Why Is Libertarianism Wrong?

http://web.inter.nl.net/users/Paul.Treanor/libertarian.html ^

[Zon]

Personally, I don't think you know what the authors points are. You probably found the longest anti-libertarian article you could find and posted it ... so you can say "What exactly about his points ...".

Any person can, but leave it to Exnihilo to actually post one article after another and challenge posters to refute the author's points. It's Exnihilo's laziness that comes shinning through.

[Eagle Eye]

How about you provide a link or set of replies? Asking me to wade through a thread of 600+ replies for an answer you could provide is unreasonable and evasive.

[A.J.Armitage]

Well, I didn't ask what you say libertarians say. I asked what power you think it grants.

[Noumenon]

And when people like Allred have their way, that's when I stop turning cheeks and start loading magazines.

Yep - mine are already loaded and we've got our plans and contingencies mapped out for when the the Day comes.

I hope they won't outlaw home schooling until my kids are grown up.

Rest assured that they're working on that one. This is the real gust front of the Gramscian/Marcusian war on, well, you and me. Every child that escapes their tender mercies and brainwashing is one less member for the herd of entitled dependants they're trying to build.

One of the few weak spots I have left--don't mess with my right to teach my kids a moral system that I have spent a lifetime weighing and applying. I at least should get a few years to make my impact on them before they find out about the ways of the world and turn into fully free moral actors themselves.

That's a real line in the sand issue for me as well. We've got not quite 15 year old twins who are learning to stand for for what they believe, and if need be, to look evil square in the face, spit in its eye and dare it to bring it on.

[hove]

Why is libertarianism wrong? Here's a better question: Why are so many conservatives freaked out (obsessed) by libertarians? The word Libertarian is based on the word liberty...and our founding fathers were big into liberty. I think conservatives think libertarian = liberal. I think most libertarians are very conservative. Especially on the issues that matter most.

[The_Reader_David]

You, of course, like most Westerners are a bit misguided when you talk about early Church-State relations. The state, the Roman Empire, which adopted Christianity as its official religion, was not "decaying" as you put it. (We Eastern Orthodox Christians see the adoption of the Gospel by the Empire as part of a prodiential plan for the spread of the Holy Gospel: "in the fullness of time" was operationalized by God as meaning when His chosen people from whom the Christ would spring were incorporated for the first time into a stable multi-ethnic state with a generally used linga franca (Greek).)

The Empire lasted until 1453, albeit shorn of its Western provinces by barbarian invasions, and slowly dwindling to a city-state in its last years. The so called "Fall of Rome" in 476 was nothing but the retirement of the last Western Augustus. It may have been imprudent of the Emperor to trust the affairs of the Western Empire to Germanic chieftains raised to the rank of "Patrician of the Romans", but that's what was done.

Incidentally, having introduced the subject of Orthodox Christianity into a thread on libertarianism, I would point you all to the bioethical writings of H. Tristram Englehardt, Jr. In Foundations of Christian Bioethics he makes a very good case for a libertarian ethical arrangement in societies in which uniformity of content-full moral judgement does not exit precisely because it allows those who hold traditional morals to live by them free from state hinderance.

I hope both libertarian and anti-libertarian conservatives on this thread read carefully the ideas of the use of state power the author of the original article proposed. They include on both attacks tradition and the market. The strain of anti-libertarianism proposed in the article should be anathema to all American conservatives whether we are trying to conserve the classical liberalism of the Anglo-Scottish Enlightenment and the American Founding or a longer tradition from Christendom or a broadly defined "Judeo-Christian tradition."

[CubicleGuy]

Why are so many conservatives freaked out (obsessed) by libertarians?

Jealousy? Fear?

I think it's a little of both.

[Eagle Eye]

Why are so many conservatives freaked out (obsessed) by libertarians? The word Libertarian is based on the word liberty

You answered your own question, he he. They are afraid of what they don't understand.

[Archaeus]

It would appear that some "Conservatives" consider Libertarianism a threat. Why is that? Is it because Libertarians, who believe in a government held to it's Constitutional limits, are a logical alternative to "more of the same"?

It would seem that a true Conservative should want the freedom that their fathers fought and died for and would vigorously fight any attempt to diminish them.

What's amazing is that every election cycle we hear Republican politicians talk of less government, less spending etc. and then, when in office, those grand old ideals take a back seat.

[A.J.Armitage]

Please see the on-going debate on the George Bush Big Government Adventure thread. There's no need to repeat this argument on multiple threads.

You mean this thread? I did a word search on all the pages for "general welfare", and found nothing. So then I did a search on "southack" and looked at very post he made. Still, nothing about general welfare. If you had a different thread in mind, or if I missed it, please clarify.

[Zon]

Post 151 OWK, why do you feel that I'm back peddaling?

ROTFLMAO!!!!

[Southack]

"Well, I didn't ask what you say libertarians say. I asked what power you think it grants."

Considering that this thread is about what is wrong with Libertarianism, and not Southack, I think that it would be a bit arrogant and insensitive for me to hijack this thread for a discussion of what I think that the general welfare clause means.

On the other hand, you'll notice that libertarians tend to think that the general welfare clause can be disregarded from our Constitution. They seem to usually claim that it conveys no power to government (i.e., has no meaning).

In fact, when you ask them, often they can't name a single thing that general welfare can mean. You libs really do read the Constitution as though those words were never written into law.

And that misinterpretation of our Constitution is ONE of the things wrong with Libertarians, per the topic of this thread.

[xm177e2]

market forces not defined as coercion

Of course not, no more than the law of gravity is defined as coercion. The laws of economics and the law of gravity are almost equally set into stone.

This anti-libertarian screed has so many false premises in, so much bad logic, it's not worth my time to pick apart every single stupid thing in it.

[xm177e2]

that misinterpretation of our Constitution is ONE of the things wrong with Libertarians

Libertarians think we're still living under the Articles of Confederation, before the Constitution was ratified. The Constitution clearly grants gobs and gobs of power to the FEDERAL government and NOT the states. It was written entirely to STOP the states from exercising rights, like the right to coin their own money, or cheat other states in business. If libertarians don't like the Constitution, they should say so, but they shouldn't pretend it means something other than it does.

[Virginia-American]

According to Libertarians you can just disregard the phrase "general welfare" as if it were never written into the Constitution.

I take it to mean that 'particular welfare' (to individual people or corporations) is forbidden. But, I'm not on the Supreme Court. What, if anything, have they held it to mean? Is there any legislation that is authorised by it? or forbidden by it?

[A.J.Armitage]

Incidentally, having introduced the subject of Orthodox Christianity into a thread on libertarianism, I would point you all to the bioethical writings of H. Tristram Englehardt, Jr. In Foundations of Christian Bioethics he makes a very good case for a libertarian ethical arrangement in societies in which uniformity of content-full moral judgement does not exit precisely because it allows those who hold traditional morals to live by them free from state hinderance.

I hope both libertarian and anti-libertarian conservatives on this thread read carefully the ideas of the use of state power the author of the original article proposed. They include on both attacks tradition and the market. The strain of anti-libertarianism proposed in the article should be anathema to all American conservatives whether we are trying to conserve the classical liberalism of the Anglo-Scottish Enlightenment and the American Founding or a longer tradition from Christendom or a broadly defined "Judeo-Christian tradition."

Excellent. Thank you.

[riley1992]

IE, the obsessed can tell damn near any lie about us that they can dream up.

You betcha. I responded once to a poster who said that all libertarians approve of child molestation by calling him a, gasp, moron and was berated by a Moderator for it. Somehow, in my own little fantasy world, I assumed what he said was wrong and deserved that.

[El Sordo]

You appear to have run away.

[Southack]

My mistake. The thread discussing the "general welfare" clause is here.

[Paradox]

You appear to have run away

Don't worry, he'll be back. Trolls like him LIVE for this. They raise some hell, pretend to laugh, and once you kick their sorry little behinds in a debate, they leave it, only to troll again someday.