Libertarians to Conservatives: Drop Dead

National Review Online ^ | Aug 6, 2007 | Carol Iannone

[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.

[radioman]

help me out here I may be ignorant of somthing ... I know it induced a panic but ...

It was the biggest meteor shower in history. People ran into the streets in panic. The "sky was falling". Even Indian tribes who had never been religious found new spirit filled faith.
Prophets popped up everywhere preaching hellfire and brimstone. Many of today's evangelical churches were born that night.
.

[radioman]

ROFL!!!

[Grumpy_Mel]

So America of the 18th and 19th Century (when most of the drugs you are talking about were pefectly legal on all States and Territories and most localties) was some sort of hopelessly flawed society? A den of inequity where the social fabric of society could not be held together?

Sorry, I don’t buy that arguement. The country got by perfectly well BEFORE most of our current drug laws were enacted and I’m willing to believe it could get by perfectly well without them now. Sure, there were and would be some people who would get themselves into trouble by abusing them....and some who would even be made more likely to commit violent crimes because of that.... just as there are right now, and just as there were in the 18th and 19th centuries..... and those people could be punished for the violent crimes they DID commit.

The simple fact of the matter is that the vast majority of illegal drugs are not nearly as dangerous as they are made out to be. The college kid that smokes a joint a couple of times a year is NOT likely to turn into some strung out killer.

The vast majority of people today don’t abuse drugs because it doesn’t make any sense for them to do so. The same would be true if most drugs were legalized today. We wouldn’t turn into a nation of addicts, anymore then we were in the 18th and 19th centuries. The vast majority of people who have used some sort of illegal drug at some point in thier lives..... are NOT addicts.... they are not hardcore criminals. Most of them leave full, productive and generaly law abiding lives. They are probably all around you and you wouldn’t know it. Thier flirtations with drugs were generaly quite brief...and had no lasting effect of any kind.

[WhiteGuy]

Pardon the typos to you, I am on the Internet in the lobby of a doctors office building waiting for my wife who is pregnant with our first and only baby to see her doctor.

Congrats! Best thoughts for a perfect healthy baby!

Don’t worry about the typos - based on the typing skills I have, your mistakes actually made sense to me.........

Cringing in fear........

It’ll all be worth it,

Best to you.

[Eagle Eye]

Leftist is habits?

I think that you’ll find that neither the Communists or NAZI’s had much oficial tolerance for vice.

So I don’t know where you get the idea that porn, dope, sex, etc is leftist. Or that Republicans don’t partake.

[Eagle Eye]

Leftist IN habits not “is”. oops

[radioman]

A single, vital condition (our Constitution) would be sufficient alone to break the "chain of inevitability", more about which below.

You'd have a point if you were correct but you aren't. The last Commerce Clause decision nullified the Constitution. The Commerce Clause now trumps the Constitution itself and the right to self determination has been taken. In fact, any liberty can be regulated or prohibited at the pleasure of the judicial system...that includes religion and guns. The Constitution says that "congress" can make no law...but the courts can.

Do you believe that case was about marijuana?
.

[Steve Van Doorn]

I was caught up with the Libertarian beliefs and even joined the Libertarian party. Even know I seen problems with some of the arguments at the time I choose to ignore them much like conservatives choose to ignore the fact that no conservative representative votes for cuts in spending.

It took this war in Iraq (Gulf War II) to make me say I had enough of this crap from the Libertarians.
When they used the same lines that the Democrats use saying we had no reason to be in Iraq and stuff. That was enough for me.

I like to consider myself as a Conservative-Libertarian.

I still do not agree with the war on drugs or any other crime that directly affects the individual. In other words I don’t agree with collective laws, meaning if you do something wrong to yourself that affects the society as a whole. There can be other ways to deal with those problems socially rather then decaying our basic liberties.

As far as throwing your vote away… I used to believe I would only vote for a libertarian only when a Conservative had no chance, couldn’t lose or corrupted. Now I wouldn’t vote for a libertarian if I had to.

[Greg F]

I have been defending John Paul’s statement that freedom: “consists not in doing what we like, but in having the right to do what we ought.” ...

I think it is as good a definition of freedom as I’ve seen in a single sentence. We obviously cannot live without laws restricting ourselves and our neighbors. So what is the basis for enacting a law that restricts your freedom of action, and what is the basis for asserting an absolute right to do something free of constraint by the law? John Paul’s definition makes clear that it is a moral judgment. If the freedom asserted is not something we “ought” to do, then it is not a critical freedom and defending that right is far less important than defending the right to do something we “ought” to do.

You say “If the notion that a particular vice/sin is bad and aught not to be done is worthwhile then you should be able to CONVINCE people not to engage in it...... you shouldn’t need the government standing behind you leveling a gun at peoples heads to back up that idea ...”

Let’s take the extreme example. Child pornography. There is no law against taking and using pictures of children. Thus consent to take photographs is not the issue, the parent is entitled to authorize ordinary photographs for commercial use on behalf of the child and cannot authorize pornographic ones even for private use. The issue is abuse of a child, an abhorrent practice, inserting sexuality where it doesn’t belong. We “ought” not abuse or desire to abuse children sexually. Therefore we outlaw it and are right to do so. The harm is too great to allow inflaming a perverse desire and the practice itself is too abhorent to allow in even a single case regardless of social consequences. So we level a police man’s gun at the child pornographer and cart him off to jail. Taken to the extreme your argument would be that we should persuade the child pornographer not to do it.

Take a less clear case. Heroin. We “ought” not become inebriated (my source — the Bible). It does great harm to the user and to anyone around the user, wife, children, parents, co-workers. Since the fellow “ought” not be using it, if the cost/benefit of enforcement is such that it makes sense to outlaw it, we are free to. So we level a police man’s gun at a seller of heroin and cart him off to jail because voters have decided that it makes sense to do so.

Take an example of something we “ought” to do. Say, speak out against oppression. There the government has no right to restrict your speech, since you “ought” to speak out. So we should all jump to protect the right of anyone to speak out on political matters as a right.

It’s not about establishing a state religion or theocracy, it’s about religious (and non-religious) citizens thinking through their values and where they are entitled to restrict each other through law and where they are not.

The left has attacked Christians for over 200 years now. The Christians are the greatest bulwark of your rights, because the Christian can’t be moved by a relativist argument on those things that are absolute through the word of God, and frankly, because the Christian will die rather than give up his freedom to obey God. We are good and we aren’t going away . . . : )

[Steve Van Doorn]

Libertarian Marxism are anarchists (or new form of communism) which I believe are taking over the libertarian party.

[puroresu]

Got any newspaper clippings about “gay pride” parades in old Philadelphia? You’re digging yourself in pretty deep if you’re gonna claim the Founding Fathers would have opposed local ordinances against such public behavior.

Also, does Al Gore know about the devastating effects of this meteor shower? Maybe he can produce a documentary narrated by Bill Moyers: “Fire From the Sky: The Night America Became a Theocracy”.

[SubGeniusX]

For Me It’s actually “welcome back” ...

I was first in at post #8 ....

I pinged trav by post #22 i think it just took him a day to get it out there ...

[radioman]

Got any newspaper clippings about “gay pride” parades in old Philadelphia?

You're sure hung up on homosexuality!
Why is that?
.

[Greg F]

LOL

[SubGeniusX]

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God...

You do realize that the term "Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God" is much more in line with the "Deist" terminology of the day than it was with the "Christian"...

from Deism.com :
^{"Deism is belief in God based on the application of our reason on the designs/laws found throughout Nature. The designs presuppose a Designer. Deism is therefore a natural religion and is not a "revealed" religion."}

I would posit that from the evidence the DOI is much more influenced by Deist thinking than Christian...

[Steve Van Doorn]

”Take a less clear case. Heroin. We “ought” not become inebriated (my source — the Bible). It does great harm to the user and to anyone around the user, wife, children, parents, co-workers. Since the fellow “ought” not be using it, if the cost/benefit of enforcement is such that it makes sense to outlaw it, we are free to. ….”

I don’t agree with collective laws but in your scenario the wife and children are directly affected and should have legal means to help the husband due to the fact the drug addict is mentally not capable of making rational decisions.

But if the heroin addict has no one he is supporting directly then only when he is over dosed and needs medical help or leaves needles lying around does he affect society. This can be dealt with by licensing the use of the product thereby tracking the user rather then banning the product and not knowing his actions.

[tacticalogic]

The argument is not calculated to render the secular state an impossibility, the secular state is an impossibility by it's nature without the establishment of some ethical sense acceptable to or enforced upon it's citizens.

Properly applied, "secular" means "not overtly or explicitly religious". The argument that there can be no ethical sense without it seems to invariably come packaged with a theology that claims to be the sole true source of it.

[Greg F]

Libertarianism isn’t about the role of culture, it’s about the role of government.
_________________________________________

Seriously, seriously, if you haven’t read about him, do a study of Gramsci and his intellectual progeny. The culture war is where the left is crushing us, and you still haven’t figured out where the pressure is coming from. You’ve brought a knife to a gun fight. You’re trying to build a Maginot line, and the Germans are already in Paris. You’ve lost the ball in the sun. You’ve . . . well, you get my point. They are coming at freedom through a flank attack, not a head on assault. First the culture . . . then the government.

[Grumpy_Mel]

“I think it is as good a definition of freedom as I’ve seen in a single sentence. We obviously cannot live without laws restricting ourselves and our neighbors. So what is the basis for enacting a law that restricts your freedom of action, and what is the basis for asserting an absolute right to do something free of constraint by the law? John Paul’s definition makes clear that it is a moral judgment. If the freedom asserted is not something we “ought” to do, then it is not a critical freedom and defending that right is far less important than defending the right to do something we “ought” to do.”

Here-in lies the problem, just who’s “ought” do we use to determine what freedoms are valid to protect and what aren’t? What happens when my “oughts” are different from your “oughts” are different from Jane’s “oughts”.

Heck, even if you are arguing that we gets those “oughts” from God? Well, just WHO’s GOD... Yours? Mine? Osama’s?

And how do we know those “oughts” are actualy God’s “oughts” rather then those of some grumpy old men in pointed hats who want to pass off thier own personal pet peeves as God’s rules? I haven’t seen too many burning bushes around these days?

The arguement that you are making is the exact same arguement that the Taliban makes and that Joseph Stalin made. It’s a very dangerous one.

It’s way too nebulous and dangerous and capricious to try to base laws off of some-ones interpretation of “ought”.

Thank God (no pun intended) that is NOT what our system of government is based on. Our system of government is based upon the minimum neccesary regulations to insure that an individual is able to make thier own decisions and act on thier own accord. This, of course, DOES entail some restraint on indviduals actions...since one individuals actions can restrain another...... adjucating that buffer is where our government (legitimately) steps in.

[AndyTheBear]

...appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world...

More "Diesm"?

How sad for you that they make no mention of Divine Slack, yet instead appeal to Supreme Moral Judgement.