Posted on 03/22/2015 7:55:18 AM PDT by CHRISTIAN DIARIST
A friend sent me a link to a newspaper column celebrating the supposed ascendance of libertarianism among the hoi polloi.
“It is clear,” the author wrote, “that there are certain areas where an increasing portion of Americans are adapting more libertarian views and simply want the government to leave them alone and allow them to freely live their lives.”
He cited as examples same-sex marriage and drug legalization. “People have generally come to the conclusion,” he asserted, “that they don’t really care to whom one is attracted or what consenting adults do behind closed doors.” He also predicted that “the next libertarian wave to wash across the national consciousness will be drug legalization.”
Where “the prohibitionist” errs, he asserted, is in “the failure to recognize that since one owns the right to his own life, his body is as much his property, if not more so, than the clothes he wears or the change in his pocket, and he is free to utilize it as he sees fit.”
Well, I do no dispute that support has increased in recent years for both homosexual marriage and decriminalization of drug use. The polls suggests as much. But that doesn’t make it right.
For the Word of God declares: “Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness.”
Indeed, there is a libertarian argument to be made for seemingly every evil under the sun.
Take pedophilia: The North American Man/Boy Love Association (NAMBLA) group thinks there nothing wrong with a grown man being sexual attracted to a pre-pubescent boy.
In fact, the main goal of the pedophile rights group, which was headed for years by libertarian Joe Powers, is to “repeal age of consent laws that make it a crime for adults to have sex with minors.”
We see a similar move to “normalize” polygamy; to confer upon such multi-spouse unions the same right to marry as homosexual couples. The movement was given a huge boost last year by a federal district court judge in Utah who ruled that the state’s law banning polygamous households violated the First and Fourteenth Amendments.
The legal challenge was brought by the polygamous “family” featured on the TLC reality show “Sister Wives.” Parents magazine, which should not be mistaken as pro-family, finds the show “very redeeming.” Perhaps the best part of the show, according to Parents, is “its subtle Libertarian message.”
Not even incest is out of bounds for libertarians. Just last year, in fact, the German Ethics Council, a government body, recommended that the country’s laws banning incest between adult brothers and sisters should be abolished.
“The fundamental right of adult siblings to sexual self-determination,” trumps “the abstract idea of protection of the family,” the council declared. That line of reasoning expressed “a libertarian ideal of sexual autonomy,” noted The Week magazine.
The same kind of unGodly reasoning informs prevailing libertarian views on such issues as abortion, euthanasia, drugs and prostitution – that our bodies are our property and we can do with them what we will.
Indeed, Murray Rothbard, who according to the Blackwell Encyclopaedia of Political Thought played a leading intellectual role in the development of modern libertarianism, said that if a mother-to-be decides she doesn’t want the human life growing in her womb, “then the fetus becomes a parasitic ‘invader’ of her person, and the mother has the perfect right to expel this invader from her domain.”
Jack Kevorkian, the proponent of physician-assisted suicide who sent more than 100 souls to an early grave, never pronounced himself a “libertarian,” but he certainly was embraced by the libertarian community. That included Mary J. Ruwart, a leading candidate for the 2008 Libertarian Party presidential nomination, who actually contacted Kevorkian in 1993 to assist her sister Martie to take her life. “Martie was a person for whom Dr. Kevorkian really was the only option,” said sister Mary.
The libertarian Cato Institute is one of the foremost advocates of drug legalization, not just for marijuana, but any every and every drug.
Indeed, in 1999 testimony to Congress, Cato’s David Boaz argued that “(t)he long federal experiment in prohibition of marijuana, cocaine, heroin and other drugs has given us unprecedented crime and corruption combined with a manifest failure to stop the use of drugs or reduce their availability to crime.”
But libertarian Boaz and other drug-legalization advocates don’t get it. “Drugs like marijuana and cocaine are not dangerous because they are illegal,” as Joe Califano, the one time chairman of the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University, explained. “They are illegal because they are dangerous.”
That is borne out by data from the Centers for Disease Control, which indicates that deaths from drug overdoses have risen steadily over the past two decades. Among people 25 to 64 years old, drug overdoses actually cause more deaths than motor vehicle crashes.
The libertarian case for legal prostitution also is morally bankrupt. It is based on the notion that sex for money is a “victimless crime;” that a woman should be free to sell her body without government meddling.
Never mind a study from the Netherlands, where prostitution is legal, which reported that 60 percent of women in legal prostitution had been physically assaulted and 40 percent had been coerced into legal prostitution. Kill our unborn babies. Take our own lives. Enslave ourselves to drugs. Sell and buy sex. All that is okay under tenets of libertarianism.
But the Word of God says different.
“Do you not know,” the Apostle Paul wrote to the Christian faithful in Corinth, “that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own?”
Indeed, we were all, everyone, bought at a price. And, therefore, we are to glorify God in body and spirit.
The same sex marriage crowd do NOT want the government out of peoples' lives. They are demanding that photographers attend same sex marriage ceremonies and document the details professionally.
Libertarians seem to enjoy pushing the envelope on social issues as much as the marxists do.
the problem that social conservatives have with libertarians is a mis-interpretation of what us small l libertarians are trying to say ( i will not align myself with the capital L libertarians )...
when the bible passage of woe unto those who call evil good and good evil is used, i get a little upset..
i do not condone fag marriage, or sodomy, or drug abuse..
what i am saying is that the fed has no place in dictating to the people what they can or can’t do, unless that power was specifically granted to them in the constitution..
the more the fed “butts in” the more freedom we lose...
remember, the constitution is not a conservative document.
it is also not a liberal document.
this document, applied as written, pisses off both liberals and conservatives equally...
i guess instead of calling me a small l libertarian, call me a strict constitutionalist...
I think the point is that the christian doctrine of free will points strongly toward a libertarian political base. Humans should be free to chose error or virtue. I am largely libertarian but do not use drugs, I am faithful to my wife and I believe that there are minimum ages for informed consent. No child can give informed consent to sex. Sixteen might be old enough to drive but not for alcohol. Also, we have to get along with each other. Libertarians would be the last to initiate religious persecution.
I would rather be religious under a libertarian government than try to be a libertarian under a theocracy.
I don’t agree with any of it, however I am going to be surprised if the courts do not eventually allow any combination of people to marry, thereby essentially wiping out marriage as we know it.
No, because libertarians believe in equality for muslims and satanists.
True libertarians cannot support abortion. The baby in the womb is a human being, and as such is due the same protection from murder as any other human.
I think we could explore this discussion further by suggesting that "Free Will" must exist in order to bring the truly faithful home.
While it's critical that Christians pass on the message, each individual must be free to receive the message independently of coercion.
Libertarian ideals permit this to take place without an all powerful government being capable of suppressing that message.
That is the major difference between freedom to serve the Lord and the totalitarian practice of "inflicted morality via wealth distribution in service to government" practiced by socialists and communists.
It is also one of the reason why socialists and communists can never be Christians and hate them with a vengeance. The very nature of their beliefs eliminates free will altogether and enslaves their subjects to the will of the state. Mind you, they can be salvaged and saved, but not while they embrace the power of the state over the message.
It’s compatible with denial.
Since most libertarians reject morals and would live without them, advocating for homosexual marriage, pro abortion, for example, the answer would be *No*.
Conservatives, OTOH, do espose limited government as set up by the Founding Fathers and THEY had moral principles they held to that are rejected today and they saw no conflict with the government they established.
Persuasion or Force? That is the difference between the Libertarian and mainstream on social values. God gave us free will. It is a test. Will we obey his laws or not?
This Nation used to be very good at taking in anybody on the planet and persuading them to behave correctly by using Religion and peer pressure.
This Constitution was made for a moral and religious people, and is not suitable for the governance of any other. Today, a reputation as a gangsta is valuable. A moral and religious background is scoffed at.
Passing more laws and hiring more police to bust heads won't fix that.
Strawman.
There is nothing libertarian about marriage as a state institution. To say libertarians favor gay marriage is to beg the question of marriage entirely.
Now if you want to talk about contract...
Christendom pretty much invented libertarianism in practice as a result of the interplay between their religion and the state. The modern day political party and movement that call themselves “libertarian”, like liberals in general, have tried to separate liberty from its Christian underpinnings, which is why they can’t get their party to catch on with more than 1-3% of the population. For an excellent (and I do mean EXCELLENT) treatment of this subject, read M. Stanton Evans book “The Theme is Freedom.”
wow...
just wow..
the total sheer complete ignorance of your completely arrogant statement is simply mind boggling...
Metmom must be doing something right then :)
The only philosophy compatible with Christianity is Christianity. Not conservative, not liberal, not communism, not libertarian.
Libertarian : political
Christianity : religious
Why try to compare ?
Is libertarianism compatible with constitutionalism is the only question to ask
Christianity is compatible with the constitution
I think that libertarians and religious/moral conservatives agree in the related concepts of limited government, subsidiarity, federalism, and decentralization of power. Those that want a big government solution, a solution based on coercion and not free will, are neither conservative nor libertarian; they are Leftist totalitarian frauds.
Instead of fighting over moral issues, conservatives and libertarians should be fighting for decentralized small government. Leftists & totalitarians desperately need to create a rift between a necessary and natural alliance of those that believe in limited government, but differ in moral views.
In fact, I believe that traditional conservatives should like to see a country where states take a different approach to moral issues. This exercise in free will among individuals that could move from state to state would be the best way to demonstrate the benefits and advantages of a morally upright state/community.
Exactly. Homosexual freedom is a zero sum game. For homosexuals to fully exercise their freedoms, they have the right to take away YOURS.
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