Are there any differences between Conservatives and Libertarians?

1/12/03 | Sparta

[Sparta]

I've been reading posts by people who use the term Conservative and others who use the term Libertarian. I have a question for all FReepers, is there a difference between the two?

[rb22982]

How about if a gargage man dies while collecting garbage? Should his family be taken care of by the local government? Is that also not socialism?

No, they shouldn't be. I would only be ok with mililtary victims and if it was part of the defense budget.

[nopardons]

I wasn't rude, didn't call YOU any names, and stated facts. The same can NOT be said for you, dear. ;^ )

You don't like what I post ? Ignore it then. I've been here far longer than you have, and you don't own nor run this site. Why don't YOU " go away ? LOL

[nopardons]

I don't disagree with some of what you posted; however, the LP isn't the answer. Not only don't they know how to win an election, they do everything in their power to lose them. Their platform isn't one whit better than the GREENIES or the Dem's.

I'd rather take a 1/2 full glass, than nothing. That's a major difference between Conservative GOPers and Libertarians.

[nopardons]

I'm not a " senior citizen " yet; however, I've been around a long, long, LONG time myself and am most assuredly an adult. That's why I can say that Truman wasn't Conservative, compared to the average Dem of today. JFK was " Conservative " only in two way. He was an anti-Communist and he lowered taxes. Otherwise, he was hapless, helpless, and more a moronic daddy's boy, than the Dems idea of President Bush the younger .

Freedom is NOT " frightening " at all; not to me, at any rate. I'm a pluperfect poster girl for what Libertarians claim to be, but aren't and couldn't exist in a world that was.

The CATO INSTITUTE, whose papers I have read for decades, is often okay; sometimes not.

[nopardons]

Tsk, tsk, tsk, dear. If anyone has their " panties in a bunch ", it hasa been you.

I NEVER posted that one should sue. Go ahead and CCP my reply, which openly stated such a thing.

You came to this debate unarmed. Now that is pathetic. LOL

[Badray]

"I wasn't rude, didn't call YOU any names, and stated facts. The same can NOT be said for you, dear. ;^ )

I'll admit that my initial response to you was very sarcastic, but there was nothing personal in my reply. Your reply was both rude and condescending (dear - I am not your dear). You then proceeded to saying or insinuating that I am inept and a fool. That's when I told you to go away - as in leave me alone.

"You don't like what I post ? Ignore it then. I've been here far longer than you have, and you don't own nor run this site. Why don't YOU " go away ?

I am trying to ignore you but I will not let inaccuracies stand. BTW, coincidentally, I have been a FReeper since I was at the March for Justice which is your sign up date. And since you don't own this site either, I have no intention of going away.

Now please, unless you are going to be civil in your comments to me, do not bother me again.

[nopardons]

You shovel it out and then get huffy when someone refutes you ? You claim to have been a FREEPER since The March for Justice ? Your sign up date says otherwise...2 years later. I lurked on FR, for almost a year, before I signed up and chose that day / date precisely because it stood for the March. BTW, I call many people " daer ", in replys. Would you prefer " kiddo " ? :-)

I haven't posted any factual " errors; you just disagree with me. ;^)

You're the one who told me to leave this site, I replied in kind, now, NOW, you accuse ME of telling you what to do ? This is rich and then some. Grow up, stop imagining things, and do at least attempt to be rational, dear .

[LloydofDSS]

>>Most members seemed more interested in drug legalization and less interested in talking about Hayek etc.<<

In my case, the reason I am drawn to drug legalization as a primary focus of my passion is because 600,000 Americans are sitting in jail right now for doing something which did not violate anyones rights in any way. I can relate to the passion felt by anti-slavery activists in 1830-1860, and the passion felt by those who tried to stop Hitler from slaughtering millions of Jews. I realize those cases were much more severe than the shameful way we are treating our fellow Americans today, but this is the reason I am motivated to speak out year after year on the issue of drug legalization.

[Badray]

I don't have to prove anything to you. There are plenty of people that met me that day as well as the BUSLOAD of people that I brought down for the day who know the truth. Their opinions are of more value to me than yours. I have a long history with FR and most of it is not sitting at the keyboard.

"Go away" meant leave me alone. I wouldn't presume to tell anyone to leave the site. That is up to JimRob and the mods.

[nopardons]

Yawn, yawn, and oh yes ... Y-A-W-N ! You may imagine that because you went to the Match, you have been a FREEPER since. If that were true, then I would have been a FREEPER for a year prior my join date.

You didn't imply, you didn't explain, all you did was post a clear and ringing statement that I should leave this site. You don't want me to reply to your posts to me ? DON'T WRITE ANYMORE TO ME ! It's really as simple as that. :-)

[Havoc]

The main difference between Conservatives and Libertarians is the mindset. May be a simplistic assessment; but, bear with me.

Conservatives are largely motivated by morality. The same morality which penned our Bill of Rights and constitution.
That morality demands the things that live in those documents because they are moral issues, not just sound bytes that give warm fuzzies and make people feel good.
Conservatives believe in small government as a moral perogative that led them to write it out on paper and seal it as a founding principle of this nation.

Libertarians, on the other hand, tend to believe what they do - because. The because is largely because a piece of paper gives them reason to believe they have a right. A piece of paper, not a moral compass. Thus they mistake the right to act for the legality to do so. Not quite the same thing. You have a right to go out and murder someone. It is undeniable. You possess the right to make the cognative and physical movement to go out and act on your whims. Laws and governments exist to constrain us from making decisions that are morally and ethically wrong and otherwise unacceptable. So while you may have the right to make decisions and act on them, we the people have the right to hold you responsible. And that's the crux. Libertarians don't like that idea any more than Liberals do.
And they are selective arbitrarily in displaying it. Libertarians want drugs legalized because it infringes their presumed rights to be dopers. We the people have restrained them through laws because we have found drug use to be morally and ethically wrong and otherwise unacceptable.

I'm speaking in general terms; but, that is the underlying issue. The mindset. Liberals have the same problem - they are largely led by desire rather than a moral compass. Their belief system is largely constructed on what they can abuse out of a piece of paper and wrap around something they decide they want to do while trying to convince people with polls that we all accept it.

Conservatives believe in the document and the moral and theistic mindset that demanded the document. Liberals and libertarians believe in what they can sell you the document could say or would say if only the founders had been alive in our time when pot exists and after women started going topless on beaches. Problem is, women had breasts when the founders were alive and have had them for a long long time. And Pot didn't just leap from the jungles in modern times. There were drugs in their day too. And the people that used them went to prison for doing things they shouldn't just as happens today. Imagine that.

Libertarians and Liberals will not be constrained by conscience, morality, or a document. And if not for sophistry, more people would know what they actually believe instead of the spin they have to put on their beliefs to try and make them pallettable. Thus they say "pro-choice" instead of Pro-Baby killer. If you can murder a child to escape responsibility for it and convince a woman it's not wrong to do so, then it makes it easier to get by with sleeping with anything that moves and directing your attentions to trying to convince everyone that's ok and it's judgemental to tell a man he can't sleep with the man's daughter unless he marries her and stays married to her. Good lord, there's them morals again. I'd better stop while I'm being moral...

[Democrap]

Ditto. They are a frightening bunch.

[nopardons]

That's one of the most misplaced emotions / confused / erronious filled I think that I have ever seen here.

For starters, a great many people, jailed on drug charges, are there because they copped a plea to a lesser charge. They have done something egregiously horrid, but like Al Capon, it was the lesser charge that put them away and/or their lawyer set up the plea bargin. Then, you are assuming that those peoeple are first or even second time offenders. That's incorrect. Your emotional, irrational " reasoning " about this, doesn't match up with your equating slavery and the Holochaust ( or were you only talking about discrimination, here in America, against the Jews ? ) at all. Those thrown into jail, on drug charges, did it to themselves. THEY BROKE THE LAW ! Salvery is now to be equated with " driving while black " ? Being Jewish is akin to being whacked out on some illegal substance now ?

Please spare us all your imagined " righteousness " about dopers and slavery and Jewish murders.

[tacticalogic]

In this post 9/11 world I view libertarians as dangerous.

Then in your case at least, the terrorists have accomplished exactly what they set out to do.

[Liberal Classic]

To be honest, Browne's words after 911 were the straw that broke the proverbial camel's back for me. You won't get much fight out of me over the lack of merit in the Libertarian Party platform. It's been many years since I left the Republican Party, and over that time I've seen the Libertarian Party go further into left field. It's past time I looked at the Republican Liberty Caucus, but whatever party I'm registered with doesn't matter that much. It probably won't change my voting habits much, since I already vote for a mix of Republican and Libertarian candidates.

To me, the difference between conservatives and libertarians is only in matter of degree. The leftists like to define conservative in terms of how they like to "conserve" the authority government has, as if they really believed in liberal policies. In my opinion, there aren't any "liberals" remaining in the so-called left, and what passed for liberal today is synonymous with Marxist. I don't think there's anyone here who would object to the idea that Marxism is all about conserving governmental authority to rule people's daily lives. They make a big fuss about how "liberal" they are, but what they really want is plenty of government authority to make things turn out the way they want.

In that sense, "conservatives" are more liberal than so-called "liberals" or leftists or whatever you want to call them. Conservatives still believe in the idea of a government limited by its charter, however many pragmatic departures they may have made. It isn't that conservatives want government to do or not do certian things, it's just that they agree in principle that the governing charter needs to allow the government to do those things that separates them from "liberals" or Marxists.

That's why I said that libertarians (or more correctly, liberals) and conservatives are separated by differences in degree, and get in all sorts of fights over where that line of government intrusion should be drawn. There's no argument that this line of constitutional restraint be drawn, only where the borders lie. Generally speaking, this is why I get along better with conservatives than socialists; I can always get a conservative to agree in general with constitutional principles and a republican form of government. A leftist on the other hand can never be beated back into a corner in which they must agree that there should be any restraint on government so long as that government is doing good.

That's why I define "conservative" not as the lefitsts do as someone who believes in conserving governmental power or as the Marxists do as someone who believes in the power of the monied classes, but someone who believes in the conservatives application of governmental authority. Once upon a time, those people were called liberals. They were liberal, because they actually believed that governmental authority ought to be limited in the first place. Before two hundred odd years ago, such a concept was quite radical.

In conclusion, I don't think that conservatives and libertarians are all that alien to each other. However, the majority of more moderate libertarians today would seem to have returned to the Republican Party, leaving the Libertarian Party to the few hardnoses that are left.

[headsonpikes]

"Laws and governments exist to constrain us from making decisions that are morally and ethically wrong..."

Now that's what I call drinking the Koolaid!

Modern government and its cannibal practitioners wouldn't know a moral wrong from a kazoo.

Your faith is misplaced.

[Havoc]

Modern government and its cannibal practitioners wouldn't know a moral wrong from a kazoo.

I noted what it is there for. Not how you view it or how some of abused it. Some of those people have no more sense than those they lead. Elections are for putting decent and upright people in office, not charismatic devils. And how do you know where my faith is. If you think it's in government, you're silly as well as presumptuous.

[headsonpikes]

"I noted what it is there for."

You presumptuous simpleton. There is no 'higher purpose' for government.

"By their fruits ye shall know them."

The purpose of the modern state, so far as I can observe from history, is to exploit the citizens for the advantage of the rulers.

Expecting the state to show 'moral and ethical leadership' or anything like it must be the product of faith, since it has no foundation in empiricism.

[Havoc]

Ahh, I see, so you're just here to dissent. You aren't real sure what you're dissenting against; but, you need to do so.. Gotcha.