I was once where you are. When I was 18, I was nearly a Socialist. But I believed in personal freedom. This placed me in a self-contradictory position: the combination left espousing the policy that

1) people should be free to make their own mistakes, and 2) they should be able to force other people to pay for the results of those mistakes.

Of course, I did not think of the policies I espoused in those terms, because when you lay it out that plainly, it becomes obvious that one cannot be free to make his own mistakes if the fruits of his labor are being taken to pay for the mistakes of others. He just has to work more, and more, and more. Of course, some people will refuse to work at all, and they'll have plenty of time to make mistakes, but if the majority of people do this, or even a large minority, what you have is economic collapse, and eventually famine.

Robert Heinlein's Loonies had a wonderful national motto: TANSTAAFL. There ain't no such thing as a free lunch. If you want to be able to force others to pay for your choices, be prepared for them to choose a risk-free lifestyle for you, and to enforce that choice at gunpoint. If you want to be able to make your own mistakes, be prepared to pay for them.

I'd like to respond briefly to Rich Paul. It may be fair to say there's a contradiction between socialism and personal freedom, but I'm not convinced there's an inherent contradiction between liberal safety-net-ism and personal freedom. If pure capitalism could perfectly reward and punish "good" and "bad" choices, there might be more to recommend your argument, but it can't and it doesn't, except in very limited ways. There are times when circumstances beyond one's control are just too large for a "right" choice to be made. And remember, I'm talking here about safety net measures, not complete wealth redistribution. Think of it as dues we pay to be part of a club that 1) gives us some minimal protection if things go horribly, horribly wrong and 2) helps keep the system going by putting fewer people in completely desperate situations where social order no longer seems worthwhile for the people at the bottom.

Oh, and then there's what I actually meant to say, that it's a shame 1) that if you believe in pure libertarian principles, there's no party that you can vote for with any chance of making a difference and 2) that if you believe in hybrid principles like you do, there's equally no party that you can vote for that will represent your beliefs and have any chance of making a difference.

Welcome to American politics--enjoy the show!

<blockquote><b> There are times when circumstances beyond one's control are just too large for a "right" choice to be made. And remember, I'm talking here about safety net measures, not complete wealth redistribution. Think of it as dues we pay to be part of a club that 1) gives us some minimal protection if things go horribly, horribly wrong and 2) helps keep the system going by putting fewer people in completely desperate situations where social order no longer seems worthwhile for the people at the bottom. </b></blockquote>

I support such organizations. When they existed, they were called "mutual aid societies", and functioned like "insurance co-ops". You decided which one (or ones) met your needs, paid dues, and received help from the mutual aid society if and when you fell on hard times. Profits were generally reinvested, and allowed members to pay lower premiums in future years if the level of payouts in a given year were less than anticipated.

This system broke down during the Great Depression, but remember that Depressions can only be caused by government intervention into the economy. In the case of the Great Depression, it was caused by the creation of the Federal Reserve, and their pumping massive amounts of new money into the economy, combined with unprecedented interventions into the economy. This caused both the Roaring '20s and the predictable and required hangover from an inflationary boom: the Great Depression. See also, the "dot com" boom and bust and the housing boom and bust.

As you know, my politics are similar to yours. It wouldn't be true to say that libertarians are necessarily opposed to safety nets - most of those I know support the concept; acknowledging that it is a necessary restriction on personal liberty - given that any form of taxation is coerced removal of property. It really depends on just how extreme one is; at the one end we have the classical liberal who is firmly in favour of rule of law, a small state and a basic level of social welfare and at the other end, you have the anarchist who would have no government at all....

Me, I'm a classical liberal; if I must have a label.

W, I would have thought that you agree with Ron Paul about Iraq, that we should get our troops out now.

My father from time to time would tell me never to belittle the door man his so called banal life, for without him we vaudevillians could not live ours. Looking back across this long life I think now what he meant by that is freedom requires a balancing restraint. That balance can sometime be found within the individual, but more often than not if found between individuals. I think when the so called true libertarian refuses to admit that a freedom in life has to be counterbalanced somewhere by a restraint, he or she creates a great error.