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awake
05-07-2010, 03:39 PM
This made me smile today...I tend to do less of it than I should.

"The modern libertarian has forgotten that the liberal of the 17th
and 18th centuries faced odds much more overwhelming than faces the liberal of
today; for in that era before the Industrial Revolution, the victory of liberalism
was far from inevitable. And yet the liberalism of that day was not-content to
remain a gloomy little sect; instead, it unified theory and action. Liberalism grew
and developed as an ideology and, leading and guiding the masses, made the
Revolution which changed the fate of the world; by its monumental
breakthrough, this Revolution of the 18th century transformed history from a
chronicle of stagnation and despotism to an ongoing movement advancing
toward a veritable secular Utopia of liberty and rationality and abundance. The
Old Order is dead or moribund; and the reactionary attempts to run a modern
society and economy by various throwbacks to the Old Order are doomed to total
failure. The liberals of the past have left to modern libertarians a glorious
heritage, not only of ideology but of victories against far more devastating odds.
The liberals of the past have also left a heritage of the proper strategy and tactics
for libertarians to follow: not only by leading rather than remaining aloof from
the masses; but also by not falling prey to short-run optimism. For short-run
optimism, being unrealistic, leads straightway to disillusion and then to long-run
pessimism; just as, on the other side of the coin, long-run pessimism leads to
exclusive and self-defeating concentration on immediate and short-run issues.
Short-run optimism stems, for one thing, from a naive and simplistic view of
strategy: that liberty will win merely by educating more intellectuals, who in turn
will educate opinion-moulders, who in turn will convince the masses, after which
the State will somehow fold its tent and silently steal away. Matters are not that
easy; for libertarians face not only a problem of education but also a problem of
power; and it is a law of history that a ruling caste has never voluntarily given up
its power.

But the problem of power is, certainly in the United States, far in the future.
For the libertarian, the main task of the present epoch is to cast off his needless
and debilitating pessimism, to set his sights on long-run victory and to set about
the road to its attainment. To do this, he must, perhaps first of all, drastically
realign his mistaken view of the ideological spectrum; he must discover who his
friends and natural allies are, and above all perhaps, who his enemies are. Armed
with this knowledge, let him proceed in the spirit of radical long-run optimism
that one of the great figures in the history of libertarian thought, Randolph
Bourne, correctly identified as the spirit of youth. Let Bourne's stirring words
serve also as the guidepost for the spirit of liberty:
youth is the incarnation of reason pitted against the rigidity of
tradition. Youth puts the remorseless questions to everything that is
old and established-Why? What is this thing good for?
And when it gets the mumbled, evasive answers of the defenders it applies its
own fresh, clean spirit of reason to institutions, customs, and ideas,
and finding them stupid, inane, or poisonous, turns instinctively to
overthrow them and build in their place the things with which its
visions teem

Youth is the leaven that keeps all these questioning, testing
attitudes fermenting in the world. If it were not for this troublesome
activity of youth, with its hatred of sophisms and glosses, its
insistence on things as they are, society would die from sheer decay.
It is the policy of the older generation as it gets adjusted to the
world to hide away the unpleasant things where it can, or preserve a
conspiracy of silence and an elaborate pretense that they do not
exist. But meanwhile the sores go on festering, just the same. Youth
is the drastic antiseptic... It drags skeletons from closets and insists
that they be explained. No wonder the older generation fears and
distrusts the younger. Youth is the avenging Nemesis on its trail...
Our elders are always optimistic in their views of the present,
pessimistic in their views of the future; youth is pessimistic toward
the present and gloriously hopeful for the future. And it is this hope
which is the lever of progress--one might say, the only lever of
progress...

The secret of life is then that this fine youthful spirit shall never
be lost. Out of the turbulence of youth should come this fine
precipitate--a sane, strong, aggressive spirit of daring and doing. It
must be a flexible, growing spirit, with a hospitality to new ideas,
and a keen insight into experience. To keep one's reactions warm
and true is to have found the secret of perpetual youth, and
perpetual youth is salvation."

- M. Rothbard - Left and Right: The Prospects for Liberty

Tend yer biscuits.
05-07-2010, 04:16 PM
"A prudent youth is hard to find." -Aristotle

YouTube - Craig Ferguson 7/21/9A Late Late Show beginning (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFQkMAPVoIo&feature=player_embedded)

Tend yer biscuits.
05-07-2010, 04:50 PM
I looked up that quote. It's actually:


A sign of what has been said [about the unclarity of what prudence requires] is the fact that whereas young people become accomplished in geometry and mathematics, and wise within these limits, prudent young people do not seem to be found. The reason is that prudence is concerned with particulars as well as universals, and particulars become known from experience, but a young person lacks experience, since some length of time is needed to produce it. -Aristotle, Ethics VI.8

Aristotle's teacher, Plato, said in his Republic that youth shouldn't even be taught ethics and politics until they're like 30. Aristotle seems to have agreed:


Further, each person judges rightly what he knows, and is a good judge about that; hence the good judge in a given area is the person educated in that area, and the unqualifiedly good judge is the person educated in every area.
This is why a youth is not a suitable student of political science; for he lacks experience of the actions in life, which are the subject and premises or our arguments. Moreover, since he tends to follow his feelings, his study will be futile and useless; for the end [of political sciences] is action, not knowledge. It does not matter whether he is young in years or immature in character, since the deficiency does not depend on age, but results from following his feelings in his life and in a given pursuit; for an immature person, like an incontinent person, gets no benefit from his knowledge. But for those who accord with reason in forming their desires and in their actions, knowledge of political science will be of great benefit. -Aristotle, Ethics I.3

awake
05-07-2010, 05:10 PM
I do not disagree with your points, but what I think Rothbard was going for was the spirit of youth to ask and challenge the established interests, not actual age. The definition of youth can mean different things to different people depending on perspective - 30 looks young to a 60 yr old - there are many who are old in age but young in spirit.

In any regard, if the young can be taught to occupy and kill other people in distant lands and that the whole immoral act can be called self defense, they can as well be taught that the peaceful division of labor can achieve much more powerful things.

The state has gone to extreme lengths to mentally abort the youth of this world, all in an end to serve it.

Tend yer biscuits.
05-07-2010, 05:40 PM
Let's just agree to agree.

YouTube - Johnny Cash: What Is Truth? (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qO5z2xUNUpU)

Vessol
05-07-2010, 07:27 PM
The face of a true young man. Spirt age > Physical age

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_KgBT8kIRgBo/RzQUY5YsEwI/AAAAAAAABXM/ksoCXSy0eck/s320/Ron+Paul+Smiling.jpg

awake
05-07-2010, 07:28 PM
I was thinking this very thing...

MN Patriot
05-07-2010, 07:59 PM
This was written in 1965, when American youth were becoming more socialist rather than libertarian.

45 years later, youths in great numbers have finally discovered libertarianism. I discovered it 25 years ago, and it has certainly been a period of pessimism for me to see government continue to grow and liberty retreat.

With more people waking up to the injustices of our corporatist welfare state, a breaking point will eventually be reached.

Vessol
05-07-2010, 08:01 PM
The majority of the youth were becoming socialists back in the 60's, yes, but there was a small contingent who saw Libertarianism. This was the age of Ayn Rand's works, Goldwater, and so much more. It was small, but it still echos today.

Live_Free_Or_Die
05-07-2010, 08:07 PM
Great... we're at the beginning of the ending.