Posted on 11/26/2002 2:34:41 PM PST by Sparta
I just heard on John Gibson's show a guest say that libertarians can influence policy in the Republican Party. He pointed to Ron Paul and Dick Armey as examples. Your comments please.
If the minor is in the "Christian's care", could the charges be made against the Christian? This one cannot be answered as a hypothetical. Details would be necessary.
If the minor is in the "Christian's care", could the charges be made against the Christian? This one cannot be answered as a hypothetical. Details would be necessary.
I can appreciate your reluctance to enter into the discussion of a hypothetical. However, I believe that I implied that one would be thwarting the guardian in order to make the pornography available to the minor. If, however, that was not clear, than I wish to make that point now.
How the guardian could then be charged could only assume that neglect was a factor. Neglect should not be assumed as a factor.
If you mean that literally, that would probably get you some assault charges. Even if you managed to beat them in court (which is likely, even with our backwards culture), the prosecution could be a nightmare.
But I think you'd get a pass on the porn, particularly if you were gay (not implying anything - just using a hypothetical) and were "helping" a "sexually confused" adolescent dealing with our "oppressive" society (oy vey, enough with the quote marks!).
I am not sure what we disagree about.
ministers / preachers who are homosexual
It is a sin! They are NOT Christian.
either you believe in the Bible as a whole, as originally written, or you do not believe...
I believe in the Bible, as a whole, as it was written. I abhor the Liberals and their "living, breathing" interpretation of the Bible and the Constitution.
I must keep pornography and all sin from my life (and my family.)
Where does the Bible say I have the right, duty or authority to use the legal system to keep others from sinning? I must convince them to accept Christ. I cannot force them to.
If you had a property crime committed against you, and you knew your neighbor knew who did it, I assume you would want that neighbor to come forward and speak up and say who did it, am I correct? So, in the same sense, if you knew about a crime committed against your neighbor, he could also count on you speaking up also, right? You either take a stand or you hide. You either stand and defend against wrong or you don't. Wrong is definded by your own mind, heart and soul and life's teaching.
I do not profess to be perfect. Far from it. But, I do not put my hands on others, I do not venture into my neighbor's yard to do wrong, I do not venture into my neighbor's home seeking his wife, I do not steal from my neighbor, I try to live my life in a way that I know that my mother and father would not have to hang their heads in shame over my conduct. I stand on those principles for defense of our Republic also. I stand on those principles for defense of your and my Constitutional rights as written in the DofI, Constitution and Bill of Rights. I served this republic for 20 years in the Army, fought in an unpopular war in Vietnam, but did not run from it.
My father, uncles and grandfathers fought from the Civil War, WWI, WWII and Korea. I could not and would not have run from the responsibility of Vietnam or any war thereafter. Even if I felt the war wrong, if my Country and the government in charge at the time made the call to send our troops into combat, then I would pick up my M-16 and go. That was the oath I swore to defend. So, I defended it. My father told me even if I disagreed with what was happening in Vietnam, that my Country called me to defend and it was my responsibility as a man and citizen to go. Not run off to Canada like a coward. It was easy to run away. Harder to stand up and be a man about it (and lady also for those wonderful nurses and others in Vietnam!)
I try to live by that code today, Duty, Honor, Country. If people think those are stupid words, then they are stupid. For those are words that each freedom loving citizen should cherish and wrap your arms around. They are the words of a true free peoples. Just as the Bible is the Word of true, believing individuals. (sorry for the long winded response).
Peace, have a wonderful Turkey Day, G-d bless you and G-d bless our wonderful nation this holiday season. Hooau!
Question: If you have five wonderful little girls at home and you now that right next door so guy is running a sex house, would you not call the police to report it to spare your daughters the horror of seeing all that. I would. That is being a citizen. That is taking responsibility. That is standing up for what is right. That is, in short, doing something to defeat sinful acts. With citizenship comes responsibility. If we all choose to turn our backs on these acts of crime, then our nation, city and block would turn into hell on earth. You don't want that to happen.
Here is where the problem lies. Is he committing a crime? Should running a "sex house" be a crime? A sin? Definitely! Immoral? Yes! A crime? I don't know.
I see a crime as wrongfully denying someone else their right to life, liberty or property. Does this qualify? Maybe I should move to a better neighbohood.
Drugs, being legal, would cost around 1/1500 of what they cost now (I'm speaking of heroin/cocain, MJ would be around 1/50 of current cost) because the risk would so much lower and competition so much higher. And maybe the murderous thugs would still be highly involved but they would no longer need to "murderous" in order to compete. As a matter of fact they would need to go legitimate in order to compete with other businesses seeing as how legal businesses could produce far more (and get away with it), therefore selling for far less than an illegal operator.
EBUCK
In my county most of the Libertarians got sick of losing. We joined the local Republicans. We started attending county meetings and started running for office as Republicans. We now hold 6 state House seats and a whole lot of local and county offices. We have 8 seats at the state Republican convention and hold 8 seats on the state Republican Committee.
Congratulations for your hard earned success! People like you are an inspiration to everyone who wants to remain true to their principles while still being effective in the political process.
I've tried to influence leaders of the local Republican party but they're just as obsessed with passing massive annual spending increases as the Democrats.
I understand your frustration and have shared it on many occasions. My suggestion is to run against them in the next election for GOP Central Committee or other related office.
Remember that they don't speak for the grassroots of the party, who will support you if you're able to reach out to them effectively. Contact some of the officeholders you respect and seek their advice on how to proceed; that way you can turn your frustration into something positive.
The purpose of laws is not to be to punish sinners. The punishment of sinners is God's job, not mankind's.
The purpose of the law is to protect people from criminals. If someone wishes to construct a statue of Baal in their basement and worship it, such activity would be sinful and yet it would not be the proper function of government to punish it. God will be more than capable, when the time comes.
The essense of humanity is IMHO well summed up in a line by Stephen Schwartz [Children of Eden]: "But the one thing he most treasures is to make his own mistakes". God created mankind to have free will--to be free to make both right and wrong choices and reap the natural consequences thereof.
Murder deprives a man of the ability to make any choice whatsoever, obviously; theft deprives him of the ability to choose the disposition of his property; adultery (biblically-defined) deprives him of the right to make informed choices with regard to "his" children's upbringing (i.e. it prevents a man from knowing his wife's children are really his).
Pornography may be considered the product of morally bad choices on the part of its producers, and may lead to bad choices on the part of its consumers, but people have the right to make bad choices in their lives. Without the ability to make bad choices, however, there would be no virtue in making good ones.
Once upon a time libertarians may have been rightly regarded as "social liberals". That's really not quite so true anymore.
Libertarians disagree with many Republicans on whether the state should punish people for committing sodomy if those people are taking reasonable efforts to keep their activities private and are only caught due to factors they could not reasonably have foreseen. Some libertarians disagree with Republicans on the extent to which such acts should be permitted or punished in less-than-totally-private situations(*). Libertarians are in substantial agreement with Republicans, however, in thinking that government should not be actively promoting immoral behaviors as it is now doing in many places.
(*) Many libertarians would have no problem with statutes and ordinances which prohibit lewd behavior in public; the fact that an observer saw and was disturbed by such behavior would constitute prima facie evidence of the offense. Such evidence could be rebutted by showing that the complainant was someplace he had no right to be, that the suspect had explicit reason to believe that the complainant consented to be exposed to the behavior, or the exposure came through some means the suspect could not reasonably have foreseen.Many libertarian-leaning conservatives, myself included, believe that public lewdness, drunkenness, drug use, etc. should be forbidden and punished, but that government should not generally seek out such vices when they would not otherwise come to police attention. This distinction is made out of a wish not so much to protect those activities, but rather to keep government under control.
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