The Libertarian Vote and Republican Prospects

CATO ^ | David Boaz and David Kirby

[Aetius]

That the govt should get out of marriage is a separate matter. I'm sure you can make some good arguments on behalf of your position, but the idea that IF the people decide to give state recognition to traditional marriage, THEN they must also do the same for homosexual couples is absurd, and one can only arrive at it if they buy into the 'living Constitution' method of constitutional interpretation which has yielded a whole host of ludicrous Sup Court decisions.

[WhiteGuy]

I'm guessing they mean gay marriage.


Stop guessing, you're probably way-off.

Isn't it possible that libertarian-leaning Americans simply place a higher value on the fiscal responsiblity of our elected officails and far less value on the attempted micro-management of free citizens lives?

geuss at whatever makes you feel good, and tell yourself that any other point of view is wrong..........

[mugs99]

In a nutshell...Let the states decide.
Gay marriage is not an issue that affects me.
Gays take no liberty from me.
Gays do not endanger me or mine.

Abortion is not an issue that affects me.
Abortion is an issue between a woman and her God. She takes no right from me. She does not endanger me or mine.

Religion and politics don't mix. The religious should leave their religion in the church and stop making a federal issue out of everything.
.

[DesScorp]

"At some 13 percent of the electorate"

That's blatant crap. They have nowhere near that many people.

[tpaine]

As a nation, we have elevated protections based on race and religion to the Constitutional level, so one can make a case for federal intervention (leaving aside the whole debate about the Incorporation Clause of the 14th Amendment).
At no point, however, have the people consciously given consent to the idea that issues at the center of the Culture War rate as inalienable rights beyond democratic/popular control.

In the 14th Amendment the people consciously gave consent to the idea that life, liberty, or property cannot be denied without due process..

Justice Harlan recognized:     
"-- The full scope of the liberty guaranteed by the Due Process Clause `cannot be found in or limited by the precise terms of the specific guarantees elsewhere provided in the Constitution.
This `liberty´ is not a series of isolated points pricked out in terms of the taking of property; the freedom of speech, press, and religion; the right to keep and bear arms; the freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures; and so on.
  It is a rational continuum which, broadly speaking, includes a freedom from all substantial arbitrary impositions and purposeless restraints . --"

Thus, -- "issues at the center of the Culture War" do indeed rate as inalienable rights beyond democratic/popular control.
They are protected by due process of Constitutional law from arbitrary and purposeless impositions..

Well, then you favor the absurd 'living Constitution' method of constitutional interpretation,

Not true. -- I favor the Original Meaning approach, whereby the Constitution means now what it was understood to mean when ratified and given consent to by the people. - This includes the 14th Amendment.

which gives judges almost unlimited power to reshape society according to their will. I favor the Original Meaning approach, whereby the Constitution means now what it was understood to mean when ratified and given consent to by the people.
The 14th was primarily passed to deal with former slaves and racial concerns; to say it now somehow contains a right to abortion, or right to have a homosexual relationship recognized by the state, or whatever other fantasy rights you can think of is ludicrous.

You are jumping to ludicrous conclusions. Calm yourself.

To say that judges should be able to substitute their idea of what 'liberty' means

Never said that.

for that of society is to give judges more power than was ever intended.

"Society", majority rule - gets to define "what 'liberty' means"?
Neither a majority, nor judges, have that power. -- We the people have never delegated that power to ANY level of gov't.

I don't know what quoting Justice Harlan is supposed to prove, unless your intent was to pick a 'conservative' justice who favored an expansive interpretation of the 14th Amendment. So what? He got that wrong. Even superior justices like Scalia don't get it right all the times.

Harlen argues for our 1st, 2nd, 4th & 5th Amendment rights. - He got it wrong?? -- Unbelievable...

And besides, Harlan also said; ---"These decisions give support to a current mistaken view of the Constitution and the constitutional function of this court. This view, in a nutshell, is that every major social ill in this country can find its cure in some constitutional principle and that this court should take the lead in promoting reform when other branches of government fail to act. The Constitution is not a panacea for every blot upon the public welfare nor should this court, ordained as a judicial body, be thought of as a general haven of reform movements.---"
Who knows how he would have ruled on Roe had he made it longer, or marriage today, with such views which seem contradictory.
Not one provision of the Constitution, including the 14th's Due Process, was ever conceived of, ratified with, or given consent to with the idea that it in any way applies to things like abortion or gay marriage. So who says that 'liberty' demands a right to abortion? Who says that 'liberty' demands the state give to homosexual couples the same status and recognition it gives to traditional marriage? Who says these are inalienable rights?

Unbelievable again.. Life, liberty & property are not inalienable rights, according to Aetius..

As Scalia would say, there is no support for such ridiculous claims either in the actual text of the Constitution, or the tradition of our nation and its laws.

Scalia would never deny that life, liberty & property are inalienable rights.

So where do you get that its

I 'get it', from the wording of the 14th Amendment.

for the Sup Court to say otherwise.

The Sup Court doesn't say otherwise.

In doing so, they are substituting their will for sound judgement. The inability of past generations to predict how judges would twist their words and intent beyond all recogntion does not in any way stand as an endorsement for such outrageous behavior from the Court.

I'm not endorsing any such outrageous behavior from the Court.

Saying that your preferred policies are somehow enshrined in the Constitution in your absurdly open-ended (and judicially-defined) view of 'liberty' is nothing more than a way to justify an unjustified Court imposition of what can't be properly won through the legitimate democratic channels. It is such an elitist, arrogant mindset that has led to the Culture War. If those holding such elitist leftwing views were content to have their utopia in the few areas where they actually enjoy public support, then the national public discourse would be a lot less contentious. But you can't do that, can you? No, you have to go and impose your values on all of us who are not so enlightened, and you rationalize it by telling yourself that you are doing the Constitution's bidding. I'm sure the Left gets a tremendous amount of smug satisfaction out of sticking it to red states in such a manner, but it still lacks any Constitutional merit or justification.

Quite the rant. -- Get some rest & cool off. I'd suggest that in any further replies, you address what I've actually written instead of what you imagine I've posted.

[DesScorp]

"Some how I think the loss of one tenth of one percent went unnoticed."

Libertarians are to Conservatives what the Green Party is to Liberals. Much sound and fury but normally little impact.

[RedStateRocker]

"If you favor gay marriage, abortion rights, etc, then fine, but do the honorable thing and make the case for them"...

Respectfully, I believe that the case for ANY restriction of individual actions can only be made on the basis of those actions having an effect on someone else against their will. IOW even if 99 percent of the people consider something foul and disgusting, that, alone, is not a good enough reason for it to be made illegal.

The constitution explicitly gives all rights to the states that it does not, itself, enumerate. I don't see where, in the constitution, defining marriage or making substances illegal are authorities given to the fedgov.

I know people who are just as disgusted with the idea of other people owning guns, and just as strident about preventing same, as I or any other freeper could be about male/male paring. And in some cities those anti gunners are an absolute majority. The beauty AND 'horror' of our constitution, in its most libertarian possible interpretation, is that the degree of reprehension felt by ANY party not DIRECTLY, PHYSICALLY affected by said situation simply does not matter. IF gays bug you, move to Montana; if guns bug you move to San Francisco:-).

Just my .02 - there is a difference, often missed on this board, between being broadminded and just not caring. *I* don't CARE about homosexuals. "Broadminded" people are concerned with 'equality', tolerance, diversity. Others, like me, just don't CARE. Like someone else's choice of religion - I don't want to know. Abortion is nearly always the wedge issue for Libertarians; the watershed being, of course, is it person or a lump of cells; persons deserve the full protection of the state, you can do anything you want to with a clump of cells.

[Aetius]

Then why did they use the words 'social intolerance'? What else could it mean?

[Aetius]

You say 'let the states decide', to which I reply...fine. That's fine by me. But your first response to me seemed to suggest you favor the intervention of the Sup Court into these state matters.

[Aetius]

In the end, I'd be happy to let the states decide, even though I know it would mean eventual defeat in many places. I'm happy to have it so that people vote with their feet as you suggest. Its the other side that is unwilling to allow such a compromise with their tactics of using the Courts to impose nationally what can only be won legitimately in a few states.

And so long as judicial supremacy persists, then one cannot genuinely claim to favor letting the states decide unless they also favor putting judges on the bench who are inclined to let the states decide. That is why so much of the Democrat talk of states rights is phony.

[Mojave]

They're losers, not Losers.

[mugs99]

You say 'let the states decide', to which I reply...fine. That's fine by me. But your first response to me seemed to suggest you favor the intervention of the Sup Court into these state matters.

The Supreme Court is already involved in all matters. The Supreme Court has become the tyrant Brutus warned us about in the anti federalist papers.

The Supreme Court is not going to let the states decide these issues because that would weaken federal control. The Commerce Clause is now the law of the land and can be used to decide all issues.

Any specific case the court sends back to the states, like abortion, can be revisited by the government under the Commerce Clause. That gives the government a loop hole to end run the Constitution on everything. It's all smoke and mirrors.
. .

[tpaine]

In a nutshell...Let the states decide.
Gay marriage is not an issue that affects me.
Gays take no liberty from me.
Gays do not endanger me or mine.
Abortion is not an issue that affects me.
Abortion is an issue between a woman and her God. She takes no right from me. She does not endanger me or mine.
Religion and politics don't mix. The religious should leave their religion in the church and stop making a federal issue out of everything.

mugs99


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You say 'let the states decide', to which I reply...fine. That's fine by me.

Aetius


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Is it 'fine' when State & local governments decide to infringe on our RKBA's? -- The USSC is allowing 'state rightists' to ignore the 2nd in Calif, Chicago, NYC, etc. -- Because they also allow Congress to ignore it by using the Commerce Clause as a license to prohibit most anything.

Our enemy is a gov't ~at all levels~ that is out of control. -- The only provision in the Constitution that can bring fed/state/local governments back in control is in demanding strict enforcement of the 14th, as written.

Prohibitions [of any type] on life, liberty, or property violate due process of [constitutional] law.

Reasonable regulations can be written by reasonable men [preferably at the local level using State Constitutions] on most of the problems outlined by Muggs.. Others are addressed in the BOR's/US Constitution. -- We the People must see that both are enforced.

[mugs99]

We the People must see that both are enforced.

I agree.
.

[jmc813]

"President Bush is not conservative..."

LOL! And LP'ers, big or little are?

The is no such thing as a small-l LP'er, in fact it is an oxymoron. Anyhow, I consider myself a small-l libertarian conservative. I'm pro-life, pro-small government, am an absolutionist on firearm rights, and vigorously support the military. Would you not consider me to be a conservative?

[jmc813]

Which would explain why he fought the war on drugs far more vigorously then any other President.

And that distinction belongs to Clinton, not Reagan.

[evilmuppet]

Does it really matter whether Reagan or Clinton was a bigger drug warrior? Still not very libertarian of either of them. Reagan was a putz to suggest that Libertarianism is the heart of conservativism. It is nothing of the sort. Clinton was worse? Reagan was terrible in this regards and expanded the drug war considerably. Reagan also got some pretty bad laws passed such as those giving military equipment to police departments to fight drugs and I think he was also partly responsible for the use of civil asset forfeiture in fighting drugs. No, Reagan was an enemy of freedom just as much as Clinton was. Reagan just talked more like one of us.