[Cicero]

Yes. What I’ve been saying here for years. Social conservatives need to understand the market and libertarian principles. Charity involves people helping other people, it does not involve letting the government take over, because they will inevitably use human “welfare” as a means of collecting votes, and even of encouraging stupid immoral behavior, which will result in more voters trapped on their political plantation.

And libertarians need to understand the necessity of moral rules and behavior. Without religion to impart morality and encourage solid families and communities, society breaks down into chaos. One cannot say too often that there is a necessary choice: there must be either freely chosen self-discipline, or discipline imposed arbitrarily by the state—which will devolve into the Gestapo.

That’s the basic principle. Also obvious in the past several elections that the leftist press does its best to split the conservative opposition and set them against each other. Libertarians seem especially subject to this maneuver. We had enough votes to win every election since the time of Reagan, but we didn’t—because the libertarians, the financial conservatives, and the social conservatives just couldn’t agree to work together.

Now, I’m not sure. I think we still have enough conservatives to win if only they would get their heads out of the sand and join forces—but the battlefield is getting tougher and tougher. And the Democrats have continually beefed up their ability to cheat at the polls and use crazy, crooked judges to bend the law.

[Smokin' Joe]

It's bloody difficult when social conservative small 'l' libertarians are hammered by the very people they would work with as wackos and 'paultards' and resoundingly decried for pointing out such simple facts as there is nothing in the US Constitution that provides for regulating anything (including food) that an adult willingly consumes, nor the building of ANY nation--except fostering an environment where we can build our own.

Geeez, that kind of talk will have one decried as a drug addled code pinko moral degenerate in a Noo Yawk second.

Without adherence--strict adherence--to original intent, the public coffers are laid bare, the door to despotism is flung wide, and Liberty is in chains.

That Liberty, I will say again, is not the freedom from responsibility, but the freedom to be responsible.

When I choose to give to the poor, that is charity, when the government takes from me at gunpoint and gives to the poor, that is coercion. Coercion and Christian charity cannot coexist, because charity is freely deciding to give.

The Almighty gave mankind free choice, the freedom to decide whether we, as individuals, would serve Him. Excessive government removes that choice.