I will be quite straighforward about it. I believe the state must return to regulation of morals, as it did for the first 170 years of our nation's existence. I don't believe that regulation would be a good thing in and of itself. Rather, I have become reasonably convinced that men cannot have a stable, safe or useful society without it, especially a capitalist society.
Social libertarianism, in which I once was a great believer, has failed completely. Look at every statistic on the things that glue a culture together-marriage, family, sobriety, violence--they are grim. The 21 year olds my wife supervises are completely without a moral tether and they don't even know it. The notion is alien to them.
In part, social libertarianism may just be a reflection of a deeper breakdown--a convenient excuse to do whatever you want with whomever you want or to have convenient access to pictures of women's genitals on the internet. But there's a good chance it is the central idea that has powered the trip over the cliff our culture has taken since the 60's.
It's really the combination of the marketing power of capitalism and social libertarianism that is the toxic brew. Capitalism is amoral. It will exploit any human trait to sell stuff. Since the 60's, capitalism has been loosed from its marketing fetters and now explicitly markets to each of the, dare I say, seven deadly sins. It has been a progressive change, each step setting up the conditions for the next. Human nature is not such that it can, or even wants to, resist that onslaught.
What I am saying is that we have to choose between moral and economic freedom. They cannot coexist stably for long. And I am also saying the founding fathers made the best compromise possible between them.
And the compromise really wasn't so bad. People have been doing perverted things all along and the police have almost always looked the other way as long as they kept it private and discreet. In other words, the only real burden on the pervert or the heroin addict was to hide the problem, thereby admitting, in a sense that their behavior was, dare I say again, sinful. If you really wanted a divorce, you could get it; but it was painful and you carried the social stigma for decades. If you really wanted an abortion, they could be had. As long as perversion and bad decisions stayed in the dark, they were tacitly accepted.
That compromise is long gone. Perversion is public and celebrated--have you ever seen a gay parade or talked to a homosexual man about what goes on in bathhouses? Divorce is something you do to 'grow' and is about as difficult to get as a stroll in the park. Abortion is a sacred constitutional right and taxpayers pay to make sure that poor people can kill their kids with the same freedom as the wealthy. And, Abercrombie and Fitch do marketing campaigns that might as well be explicit child pornography while teenage girls stop female porn stars at the mall and ask for their autographs.
I would greatly prefer a society that was, at core, libertarian in all spheres. I see now that, in the sphere of morals, down that path lies William Golding's vision. I see our society going there fast. Put simply, I have had to change my thinking as the facts come in--and one fact is clear, our experiment since the 50's and 60's with moral libertarianism has been a complete failure. Our founding father's wisdom, divinely inspired in my opinion, is once again driven home to me. They worked it out about as well as a society can be designed and we have tossed their work in the crapper.
There is the crux of it. And that is exactly what I don’t want. And it is what the article is about….the attempted institution of a theocracy by social conservatives. That is not to disagree with those who point out that the left is also attempted to institutionalize their ideology. Of course they are. But, for me, it is sad to see the right is no different. Each side believes they belong to the only true church – just like so many Muslims do. All these people who are so sure they are *right* that they want to control everyone else for their own good I suppose.
The 50’s which you say were libertarian times were one of the most repressive decades - especially for women – so you are way off there. Nor do I think we have ever had a time of social libertarianism. The 60’s were, in part, a reaction to the repressiveness of the 50’s. It was a bunch of adolescents rebelling.
We disagree as to the nature of humanity. I think that people can self-govern – as did the founders. I think that humans are meant to be free and that with freedom comes responsibility. In other words – greater freedom entails greater personal responsibility. And it is on the later that I think we have failed. Because we had democrats in charge of Congress from FDR until the 90’s (essentially) we did not allow people to experience the consequences of their choices.
So, we don’t agree. I don’t want to be forced to live by your values, nor do I want to force you to live by mine. I am interested in limited government and greater freedom – freedom that allows failure and success, freedom that says that you are indeed responsible for your choices and that if you break the law – or if you demonstrate that you cannot handle freedom – you lose it.
I agree with Jefferson in that government exists to “secure” rights – not to enforce religious dogma. Surely we can see the harm done in that kind of thinking within the Islamic world!