Libertarians to Conservatives: Drop Dead

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.

Our system of government will not work without the influence of Christians. However, it will also not work if we use government to legislate people into being good. Neither end of the spectrum is workable. Government can never effect Christian virtue in the people.

Sorry, but people are "forced" (as in legislated) into "being good" all across America every day of every year........most people, for example, drive on the roadways at legislated speeds, however, there are some who refuse to drive at legislated speeds, and they get a legislated ticket, appear in legislated court and pay a legislated fine.....or else they go to legislated jail. This seems to work, in most cases, legislating people to "be good" on the roadways.

People are NOT "forced" (legislated) to be Christians, as provided for in Amendment I of the U.S. Constitution, however, the laws of this country (local, state and federal) are influenced by the morality of its citizens..........What part of this don't you understand?

I would rather live under laws influenced by (modeled after, in tune with) our Creator than live under laws made by men who think they are smarter than God.

For further explanation, see reply # 258.............

We have stated many times that libertarian equals libertine. While claiming to be Constitutional, it seeks to deny or dismiss that any particular moral or spiritual fabric existed undergirding the Constitution in the late 18th Century.

The Constitution for the united States is a document suited to a moral people; that morality based on a traditional biblicist Christian world view. Although it might be argued that one does not actually have to be a Christian to be a Constitutionalist, the Constitution can not long endure under a people who militate against the societal fabric that existed at the time of the Nation’s founders. Militating against that fabric is what Libertarians do, it appears to us.

A Philadelphia, 1789 Constitution is not suited to an Amsterdam 2007 morality.

I found 54,200 pages for “libertarian marxist nazi frog.” :-?

If you write “+ cheese eating” the list is whittled down to 10,400.

And by adding “bush fault” we get it down to 901.

Add “global warming” and we’re down to 648 hits.

We reach 342 with the addition of “winston churchill.”

“missionary eating cannibals” slices the pages down to 200.

i never once within the pages of scripture saw a "Let's reclaim the Roman empire for Jesus" crusade

And finally, i never saw the scripture that said God is a Right Wing Republican, and Rush Limbaugh is His Prophet

Well by gum you've been reading the wrong Bible. I think it's somewhere in Romans 13, right after the section that says you should never question the government when controlled by Republicans....and I listen to the Prophet every day to get my talking points ;)

It’s no coincidence that the Great Society, the anti-American radicalization of the ‘Rat party, and the libertine sexual revolution all arose at around the same time in the sixties. They’re all intertwined.

They are indeed.

The far left social radicals attacked our country in the 1960s and the Libertarians have now surrendered to them.

If their surrender was not bad enough, after surrendering, the Libertarians now fight hand in hand with the Liberals against the Conservatives.

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.

Maybe many libertarians tend to be anti-religion but that's not a tenet of libertarianism that I've ever seen. Can you please provide a link or a source that shows anti-religion is a plank of libertarianism? Thanks.

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).

You admit that two of the people claimed as founders of libertarianism were christian and yet you would maintain that libertarianism is somehow anti-religion?

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.

We can agree here, although I'm not sure why you stuck in the part about millenia, but whatever.

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) . . .

I think you need to reinvestigate libertarianism if that's what you think it means. I have never heard any libertarian speaker or read anything written by libertarians that say that government serves "no purpose whatsoever."

I suspect you are reacting to a caricature of libertarianism you've heard somewhere.

It is amusing that you use Burke as an example. Burke regarded ordered liberty, not confusing license with liberty, as central, which is the central point of John Paul’s statement. This view of ordered liberty provided the basis of his support of the American Revolution and his rejection of the French Revolution. Burke was a Christian and viewed religion as fundamental to civilization.

“Nothing is more certain, thus that our manners, our civilization, and all the good things which are connected with manners and civilization, have depended upon two principles, the spirit of a gentlemen, and the spirit of religion.”

Burke

“Freedom, and not servitude is the cure of anarchy; as religion, and not atheism, is the true remedy for superstition.”

Burke

“What is Jacobism?” “It is an attempt...to irradicate prejudice out at the minds of men...Jacobins have resolved to destroy the whale frame and fabric of the societies of the world, and to regenerate them after their fashion. To obtain an army for this purpose. they everywhere engage the poor by holding out to them as a bribe the spoils of the rich. A Christian, as such, is to them an enemy.”

Etc.

Newton has been called the “starburst of the enlightenment.” He was a devout Christian, to the point of lifelong celibacy, and spent the bulk of his time studying the Bible. He owned copies of scripture in the original Greek as well as Latin and wrote entire treatises on books within the Bible.

Gibbon is Gibbon. He was anti-Christian, anti-Jewish, anti-monotheistic religion; however, his view was outside the norm as shown by contemporary reaction and attack against him on this very basis.

The problem with far too many libertarians is that they have forgotten that their philosophy is a theory of governance, of the proper role of government - ie. that the government should get out of most of our lives, but, that which the government should do, it should do well, and aggressively.

The problem with far too many conservatives is that they have forgotten that a part of their philosophy includes reducing government into its proper roles.

Both groups confuse legal issues of liberty and governance with moral issues of personal behavior.

No, those who broke the contract hurt the country. How can you expect people to vote for you when you don’t keep your promises?
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You avoid the point that the Libertarian party has not captured the imagination or votes of the people and has no promise of doing so. It is a pure idealogy and so rejects all coalitians that could actually help libertarians have influence (say with conservatives). It puts libertarians that vote Libertarian in a sort of backwater where instead of being a small and vocal minority in a winning party where they could have influence, they instead complain about the status quo, always, with no power to effect change. It’s personally satisfying to feel holier than thou for some, but it’s not the way to build political power. The Libertarian party really is a sort of permanent green party, or Nadar party, but the votes bled away are often taken from the candidate least threatening to liberty.

As far as expecting people to vote for “me” . . . you are not really under the impression I am a spokesman for the Republican party or running for office. As far as voting for Republican candidates, I think the path for both libertarians and conservatives is to get active in the primary process and to treat that as the most important part of the election cycle. Work hard to get a candidate you don’t have to hold your nose to vote for and who can win.

Your understanding of Burke is very limited.

The extent and nature of Burke's Christianity is, to say the least, obscure. Burke distrusted 'speculation' and said (in the Tract on the Popery Laws that "For the Proestant religion, nor (I speak it with reverence, I am sure) the truth of our common Christianity, is not so clear as this proposition - that all men, at least a majority of men in the society, ought to enjoy the common advantages of it. Lord Acton, the famous 19th century historian, thought this meant Burke was insincere in matters of religion, though some other scholars disagree. Burke also wrote in the 1750's, in A Notebook of Edmund Burke Metaphysical or Physical Speculations neither are or ought to be, the Grounds of our Duties; because we can arrive at no certainty in them. That is to say, the truth of our common Christianity is essentially a matter of faith and not of reason. Burke, deeply concerned with the organic development of institutions, (in the felicitous phrasing of the philosopher Burleigh Wilkins in his The Problem of Burke's Political Philosophy) occupies a middle position, distrustful of the rational pretences of the deists, on the one hand, and the emotional enthusiasm of the Methodists on the other

And, of course, Burke is not really a classical liberal precisely because of his traditionalism. He is in many respects sympathetic to the elements of classical liberalism that evolved organically in England up through the 18th century, including the very 'rights of Englishmen' he defended in the colonists, and a useful and early opponent of the reductio on classical liberalism which the French Revolution became.

This stuff is much more complicated than you would like it to be.

Even though Christians consider nicotine and alcohol as sinful, is it worth the conflict it would cause to outlaw them? Clearly not. Not only that, it consumes a lot of resources better suited to fighting more important issues, like defeating terrorism home and abroad.

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I would disagree that Christian’s view alcohol as sinful (wine at the last supper and all that); it is drunkeness, loss of sobriety that is the problem. Similarly, Christianity is not about what you put into the mouth, it is about what comes out of the mouth.

Jesus called the crowd to him and said, “Listen and understand. What goes into a man’s mouth does not make him ‘unclean,’ but what comes out of his mouth, that is what makes him ‘unclean.’”
Then the disciples came to him and asked, “Do you know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this?”
He replied, “Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be pulled up by the roots. Leave them; they are blind guides. If a blind man leads a blind man, both will fall into a pit.”
Peter said, “Explain the parable to us.”
“Are you still so dull?” Jesus asked them. “Don’t you see that whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and then out of the body? But the things that come out of the mouth come from the heart, and these make a man ‘unclean.’ For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander. These are what make a man ‘unclean’; but eating with unwashed hands does not make him ‘unclean.’”
Matthew 15

I agree, of course, that we should not outlaw all sin. From a strict perspective, outlawing all sin would require us to outlaw thoughts. In fact, I think it would be against Christian principles to do so regarding many sins, regardless of the cost/benefit involved. Christianity is not a religion of the sword, in which external compliance and forced submission is the goal, it’s an internal change, a personal relationship with Christ that is important. The “heart” not the body. That cannot be forced; it depends on God, not man.

The only serious scholarly dispute regarding Burke’s religion was whether he was a secret Catholic or not. His writings show him to be a Christian and a supporter of the church as an institution necessary to social order. It’s really not that complicated, unless you are trying to claim Burke as opposed to Christ or to Christians in politics, and then it is necessarily complicated and tenuous, since it isn’t true.

You quote Lord Acton. Lord Acton was also religious (Catholic). Those Christians pop up all over the place in classical liberal thought!

It’s a fools errand to try to force classical liberalism into an anti-religious stance. Ours is a Christian heritage, including classical liberalism.

We’ll now return to our regularly scheduled program of alternately ridiculing the libertarians for being able to convene in a phone booth, and blaming those 3 votes every time you lose an election.
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LOL. I still think that Libertarians could make the difference in quite a few primary races and elections AND that Libertarians stand no chance of winning office without being part of a party that is a coalition with others. To the extent that the party is becoming primarily focused on drugs and sex, then maybe that is a good thing from the conservative perspective.

That's proabably a good observation if all, or even a substantial number of the libertarians are members of the Libertarian Party. If they aren't then then that's going to lead you to mistaken conclusions.

We can see this for obvious examples such as murder or robbery, but many (i.e. libertarians) miss it for other activities like drug use which, while not perhaps being as overt, are yet destructive and corrosive to the lives of individuals and the cohesiveness of our commonwealth as a whole.

This example, however, is where social conservatives fail, because it's impossible to believe they have the best interests of the individual in mind, in legislating against things like drugs, when relatively harmless drugs like marijuana are criminalized to the same extent as more harmful drugs like cocaine, heroin, LSD, and many others. Even more ironic is that alcohol, a very destructive drug, is perfectly legal.
When the polity is led to believe that those who make the laws may not have the best interests of the polity in mind, and may, indeed, have other motivations for doing the things to do, the whole "it's for your own good" mindset that bolsters social conservatism falls like a house of cards. To make law that legislates morality, whether positively or negatively, one has to legislate from a position of moral authority. I can think of no other human organization with less of a claim to a position of moral authority than the Congress of the United States, or the legislative bodies of our several states.

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