Posted on 05/01/2002 9:09:03 PM PDT by Pokey78
Edited on 04/23/2004 12:04:26 AM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
Sept. 11 might have also brought down a political movement.
The great free-market revolution that began with the coming to power of Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan at the close of the 1970s has finally reached its Thermidor, or point of reversal. Like the French Revolution, it derived its energy from a simple idea of liberty, to wit, that the modern welfare state had grown too large, and that individuals were excessively regulated. The truth of this idea was vindicated by the sudden and unexpected collapse of Communism in 1989, as well as by the performance of the American and British economies in the 1990s.
(Excerpt) Read more at opinionjournal.com ...
"You are a libertarian, and I know libertarians are evil, horrible people, so what you say cannot possibly have merit."
324 posted on 5/3/02 12:12 AM Mountain by Thraka
As for you're outlandish contentions, that Ronald Reagan was a libertarian, that's wishful thinking and pure fiction. Nothing could be further from the truth. Ronald Reagan was a social conservative, first and foremost.
He believed in the conservative-republican agenda of smaller and more efficient government, tax cuts and tax reform. Reagan opposed abortion and legalizing prostitution, both of which are supported by the Libertarian Party. Reagan supported both a strong military and a strong criminal justice system, two areas of the federal government that libertarians would dismantle, if given the opportunity. As President, Reagan presided over, the largest funding increases in the history of America's national drug control policy. OTOH, Libertarian's would legalize all drugs, from marijuana, to cocaine, to heroin, to methamphetamine, to all types of designer drugs and on and on and on. Such outrageous policy breeds chaos and chaos leads to anarchy.
The current Libertarian Party Platform, has little in common with the conservative movement and "true" libertarian policy, has nothing in common with the conservatism of Ronald Reagan. Reagan was a pragmatic and reasonable mainstream conservative, who believed in the traditional American values of individual freedom and liberty. But Reagan also believed in the American society, as that shining city on the hill, which best represented to the world, the hopes and desires of all American's.
"It is not my intention to do away with government. It is rather to make it work -- work with us, not over us; stand by our side, not ride on our back. Government can and must provide opportunity, not smother it; foster productivity, not stifle it."
Ronald Reagan, First Inaugural Address, January 20, 1981
ps- I've already purchased, "Reagan, In His Own Hand: The Writings of Ronald Reagan that Reveal His Revolutionary Vision for America
These are poor analogies and prove nothing. Coloradan was willing to refuse a right to an entire class of persons who had committed no crime (Manson has) deserving of restricting their rights (other than being non-citizens) or who were otherwise fully compentent adults (not like a gun totting toddler). You do see the differences that disqualify your analogy?
"That an army may be necessary to defeat Al Qaeda does not rule out Libertarianism at all - if the army is voluntary service, and privately funded, for example."
Would you care to explain how this differs from letters of marque or the employment of bounty hunters which, by the way, have been advanced as a solution to Al Qaeda by some libertarians. Is this voluntary, privately funded, army to be chartered by the government or can just anyone form their own army, for example?
But as I pointed out in my first post, government firefighters have no lock on job mortality. There exist private and even volunteer agencies that have sent firefighters to their deaths. Again the author of the article is wrong, and your point doesn't contradict it, whether they were sent to "put out the fire" or to "rescue survivors."
If you want to claim victory here, then go ahead.
OK, I declare victory.
Would you care to explain how this differs from letters of marque or the employment of bounty hunters which, by the way, have been advanced as a solution to Al Qaeda by some libertarians. Is this voluntary, privately funded, army to be chartered by the government or can just anyone form their own army, for example?
I am not proposing that a separate caste of people is formed that have rights and privileges above and beyond those of private citizens, unlike the present case in which military and police officers may own or use unregistered machine guns, which is a felony to us peasants. It doesn't matter if someone, "just anyone" as you say, could form their own army or not - armies are expensive, and only the incredibly wealthy could afford to do so on their own, without outside assistance.
However, it is not out of the question that an army could be raised that was funded by charitable donations, and which was staffed by voluteers. Would you pay $100 or even $1000 towards dropping daisy cutters on Al Qaeda, if you weren't otherwise paying any taxes to the government for national defense? I certainly would, and I imagine a lot of others would too. If you think charitable donations couldn't possibly fund an army, then a reasonable question for you to answer is, why would people vote for representatives who would tax them at that level to pay for defense, when they wouldn't pay it themselves directly?
As for bounty hunters, I don't see what's wrong with them. It is in the interest of The State to catch certain people, and it becomes in the interest of individuals to do so as well, if there is a bounty waiting for them should they succeed. Bounties are a perfect example of a free-market solution. Do you object to them? If you do then you must already object to the rewards posted on the capture of certain people, for example the gun-grabbing WA state prosecutor, the solution to whose murder is worth $1,000,000 to the Dept. of Justice, when the solution of other murders isn't worth a dime. (So long as we are talking about caste systems or Letters Of Marque, and the increased value of some people over others in the current non-Libertarian world, you might wonder why information leading to the solution of one murder is worth so much more than the solution to so many others.)
Your idea of porn and others might be different of course, but I'm sure your definition is the only valid one. In a pigs eye (who are you to judge this?). - Brokering away individual rights is not a compromise, it's a capitualtion. And it is no virtue. (You have no moral authority to claim what is a virtue and what is not - it may be your opinion, but it is not a fact, so stop acting as though it were.)
I called you no names, nor did I speculate about your sanity. (a cheap trick of the left) I simply called into question your position to judge his standard of porn and/or what is moral and/or what is virtuous. Who is using Totally phony BS?
You do not understand the Gospel of Jesus Christ beyond the most shallow, self-serving level. If you do, then your offense is infinitely compounded by your cynical willfullness.
There are in the words of Jesus Christ not the slightest suggestion that he came to set man free to roll and revel in the vices and gross destructive behaviors common to man--like a dog rolling in a corpse to fill its nose and fur with the stench. On the contrary, he saved some of his most strict rebukes for those who attempted to champion him as such--people such as you.
His words to prostitutes and Pharisees alike concerned the threat to their eternal souls by willful behavior that, if unrepented of, would justify second death. The place and role of the temporal state was none of his concern except when he strictly warned his followers to render unto Caesar what is Caesar's.
Jesus Christ himself disobeyed NO state law. The executor of state law--Pilate--himself declared Jesus Christ totally innocent on this charge. There wasn't the slightest bit of evidence presented--for there was none to be had--that Jesus Christ found fault with Roman law or counseled his disciples to repudiate the same. The claim that he was mounting an insurrectionist threat to the Roman state failed and failed wholly.
In short, Jesus Christ was nothing at all like you and your vice-worshipping libertarian ilk--spiritually OR temporally. You fail miserably on BOTH measures.
When it's all said and done, all your twisted and sick pieties are really in favor of dope and promiscuous sex. At least scrape together enough honesty to admit that. This isn't about punishing people for gleaning wheat on the Sabbath, or for not wearing the state-approved garments, or for refusing to put a picture of "Big Brother" on the wall. It is about dope and promiscuous sex, nothing more.
Laws that provide for sanctions for using dope and engaging in promiscuous sex exist because such laws recognize first and foremeost the truth that such behaviors impose enormous costs on other people--INNOCENT people--in society.
The lie that these things affect no one but the offender him or herself s just that--a whopper of a lie. Do you know who the father of lies is? I bet you do . . . I bet you do, libertarian.
These laws seek to make the offender accountable by visiting thses costs in some fashion back on the the offender's shoulders.
At the bottom of it, laws against dope and promiscuous and perverse sex--your holy shibboleths, dark one--may be among the most justifiably libertarian of them all, for they seek to ensure personal responsibility in the lives of people who live destructive, self-indulgent, devil-may-care lies that impose terrible costs on the rest of us.
You sham has been found out. Your shame ought to be manifest. But you are shameless.
I'd suggest that you guys go get a room somewhere but I'm sure that you're scared stiff that someone might think that you were dancing.
Quick! I heard that there's a thread where someone is discussing Gray's Anatomy. Go stop it!
Liberteens could be blamed for wasting everyone's time - eh?
Very Very well said. Unfortunately it will mostly be pearls cast to swine
They don't support the Constitution.
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