How did you change your political views?

[Buck Birdseed]

I started off as a faintly marxist (though never expressely communist) moderate lefty, a member of Sweden's Young Left. In the the last term of my first year of university I read two books that changed me into a well more radical person: Nicolo Macchiavelli's "Discourses" and Anne Phillips's "Democracy and Difference". I wrote an essay comparing the two to each other. I started to read up more on the civic republican tradition and its eventual feminist connections, and discovered that it held many of the answers I'd been looking for in terms of justifying many lefty policies in rational terms. To come into line with this ideology (which, admittedly, didn't change my policy-based values that much) I after careful reflection abandoned my pacifism, my relative opposition to multiculturalism and my ambivalent attitude to constitutionalism. I also started to construct polemics against the weak points of both liberalist and socialist left-wing traditions to show my distinctions from either.

[Az]

So I can pollute lands I don't own under libertarianism? Hmm...

Yes, since you're supposedly not infringing on anyone's rights, as it they don't belong to anyone. Unless you want to say that libertarianism opposes all emissions into the atmosphere, the seas, and the rivers.

[The Templar]

Originally posted by Azazel

So I can pollute lands I don't own under libertarianism? Hmm...

Yes, since you're supposedly not infringing on anyone's rights, as it they don't belong to anyone. Unless you want to say that libertarianism opposes all emissions into the atmosphere, the seas, and the rivers.

Most of the time, a libertarian will say by creating a property entitlement in something, the person with that entitlement will protect the something from others. So give me a property entitlement to water, for instance, and I won't allow other people to **** it up - this is Berzerker's point I take it. And if you want to see how well propertizing water works - check out the example set by Bechtel in Bolivia (a report about this will be coming out next year in the Fordham International Law Journal).

Good luck propertizing the air though. Putting aside how this entitlement would be distributed, how you would enforce such a property regime is beyond me. Moreover, propertizing air could cause some real problems for poor people who can't afford to pay. But then again, if you don't work hard enough, why should you be entitled to air?

[The Templar]

Originally posted by Berzerker
Templar -

Obviously most people are helped in achieving their goals by being born with the genetic tools (how you plan to "equalise" that should be interesting), but Jim Crow and it's lingering effects were government infringements upon the free market. So you're pointing to the unwanted effects of government infringement on the market as a reason to continue infringing upon the market.

Typical libertarian claptrap. Its one thing to distribute jobs based on ability to do the job, and another to say that through accident of birth that you should be foreclosed from a comfortable middle class lifestyle.

As for government interference - do you really think if the Jim Crow laws were abolished that restaurants would have opened their doors to black customers to get their money? Even if the owners were rational enough to do so (it's not like they liked black people), white customers would have continued to go to white establishments. In fact businesses in Houston later (in an unusual fit of rationality) demanded anti-segregation laws behind the scenes. This so they could (1) capture the black dollar, (2) serve blacks because "they had to under law, sorry about that fellow crackers", (3) nobody could go white only and screw up the arrangement that was serving everyone.

More importantly, the legacy of slavery and Jim Crow had left black people in a very unfair position vis-a-vis the marketplace. So the people via the government screwed them, but should not take any responsibility in correcting their mistake? You see, that's the problem with libertarianism - it assumes that startin gposition doesn't matter even though starting position is very important.

Ah, so all that stuff about racism you used as a reason to "grow up" and away from libertarianism had nothing to do with what libertarians advocate. Instead, it's about "equal opportunity"...But I'm glad to see you admit that you don't want a color blind government either...

It wasn't just the actual exposure to racism that made me grow up. But it did radically change my thinking on race and class in the US. This in turn put Rawls and Marx in a better light while revealing just how shrill Nozick and Locke really were.

Do you see the irony of pointing to the racism of differential treatment by government based on race only to advocate the same thing? All you've done is switch around the groups being treated differently...

As long as race is an issue, there can be no color blind system. People operate systems, so the systems are only as good as the people who operate them. If a system leaves no opportunity for the redress of racial issues and racists run the system, there will be no redress for the racism that occurs.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by MrFun
I guess I was hoping too much for people to contribute their personal experiences in changing their political ideologies without using it as an opportunity to insult those who have different ideologies from them.

I am a communist because I view capitalism as a cold, heartless, use-you-up-and-spit-you-out system. This is borne out by the injustice I witnessed in various capitalisic societies. All the excuses offered explaining why the rich is free to exploit the poor are pathetic charades, they cannot stand up to close scrutiny.

[Urban Ranger]

Berzerker,

I would like to see your refutation of John Rawls's "veil of ignorance" as well.

[Buck Birdseed]

Oh just go read "Anarchy, State and Utopia". For ****'s sake. Libertarian answers to Rawls have been done to death.

[Urban Ranger]

You realise that Anarchy is not the same as Libertarianism, yes?

After that said, I want to hear it in your own words, because it's your own bloody view. Anybody can quote a book.

[C0ckney]

I would like to see your refutation of John Rawls's "veil of ignorance" as well...Anybody can quote a book.

indeed.

[DinoDoc]

Who's John Rawls and why should I care?

[The Templar]

Originally posted by DinoDoc
Who's John Rawls and why should I care?

Only the most brilliant US political philosopher ever! Where the hell have you been?

[The Templar]

Let me give you the 2 minute Rawls.

One of the main things is a thought experiment called the veil of ignorance.

Imagine a bunch of people are about to become citizens in a new society. They have been asked to design the basic structure of the society. How will property function? How will wealth be distributed? How will political power be distributed? What will define status? Those sorts of things. The rub is, nobody knows what their position in the new society will be. Nobody knows if they will be rich or poor, top or bottom, "black" or "white".

The idea is that the future citizens will construct a system that is fair to everyone. Nobody will want things like starvation poverty, slavery, bigotry, etc. since they don't know if they will be the benefactor or the victim.

"The Veil of Ignorance" will likely preclude a laissez-faire or libertarian system because the miniscule chance of being rich and among the winners is far overshadowed by being among the vast pool of losers. Likewise, people will prefer a democratic system with strong minority protections. Democratic so the will of the people is follwed, and strong minority protections so that 51% of the people cannot enslave/convert to Christianity/otherwise abuse the other 49%.

[Atahualpa]

Sometimes I am more right, sometimes more left. The middle doesnt offer anything but a good compromise.
Since I do not like conservativism and religion and stick-with-tradition type of stuff I think I am leftist.

I think the government is the one to care about my retirement-money. I accept the fact that everyone needs to pay a share in order to have good medical treatment for everyone.
I do not like a classified society but like equal treatment. But not in a way that makes it unattractive to work hard and earn money.
I am not in favor of large military spending.

[Buck Birdseed]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
You realise that Anarchy is not the same as Libertarianism, yes?

The "Anarchy" bit of the title refers to the fact that Robert Nozick believes a minimal state is a natural outgrowth of the lockean "basic state of man" and is the only logically defensible form of state.

I'm not "quoting a book" nor do I feel like making the Libertarians' argument for them. It's just that Nozick and Rawls are practically always read together at university (being the supposed two supreme political thinkers of the second half of the 20th century, though I strongly dislike both), and it seems to be a bit silly to reiterate the most blazing row in academia on the pages of a two-bit gaming message forum. I was interested in the topic and would like to see it continued, not be hijacked by baby Rawlsians and Libertarians.

You'll find, though, that Nozick's argument is essentially the standard one put forth by Libertarians anywhere- why should you be allowed to strip people of their right to keep justly acquired property so as to be able to posit the original position in the first place? It's nanny-statism! Blah blah blah.

[Dis]

I don't think I have changed all that much.

When I was young I really wasn't interested in politics, so I didn't realize exactly what I was.

My views haven't changed all that much, although Apolyton has made me a little bit socialist. And I realize that if socialism was a viable economic form- it would be the best way to go. But I still have my doubts it can actually work without making everyone poor. So for me that is just an idealistic fantasy.

My realistic views are just the same as they've always been.