BOTH Libertarians will continue to argue that point while they BOTH loose elections.
Those who will not be ruled by God
will be ruled by tyrants.
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."
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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