As you see here, hearty libertarianism has quite a grip on the fevered minds of many American conservatives.
I, too, am nostalgic for those days when this was a rural country and the government didn't need to do too much more than deliver the mail and hang the occasional pirate. I used to let the independent and self-sufficient spirit of those long-gone days inform my attitudes about how modern government should operate. Unlike most of our companions here, I let go of all that coonskin cap stuff and got serious.
It seems obvious to me that the complexity, the density, and the interdependence of modern life means that our lives must be much more regulated. I worry that often it is someone like Hillary trying to do the regulating and do what I can to elect "regulators" with some sense. I also agree that there are plenty of cops out there who do not deserve their badges and who, themselves, are a menace to public safety and convenience. The solution seems to me to upgrade that profession and hold them more strictly accountable.
Although I live in a good urban area, street crime is a serious reality. I no longer feel safe to go out to a grocery store late at night as I once did. And there are some busy roads in my community -- not in bad areas, just busy with a lot of commercial development -- which I try to avoid completely on Friday and Saturday nights. There are wildly speeding drivers, running red lights and behaving generally aggressively...much, much more so than a decade or two ago. Many of them, I am sure, are drinking or taking drugs. Many are carrying weapons. Many are unlicensed and uninsured. I am not a bit ashamed to say that I'd like it cleaned up. A right to privacy on the road does not mean much to me if I more and more find myself reluctant to use those roads.
We Americans are not that far from our colonial roots and, living in the woods aside, we were a rowdy and independent lot from the start. That's how we happened to be here. And the West has been a continual frontier. There is still open country where you can sit on your porch and shoot at squirrels as one ranter earlier today was wanting to do. But that kind of life is something for the marginal few. For most of us, who live urban lives, it is time to let go of some of this woodsy independence. And, yea, I am also for banning Pit Bulls, the favored pet of hardcore libertarians who have no concept of responsible life in an urban community.
The classic libertarian solution to problems like this is to let the free market society deal with the problem.
I can relate one such story. I live in a small southern town that was a notorious "speed-trap." The macho-cop mentality was alive and well--we were one of the smallest towns in the nation with a SWAT team. Then one night a man stood up in the Chamber of Commerce meeting and announced that he and his family would no longer be doing business in town, no longer eating in the restaurants, no longer going to the movie theater, and no longer buying his clothes at the local stores. Instead, he was going to avoid even going through the town and would instead use the back roads to reach the next town over (about 10 miles). All of this because he received a speeding ticket that he thought was unfounded.
The local newspaper printed his remarks. Within weeks, billboards and signs were appearing just outside the city limits advising those approaching the town to shop elsewhere. The neighboring town businesses caught on to the idea. A car dealership even began advertising that, "We're not in ...". Within a couple of months, local businesses were showing a decline in profits and tax revenues were down.
I'll leave it to your imagination what happened at the next city election and to the local police chief.
The thing that is interesting to note is that once people started shopping elsewhere, businesses in town found it very difficult to get their customers back. Commercial investment started following the shoppers, including a new outlet mall. And one small town in the South was relegated to the backwaters of progress, all because of they were "enforcing the law."
If your area has serious street crime, how can it be considered a good area?
Would being stopped by cops everytime you went to the store late at night make you feel safer?
"It seems obvious to me that the complexity, the density, and the interdependence of modern life means that our lives must be much more regulated"
No, it doesn't mean anything of the sort.
Every generation has lived in their own "modern" times. Life has been increasing in complexity since the beginning of humanity and will continue to do so. This is not a reason to abandon liberty. Liberty is timeless, and is for everyone, not just for people who wear coonskins.
At what point does your creeping incremental descent into tyranny stop? It doesn't, because you've said that we need to be more regulated as life becomes more complex.
Let that remain inside the institution of the corporation. That legal person created under FedGov can be regulated all they want, even beyond the fond dreams of Stalin. Outside the corporate environment life can remain as simple as we want. Skip the cellphone and the cable TV and pay no attention to the MSM. And stay off the public roads as much as possible. Want simplicity? get a PhD and hang out your own shingle, then stay home and stay disconnected as much as possible.
That is the EXACT same logic that the gun-grabbers use to discredit the 2nd Amendment. Al Gore also agrees with your "living constitution" philosiphy.
Also, there is a process for Amending the Constitution. Don't like it? Work to get things changed.
But you can drop the act right now. You are no "conservative", nor are you a "libertarian". You are an Authoritarian. Be proud of the company you keep in your ideological equals. Folks such as Pol Pot, Joseph Stalin, Bill Clinton, and Kofi Annan.
Yup, coonskin caps pretty much all round, I guess.
Best of luck, my friend.
I grew up in the inner city, but have never been the victim of crime.
As long as I can find a grocery store or a restaurant, I won't be in the woods looking for dinner.
I have to tell you that your kind of thinking is the main reason that I own firearms.
It's people like you and the politicians who pander to you with promises of safety to get your votes who think that you can run my life better than I can that are the real threat to liberty.
May your chains rest lightly.