To: jargon-helpers@ccil.org
From: Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org>
Date: Thu, 12 Jun 2003 10:03:49 -0400
Subject: http://catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/politics.html
Reply-To: rms@gnu.org
Message-Id: <E19QSg9-0003Qi-BW@fencepost.gnu.org>

Regarding this text in http://catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/politics.html:

    Politics
    Formerly vaguely liberal-moderate, more recently
    moderate-to-neoconservative (hackers too were affected by the collapse
    of socialism).

There's no rational connection between the collapse of Russian
Communism (which was not really socialism) and one's evaluation of
Liberalism.  The Communist system was a dictatorship.  Liberalism
advocates a welfare state and civil liberties.

I won't claim that hackers are perfectly rational, but do we want to
assert they are irrational?

I do not know the views of most hackers in the US, but I certainly
meet a number of hackers who are associated with the antiglobalization
movement and are left-wing.  Meanwhile, in Europe and South America I
find that many hackers are left-wing.  The statement that they
are mainly right-wing does not seem to be true globally.



To: "Eric S. Raymond" <esr@thyrsus.com>
From: Nick Moffitt <nick@zork.net>
Cc: jargon-helpers@ccil.org
Date: Thu, 12 Jun 2003 12:51:35 -0700
Subject: Re: http://catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/politics.html
User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.4i
In-Reply-To: <20030612193328.GA31669@thyrsus.com>
Message-Id: <20030612195135.GB31253@zork.net>
References: <E19QSg9-0003Qi-BW@fencepost.gnu.org> <20030612152523.GK21400@zork.net> <20030612193328.GA31669@thyrsus.com>

begin  Eric S. Raymond  quotation:
> Nick Moffitt <nick@zork.net>:
> > 	Eric, what sample is the above assertion based on?
> 
> Reading lots of weblogs.  

	That's pretty funny.

-- 

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