"In this last post, I again agree with sometihng he said. Our social nature as a major benefit."

The problem, SteveO, is that muirduck's statements do not exist in a vacumm, they are all constructed to take you somewhere and that somewhere is sympathy for socialism. While you may think of "social nature" as being an inclination to cooperate with others and enjoy their company, muriduck sees it as the behavior of an ant bed or bee hive, compulsory.

You're correct, I should have let you just find out yourself, but I was amazed that you could read his drivel on such a surface level. And, state any agreement in such a vague way.

Later I thought to myself, why not just ask SteveO if he agreed with muirduck that corporatism is strictly a republican phenomena. Your answer would have told me all I needed to know about your thought process.

Anyway, here is something I stumbled on yesterday that is very appropriate in understanding muirduck. As methinks has told you, he is a doctor in California named George Bella and he is a stauch advocate of socialized medicine.

Here:
http://www.freemarketcure.com/
is what he wants for you. Check out all the info there.

I have too defended certain elements of Enron in the fiasco. Not all.

Wal-Mart has done much good, and some stupid. A tiny bit of evil. But mostly good. I differentiate. I don't play black hat, white hat, gotch politics.

So I'm not taking any of your bair about Clinton V. Bush doing this or that. When either does stupid, it's stupid.

I'm against rent seeking. I'm against force and redistribution of wealth. I do believe that both parties favor corporate interests when they can. I think it's a little more the Republican's forte, whereas the Dems lean more towards hippie causes.

If Muirgeo is a nut, give me enough respect to find that out for myself. But I appreciate the warning.

In this last post, I again agree with sometihng he said. Our social nature as a major benefit. Now, I don't extrapolate that to defend totalitarianism. I think he also displays what I recently mentioned about the perception of Libertarians/ Republicans/ Classical Liberals/ Free traders/ Laizes Fairegoers etc. whathaveyou… to sometimes come across as hermit like individualist- or demanding such.

In my work on Personality Type, one thing I've found is that a lot of the behaviors that we don't like about people are their type defense mechanisms. Maybe he's a strong NF (idealist, feeler-type) or a strong SP (action oriented, we must DO something). Those are both valid feelings. Giving him room to spool out, he may have the chance ro explain his values, and maybe we can find little places to convince him of things- or, heaven forbid, learn something from him.

By slamming someone in the corner, you will generally get fight or flight behavior. In Type, a similar thing happens- otherwise delightful cocktail party guests suddenly feel threatened to the core of their being, and behave with maladaptive responses.

I've worked with snakes a lot. They are beautiful and amazing animals, and I don't fear them. However, I don't back them into a corner and keep poking at them.

You guys live the lie that convinces you that we are solitary creatures individually successful and even more successful the less we plan because you believe in the Great Invisible Hand that always plans better then our evolved intelligence.

You have a misguided understanding of Liberty. Yes, we are social creatures who depend on many others of our kind. But where your "thinking" goes astray is when you want to herd of all of us into thinking and acting in a way as to fulfill your vision of the world.

Libertarians believe in co-operation and community based on voluntary contract. They believe in partnerships based on voluntary contract. They also believe in voluntary exchange of thoughts, ideas, goods and services.

Where as forces of socialism herds every one to their vision of the world, regardless of how each individual wants to live his/her life. Individual desires, wishes, dreams, aspirations are not important to socialist. If something is good for majority, it is good for everybody – the minority is just collateral damage in the search for "common good".

Posted by: Hammer

Hammer,

It is a fact that what most "believers" here tout is the ideology of classical liberalism. It exist successfully no where in the world. ALL of the most successful world societies that have advanced and continue to advance the human condition are social democracies.

Any basic understanding of the nature of Homo sapiens sapiens reveals the obvious fact of our success is our social nature. You guys live the lie that convinces you that we are solitary creatures individually successful and even more successful the less we plan because you believe in the Great Invisible Hand that always plans better then our evolved intelligence.

The facts, history and basic common sense shows the evidence is against the libertarian position as the natural or best state of human societies. Indeed its quirky that some people likely hold your position based on evolved genetic traits that give preference to you left brain over your right ( the opposite of your politics). Concrete black and white thinking likely had and still has some adaptive genetic advantage for war making and playing out one side of the prisoners dilemma scenarios for short term success. It was indeed important in the history of man to have totalitarian regimes and concentrated autocratic powers to continue the advance of the human condition. To control the masses. Now I believe the conservative/classic liberal position is likely to be less adaptive and less successful to conditions of the modern world that require better and more right-sided planning. The future of human culture lies in the left and its right sided nuanced contemplative brain.