Otherwise, there would be as much unanymity and agreement in the former as there is in the latter.

Oh yes, there is some general agreement on broad questions, like democracy is better than dictatorship and slavery is wrong. But even opinion on those "obvious" issues has progressed in fits and starts through history. The ancient Romans and Greeks would not have accepted our opinions on those institutions, and we are certainly no smarter than they were.

No TB, the only reason you insist on the desperate fantasy of Objectivity of Political Thought is because you use it to justify your own narrow and provincial prejudices. And you only succeed in justifying it to yourself. You've made little progress at converting many of us here on this board. If your truths were truly demonstrable, you would have demonstrated them, right? Or are we all incapable of your icy logic and razor-sharp objectivity? Or maybe we're all just brainwashed by statist and socialist ideas. Every single one of us. Tom, people who think with that much certainty and absolutism are not to be taken seriously.

If political and economic theory could be reduced to axioms and theorems demonstrable through formal analysis, then we would all be in agreement. As it is, the only people who believe it is possible to scientifically evaluate political theory, the ones who believe they could prove their philosophies of government, have been precisely the ones that have led us to Lenin, Stalin, Mussolini, Franco, Hitler, Pol Pot, Mao, Castro, and all the rest. Read their manifestos, Perfectly logical and reasonable, not only to them, but to their followers, as well.

You're wrong on this, even if you are in some pretty impressive company.