Posted on 11/07/2013 4:59:55 AM PST by Kaslin
Dead Corpse, you are just that. You have reading comprehension problems caused by jumping to conclusions that I have not stated and do not endorse.
This concludes my attempt to discuss with you, since your rage is not yet dead.
It's an obvious fact, if you look around you since the personal freedom extremists have been in power.
I do not endorse any form of theocracy such as the ones in the Middle East, or the former Holy Roman Empire, where the leaders of a religion are also the deciding power of the government. Our late Constitution allows for the will of the people to govern. If most of the people happen to have beliefs that gay marriage, for instance, is wrong for their state, their will should be allowed to hold sway from the ballot box and through their representatives. Manifestly, the imperial judiciary has shown that it believes its mandate is to overturn the will of the people. I deplore that. But that is a long way from wishing for a theocracy.
There certainly is a lot of projection on this thread about what Libertarians fear.
Libertarianism in any of the ways I’ve seen it presented is a fantasy utopian cult. If it’s not statist and it doesn’t reckon with Natural Law, then what is its ultimate guiding principle?
Like I said, being concise is good. That is what your long winded paragraphs boiled down to. Nanny State, Socialism, and myopic stupidity.
If you don’t like it, learn something and change your philosophy...
Nothing I have written states or even implies that I favor using the coercive power of the state against smoking or drinking. As for moral certainty, if a person has lived into their seventh decade and does not have any measure of moral cerainty, that person has wasted their life, and I have tried not to waste mine. Rest assured that any moral certainty on my part has been subjected to rigorous rebellion and questioning before I came to any conclusions.
My personal views of morality have little to do, however, with whether citizens of the United States should elect a libertarian government. What I do support is government "of the people, by the people and for the people"; but this concept used to be taught in schools in a positive way, stressing personal responsibility for one's actions and towards one's fellow beings -- areas in which individuals in the past considered it noble to make some sacrifices of their personal desires for the greater good, especially the good of the most vulnerable, such as children. The "state" existed for the protection of its citizens, and as such was a necessary function; it was the federal government's only function other than interstate and international commerce.
Clearly, our entire system has been grossly distorted by communist influences in education and law. I fail to see how the imposition of an abstract freedom and isolationism such as that put forward by Ron Paul can protect citizens in today's world of very concrete challenges internationally and very great vulnerability due to dependence on mass systems of communication and data-gathering. The last thing I care about is whether people smoke or not.
As for the argument between Catholicism and Protestantism and its place in the run-up to the Nazi takeover, I'm not convinced by what you have written that that particular history has strong parallels to our own at this time.
So, if you believe in libertarianism, perhaps you will lay out for me a positive view of what it has to offer, with some indication how it can work in our present situation with our huge, dumbed-down, hypersexualized, entitled and ignorant sector of the population riddled with illegals, unionists and communists. I've yet to read one.
Not just wrong; Dead wrong.
There are no “guiding principles”. It’s about enforcement of govt defined values. The statist demands govt enforcement. This is not Liberty.
Morality is differentiated by liberalism and conservatism.
That said, there is certain validity in the charge that Libertarians are depraved idiots, but that’s not a comment on the libertarian that is in strong opposition to the police state and nanny govts we’re now suffering.
I took your affirmation that the “evil” against which government is to be a terror include such things as drinking and smoking. As you now state, there are things that are wrong, but don’t rise to the level of evil that the coercive power of the state need be employed against them. I hope I said that correctly. So, I think we agree in principle.
I don’t refer to such as alcohol and drug abuse as “victimless crimes.” I call them self-victim crimes. The punishment is built right in.
As for the other part of Romans 13, praise those who are good, a Christian government is not neutral on personal morality. It uses its coercive powers to suppress evil, and it uses its moral authority to exhort us to do good.
As for the good that comes from getting things at least halfway right in terms of freedom under the rule of law, I think the tremendous increase in our standard of living that we have enjoyed since the Founding speaks for itself. On the other hand, as we have turned away from our country’s legacy during the past decade or so, the fall in our standard of living is palpable.
With freedom and self-responsibility, there is a natural reward to working, saving, being honest and fair with others, and so forth; at least in the long run. So, goodness is reinforced. But, with an entitlement society, people become lazy, imprudent, and even anti-social. Being a tad older than I am, I’d bet you would agree with me that the culture of the country has been going down the toilet. However, your are right, that drawing a parallel to the Nazi experience would be a gross exaggeration. Democratic socialism has its faults, but is not comparable.
Thank you for your patience and fairness.
Yes, you have it completely. Looks like we do agree on much.
Thank you for your reasoned reply!
Enforcing your morality at the point of a government gun, decry self interest as “selfish”, and not understanding where such policies lead in a historical context?
I’d say I nailed it pretty good.
Depraved idiots don’t last long without the force of law to protect them from the repercussions of their actions.
A lot of folks overlook that part while denigrating a philosophy of individual freedom.
I took the time to respond to you with care, and you whine about it. This is a discussion forum, not Twitter.
Making it personal (against FR's stated policies) is not only a sign that a poster has nothing of substance to add to a discussion, but that he or she falls back on the liberal's favorite trick of ad hominem attacks when they are losing an argument.
Grown ups learn to defend their ideas with reason, facts and research instead of childish snarks.
>> Depraved idiots don’t last long without the force of law to protect them from the repercussions of their actions.
Exactly.
We have a Constitutionally restricted Republic. One of the Houses of our legislative Congress was to be Representative of the public’s collective will.
We don’t have that balance any more. Your “representative government” is just another way of saying “democracy”. Something we were never meant to be.
You took the time to post a multi-paragraph screed on why you thought codifying Leviticus into law was a splendid idea.
Reasoned discourse? You aren’t interested...
The undead rears its head again.
That must be an example of those “facts and reason” you were blathering about...
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