L
Posted on 10/11/2010 9:55:48 AM PDT by Paladins Prayer
Recently, in a piece about the dangers inherent in libertarianism, I pointed out that libertarians, by applying their live-and-let-live philosophy to the moral sphere as well as the governmental, do nothing to maintain the societal moral framework that enables people to govern themselves from within and that ensures that Big Brother won't have to do so from without. (I recommend you read the piece.) Not surprisingly, this provoked some angry responses and fallacious counter-arguments. This article is my response to them.
I will start with the one thing that characterizes libertarians as much as anything else: a misunderstanding about the nature of law. To illustrate the point, consider the commentary of "End the Fed," a "devout libertarian" who posted under my first piece. He wrote,
I don't spend a lot of time dwelling on whether people should smoke crack or have abortions. My choice is drug free. My choice is not to have abortions. And if you want to do those things, I won't criticize or judge you.
I simply accept the fact that those things exist whether I want them to or not.
OK, now imagine if I said,
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
Abortion violates the “let live” part.
A well stated argument. Every libertarian and conservative should read. bump.
I agree that Western society rests on a Christian moral base, but it is certainly debatable whether the drug war rests on that base. We did fine without it for over a hundred years in the U.S. The same applies to the FDA, the federal department of education, and numerous other nanny state impositions. Abortion is highly debated even among libertarians.
You even find those such as Reverend Wright who debate the Christian basis for property rights, which are IMHO, a far more important base of Western Society than the power of the state to tell people what they can ingest.
L
A well written response with some more excellent examples. Foreign policy is another area that is hotly debated among libertarians.
Libertarians don’t believe that we can or should live without moral rules. They believe that government should not be the enforcer of those rules.
This article isn't one of those---I don't think the writer actually knows what libertarian principles are.
The problem with this whole line of reasoning is that anyone can make the argument that any law is good because it fits with their moral code. The left uses this argument for all sorts of nanny state laws that we object to.
Laws that restrict people's freedom to do as they wish should have to pass a very high bar of necessity before they are enacted.
I say live and let live as long as your actions have no detrimental effect on me.
~snicker~
Sorry to see you so upset over yet another article exposing the hypocracy of libertarianism.
Perhaps you should try thinking conservative moral thoughts.
Reality is another topic that is debated by Liberaltarians.
Some think it exists, most don’t. After a couple bongs they all agree...pizza and doritos!
LIBERALtarians want NO judgments on social mores. Most of the time LIBERALtarians are guilty of what true conservatives don't want morally to they are cold hearted and ONLY care about themselves. It is one or the other. So they avoid the issue by focusing only on money.
It doesn't work that way. An immoral society will not prosper alone on MONEY. Morality is a component of fiscal responsibility - regardless of how they want to split hairs on it. The two go together. The truth is LIBERALtarians are moral cowards and HIDE behind fiscal responsibility.
May I suggest you try reading the article before responding? (I realize this is an FR tradition, but still.)
The author does not even imply that libertarians don’t believe we should live without moral rules.
He merely points out that libertarians accept laws attempting to enforce certain moral rules and reject others, without any particularly logical rationale for distinguishing between them. Except that libertarians don’t like laws about sex or drugs, and the right-wing variant doesn’t like laws about guns.
The point is that all laws are passed because somebody is attempting to prevent something they believe wrong, or in other words immoral. Every law that has ever been passed imposes some individual’s or some group’s morality on other people.
Yet (many) libertarians seem to think law group A imposes morality while law group B does not.
Money is definitely their god.
How about that Libertarian style Fire Dept. ?
Didn`t pay for our service? Well then, we`ll not put out your fire and let your house burn to the ground.
This goes to show how silly LIBERALtarians are.
LAWS enforce MORALITY. It's a timeless truth.
Then their is the SELFISH attitude of who cares what OTHERS do as long as it doesn't affect ME! LOL! Again, it's juvenile. Behavior in society ALWAYS affects others - directly or indirectly. You can't escape it but unfortunately when someone is so SELF ABSORBED they don't understand anything beyond themselves and their little imaginary world.
It’s pretty clear that America is no longer a Christian nation. That’s why we are losing our liberty.
I still think Libertarians are just liberals that like guns, but don’t want to pay taxes.
Like Obama and his utopia ... they have their own utopia.
Neither Obama and his utopia or LIBERALtarians and their utopia work. If they had any clue on history, they wouldn’t be so dumb. Most liekly their pride will stop them from seeing their flawed utopian views.
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