Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Will the Right Find Libertarianism?
The Atlantic ^ | Mar 18 2010 | Wendy Kaminer

Posted on 03/19/2010 12:25:37 PM PDT by presidio9

"Freedom" has long been a right-wing rallying cry for self-identified patriots ranging from John Birchers to tea party protesters to increasingly extreme members of the Republican establishment. They're particularly passionate about the freedom to own and openly carry guns and freedom from federal taxation (but not necessarily federal benefits). Otherwise, their most consistent attachments to freedom tend to be rhetorical, unless freedom means restricting reproductive choice, same-sex relationships, medical marijuana, or sexually explicit speech and permitting discrimination against people who do not acknowledge Jesus as their savior. For some prominent conservatives -- like John McCain, Mitt Romney, Sarah Palin, and Dick Cheney -- freedom also entails the establishment of a national security state empowered to arrest and imprison summarily people suspected of terrorism and to spy on people suspected of nothing in particular, thanks to a ubiquitous but largely invisible surveillance system.

There are, of course, exceptions to this statism. The CATO Institute, generally associated with the right because of its commitment to free markets, is equally, if less notoriously, committed to civil liberty. CATO is unusual in its consistent libertarianism, which means, however, that (like Reason magazine), it is a creature of neither the right nor the left. A recent CATO report estimates that some 14 percent of Americans also qualify as libertarian, meaning that they're fiscally conservative and socially liberal (although it's unclear if fiscal conservatives who believe "the less government the better" are willing to surrender their own government benefits, from Pell grants to Medicare).

Libertarians are labile voters,

(Excerpt) Read more at theatlantic.com ...


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Culture/Society; Extended News; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: liebertarians; ronpaultruthfile; youknowhesnuts
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-20 ... 141-160161-180181-200 ... 221-230 next last
To: presidio9
The libertarians I know aren't social liberals. Isolationists, yes, but not social liberals.

They believe in the right to life along with liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

161 posted on 03/20/2010 2:17:20 PM PDT by Tribune7 (Only stupid, racists people support Obama.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Jewbacca
I am unaware of a conflict.

The small l libertarian position is generally to revoke Roe v. Wade and return the issue to the states.

The conservative position is that the right to life is unalienable. This was unanimously agreed to in 1776.

The 14th Amendment to the Constitution states:

1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Please notice the distinction between "All persons born" in the first sentence and any person (one would assume born or unborn, naturalized or not,as it is not distinguished as it is in the first) in the second sentence.

162 posted on 03/20/2010 2:38:42 PM PDT by ALPAPilot
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 50 | View Replies]

To: ALPAPilot; Jewbacca
The small l libertarian position is generally to revoke Roe v. Wade and return the issue to the states. ~~ The conservative position is that the right to life is unalienable. This was unanimously agreed to in 1776.

True; but that does not alter the fact that Murder Laws are constitutionally a function of State Law, rather than Federal Law. (They are).

That's not disputing the unalienable Right to Life; it's simply identifying which level of Government is constitutionally responsible for its enforcement. The Prophet Daniel was willing to be sentenced to death in the lion's den, rather than overthrow the "Constitution Law" of the Medes and Persians (which stated that once issued, a King's Law could not be revoked). So that's Biblical evidence that God considers adherence to Constitutional Law an important matter.

163 posted on 03/20/2010 2:53:14 PM PDT by Christian_Capitalist (Taxation over 10% is Tyranny -- 1 Samuel 8:17)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 162 | View Replies]

To: Christian_Capitalist
Murder Laws are the function of State Law, and I wouldn't want to change it. The post I was responding to seemed to suggest that whether or not abortion would be legal should be determined by the states.

My point was that a proper reading of the 14th amendment would lead to the conclusion that it should not be permitted in any state. The last article of that amendment states:

The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.

To the extent a state law does not run afoul of the 14th amendment then I agree they should have jurisdiction.

164 posted on 03/20/2010 3:32:58 PM PDT by ALPAPilot
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 163 | View Replies]

To: ALPAPilot
Murder Laws are the function of State Law, and I wouldn't want to change it. The post I was responding to seemed to suggest that whether or not abortion would be legal should be determined by the states. My point was that a proper reading of the 14th amendment would lead to the conclusion that it should not be permitted in any state.

I believe that is the interpretation that the Court should adopt: that every State does have a Constitutional duty to prohibit abortion, albeit each doing so within the context of that particular State's Murder Laws.

That would be the ideal.

However, I think that before we can even get to that point, we're going to at least have to return to the pre-Roe ante -- and get the Court to recognize that each State is indeed permitted to prohibit abortion. State Legislatures cannot be held responsible to do, that which the SCOTUS does not even permit them to do.

165 posted on 03/20/2010 3:44:49 PM PDT by Christian_Capitalist (Taxation over 10% is Tyranny -- 1 Samuel 8:17)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 164 | View Replies]

To: La Enchiladita

I don’t think the “right” will have to find the libertarians. The Libertarians found us and are stuck like ticks.

parsy, who is looking for his “Tick B’Gone!” spray


166 posted on 03/20/2010 4:32:28 PM PDT by parsifal (Abatis: Rubbish in front of a fort, to prevent the rubbish outside from molesting the rubbish inside)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 146 | View Replies]

To: Fiji Hill

Read them both. Prefer Orwell’s Politics and The English Language.


167 posted on 03/20/2010 6:35:33 PM PDT by Leisler
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 141 | View Replies]

To: Leisler

Thanks for alerting me to the Orwell opus. It seems to be available online, for free, in its entirety.

I do have a bone to pick with Kirk—far from being a “mechanical Jacobin,” the automobile has done more to bring about liberty than just about any other technological innovation.


168 posted on 03/20/2010 7:24:31 PM PDT by Fiji Hill
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 167 | View Replies]

To: fish hawk
Actually I’m an American Indian, you are the foreigner.

A mistaken assumption on your part, brother or sister.

My forebears migrated here in the early 1900's from Oklahoma and my great-grandmother was full-bred Cherokee.

Wake up.

169 posted on 03/20/2010 8:27:36 PM PDT by elkfersupper (Member of the Original Defiant Class)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 134 | View Replies]

To: Fiji Hill
I do have a bone to pick with Kirk—far from being a “mechanical Jacobin,” the automobile has done more to bring about liberty than just about any other technological innovation.

The very top three spots in that category being occupied by, IMHO: The Judeo-Christian Bible, the Printing Press, and the Man-Portable Firearm.

170 posted on 03/20/2010 9:17:31 PM PDT by Christian_Capitalist (Taxation over 10% is Tyranny -- 1 Samuel 8:17)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 168 | View Replies]

To: parsifal; 50mm
parsy, who is looking for his “Tick B’Gone!” spray

Will this work? ;-)


171 posted on 03/20/2010 10:41:42 PM PDT by Allegra (It doesn't matter what this tagline says...the liberals are going to call it "racist.")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 166 | View Replies]

To: Allegra

LOL! I need a real BIG can.

parsy, who says “Let us spray. . .”


172 posted on 03/20/2010 11:10:38 PM PDT by parsifal (Abatis: Rubbish in front of a fort, to prevent the rubbish outside from molesting the rubbish inside)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 171 | View Replies]

To: elkfersupper
Join the club. Just about everyone I knows great gram was full blooded Cherokee. LOL (another want to be)
173 posted on 03/20/2010 11:34:54 PM PDT by fish hawk
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 169 | View Replies]

To: fish hawk

Okay, pardner, then stop citing that as your claim to fame and legitimacy.


174 posted on 03/21/2010 6:30:21 PM PDT by elkfersupper (Member of the Original Defiant Class)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 173 | View Replies]

To: presidio9

Both high profile libertarians and the libertarians I know seem to fall in one of two camps.

One camp is the Juedo-Christian libertarian. Upon entering the promised land and setting up a new government, Joshua said “Choose ye this day whom ye will serve. But as for me and my house we will serve the Lord.”

But Judeo-Christian libertarianism goes back even farther to rejection of the question of the first genocidal murderer, Cain, who asked God: “Am I my brother’s keeper?”

The resounding libertarian response is “I am not my brother’s keeper!” For these libertarians, the preeminent accountability is to God and not to man.

Atheist/agnostic is the second type of libertarian. They see the collectivism of institutional religions that accept the false premise of Cain. They reject that false premise because it cannot withstand logical scrutiny. Pure logic becomes the basis of their libertarianism.

I suspect there are other libertarian variations. I’ve met libertarian pagans, Sikh and Bhuddists. But I didn’t really understand where they were coming from.


175 posted on 03/22/2010 5:36:51 AM PDT by spintreebob
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: ALPAPilot

“The conservative position is that the right to life is unalienable. This was unanimously agreed to in 1776.”

While I would love to agree with you, under English common law in effect at the time (and adopted by the new USA), “life” did not begin until the child drew its first breath outside the womb.

Again, I don’t agree with the English position at the time, but that was the law in 1776.


176 posted on 03/22/2010 7:29:44 AM PDT by Jewbacca (The residents of Iroquois territory may not determine whether Jews may live in Jerusalem.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 162 | View Replies]

To: elkfersupper

“Then you had better stop paying your taxes and morally supporting this (some)drug war.”

I don’t voluntarily pay those taxes. I tend to do so to avoid prison.

I don’t support the drug war (because it is pointless), but it is my perogative to state that druggies are morons who waste their lives and poise a danger to others.


177 posted on 03/22/2010 7:40:34 AM PDT by Jewbacca (The residents of Iroquois territory may not determine whether Jews may live in Jerusalem.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 131 | View Replies]

To: Jewbacca
I would argue as Lincoln did. Although the principles have been denied, all honor to Jefferson who authored the document so at some point in the future it could be enforced

But soberly, it is now no child's play to save the principles of Jefferson from total overthrow in this nation.

One would start with great confidence that he could convince any sane child that the simpler propositions of Euclid are true; but, nevertheless, he would fail, utterly, with one who should deny the definitions and axioms. The principles of Jefferson are the definitions and axioms of free society. And yet they are denied and evaded, with no small show of success. One dashingly calls them "glittering generalities"; another bluntly calls them "self evident lies"; and still others insidiously argue that they apply only to "superior races."

These expressions, differing in form, are identical in object and effect--the supplanting the principles of free government, and restoring those of classification, caste, and legitimacy. They would delight a convocation of crowned heads, plotting against the people. They are the van-guard--the miners, and sappers--of returning despotism. We must repulse them, or they will subjugate us. This is a world of compensations; and he who would be no slave, must consent to have no slave. Those who deny freedom to others, deserve it not for themselves; and, under a just God, can not long retain it. All honor to Jefferson--to the man who, in the concrete pressure of a struggle for national independence by a single people, had the coolness, forecast, and capacity to introduce into a merely revolutionary document, an abstract truth, applicable to all men and all times, and so to embalm it there, that to-day, and in all coming days, it shall be a rebuke and a stumbling-block to the very harbingers of re-appearing tyranny and oppression.

178 posted on 03/22/2010 10:39:24 AM PDT by ALPAPilot
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 176 | View Replies]

To: fish hawk
Just about everyone I knows great gram was full blooded Cherokee. LOL (another want to be)

LOL, ain't it the truth.

179 posted on 03/22/2010 12:27:13 PM PDT by La Enchiladita (How are things in Glockamorra..... this fine day?)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 173 | View Replies]

To: parsifal

I am voting for the first politician who sprays that “Tick’B’Gone” stuff on RuPaul and his legions.


180 posted on 03/22/2010 12:29:59 PM PDT by La Enchiladita (How are things in Glockamorra..... this fine day?)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 166 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-20 ... 141-160161-180181-200 ... 221-230 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson