[FateAmenableToChange]

Great post. The problem I have with many fellow libertarians is that they refuse to accept that morality is important to the state. I forget who said that humanity must be controlled by God or by the state, but that statement perfectly encapsulates the dilemma facing libertarians - there has to be some means of controlling bad actors. The more morality you have, the fewer bad actors. The less morality, the more bad actors, and the greater need for laws to crush them beneath the heel of the state.

[KayEyeDoubleDee]

Well, that's the big question: Is it possible to have a moral society without that morality being reflected in and enforced by the law/state?

[ChadGore]

What is wrong with Libertarianism. ?

BOTH Libertarians will continue to argue that point while they BOTH loose elections.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

What's the William Penn quote?

Those who will not be ruled by God
will be ruled by tyrants.

[ConsistentLibertarian]

So you want to work for the repeal of all drug laws, laws against sodomy, oral sex, etc. and have people go "tsk tsk" instead?

[Tokhtamish]

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.

[steve-b]

This argument assumes that the alternatives are limited to 1)convincing people to do X voluntarily or 2)having the state compel people to do X by force. However, in those areas which impinge upon mere preferences, not fundamental rights, one must admit the additional alternative of 3)accepting the fact that some people are going to do Y instead.

The basic moral principle that needs to be inclucated is found in the Notebooks of Lazarus Long:

The correct way to punctuate a sentence that starts: "Of course it is none of my business but--" is to place a period after the word "but."

[steve-b]

One mistake far too many libertarians make is to associate traditional morality with big government, and hostility to freedom.

This is not a mistake made by libertarians, but rather a fraud perpetrated by authoritarians who wish to elevate their personal preferences to the stature of moral law. To take obvious historical examples, prohibiting the sale of pictures of nekked wimmen and requiring stores to close on Sunday on spurious "moral" grounds degrades the term "morality", and thus makes it more difficult to invoke the concept legitimately.

Those who do wish to advocate real moral objections to (for example) businesses tied to organized crime then find themselves with the burden of cleaning the clintonized semantic swamp gunk off the term.

[Ohioan]

The importance of shame, and societal stigmatization of improper and immoral conduct, cannot be overstated. It is indeed a vital element in any healthy Society--far more important than any legislation in preserving one's cultural heritage. However, I think that the dichotomy discussed here is slightly off target.

Socialistic Government in the 20th Century not only replaced societal controls with those of Government, it deliberately undermined the societal values that were behind the societal controls. It was not the Libertarians who attacked morality, it was the people whom they opposed.

Take the outrageous New Deal venture that became known as the ADC--Aid To Dependent Children. It was not just an unconstitutional exercise from Washington, supposed to ease the burden of children in a single parent household. Part and parcel with the new approach, was a deliberate decision to outlaw any suggestion of stigmatization of the unwed mother--the clientele of the new program. The result is as well known as it was predictable--an exponential explosion in the American Bastardy rate.

The history of the Twentieth Century cannot be neatly systematized, of course. There were many cross-currents. But the real damage was done not by any traditional philosophic movement. All traditional societies have been under attack by Socialists of one hue or another, bent upon promoting egalitarian nonsense; with most of those proponents also promoting some version of the movement for an undifferentiated humanity. Stigmatizing people for having children out of wedlock did not fit the new Socialist norm, anymore than pride in ancestry was tolerated by the new Socialist norm.

Morality, community homogeneity, community religious sentiments, etc., are all ultimately the targets of those who want to break down any distinctions between peoples. While Libertarians may want to live and let live; they have never been those leading the charge against any community's value system. Quite the contrary.

As a Conservative seeking to preserve what is left of the American heritage, I find no problem with most of the people who label themselves "Libertarian." While some of them may occasionally embrace something ridiculous like liberal immigration, fifty years after our population reached its optimum level, they are not the ones promoting a breakdown of the American cultural identity. And most are easily persuaded that the present situation is very wrong. They are rational people, beset as are American Conservatives, by those who hate everything that America used to stand for.

William Flax Return Of The Gods Web Site

[Libertarianize the GOP]

.

[Redcloak]

A good article, but there's a little "getting the cart before the horse" here. Libertarians don't object to morality. They object to State imposed morality. What they react to is conservatives and liberals both attempting to use the organs of the State to impose their own moral codes on society.

Morality isn't the problem; it's that society's traditional moral teachers have abandoned their job and left it to the State. Yes, shame, stigma, or whatever term you want to use is a perfectly good way to control behavior within a libertarian society. But that sense of shame over evil acts must come from the people, not their government.

For example, pornography is immoral. It should not be available in a decent society. But the controls on pornogrpahy ought not come from the State; they should be internal to us all. Were we all raised to believe that it's wrong to view pornography, we'd avoid it for fear of getting caught and shamed. The market for it wouldn't exist. But that moral teaching no longer exists. Instead, we placed the State in the role of the arbiter of morality. And there's the problem. The State has no moral sense. It is an amoral being. It hasn't the ability to see pornography as inherently evil. Thus, it cannot decern a difference between "Debbie Does Dallas" and "Gone With The Wind". In the libertarian society that the author describes, shame allows us to see the difference and to accept one while rejecting the other. But so long as moral opprobrium comes down to us in the form of a State edict, libertarians will resist attempts to impose it.

[sourcery]

So morality surely reduces the need for a large state.

The point everyone misses is this: personal morality reduces the need for a large state, and a large state reduces the need for personal morality. Immorality breeds socialism/statism, and socialism/statism breeds immorality.

[David Cannady]

When behavior is enforced under the law, it is no longer morality it is obedience. Those are two entirely different things. Obedience is merely compliance, but morality can only occur voluntarily.

Certainly some have failed to teach their children morality, but attempting to replace it with obedience to whatever laws happen to be in place at any given time is far more destructive in the long run. All you get, then, is a bunch of poodles who roll over on their backs when you shout at them. As soon as you turn away, they go back to licking themselves.

[Consort]

Libertarians are very impressive...until they start making speeches.

[Maelstrom]

Without morality, Libertarianism is doomed.

This...from a Libertarian.

[Zon]

Which is the greater deterrent to crime: Coercive laws against certain specific acts a person could make or a person's conscience or moral compass? A person's moral compass by orders of magnitude. How can a person know that?

Using current laws as a gauge, consider the number of murderers per one million people to the number of recreational drug users (excluding caffeine and alcohol) per million people. If coercive laws are a greater deterrent than each person's moral compass the number of people being coerced by law not to commit murder would be the same or near the same as the number of people coerced by law not to use recreational drugs.

The numbers aren't even close. Five percent of the population use recreational drugs whereas less then one-hundredth of one percent of the population have committed murder.

It's a person's moral compass or conscience --  not coercive laws -- that deters them from committing murder.

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.

In other words, murder, rape, assault, theft and fraud are infrequent whereas gambling, prostitution and recreational drug use are abundant. It's a person's north-pointing moral compass that they respect other people's right to life and property.

A person's first priority is to have self-responsibility.

Each act by a person has risk and consequences. Sometimes the consequence is an immediate benefit gained. Other times a person's act creates a problem or was in error. When that happens the benefits to be gained come from correcting the problem or error.

When an individual is not willing to accept responsibility for his or her own actions they have denied themselves from gaining the benefits of their actions. That includes acts of self-defense.

The greatest right is the right to life. The second greatest right is the right to self-defense. With that there's a prerequisite of self-defense from what? What does a person need to defend themselves against? The obvious are violent crimes such as murder, rape, assault and robbery. What's perhaps the best self-defensive that the most people could afford? A hand gun and training in how to use it for self-defense.

To the violent criminal that has a broken moral compass the gun-toting, north-pointing moral-compass citizen becomes the greatest deterrent to the criminal.

Studies have shown that violent criminals in prison said that when they were on the outside they far more feared being confronted by a citizen with a gun than a law enforcement officer with a gun. Again pointing to the moral compass as being a far greater deterrent to crime than coercive laws.

The violent criminal fears for his life when confronted by a north-pointing moral-compass citizen with a gun. ...Yet by comparison feels safe when confronted by law enforcement officers that enforces the laws.

What about self-defense against fraud? What tools are available to defend against fraud? There's investigators, public and private, arbitration services, criminal and civil courts and written contracts.

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.

There is no need for laws that prohibit acts between consenting adults because if a third person is harmed by the actions of the 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.

[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.

[bray]

I have always said:

Republican=Republican

Independent=Republican who swore to his father he would never be a Republican.

Libertarian=Independent who wants dope legalized.

2nd truth:The first Libertarian has yet to be born who has a sense of humor!

Pray for GW and the Truth

[A CA Guy]

For one, the Libertarians seem to be filled with people who lust for what are now illegal drugs.
Of course they attempt to wrap the argument as being one of Freedoms rather than the simple lust to legalize drugs that it is.
I bet Libertarians line the bottom of the wage scale in this country based on their threads.

[A2J]

Bump for later.