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To: Owl558
But as conservatives point out to them time and time again, the other 1/2 of libertarian ideology (+ the party) embraces some of the most un-conservitive destructive social policies that conservastives believe it is possible to take ... You guys get to call yourself whatever you want, right, but are you really even “libertarian”?

So you are the arbiter of what libertarianism is? The basic principle of libertarianism is inherently domestic: property rights, and citizen A does not have the right to tell citizen B what they can or cannot do unless citizen B is taking or harming someone else's property. You are assigning a particular foreign policy on libertarianism, when it is not really part of libertarianism. I consider a policy of strong defense and general non-interference to be both libertarian and conservative. I also consider a strict immigration policy, that is rigorously enforced, to be very much libertarian. You may disagree, but no-one is really the unquestioned arbiter of such things.

As far as social policy is concerned, all of this is in a sense hypothetical. If we hadn't had the assault on traditional values and religious institutions, our society would be capable of handling freedom. But the effect of a long war on these values and institutions has left a society prone to decay. Here is where political philosophy has to be tempered by practical considerations. While I am a libertarian conservative, and therefore oppose drug laws philosophically, removing drug laws would have a net negative effect, because society can no longer handle that type of freedom. Maybe if we can somehow get back to a point where the vast majority of people were trained in how to be civilized, then we can revisit the issue. But until then, such discussions are moot. Of all of the forces assaulting the concept of personal liberty, this is the most trivial, anyway.
163 posted on 09/03/2013 1:49:35 PM PDT by jjsheridan5
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To: jjsheridan5

“As far as social policy is concerned, all of this is in a sense hypothetical.”

See my #1 below. You are performing true to form. Abortions are not “hypothetical”.

“Every time a conservative calls this out, libertarians on this site either pretend that the social stuff is invisible (downplay it), scold conservatives that they really don’t understand libertarian ideology, or become “cafeteria Catholics” and tell us how we must pick and choose our issues.


167 posted on 09/03/2013 3:19:39 PM PDT by Owl558 (Those who remember George Santayana are doomed to repeat him)
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