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Is Libertarianism Compatible With Christianity?
The Christian Diarist ^ | March 22, 2015 | JP

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.


TOPICS: Current Events; Moral Issues; Religion & Culture; Religion & Politics
KEYWORDS: christians; ideology; libertarian; moralabsolutes; morality
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To: ravenwolf
That is true although many believe due to the unsavory people in government that giving them that power makes the war on drugs just as bad or worse than the drugs them selves.

Please don't get me started, my head will explode or I will say something that will get me either banned or moderated for a protracted period of time.

121 posted on 03/23/2015 6:26:30 PM PDT by verga (I might as well be playing chess with pigeons,.)
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To: ansel12

Sodom and Gomorrah would have had plenty of liberals and libertarians fighting about taxes, but they sure lacked social conservatives.


Would you like to impose a government that would “require” people to look away?


122 posted on 03/23/2015 6:28:56 PM PDT by Zeneta (Thoughts in time and out of season.)
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To: ansel12

A “TRUE CHRISTIAN” is for “PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY”. Sort of like “YOU REAP WHAT YOU SOW”. In other words, a “DRUNK” or a “DRUGGIE”, cannot blame some one else for his condition.


123 posted on 03/23/2015 6:29:21 PM PDT by gingerbread
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To: Ethan Clive Osgoode

The Constitution insures equality for both muslims and satanist.

Mormons, JWs and atheists, too

BTW, not implying ANY similarities by my grouping, I just like the poetic cadence.


124 posted on 03/23/2015 6:32:52 PM PDT by GilesB
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To: ansel12
Libertarian Party Platform:.....

Proving that there is almost no difference between libtards and libertards. Neither group can be allowed to succeed.

125 posted on 03/23/2015 6:33:02 PM PDT by verga (I might as well be playing chess with pigeons,.)
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To: gingerbread

A true Christian is of course for personal responsibility, but as a voter, he would vote conservatively, not for Sodom and Gomorrah.

Do you really think that Christians should be voting for those calling for abortion “rights” and “equality” for homosexuality and prostitution, etc?

It is one thing to try and survive in a society that is like that and where the vote doesn’t exist, but you CANNOT vote for that stuff.


126 posted on 03/23/2015 6:36:50 PM PDT by ansel12 (Palin--Mr President, the only thing that stops a bad guy with a nuke is a good guy with a nuke.)
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To: ansel12

It is one thing to try and survive in a society that is like that and where the vote doesn’t exist, but you CANNOT vote for that stuff.


OK, so, pretty much everybody here agrees with your statement.

You take a micro view of libertarians and then portend to take a macro view of those that actually understand these issues on a level that escapes you.


127 posted on 03/23/2015 6:44:29 PM PDT by Zeneta (Thoughts in time and out of season.)
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To: Zeneta

Vote like a Christian, vote conservative.


128 posted on 03/23/2015 6:46:10 PM PDT by ansel12 (Palin--Mr President, the only thing that stops a bad guy with a nuke is a good guy with a nuke.)
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To: ansel12

Vote like a Christian, vote conservative.


That’s what I do.

Christians have a certain capacity for forgiveness which has led some to be very liberal.

This is our weakness.


129 posted on 03/23/2015 6:52:11 PM PDT by Zeneta (Thoughts in time and out of season.)
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To: free_life

Well, neither we had national monarchy, nor a military junta, nor a true union of sovereign states, nor a theocracy... You can’t argue from what we haven’t had.

I agree that a true libertarian agenda might not tick every box for me as a Catholic conservative, but I think that a drastic reduction in the size and scope of the US government would be a very good thing.


130 posted on 03/23/2015 8:11:18 PM PDT by annalex (fear them not)
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To: sasportas

Thanks for sharing.


131 posted on 03/23/2015 9:12:54 PM PDT by Yardstick
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To: Zeneta

Would you like to impose a government that would “require” people to look away?


That may well be the post/reply of 2015 so far!


132 posted on 03/23/2015 9:29:19 PM PDT by free_life (If you ask Jesus to forgive you and to save you, He will.)
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To: GilesB
equality for both muslims and satanist... BTW, not implying ANY similarities

You're saying they are equal. That's closer than similar.

133 posted on 03/23/2015 11:15:06 PM PDT by Ethan Clive Osgoode (<<== Click here to learn about Evolution!)
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To: verga

Please don’t get me started,


Same here.


134 posted on 03/24/2015 12:13:01 AM PDT by ravenwolf (s letters scripture.)
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To: Ethan Clive Osgoode

Try to understand what I’ve said, and don’t try to pull bits and pieces of my statement to build your case.

Your poor form and weak attempt is pathetic.


135 posted on 03/24/2015 1:00:05 AM PDT by GilesB
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To: GilesB
Your poor form and weak attempt is pathetic.

So, in the libertarian view, moslems and Christians are equal. What's more peculiar than that, is the libertarian notion that a Christian should find this view rational or appealing in some way.

136 posted on 03/24/2015 1:11:42 AM PDT by Ethan Clive Osgoode (<<== Click here to learn about Evolution!)
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To: Ethan Clive Osgoode

Don’t talk to me, you have twisted what I said out of all recognition. I refuse to discuss with such a dishonest, liar.


137 posted on 03/24/2015 1:33:07 AM PDT by GilesB
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To: ansel12
you guys don’t like your cult beliefs put into plain, political language, you know that it condemns you to sane people.

Indeed, libertarian writings are filled with clever-sounding high-minded polemics on the "rights" of drug addicts, drug dealers, moslems, satanists, prostitutes, pimps, pornographers, and the lowest society has to offer. They don't realize how repulsive it is to casual readers who are not libertarians.

138 posted on 03/24/2015 1:35:47 AM PDT by Ethan Clive Osgoode (<<== Click here to learn about Evolution!)
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To: GilesB
I refuse to discuss with such a dishonest, liar.

Why do you have a comma after dishonest?

139 posted on 03/24/2015 1:36:36 AM PDT by Ethan Clive Osgoode (<<== Click here to learn about Evolution!)
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To: ansel12

Why don’t you give your defense of a bloated, tyrannical government? That’s what you’ve voted for. Or is changing the subject all you’ve got?


140 posted on 03/24/2015 1:37:47 AM PDT by muir_redwoods ("He is a very shallow critic who cannot see an eternal rebel in the heart of a conservative." G.K .C)
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