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I agree there is more in common than not regarding objectivism and libertarianism. Being the the Ayn Rand was an atheist, it logically follows that the idea of natural law would be viewed with skepticism (being that natural law is an axiom which assumes a Creator). However, I would propose that anything, even math, is based on axioms, and as such that axiom can be critiqued.

I don't quite follow this paragraph:

"But here's where I think all this leaves people behind, "rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic" while over looking a larger physical obstacle. In the dynamics of society, the distinction between liberty and license all but lost. I don't dispute that the Libertarian ideal is one of maximizing liberty not license, but to say it's synonymous with freedom seems to open the door for a bit creative accounting. If the an ideology more narrowly defines freedom to be just liberty from something that's to be drastically reduced without regard to the restrictions that would arise from whatever replaces it, the measure of freedom's artificially magnified."

I think it is key to our discussion. What do you mean by the artificial magnification of freedom arising from the convention of defining total freedom as the absence of coercion?

Yes, coercion can certainly occur apart from the government's actions, though it is much less insidious because choice is still involved at some level, moreso than when government (i.e. monopoly on force) occurs. At work, for example, you can quit and go elsewhere. You do not have a choice to not pay your taxes. Realizing that the total absence of coercion would not only be hard to define, but also impossible to realize (unless one truly thinks of a utopia), libertarianism focuses on minimizing the worst coercion - government.

Regarding: "As government expanded beyond its design, we're more free to pursue diverse careers, hobbies, travel, eccentricities etc. than when our country was undeveloped and our government was small. I don’t think that's just the result of wealth alone, look at opportunities in wealthy Islamic states. I think it's also dependent on culture technology and general economic development."

The greater number of options in pursuing careers, hobbies, travel etc. is not the result of greater freedom. It is the result of wealth - wealth being defined as the sum of all goods and services, and not money, which is access to wealth (you've basically referred to it as culture, technology and economic development etc., I use the catch-all term of "wealth"). Surely government can restrict travel, but the founders felt that it was so apparent that government should in no way restrict travel or any other myriad rights that individuals have naturally, that they wrote the ninth amendment. As the country develops, wealth is increasing, resulting in greater opportunity overall. The development has nothing to do with government; well, it does in a negative sense - if government refuses to get out of the way or does not set up the legal framework for protecting property, the development occurs exponentially slower.

"In a more dynamic fully libertarian America dominated by aggressive private power brokers in various industries, perhaps even competing authorities, would the more narrow definition of freedom be a measure of anything meaningful?"

A fully libertarian America would not be dominated by aggressive private power brokers. I would say that this is a myth that I often hear from those who favor varying degrees of government regulation of the economy (Keynesian economists, I suppose). There has never been an example of a private enterprise that held a monopoly, unless that enterprise had backing or license from government. Even Rockefeller lost a tremendous amound of market share to foreign oil BEFORE the anti-trust laws were enacted. What pro-regulationists often call a "monopoly" is simply individual consumers expressing their choice to buy a superior product.

Finally, I must address this assertion that America has experienced no loss of freedom. I want to be thorough to show that I am not simply pissing and moaning about nothing, but I don't want to come off as "ranting" (which I tend to to quite often, as I'm sure you've realized). I'm going to list the tangible things that I see that amound to grave losses of freedom - things the founders would not have stood for. Remember, they revolted over taxes that were much lower than we pay today.

First, though, freedom is an absolute concept, and so it cannot be a zero-sum game. You cannot say that we've lost here and gained there as so we're more free. I know there is a tendency to look at it this way, but if you think about it, freedom cannot be judged this way. Freedom lost is freedom lost, period. Without this standard the very meaning of freedom is in question.

I'll do my best to be brief in this list. If you'd like more explanation, just say so.

1st Amendment - Campaign Finance reforms esp. 1974 FECA laws and amendments. Also supreme court defining "corporate speech" and other collective speech rights.

2nd Amendment - My pet issue. Where do I start? The BATF, of course. Senate hearing in '82 showed they've been out of control for decades. Kenneth Balew shooting, treasury agents with sub-machine guns raiding homes with improper warrants, killing people for failing to pay a $200 tax. No evidence of crime leads them to create the catch-all "conspiracy to violate federal firearms laws". Militia leaders were imprisoned on this same principle, having committed no crime whatsoever.

4th Amendment - A whole host of assett forfeiture laws regardless of a crime having been committed, largely due to supposed 'drug' charges. (See fear.org). Read about Trails End Ranch. Read about EPA redefining farmers' property as protected "wetlands" and bankrupting farmers and their families. Ditto with cattle ranchers in "protected habitats" out west. The helpful EPA federal agents raid farms with black ninja outfits and MP5 submachine guns. Drug war gives pretext for government to search your bank account, internet servers etc. and the mere presence of a large amount of cash is automatically presumed to be drug money and is seized with no evidence.

5th Amendment - No due process when dealing with the IRS (no trial by jury in "ax court") IRS can freeze assetts without evidence of a crime or without proof of "tax evasion" (as if individuals were liable for the federal income tax). Partents cannot give their kids money without it being subject to a 'gift tax' (and if they deposit the money in such a way as to SUGGEST they might have been doing do to evade tracking by the Feds, they are guilty of evasion). Ditto with the estate tax. IRS is out of control - they arrested Desert Strom vets when they came home for not paying their income taxes when overseas, even though they could not do so because of the lost income during service.

9th & 10th Amendment - As if they didn't even exist. Esp. the 10th. What more can I say? Try objecting to the Feds involvement in public education on the basis of the tenth amendment. The likely response is, "Which one is that?"

General Whining:

Government "restoring rights" of those who were once felons. This cannot be since they do not grant them to begin with.

Jury stacking - Judges routinely tell juries they must judge the guilt or innocence of a defendant based on the law and only the law, and not their conscience. If this is true, why do we have a jury system? Look up Laura Kreole (sp?). Jury nullification is a form of defense against tyranny also.

The Federal Reserve system. Too much to say here but this is another hot topic.

End List

I realize that a lot of these may seem like nitpicky, trivial matters, esp. if they don't involve areas that you particularly care about. To a gun nut, though, they're real. Or to someone who gets paid in cash after selling some personal property, and is pulled over for speeding on the way home, they learn that the fourth amendment doesn't mean what it says.

The point is not that America sucks, I'm going to Mexico. The point is that even a short time ago, an American didn't need to worry about any of these blatant violations of the Bill of Rights. Sure, the days of the founders were not a utopia. There were problems like there are with any human endeavor, but government was more or less held in check. Today, the Feds dominate, contrary to the intent of the system. I believe this is so clear that it is undeniable.

I'm honestly doing my damndest to be brief! Bear with me.........

It looks like I didn't do any better of a job a keeping this short…

I was as unhappy with my last post as with anything I've written. Possibly because I'm just now trying to formulate this concept, one that I haven't seen before, and it requires a reorganization of many others. I think this will be more clear.

We're not in any disagreement regarding our loss of liberties or the definition of liberty, be it freedom from coercion or freedom from government, there's not a large difference. The definition's fairly clear, but it's also very academic and all but lost to 90% of Americans. Freedom as I think it's used also means ability or lack of restraint. "I broke up with my girlfriend and now I'm free". "Working as a teacher's great because my summers are free". "I live in the country where I'm more free to do my one thing". Freedom and liberty are two separate words for a reason. From what I can tell, even when "freedom" is used in a political context outside academia, more often than not it's referencing liberty + opportunity. MLK wasn't talking about a reduction in government intrusion in his "let freedom ring" speech. And I don't think that in the hours following 9/11, Bush was talking only about limited government when he opened with, "Freedom itself was attacked today by faceless cowards". I think he was also referencing an attack on broader western values and institutions that underpin freedom.

I think its a broader definition of freedom that's people's objective. From a utilitarian perspective, it's the ends, whats best for man. Liberty's the means, but not the only means. I don’t' think the word "wealth" adequately defines the rest. When America had greater liberty, wealth did not override cultural limitations on women, homosexuals or blacks. Not just liberty and wealth, freedom's a result of a larger environmental infrastructure.

Components of this infrastructure include social mores, organizations, technology, as well as liberty. Take any one away, and freedom's potentially reduced. Liberty is insufficient to enable freedom where mores are distorted such as in cultist, puritanical or racist communities. Liberty may exist in tribal, frontier or lawless areas, but man's ability to rise to his potential there without the benefits of business, social and government organizations is questionable at best. When this nation was in it's technologically infancy, the free time we have to pursue our interests was devoured by tedious chores.

Liberty's not be a zero sum game like you said, but freedom is. Freedom as the measure of one's ability and opportunity, is closer to what man wants and needs. The means to freedom, as referenced above, work dynamically and are poorly understood. But it's reasonable to believe that one can come at the expense of another. Just as it's reasonable to believe that a culture of toleration that refuses to condemn almost anything would result in social conflict an decay, it's reasonable to believe that a nation that eliminates almost all government would result in the same. Both are probably unprovable, and the point of diminishing returns is unknown.

I don't think that businesses will behave well if 95% of restrictions are eliminated. I think there will be "unforeseen consequences" to their elimination, and I don't think that the social/private mechanisms that come to fill the gaps will come without a price on the infrastructure of our freedom. Perhaps the price is less than that of our current government, that's a big unknown, but there would be a price. If this price is unaccounted for and unrecognized, it's the "artificial magnification of freedom" of libertarian policies that I referred to.

It's unknown if the elimination of the EPA would result in cities or regions that are miserable, if not uninhabitable, degrading the organizational footings of our freedom. Maybe regulation of medicine and drugs was essential to keeping the confidence that the industry demanded to grow into the advanced science it is today, promoting the technological foundation to our freedom. I could elaborate on this if you like, but I want to be brief here because that's not the focus of what I want to communicate.

I'm not claiming that it's the government's role to promote the means of freedom, or even that it should be. I want to get back to the question of Republicans having been compromised verses Libertarians being naïve, but central to that is the need to counter a justification for libertarian policies, that we're loosing our freedom, that there's a crisis in that regard.

I think the above makes a pretty good case that it's only liberty, not freedom that has suffered. I'm not arguing that greater liberty would result in less freedom. I think the opposite is true to an extent. But there're complications when pursuing ideals in a competitive democracy. I really want to get back to the Republican verses Libertarian debate, but I wouldn't be able to make the case for Republicans if there were a real decay of American freedom. On the contrary, I think on the whole Americans are freer today than any people anytime anywhere bar nothing.

I want to resolve that before moving on, but I also want to briefly address an ancillary issue brought up last time regarding axioms. I don’t disagree that there's some very small leap of faith at the base of any reasoning, accepting our own senses or even basic concepts like free will because our hand moves when we command it. But the degree of faith required to accept that is in a much different league than that of accepting complex constructs like religious. I look at that kind of faith as a larger layer of faith on top of the mathematical one that I think you hinted at comparing it with. It's like comparing having to believe one's own eyes while reading scripture to believing the message within it.