Posted on 10/09/2009 8:18:11 PM PDT by rabscuttle385
I may feel bad, but at least now I don't feel alone.
I hope he doesn't need a World War.
The article’s a little whiny and self-pitying. I prefer to wear my libertarianism the way HL Mencken wore his—with humor and gusto.
In other words, you have to see it not as a tragedy, but as a farce.
A rational person thinks, and doesn’t dwell on navel-gazing and “feelings.”
Sadomasochistic.
Cowardly.
Your article didn’t cover the “if it feels goooood do it” social platform of libertarianism. Drugs, prostitution: legalize them, (even though millions of additional lives will be ruined). How do libertarians feel about abortion and homosexuality? “It’s MY body and I can do with it what I want”. Libertarians fail to see that their social policies that are doomed to fail, will only lead to what they fear most: more government.
God has no place in a libertarians self centered mind. I’ll stick with being a constitutionalist conservative.
Well they can but their universe will be rather small and they won't effect much, other than increasing the bacteria in their innie from their own spittle.
bump
Pretty true.
Huh? I’m a born-again Christian libertarian and I’m ardently opposed to abortion, it’s my main issue. I read the Bible every day and put God first in my life.
And you misunderstand why libertarians believe in the liberation or abolition of laws on prostitution, drugs, and various other social ills. It’s not because we want to do drugs and hire hookers (though some do, and they tend to be phony libertarians who couldn’t tell the difference between public choice theory and comparative advantage). It’s because such laws don’t work. Banning drugs doesn’t get rid of drugs—because it does not get rid of the demand for drugs, it simply forces drugs to be sold on the black market at dramatically higher prices. Making drugs illegal *creates* the violent crime surrounding it. Legal commodities don’t have such problems because the producers are forced to compete in the free market, whereas black markets are dominated by violence. Read up on the economics of informal markets (grey markets and black markets).
It took me years to come around to this way of thinking, because I had it so ingrained in me that drug legalization was all about doing drugs. It wasn’t until I studied economics that I understood what the fuss was about. We all learned about the failure of prohibition in school. We are living in another era of prohibition, and it’s failing too.
After reading this link, I hope they feel like they need to re-examine their belief system:
http://www.zompist.com/libertos.html
parsy, who thinks LICE (Libertarians Infiltrating Conservative Entities) is why the GOP has morphed into brain-dead, knuckle-dragging gov’t nihilists, who....oh, don’t even get me started
Your article didn’t cover the “if it feels goooood do it” social platform of libertarianism. Drugs, prostitution: legalize them, (even though millions of additional lives will be ruined). How do libertarians feel about abortion and homosexuality? “It’s MY body and I can do with it what I want”. Libertarians fail to see that their social policies that are doomed to fail, will only lead to what they fear most: more government.
God has no place in a libertarians self centered mind. I’ll stick with being a constitutionalist conservative.
This deserves repeating. Thanks, Seattle Conservative, you have done a good job of summarizing Libertarianism.
I live just up the road from you, Alaska, actually quite a ways up the road from you. We have got a lot of hippy Libertarian types up here. Almost to a man, they are what you describe. Almost every one I’ve met are atheists or agnostics, and proud of it.
The people who want to turn America into a “Queer Nation” (their term, not mine), must love your naivety. If the day comes that they do succeed in their mission, they will have the Libertarians to thank for it. Primarily the Democrats, of course, but Libertarians a close second.
Not all that likely to happen, as there probably won't be no country.
You confuse libertine with libertarian.
Drugs, prostitution: legalize them, (even though millions of additional lives will be ruined).
And who are you to determine if another's life has been "ruined"?
The matter of whether's one life has been "ruined" is ultimately between the individual and his (or her) Creator.
Laws are pointless unless there exists, within the body of people whose conduct is governed by such laws, an underlying support for voluntary compliance with them. In the cases of prohibitions on prostitution, or on the manufacture, distribution, and consumption of various controlled substances, unless the population at large actually supports them (and I mean, sincerely), then the laws are pointless, if they are dependent on voluntary compliance.
In other words, there are two ways of effecting social change (e.g., getting people to not engage in prostitution or imbibe dangerous substances): one, you could pass laws and just use force (i.e., police action) or the threat thereof to literally scare people into compliance, with the drawback that such a method flies in the face of individual freedom and liberty; or two, you could restore a moral, religious spirit within the people affected by convincing them that your position is correct and in their self-interest, with the drawback that this method requires significantly more energy and time expended than the former.
“It’s MY body and I can do with it what I want”.
You're right.
It means no slavery or involuntary servitude (income and payroll taxes count as such), and it means no Obamacare!
Each of us has the freedom to succeed and the freedom to fail, contingent upon the acceptance of the consequences of our actions (personal responsibility).
God has no place in a libertarians self centered mind.
Jefferson's Declaration--and mind you, it is part of the body of valid U.S. law--speaks quite plainly about the rights of the individual. And...frankly, if individual rights aren't "self-centered," then I don't know what is.
Take a look at post 14. It’s a good one, and one that I agree with.
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