At 11:01 AM 11/5/98 -0500, you wrote:
>> be told, is an entertainer first. He does seem to believe in the
>> "small-l libertarian" positions he's staked out for himself, but
>> they don't cut deep. By many accounts he was bored to tears and
>
>Jesse may think he's a libertarian, but his web site bespeaks
>entirely different leanings. A proper libertarian would be out to
>dismantle the state government, especially a relatively ample
>one such as Minnesota's. There is nothing about that in
>the web positions, only a desire to reduce, not eliminate (if you
>read carefully) the budget surplus with tax cuts. Jesse does
>seem to have a problem with social services, but he seems
>to support more infrastructure-type stuff and the public
>education system as well.
Whether or not "The Body" is a libertarian or not depends on how you interpret the word. If you mean Libertarian Party (capital-L libertarian, aka anti-government), no doubt Max is correct. But if you mean someone who believes in personal liberty (a la John Stuart Mill, in a broad sense, a small-l libertarian), then he may fit the bill after all.
I hate the way LP (that's Libertarian Party, not Lou Proyect) has appropriated a perfectly good word and pressed it into the service of their non-libertarian (small-l), pro-business, and anti-government ideology. Orwell would appreciate the irony.
Brett