Conservatives should embrace the values of limited government. This should include limiting the intrusion of government into personal behavior, which is to say the libertarian value.
If progress is to be made in the moral sphere, it will be made through persuasion and development of morals-friendly social institutions, such as churches or groups of concerned citizens. But the first impulse of these institutions must not be to legislate morality, because then we are right back where we started.
It seems puzzling to me that conservatives rightly believe that government cannot achieve anything in the commercial sector and have a healthy skepticism about the power of regulation, but somehow suppose the government will be effective in legislating morality.
This is just something the government is not very good at. If we fight on this battlefield, we will lose, over and over again. I suspect the people who want to fight these fights just want to build electoral coalitions. But that is not a sufficient reason.
Well said. Conservatism is definitely not embracing limited government at this time. If you want to improve someones morals better to convert them to Christianity than to expect the government to do the job.
A lot of truth in your statements too. Morality can only be achieved by the citizen on an individual basis. A nation of immoral people is doomed; using the government to try to enforce morality only delays the inevitable.
That's because society itself has a vested interest in preventing individuals from acting in a way which harms other individual members of society, and the stability of our commonwealth as a whole. The term "legislating morality" is a pseudo-nomer - meaning it is a term which sounds like it is being properly used, but which yet is not. It makes it sounds like morality is being positively legislated - i.e., the evil theocrats are running around passing laws saying you have to do such and such. Instead, what we see is negative legislation - people being restrained FROM activities, not being compelled TO them. This restrain, however, is legitimate because people are NOT free to engage in behaviours which harm others. We can see this for obvious examples such as murder or robbery, but many (i.e. libertarians) miss it for other activities like drug use which, while not perhaps being as overt, are yet destructive and corrosive to the lives of individuals and the cohesiveness of our commonwealth as a whole.
"Limited government" does not mean "no government". Government is properly limited to keeping individual members of society from harming other members - i.e. an arbitrative role.
Libertarians need to learn that their bumper sticker slogans no longer have any force or value. They need to get serious about actually defending what they believe, and provide justifications for why they think we ought to allow drugs (or pornography, abortion, or whatever else you choose to name) , rather than just whining abut social conservatives being "theocrats" or "communists" (actually had some fool call me that yesterday on the porn thread!).
That is probably why we have to make the distiction between CONSERVATIVES and SOCIAL CONSERVATIVES. Social conservatives believe in many of the things "CONSERVATIVES" do, the difference is we care about the CULTURE too. And in some cases, as mine, I care even more about social values over everything else, even fiscal values and other variations.
I became a Republican (I am an independent now), because I was under the assumption that REPUBLICANS (most of them, 70% at least) cared about the culture. Now that I know this is not true, I am no longer a Republican. The problem is many people like me, still believe the Republican party stands for our values and so they still call themselves Republicans. But I think it's time to smell the coffee and debunk this myth? and start considering other options.
The gov. can't help but legislate morality there is no way around it.
That being the case your argument collapses.
Presumably you agree government should outlaw theft and murder -- despite the fact that they involve personal behavior, morals, and are in fact part of the ten commandments (and thus are "religious" laws).
Whose morality is being legislated is the question? As for me and my house, I would rather follow the morality of our Creator (proven correct time and again) than the morality of man (proven defective time and again).
There are those who would say, "Yeah, but look at all the harm caused by religion"..................and I would say, "In every case, it has been when man perverts religion". This is why a government where the people actually have a voice is the best we can do on this earth. Where the people do not have a voice, or when it is suppressed, dictatorships emerge, even religious dictatorships.
God knows best.....man always falls short........the founding fathers knew this simple truth, and modeled our laws, federal, state and local thusly.