Posted on 10/29/2006 11:39:15 AM PST by Philistone
Social Conservatism for Libertarians
As a long-time libertarian, one-time pot-smoking, shroom-dropping, coke-snorting, head banger, and short time Thomas Aquinas College student I have seen the divide between "social conservatives" and "libertarians" and today would like to address certain social conservative positions and why libertarians would do well to support them. These arguments would, obviously, work for liberals as well, but since liberals are immune to reasoned argument I will ignore them in what follows. Certain social conservatives would also do well to heed these arguments since arguments relying strictly on the Bible are not likely to sway either libertarians OR liberals.
Axioms of libertarianism
While libertarians may disagree on certain things, what makes them libertarians is their belief in the following two axioms:
1) The fundamental (and maybe ONLY) purpose of a state is to protect its citizens - this may or may not include a provision for the enforcement of contracts.
2) An individual's freedom to act is absolute up until the point where it infringes on the freedoms of another.
Would it be possible to derive socially conservative positions from these two axioms, rationally and empirically? That is our task today in what follows.
Continued at Politically Incorrect
I suspect most libertarians generally support the ACLU while based on the vitriol I suspect most socially conservative republicans view them as an anathema, if not heretics.
Give them a single grade A through F, lumping all of the ACLU's stands into a single grade and lets see where we stand.
That may have been true back in the days when the ACLU supported free speech. Today, when the ACLU acts to reduce free speech (by, for instance, fighting to prohibit a group of students from forming a lunch-time prayer group in school, or fighting to remove a cross from Mt. Soledad which has been there in one form or another since 1913. Further, why doesn't the ACLU fight to get all crosses removed from military cemetaries? They are, after all, on public lands...)
Some do. I'll submit that social conservativism and political conservativism must be addressed separately because they are not interchangeable. A lot of self-proclaimed "conservatives" are socially conservative political opportunists.
Close. The only real purpose of a government it to protect the equal Rights of it's citizens. Huge distinction as the Rats, and to a minimally lesser extent GOP'ers, are currently expanding govt power to encompass all kinds of areas that govt should never extend into. Like smoking, fats, seat belts, healthcare... All in the name of protecting us from ourselves.
That way lies tyranny.
2) An individual's freedom to act is absolute up until the point where it infringes on the freedoms of another.
Non-initiation of force, fraud, theft. If you harm yourself, there is no crime. Without a million and one socialist policies in place, there would be no "collective" cost for any self destructive individual behavior. In fact, the faster these "weak" elements of society kill themselves off, the better off the rest of us will be.
Objectivism, the core of libertarian philosophy, can be used to prop up 99.9% of the "individual Rights, personal responsibility" views of the Founders. Where things gather friction with modern "conservatism" is where the political Right's Nanny State tendencies take over in regards to religion and "vice" crimes. On the Left, the friction comes from their socialist doctrine of collectivism and "social justice".
For the most part, objectivism works. I've seen very few areas where it doesn't. However, you do have to adjust your thinking to disregard the "icky" things your neighbor may be getting up to. This is something a surprising number of people refuse to do. They WANT some government force to step in and keep the perv next door from looking at porn, or driving an SUV, or owning too many motorcycles, or smoking a pipe with cherry cavendish on their back porch, or eating meat, or carrying a gun, or...
You get the idea.
I'm a self-described small-l libertarian. I e-mailed the ACLU years back asking for their position on the 2nd Amendment. Their response was that they were "neutral" on it. They do not exist to promote civil liberties but instead liberalism/socialism.
Not really. They went from a civil liberties watch dog to a socialist front group in damn near record time. I wouldn't cross the street to spit on them if they were on fire.
I support the ACLU on many issues, but I am against their promotion of affirmative action and their lack of action on 2nd Amendment issues.
Absolutely true. In fact, as a small-l libertarian I find common ground with fiscal and political conservatives much more than with social conservatives -- I know just what you're talking about.
> Objectivism, the core of libertarian philosophy, can be used to prop up 99.9% of the "individual Rights, personal responsibility" views of the Founders. Where things gather friction with modern "conservatism" is where the political Right's Nanny State tendencies take over in regards to religion and "vice" crimes. On the Left, the friction comes from their socialist doctrine of collectivism and "social justice".
Precisely.
> However, you do have to adjust your thinking to disregard the "icky" things your neighbor may be getting up to.
Again, exactly correct. That's one reason I live in a rural area. My (relatively few) neighbors and I all get along because we: a) don't go out of our way to piss each other off, and b) ignore all the small sh!t. And if we want to get along, it's pretty much all small sh!t.
Except social conservatives all too often want to restrict what you sell to whom, if they find the what or the whom immoral. See Playboy, alcohol, etc.
"Social conservatives and libertarians agree that people should be responsible for the consequences of their actions, and not be bailed out by taxpayers."
Unless it comes to churches accepting tax-exempt status, and then being challenged for their political stands in violation of federal law which denies tax-exempt status to political groups.
"While social conservatives believe that it is not the role of government to indoctrinate people in liberal socialism, libertarians believe that it is not the role of government to indocrinate anyone in anything."
However, social conservatives all too often believe it is the role of government to indoctrinate people in what they believe are good morals, or worse, their version of the Good Book.
"While there are differences, there are many areas where libertarians and social conservatives can find common ground to advance their agendas without infringing on the others' rights."
Agreed. The problem is that those are rarely the areas the national GOP seems to have on top of the agenda, and social conservatives and libertarians are so eager for the political scraps we do get we're at each others' throats over relatively minor policy issues. We should be hanging together, and hanging the weasels who promise constitutional government and deliver politics as usual.
Except social conservatives all too often want to restrict what you sell to whom, if they find the what or the whom immoral. See Playboy, alcohol, etc.
Most social conservatives understand that pornography is here to stay. They simply want it labeled as such so that they can avoid it if they don't want it. As for Alcohol, the worst offenders are "feel good" liberals who prey on guilt in order to raise taxes for their socialist schemes. MADD is a textbook example of a group that could care less about the results of their efforts as long as money keeps pouring into their coffers.
As to "tax exempt status". if, as libertarians wish, there were no property taxes, this question would be moot.
Social conservatives do NOT believe that it is the role of government to "indoctrinate people into good morals". This is absurd. Who could possibly believe that the government is good at anything, much less indoctrinating people into good morals..."
To finish, the GOP is a political party, and, as such, is much more interested in perpetuating itself than in addressing real issues. That being said, the GOP is somewhat more than marginally better at confronting the existential crisis which faces us than are the democrats.
"MADD is a textbook example of a group that could care less about the results of their efforts as long as money keeps pouring into their coffers."
We're agreed on this. However, for you to assert that "[no one] could possibly believe that the government is good at anything, much less indoctrinating people into good morals..." all one needs to do to discover just how many here on FR disagree with THAT is look at threads dealing with drinking and driving laws. I can't point you to one offhand, but I bet elk can. I'm sorry, but I think there is a significant percentage of the GOP that really does believe strongly in what Fred Barnes called 'big government conservatism,' and that government doing good is okay. Perhaps you personally are the exception, but all too often these people and the moniker 'social conservative' are correlated. I'm not saying one isn't a subset of the other--but the compassionate [social] conservative in chief seems to be almost revered by many of this crowd, and it's hard to imagine them as a minority of the GOP when they have the Presidency.
I think I have to agree with Phillistone on this one.
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