Posted on 03/07/2005 6:13:58 AM PST by rhombus
The fundamental folly of libertarianism, in my view, is thinking you can have a 1900 state in a 2005 culture. It is only a society with a 1900-level ironclad cultural consensus on manners and mores and rules and "the conduct of a gentleman" that can do without a big government. Only a society in which the cultural consensus is so rigid that breaking the rules leads to Oscar Wilde-level consequences can do without the punitive force of the state.
You see, you can enforce rules either by ostracism (strong society) or by force (the state). If society can no longer ostracize because all cultural consensus has collapsed and people can simply choose to live among like minded people (the red state, small town poof moving to the East Village or Chelsea) then it needs more written laws and a state to enforce them. A society in which it was simply understood that a gentleman was expected to "do the right thing" if he "dishonored" a girl (and if he didn't he answered to the guns of her father and brothers) didn't need masses of laws about pre-nups and palimony and community property and all the post-abortion, post-divorce marriage laws we have. When the cultural consensus of "what God hath joined together let no man tear asunder" collapsed laws had to be written to create new rules.
To have a Victorian state you have to have a Victorian society.
As for national security, we survived the Soviet Union because we got Reagan in there in time. Had we had 16 years of Carter/Mondale, I doubt we would be in such good shape.
Similarly, we would be nowhere near as safe had there been President Gore on September 11.
Exactly. Change the issue to "civil unions", get the judiciary out of it and polls show it would pass easily. What does that say?
Bush himself said that states should be allowed to have civil unions.
Are there really splits in the Democratic party? Aren't they all communists at heart?
I doubt your statement but no matter. We shall see it tested soon. This thread isn't about "gay marriage" but the peson who used the "social-con" expression described it as a "flagship issue". OK fine, it's his term. Still, I expect the libertarian view would be that Gov't has no right to give ANYONE permission to get married. The Government involvement is to protect childen, I believe. If people want to get married they should go to church, which is what most people do. Married by the Gov't? What's the point? If I'm incorrect, libertarians please speak up.
Similarly, I consider myself a Fabian libertarian: I see libertarianism as a long-term goal, not something I expect to be achieved overnight. We are not culturally set for a libertarian society. We expect too much from government and are not ready to go cold turkey.
Maybe some sort of cultural consensus is needed for a libertarian society -- all the more reason to be Fabian about it -- but does it have to be a Victorian society? It seems to me that a social consensus summed up as "Mind Your Own Business" might work just as well to provide the framework of a libertarian society.
(As a side note, Victorian society was more about outward morality covering what was, indeed, a rather wide choice of lifestyles. Social conservatives may complain about moral rot in society today, but what the Victorians put out in pornography -- particularly written erotica -- makes today's work seem positively tame.)
Yes they are, but the difference is the approach. Some in the party wish to show off their extremism, while others think it is best to hide it until after the election.
There are plenty of splits in the Democratic party.
Agreed. Not the Gov't's role.
Yes, Victorian morality was all about outward morality. Obeying the rules in public, whatever you did in private.
Right now, nothing is worse in our culture than hypocrisy. Actually, hypocrisy is a wonderful thing. It acknowledges that there are rules and things you don't do. No hypocrisy, no rules.
Simple. The west was neither militarilay weak or resource poor. The people of the Warsaw bloc looked at us, saw a thriving decadence and said, "Man, I want to get me some of that."
The key to American success is that there is a strong, moral tradition that is respected, but room is given for individuals, who are not set-out to be tradition to find their own path.
Tradition is tradition, because it generally works. The cultural right errs in assuming that tradition works for everyone. The cultural left errs in thinking that tradition must be torn down in order for there to be non-traditional.
Personally, I believe one should respect tradition, but not necessarily be beholden to it. But that makes for rather dull polemic.
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