Dear Mario, It's a well-known fact that US Conservatives try to claim as their own, heros that most certainly don't belong to them. They do this by adding words like compassionate and modern in front of the word Conservative. But to claim John Mill as one of their own is stretching the truth a bit too far.
I don't claim to know John Mill's writing in any measure of depth. Infact, I just knew that one quote from him. Much like you, I googled him and read about him. John Mill was an acclaimed liberal thinker of him time. He hated conservatives and any form of conservatism. As per your reference to his economic philosophy, since when was being "laissez-faire", a conservative monopoly? Infact, the word liberal in its earlier connotations referred to "liberal" economists, who advocated minimal government interference in capitalist ventures. Again it is only in the US, where liberals are associated with the Democratic party; that one associates liberals with trade unions and other forms of government contrivance. In India for instance both the Congress and the BJP are for the "liberalisation" of the economy. You certainly wouldn't call the BJP or the Congress liberals in other spheres of their politics. Infact some of India's liberal thinkers come from the Communist party. Definitions are often skewed but this much I know that John Mill would have his stomach churned if he were in anyway associated with the US connotation of the word. The Conservative Republican in the US, in my opinion, singlehandedly will set American back a few decades in terms of its thinking, ideology and not to mention its geopolitics. And John Mill would have had nothing to do with them. Elisabeth ---------------------------------------- --- Mario Goveia <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > I have no idea if John Mill really said what > Elisabeth > says he said, but on the off chance that readers may > mistake John Mill for a modern political liberal, > the > following are some encyclopedic excerpts to show > that > John Mill was in every sense a modern political > conservative-libertarian in the mold of Ronald > Reagan: > > > 1. In the following year he was introduced to > political economy and studied Adam Smith and David > Ricardo with his father--ultimately completing their > classical economic view of factors of production. > > > 2. One foundational book on the concept of liberty > was > "On Liberty", about the nature and limits of the > power > which can be legitimately exercised by society over > the individual. > > > 3. Mill's main economic philosophy was one of > laissez > faire. > > > 4. Many cadets at the U.S Air Force Academy best > remember him for the following quotation, which is > required memorization for all fourthclassmen. "War > is > an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The > decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic > feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is > much > worse. The person who has nothing for which he is > willing to fight, nothing which is more important > than > his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and > has no chance of being free unless made and kept so > by > the exertions of better men than himself." > > > Mario. > > __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com _____________________________________________ Do not post admin requests to the list. Goanet mailing list (Goanet@goanet.org)