What is wrong with Libertarianism.

Conservative Commentary ^ | 28 July 2002 | Peter Cuthbertson

[tpaine]

- Extremely well said, & bookmarked. - Thanks.

I doubt you'll get a rational reply.
#25 - tpaine to 19

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I posted the above yesterday, but it applies again to your post. Lets hope you get a better reply than he did:


To: steve-b

"authoritarians who wish to elevate their personal preferences to the stature of moral law"

Oh yeah - being against personal irresponsibility, disaffection and alienation, sloth and laziness, immorality, promiscuity, ideology, and big government is just a "personal preference".
Nothing to do with making a better, freer society.
Are you French or something, or did you believe all that postmodernism you were taught at college?
29 posted on 8/1/02 5:24 PM Pacific by Tomalak

[tpaine]

Thanks, DB, and dittos. -- You said 'it' better than I could have, so I won't respond to #90.

[Khepera]

the GOP promotes more or less open borders, and, although they are against abortion in their platform, the national party really doesn't do much against abortion.

Well you are right about that. I don't vote straight party because of this very thing. They have been doing more as of late to fight abortion but it has amounted to very little over all.

While I do not support drug use I too believe that the war on drugs (Especially Marijuana) is ruinous to our liberties in a wider sense. I believe it should be up to the states as was intended by our constitutional republic. (Actually Democracy only works locally and I think state coverage may be to broad. County would be better.) Same thing with Prostitution, Gambling, Homosexuality and many other things. This would help ensure that everyone would have at least 1 state (County) they could stomach raising their kids in.

[dirtboy]

No problem. I think all sides on these libertarian versus conservative threads need to be more civil, and realize there are points upon which we can be allies, such as federalism, even as we agree to disagree and argue some on the other points, such as whether a STATE government has the right to ban, say, pot. At that level, the entire issue about federal usurpation of power in the drug war is eliminated, and we can instead discuss valid issues that actually address the merits and shortfalls of different approaches towards drugs and alcohol.

[dirtboy]

While I do not support drug use I too believe that the war on drugs (Especially Marijuana) is ruinous to our liberties in a wider sense. I believe it should be up to the states as was intended by our constitutional republic.

Ya beat me to it by one post, I said something very similar to tpaine in post #104. I think conservatives and libertarians should work together to turn a lot of these issues back to the states, to restore federalism and the 10th Amendment. That is where I see we have the strongest common ground. From there, the debate on this matter, between conservatives and libertarians, can be much more robust, and through the debate different states can try different approaches, and we can see which approaches have merit and which ones won't work. But we won't get that now with the feds involved. The two guarantees we can get from the feds on any action that they take is that it will be a failure, and the reaction of the feds to the failure will be to do more of what is failing...

[Khepera]

You got that right mister!

[tpaine]

When I refer to "The libertarians" or "Libertarians" I am speaking about them as a party. As a party they support legalized prostitution, open boarders, legalization of all drugs, and many other positions such as Abortion which I find offensive.
Typically when these things are brought up and especially when framed in reference to morality or with reference to God. I have found the "Libertarians" in general to be verbally abusive and first to attack.

I know there are individule members who may have differing views but I'm not talking about Individules here. I'm talking about the group.

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Heres a group of libertarians I support & agree with. Read their positions.
-- Do you find this "group" offensive?

REPUBLICAN LIBERTY CAUCUS POSITION STATEMENT

Address:http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/rlc/721810/posts

[dirtboy]

While I do not support drug use I too believe that the war on drugs (Especially Marijuana) is ruinous to our liberties in a wider sense.

Agree entirely. I think pot should be either decriminalized or legalized, with state and county options in that regard. As far as other drugs, I think they should remain illegal, with more emphasis on returning sentencing to judges, instead of these stupid mandatory minimums, and with a wide range of options available to judges, so they can ascertain whether someone is a recreational user of cocaine or an addict who really needs to be forced into treatment. Right now, to a lot of judges, they have two options - send the addict to jail, or throw the case out on the first technicality that comes along because they don't agree with the mandatory minimum sentence involved (I have seen that happen before).

I differ from a lot of libertarian posters in that I think a community as a whole has a right to examine certain behaviors and decide if a certain probability for harm threshhold is crossed. The classic example of this approach is drunk driving. Even though the vast majority of people who drive under the influence make it home without incident, the folks who do cause crashes create a level of mayhem and harm in gross disproporation to their numbers. So society prohibits ALL drunk driving. Some libertarians believe that we should wait for actual harm to happen before we act, for the drunk driver to hit another car, but I disagree.

And I think hard drug use fits this model as well. Pot doesn't, so the actions taken should reflect this. However, this is a tool that should be used very carefully, because in the wrong hands, some anti-fat activists could use it to block a McDonalds from being built in your community.

[David Cannady]

Don't be concerned about the War on Drugs ending because it won't. Although you are paying for whatever risky behavior people indulge in due to the socialist Democrats, inebriated drivers are all over the place and society is however coarse it's ever going to be, don't worry about drugs being legalized. The money loop has been closed.

The election of Bill Clinton represented the ultimate goal of international drug traffickers, stability. The WODs created a black market and gazillions of dollars have been going out to drug cartels. What could they do with all of that money? It had to be laundered back into the American economy because it's all dollars. And now it has. The money has come full circle in the form of investments and political donations. It doesn't even matter to the drug boys which party gets the money, Republicans are naturals because they truly believe in drug prohibition, but Democrats are crooks so it works out the same. All the drug cartels have to do is support candidates who are pro-WODs and they will have it made from now on. That was the mistake that the boot-leggers made during Alcohol Prohibition, they didn't buy high enough on the ladder. But, then again, they didn't have worms like Bill Clinton coming to them.

[dirtboy]

don't worry about drugs being legalized. The money loop has been closed.

Wrong. States will work to circumvent federal drug laws in defiance of the feds. Federalism will be reclaimed by the states, through citizen referenda that bypasses their own squishy-kneed state politicians, and that takes back the powers that rightfully belong to the states, or the people, the powers that the feds have usurped in defiance of the 9th and 10th Amendments. I've said it before, and I will say it again, until everyone on FR is sick and tired of me saying it - the only way the republic will be saved is, ironically, by referenda, or unfettered democracy on the state level.

[Khepera]

Where did the RLC come from, when did they start, who is involved? Sounds very interesting.

[dirtboy]

Where did the RLC come from, when did they start, who is involved? Sounds very interesting.

I don't know. That started up while I was on hiatus from FR for a bit. tpaine might be able to fill you in...

[x]

To have a society of stigma, you must have a society where "what the neighbors will say" actually matters. You must have a society where most people spend their whole lives in one place surrounded by their families instead of a mobile, anonymous society. A society where reputations are fixed and once set can never really be changed. Where ostracism has terrible socioeconomic consequences.

It is not possible to restore Victorian social relations or the concept of "scandal". People do not want crime. But then again, they do not want to be stuck all their lives in miserable marriages, to be constantly watched and judged, or see the bastard stigma restored.

Unfortunate in some ways, but true and very well said.

Reading Victorian novels give an inkling of what large scale reimposition of moral stigma and sanctions would mean. Even today, people still do make moral judgements and disapprove of those who are flagrantly immoral or unjust. But the "rights" of individuals, of families or of lovers will always lead to abuses of those rights, and people today won't give up the former to curb the latter.

Raise the banner of individual freedom in an affluent, anonymous urban society and inevitably it will be used against neighbors, employers or landlords who disapprove of illicit sex. It's not inevitable that the state intervene against them, but the same public opinion and consumer choice that once enforced morality eventually comes to enforce the right to immorality. As you imply, in a poorer, less mobile, rural, familial society political liberty may be combined with social control, but it would be difficult or impossible to achieve under present conditions.

I find things to admire in the original article, but it's unconvincing in the end. And he's barking up the wrong tree about British Tories like Widdicombe and Hitchens. Though they do good work championing voluntaristic or non-state moral policing, one can't help thinking sometimes that that's because actual legal prohibitions aren't possible. In another political environment, they might well be championing such policies.

[tpaine]

While I do not support drug use I too believe that the war on drugs (Especially Marijuana) is ruinous to our liberties in a wider sense. I believe it should be up to the states as was intended by our constitutional republic. -khepera

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Ya beat me to it by one post, I said something very similar to tpaine in post #104. I think conservatives and libertarians should work together to turn a lot of these issues back to the states, to restore federalism and the 10th Amendment.
That is where I see we have the strongest common ground.
From there, the debate on this matter, between conservatives and libertarians, can be much more robust, and through the debate different states can try different approaches, and we can see which approaches have merit and which ones won't work.

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Indeed, that the Tenth must be enforced IS common ground.

The problem then evolves to defining this part of the 10th, -- what are the constitutional 'powers --- prohibited by it to the states'?
To me, the 14th emumerated some of these prohibited powers, namely those of life, liberty, and propery.
- And made it clear that while states can make law to 'regulate' public acts using due process, they can not prohibit or infringe upon private victimless acts, - IE - 'sins'.

[tpaine]

Punch on the link. -- Its a new forum within FR, that JR formed in a spirit of 'compromise', I'd guess.

-- Very few of the anti-libertarians here will even comment about it, and seem to be ignoring its existence.

RLC Liberty Caucus | latest posts

Address:http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/rlc/browse

[David Cannady]

Every government guy from the top to the bottom supports the current system because the politicians keep them well-greased. If it falls, it will be from it's own corruption like the Soviet Union. The "people" have become accustomed to the bridle and too scared to buck the system(except for those gutsy drug users who refuse to kow-tow).

One of the things that contributed to the end of Alcohol Prohibition was the shock generated by the St. Valentine's Day Massacre. The brutality of it caused many people to decide it just wasn't worth it, but that's all changed. Apparently, no amount of killing is too much of a price to pay for continuing the WODs. It doesn't, apparently, matter how much corruption occurs as long as people can say they are "sending a message" whether that message has any postitve impact or not. I attribute it all to arrested emotional development.

Authoritarianism is like a child shaking it's fist and stamping it's foot because the other kids won't play fair.

[dirtboy]

The problem then evolves to defining this part of the 10th, -- what are the constitutional 'powers --- prohibited by it to the states'? To me, the 14th emumerated some of these prohibited powers, namely those of life, liberty, and propery.

I disagree. IMO the 14th applies the Bill of Rights to the states. But it causes some problems if you use the 9th in conjunction with the 14th. The 9th was fine when it was linked with the 10th. But throw in the 14th, and you have a recipe for judicial activism. IMO the 9th was put in place to keep the feds from restricting rights not enumerated in the BOR. But the states still had powers to restrict those unenumerated rights as they saw fit (some states or localities, for example, ban or restrict the consumption of alcohol). Once the 14th came along, it stood in contradiction to the 9th, a situation the courts have resolved by basically ignoring the 9th.

- And made it clear that while states can make law to 'regulate' public acts using due process, they can not prohibit or infringe upon private victimless acts, - IE - 'sins'.

I would disagree to a certain extent. Please review my post above to Khepera that covers my opinions of DUI laws. There is legal precedent to not just act again harm, but also act against a certain probability of harm. And that is what Khepera is talking about. The most sound debate is, how do we mitigate against harm? Prostitution is often NOT victimless - diseases are spread, families are impacted. So what is the proper role of dealing with that, and what can be done to mitigate harm?

[dirtboy]

Every government guy from the top to the bottom supports the current system because the politicians keep them well-greased. If it falls, it will be from it's own corruption like the Soviet Union. The "people" have become accustomed to the bridle and too scared to buck the system(except for those gutsy drug users who refuse to kow-tow).

Several states have decriminalized pot posession. Nevada, which only a couple of years ago had the most punitive laws in the country regarding posession of a single joint, looks like it will have a referendum to LEGALIZE posession up to three ounces.

Please allow the facts to work their way into your theories and get back to us.

[Khepera]

Thank you for the information.

[dirtboy]

Every government guy from the top to the bottom supports the current system because the politicians keep them well-greased.

I guess the governor of New Mexico and the Sheriff of the county around Telluride, Colorado didn't get the memo from Drug War Headquarters. Since you seem to be well hooked into the actions of that bunch, call 'em up and tell them to get those guys back into the program /sarcasm.