Posted on 04/07/2010 5:26:04 AM PDT by listenhillary
I used to be a Kennedy-style "liberal." Then I wised up. Now I'm a libertarian.
But what does that mean?
When I asked people on the street, half had no clue.
We know that conservatives want government to conserve traditional values. They say they're for limited government, but they're pro-drug war, pro-immigration restriction and anti-abortion, and they often support "nation-building."
And so-called liberals? They tend to be anti-gun and pro-choice on abortion. They favor big, powerful government -- they say -- to make life kinder for people.
By contrast, libertarians want government to leave people alone -- in both the economic and personal spheres. Leave us free to pursue our hopes and dreams, as long as we don't hurt anybody else.
Ironically, that used to be called "liberal," which has the same root as "liberty." Several hundred years ago, liberalism was a reaction against the stifling rules imposed by aristocracy and established religion.
I wish I could call myself "liberal" now. But the word has been turned on its head. It now means health police, high taxes, speech codes and so forth.
So I can't call myself a "liberal." I'm stuck with "libertarian." If you have a better word, please let me know.
When I first explained libertarianism to my wife, she said: "That's cruel! What about the poor and the weak? Let them starve?"
I recently asked some prominent libertarians that question, including Jeffrey Miron, who teaches economics at Harvard.
"It might in some cases be a little cruel," Miron said. "But it means you're not taking from people who've worked hard to earn their income (in order) to give it to people who have not worked hard."
But isn't it wrong for people to suffer in a rich country?
(Excerpt) Read more at realclearpolitics.com ...
Adams was born and raised in a time and era where the population was exceptionally homogeneous, and the only true differentiator was whether you were a new light or old light Congregationalist. If you were an Anglican, or any other form of Protestant, to a Congregationalist, you were beneath contempt.
If you were a Catholic, you were warned out of town, if not killed. In fact, in the generation before Adams', Massachusetts' best and brightest lights formed an armed flotilla, raided the major port towns of what was then known as l'Acadie, and committed genocide against the Catholics living there.
In many respects, Adams was a great man, but he had his demons and prejudices, just like any other man. His is not the final word on defining a "moral and religious people."
That will not work because at its heart it is firstly a moral as well as civil rights issue. The two cannot be divorced. This is why America is in decline right now. We are trying to divide natural law from civil law which causes all kinds of problems.
Civil law comes from Natural law. When Civil law is divorced from Natural law we come up with all kinds of crazy unjust laws like gay-marriage, gay-adoption, abortion, etc...
You have glossed over the “... without doing any harm to others” part of the Libertarian philosophy. You have very quickly moved past the first cases of death cause by fraud. Until Libertarians can show how there allowing a pusher to sell drugs that can kill or maim ... does no harm to others, their arguments wont pass the most basic smell test.
As for companies firing people who use drugs, it is the very heart of Libertarian thought that enables them to do so. As the company is at risk due to loss of revenue, loss of productivity, increase cost of health care and risk of lawsuits due to failed products or performance. And since individuals on drugs show decreased mental and physical capacity, it is the BEST INTEREST of the company not to retain individuals who willingly engage in behaviors that are risky to the business.
As for the bad actors ... any doubt in your mind that a person on PCP, LSD or some other drug is a danger to others while driving? Making drugs illegal reduces the number of such occurrences and when someone is picked up while under the influence and sent to prison the government is creating a consequence to the individual before they impose their hurt, harm and danger on others. Or would you rather wait till some doped up drug head attacks some 75 year old grand mother and beats her to death in a fit of rage? Some people can protect themselves from a drug crazed lunatic. Some people cant.
How many people are you willing to sacrifice onto the alter of purity.
Carry on!
If all drugs were decriminalized, under what scenario would there still be your garden-variety drug pushers roaming the streets?
How do you have laws without those laws infringing upon your freedom? Speeding on a street with traffic infringes upon the safety of the occupants of the other vehicles. Speeding on a deserted street infringes on no one. Does the law differentiate? How do you change the law to encomposs the libertarian philosophy? Now how do you do that to the miriad of laws necessary for a functioning society with moderate to large population density?
Police and a court system require taxes to pay for them. However, imposing a tax on you without your agreeing to the tax infringes on your freedom. How do you finance a legal system without taxes?
Methinks you confuse libertarianism with anarchism.
“What people who say ‘we can’t legislate morality’ are really saying is ‘we can’t legislate sexual morality.’ I’d sure like to hear a logical explanation why this one area of human interaction alone should be immune from legislation.”
I think this is USUALLY the case, but not always - as in the war on drugs! We have spent untold BILLIONS, possibly trillions, on the war on drugs and what have we gotten in return? The only thing our war on drugs did was push the distribution and manufacturing to other countries who are less equipped to deal with the results (see Mexico and the border issues)!
Tell me the difference between alcohol and prohibition and drugs and the war on them? Prohibition lead to the largest splurge in criminal warfare in American history - until the 1980’s and the war on drugs!
What I do in my house is NONE of your business, unless it hurts someone else! Otherwise, me smoking a joint in my house is absolutely NO different than you drinking a few beers in yours! Heck, me snorting cocaine in my house is NO different than you slamming a bottle scotch in yours!
Heck, the effects of the beer and the scotch will last longer than the effects of either of the drugs I mentioned, although the two drugs I mentioned will stay in your system (at least their markers will stay in your system) longer than the alcohol!
And no, I do not do drugs and haven’t done MJ since before I joined the Marine Corps. I agree that there are OTHER issues that invade my privacy (seat belt laws, etc...), but they are no different than this one and they dang sure haven’t cost us all nearly as much money!!
a) Fairly porous borders with welfare state benefits and anchor-baby citizenship to everyone that gets through (the status quo)
is much worse than
b) Open borders with none of those goodies available.
When I hurt someone, or damage their property, that is when Government should step in.If you truly believe that then how can you object when the Government steps in to prohibit drug uses from hurting others and damaging property?
Me: BEFORE I hurt someone, or damage their property, that is when Government should step in.
You: AFTER I hurt someone, or damage their property, that is when Government should step in.
Yes. There will always be the bottom feeders that will try to squeak out a buck or two from the weak.
If you truly believe that then how can you object when the Government steps in to prohibit drug users gun owners from hurting others and damaging property?
Me: BEFORE I hurt someone, or damage their property, that is when Government should step in.
You: AFTER I hurt someone, or damage their property, that is when Government should step in.
“Some of the illegal drugs are illegal because one trip, your first trip, just might be your last. Or it might leave you emotionally or psychologically crippled for the rest of your life.”
I know of people who had this same issue with alcohol. Should we outlaw it?
I know of MANY more who had this issue with a car! Should we outlaw those?
You definitely hear about these same issues involving GUNS - and there are MANY out there that want to outlaw them - do you think that is a good idea?
Your argument is that some people will get hurt - well unfortunately that is a possibility in a free society. Some people will loose all their money investing in a company - should we outlaw such recklessness?
You want to punish someone for something that has yet to happen.
I think you're grasping at straws, my friend.
I understand that there are those out there who trade alcohol on the black market to minors, but their numbers are so few as to render them insignificant in the grand scheme of things. These people are analogous to the "pushers" you're fretting about under a drug decriminalization scenario.
Today Kennedy would be somewhat to the right of McCain.
Methinks you avoided answering the question. How do you solve the speeding conundrum? Provide a practical libertarian solution that would translate across the necessary legal system to support a large society.
...and don't break things!
Sell guns to a minor ... illegal
Sell alcohol to a minor .... illegal
We license drivers
I’m not concerned about a person hurting themselves. I’m concerned about a person hurting others... namely me and my family.
Well then you better outlaw alcohol! There are more alcohol related deaths involving car accidents than drug related vehicular accidents.
If someone buys a gun, they MIGHT go out and rob someone, so lets arrest all gun owners before they rob you?
Your argument is that they MIGHT create a problem, so let’s get rid of them. With your argument, we need to get rid of cars themselves, because people have used them as weapons and killed people! Bad argument in my mind.
This would not happen. One has only to look at the American past, before big government took over, to see an example. Before there were big government nanny programs, Americans voluntarily banded together and formed a huge network of charities that helped people" the Red Cross, Salvation Army, Goodwill, churches, guilds groups of all kinds, Masons, Shiners, etc ,that provided for the poor and the needy. It will happen again because Americans are good. We don't need the government to do it for us.
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