One of the newly-available RAW articles from "The Realist," referenced below, includes a RAW article, "Why I Voted for Michael Dukakis."
The article supplies context to the frequent assertion that Robert Anton Wilson was a libertarian. Yes, he was, but he certainly came from the "left" part of the movement.
Wilson writes, "Usually I don't vote — on the anarchist principle that it only encourages the bastards — or else I vote Libertarian, to annoy the bastards." (The Libertarian candidate in 1988 was Ron Paul, who Wilson does not mention in his article.)
Related post here.
3 comments:
Q:How would you describe yourself politically and how did you become that way?
RAW: I was born in Brooklyn in 1932, the worst year of the Great Depression. Until World War II, my father was several times unemployed and my childhood memories are of poverty and anxiety. I think this marked me permanently; although my temperament is individualistic in the extreme, I've always been a Left Libertarian rather than a Right Libertarian. I loathe Marxism because it is a religion and I detest religions and dogmas, but I find nothing pernicious in democratic socialism, even though I would prefer a syndicalist or anarchist guild system. If I were _forced_ to choose between democratic Fabian socialism and capitalism (which thank Gott I am not)I would choose the democratic socialist system.
-from an interview with Peter Belsito, p. 50, _Notes From The Pop Underground_(1984)
I've seen Wilson praise the national health care systems in European countries. But I don't see how the high rate of compulsory taxation necessary to fund a full welfare state can be reconciled with Wilson's hatred of the IRS, or the system of "voluntary taxation" he advocated when he ran for governor of California. Some of his political impulses seem to fit uneasily with others.
Hey Tom! I wrote up a little notice about your blog on OM http://tinyurl.com/2cxf9xs, "For to irrigate the Willingdone." Keep up the great work!
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