On SRQ it was posted:

> But I dare to hope that convinced Friends will recall
>our obligations to non violence and individual liberty.

To which I replied:

While these two values are a part of the creed of a certain type of
contemporary libertarianism, Friends have no obligation to either.
They are both at variance with the traditional Quaker discernment that
developed in the mid seventeenth century.  This is a discernment that
still survives so as to form the basis of spiritual aspiration for
some Friends, despite the workings of various impulses that have moved
others away from it, in one direction or another, through the years.

Thus it is that among those who call themselves Friends, at the
beginning of the 21st Century, there are many beliefs and one is
challenged to find some thing, any thing, that can be said to be
common to all who self identify with the Religious Society of Friends.

Some Friends have embraced political, economic and social creeds, and
the ideologies that are developed from them.  The fact that some may
do so does not create any obligation on the part of other Friends to
adopt those creeds, to conform to the orders these creeds espouse or
to abandon the guidance of the Spirit in favor of rationalistic
ideologies.   While Friends are certainly free to walk these walks it
is confusing (at least to outsiders) to refer to the creeds that
underlie them as something to which Friends in general have
obligations.  As I say, I am a loss as to what, precisely, it is that
Friends, in general, have an obligation.

The term "liberty" that was so freely used by founding Friends had an
entirely different meaning than what "individual liberty" means in the
libertarian ideology of today.  As another current thread in this
newsgroup makes clear, the definition of a word can "drift" over a
period of time.  This drift makes it possible to ascribe beliefs to
people long ago that would distort their message, even with a complete
absence of malice.

The peace testimony, as developed at the dawn of the Quaker covenant,
was not, and for some Friends still is not, a synonym for what
contemporary Americans mean by "non violence."

"Friends are not opposed to all forms of coercion.  Proper police
activities, incidental to carrying out the rightful purposes of the
state and directed solely against persons who refuse to abide by the
law, seem necessary and helpful.   From its earliest days, however,
the Society has held that war is contrary to the will of God, and it
has counseled its members to refuse to bear arms or to accept
membership in military forces."  (Faith and Practice, North Pacific
Yearly Meeting)

socialism--libertarianism--capitalism...although some Friends have
embraced these ideologies, and other ideologies, some other Friends have
continued to find unity in the traditional Quaker discernment that
there is but one, Christ, who can speak to our condition, both that
condition as it is and what it can become under the guidance and the
transformative power of God, the Spirit, the Light, The Word. 

6:53:07 AM