[Dragaera] Liberals

[Jerry Friedman via Dragaera]

> From: Philip Hart via Dragaera <dragaera at lists.dragaera.info>
>
>On Sun, 9 Nov 2014, Jerry Friedman via Dragaera wrote:
>
>> The recent mentions of social justice at our author's blog have made me 
>> notice that there are no liberals in Dragaera.  Nobody renounces their 
>> House and marches with the Teckla, we hear nothing about any wealthy 
>> sympathizers funding Kelly, there's no Eastern Martin Luther King, 
>> nobody says, "Though we must deplore the rioters' methods, the riots are 
>> a clarion call for justice that the Empire cannot ignore."  Have I 
>> missed something?
>

>Mostly a quibble,

I can hardly object to quibbling.

> but isn't Paarfi's perspective liberal?

Maybe we mean something different by liberal.  I mean someone in favor of
more or less the U.S. Bill of Rights, and social and legal reforms to help
the poor and the victims of prejudice.  (I think.)

Paarfi shows us comically brave and clever Teckla, but he seems to take it
for granted that the Teckla should have the lowest status, and he seems
uninterested in reform.

> Don't Dzur 
>fight for Teckla and Easterners when their swords are sharp?

Yes, but not for the rights of Tecklas and Easterners in general.  (As far
as we know.  I feel that in /Phoenix/ there was a Dzur or two fighting the
Phoenix Guard, but only because mowing down Teckla is unsporting.)


> Wouldn't >one expect the Iorich to make the statement you suggest, and we'd know 

>about it if Vlad met one and discussed the topic?

Maybe so.  As you've seen, Steven has said there are people like the ones I
was thinking of, and I wouldn't be surprised if some were Iorich.

> With the Cycle where >it is, and 200 kyears of history on the books, there may for that matter 
>not be a lot to say.  (Here I'm thinking a bit of LeGuin's _The 
>Dispossessed_ and the statement at the end by the Hainish man that they 
>have tried everything over millennia and nothing works.)


I'd forgotten that.  But I get the impression that a lot doesn't get tried
on Dragaera.  The only example I can think of is that apparently no one
has tried making drugs illegal till Greycat's abortive attempt in TPG.  (Or
if someone has, it's been forgotten, which amounts to the same thing.)

Also, much has changed since the Interregnum, including the presence of
large numbers of Easterners in the Empire.


Jerry Friedman