[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.

[decimon]

There is something to be said for moral suasion but the U.S. has never been a particularly moral nation, in the religious sense, and has done just fine with minimal government. U.S. history is far more Barbary Coast than Norman Rockwell.

[Cultural Jihad]

Exactly. We as a society want to encourage:

• personal responsibility,
• citizenship,
• productivity,
• morality,
• family-life,
• religion,
• and self-governance which thrives with all of the above.

Conversely, we as a society want to discourage:

• personal irresponsibility,
• disaffection and alienation,
• sloth and laziness,
• immorality,
• promiscuity,
• ideology,
• and big government which feeds on all of the above.

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"We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry, would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate for the government of any other." -John Adams, Oct. 11, 1798 Address to the military

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[riley1992]

that humanity must be controlled by God or by the state

Libertarians do not believe it free and total reign let loose on the populace. You seem to believe that people are incapable of living out a life of decency and morality without either believing in God or having the government tell them what is correct to do and how to behave. Please tell me if I am misunderstanding what you are saying.

[Khepera]

Exactly I abandoned the Libertarians they refuse to accept that morality is important to the state and in fact they do everything they can to purge religion from any sort of debate. If you base any argument on religious views you are attacked with verbal abuse and accused many times of the very things you are fighting against.

I cannot tell you how many times libertarians have called me a bible thumper and denigrated me for speaking out on moral issues as if being moral was more evil than sodomy.

When it comes to religion they are a censorous bunch. I believe they are most responsible for the diest founders myth.