At the suggestion of vulturesrow...(Conservatism vs. Libertarianism)

[coffeecrazy1]

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In large part, conservatives dont believe in libertarianism because we dont believe that people will necessarily make choices that go against their base instincts. Some will, and some wont, and at worst, we should at least proceed with caution in the pursuit of "full freedom" because there is simply no way to tell what the net effects of such policies will be.

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Vulture suggested this be its own thread. Sounds good to me...

Libertarianism doesn't believe people will necessarily make counter-nature choices, either. What we do believe is that people who are of the ability to choose should have the ability to do so.

As to the net effect of that policy, I personally believe that in the short-term, people would go crazy, but in the long-term, the overall cultural influence would be to accept the responsibility of that freedom, to incorporate it into one's life, and to become a better adult and citizen.

Discuss.

[BluffTHIS!]

First let me note that I am a conservative Christian and mostly vote republican. The main question here, is whether people should be prevented from acting on certain "base instincts" and to what degree. In the hierarchy of things, I believe that life itself is the most important, thus I oppose the legal allowance of a "choice" to kill an unborn child or to kill via euthanasia. But after that we are left with the divisive social issues that politically separate the parties and the factions within those parties. I will list them and give my attitude on them. First though I believe that God expects christians to do all possible to promote christian values in society and culture. But I believe that other than legally protecting life itself, and also limiting individuals from harming the persons and property of others, that this is primarily by way of example and exhortation, and not by using law to keep people from committing acts which might often harm them but not others. This is in contrast to those evangelical types who seem to feel that vice must always be legally proscribed and punished, much like moslems who adovate Shari'a as the legal basis of society.

The usual issues:

1) Sex - after life itself, nothing is more personal. I believe that most "alternative" sexualities are perverse and unnatural. But I feel no need to limit what consenting adults do in private. Those however, such as the sickest perverts who belong to NAMBLA and advocate legalizing sex with children, should be punished harshly, including by rewriting the constitution to allow mandatory castration to punish such acts.

2) Drugs - I have only smoked pot once or twice about 20 years ago and didn't particularly like it. I also rarely drink. But as far as marijuana goes, if people want to smoke their brains out like they do with tobacco or like they drink, then that is fine as long as they are not putting others in jeapordy by driving while impaired. (And all you who play poker high or drunk deserve to lose every last cent you have, but you shouldn't be legally prevented from doing so.) Which other drugs could be legalized without great harm to society is more doubtful, but again as long as those who do them and drive or perform other dangerous acts while high are punished severely, then certain other ones should also be allowed.

And as to warnings of the dire consequences that would entail if certain drugs were legalized, then it is easy enough to do so on a trial basis of like 3 years and then re-evaluate. However the benefits to society of the prices of various legalized drugs dropping to nothing and getting rid of the organized crime violence and corruption that currently goes along with it could be enormous. I still wouldn't use drugs, but if people want to get high at home or elsewhere assuming they don't drive that way, then I feel no need to limit it. If someone feels otherwise because they think big brother must keep people from harming their health, then logically you must also believe that tobacco use, alcohol, eating fast food and drinking high calorie no-nutritional beverages should also be illegal.

3) Gambling - Since I play fulltime for a living I obviously have no problem with this, since I believe it is only wrong when you gamble money necessary to meet your just obligations to your family and debtors.

So even though I am a conservative christian, I don't agree with the concept of puritan government as in early New England. So I guess that makes me a libertarian republican, although I still like Bush and certain republican office holders who have opposite views since I give more weight to other issues at this time. And the whole key to solving these isssues is via state ballot initiatives, which politicians of both parties are loath to allow in those states that don't already have them.

The basis of libertarianism, which I belive in to some degree, is that individuals should not be prevented from doing certain things that might be harmful to themselves in the long run, as long as those things don't harm others, just because those things might in fact be immoral.

[DVaut1]

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Those however, such as the sickest perverts who belong to NAMBLA and advocate legalizing sex with children, should be punished harshly, including by rewriting the constitution to allow mandatory castration to punish such acts.

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I'm not sure I quite understand this. Let me first say, I agree NAMBLA members are sick perverts. However:

I have no interest in legislating/punishing thought, and I'm by no means a libertarian; I realize there's a rather large gray area between thought --> advocacy --> action, but I'm not sure where you're drawing the line here; I'm drawing the line between advocacy and action, and I'm leaning toward putting the line as close to 'action' as possible. I assume libertarians want the line at 'action', if anywhere at all. I won't even try to guess where anarchists want the line.

I might not be making myself clear, but: it certainly doesn't sound very libertarian to codify thought, no matter how base and disgusting we find certain thoughts.

[lehighguy]

There are two schools of thought in liberterianism:

1) You don't have the right to impose a value set on another (see pvn).

2) What the [censored] are rights? You shouldn't do it because government dictating culture creates more problems then it solves. There are situations where government can add value, but they are very few.

I've always advocated two.

[tylerdurden]

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I won't even try to guess where anarchists want the line.

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I won't speak for others, but for me, the line is clearly drawn at "action". More specifically, damaging action (as opposed to consentual action). A more interesting question is when children become adults (in the sense of being able to "consent" to such activities).

[lehighguy]

An addition. One can be a liberterian and still support a rigid social structure, so long as that was carried out outside the government.

For instance, Japanese society is very rigid, but not as a result of government laws (we will ignore potential exceptions to that postulate for the moment). There's no reason people shouldn't be able to use "frown power" to try and coax thier fellow people into certain actions, as long as they don't use violence.

You'll note, therefore, liberterianism is a political rather then philisophical platform (it makes no assumption that something is right or wrong, just that government involvement always screws it up).

Though I'm not an objectivist or any of the other philosophies often associated with the political movement even many of those leaders had strong moral views on what was right and wrong for society (I think Ayn Rand hated gays or something, maybe other stuff too). They simply didn't think government was the right way to go about bringing social change.

[BluffTHIS!]

DV, I was referring to criminal acts and not advocacy for that punishment (castration). However, I do believe such advocacy regarding sex with children should be illegal and punished somehow as well, as it is advocating a very harmful act, and is no different than a group advocating legalizing rape. In fact it should be considered "hate speech".

[DVaut1]

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However, I do believe such advocacy regarding sex with children should be illegal and punished somehow as well, as it is advocating a very harmful act, and is no different than a group advocating legalizing rape.

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As I said, I'm more than willing to grant that there's a rather large grey area, and that all 'advocacy' is not the same; but if sickos want to write their elected leaders to petition for the legalization of sex with minors (or rape), I'm hard-pressed to label that a criminal offense. And if they choose to assemble in a group to do it, I don't feel comfortable criminalizing that, either.

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In fact it should be considered "hate speech".

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Again, I'm not much of a libertarian - but I certainly have philosophical problems with trying to codify speech codes; I'm rather surprised there are some self-proclaimed libertarians who support that.

[BluffTHIS!]

I wouldn't call myself a libertarian either, just that I identify with the libertarian wing of the republican party. And while 99.5% of the time I wouldn't wish to see any limitations on free speech, I would much rather allow speech advocating the forcible overthrow of our democratically elected government than that which seeks to promote legal safe haven for child molesters. Those people are the scum of society and truly evil, and should be given no quarter. This narrow exception would in no way endanger our liberties.

[ACPlayer]

The problem with the view that all government is bad except for proposing bans in a few cases is that for different individuals the cases are different. You may want to ban advocacy of the NAMBLA type and DV may wish to allow it but ban something else that he finds abhorrent, I may wish to ban guns and VulturesRow may wish to ban Gay marriage.

Clearly too in any society we have to find a way to live with people who share different views on what is acceptable and what is not acceptable and find a way to co-exist.

So, the problem, becomes how to define and implement a government or societal structure that represents some sort of consensus or baseline view of what the society as a whole wants.

One way of approaching this is to put in place a fascists order where everyone must follow the views of the leaders or face death or other severe punishment; another is to have the view that there should be no laws and we should simply battle for our viewpoint; yet another is to have society based on religious viewpoints (Christian, Hindu, Islam etc).

The secular, democratic structure we implement has us elect leaders who are supposed to represent the views of the people we elect. In my view the model has many flaws -- for example in the US today the elected leaders are more likely to represent corporate interests rather than individual interests and for example laws and taxes may be implemented that are never removed even after the need disappears (many example abound in the tax code specially). It is however preferable to me than the other examples I mentioned.

Within the democratic structure we have the Liberatarians with their mantra of minimal government. However, if a Liberatarian is given the job of representing a constituency he will simply have to implement laws to meet the needs of the group he is representing -- because that is what he is being paid to do by these people.

Liberatarianism is an ideal and perhaps the worst thing that could happen to Libertarianism is that they be given control of congress and/or the white house - not for the country perhaps but for the Libertarian ideal.