So I was sitting in a session at the PDF Conference with mostly liberals and progressives that was supposed to focus on local blogging.

The classical liberal crowd, commonly called libertarians with a small l, was in the minority. One asked a question and mentioned that he felt the problem cited in the presentation where the locals had to fight to force the city council to not change zoning in favor of a builder was less a problem of corrupt builders and politicians on city council and more a problem of the city council having too much power to choose winners and losers.

(In other words, if the city council and/or government is not given the power to choose winners and losers, and thus be easily influenced by money from rich builders, then no one has to worry about if they are or are not on the dole.)

After he made the comment, a spectator spouted "He must be a Republican."

It illustrated to me the problem with trying to have a reasonable conversation on the merits of an issue with folks who are more worried about their labels than the issues: They resort to name calling when they can't find a reasoned retort.

She probably did not think when she called the fellow a Republican that anyone who is likely to be pro drug legalization or pro peace, and anti government coercion on a zoning issue, is also likely not to be a Republican. And she also did not realize that calling a classical liberal a Republican is akin to our calling a progressive a Nazi, but I decided not to explain it to her since she showed me by making such a comment that she wouldn't get it anyway.

It also brought another difference between progressives and classical liberals home to me: I am perfectly happy to have a conversation with a progressive about issues and walk away with neither of our minds changed. On the other hand, progressives seem to go batty when I don't join their cult - they can't let me believe that freedom and individual choice will actually allow the world to prosper.