Hi there. My name's Dominic. I don't know you, dear reader, and you don't know me, but hopefully we can both get to know each other. Or some other sentimental crap like that.

Seeing as this is my first post for NZB3, I thought I would spend it in examination what I believe; something that's a lot harder to do than I thought. I must say I'm somewhat intimidated by Rick's torrent of posts so far. I was intending to reply to some of his points, but without an introduction anything I could have said would have seemed, to me at least, impertinent. Ah well, this should put things right.

By way of full disclosure: I'm a paid up member of the New Zealand Labour Party. One of those filthy social democrats who just can't quite get the beauty of the whole pure-clean Libertarian philosophy into their thick skulls. But I'll tell you what: I try my darn tootin' hardest to understand whatever political arguments are thrown my way, and if they're good enough I'll be convinced. Problem is, I'm convinced they won't be good enough. See, my political position isn't a result of some deep-down inexpressable belief. Rather, it's the simple sum of what I see and what I value. There's nothing stopping me from being of any other political persuasion — I'm not SocDem because it feels good (it does, but that's beside the point).

And anyway, I believe the gulf between modern Socialism and Libertarianism is smaller than an advocate of either group would admit publically. That, mind you, is for another post.

Next post:

• RMS, not ESR.
• John, not Paul.