Korihor was not a Leftist

[_Simon Belmont]

Hi Simon,

Enoch is coming along, it's a solid 40k words at this point so it's about 35% done I think.

Unfortunately, it will not be ready by Summer 2011. There were a couple things I didn't consider when setting that goal and I've been a little bit lazy in my work.

I recognize that by not reaching this goal that the project as planned has failed, I admit defeat and embarrassment in the matter. You have every right to consider the work a failure because of this, in fact.

But, unlike many, I can own up to my failures, take the truth, and resolve to stand back up and try again.

That was certainly not my reason for asking! I sincerely wanted to know (and perhaps read it, do you know if there'll be a Kindle edition?) Sorry if I am prying, but are you self-publishing, or do you actually have an agent and all that?

[_Gadianton]

Many of the publication matters are not worked out at this time, Simon. However, I suspect that you'll have the ability to read it digitally and for around the price of an edition of the FARMS Review online. :)

[_Simon Belmont]

Many of the publication matters are not worked out at this time, Simon. However, I suspect that you'll have the ability to read it digitally and for around the price of an edition of the FARMS Review online. :)

Okay, last question: will there be an audiobook version, and if so, who will be reading it?

(I vote for Rob Inglis)

[_bcspace]

Hi BC,

Just wanted to let you know that you are the second most intelligent poster on this forum save Droopy -- according to Droopy.

Also, it must really irk you, though not as much as it does Droopy, that the Church teaches Korihor is a laissez-faire economist.

Read it and weep.

It must irk you to no end that I correctly pointed out what Fortigurn's Lazy Research did for you. In other words, the manual says Korihor had a laissez-faire approach to right and wrong (a secondary dictionary definition by the way), but it says nothing of laissez-faire economics.

Read it and weep. (and try not to be so obvious when you scramble for cover)

[_moksha]

According to the LDS Church Book of Mormon Student Manual:

From this followed a clear-cut philosophy of laissez-faire: ‘Therefore every man prospereth according to his genius, and ... every man conquered according to his strength,’ with right and wrong measured only by nature’s iron rule of success and failure

I remember reading a similar slogan about "rules of blood and iron which are eternally the same". This was found in the famous Blood Purge speech which was able to mesmerize the crowd and bring a wave of boisterous support and saluting.

So they are teaching the rule of the strongest dog eating the lesser dogs to LDS students. Let me state that this is terrible. The Church needs more David Bokovys in its service, for the ark is certainly listing in this instance.

[_Droopy]

Libertarianism grew out of a revival of classic liberalism and anti-statist interest along with the development of libertarian rights thinkers. There was a recognition that conservatives were more tradition bound and divergent from this than is acceptable to be housed under the same label.

Modern conservatism is also a revival, or resuscitation of classical liberalism, but with the powerful and mediating (and moderating) subtext of Judeo-Christian conceptions of the limits of "freedom" and the mediating principles necessary for the maintenance of ordered liberty.

The main sticking points were lack of conservative respect for certain social liberties,

Such as?

conservatives' tendency towards authoritarianism,

Such as?

more imperial foreign policy from conservatives,

This is a claim that hails primarily from the Left, and is itself a matter of ideology, not historical fact.

and a dissatisfaction with then moderate economic views from conservatives. Hayek's "Why I'm not a conservative" lays out the groundwork for why libertarians rose up as a separate category.

Conservative economic views are "moderate?" How so?

To call this a creation of the sociopolitical left is one of the most bizarre assertions about the the development of libertarian thought I've ever seen.

If you'll go back and actually read the post where I made this assertion, you'll see that I said:

The simultaneous and seemingly schizophrenic focus of the modern Left upon, on one hand and in certain venues, intense, atomistic personal autonomy, and collectivist regimentation and social control on the other, in other venues, has been noted by other thinkers, and I'll just note it again here.

Nowhere did I mention libertarianism in this general statement regarding the internal nature of the Left, and nowhere did I claim that these libertarian differences were derived from the political left.

The only thing I did say, elsewhere, is that there is a "strong," more militantly secularist wing of libertarianism that did celebrate and support the cultural revolution of the sixties and which pooh poohs religious social and moral concerns, and can be quite hostile to religion.

I do not lump all libertarians together with this particular segment of it, however.

[_Droopy]

The Church needs more David Bokovys in its service, for the ark is certainly listing in this instance.

That passege in the Institute manual in question is indicative of the fact that, in a few instances, the Bokovoys are, indeed, already at work.

David, however, would never have incoherently lumped together classical liberals and conservatives with Marx and Dewey. He's far to intelligent for that. Nor does he, I suspect, find many of the core ideas of Marx as unpalatable as do conservative and libertarian thinkers, within or without the Church, and would never have associated him with Korihor.

[_Spurven Ten Sing]

Droopy,
a libertarian would be any person who agrees with the following: "I don not support the use or threat of force, or fraud, to effect social or political change." If one advocates something against this statement, he or she is not a libertarian. Libertarianism can include a gay atheist and a raving Mormon polygamist.

[_EAllusion]

This is a claim that hails primarily from the Left, and is itself a matter of ideology, not historical fact.

Let's quote the Hayek essay I mentioned:

Only at first foes it seem paradoxical that the anti-internationalism of conservatism is so frequently associated with imperialism. But the more a person dislikes the strange and thinks his own ways superior, the more he tends to regard it as his mission to "civilize" other[10] - not by the voluntary and unhampered intercourse which the liberal favors, but by bringing them the blessings of efficient government. It is significant that here again we frequently find the conservatives joining hands with the socialists against the liberals...

http://www.fahayek.org/index.php?option ... view&id=46

(By "liberal" Hayek has in mind a classic liberal)

Yeah that doesn't remind me of the Pax Americana of the last era of Republican control or anything.

Since you've quoted Hayek repeatedly as a borderline patron saint and his commentary is representative here, I think that suffices as not emanating from the "left." It's a complaint about conservatives that still is pervasive at places like CATO, which you quote all the time, and surely must be aware of.

If you'll go back and actually read the post where I made this assertion, you'll see that I said:

I was referring to your "atomistic individualism" comment which when destrawmanized refers to libertarianism's focus on individual liberty and streak of self-reliance. That former is basically what libertarianism is. It's in the word. The logic that undergirds all those things heavily associated with libertarianism - such as the legalization of drugs, gambling, and prostitution - that you are attributing to the "sociopolitical left" concurrently arose out of what I mentioned above.

[_Droopy]

Droopy,
a libertarian would be any person who agrees with the following: "I don not support the use or threat of force, or fraud, to effect social or political change." If one advocates something against this statement, he or she is not a libertarian. Libertarianism can include a gay atheist and a raving Mormon polygamist.

True, contemporary conservatism, in its broader conception, would have a problem with both gay atheists and raving polygamists. This is also probably the reason why Ayn Rand can exist comfortably among libertarians, but, even given her noteworthy contributions to criticism of the Left, can never be considered a conservative.