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Most libertarians recognize some restraints on the liberty of the individual as legitimate...laws against assault, theft, regulation against unforeseeable risk, and so on. Just out of curiosity, what restraints (if any) do you believe should be imposed on the majority's power to regulate society? IIRC earlier in the thread you mentioned fundamental liberties as being beyond the legitimate power of governments to regulate. What are those fundamental liberties? Is there a list, or perhaps a general description that would fit them all?

Perhaps more importantly, if the majority believed that a particular fundamental liberty was jeopardizing all other liberties, or the continued existence of their society, could they legitimately restrict it as well?

I think our disagreement simply boils down to a difference in how we assess risks. I believe that insufficiently restrained government authority is the greater risk, whereas you seem to believe that insufficiently restrained licentiousness is the greater risk.

That's well put. But let me describe my side a bit more fully in those terms: I believe that insufficient private virtue leads, indirectly but inevitably, to overbearing government authority.

That being my view of the problem, it's where I begin hunting for a solution. And to cut to the chase: if we want freedom, we must first be worthy of it. ("He who will not rule himself will be ruled by another.")

I realize that'll sound arrogant to some, and will be particulary galling to those petulant adolescents-in-grownup-bodies who've gotten us into this mess. But they, in refusing to restrain themselves, are the very ones who must, like children, be restrained by another. And we'll either (A) restrain them informally (via social pressure, local ordinances, etc.) or, (B) in our desperation, grant authority to government to restrain them (i.e. heavy-handed "wars" on drugs).

Which would we prefer? Because the only other option is (C) to let them run wild and destroy what the rest of us seek to preserve - in which case we'll be ruled by a tyrant not of our choosing.

Oops, I got carried away and hit [Post] without anwering your questions...

fundamental liberties as being beyond the legitimate power of governments to regulate

I don't yet have that list convincingly settled in my mind. But it seems to me the place to begin the study is with the founders - particularly with Madison, who argued that "in all cases, the will of the majority, in order to rule, must be right" (or words to that effect).

In saying it "must be right", he admitted that majority will could possibly be wrong. But in a pure democracy, that's never the case, is it? There is no right or wrong if majority rule is the supreme rule. But Madison implies an authority exists that is superior to the majority's will. And that authority would express itself in the fundamental liberties.

I find a good synopsis of such fundamental liberties in those unalienable rights listed in the Declaration: life, liberty, and the pursuit of telos (as I like to paraphrase it.)

The Bill of Rights, in my view, is not the best place to begin, because it seems less a list of fundamental liberties and more a bulwark against tyranny: It places defensive obstacles at strategic points where a tyrant would be most likely to attack - as history had taught the founders. But merely examining defensive positions can't give one a full view of the territory being defended. And Amendments IX and X remind us of that.

Perhaps more importantly, if the majority believed that a particular fundamental liberty was jeopardizing all other liberties, or the continued existence of their society, could they legitimately restrict it as well?

Such a case would indicate that our "list" of fundamental liberties was flawed, and force us to re-examine it viz. the point of conflict. (This assumes, of course, that Jefferson and others are correct in extrapolating from "the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God" that such fundamental rights exist, and that they're not merely a subjective set of "values".)