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The Enlightenment Era philosophers drew as much as they could from the Christian and classical traditions but out of arrogance long to write a story that did not include God and namely Christ. They seemed comfortable with the Creator of All Things, but many of them (Jefferson) struggled with the issue of faith in Christ.

The divide comes on theories of self-government, the nature of government, and the pragmatic 'then how shall we live?' I continue to believe that liberty is best protected through the smallest political units possible through a system of checks and balance, and see little value in an exercise of Libertarian ideology that can only generate political support for one side or the other based on whose side has the better wordsmiths at that moment in time.

One of the useful tests on this subject is local control. Recently, the Supreme Court determined that Texas could not have a certain set of laws in their town-- left-libertarians cheered a great victory. The government should not be in the bedroom, they said.

A rightwing libertarian abhors the process, a supra-state over-ruling a local political entity, a microcosm for almost all that ails us.

As a rightwing libertarian, what is your view on Lincoln?

(These 'things' can get heated, but try to imagine us sitting on the bar stools in an honest attempt to try to better understand each others position.)

I also condemned the USSC's virtual elimination of state sovereignity. Sodomy is nowhere a natural right, and thus I believe Texas can constitutionally prohibit it. While I don't necessarily agree that the prohibition is the best solution, the principle of sticking to the agreement that is the Constitution is far more important in maintaining freedom.

As a rightwing libertarian, I am conflicted on Lincoln. Freeing the slaves was undoubtedly just; the slaves were as human as any other, and thus possess inalienable rights that the nation had previously consented to be discarded in their case. However, I know that was not the true purpose of the Civil War, merely a justification for it. In that the Civil War effectively killed the 9th and 10th Amendments, I abhor that result.