I really haven’t read everything above, too busy unfortunately. But here are a few thoughts.
First of all, you are using the word “Pharisee” entirely wrong. Their problem was that they pretended to be holy but weren’t (DJMacWoW knows about that, I learned recently). So let’s stop using that word incorrectly.
Second, this idea that “some people want to legislate their personal ideal of “morality” into the lives of everyone,” is actually inverted. The truth is that some people want to legislate their personal flavor of immorality on everyone else. For instance, the entire gamut of the homosexual agenda, the sex-positive movement which has been very influential in the form of sex-ed in schools, Planned Parenthood, and so on. How many parents are opposed to the crass and extreme immorality that is being taught in schools? Actually, many are. And many schools do everything they can to hide what they teach from parents.
The elephant in the room here is that those promoting immorality have used Big Government to force it one everyone else. Now when people are starting to fight back to bring the standard to what it always has been (before the forces promoting immorality used the courts and Big Government to change it), we are accused of being the Big Government proponents!
Take pornography for example. For the first almost 200 years of this country, pornography was illegal. No one, including the men who wrote the Constitution, thought that the First Amendment protected obscenity or pornography. But thanks to the ACLU (commie Big Government all the way) and Larry Flynt (porn producer) and a leftist Supreme Court (Big Gov. proponents), pornorgraphy was “discorvered” to be protected speech under the Constitution. How nake sex shows are “speech” is not exactly clear.
Even if a community does not want pornography, the Big Gov teamed up with porn producers make it so no community standards or desires mean squat. For instance, in my very small town (one few block main street) a porn store opened. There were petitions against it, letters to the editor and so on. Kids walk by it to and from school. But no, thanks to Larry Flynt, the ACLU and leftist SCOTUS, everyone is helpless and must tolerate that which they do not want to tolerate. IOW, the porn sellers and afficiandos have right to their obscenity sold in public, and everyone who does not want it in public have no rights.
Our government was founded upon principles of basic morality which were accepted by everyone as the common foundation of civilization. By rejecting those basic moral absolutes, the very concepts of family, duty, responsibility and respect for self and neighbor are quickly becoming things of the past. No civilization can continue without basic intact families.
Actually there is another elephant in the room. That is public expression of religious faith. For the first 200 or so years of our Republic, public expression of religious faith was not only considered beneficial for society, but perfectly in line with the Constitution (”nor the free exercise thereof”). It was expected and expressed over and over that common moral standards based on religion were not only Constitutional but indeed essential for public weal. The movement of aggressive atheism has now put God and religious faith into the closet and made the atheists’ view the default position. This of course inevitably leads to the “If it feels good, do it” foundation of legislation.
Look at it this way - something has to be the default position of moral standards in society. At this point someone may say “well, government has no business enforcing any morality at all, it should be neutral”. That is a false position, it is like saying “people should be not awake and not asleep, just neutral”, or “let’s have no light and no darkness, just neutral”. Government must by its very definition have a moral standard upon which legislation is based. Now, if someone then says that government should have no legislative power, we’re off in hookah-land.
It is not those promoting moral absolutes who want Big Government. It is those promoting license in the name of “freedom” who in the end, will force Huge Government upon everyone. The fantasy world of “freedom” where everyone is free to use any drug imaginable, there is no such thing as marriage (or anything means marriage), bestiality, polygamy, the grossest forms of pornography are not only available everywhere but shown publicly, and so on, mean that total anarchy and social breakdown are about a decade away.
And what happens when there is social breakdown and anarchy?
Tyranny.
It is a law of nature.
Our form of government works only with a moral people. We are seeing what happens when more and more people are not. Libertarianism merely accelerates that breakdown. The fantasy, if followed, would lead quickly into robber baron tyranny.
I haven’t read much of the thread but the Pharisees used the law to empower themselves and not to honor God. This is the same thing that homosexuals are trying to do, use the force of the law and become a protected group over others and tell God and His people to shut up.
I thank you for your time, and thoughtful post. My reply, for now, is brief, but I want you to know that we agree on many points, but maybe think differently about how they can/should be implemented/acheived.
“It is not those promoting moral absolutes who want Big Government.”
It’s not those *promoting* moral absolutes that are in the wrong, it’s those who are LEGISLATING SOME things that are none of their business. While I am feverently against many sinful behaviors, for example, the pornography store in your town, I am all for STATES being able to exercise the authority afforded for them by their own constitutions, within the scope of their powers. Democracy is inherently short lived, violent, and anti freedom as soon as living, breathing people are involved.
It is the overstepping of boundaries which allows/has allowed the decay we currently have. As you noted:
“For instance, the entire gamut of the homosexual agenda, the sex-positive movement which has been very influential in the form of sex-ed in schools, Planned Parenthood, and so on. How many parents are opposed to the crass and extreme immorality that is being taught in schools?”
Each and every one of those issues has come about becayse government at all levels was allowed to overstep it’s constitution/proper bounds, caused by an apathetic majority, and a vocal, agenda-pushing minority (on many issues). The answer is not, in my opinion, to get a vocal counter minority (however moral their posture) and get their agenda pushed either, but keep parent’s in charge of their children’s education (whether themselves directly, ie. homeschooling, or involved in the public schooling process), and people/adults in charge of, and responsible for, their behavior.
I think I’m going to recuse myself from the remainder of the thread, since I’m not a libertarian anyway. I just wanted to say we (All of us in our communities and country) have to find the common moral ground upon which we can stand, and face the evils of our generation. I believe that we cannot EVER force another to do something, and God doesn’t do it either, until the final judgement. He allows us to choose, and gives us consequences to those actions, and lets us decide what we really want. But I also know that He never willfully afflicts His children, but rather through their disobedience suffer the inherent consequences of their actions, including death, at times.
But I know there is a right and a wrong, and I know that there are things that cannot be accepted and things that cannot be condoned, but there are also others that are not within my realm to punish or hand out judgement. God gave us laws to give us life. We as men, have create laws for our society to keep it from falling apart. I think we’ve (as a society) lost sight of that, and think new laws need to be created every time someone does something we disapprove of, or which is a sin. Well I think that’s inappropriate, but possible if the legal means is followed. The problem with that idea is that it’s VERY hard to get people to get on board with that, so the Constitution of the Nation and the State is ignored. That only leads to more decay, as saying some laws matter and some laws don’t, is in effect saying “No laws matter.” And that is a bad position to be in.
God’s laws matter and He, will be arbiter of them. I will just as surely decry a sin as anyone else, but I’m not going to presume to punish by law or by another means, a person who sins, and do it in God’s name. Vengence and final judgement are God’s alone. We can help and advocate and punish when someone afflicts another, for the safety of the helpless and victims, but I’m not going to punish someone for a wrong behavior that isn’t directed at me. There are more alternatives than trying to crush people that your disagree with, you can also stop giving them the very weapons they use to fight you with. Lean on and support the divinely inspired Constitution, and the agenda pushers wouldn’t have a leg to stand on, because they don’t have a foundation. That’s the remedy. Take care, and see you around.
If a community does not want pornography, nobody will look at it, and as a result nobody will bother to create or distribute it. End of problem -- without involving the Big Government you love so very very much.