You're out of the woods
You're out of the dark
You're out of the night
Step into the sun
Step into the light
Keep straight ahead for
The most glor - ious place
On the face
Of the earth or the sky
Posted on 08/01/2002 3:27:45 PM PDT by Tomalak
Thought for the day
If you believe in a truly libertarian society, your only way to success is in working to build a society based upon traditional morality, shame and chastity. Contradictory? Actually, no. Given a little examination, it turns out to be rather obvious; almost self-evidently true. If you want to live in a country where every man supports himself rather than looking to the taxpayer, where crime is rare and so massive police powers, ID cards and DNA databases are superfluous, you will not do so on the back of the destructive policies of social liberalism.
Libertarians traditionally do not look to history for the sort of society they wish to build. But I sense that the famous passage with which AJP Taylor begins his English History 1914-1945 comes closest to the libertarian ideal: a place where the normal, sensible Englishman comes into contact with the state only through the post office and policeman. The United States that existed before FDR's massive extensions in state power is similarly the model of the sort of America that libertarians across the pond seek to build. What all successful societies in history with small states have had in common is a strictly moral populace. Victorian Britain could survive without a large state precisely because pious ideas of shame, duty and self-reliance ensured that people would look to themselves for what they needed, rather than the state, and because crime was low enough that the state did not need to seek all the powers it could summon to fight back.
One mistake far too many libertarians make is to associate traditional morality with big government, and hostility to freedom. The opposite is true. The more influence morality has over a man's conduct, the less need there is for the state to control it. Crime can be reduced by many police, many laws, tougher sentences and more guns. But most of all, to have a low crime society without an overbearing state, you need to fashion the sort of country whose people are inclined not to commit crime in the first place. Roger Scruton made this point as brilliantly as ever in his call to "Bring Back Stigma":
"The law combats crime not by eliminating criminal schemes but by increasing the risk attached to them; stigma combats crime by creating people who have no criminal schemes in the first place. The steady replacement of stigma by law, therefore, is a key cause of the constant increase in the number and severity of crimes."
To see morality as inimical to liberty, as a threat to libertarian ambitions, is the most statist thing one can do. It is to leave the state as the only thing to pick up the pieces when society fails to function.
It is no mere joke to say that at present libertarians are those who like the liberal society but hate paying for it. Take a recent column on paedophilia in America's leading Libertarian Magazine, Reason, entitled "Sins of the Fathers". Throughout the article, the message is clear: molesting kids is wrong, but 'merely' wanting to rape them is not. The article is a rebuke aimed at all those with a moral problem with lusting after children.
"The issue is not sexual attraction; it is sexual action...
Bibliophilia means the excessive love of books. It does not mean stealing books from libraries. Pedophilia means the excessive (sexual) love of children. It does not mean having sex with them, although that is what people generally have in mind when they use the term. Because children cannot legally consent to anything, an adult using a child as a sexual object is engaging in a wrongful act. Such an act is wrongful because it entails the use of physical coercion, the threat of such coercion, or (what comes to the same thing in a relationship between an adult and a child) the abuse of the adult’s status as a trusted authority.
Saying that a priest who takes sexual advantage of a child entrusted to his care "suffers from pedophilia" implies that there is something wrong with his sexual functioning, just as saying that he suffers from pernicious anemia implies that there something wrong with the functioning of his hematopoietic system. If that were the issue, it would be his problem, not ours."
I believe that the dominance such people seem to have over libertarianism is a source of much of its undeserved failure. Such arguments only make libertarians sound nasty, extreme, and frankly strange. They may explain their defence of paedophilia on the grounds of a philosophical tradition of 140 years standing, but most ordinary people do not see it that way: what they see is a political movement apparently sympathetic to a pervert. Similarly, attacking the welfare state on grounds of economic efficiency is productive before some, but to the majority, it just looks like greed: not wanting to help those in need. Unless one explains morally the evils of trapping people on welfare so that each time they make an economic advance there is a corresponding benefit cut, and of creating a state which appears to remove every citizen's private duty to others, how can one show that they are wrong to put this thinking down to greed?
So morality surely reduces the need for a large state. But does accepting the importance of morality in society mean a greater role for the state in other areas? I do not believe so. Let us look at the actual aims of social conservatives like Melanie Phillips, Peter Hitchens, Ann Widdecombe, Charles Moore, John Redwood, Roger Scruton and Theodore Dalrymple. How many can you name in mainstream journalism or politics who actually want to change the law to make homosexuality illegal, for example? I do not know of any. Again, we see the reality - the social "authoritarians" are not really authoritarian. They do not want new laws to stop immorality and crime: they want free people to choose to be good themselves. They want a country where virtue is praised and vice condemned.
Ultimately, the enemy of libertarians is state control, not self-control. Morality in ordinary life removes the need for the sort of huge state that politicians have built for us since the 1930s. The more people choose to be good of their own accord, the more convincingly one can question the need for an over-mighty government to keep them in line. But until libertarians give up their crusade against any idea of decent behaviour, I do not see them succeeding.
Zon: Each person's moral compass points north. North being the right to their own life and by extension, right to their own property. That's why by comparison there is a much smaller ratio of violent crimes and fraud than crimes of vice. 86
Poppycock. There are fewer violent crimes because they are harder to conceal. Corpses are far more conspicious than bad checks. 89
Zon: Following your logic if there was an easy way to hide dead bodies leaving no trace back to the murderer then there would be as many murderers as people that smoke pot. 127
You betcha. Examples? Sierra Leone, Rwanda, Buchenwald, etc, etc.
Perhaps you don't live in the United States. I was making reference only to United States -- a first world developed country. What is your point of using third world examples run by some of the worst governments in the world -- the opposite of U.S. governments?
The Russian militia are LEO's. In what time period and in what nations was this study conducted?
The study was conducted in United States prisons during the 1990s. BTW, you injected Russian militia into the discussion -- do you have a problem with me repeating your words? I don't live in Russia and I'm not discussing the plight of Russians. I live in the United States and I'm discussing the plight of U.S. citizens.
Because we were making general statements about the nature of humans and the nature of governments.
There are glaringly obvious counter-examples that contradict your assertions regarding murder vs. drug use.
I was making reference only to United States -- a first world developed country.
My example of Buchenwald refered to a smug, first world country. If Buchenwald can happen in the land of Goethe and Bach, you shouldn't kid yourself about what might happen in the land of Jefferson and Twain.
Following your logic if there was an easy way to hide dead bodies leaving no trace back to the murderer then there would be as many murderers as people that smoke pot.
As I said, its purely a matter of consequences.
You can law with consequences or law without consequences (8 years is the average America punishment for murder these days, far lower than say the Icelandic Vikings Anarcho-Capitalist price).
The need is for a general awakening of the intelligent element, as to what works in human society--and what leads to certain disaster.
Business/science community works to increase prosperity. Politics/government work to diminish prosperity. For the work hours/money put in, the benefits accrued by business and science are obvious. For the work hours/money put in, the benefits accrued from government are not obvious. In fact, on net accounting, the government by far diminishes prosperity. Government wasn't intended to increase prosperity. It's supposed to ensure that people are left to their own means of creating prosperity for themselves others and society. That is accomplished by protecting private property/individual rights.
Congress has created so many laws that virtually every person is assured of breaking more than just traffic laws. Surely with all this supposed lawlessness people and society should have long ago run head long into destruction. But it has not.
Instead, people and society have progressively prospered. Doing so despite politicians creating on average, 3,000 new laws each year which self-serving alphabet-agency bureaucrats implement/utilize to justify their usurped power and unearned paychecks. They both proclaim from on high -- with complicit endorsement from the media and academia -- that all those laws are "must-have" laws to thwart people and society from running headlong into self-destruction.
Again, despite not having this year's 3,000 must-have laws people and society increased prosperity for years and decades prior. How can it be that suddenly the people and the society they form has managed to be so prosperous for so long but suddenly they will run such great risk of destroying their self-created prosperity? Three hundred new laws each year is overkill, but 3,000 is, well, it's insane.
Politics is not the solution, it's the problem. Honest business and science is the solution. It has always been the solution.
War of Two Worlds
Value Creators versus Value Destroyers
The first thing civilization must have is business/science. It's what the family needs so that its members can live creative, productive, happy lives. Business/science can survive, even thrive without government/bureaucracy.
Government/bureaucracy cannot survive without business/science. In general, business/science and family is the host and government/bureaucracy is a parasite.
Keep valid government services that protect individual rights and property. ...Military defense, FBI, CIA, police and courts. With the rest of government striped away those few valid services would be several fold more efficient and effective than they are today.
Underwriters Laboratory is a private sector business that has to compete in a capitalist market. Underwriters laboratory is a good example of success where government fails.
Any government agency that is a value to people and society -- which there are but a few -- could much more effectively serve people by being in the private sector where competition demands maximum performance.
Wake up! They are the parasites. We are the host. We don't need them. They need us.
Exactly what the Marxist ideologues tell the so-called wage-slaves about the so-called thieving robber-baron bosses. LOL!
You can law with consequences or law without consequences
This is what I proposes: When a person thinks they've been harmed by another person they can file criminal charges and or file a civil lawsuit claim against the suspect. Thus just laws prohibit murder, rape, assault, robbery, blackmail and fraud. Prohibiting any act wherein a person initiates force, threat of force or fraud against a person or their property.
There is no need for laws that prohibit acts between consenting adults because if a third person is harmed by the actions of either or both the consenting adults they can file a civil lawsuit to gain restitution. If one or both consenting adults assault a third person or commits fraud against a third person the third person/victim can file criminal charges. It's the same for a lone individual that acts without engaging any other person or another person's property.
In criminal and civil court trials impartial juries can decide if the charges are valid or if an acquittal is called for.
* * *
The lack of impartial juries has been the lynch pin to deteriorate moral compasses while creating the illusion of separation of powers that it subverts.
I will hold to my original point. How can an amendment that moves powers not delegated to the federal government to the states or the people ...
The 10th doesn't MOVE powers. It recognizes that ALL other powers [those not prohibited to states] are either delegated to states OR remain reserved to the people.
-- be affected by an amendment that grants more power to the federal government at the expense of the states?
The 14th doesn't grant more power to the feds. It limits states from violating the constitution.
Hint - it is diminished.
Hint, - no, the 10th is not diminished. States have the same constitutional powers they have always had. They just don't use them.
And since the 9th was originally coupled to the 10th (IMO), that in turn diminishes the 9th, or else the 9th, coupled with the 14th, becomes a vehicle for federal judicial activism instead of a check on federal judicial and legislative power, as the 9th was prior to the passage of the 14th.
Sorry, you lost me somewhere in the concept of coupling the 9th & 14th. -- Thanks.
Zon: Wake up! They are the parasites. We are the host. We don't need them. They need us.163
Exactly what the Marxist ideologues tell the so-called wage-slaves about the so-called thieving robber-baron bosses. LOL!
You said/did the exact same 180 degree inverted context twisting yesterday. Myself and one other person respond to you. You failed to respond to either of us. Nothing has changed so I repost the same response.
Research helps dispel marijuana myths
To: Zon
Wake up! They are the parasites. We are the host. We don't need them. They need us. 374
Exactly what the Marxist ideologues tell the so-called wage-slaves about the thieving robber-baron bosses. LOL!
378 posted on 8/1/02 2:56 PM Eastern by Cultural JihadTo: Cultural Jihad
Do you even know what he is talking about?
382 posted on 8/1/02 3:01 PM Eastern by jayef
To: Cultural Jihad
The so called Robber Barons fueled the industrial revolution. The Marxists were 180 degrees wrong. I champion the market-entrepreneur job-creators. That you so readily take a quote out of context (which I have often see you do) is testament to your dishonesty. Or am I mistaken and you actually think it is funny (as denoted by your "LOL" acronym) what the Marxist do.
Lame. The problem is your inane tinfoil pessimism that we can't do anything about the drug war ... when states around the country are passing referenda that chip away at federal drug policy. My point is, things ARE changing, you just don't care to see that...
You're out of the woods
You're out of the dark
You're out of the night
Step into the sun
Step into the light
Keep straight ahead for
The most glor - ious place
On the face
Of the earth or the sky
Wake up CJ -- you're in LaLa Land..
Wake up, wake up! No CJ, you're not Dorothy and I'm not your Auntie Em.
Snap! out of it dude.
I didn't say we couldn't do anything about it. I, also, believe that things are changing, but it's not just about drug prohibition. It's about the recognition that the politicians and bureaucrats are part of a scam that takes much, but targets what they return to their own benefit. The social spenders buy votes from the so-called "poor" and the social authoritarians scare up votes by raising spectres of chaos, but they are both after the same thing, power and money.
The only ideology that will produce postitive results for the nation as a whole, rather than for the targeted few, is truth and honesty. That is wholly absent from our political and governmental system.
I agree 100%. I'd love to see a return to a Constitutional Republic. I'm fairly convinced that Socialist Democracies will destroy themselves.
As for our disagreement on why in the United States their aren't as many murderers as pot smokers -- me saying they don't murder based on moral conscience and you saying they don't murder because it's against the law -- I guess we'll have to agree that we disagree.
See, Libertarians aren't all that bad. (technically speaking, Libertarianism isn't radical enough for my tastes)
As for our disagreement on why in the United States their aren't as many murderers as pot smokers -- me saying they don't murder based on moral conscience and you saying they don't murder because it's against the law -- I guess we'll have to agree that we disagree.
Book of Job stuff. Are American's civil due to their high moral principals or simply because of the consequences of misbehavior? The answers to this question are speculative, you have to do the experiment to find out. Given what I've seen of human nature, my guess is that we aren't as civil as most people would like to believe.
Hast not thou made an hedge about him, and about his house, and about all that he hath on every side? thou hast blessed the work of his hands, and his substance is increased in the land. 1:11 But put forth thine hand now, and touch all that he hath, and he will curse thee to thy face.
See, Libertarians aren't all that bad. (technically speaking, Libertarianism isn't radical enough for my tastes)
So many people mislead themselves by getting hung up on collectivist-type labels/groupings. I'm not a Libertarian, Republican, or Democrat. Though when others take it upon themselves to decide that I should have a label they usually err to labeling me a Libertarian, but sometimes label me a liberal just because they have their head stuck in labels and think labels are effective argument. I have no party affiliation and chose not to label myself. Nor do I refer to individuals by a political label.
Are American's civil due to their high moral principals or simply because of the consequences of misbehavior?
Conscience has the consequence of looking in the mirror.
The answers to this question are speculative, you have to do the experiment to find out. Given what I've seen of human nature, my guess is that we aren't as civil as most people would like to believe.
When United States government stays within its constitutional duties as the founders intended, that experiment will be at hand. We'll see how many women turn to prostitution and how many men take them up on the offer and how many people chose to do heroine ands other hard drugs. Their may be an initial increase in all vices and I think the distribution increase will follow the same as the current distribution. For example, a million people will try marijuana and ten thousand will try heroine.
If they people cannot control their own behavior, and they elect who represents them, what makes you think government will enforce (your) moral laws? That only works if you have a benevolant monarchy. In the real world, what you get is a corrupt state coupled with immoral people.
Utter nonsense, hardly any libertarian promotes these things, what we dont want is you taking our tax dollars to try to go search people's beds at night and make us pay for their housing if you arrest them.
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