Libertarians = Small gov. democrats? Or what? (vanity)

www.lp.org | Oct. 4th, 2010 | Celtic Cross

[Celtic Cross]

Recently, I was considering becoming a member of the Libertarian Party. I admit I knew little about the party, except that they are for smaller government. I visited their website, and this is what I found...

This, regarding immigration.

The party's views of gay unions and abortion are as follows;

"Sexual orientation, preference, gender, or gender identity should have no impact on the government's treatment of individuals, such as in current marriage, child custody, adoption, immigration or military service laws. Government does not have the authority to define, license or restrict personal relationships. Consenting adults should be free to choose their own sexual practices and personal relationships."

"Recognizing that abortion is a sensitive issue and that people can hold good-faith views on all sides, we believe that government should be kept out of the matter, leaving the question to each person for their conscientious consideration."

I know that there are many libertarians here on FR, and I would appreciate it if they weighed in. How can you affiliate yourselves with a party that at least appears to disagree with many basic conservative principles?

[JDW11235]

I agree. And to comment on just this point:

“Your statements that laws can’t make bad people good, so we don’t need laws, is not logical.”

I don’t think we don’t need any laws, I do conclude, that we need very, very few laws to protect people. Take reckless endangerment (driving). That applies to all forms, yet prosecutors get reckless endangerment, no texting, drunk driving, and on and on there are dozens, if not hundreds of laws to compund this. This isn’t the best example, but more and more there are laws being added to laws in order to give prosecutors more options to try and fill judicial coffers, than actually do the general public any good (I am against texting while driving/drunk driving, etc., I’m just saying the one law is sufficient: distracted driving). If it results in a death, well there’s a law for that too, we don’t need dozens of classifications to pick and choose and plead through.

But going back, I don’t think that there is no need of laws. I do think there should be far fewer laws if someone is not directly harming another person, but that would take a whole other thread to expound on. Like I said, I do agree, perhaps I didn’t articulate well, here’s the kicker: if we had representative government, just as you said, “Each State should be free from FedGov interference to make the laws its citizens and representatives see fit to enact. If someone doesn’t like their State’s laws, they can try to change them, or move to another State they like better.” In that scenario, the people could split up into their modern day equivalents of Zion and Sodom and deal with the consequences of the laws of their representative population’s choosing, complete with laws they choose to put on their books. Then everyone wouldn’t have to be subject to the whim of a few Federal (or State, even, as they could move) officials.

[Dead Corpse]

Yeah... Not today.:-)

[Dead Corpse]

Agreed. I shouldn't be arguing with those who have such an obviously impaired view of reality.

"You cannot teach a pig to sing. It makes you look silly and it annoys the pig."

Bye-bye little piggy.

[tacticalogic]

Actually, it's not necessary for him to do anything -- if the tag team doesn't have any actual material, they'll just make stuff up (e.g. Messages 342-347, above).

I've never seen anyone banned over some else's false allegations. Ideological clensing is hard work, and it's not made any easier if the purgee won't cooperate.

[Sakity Yaks]

Regular Libertarians think that no level of government should set any curbs any social or moral evil.

Nonsense. Libertarians are distinguished from anarchists in that the former believe that government has a legitimate function in defending the rights of individuals against the moral and social evils of force and fraud.

Limiting government to these functions has a number of advantages:

1. It enables fiscal conservatism by restraining the activity, and hence the spending, of government.

2. It allows government to actually function efficiently by focusing it on its core competencies.

3. It encourages social and political stability.

The first two are fairly straightforward and obvious, but the third calls for a bit more commentary.

There has never been much controversy about prohibiting theft and assault, because there is a practically universal consensus that people do not want to be robbed or attacked. When government expands, fungus-like, beyond this sphere, divisive political sectarianism arises.

Such problems arise in areas beyond the proper function of government even when they appear to be the subject of firm consensus. When the consensus is not rooted in the universal desire to protect basic rights to one's person and property, it can erode surprisingly fast. Take, for example, the case of gay marriage:

If traditionalists had had the wisdom to keep marriage separate from the state, this change of public opinion would be irrelevant -- as long as one's own church rejects gay marriage, the views of others could be ignored. (If one's church changes its position, one can of course find a new church.) Having gotten marriage and state entangled, traditionalists are now in a bind, fighting a rearguard action against hostile trends (though there is still time to salvage the situation by directing political energies toward the disentanglement of marriage and state).

That's the underlying problem with relying on the sword of the state. Live by the sword, die by the sword.

[ansel12]

Libertarian Party 2010 Platform

1.4 Abortion

Recognizing that abortion is a sensitive issue and that people can hold good-faith views on all sides, we believe that government should be kept out of the matter, leaving the question to each person for their conscientious consideration.

[Dead Corpse]

We believe that government should be kept out of the matter instead of keeping it legal via judicial fiat vs Roe V Wade in contravention of the enumerated powers listed in the Constitution.

You really aren't very good at this.

[ansel12]

It means that no government, at any level, can interfere with the individual woman's natural "right" to have an abortion.

It means zero restrictions, zero restraints, zero limits, zero input put from any government.

"we believe that government should be kept out of the matter, leaving the question to each person for their conscientious consideration."

[ansel12]

LOL, do conservatives have a better chance of keeping marriage defined normally through the law, as they have done since our founding, or depending on the congregation at the “Church of gay love and marriage” to define marriage?

[ansel12]

Fine, let the libertarians drop all of the social leftism until conservatives and libertarians can recreate the economic fantasy first, once we reduce government, eliminate all the programs and so on, and get us back to 1790 America economically and government wise, then we look at the libertarian issues of the gay agenda and abortion.

That sounds more fair, since supposedly the libers only want all the social leftism and open borders in that perfect America described, surely not in the reality of the America that we have today.

Let us change the libertarian order of “change”. First eliminate all government programs by persuading the voters to vote to return to America of 1790, once we accomplish all that, which shouldn’t take long, then we vote on the social part of the liber agenda.

[Sakity Yaks]

let the libertarians drop all of the social leftism

Already done -- "get the government out of it" drops all social leftism.

[Sakity Yaks]

Well, then let me be a little clearer. I'm not going to let your juvenile badgering suck me into answering a loaded question. If I say we go with that list, you make that an implicit admission that you are right. If I say no, you will charactize it as saying we should support the opposite of those things. The question of where the legitimate government authority to address it gets sidestepped. Heads, you win. Tails, I lose.

LOL -- a hundred posts later, and it's back to the same old tactic with a different opponent, on the apparent assumption that the second opponent is too stupid to remember back that far.

[Dead Corpse]

To you maybe. But then we’ve already proven you are insane.

[tacticalogic]

They didn’t bring the “variety pack” bait bucket.

[ansel12]

You ignored the thrust of that post.

You get the voters to return the government back to 1790 first, then we will discuss your open borders and abortion, and homosexual agenda.

[Sakity Yaks]

They didn’t bring the “variety pack” bait bucket.

Well, they do have the twin pack: "change the subject" and "accuse the other guy of being a troll".

[tacticalogic]

First eliminate all government programs by persuading the voters to vote to return to America of 1790,

Were your own tactics used against you, that statement would be used to accuse you of advocating a return to slavery.

[Ransomed]

“do conservatives have a better chance of keeping marriage defined normally through the law, as they have done since our founding, or depending on the congregation at the “Church of gay love and marriage” to define marriage?”

Marriage isn’t defined by the state, although statists and homosexualists are glad that many think it does, else they would have no power to punish if one disagrees with their ever mutating definition of marriage.

Freegards

[ansel12]

Marriage isn’t defined by the state,

Read my quote “do conservatives have a better chance of keeping marriage defined normally through the law, as they have done since our founding,"

Marriage has always been defined in the Judeo/Christian world, in America, marriage has always been defined as between a man and a woman, and it has always been limited to that, it has never been open to individual definition.

Now that libertarianism/leftism has led to a splintering, and breakdown of American culture, the libertarian/leftist/homosexual agenda has taken hold in several states, we cannot have a 50 state patchwork of what "marriage" is.

A married couple has to be able to be recognized as married anywhere on American soil.

[Sakity Yaks]

we cannot have a 50 state patchwork of what "marriage" is

We have always had that. Ages, degree of permitted blood relationship, etc, have varied from state to state (and before that from colony to colony) from the beginning.