Posted on 11/11/2004 9:34:13 AM PST by Tailgunner Joe
Libertarianism is a political philosophy that holds that consent is the basis of morality and therefore that any activity - prostitution, "assisted" suicide, you-name-it between consenting adults ought to be legal. Libertarians also believe that man "owns" himself, and therefore may do anything to himself he pleases - use drugs, commit suicide, again, you-name-it.
It is logically impossible for Libertarianism to be America's founding philosophy.
At least 30 years ago, most Americans could quote the beginning of the second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence:
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness."
Whether you say UNalienable or INalienable, understanding the concept of rights you can't give, sell, or trade away is key to understanding Christian freedom.
First, let's be clear what each of these rights are and where they come from. The right to life is pretty straightforward. All rights arise from the prohibition of moral rules, and the right to life comes from God's rule that says it is wrong to kill innocent people. Although you can't give it away, you can forfeit your right to life when you initiate the use of deadly force against another without first having been threatened with deadly force by the person you attack. This is why God had to command us to use capital punishment, and gave us examples in the Old Testament to show that self-defense was justified. Otherwise, since God's rules apply all the time, we might be confused into thinking that the commandment against murder prevented us from resisting someone who was trying to kill us, or punishing one who had killed another.
To understand the right to "liberty" we need to know what liberty is. Say you have $100, and you were planning to buy your self a real nice dinner with it. Then a thief steals your $100. You have lost the "liberty" to control how the $100 is spent. You have lost liberty.
The same analysis applies if someone makes you a slave against your will. You have lost the "liberty" to control how your labor is employed. The slave owner takes this liberty from you.
We lose "liberty" whenever someone violates God's moral rules. The right to liberty is a command to government to prevent and punish those who would violate God's moral rules.
The right to the pursuit of happiness is similar to the right to liberty. The right to liberty recognizes that we lose our liberty when our fellow men violate God's moral rules. Protecting our liberty is the reason we command government to set up police forces, armies and navies. They protect us from foreign aggressors and domestic criminals. But what protects us from government itself?
Protecting us from government is the work of the right to the pursuit of happiness. This right does not mean license to do whatever gives us pleasure. We cannot molest children, say, and claim the protection of the right to pursue happiness.
This right is based on the idea that God made us in such a way that we cannot be truly happy unless we follow God's moral rules. As a political right, then, the right to the pursuit of happiness is a right to be free from a government that commands us - or just allows us - to do what God forbids, or that forbids us to do what God commands, or just allows.
For example, God does not command us to have children, but if we are married, he allows us to engage in the activity that can result in reproduction. China, however, forbids people to have more than two children. China thus forbids what God allows, and it interferes with the right to the pursuit of happiness of its citizens.
The U.S. government allows its citizens to have abortions, though it does not (yet) command abortions as China does. Nevertheless, simply by allowing evil - the murder of the unborn - the U.S. government interferes with the right to the pursuit of happiness of both born and unborn citizens. It allows citizens to commit evil that will cause them pain and remorse later.
Okay, we know what these rights are now, but why is it important that we not be able to give or sell them? After all, if two adults consent to some voluntary transaction, shouldn't government allow them to engage in it?
The answer is unalienable rights cannot exist if consent, not God's rules, defines what is right and wrong.
If consent defines what is right, there is no inalienable right to life. Imagine I'm a poor man but want to leave a large inheritance to my children. Say I agree to "star" in a snuff film - to be killed on camera in return for a big chunk of cash which I will bequeath to my kids. If government honors my contract with the producer, it has just thrown my inalienable right to life out the window. It has also thrown God's commandment not to murder innocent people out the window, too.
Likewise, say I want to be a prostitute, and other consenting adults want to hire me for sex. No one else is involved, right? Why shouldn't government honor my agreement with my "johns."
This situation is a bit more subtle, but presents the same conflict - either consent is the basis of right and wrong, or God's rules are.
If the "john" is married, clearly there is an external cost to allowing prostitution. The john's wife has a right to fidelity - the husband's faithfulness - created both by God's commandment against adultery and by contact - by the husband's promise. But the external cost of prostitution is imposed not only on the wife, but also on society. Marriage is a bilateral monopoly that increases human productivity by taking many transactions out of the market. When the costs of prostitution are not stopped, they reduce the value of marriage. At the margin, there are fewer marriages, and society - all of us - loose the savings that marriages produce. We are all made poorer.
But what if the prostitute's customer is single? Surely then nobody else is involved and we ought to allow the consensual prostitution, right?
We can answer this question by looking to see whether God's rules apply to us as individuals at all times, or if they only have force when we interact with others. The truth is, of course, that God's rules apply to us at all times. What we call "virtues" arise from the application of God's moral rules to the self. For example, if I do not have the virtue of thrift - if I spend my money like there was no tomorrow - I rob myself of my future consumption. The virtue of "thrift" arises from applying God's moral rule against theft to the self.
To return to our example with the prostitute and the unmarried customer, God's moral rules for sex tell us that sex is the physical manifestation of a spiritual union between a man and a woman brought together by God. To use sex as just a meaningless recreational pursuit violates this rule. But applying this rule to the self - even when that "self" is unmarried - gives rise to the virtue of chastity.
Is there a practical reason that government should encourage chastity by refusing to enforce a contract for prostitution - or the same thing, heterosexual or homosexual promiscuity - between two unmarried people?
The answer depends on whether using sex in a way that violates God's rules can really increase the welfare of the individuals who engage in that activity. All sin appears pleasurable for a short time, but in the long run it produces more costs than benefits.
In the case of adultery, the momentary pleasure must be weighed against the risk of disease and the cost of the losing the true happiness that can only come from following God's moral rules. The lesson of history is that prohibiting prostitution is not a rule without a reason. Every society that has bowed to the desire for a short term pleasure that is less than the long term benefits foregone has fallen - look particularly at Greece and Rome.
America today is under attack by people who claim to champion freedom but who, in reality, champion a philosophy that would destroy freedom because it would destroy our inalienable rights. These people call themselves "Libertarians." They claim that the basis of right and wrong in interactions between people is only consent - not God's rules - and that society has no power to impose any standard of right and wrong on individuals in how they use their own bodies. Libertarians think prostitution, drug use, and suicide should all be legalized.
John Locke answered the Libertarians more than 300 years ago. Locke said, in his Second Treatise on Government, that merely having the power to engage in an activity does not make it right. For Locke, as for America's Founders, the only true source of right was God's moral rules. But if consent is the basis of right and wrong, there can be no inalienable rights, because one can always consent to give his rights away.
We may legitimately question whether we want to use law, the coercive power of the state, to enforce God's rules or rely on extra-legal sanctions like social norms. The answer is always that we want to use the enforcement method that produces the greatest benefits at the least cost. For example, we could not afford to put policemen in every individual's bedroom, so we have traditionally relied on social norms to enforce moral rules relating to sex.
But the lesson of the last 150 years of American history is that evil first attacks and destroys social norms, then changes the law.
Rights arise from moral rules. But the moral rules that create our law are simply whatever a majority of citizens believe is right or wrong. If we want Godly laws, we must bring a majority of citizens into agreement with God by introducing them to Jesus Christ.
"We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry, would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate for the government of any other." - John Adams, Oct. 11, 1798 Address to the military
In response though... no. Law of the Jungle is the way humans interact with the rest of the Jungle, not with other humans. Append that to "sentient beings" as the basic delimiter between animal instinct and humans is the whole "I think, therefore I am" premise. In comparrison to the rest of the wild kingdom, we humans really are all within percentage points of each other. The Golden Rule and the Noninitiation of Force theorems have been gleaned from thousands of years of philosophy and form the basis of a much more equal and "just" (in the Platonic sense of the word) system of dealing with each other and dealing with animal like behavior within our own species.
That you would rather dress up your personal bias' in religious edicts is a paucity of cogent thought on a frightening scale. Thousands of years of religious bias' being used to justify the slaughter and rape of billions and you monkeys still think it is a great idea for governance.
No where in my philosophy does it give another the right to end someone else life just because they are defective. However, "Suffer not a witch to live" and "Thou shalt have no other Gods before me" give you leeway to commit all manner of atrocity does it not?
Get a grip.
"We have a WRITTEN constitution." ~ wbillh
Exactly.
"In terms of population alone, a high percentage of the pre-revolutionary
American colonies were of Puritan-Calvinist background. There were around
three million persons in the thirteen original colonies by 1776, and
perhaps as many as two-thirds of these came from some kind of Calvinist or
Puritan connection" (Douglas F. Kelly, The Emergence of Liberty in the
Modern World — (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 1992), p. 120.
"The U.S. Constitution is a Calvinist's document through and through."
And because of that, they made sure that in America, one man’s liberty will
not depend upon another man’s (religious) conscience (as in Europe)!
Dr. George Bancroft, arguably the most prominent American historian of the
19th century — and not a Calvinist — stated:
"He who will not honor the memory and respect the influence of Calvin knows
but little of he origen of American liberty"
The 55 Framers (from North to South):
John Langdon, Congregationalist (Calvinist)
Nicholas Gilman, Congregationalist (Calvinist)
Elbridge Gerry, Episcoplian (Calvinist)
Rufus King, Episcopalian (Calvinist)
Caleb Strong, Congregationalist (Calvinist)
Nathaniel Gorham, Congregationalist (Calvinist)
Roger Sherman, Congregationalist (Calvinist)
William Samuel Johnson, Episcopalian (Calvinist)
Oliver Ellsworth, Congregationalist (Calvinist)
Alexander Hamilton, Episcopalian (Calvinist)
John Lansing, Dutch Reformed (Calvinist)
Robert Yates, Dutch Reformed (Calvinist)
William Patterson, Presbyterian (Calvinist)
William Livingston, Presbyterian (Calvinist)
Jonathan Dayton, Episcopalian (Calvinist)
David Brearly, Episcopalian (Calvinist)
William Churchill Houston, Presbyterian (Calvinist)
Benjamin Franklin, Christian in his youth, Deist in later years, then back
to his Puritan background in his old age (his June 28, 1787 prayer at the
Constitutional Convention was from no "Deist")
Robert Morris, Episcopalian, (Calvinist)
James Wilson, probably a Deist
Gouverneur Morris, Episcopalian (Calvinist)
Thomas Mifflin, Lutheran (Calvinist-lite)
George Clymer, Quaker turned Episcopalian (Calvinist)
Thomas FitzSimmons, Roman Catholic
Jared Ingersoll, Presbyterian (Calvinist)
John Dickinson, Quaker turned Episcopalian (Calvinist)
George Read, Episcopalian, (Calvinist)
Richard Bassett, Methodist
Gunning Bedford, Presbyterian (Calvinist)
Jacob Broom, Lutheran
Luther Martin, Episcopalian, (Calvinist)
Daniel Carroll, Roman Catholic
John Francis Mercer, Episcopalian (Calvinist)
James McHenry, Presbyterian (Calvinist)
Daniel of St Thomas Jennifer, Episcopalian (Calvinist)
George Washington, Episcopalian (Calvinist; no, he was not a deist)
James Madison, Episcopalian (Calvinist)
George Mason, Episcopalian (Calvinist)
Edmund Jennings Randolph, Episcopalian (Calvinist)
James Blair, Jr., Episcopalian (Calvinist)
James McClung, ?
George Wythe, Episcopalian (Calvinist)
William Richardson Davie, Presbyterian (Calvinist)
Hugh Williamson, Presbyterian, possibly later became a Deist
William Blount, Presbyterian (Calvinist)
Alexander Martin, Presbyterian/Episcopalian (Calvinist)
Richard Dobbs Spaight, Jr., Episcopalian (Calvinist)
John Rutledge, Episcopalian (Calvinist)
Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, III, Episcopalian (Calvinist)
Abraham Baldwin, Congregationalist (Calvinist)
William Leigh Pierce, Episcopalian (Calvinist)
William Houstoun, Episcopalian (Calvinist)
William Few, Methodist
The founders identified the 13 colonies of their union as "Free
Protestant". As Protestants, their Declaration in 1776 that "all men are
created equal (in authority) " was consistent with the doctrine of their
founder, the man who first openly protested the hierarchy of men over Christians. His name was Martin Luther. He was a Roman Catholic priest from Germany who began the
"Protestant Reformation". He stated the following:
"I say, then, neither pope, nor bishop, nor any man whatever has the right
of making one syllable binding on a Christian man, unless it be done with
his own consent.
Whatever is done otherwise is done in the spirit of tyranny...I cry aloud
on behalf of liberty and conscience, and I proclaim with confidence that no
kind of law can with any justice be imposed on Christians, except so far as
they themselves will; for we are free from all."
INTRODUCTION TO THE LIBERTY PRINCIPLES IN AMERICAN POLITICS
by Stephen L. Corrigan - http://w3.one.net/~stephenc/fun.html
Just a friendly observation, because I see you're new here, and maybe hadn't caught on yet.
People who start their argument with a juvenile "Dude" give the impression that what follows will be similarly juvenile. Their subsequent comments are discounted accordingly. Unfair, perhaps, but nevertheless true.
I must also note that it is not at all uncommon to see a post that begins with "dude" ending up with a call to legalize marijuana. I see you've maintained the trend.
The Taliban agrees with you. So do the mullahs of Iran. So do the morality police of Saudi Arabia.
Oops, wrong scripture...
I think "precisely" is not the word, unless you think that enforcing responsibility is the primary function of government. The primary function of government in the USA is supposed to be protecting that very liberty that allows us responsibility, which it does by operating, as you say, within fairly limited bounds. Agreed that a code of conduct and ethics, is a necessary part of such as well, nevertheless, it should be as unrestrictive and local as possible in a country whose foundation rests on the exercise of personal liberty.
"It is also a very handy argument to use against those who claim to be able to derive such rights by application of reason alone."
I tend to agree with you here. It's an important point, no matter to what extent one believes Christianity is involved. Our founding fathers (with the possible exception of Jefferson) did not consider that we owed our liberty to reason, since that would imply that it is granted us by government. We are born with it.
### I didn't decipher the idea of a "theocracy" from what he posted, at all. "I was sort of startled by Matchett-Pi's use of those 2 quotes for a theocracy myself, since I frequently use them as arguments for individual freedom and personal liberty." ~ SamCree
### I think you both should see #83. Especially this part: "I say, then, neither pope, nor bishop, nor any man whatever has the right of making one syllable binding on A CHRISTIAN MAN, unless it be done with his own consent."
Whatever is done otherwise is done in the spirit of tyranny...I cry aloud on behalf of liberty and conscience, and I proclaim with confidence that no kind of law can with any justice be imposed ON CHRISTIANS, except so far as they themselves will; for __WE__ ARE FREE FROM ALL."
America's Founding Fathers were overwhelmingly Calvinist Christians believing in INTERNAL (self) restraint. (Self-controlled / LAW ABIDING) ("The Constitution is inadequate for any other peoples")
The lawless must be restrained / controlled externally.
The lawless break the law of love which is "do no harm to your neighbor". "Love does no harm to a neighbor; therefore love is is the fulfillment of the law." [Rom.13:10]
Our rule of law is based on the law of love. It never changes.
"America's Founding Fathers were overwhelmingly Calvinist Christians believing in INTERNAL (self) restraint. (Self-controlled / LAW ABIDING) ("The Constitution is inadequate for any other peoples")"
I agree with the above, although I am no form of Calvinist.
"The lawless must be restrained / controlled externally."
Perhaps I am missing the point, but it seems that you are saying that self restraint, or virtue, means obeying the law?
You don't have to "emulate" sinners. You are one. Hahaha
So where does that leave non-Christians who have appropriate self-restraint?
Do they get a separate set of laws because they're not Christian and therefore can't be trusted not to go wild?
LQ
Insults don't make for good discussion.
Or do we get to paint you as God's marionette goose-stepping along the road to Heaven ?
A fundamental problem here is the insulting language combined with ignorance (willful or not) of the Libertarian position.
ABSOLUTELY NOT!!!
"Perhaps I am missing the point, but it seems that you are saying that self restraint, or virtue, means obeying the law?"
Yes. The law of love.
Do no harm to neighbor -harm as defined by God. (Not as defined by relativists, who each have their own changeable opinions which will be determined by various situations).
Our rule of law is based on it.
Have you ever heard of the "rule of law" that undergirds our Constitution?
For instance if a Christian or a non-Christian is caught stealing from his neighbor, lying to (defrauding) his neighbor, murdering his neighbor, etc., etc., the Framers intended that he be swiftly punished according to the impartial, objective rule of law.
All Christians would agree that they should be judged by that law of love when they break it. Or did you think that Christians are automatically sinless (perfect)?
Thanks.
I think it responsible to obey the law, sure.
I also think that freedom means more than the choice of whether to obey the law or go to jail.
But I have a feeling that I've been misinterpreting your statements, so perhaps we don't differ on everything, in spite of my libertarian leanings.
Right -- which is to say: government primarily exists to enforce responsibility on those who won't exercise it themselves.
Of course, there are also some things which we also acknowledge to be legitimate functions of government that are not so much a matter of "ensuring liberty," as they are things done for the sake convenience and/or efficiency -- coining money, building and maintaining roads, etc.
Overall, however, the existence of government, and its generally acknowledged legitimacy in at least some areas of life, points out the rather obvious existence of "community interests" that are in tension with "individual interests."
Of course, neither community nor individual interests are primary in all cases. In fact, for pretty much every case I can think of there's a trade-off between the legitimate claims of the community vs. the legitimate claims of the individual. In some cases the choices are obvious; in other cases, it's really difficult to choose between the interests of individual vs. community.
This is obvious to most, but not all: Hard-core socialists tend to ignore the claims of the individual. Hard-core libertarians tend to ignore the claims of the community. Both are wrong.
That being the case, we need to have some set of criteria by which we are able to decide between the claims of individual and community. That ends up being a moral issue.
"I am no form of Calvinist." ~ Sam Cree
That's fine, but that doesn't change the fact that our Constitution is a Calvinist document.
Emory Report November 29, 1999 Volume 52, No. 13
http://www.emory.edu/EMORY_REPORT/erarchive/1999/November/ernovember.29/11_2
9_99hamilton.html
"...Marci Hamilton ... [is] a nationally recognized expert on
constitutional and copyright law. ....
Her forthcoming book, Copyright and the Constitution, examines the
historical and philosophical underpinnings of copyright law and asserts
that the American "copyright regime" is grounded in Calvinism, resulting in
a philosophy that favors the product over the producer.
Calvinism? Hamilton's interest in the intersection of Calvinist theology
and political philosophy emerged early in her career when she began reading
the work of leading constitutional law scholars. She was puzzled by their
"theme of a system of self-rule." "They talked about it as if it were in
existence," she said. "My gut reaction was that direct democracy and
self-rule are a myth that doesn't really exist."
What Hamilton found was that a "deep and abiding distrust of human motives
that permeates Calvinist theology also permeates the Constitution." Her
investigation of that issue has led to another forthcoming book,
tentatively titled The Reformed Constitution: What the Framers Meant by
Representation.
That our country's form of government is a republic instead of a pure
democracy is no accident, according to Hamilton. The constitutional framers
"expressly rejected direct democracy. Instead, the Constitution constructs
a representative system of government that places all ruling power in the
hands of elected officials."
And the people? Their power is limited to the voting booth and
communication with their elected representatives, she said. "The
Constitution is not built on faith in the people, but rather on distrust of
all social entities, including the people." ...
..Two of the most important framers, James Wilson and James Madison, were
steeped in Presbyterian precepts.
It is Calvinism, Hamilton argued, that "more than any other Protestant
theology, brings together the seeming paradox that man's will is corrupt by
nature but also capable of doing good." In other words, Calvinism holds
that "we can hope for the best but expect the worst from each other and
from the social institutions humans devise."
"Neither Calvin nor the framers stop at distrust, however," Hamilton said.
"They also embrace an extraordinary theology of hope. The framers, like
Calvin, were reformers." -Elaine Justice
There is no need for personal responsibility when it is enforced.
"we need to have some set of criteria by which we are able to decide between the claims of individual and community."
A free society has to be based on individual freedom, since individual freedom guarantees community freedom, while the reverse not only is not true, but usually ensures no freedom.
That doesn't mean that an individual is free to pollute the air that everyone breathes, but it does mean that he can clear cut his personal woods, if he wants.
We maintain individual freedom with the rule of law, which enforces an appropriate code of conduct and ethics on all individuals equally, thus protecting the individual and protecting the community.
Matchett, I'm in no position to argue Calvinism with you, but I see a few things to agree with in your posts.
One is that the founders probably did lack faith in the human motives.
I believe that specifically to be one of the primary justifications for a free society - in a rationalist society all decisions are made by only elite humans (government), with the very good chance that their motives will be inappropriate or even evil.
You do persist in taking things to extremes.... Again: if government exists to secure our rights, it is against those who are not exercising their responsibility to respect the rights of others. I am not saying that government should enforce all responsibilities, but it certainly does have a legitimate role in enforcing some of them.
A free society has to be based on individual freedom, since individual freedom guarantees community freedom, while the reverse not only is not true, but usually ensures no freedom.
I didn't say "community freedom," I said "community interests." You've noted that such do exist, as in "the air that everybody breathes."
We maintain individual freedom with the rule of law, which enforces an appropriate code of conduct and ethics on all individuals equally, thus protecting the individual and protecting the community.
And in some cases we also (and legitimately) put the interests of the community ahead of individual freedoms.
For example, we imprison criminals despite their "unalienable right" to liberty, in part because they pose a generalized danger to the rest of us. Likewise, we make drunk driving illegal even for those who don't cause any injury on a given trip.
Unless one is "law-of-love (as defined by God) abiding" one is a "law unto himself".
One is either a Christian Libertarian or one is a Libertine who may or may not - in varying degrees - be willing to abide by the rule of law that undergirds our Constitution.
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