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To: Philistone
> 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....

Of course there's common ground. There's also common ground between the libertarians and the liberals, but that doesn't mean any more or less -- the differences are what define the demarcations between groups. We all breathe air, after all.

> 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.

... including conservative morality, which is exactly the point of difference. The fact that the libertarian agrees with the conservative that the liberal agenda is whacked, does not mean that the libertarian agrees with the conservative agenda; or even if so, would want it to be advanced by the government. Social conservatives, like social liberals, are all about advancing their agendas.

If what you're proposing is that the libertarians close their eyes to the social conservative agenda, then you're intentionally ignoring the essence of what "libertarian" means.

18 posted on 10/29/2006 7:00:13 PM PST by dayglored (Listen, strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government!)
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To: dayglored

Please read more carefully.

Let's take a recent example:

Social Conservative: "Christian pharmacists should not have to dispense prescription abortificants if it would violate their moral prinicples."

Libertarian: "People are free to sell anything which may be legally sold to anyone they chose, and the government has no right to tell them what they may or may not sell or to whom."

Under current law, you cannot chose to whom you sell your goods. And in certain cases (cf. above) you cannot even determine which goods you sell. Under libertarianism, you have the right to sell what you want to whom you want.

Point 2: To the extent that social conservatives wish to impose their ideology upon libertarians, libertarians have the right to fight back. But again, MOST social conservatives do not wish to IMPOSE their views. Unlike radical Islamism, you cannot convert people to Christianity by force.

As to "Conservative Morality", libertarians would do well to seperate the goals of this morality from the means to achieving these goals and look at it from a libertarian point of view.

Let's take an example: Abstinence before marriage.

Social conservatives believe that pre-marital sex is wrong. Period.

Libertarians believe that individuals are responsible for the consequences of their actions. Period.

Now in a libertarian society where third-party taxpayers were not there to pick up the tab for promiscuous behaviour, WHAT WOULD BE THE END RESULT?

People would be more careful about who they had sex with and how they were protected.

The END result would be that abstinance would gain greater value than it has now.

In other words, libertarian goals and social conservative goals would converge.


28 posted on 10/29/2006 8:57:48 PM PST by Philistone
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