions
: asked frequently enough to qualify, so this will have to do. If you
: received this message through email, it's because, a) you requested it,
: b) someone messed up, c) we thought you'd like to know about it or d)
: we're desperate for members and are spamming you.
: Contents:
: What is libertarianism?
: Activities
: Bureaucratic Stuff
: Online Stuff
: What is libertarianism?
: Basically, libertarians want drastically less government in all
: areas.
Except in the protection of individual liberties. There, minarchists want
government involvement and anarchists want none.
We're not simply against government. Then we'd be called antistatists.
We're against government infringement on individual liberties, and that's
why we're called libertarians.
: Some argue that government doesn't work, some believe
: that government has no moral justification for it's power, but
: all agree that we have way to much of it right now.
: Libertarians are opposed to government taking money from the
: people in the form of taxes, because people can most often
: better decide how they want that money spent, and in any case,
: are the only ones entitled to make the decision.
I don't like this jumping into taxes right in the first paragraph. First
off, it's simply not true. A lot of libertarians see moral justification
for government taxation, but only to protect individual liberty. (This is
the classical natural rights argument of John Locke.)
Secondly, taxation is not the only way government interferes
with the economy. You can achieve virtually anything you can through
direct taxation through economic regulations. (Why fund wheelchair ramps
when you can mandate that anyone who does business must do that
themselves?) You can also acheive pretty much the same through inflation
of the government-mandated monopoly currency, manipulation of interest
rates through the central banking system, and all sorts of other monetary
manipulations.
Taxation seems like the wrong emphasis to me. I think it's more about
whether decisions on the use of economic resources are made by individuals
or the government/society as a whole. No matter what particular
structures exist, when the decisions are made by individuals, it is both a
more moral situation and one that will exhibit more characteristics of the
free market.
: Libertarians
: are also opposed to government limitations of liberties,
: believing that there is no reason that government has any moral
: jurisdiction to tell people how to live their lives.
Again, watch the wording. There are practical arguments for personal
freedom as well. (If you have the power to limit other peoples' most
cherished freedoms, they have the power to limit yours as well.)
: Libertarians do not fit on the conventional right/left
: political spectrum, but for issues, they will likely agree with
: the left on issues of personal freedom (abortion, free speech,
: deregulation of drugs), and with the right on economic issues
: (taxes, welfare, regulation of corporations). It would probably
: help to understand the libertarian position by thinking of them
: as both more extreme and more consistent than either the right
: or the left.
It is good to point out that we are neither right- nor left-wing and that
we are more consistent than either, but "extreme" is only relative and can
have negative connotations, especially for moderates. They tend to follow
the Rule of the Golden Mean, which is that it's always best to choose the
midpoint between any two extreme alternatives. The only problem with this
is that it doesn't work when both of the alternatives in consideration are
bad to start with.
It's better to point out that how we differ from both the right and left
than how we're more extreme in some areas than one of the two. This is in
that both of them want to use the power of the state to control people's
lives, whereas we don't.
: For example, the right only want to end welfare
: to the poor; libertarians want to end welfare to corporations
: in the form of subsidies as well. The left may want to allow
: doctors to prescribe marijuana for medicinal purposes;
: libertarians don't see where government gets the moral right to
: dictate what you are allowed to put in your body in the first
: place.
I think it would be better here to talk about what we stand for ourselves
rather than compare us to other ideologies. What we need to do is present
some of the major points of libertarianism. (End the income tax with no
replacement, end the war on drugs, drastically cut military spending,
etc.) It's important to focus on things that are the most major
activities of government. Medical marijuana is just a little blip on the
radar screen compared to the income tax and the military.
: I couldn't (personally), tell you that if you smoke pot
: I'm going to lock you in a room for 3 years (at least not
: if I wanted anyone to call me sane), but government does that every
: day. On the other hand, I do have the right (and an obligation)
: to try to prevent you from killing someone (so government, which
: derives its authority from people, does also).
: Libertarians draw a strong distinction between real crimes,
: which have a victim who was harmed (physically, financially or
: emotionally) like murder, fraud, reckless driving, and
: harassment; and victimless crimes, where everyone involved
: consented to the "crime", like drug use, non-mainstream sexual
: activities (oral sex is illegal in some states) and gambling.
Libel, anti-discrimination laws, "hate speech" laws, and all sorts of
workplace conduct laws all have specific victims, but we're against them
because none of these acts involve force, fraud, or the violation of other
peoples' individual liberties.
: Liberals want government to be your mother, conservatives want
: government to be your father, libertarians want government to
: leave parenting to parents and let people run their own lives.
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In general, I think this whole section spends too much time considering
specifics and sorting out technicalities and too little time presenting
the big picture. There's a lot to be said about the libertarian ideology
and its stances on general issues, and we could probably fill up the same
amount of space without touching on half of it.
A good source for ideas of how to do this type of thing is the Libertarian
Party Platform, which has some general statements of principle, and a
whole bunch of issue planks, every one of which has more general language
than most of your introduction. The Libertarianism FAQ for the Usenet is
also pretty good.
: The standard recommendations on where to learn more
: about libertarianism are _Libertarianism_in_One_Lesson_
: by David Bergland and _Why_Government_Doesn't_Work_
: by Harry Browne. For those who are consider themselves
: liberals, Ruwart's _Healing_Our_World_ has been recommended.
: It's more recent than the above, and is available online at:
: http://www.cyberpop.com/ebooks/ruwart/ruhomeframeset.html
: You could also come to our meetings or ask questions on the
: newsgroup (see below)
I would NOT recommend _Why Government Doesn't Work_. It's a campaign book
and it's pretty obvious from reading it. The recommendations I'm hearing
the most these days (which I would go along with) are David Boaz's
_Libertarianism: A Primer_ and Charles Murray's _What it Means to be a
Libertarian_.
Also give the URL to our basic reading page under the "further
exploration" section, and remember to put in Mary Ruwart's first name....
: Activities
: Cal Libertarians meets every Wednesday at 6:30pm in 206 Dwinelle
: (when facing the main entrace, go up the steps to your left, go up the
: stairway, and it will be on your right). Last semester had a table
: on Sproul two or three days a week. We had a "anti-authoritarian
: movie night", which was intended to be a monthly thing, but it got
: started too late in the semester. Hopefully for spring. This is
: likely to be a regular thing this semester.
: We're kicking around ideas for something to protest, and
: whether we should get an "Operation Politically Homeless" booth
: for next semester. Primary elections are coming up soon, which
: should lead to some activities. You might want to check out the
: newsgroup or the archives (see below).
: Some members of Cal Libertarians also go to Berkeley
: Libertarian Union (BLU) meetings. BLU is a more discussion
: oriented group whereas Cal Libertarians is (or wants to be :-)
: an activist group. BLU can be contacted through Jennie Dal
: Busco, minerva@autobahn.org.
It would probably seem a little bit more professional if we left our
planned activities and all that internal stuff out of it and just list
what we're sure we're going to do.
: Bureaucratic Stuff
: Mako Shuttleworth is going to be acting president until we have
: a chance to do elections (probably at the second meeting). We
: will have to do another SAS (Student Activities & Services)
: form next semester, but it looks as if we have signatories
: lined up. I'll add the officers here as soon as the elections
: are done.
: Online Resources
: Cal Libertarians maintains a web page at
: http://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~callib
: It provides some basic information on Libertarianism,
: information about the club, and links to other sites of
: interest. Getting more information online is one of the goals
: for the near future.
This, of couse, needs to be updates. We now have quite a bit of
information online, and we know who all our officers are.
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