Posted on 10/03/2010 5:59:15 PM PDT by 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...
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?
How much power do you think that you need, to impose that on conservative America?
How do you reach that set of conclusions from my attempt to explain some principles of libertarian thinking to the original poster? You have no idea what "my way" is, or if I even subscribe to the point of view I was explaining. Don't you see that it is possible to know about a point of view without necessarily adopting it?
You comment about "power" and "imposing" shows that you don't understand at all the entire premise of libertarian thinking. The key underlying idea of libertarianism is to never "impose" anything, except some minimal set of laws in order to protect people's freedom, but rather to change people's point of view through education, persuasion, etc.
In an attempt to further explain libertarian principles, isn't it the government that is principally putting the institution or marriage at risk? With the exception of a few very liberal churches, I don't see any movement by churches or the majority of people in this country to redefine marriage, or reduce its meaning in any way. In fact in practically every place where the voters have a say, they leave the institution of marriage just as it has always been. So if the government wasn't forcing same sex marriage on the society as a whole, it wouldn't really be an issue would it?
Put another way, if the definition of marriage was left up to people and churches, it would remain as it always has been, the union of a man and a woman. Sure, some small minority of people would hold differing views, but they would have no real impact on the rest of society, because their individual, personal actions would not be sanctioned by the government, and ultimately forced upon the rest of us through the legal system.
To explain that concept more fully, no doubt same sex couples throughout history have privately pledged fidelity to each other, and lived in a monogamous relationship, and lived their lives in a way analogous to how a married couple would live theirs. And clearly that choice by those individuals had little impact on society's view of marriage. Notice however that it is through the involvement of government in the issue that problems arise, and society is now faced with an attempt to re-define the meaning of a timeless human institution by judges sitting in courtrooms.
LOL, no official definition of marriage, then no marriage.
Letting “people and churches” define marriage means that everything under the sun will be called marriage, which means of course that “MARRIAGE” would no longer exist, but of course the left, the media, the school unions would squeeze out every drop of perverted usage, and cultural educative, bit of propaganda from that cherished word before it eventually disappeared from our language.
Normal people and Christians would have to invent an entirely new word to describe “MARRIAGE” but even that would be taken by the perverts if it became common, and they would start mainstreaming their own use of it, until that word meant nothing.
With no official, enforced definition of marriage, then marriage would no longer exist.
Two counter examples. I don't "do drugs" and am a libertarian. Rush likes to "do drugs" and is a conservative.
Rush did become addicted to his pain pills, but I’m not aware of him doing drugs now, or before his injury, are you?
A contradiction in terms.
Libertarians: Anarchists with credit cards.
Her purchased them illegally. Now....I have no problem with that but Rush (as a supporter of the war on drugs) presumably does. BTW, Rush, like me, has no time for people who make excuses on the grounds they are “addicted.”
He purchased them illegally. Now....I have no problem with that but Rush (as a supporter of the war on drugs) presumably does. BTW, Rush, like me, has no time for people who make excuses on the grounds they are “addicted.”
He purchased them illegally. Now....I have no problem with that but Rush (as a supporter of the war on drugs) presumably does. BTW, Rush, like me, has no time for people who make excuses on the grounds they are “addicted.”
I think that's for the animal itself to decide. Government does not have the authority to define, license or restrict an individual's species identification.
Which is why, of course, that marriage has existed and was defined as a union of a man and a woman since antiquity and long before there was any "official, enforced" definition. /sarcasm off
The only "official" definition of anything comes from our Creator, thinking that somehow you we need the government to define marriage in order for it to "exist" is a sad indication of how far people have been mislead to believe that the government is the granter of rights, or is necessary for ordinary life to proceed. Do you really think people would no longer fall in love and get married if they didn't have to go to the county clerk's office and fill out a form first?
Marriage has always been officially defined, when was it not. When was the time when Americans ever recognized marriage as anything other than what it is?
Remember when the Mormons tried your idea, and they had an army.
"A contradiction in terms."
Yet it sums up the libertarians perfectly.
“Ultimately, the tragic consequence of the libertarian mentality is that it guarantees the left’s victory in the battle for civilization.”
What part of my statement that I was explaining libertarian thought, which was not necessarily my own opinion, don't you get?
When did Americans start to think that their government got to define what marriage is instead of their Creator?
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Can't agree. I'd be every bit as married without an official definition of marriage. Nothing would change at home.
By that standard so would every other person be truly married in his head, let each individual live in his head and with his own definitons all he wants, just leave “marriage” alone.
Present law requires those who want to gain US Citizenship to have been permanent residents for 5 years (3 years if spouse of Citizen) or military service.
Those years are entirely adequate to learn American language, history, geography, civics, math and science (though not in all American public schools—something which also needs changing).
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