Hi again. I appreciate learning about why you think “Libertarianism is fine in theory”. But my question was about the Constitution. It wasn’t a ploy to misdirect you away from your, uh, uncharitable opinions.
“...appreciate learning about why you think “Libertarianism is fine in theory”. But my question was about the Constitution. It wasn’t a ploy to misdirect you away from your, uh, uncharitable opinions.”[Steve Schulin, post 90]
My charity is overtaxed, extending rhetorically courteous benefit of the doubt to libertarian dogma. Since it cannot work in the real world, the theory doesn’t matter. Theorists who cannot acknowledge this limitation up front should not be trusted any more than any other pie-in-the-sky reformer/activist.
The US Constitution is not some perfect gem of rhetoric, inspired by Divine Intervention: it’s a practical document - written by human beings every bit as fallible and flawed as any modern - that distills a few morsels of the wisdom of the ages, combines them with a couple hard-headed value judgments about the best (well, least bad) methods & procedures to get people to work together without squashing all the uniqueness and originality from their lives, and throws in some canny observations concerning organizational psychology and politics. Rather quotidian, when we get right to it.
I am almost alone in noting that ideologues, activists, agitators, and other fanatics love to cling to the Constitution when it (as they believe) supports their nonsensical schemes. It cannot be denied, that they insist on quoting the vague high-flown rhetoric (some of which is found in the Preamble, some in the Amendments), and that only - when they claim it supports their policy demands. And they have created a whole alternate universe of post-modern “rights” which they’ve largely succeeded in convincing the general public are just as valid, just as important, as any original rights mentioned in the Constitution. And they’ve been forced to develop more legal fantasies to furnish a supporting framework: social justice, economic justice, environmental justice, etc.
Any assertion that recreational drug use is legally equivalent to drinking alcohol or smoking tobacco may be defensible on grounds of legal precedent, but it’s a mistake to infuse legal precedent with some sort of existential Fundamental Revealed Truth outside of the legal system or our society. Believing there’s any deeper meaning to that gambit is not merely weak argumentation, it’s downright bad faith. Same is true of all the other emanations, penumbras, and mere shadows that the Progressive Left claims to have found in the text (and in other Founding Documents): they do so only because they ache to “reform” society, and cannot summon the patience to do it by cleaner, more honest methods.