Home Forums Miscellaneous Topics Second Amendment Is the Libertarian View Valid?

We have chosen the lesser of the two evils for so long, we can no longer tell the difference between them.

Dan

Hawk, let's go this way...
You're correct in that Hitler's NASDAP...which I think was National Allegemeine Socialischtiche Deutsche Arbeiter Partei. (Or National Social Democratic Workers Party). Yes, Hitler was a socialist.
I guess the thing is, there are "conservative" totalitarians/authoritarians and "liberal" totalitarians (now THAT's an oxyMORON) at both ends of the spectrum. Ashcroft on one end, Kuchinich on the other. They're both dangerous as hell and a good reason to keep yourself in guns and ammo.
The bottom line is they are all 8 year olds that never got over the feeling of bossing their little brothers and sisters around...which is why our public political discourses are so often at the third grade level.

Dave, they are both oxymorons in a certain sense. If we use the archaic meaning of the word "liberal," it would be oxymoronic to associate it in any way with the word "totalitarian." If we stick to modern English, however, "liberal-totalitarian" is not an oxymoron, but conservative-totalitarian is.



Broadly speaking, conservatives believe that whatever we have in our society that is good is deeply rooted in history and tradition, and that to upset institutions that developed organically is to destroy that which is good in society. Speaking more specifically of American Conservatism, we are talking about preserving traditional American liberty and values, which arose from our history and from the political thinking of the Founders, and the limited form of republicanism that they established. It also relates to preserving our religious traditions and liberties, which also itself relates to the limited government they created. American conservatism also extends, in other words, to preserving societal traditions, while preventing the use of government by radicals to destroy those traditions, and the institutions which support them. They prevent this by not giving government that much power.



Since strictly limited government cannot be used to destroy our societal traditions (being too weak regarding internal matters), conservatives wish to preserve limited, rather than create unlimited, government. Conservatives desire that governmental power remain broadly disbursed, and close to the people. Conservatives wish for lots of different kinds of small government, varying between the states, and among the states, rather than centralized gigantic government, because that way an equalibrium is preserved. That is to say, if government becomes intolerable for too many people in state A, then they can all move to state B, C or D, and State A will lose their economic base, being forced to change. Subsiderarity, in other words, is an additional check on abusive power.



None of this would tend towards the totalitarianism of which you speak, so the words conservatism and totalitiarianism do not belong in any way together. The more extreme a conservative becomes, the LESS consolidated power (i.e., totalitarianism) he would wish to see, not the more.



Ashcroft might be "dispositionally conservative," in that he likes traditional Christian values, and certain other liberties, but he is certainly no political conservative, in the American tradition. He apparently does not value limited government, which is a core aspect of authentic American conservatism. In this respect, he is a radical leftist. Leftists, by definition, wish to use the power of the state to implement their personal ideal for society, lacking respect for the notion that societal change should be organic, natural and gradual, not imposed from above. For this they need government to be powerful, unlimited in scope, and centralized. Ashcroft is one of these. He is, in this respect, a son of the French Revolution rather than the American War for Independance.

Gotta disagree with you, brother. Conservatives are not satisfied if the government merely does not destroy the societal traditions they consider important: they're not happy unless the government actively enforces those traditions. And to do that, it needs to have a lot of power.

The War On (some) Drugs, and the constellation of lost liberties that goes with it, is largely a gift from conservatives. Ditto the War On Terror, also known as Empire America, and the further violence it has done to the vision of our founders. Conservatives insist on criminalizing the possession of at least child pornography, and preferably all pornography. Conservatives would blow a gasket at the thought of getting the government out of prostitution. Conservatives have been registering on the Richter scale recently regarding the Supreme Court's ruling on the Texas sodomy law--and not for the right reasons, either. (The right reason, of course, is that the Fourteenth Amendment gives the Supremes wayyyy too much power over state laws.) And most tellingly (especially on this board), there are a lot of folks who call themselves conservatives who get all upset at the thought of Vermont(/Alaska) carry. They support the "right" to bear arms, but they need a powerful government to supervise and hand out that "right" as they dictate.

No, conservatives and liberals are both advocates of big government. Liberals need government to take away your money and control what you think and say; conservatives need government to take away your money and control what you do in private.

Have you ever taken a close look at one of those Hi-Lift bumper jacks? The main beam has a series of holes through its center, and the jack mechanism has two big pins that fit through the holes. As you move the handle one way, one of the pins is securely lodged in a hole, and the other pin moves up to the next hole and drops in. Then, when you move the handle the other way, the second pin holds while the first pin moves up to its next hole.

That's exactly the way the government uses liberals and conservatives to jack the people gradually into slavery. One pin is always in and the other pin is always out, but as power alternates between the two the government inexorably wins.

The above quote spoken by the author of "Conscience of a Conservative".

We're not really addressing one another. You're talking theory and I'm talking history.

I used to be a conservative. I remember what it was like. They say there's no saint like a reformed sinner.

What's going on here? Are we wearing each others shoes this time?



Just to add another dimension to the discussion, I would submit to you that the terms Liberal and Conservative are regional as well as reletive. What passes for conservative on the east and west coasts would be considered liberal in the inland west and south and vice versa.

[We have chosen the lesser of the two evils for so long, we can no longer tell the difference between them.]

I don't know who "we" are, but there is a world of difference between the political parties. I don't have any diffficulty telling the difference. That is the reason I vote Republican, and could not vote Dem or Lib.
The moral position of both parties insure that I could never belong to either.

Jerry

That's right. One of them is the upper bumper-jack pin, and the other is the lower. A world of difference.


The Libertarian party doesn't have a moral position. That's one of its differences. Libertarians (and libertarians) believe that morality and politics are inimical to one another, and should be kept apart.

What you may mean is that your particular morality advocates the application of preemptive coercion in certain cases, and libertarianism does not offer you the mailed fist of government to use in such pursuits the way conservatism does. However, that's a political difference rather than a moral difference.

I don't know what kind of conservative you were, Barak, but if you think authentic American conservatism is about expanding government, you were no kind of conservative in my book. You got taken by people calling themselves conservatives.



The philosophic basis for American conservatism is found in thinkers such as John C. Calhoun, who said, "If there be a political proposition universally true, one which springs directly from the nature of man, and is independent of circumstances, it is that irresponsible [i.e., unchecked] power is inconsistant with liberty, and must corrupt those who exercise it. On this great principle our political system rests."



Yeah, that sounds just like a liberal.



You have to distinguish between statists/authoritarians using the name conservative from authentic conservatives. I think you have not thoroughly enough explored authentic American conservatism, Barak, based on some of your statements. Perhaps I could recommend some books.

"The Libertarian party doesn't have a moral position."

All parties have a moral position either by design or default.
To say that "A woman has the right to choose what to do with the unborn child in her body" is a moral position, in that it supports a right to an immoral action.

To say that we should leave homosexuals to their own actions, and that government has no right to interfere is to have a position which tolerates and ignores immorality.

To support the right of prostitution is a moral position.

Those are just three moral issues which the LP accepts and therefore supports by default.
So I could never be a part of a party which encourages, by its acceptance, immoral actions.

I am not interested in arguing whether you believe the above are immoral or not. The Bible says they are, and that settles it.

Jerry

The conservative approach to these questions is that they are not matters for the federal government. The federal government, were it to operate within its intended bounds, would have nothing at all to say about any of it. They are matters for the states to determine. Some states will allow these things, some states will ban them, and some will leave it to the counties and townships to determine. This is the essence of conservatism.



Now, libertarianism would differ in that it opposes diversity in this regard. Libertarianism would like, ideally, to impose one uniform national system of enforced "liberty," as it were, rather than a system of legal diversity. Under libertarian rule, not even the states would be free to determine the propriety of prostitution, for example. The advantage of conservatism, i.e, legal and governmental diversity (aka "decentralization"), on the other hand, is that it is the approach most likely to result in the largest number of people living under the kind of government they like. These things, being decided at the local level, are more prone to being "customized" to the liking of the people in each locality. If a member of a political minority finds the laws of his locality intolerable (let's say he would like to smoke pot and/or visit a prostitute, for example), he is free to move to a state, county or township with laws more to his liking in this regard because, under conservatism, the federal government has not established a uniform national law regarding such matters, i.e., it is not one of the federal government's few and enumerated powers.



This is another way that conservatism differs from libertarianism. Libertarianism would impose its view of liberty on all, uniformly from above, while conservatism allows for, and even encourages, a diversity of laws, so long as the "rule of law" always prevails.



P.S. The alternative to the "rule of law," is the rule of men, i.e., arbitray rule. In the words of Friedrich Hayek, "Stripped of all technicalities, this [i.e., the rule of law] means that government in all its actions is bound by rules fixed and announced beforehand -- rules which make it possible to foresee with fair certainty how the authority will use its coercive powers in given circumstances and to plan one's individual affairs on the basis of this knowledge."

T R H,
[The conservative approach to these questions is that they are not matters for the federal government.]

But that approach ignores the fact that some things, such as marriage and the recognition thereof, transcends state boundries.
It is admittedly a difficult judgement call as to the degree to which the federal government gets involved, but when the decisions of the courts are such as the recent ruling on homosexual rights, then it has already gotten involved.

The federal government has the responsibility to promote the general welfare, and that is not served by such things as I have mentioned.

Governments at all levels have a moral responsibilty to promote, and to a degree enforce, moral behavior. This nation has for most of its history observed the moral code of the Bible, and has embraced the standards of Christianity.

While we as individuals have the freedom of not embracing the Christian faith, there still must be a moral code upon which laws are based.

The pursuit of liberty cannot flourish in a society which embraces or condones immoral conduct. I recognize the limitations of governments in this area, but it does not negate governments responsibility.

I again say that government does in fact teach and foster morality either by design or default. The law is a great teacher of morality. Unfortunately, with the acceptance of immorality within our nation, our laws as intrepreted by the USSC are teaching the wrong message.

Jerry

The requirement that other states must recognize lawful marriage does not in any way contradict anything I've said. To the extent that the federal government facilitates this, it is operating according to the rule of law. Read Article IV, Section One of the U.S. Constitution. I do hope you have a copy.



As to the rest, it is my conviction that Christian values and morals are superior, and societies based on them will prosper and rise to the top. Those, therefore, who substantially deviate from those values and morals within society will naturally falter. It is only when government steps out of its bounds that those who follow bad morals and values are artificially propped up and perpetuated. "Same-sex-marriage" is an outgrowth of bad morals being protected by government, and would not even be an issue today if the federal government operated within its constitutional bounds. When the federal government operated within its bounds, those with bad morals were permitted to reap what they had sown (which is ultimately both a blessing for them and for society). Most of the moral decline in America, as Barak has alluded, is directly traceable to the federal government operating out of its constitutional bounds.

That was not a ruling on homosexual rights but rather a ruling on personal liberty. Read what the Supremes wrote, not what others are saying that the Supremes ruled in that case.

As for the rest of your post, which appears to advocate a federal government mandating a state religion and making law based on the moral code expressed by that religion, you seem to be somewhat confused about what a republic is. What you are describing is a theocracy. If you prefer that form of government that's your right however if you would like to live in a theocratic state then I suggest that you move to Iran since the government there is a somewhat functioning theocracy. Or you might try the Vatican.

Government should be neither immoral nor moral but amoral. Secular law should not be based on any religious moral code but rather on practicality and common sense. Secular acts are neither just nor unjust but rather legal or illegal.

Legal and moral are not synonyms and should not be confused with each other. One defines the suggested lifestyle of a religious following and one defines what is and is not allowed in secular society.

Enforced morality is one of the quickest paths to tyranny that there is since with God on your side how can you be wrong and therefore whatever you believe and force on someone else must be right. I would much rather society make moral judgements and government make legal ones.

I was the kind of conservative who had probably heard the name Barry Goldwater somewhere before but couldn't remember in what context. I was the kind of conservative who couldn't really list the "conservative principles," but I knew that they were good, and liberal principles, whatever they were, were bad. I was the kind of conservative who dutifully went to the polls every election and voted a straight Republican ticket, never having heard of any of the candidates before except possibly the Presidential and Vice Presidential candidates.

In other words, I was the same kind of conservative that you tend to find in places like this in large numbers.

Then I met the government face to face in late 1998, and it turned me into a much better-educated, hair-on-fire activist libertarian in almost nothing flat. I was ready to go to Washington and start shooting the bastards in between three and four months, and I might well have done it if I had fallen in with the wrong crowd. Four and a half years later, I'm a bit more mature, but still a baby libertarian compared with folks like Vin Suprynowicz, Claire Wolfe, or L. Neil Smith.

If you're an advocate of what you call "authentic American conservatism," though, I hope I don't catch you voting for any Republicans--at least, not the modern crop of them.


I'm not convinced the distinction would do me much good. I understand the difference between a statist and a libertarian. I'm not interested in whether statists or libertarians call themselves conservatives or not; I'm interested in whether they want my liberties or not.


I'm sure you're right. The conservatism with which I'm familiar is that preached by successful politicians who call themselves conservatives. (I can get away with that because there aren't any successful politicians who call themselves libertarians.) Seems to me, though, that by your careful definitions of "authentic American conservatism," you must be whistling into just as strong a wind as I am for political candidates.

Barak,

Quote:

"Then I met the government face to face in late 1998"

What happened?

Blaine

See, The_Real_Hawkeye, this is what I commonly mean by conservative. Conservatives need a big government to take away your money and control what you do in private.


Have you heard a libertarian say that? I've never heard a libertarian say that. I've heard liberals say that.

You kind of picked a bad example there. There are pro-abortion libertarians, who would argue that the government has no business interfering in the relationship between a woman and her doctor, whether he's giving her medical advice, prescribing drugs, or performing abortions. But there are also anti-abortion libertarians who say that the unborn child within her is (or should be) a legal person whose life, liberty, and property is just as worthy of being defended as anyone else's--and that to the extent the government has an interest in doing that, the government has an interest in preventing abortion.


It's a simple government lie that law and morality walk hand in hand. Law and morality are mortal enemies of one another, and whenever you put them together both are corroded and one is usually destroyed. It's always been that way. Look to the Middle Ages for all sorts of examples.


If at some point you become interested in the preservation of American liberty, you're going to have to learn to think more clearly and discriminatingly than this. Stating that the government has no right to control a voluntary business transaction between consenting adults that initiates no force or fraud against anyone is not the same thing as saying that prostitution is good--any more than it's the same thing as saying that sending $200 to a televangelist for a cheap mail-order Bible with gold-edged pages is good.

As long as you keep getting concepts like that confused with one another, I'm afraid you're not going to be much help in this particular thread.

You're not comparing libertarianism with conservatism: you're comparing federalist and centrist forms of government. The axes are orthogonal.

Any form of government based on our Constitution cannot make laws regarding homosexuality, abortion, or prostitution on the national level, because of the Ninth and Tenth Amendments. Those are issues reserved to the States, or to the people. Doesn't matter whether the government is being run by libertarians or "authentic American conservatives."

Our present government is not known for its scrupulous attention to the Constitution, but you will notice that there are no federal laws against prostitution, and the "law of the land" regarding abortion is not legislation at all, but a judicial fiat.



Arguable--even with the confusion above. A libertarian scheme, on the local level, would most likely privatize most of the functions now held by government, including legislative, executive, and judicial functions. Private entities, because they must compete to survive, are much quicker and more efficient than governmental entities, which must merely confiscate more money to survive.

In an extreme case, individual neighboring households (perhaps even in the same building) might live under completely different forms of covenantal, privately-administered "government."

With the standard form of coercively-funded involuntary government, you really can't get much more granular than moderate-sized cities. Yes, there are village councils and town aldermen and so forth, but they're usually heavily dependent on the county and the state, because a small community or neighborhood doesn't provide enough tax base to support all the inefficiencies and sluggishness of a coercive government.


You mean under federalism, I assume.

Suppose there was no state, county, or township more to his liking? In a libertarian community, the same member wouldn't have to move at all. He'd simply adjust his law-enforcement contract, or perhaps hire a different law-enforcement company.


Libertarianism doesn't impose anything on any person or group of persons--unless you count the Non-Aggression Principle as an "imposition." It imposes only on the government.

I'm reminded of somebody or other (can't remember the name, but I admire the guy) who was being questioned by the Senate two or three years ago about something or other, and Joe Biden asked him, "How old does a person have to be before the Constitution applies to him?" This guy dithered momentarily in confusion and said, "The Constitution never applies to a person, Senator; the Constitution applies only to the government."

Two points to that guy.

Barak

[It's a simple government lie that law and morality walk hand in hand. Law and morality are mortal enemies of one another, and whenever you put them together both are corroded and one is usually destroyed.]
Not true. Laws are based upon a moral position. Law cannot be amoral. Some particular laws may be amoral such as what should be the speed limit, but laws in general are based upon a moral code. Who is to say that murder is wrong unless there is a moral code, which governs? No doubt you know that some societies have considered headhunting and cannibalism as legal and proper. Their laws are based upon some moral code, even though it is a wrong one. We could say the same type thing regarding stealing, lying, and many other things.

The problem with government and morality as you state is whether or not the moral base is a correct one. We, for most of our history have based our code on the principles and precepts of the Judeo/Christian ethic.

[As long as you keep getting concepts like that confused with one another, I'm afraid you're not going to be much help in this particular thread.]

On the contrary the views I have put forth have been the views of the great majority of Americans through the ages.
The LP basically advocates freedom at the expense of morality and even order. It fosters liberty without responsibility, even though you will deny that. However, the allowance of abortion is an example of freedom without responsibility.

[If at some point you become interested in the preservation of American liberty, you're going to have to learn to think more clearly and discriminatingly than this.]

Liberty can only be maintained in an atmosphere of good moral values. The crime problems, including school shootings and violence, are a direct result of the degradation of moral values in this nation.
When I was in school we could buy a gun anywhere if we had the money. I bought my first one when I was ten, and only had a 12-year-old friend with me. Why can�t I do that now? Because the violence and disregard for life has caused the misguided to blame the gun. However, they did not do so when I was a youth. As the law has defended/tolerated immorality we have lost liberty. I had rather have the liberty to walk down the street unafraid at night than to have the right to buy porno, or visit a prostitute, neither which I do anyway. Yes they are connected by lack of a moral code, which constrains evil, and promotes righteousness.

We used to be able to play at night, but not anymore. The moral view of sex and human life has changed all that. Pornography, which the Libertarians would say must be allowed in the name of liberty, is one part of that problem of rape, etc. It is a symptom of a permissive society, and the incorrect ideas of the courts as to what constitutes free speech.

I do know what this nation has been like, and it was much better in the past. When a Bill Clinton can be elected as anything, and then defended in the face of obvious cause to remove him from office, then we have about reached the bottom of the barrel. The law has fallen down.

All the rhetoric will not change the fact that the LP is out of the mainstream of Americans, and will remain so for a very long time, probably forever.

[Libertarianism doesn't impose anything on any person or group of persons.]

That very fact is an imposition on those who disagree. Carried to its logical conclusion it is anarchy. Does Libertarianism not impose a requirement to drive safely, or to refrain from drinking and driving, or to carry a 5-foot board showing people having sex? If it does, then your statement is incorrect. Maybe you would say that is a non-aggression imposition, whatever you might mean by that.

Jerry