a queston for lehighguy and other libertarians

[[censored]]

I really liked your explanation of a libertarian society.

It occurs to me that perhaps the primary question facing the libertarian has nothing to do with what should be legal/illegal etc,

but rather what size should the community, in terms of determining laws, be? Am I correct here?

And can I assume that in America this would most likely the State level?

Also how do you see yourself different from say a federalist or the constitution party if at all?

[lehighguy]

I know nothing about the federalist or constitutional party, so I won't comment on them.

First I would like to say a liberterian society only works if a majority of the members at least share the base liberterian principles. I didn't really talk about them in my other post. If they don't then we aren't really talking about a liberterian society at all. For instance, a society composed of liberals and conservatives could never be a libraterian society. It could accept small communities of them, but a majority of the populace would have to be libertarians.

In a liberterian society I doubt there will be many of these little independent communities. It doesn't seem very feasible to me. People have a very wide array of values, and I doubt they are going to start restricting them on mass scales such as county and state levels.

Should an entire state be composed of non-libraterians, it really no longer represents a libraterian society. We will assume it has become its own society because people who are not of the predominient idealogy can't simply move if they don't like the laws. At this point I think they should break off and form thier own society.

This is of course one way America could be done. Individual states being like thier own countries bound togethor by common external policies (foriegn policy, trade policy). This would not neccessarily be a liberterian society. It could just be a bunch of liberal and conservative states held togethor by a common bond. Potentially none of the states are libertarian.

If the populace at large believes in libraterian principles, there is no limit to how large the society could be. If tommorrow everyone in America woke up and voted libertarian because they believed in the idealogy everything would be fine. We could even accept fairly large numbers of non-libertarians.

[coffeecrazy1]

(scraping metal sound of my theoretical mind and my realistic mind grinding together)

From my point of view, as a Libertarian(and I'm not speaking for lehigh or any others(if there are any out there not speaking)), I think that the size of the community is actually rather irrelevant. As lehigh alluded to in the other post, a libertarian society can be accommodating of all creeds and nationalities, ideas and opinions. So, from that point of view, the bigger, the better...because libertarianism is such a flexible system of government, it can adapt to the situation.

So...in our terms, I would actually say the size of the community for where the laws would be determined would probably be at the Federal, rather than state level...and let the states function as communities in the society of America(I'm using "community" and "society" as defined by lehighguy in the other post). Generally speaking, that is what we do in America, under the Constitution, anyway(generally being the keyword there).

Regarding your third question, I would say that Libertarians are similar to the Constitution Party, but, as depicted on their website, the Constitution Party seems to be interested in reinserting religion-based morality into the law and legal system, and restoring the Constitution to what it used to be(prior, even, to some Amendments). Libertarians would never presume to inject religion into the law, nor harken back to a pre-Bill of Rights Constitution.

Libertarians are also(as any modern conservative party) a strain of the Federalists of the Constitutional Convention. But, the Constitution is not the same document that it was in 1789...so to call us Federalists is a mislabeling, as well.

I think of libertarianism as the embrace of the freedoms guaranteed to us by the Constitution, completely and fully, without limit. Freedom is an absolute thing. I think we just want to treat it as such.

[[censored]]

You say the size doesn't matter much but couldn't a liberal community let's say state want to be part of a libertarian nation exactly because it gives them freedom to have their liberal state. Thus while the liberal state may have universal healthcare paid for by a high rate of state tax could they not also wish to be in a libertarian nation because doing provides additional security thus helping the ensure that each community is protected from a foriegn threat and to benefit from trade.

[[censored]]

I guess one way to look at my question is do you believe it is possible to a libertarian concerning national issues and something else on a state or local level.

I would say this most closely decribes my own beliefs and is why I have such a hard time with both the libertarian and republican parties.

[lehighguy]

See my discussion of community versus society. What's the cutoff point? I put it at the level were the cost of moving because a region is unliveable due to laws you don't agree with. At that point you become like your own country. Maybe you are allied with a libertarian country and carry out mutual foriegn policy, but you are definately different societies no matter how it would appear politically.

Think like the Aegean Alliance (probably getting name wrong) during the time of Athens. They were all seperate island nations but part of a security pact. That is essentially what your proposing. It's like asking the United States of America to become the United Countries of America, or something like the EU.

I really doubt whole states are going to start doing this though. A popular election isn't enough. Everyone in the state would have to agree to be bound by certain laws, or agree by a process in which laws would be drawn up. Anyone who didn't agree would not have to follow those rules. In order to make a state follow a particular idealogy you would need a super majority of citizens to believe in the exact same thing. I can easily see small communities forming. A block, a town, maybe a county on the outside shot. But I doubt whole states. I really have a hard time seeing this. And if it were possible it would be obvious that the people of that state did not share libertarian values. As such why do they even want to be part of a libertarian nation. They are thier own society.

Law reflect the value of the society they come from. You can't have a libertarian nation if most of the population doesn't share libertarian values. It's a competing idealogy. The thing that is good about it is that it is easier for libertarianism to deal with minorities then it is for other idealogies.

[lehighguy]

You are either a libertarian or you aren't. It's an idealogy. Do you share its values? Do you share some of its values? Which of them do you belief in and which do you not? Maybe you are libertarian on some issues and republican on others.

This is where researching that first question in my reply post comes in.