Posted on 08/21/2007 11:41:49 AM PDT by DesScorp
I just recently caught up with the exchange on conservatism and the culture wars between Brink Lindsey and Ramesh Ponnuru, in which Lindsey exhorts conservatives to give up any further efforts in the culture war, which he deems finished. And I also heard some of a Cato Institute talk that featured Lindsey and David Brooks, who agrees with Lindsey on this point. I agree with Peter Wood who commented on PBC that if the culture war is over, efforts to reform the university are pointless, and we obviously don't think such efforts are pointless or we wouldn't be here at PBC. Neither would the Manhattan Institute have initiated its Minding the Campus feature. Neither would Regnery be issuing its politically incorrect guides to various subjects. And so forth.
I also think that Lindsey's view of modern life as the “exuberantly pluralistic pursuit of personal fulfillment through an ever-expanding division of labor” is utterly soulless.
Also, Lindsey made some remarks in his part of the exchange, that the Right should be embarrassed about previous racism, sexism, and prudery. I don't have the exchange in front of me now, but I think that's close to what he said. In the National Review I read as a teenager, edited by William Buckley, I don't recall any of that. I recall its being sound, elegant, rational, cultured, with high intellectual standards. Lindsey should be prevailed upon to give specific examples of what he means by the sins of the Right in these areas.
(Excerpt) Read more at phibetacons.nationalreview.com ...
See, this argument is an example of how libertarians don't grasp the concept of actual/potential harm. You're including a number of intermediary steps in your example: Eat red meat - can lead to heart attack - can have heart attack while operating machinery - can injure others as a result.
Drugs, for instance, don't have the intermediary steps: Drug user is addicted and needs a fix - drug user shoots someone and steals their money to buy drugs. That's a potential scenario, but it's DIRECT harm. It's also a potential scenario which has played itself out as an actuality far too many times for me to count.
Libertarians try to argue that "indirect harm" means "nebulous, nanny-statist invented harm", which is simply not try. A drug user who takes drugs harms himself by taking the drugs and destroying his own mind and body. If that were ALL that that happened, I'd say, "Well, that's his poor choice, but it's his life". Unfortunately, the indirect effect of a drug user taking drugs is that he gets addicted and needs more drugs and more drugs and more drugs. Eventually, he runs out of money, and presents a threat to fellow citizens in that he commits crimes to get money to feed his addiction. There is nothing nebulous or contrived about that threat to the liberties of others.
The key is that the power of the state enables it to compel behavior. If you can determine what people ought to do with certainty, it has historically been an easy step for the Church and many philosophers (think Rousseau, Hegel and Marx, and John Dewey) to compel 'right' behavior, which is why the classical liberal, let alone the libertarian, is profoundly distrustful of any attempt to link the power of the state with any conception of absolute truth or religion.
The monothiestic religions derivative of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, have had a particularly bad history with the temptation to compel 'right' behavior, which makes the historian and philosopher take the musings of a Pope on the point with a rather large does of salt. It's not been so very many years (late 19th century) when the Catholic Church was railing against the sort of classical liberalism that undergirds the American constitutional republic, and Catholic doctrine has always been hostile to capitalism.
Actually, I would say that the States have the power to do so under the 10th amendment.
In the context of the history of American politics, the political abuses and dogma of the Church of England played no small part in the American Revolution.
You realise that no man is an island, and that what I do affects those around me, don't you? Precious little that we do is "limited to one's self".
As to likely potential harm to another, that standard is way overbroad in my opinion. YMMV.
I disagree. In some other posts scattered throughout this thread, I think I've made the case that libertarians are the one exercising an unreasonable and unworkable definition of potential harm.
Do you opposed the federal government assuming and exercising that authority for itself?
I have to take off for right now, but if you’d like to continue this discussion on past the expiry of this thread, feel free to FReepmail me.
True, it's a generational shift. Maybe it has to do with rising affluence.
You can see the same thing among conservatives, though, in the shift from Goldwaterite "rugged individualism" to "compassionate conservatism" or "national greatness conservatism."
Libertarians may have the uglier, more self-indulgent part of the trend, and conservatives the more socially concerned, other-regarding part, but it looks to me like the wealthier and more urban society gets the harder it is for people to hold on to that independent individualist Goldwater grit.
Let's that about what is being legislated.
Dog Fighting, Smoking in cars with children, Smoking Marijuana
What is the Biblical position on each?
I don't disagree with you (about the GOP allowing government to grow). But let me just say that I also didn't see much help from the Libertarians back in the 90's when the GOP took over.
I never really got interested in politics until the early 90's. I gravitated towards the GOP but took a look at the Libertarians. Other than the pot guys, I mostly saw a party that didn't do much other than bash Republicans. I rarely saw them attack Democrats, and it seemed to me that the Democrats were the real enemy, if their agenda was truly smaller government.
I'm not saying the Republicans were going to give them the small government they wanted, but at the time (if you remember back in 94/95) it was a start. Did Libertarians jump to the GOP's defense when they took unjustifiable heat for "cutting" school lunches and PBS? I didn't see it.
It seemed to me that if the Libertarians truly wanted smaller government, a long term thinker would see that if the GOP couldn't even get small cuts or "reductions in the rate of growth", then there is no way the much more radical Libertarian agenda would ever happen.
This country does not go for fast, big changes. If the GOP could have been successful with smaller cuts and spending reductions and people could see that the sky didn't fall, it could do nothing but help the Libertarian cause.
But all I heard from the Libertarians year after year was the tired old "there's not a dime's bit of difference between the Republicans and Democrats". Well, back in 94/95, there WAS a difference. If the Libertarians could have helped a little, the GOP may have been more successful.
That's just my opinion.
Ideally yes. But in fact the state has already swallowed much of the personal sphere. Thus one is hard pressed to protect their personal interests without appealing to the state.
For example, consider the perspective of a right wing Christian who after being forced to pay for public education may not have money left over to send their child to a private Christian school. Predictably this puts them at odds with their atheist neighbor who is also forced to pay for the public school. The school curriculum, policies regarding prayer, ethics, and sex education are all now in both the sphere of the personal and of the state and will directly impact the lives of both their children.
Until this changes, it is not reasonable to single out the Christian right as being the ones who must lay down arms and play dead in those parts of the culture war that the state has taken over.
That's fine with me. I can't speak too pointedly to your choice because I'm not a Christian (although I love one - my wife). My objection to what I would term "fundamentalist" libertarianism is that it tends to be profoundly anti-religion in the sense that it rejects the concepts of Divinity and morality, as exist external to individual interpretation.
The economic basis for libertarianism is quite valid, insofar as it is based on capitalism - free exchange, free minds, free markets. That is also the basis for Anglo-American conservatism (in the tradition of Edmund Burke and John Locke, who were both Christians). I detest big government and high taxes. The amount of government I believe in could probably fit inside my kitchen. But I also believe that God created Heaven and the Earth (over the millenia; not overnight) and that He created Man in His image and for a special purpose.
Where I part company with many Libertarians is in their insistence that Government by Man has no purpose whatsoever (as if national security were not a necessary precondition to commerce, for example) and that morality cannot ever be legislated. Is murder still immoral? Aside from that, my goal here was not to insult Libertarians but to point out an observation made over time; namely that people tend to favor rights over responsibility when they have come to adore the former without having to endure the latter.
Behavioral consequences are largely theoretical to a person who has thus far been spared the necessity of having to deal with them. It is only with the cumulative experience of maintaining mature relationships, employment, raising children, and managing a household budget that the big light bulb tends to go on, illuminating truths hidden to many, if not most younger people.
29 year old, unmarried, libertarian who votes republican here.
Although I fail to see your point. Are you saying that when I have kids I will find statism and the drug war somehow reasonable?
Keep in mind I pay the same taxes that you do (a month's pay per year on property taxes that pay for the schooling of kids that I don't have), and that my vote counts just as much as yours. Your ballot is not weighted because of the number of kids you have or how many life lessons you think you've learned.
I don’t see how your tax-paying right-wing Christian’s situation is any different than a person who prefers private school or somebody who has no school age children. The school tax taxes them all, just the same as the person who enrolls his children in public school.
Should a childless person get a rebate? If not, then why should the right-wing Christian?
I send my children to Catholic school and gladly pay the bill. If I couldn’t, after paying the ridiculous school taxes in my town, the Catholic school offers help.
Frankly, I do not support public education. It is far to sensitive a matter to be handled by the state. It would be far preferable if there were no school taxes whatsoever, and people were responsible for the education of their own children. Failing that, I support vouchers.
Hate to burst your bubble but....
We don’t believe in COLLECTIVE GUILT and COLLECTIVE punishment. You don’t punish Johnny for something Jimmy did.... even if Johnny and Jimmy read the same books, watch the same movies, belong to the same political party and hang out with the same friends.
Strictly from a libertarian perspective, it’s debatable whether drunk driving (as opposed to vehicular homicide) should be against the law.
However, it is important to note that:
1) Driving has ALWAYS been considered a PRIVILAGE not a RIGHT (Unlike reading or viewing material...which is generaly considered a 1st Ammendment Right)
2) Regulation of Driving applies to use of PUBLIC Property
( as opposed to what happens in the privacy of your own home)
3) The correlation between driving under the influence and grave harm to others is OVERWHELMING. There is virtualy NO SAFE way to operate a motor vehicle while drunk if other individuals may be present. {I’d challenge you to make that case for some of the activities you want to regulate)
Given those 3 factors, I’m generaly OK with drunk driving being regulated. Note, I’ve already conceded that real world is messy.... and libertarianism, like any other philosophy needs to make some compromises in order to be practical.
Let me try this one on you:
“
This is the same reason we outlaw [RELIGION]. It has already killed thousands - i.e. presented ACTUAL HARM. We regulate it despite the fact that not everybody who [PRACTICES RELIGION] is necessarily always going to harm someone by doing so - i.e. there is only the POTENTIAL for them to harm someone.
There’s no logical difference”
“Are you saying that when I have kids I will find statism and the drug war somehow reasonable?”
A LOT of your opinions are going to change when you have kids....happens to everyone, including me.
Would you advise someone to read the platform of the Republican Party to learn what a republic is, or to observe the Democratic Party to learn what democracy is?
It's comforting to know that the power of the federal government will be emloyed to make sure they have all the things, and only those things that children need. At least until you realize that they'll still be doing it after they've grown up.
“Drugs, for instance, don’t have the intermediary steps: Drug user is addicted and needs a fix - drug user shoots someone and steals their money to buy drugs. That’s a potential scenario, but it’s DIRECT harm. It’s also a potential scenario which has played itself out as an actuality far too many times for me to count.”
Um, I’m seeing numerous intermediary steps here
1) Drug user takes drugs | Person eats red meat
2) Drug user gets addicted | Person develops heart disease
3) Drug user needs money for fix | Person needs to drive to supermarket to buy more red meat.
4) Drug user shoots some-one for money | Person crashes car into school bus during heart attack.
Where’s that logical difference again?
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