Posted on 07/31/2002 5:20:31 AM PDT by fporretto
Each abridgement of liberty has been used to justify further ones. Scholars of political systems have noted this repeatedly. The lesson is not lost on those whose agenda is total power. They perpetually strain to wedge the camel's nose into the tent, and not for the nose's sake.
Many a fine person will concede to you that "liberty is all very well in theory," follow that up with "but," and go on from there to tabulate aspects of life that, in his opinion, the voluntary actions of responsible persons interacting in freedom could never cope with. Oftentimes, free men and free markets have coped with his objections in the recent past, whether he knows it or not. You could point this out to him, provide references and footnotes, and still not overcome his resistance, for it does not depend on the specifics he cited.
His reluctance to embrace freedom is frequently based on fear, the power-monger's best friend.
Fantasist Robert Anton Wilson has written: "The State is based on threat." And so it is. After all, the State, no matter how structured, is a parasitic creature. It seizes our wealth and constrains our freedom, gives vague promises of performance in return, and then as often as not fails to deliver. No self-respecting people would tolerate such an institution if it did not regard the alternatives as worse.
The alternatives are seldom discussed in objective, unemotional terms. Sometimes they are worse, by my assessment, but why should you accept my word for it?
Let it be. The typical American, when he opts for State action over freedom, isn't acting on reasoned conviction, but on fear of a negative result. Sometimes the fear, which is frequently backed by a visceral revulsion, is so strong that no amount of counterevidence can dissolve it, including the abject failure of State action.
We've had a number of recent examples of this. To name only two prominent ones:
In either of the above cases, could we but take away the fear factor, there would be essentially no argument remaining.
Fear, like pain, can be useful. When it engenders caution, it can prolong life and preserve health. Conservatives in particular appreciate the value of caution. The conservative mindset is innately opposed to radical, destabilizing change, and history has proved such opposition to be wise.
However, a fear that nothing can dispel is a pure detriment to him who suffers it.
Generally, the antidote to fear is knowledge: logically sound arguments grounded in unshakable postulates and well buttressed by practical experience. Once one knows what brings a particular undesirable condition about, one has a chance of changing or averting it. The great challenge is to overcome fears so intense that they preclude a rational examination of the thing feared.
Where mainstream conservatives and libertarians part company is along the disjunction of their fears. The conservative tends to fear that, without State involvement in various social matters, the country and its norms would suffer unacceptably. Areas where such a fear applies include drug use, abortion, international trade, immigration, cultural matters, sexual behavior, and public deportment. The libertarian tends to fear the consequences of State involvement more greatly. He argues to the conservative that non-coercive ways of curbing the things he dislikes, ways that are free of statist hazards, should be investigated first, before turning to the police.
I call myself a libertarian, but I can't discount conservative fears in all cases -- especially where the libertarian approach to some social ill involves a major change to established ways. Radical transformations of society don't have a rosy history.
Yet conservatives, too, could be more realistic, and could show more confidence in the ideals they strive to defend. As Thomas Sowell has written in discussing the War On Drugs, "If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. Then quit. No use being a damned fool about it."
The past two decades, starting roughly with Ronald Reagan's ascent to national prominence, have laid the foundations for an enduring coalition between freedom-oriented libertarian thinkers and virtue-and-stability-oriented conservative thinkers. Each side needs to learn greater confidence in the other, if we are to establish the serious exchange of ideas and reservations, free of invective and dismissive rhetoric, as an ongoing process. Such confidence must include sufficient humility to allow for respect for the other side's fears -- for an unshakable confidence in one's own rightness is nearly always misplaced. There is little to learn from those who agree with you, whereas much may be learned from those who disagree.
What makes you think I wasn't?
The question was, "...what sort of progress did they make reducing government?" It's interesting that government grows despite tax cuts.
...the welfare reform act has come from the GOP.
Despite welfare reform there are now more people getting government handouts than there ever have been in the past.
...the GOP stopped hillarycare dead in its tracks.
Hillarycare was bad why? Because it would mean government control. But, Republicans are pushing for a $350 billion prescription drug subsidy program. That will mean...govenrment control. Instead of repealing regulations which have run up the price of health care and caused shortages Republicans respond with another government program.
The GOP stopped most of the clintonian bs.
But enacted their own BS in its place.
The GOP has appointed judges that have pushed back the tide of judicial activism...
The GOP has appointed judges which have interpreted the Constitution into meaninglessness. They've found all sorts of governmental powers in the Constitution that don't exist and expanded police powers. Warrantless search and seizure is now commonplace.
GOP governors around the nation have demonstarted that smaller and smarter gov. can work.
With the exception of maybe Gary Johnson of New Mexico I'm unaware of any Republican governors who have reduced government. However, I can tell you that the Republican governors of Washington, Texas, Florida, New York, Massachusetts, Colorado, and Arizona have all enacted more gun-control. Governor Jane Swift (R) of Massachusetts increased the budget in her state by 20% since taking office. Governor Don Sundquist (R) of Tennessee ran on the promise of no state income tax. After failing to use his veto to cut wasteful government spending he ran up an $800 million budget deficit and then lobbied for a state income tax. The legislature couldn't get it passed so they raised the sales tax instead. Now Tennessee has one of the nation's highest sales tax.
...liberatarians? Nothing.
On the state and local levels Libertarians have been successful in repealing taxes, repealing prior-restraint laws, stopping eminent domain, privatizing city services, opening public works projects to competitive bidding, and stopping new taxes and regulations from passing.
In Massachusetts, Libertarians have managed to get an initiative on the ballot to repeal the state income tax. No Republicans will support it. They're too busy promising government money to any special interest group that will support them politically.
Let's examine some of the accomplishments Republicans have made during the past 18 months since GWB took office:
Took $67 million in taxpayers' money to finance presidential campaign via federal matching funds.
Submitted largest budget ever to Congress, $2.13 trillion.
Campaign Finance Reform.
Airline bailouts.
Post Office bailout.
Amtrak bailouts.
Raised debt-limit from $5.95 trillion to $6.4 trillion.
Creation of new federal bureaucracy, Dept. of Homeland Security.
Wall St. ordered to report "suspicious" transactions, or series of transactions exceeding $5000.
Domestic surveillance by FBI without evidence of criminal activity.
Scholarships for Cuban students and professionals.
"Homebuyer bill of rights" -- federal regulation of real estate.
Continued anti-trust lawsuit against Microsoft.
Federal subsidies for the poor to purchase homes.
Project Safe Neighborhood -- unconstitutional gun-control and federal intrusion.
Boost in American foreign-aid by 50% to more than $15 billion annually.
Continued funding of World Bank.
Additional funding for Medicare.
Health care subsidies for laid-off workers and expanded job retraining benefits ($10 billion to $12 billion over 10 years).
Wage insurance -- federal wage supplement.
$9.5 million to hire new Customs Service agents.
Refused to allow airline pilots to arm themselves.
Federalized airport security.
Increased farm subsidies by $180 billion over 10 years.
Increased Pentagon budget by $48 billion to $379 billion.
$560 million USA Freedom Corps.
Over $3-million spent on SuperBowl anti-drug ads.
Increased funding for IRS and BATF.
Faith-based subsidies.
Engaging in nation-building.
Meddling in Zimbabwe by threatening to withhold foreign-aid (Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act of 2001).
Foreign debt relief.
Increased federal spending on education from $39.9-billion to $44.5-billion.
Signed Congressional payraise of $4,900.
"Magic Latern" FBI spyware.
DOJ monitoring of cable modems without a warrant.
$474 million to combat HIV/AIDS overseas, including $100 million for a global trust fund, and $200 million for international disaster assistance.
$676 million for South American anti-drug plan.
$768 million in assistance to independent states of the former Soviet Union. (2001)
$1.3 billion in military assistance and $655 million in economic assistance for Egypt. (2001)
$2-billion in foreign-aid to Egypt. (2002)
$75 million in military financing and $150 in economic assistance for Jordan. (2001)
US military and economic assistance to Jordan is expected to increase by $100 million to $325 million this year.
$582 million to United Nations. (2001)
$1.3-billion in foreign-aid to Columbia to fight Drug War. (2001)
$120 million in foreign-aid to Uzbekistan. (2002)
$40 million in foreign-aid to the Taliban government of Afghanistan (May, 2001).
Patients Bill of Rights -- federal regulation of health care.
Federal Compassion Capital Fund, $700 million over 10 years.
$500 million in funding to combat AIDS in Africa.
Imposed steel and lumber tariffs.
$300 million for the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) via the Supplemental Appropriations Act of 2001.
$700-800 million in annual ethanol subsidies.
Elementary School Foreign Language Incentive Program (federal subsudies for teaching English).
Technology Opportunities Program ($42.8 million in 2001, $12.4 million in 2002, due to be phased out in 2003).
Federal subsidies to welfare parents who marry.
$8 million to maintain a heating oil reserve to stabilize prices in the U.S. Northeast.
$30 million in research grants over the next five years to develop new ways of making industrial products from plants and natural waste materials.
$100_million to beef up investigative manpower and technology at the SEC.
$6 million to upgrade a U.S. Geological Survey data center near Sioux Falls, S.D.
$10 million to help farmers near the Rio Grande River involved in a water dispute with Mexico.
$1 billion for Pell grants for low-income students.
$400 million to help states improve voting systems.
$200 million for fighting AIDS and other diseases abroad.
$255 million over two years to expand US media influence in predominantly Muslim countries.
Scholarships and grants to nurses and to help hospitals maintain retention of nurses.
Increase the NEA budget by $10 million, to $126 million.
$200,000 for a trucker congestion notification system in Tacoma, Washington.
$500,000 to save the Prebles Meadow Jumping Mouse in Colorado.
$62 million to promote the Sacajawea dollar coin.
$100,000 a month to monitor news reports and offer advice on media strategy for the Pentagon.
$1.5 million for taking care of the Vulcan Statue in Alabama built for the 1904 World's Fair.
$165 billion federal budget deficit.
If you truly belive the GOP is the party of smaller government, you're deluding yourself.
You are very high-strung aren't you?
I came to this thread expecting an extremely rational and civil discussion, seeing that fporretto was the author and origniator of this thread. I see in the next post how a wish was expressed that this discussion could be civil. But at your post #5, you've made it all but impossible for that civil discussion to take place.
For instance, you state, "the so-called Conservatives who support it tooth and nail do so with a religious zeal that prevent such rational and logical debate." Apparently, it doesn't occur to you that you put off numerous posters by juxtaposing "religious zeal" with "rational and logical debate" as if the two are mutually exclusive.
They're not.
Later you state, "The rest are all too happy to resort to strawman arguments, dodging the debate, trying to change the issue, out and out character assassination and personal attacks in order to cling to their favorite issue." So, it's fine to do this if you are the one doing it.
That dog don't hunt.
It's like this with this conservative, well, I'm really a post-conservative (my own coinage), but anyway I can make the case that marijuana should be legal, even though I am a proud unabashed Born-Again Christian. And my "logical rationalizing" is really simple: tobacco is a naturally occurring plant and it's legal while marijuana is a naturally occurring plant and it's illegal. That's totally illogical and I would unashamedly vote for a candidate who took this stance (but that would be only one of the issues the candidate must embrace).
Hardcore narcotics I have a problem with, and I'll admit my reasoning here may escape "logic." I literally lost my oldest sister to both cocaine and heroin. My mother had to raise three of her five children on a fixed income, which had an extremely bad affect on me since I am the youngest out of the family by a wide margin.
At any rate, when you see the affects of this addiction in your face daily, it's not hard to understand why one might be taken aback at the suggestion that it becomes legalized. Was this problem the result of my sister's own personal choices and, therefore, her own failure that is attributable to no one but herself? Yes, it was. She was raised better than that, so this substance abuse problem of her's cant be laid at the feet of my parents for lack of parental instruction.
That's the logical side of it.
What about the affects this had on the rest of my family? Let me tell you honestly, it hurt like hell. Still does.
That's the illogical side of it.
Is the so-called "War on Drugs" working? Stevie Wonder can see that it isn't. Therefore, I believe that it must be scrapped and replaced with something better to does not sacrifice the liberties of the citizens. Does decriminalizing and/or legalizing narcotics have to occur for this to be accomplished? I don't have an answer for that. It's possible. But I'm extremely cautious here.
While I find that libertarian philosophy can be both thoughtful and refreshing, I must admit that one of its failing points is that it strips the human element totally out of it. This is no small flaw, either.
In order for libertarian philosophy to be effective, it must assume that those who wield political power will act in a completely moral manner at all times, from politicians (local, state, and federal) to judges to policemen. Looking at the scale of probability from zero to one, the chance of this happening is 0.00000000000001 unless some severe Draconian penalties will be used for those who fail to act accordingly.
This post-conservative has no problem talking and philosophizing with libertarians in a civil, mature manner. But it must cut both ways. And I hold conservatives who fail to do this equally culpable.
And it's no wonder we conservatives can't discuss it with you ideologues.
Fine, when they come for you Bible and your church, don't expect me to stop you, I'll just smile and say, "I told you so." As soon as you open up that can of worms to enforce your morals on other people, you better be ok with things you do not being allowed.
Should have read. ... don't expect me to stop THEM, I'll just smile and say, "I told you so...."
Schism? When were Conservatives and Libertarians ever on the same page?
Before 1945, you'd have been hard pressed to find a policy difference between them, Watts. It's not much of an exaggeration to say that the Cold War produced present-day conservatism. Though "libertarian" is by far the newer term, prior to the Cold War, conservatives' politics were a nearly exact match for present-day constitutionalist libertarianism.
I keep exhorting people -- vainly, I suppose -- to look at the differences among major conservative figures and ponder what they mean:
These folks differ more on the "linchpin" issues than they agree... but they are all conservatives, including the ones who also call themselves libertarians.
Conservatism, plainly, does not depend on the specifics of political positions. It's more an attitudinal matter. Buckley tried to capture it thus: "A conservative is one who stands astride History's gates, crying 'Stop!' " I think he was more wrong than right, but at least he was focusing on something outside the realm of pure policy.
If I'm correct, American conservatism is largely a predilection for a set of virtues and values, coupled to a profound distrust of rapid change. Libertarianism is much more explicitly political than that. Within either of the two major branches of libertarian thinking, you'll find very few divergences. (Only one -- abortion -- really divides us, but then, why should we be exempt from that one? It divides everyone.)
Look at the virtual unanimity of positions on the Left. Aside from their squabbling over who'll get how large a piece of the public pie, the various factions on the Left support one another with a fidelity that suggests brainwashing. You can't get them to disagree in public, even though their various key interests are completely distinct! How much more different could that be from our own fractious community?
If you want a real cleavage between Left and Right, you have to look at three distinctions that are essentially free of policy attachments:
That's how you determine whether you're Right or Left. Libertarians, with a few exceptions, are definitely Right, and have much more to offer to and gain from conservatives than liberals.
Will we always agree? What's the superlative of "hell, no!" -- ? But because we share both our postulates and our general predilections, we can and should talk to one another, with as much respect as we can manage. I would much sooner backhand a snooty know-it-all libertarian, as I did Mark Bahner above, for denigrating and trivializing conservatives' honest, deeply felt reservations about proposed policy changes -- especially changes with consequences as far-reaching as any modification to the drug laws! -- than speak dismissively to a conservative who disagrees with me totally.
There's an old saying that opinions are... well, worthless; everyone has one, so there'll never be a scarcity. Every political position of any kind is an opinion. Keeping that in mind helps us to maintain humility -- and without humility, we cannot learn. Inasmuch as the thing humans are optimized to do is to make mistakes and learn from them, it seems obvious to me that humility, including the willingness to listen respectfully to those who disagree with us, is our most precious asset.
"The hallmark of intellectual honesty is the solicitation of opposing points of view." -- Tom Clancy, The Sum Of All Fears
Freedom, Wealth, and Peace,
Francis W. Porretto
Visit the Palace Of Reason: http://palaceofreason.com
If you ever get tired of talking to yourself -- strike that, if you ever get tired of repeating yourself to yourself -- perhaps you'll stop and ponder that we've rarely disagreed on policy, that my criticism of you is about your damnably contemptuous style.
All by yourself, you created more bad will toward libertarians and libertarian thinking at the Ann Coulter Fan Club than a regiment of homosexual drug addicts could have done -- and entirely because of your style. Jenny Rogers, one of the brightest and most pleasant young women I've ever known, who agreed with you on policy nearly all the time, absented herself from the forum to get away from you! That is why I decided, in that venue, to distinguish myself from you. Making progress at learning and at conveying your opinions constructively to others is apparently not important to you. In short, you lack all humility.
Milton Friedman is a libertarian, and so am I. Whatever you might call yourself politically, you are polemically a liability to the cause of freedom. I can only hope that when you start in as you did here, the sensible conservatives of FreeRepublic will elect to ignore you, rather than to transfer their disdain for your manners to the libertarian philosophy generally.
Freedom, Wealth, and Peace,
Francis W. Porretto
Visit the Palace Of Reason: http://palaceofreason.com
I have a reason... An animal can not give consent to sex with a human.
For instance, let's say I buy a house with a big lawn. Let's also say that I'm somewhat crazy. After I buy the house, I decide to paint it purple-polka dot and put up a 50 foot Mr. Big Boy burgermeister statue (you know, like the ones in the 1950's) in the front yard and walk around in clown makeup with nothing more than boxer shorts on. But I do all of this on my property.
Ok, now let's say you live next to me in a nice $750,000 house. Six months after my polka-dot-Big-boy-statue-clown-makeup insanity starts, the value of your house is $450,000. My idiotic behavior has cost you $300,000 because no one wants to live next to me. But again, if you're a property-rights maximalist (i.e. libertarian), well I'm just doing what I want on my own property. Should you be able to sue me? According to libertarians, no.
But if you say yes, you should--well, then liberty has limits and your libertarian argument is in trouble. Because then, guess what: you get into situational ethics. "Well, lots of liberty is OK here, but not here, etc." If you want to see a graphic illustration of this problem, just read major Supreme Court cases over the last sixty years. For instance, in Bowers v. Hardwick, the SCOTUS upheld state sodomy laws. Yet in Roe v. Wade, as we all know, the SCOTUS struck down state abortion laws (and went further in Doe and Casey and Stenberg). So, a state can outlaw sodomy but not the killing of an 8-month old unborn child? Hopefully you get the pont.
All idealistic philosophies are bankrupt because they always fall into arbitrariness.
A week or so ago, there was a story out of Canada that was posted on FR. Some depraved scumbag was found in his house with--get this--two dead German Shepherds that were wearing bras and panties. He sodomized and killed them both.
Ok, make the case that this guy isn't a danger to society; that he was just 'doing his own thing'. IMHO, this guy is a serial killer waiting to happen and should be locked up for life.
The states can and cannot. All of the states have a Second Amendment clause in their constitutions (maybe not Hawaii, but I think so). So, they would have to amend their (state constitution) to do so, presumably with the support of the population. So, yes, states can do that as long as they repeal the relevant state constitutional amendment.
That's not really a matter of philosophy; that's just a point of law.
Whatever;
But as a "self-described 'libertarian'" yourself, you sure do spew out a lot of venom trying to impose YOUR "standard" of libertarianism on others. It's kind of humorous to note that you don't hold yourself to those same standards. They call that "hypocrisy", don't they?
Wrong. - Arbitrary generalization. -- You can sue, at your expense & liablity.
But if you say yes, you should--well, then liberty has limits and your libertarian argument is in trouble. Because then, guess what: you get into situational ethics.
Not at all. You get into the 'ethics' of constitutional law, with which you do not agree, for some curious reason.
- And guess what, liberty does have limits under libertarianism.
All idealistic philosophies are bankrupt because they always fall into arbitrariness.
As does your own, under your own flawed reasoning.
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