Dear Port Of Call:

Is the reason you have little opposition letters because you are right? Probably at least partially. I tend to agree with most political view points you express being a moderate libertarian myself. Rush Limbaugh says modern liberalism is the gutless choice, conservatism is the thinking person's choice, I'll go a step further and say libertarianism is the deep thinker's choice. I read a letter to the editor in the New Yorker the other day that summed this up well "If schools could tech children to think, all else would be tautology". While I certainly defend the right of all to have and express opinions as they choose, in contrast to PC I don't think that excludes many of those opinions from being wrong. Not on what foods a person likes best, etc. of course. On more concrete issues like gun control, and drug law, taxation and central vs. lower level governance, once the goals are agreed upon, the answers to these questions are fairly certain through inductive logic and observation.

For example, the science of economics has been studying the effects of progressive taxation for years and years and with many governments, and on many populations. The question is then, do you want to suppress new business formation, investment, growth, and entrepreneurship. If you do, tax progressively, if not, don't. If one thinks beyond the surface of many issues, the answers seem fairly obvious. A few like abortion are more complex in some ways, but most political ones that affect people the most, are not.

Conservatives, think, and therefore get a good chunk of the picture, but have trouble getting past biases and rhetoric, and therefore miss the boat on drugs, etc. i.e. when their apparent goals (reducing violent crime, reducing organized crime, keeping drugs away from kids, etc.) would so obviously be better served by legalizing drugs for adults they often switch to fallacies or are reduced to just repeating mantras like "they're DRUGS. They must be bad so we must stop them" in direct contradiction to their general individualist themes in other issues by demonizing an inanimate substance instead on concentrating on harmful behavior toward others. I mean violent and property crime here. Taking drugs does not harm others.

Modern liberals on the other hand rarely think beyond the surface to consequences and legitimate authority. Someone is poor, give them money. Don't have it, tax. Whether the government has the right to tax for this, what the affect on the taxpayer or the poor will be, whether there aren't already institutions in place better equipped and privately funded, how this will affect the budget, the economy, is constitutional, etc. are questions I rarely hear asked by modern liberals, and I presume, not often a part of the calculation, if there is one.

Well I guess I've crossed into the DlATRlBE ZONE too. Oh well.

Sincerely,
Jim Mortensen

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