Not everyone experiences the same degree of transcendence and surely no two people have the same values that provide the basis for what is transcending. Anytime I feel that I know what other people's values are or should be, I am heading down that slippery slope of paternalism.
Excellent! Then you should have no problem with America having a Muslim majority. A nation cannot long exist if its values are that it has no values. If the nation has no values, how do you justify keeping anyone out who has different values? What happens when they immigrate in, outnumber you, and legislate their values? Now, your response might be, we won't let them legislate their values. In that case, you're imposing your values on them.
Regarding Auster's question, Why not import totally incompatible cultures into our society?, you responded, Not sure if I could answer this question unless I knew the specifics.
LMAO! What difference do the specifics make to someone who says "Anytime I feel that I know what other people's values are or should be, I am heading down that slippery slope of paternalism"?
You see the problem? You can't have a society with no values, at least not for long because someone with values will eventually outvote you. This is what the secular and "tolerant" Europeans are finding out now that Muslims are taking over. The reaction of the forces of "tolerance" is to pass speech codes and ban rallies that oppose Islamization. So Europe ends up in the Orwellian predicament of having hostile values imposed on their own citizens, to protect immigrants who don't respect European values, on the grounds that Europe itself has no value other than "tolerance & diversity".
Where is that happening. I'll go one better. Why not actively promote the enlarging of the United States by admitting nations that have dissolved their sovereignty through the provisions in article IV sections 3 & 4 of the U.S. Constitution. It would be cheaper than foreign aid and we'd surely replace the significance of institutions like the United Nations.
Uh, it would be cheaper than foreign aid to just add Mexico, Haiti, and nearly all of Africa as states? How do you figure that? You do realize (don't you?) that if we did that, the newly admitted states would immediately vote in a socialist government in the United States.
The sky would fall if we practiced live-and-let-live with a minimal government? Freedom is threatening?! Who would have thunk it?
Liberty is not threatening, but a valueless society will not remain free. The real difference between libertarians and Marxists isn't that the former are for less government and the latter are for total government. Both advocate policies which lead to total government. The difference is that Marxism intends for that to happen, while libertarians fumble their way into it because they don't understand human nature. Marxists do understand it and exploit it. The reason Chuck Schumer applauded the repeal of sodomy laws was because he knew it would lead to more government. The reason libertarians applauded it was because they stupidly believed it wouldn't.
Man, this guy cannot see past the need for government.
I can't see past the need for government, either. I think we need government. A society with traditional Judeo-Christian moral values will need less government on average. A society based on your idea that values are "paternalism" will need a lot of government. That's been shown to be true over and over, but you keep denying it, and can't name a single place on earth where your nihilistic view of society has led to anything other than socialism, centralization, and nanny statism.
Whether he knows it or not, he is one of government's enablers. A true statist is perpetually worried that the state will fall into the 'wrong hands'.
As opposed to the right hands? Who are they? Unless you're advocating no state at all (which you denied in an earlier post), the state has to be in someone's hands.
In other words, those who love government and seek its intrusions into at least some matters will fear what government will do once the state falls into the 'hands of someone else'. A good libertarian, however, wants none of it and gets frustrated with the statists.
So you support government that doesn't intrude into "at least some matters"? How do you plan to bring that about, and if you succeed, what authority would be left to stop anyone who disagrees with you (Nazis, Taliban, Commies....) from filling the void?
Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. ~ from the Declaration of Independence
Man, you don't just drink the Kool-Aid. You're drunk on it.
Thomas Jefferson was writing a document that he knew would have a residual audience composed of people very much like you. You'd think that after 240 and some-odd-years that viewing the need for some government -- a very limited government -- would be acceptable. The problem is that you and people like you are accustomed to an expanding government, you're drunk on it, and cannot see a society being governed through any other lens except the one that sees the need for more of governance; it shows in your responses to me. You and people like you are the problem, in my opinion, no matter which side of the spectrum you hail from.
Excellent! Then you should have no problem with America having a Muslim majority.
If they were Muslims of the non-theocratic mold who cherished liberty and didn't seek to impose their views on others, then I would prefer them in the majority. I do not fear people for their backgrounds and ethnicities alone.
Now, your response might be, we won't let them legislate their values. In that case, you're imposing your values on them.
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America. ~ from the Preamble of the United States Constitution
The Preamble was the whole purpose behind the U.S. Constitution. One of its basic tenants was to secure liberties by providing a very simple framework for establishing a limited government so that paternalists would not legislate at the federal level. I say the constitution should protect me from having legislation enacted that erodes my liberties. You say that my view is, in turn, not protecting the liberty of others to erode all liberty. Who do you suppose is most out of step with the concept of being an American, you or I?
You see the problem?
I believe I do see it. Do you see it?
Uh, it would be cheaper than foreign aid to just add Mexico, Haiti, and nearly all of Africa as states? How do you figure that? You do realize (don't you?) that if we did that, the newly admitted states would immediately vote in a socialist government in the United States.
Don't you think that we would should be very discriminate on who we admit. And don't you think that, given the framework -- a framework largely ignored because of people who think as you do -- that any state admitted would have only a certain number of representatives.
The real difference between libertarians and Marxists isn't that the former are for less government and the latter are for total government. Both advocate policies which lead to total government. The difference is that Marxism intends for that to happen, while libertarians fumble their way into it because they don't understand human nature.
Based on our dialog with each other, I'm willing to concede a little on this point. It is not because we don't understand human nature, though. We understand it alright, we just are not doing a very good job of changing the desire of mankind to enslave itself. I still think that striving for liberty -- in the face of human nature and his quest to be tightly governed -- is a worthy goal.
A society with traditional Judeo-Christian moral values will need less government on average.
This is ignorant on two fronts. First, Jesus was sent specifically to reform the Chosen People who had ruined God's Word with corrupt governance and perverted religious beliefs, so scratch the Judeo portion. And many of today's Christians spend far too much time in the Pentateuch, really, where you will find much of the source that led to the perversions. Many (but certainly not all) of today's Christians are the Pharisees of yesterday.
So you support government that doesn't intrude into "at least some matters"?
When I wrote that a government has to intrude into some matters what I meant was that some government is necessary as to protect people from causing injury to one another. When one or more people trample the liberty of another, society has to have a method adjudicate the matter. However, contracts, prearranged mediation, and pre-agreed-upon judges would also go a long way in limiting the power and influence of a judiciary.