From: hallam@zeus02.desy.de (Phill Hallam-Baker)
Subject: Re: libercommunism the new quick fix
Reply-To: Hallam@zeus02.desy.de
Organization: Deutsches Elektronen Synchrotron, Experiment ZEUS bei HERA
Date: Thu, 21 Jan 1993 19:37:40 GMT

In article <1993Jan18.212414.16855@midway.uchicago.edu>, dave@alex.uchicago.edu
(Dave Griffith) writes:

|>In article <C12K1M.5E6@dscomsa.desy.de> Hallam@zeus02.desy.de writes:
|>>As with many "Libertarians" Richard B. Schwartzman seems to be rather
|>selective
|>>in his condemnation. He seems to regard the Kaldi post which implies that
|>all
|>>Canadians have no right to post to the net as somehow being deserving of a
|>>respectfull response. Given that I have known many "Libertarians" who hold
|>>Kaldis type Xenophobic views this is not improbable. Certainly many of the
|>UK
|>>Libertarian faction of the Tory party supported South Africa over apartheid.
|>>
|>
|>This seems rather unlikely.  Actively supporting apartheid in the last decade
|>or so would have been a political death sentence.  Even David Duke didn't do
|>so here in the US.  More likely these Libertarians supported "constructive
|>engagement" (which wasn't) over "sanctions" (which weren't particularly 
|>either) as the solution to the end of apartheid in SA.

Firstly I can claim a rather longer political perspective than ten years.
Secondly I refered specificaly to the UK Tory party. This had a major split in
it specificaly over Rhodesia which declared  UDI and left the commonwealth. When
Ted Heath went to South Africa and gave the "winds of change" speach this
faction formed the Monday club (named after "black Monday"). If you want to go
into detail on the matter we can but the essential point is that roughly a sixth
of the parliamentary party was opposed to Heath on the issue and it was this
faction that was keenest to oust him. The Rhodesia issue ceased to be current
within the Tory party after Thasther dispatched Carrington and the Lancaster
house talks were started which lead to black rule in the early 80s. South Africa
having been given independence much earlier and having been the cause of the
Boer war disaster never had the same position in the Tory establishment as
Rhodesia did so the party never split over it, in any case since Thatcher
followed the Monday club line why would they have?


|>  What support for 
|>constructive engagement might have to do with xenophobia is left as an
|>exercise
|>for the student.  As an aside, it is unwise to equate UK and US libertarians.
|>As is to be expected, there are significant differences.  The Economist, 
|>for example, is in many ways UK Libertarian, but is virulently anti-gun and
|>mostly pro-NHS.

A better analysis would be to say that Libertariansim is orthogonal to ecconomic
ideology and that the US Libertarian party only covers a very narrow band of
Libertarian thinking. Indeed a band so small that many would deny that it
properly forms a part of mainstream Libertarian thinking. Its a bit like a
Trotskyite group calling itself "Democratic", "Socialist", "Workers" (chose two
in any order and suffix the word "party")


|>>In fact I beleive that Kaldis does have an inferiority complex and that his
|>>bigoted outbusts against non-US citizens are a result of this. Is Mr
|>Schwartzman
|>>claiming that Kaldis does not have an inferiority complex?
|>>
|>>Or alternatively could it be that as Media Coordinator, DE. Libertarian Party
|>he
|>>knows that he can't defend his politics?
|>
|>As I'm still waiting for your explanation of my last two refutations of your
|>posts (China has never been expansionistic, Dutch East India Company predated
|>the British govt.), I wouldn't be too quick to accuse others of inability to
|>defend their politics, if I were you.

Expansionistic ? Nobody has ever been Expansionistic cos there is no such damn
word.

Given that the position of the Chineese government has been that the rest of the
world was populated by barbarians who it was beneath Chineese dignity to
contemplate, the expansionist drive has been minimal for most of its history as
a unified country. Most of the current claims of expansionism such as the
designes on Taiwan, Tibet etc have to be seen in the context of the historical
borders of China. The position of Tibet was similar to that India had under the
British empire. The Chineese claimed it as a part of their empire, the British
denied it. Taiwan still maintains claims over the whole of mainland China as its
legitimate government.

Apart from the historical superiority gumph the main reason why China did not
try to expand was that they had enough trouble holding onto what they had
already.

Of course China has been fighting quite a few wars over the past millenia, many
of them bad ones at that. But this does not necesarily equal expansionism. If so
the US would have to admit that Vietnam and many of its numerous other wars were
expansionism.



Duch east india company was given a monopoly by act of parliament in trade with
the Indian colonies as then was. However it was trading with the colonies in
advance of being granted a monopoly. Had it been formed as an act of parliament
it would not have been a company but a corporation.



--

Phill Hallam-Baker
Newsgroups: talk.politics.misc,alt.politics.clinton