[quote]Sloth wrote:
Big Gummint is just going to get bigger. Libertarianism (as we know it) will all but die. Perhaps Denmark will become the liberaltarian model? Could be…
[/quote]
Big gummint is broke and is going to start collapsing. You will return to the democrats as they reject the socialists, the libertarians will join with the independents and retake the GOP, we will see a Goldwater figure re-emerge and we will be represented again.
[quote]Sloth wrote:
<<< What I am is a realist. Capitalism and democracy make for a stormy marriage, at best. Social liberalism is the grounds for divorce. Can any libertarian answer as to what replaces Social security and medicare? Anyone? No, they can’t. Grandma and grandpa don’t have all those children and grandchildren to look after them in their old age these days, do they? Grandma and Grandpa may not even be married (if ever) in the first place, anymore. So, they might not even have each other. A fairly common feature of the west, isn’t it…Lower/lowering fertility rates and a graying population. Then there’s all those children being born without a father. Oh yes, single mothers are going to be sold on the idea of removing social safety nets and the subsidization of their children’s higher education.
Libertarians talk about a freer market and a much smaller entitlement state (if any). Yet, it’s only social conservatism that has any chance of delivering such. >>>[/quote]
Whatever else you and I may disagree on this is one of the clearest thinking political posts I’ve ever read since I’ve been on this site. It’s also exactly what I’ve been trying to say all along. Without voluntarily practiced unenforced private morality, and especially family and sexual morality (which are the same thing) true freedom is impossible. It must be voluntary and it must consist of traditional (GASP!!!) Judeo-Christian family values. We can talk on and on BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH, that was the moral bedrock our founders counted on for the birth and continued success of this nation.
The 60’s brought the end of these values as publicly accepted norms for private behavior and the end of the nation as we know it. This is also the reason we survived the progressive onslaught of the early 20th century and the reason why we won’t survive this one. Our national character was different. Truth is this nation once was fairly libertarian. People did pretty much what they wanted, but what they wanted to do is vastly different than now. The social apocalypse of the 60’s swept the foundation of a faithful, loving, self sacrificing family away and transformed us into a self worshiping hedonistic national whorehouse.
That is what will and is bringing us down, EVERYTHING else is a symptom.
[quote]Tiribulus wrote:
Whatever else you and I may disagree on This is one of the clearest thinking political posts I’ve ever read since I’ve been on this site. It’s also exactly what I’ve been trying to say all along. Without voluntarily practiced unenforced private morality, and especially family and sexual morality (which are the same thing) true freedom is impossible. It must be voluntary and it must consist of traditional (GASP!!!) Judeo-Christian family values. We can talk on and on BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH, that was the moral bedrock our founders counted on for the birth and continued success of this nation.
The 60’s brought the end of these values as publicly accepted norms for private behavior and the end of the nation as we know it. This is also the reason we survived the progressive onslaught of the early 20th century and the reason why we won’t survive this one. Our national character was different. Truth is this nation once was fairly libertarian. People did pretty much what they wanted, but what they wanted to do is vastly different than now. The social apocalypse of the 60’s swept the foundation of a faithful, loving, self sacrificing family away and transformed us into a self worshiping hedonistic national whorehouse.
That is what will and is bringing us down, EVERYTHING else is a symptom. [/quote]
So we must all act like Christian conservatives or else we are evil? So we should just be slaves to the church is that what you are preaching?
Things have been going down since Wilson, when we split freedom into social and economic. You are either free or you are not you can’t devide it that is what has brought this country to its knees.
Good development in the thread and I am pressed for time (I haven’t forgotten about your request, Tirib), but I think Sloth’s point is that there is no such thing as a libertarian society in the long run. The twin philosophies of social liberalism and limited government (fiscal conservatism) are incompatible. Social liberalism - better stated libertinism - begets the nanny state.
We tell people “hey, do what you want, whatever you want - liberty means hedonism!”, and many will self-destruct. When they self-destruct, we don’t/won’t have the stomach as a society to let them rot in their own self-destruction. Thus, we will intervene. It is a natural reaction.
And, in fact, in many ways, we simply have to intervene - we sell society a false bill of goods by telling them social liberalism/libertinism is okey-dokey, and it is our job to clean up the mess we made.
I’m no prude - and I don’t think social conservatism automatically means fire-and-brimstone evangelicism - but Sloth is exactly right on this count. Libertarians simply can’t wrap their heads around the fact that humans will never, ever behave like they want them to.
You can’t adjust Man to Politics - you have to adjust Politics to Man. Libertarianism - dreadfully naive and, let’s face it, just plain silly and frivolous when it comes to the real world - is nothing more than a brain exercise for a bored, affluent society, same as radical Marxism.
[quote]John S. wrote:
<<< So we must all act like Christian conservatives or else we are evil? So we should just be slaves to the church is that what you are preaching?
Things have been going down since Wilson, when we split freedom into social and economic. You are either free or you are not you can’t devide it that is what has brought this country to its knees.[/quote]
Fine. I have no illusions. This is the one thing we will not change and the one thing that will make any difference.
[quote]pushharder wrote:
[quote]THE_CLAMP_DOWN wrote:
Ron Paul! Lew Rockwell! Ahhhh!!!
“The Civil Rights Act of 1964 not only violated the Constitution and reduced individual liberty; it also failed to achieve its stated goals of promoting racial harmony and a color-blind society. Federal bureaucrats and judges cannot read minds to see if actions are motivated by racism. Therefore, the only way the federal government could ensure an employer was not violating the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was to ensure that the racial composition of a business’s workforce matched the racial composition of a bureaucrat or judge’s defined body of potential employees. Thus, bureaucrats began forcing employers to hire by racial quota. Racial quotas have not contributed to racial harmony or advanced the goal of a color-blind society. Instead, these quotas encouraged racial balkanization, and fostered racial strife.” [/quote]
What do you think of this statement seeing how you posted it?[/quote]
I agree with it. Racial harmony is produced from understanding what ‘is’, not from being forced into what ‘should be’.
One other note - this talk of “pessimism” versus “idealism”. Don’t confuse “pessimism” with “skepticism”. One can be a forward-looking and optimistic while being constrained by a hard-learned skepticism, rather than a dour, nihilistic pessimist.
I am not a pessimist - but I am a full-throated skeptic. A skeptic who stands resolutely in defiance of those “idealists” who would promise Heaven on Earth but never deliver anything north of Hell.
[quote]thunderbolt23 wrote:
<<< I’m no prude - and I don’t think social conservatism automatically means fire-and-brimstone evangelicism >>>[/quote]
Well, by this site’s definition I probably am a prude, but for the record. You don’t find me crusading for the repeal of Roe v.Wade, against gay marriage or for creationism in schools around here for instance. All concerning issues about which I hold very passionate views. However, adjusting some legislation is nearly meaningless. Our problems are not in the law, though the law helps perpetuate them. The problems are in what’s left of our families/homes.
[quote]thunderbolt23 wrote:
One other note - this talk of “pessimism” versus “idealism”. Don’t confuse “pessimism” with “skepticism”. One can be a forward-looking and optimistic while being constrained by a hard-learned skepticism, rather than a dour, nihilistic pessimist.
I am not a pessimist - but I am a full-throated skeptic. A skeptic who stands resolutely in defiance of those “idealists” who would promise Heaven on Earth but never deliver anything north of Hell.[/quote]
I like that phrasing - promise Heaven on Earth but never deliver anything north of Hell - good job
[quote]thunderbolt23 wrote:
Good development in the thread and I am pressed for time (I haven’t forgotten about your request, Tirib), but I think Sloth’s point is that there is no such thing as a libertarian society in the long run. The twin philosophies of social liberalism and limited government (fiscal conservatism) are incompatible. Social liberalism - better stated libertinism - begets the nanny state.
We tell people “hey, do what you want, whatever you want - liberty means hedonism!”, and many will self-destruct. When they self-destruct, we don’t/won’t have the stomach as a society to let them rot in their own self-destruction. Thus, we will intervene. It is a natural reaction.
[/quote]
It seems to me that intervention is what leads to the nanny state. ‘Conservatives’ simply want to intervene and establish a nanny state pre-emptively.
What is social ‘conservatism’, but an intervention into social liberalism? And a failed one at that.
Social liberalism is simply society ad libitum, it begets whatever society deems desirable. Social ‘conservatism’ pretends to know what is best for society and damages society in proportion to its arrogance.
[quote]Sloth wrote:
Nah. I’d vote Democrat before I’d ever vote for a libertarian. [/quote]
Cool, well you will have big government statists as your President for the rest of your life.
Obama’s and W’s, one after the other, after the other.
[quote]Sloth wrote:
Can any libertarian answer as to what replaces Social security and medicare? Anyone? No, they can’t.
[/quote]
What existed before all this?
Were old people dying in the streets because they didn’t have SS or medicare?
The answer is private charity, hand outs from churches, care from family members/friends, etc.
I wonder if some of you would have survived back in the “olden days”.
[quote]Dustin wrote:
[quote]Sloth wrote:
Can any libertarian answer as to what replaces Social security and medicare? Anyone? No, they can’t.
[/quote]
What existed before all this?
Were old people dying in the streets because they didn’t have SS or medicare?
The answer is private charity [probably largely religiously inspired], hand outs from churches, care from family members/friends, etc.[/quote]
Ok…
Doesn’t matter. The people from your olden days are gone. Today’s western people are increasingly secular, materialistic, barren, and gray. As I’ve said, the enitlement state is today’s large and extended traditional family. And again, you don’t screw with someone’s family.
[quote]Dustin wrote:
[quote]Sloth wrote:
Nah. I’d vote Democrat before I’d ever vote for a libertarian. [/quote]
Cool, well you will have big government statists as your President for the rest of your life.
Obama’s and W’s, one after the other, after the other.
[/quote]
We’re all ‘statists’ now. When push comes to shove not even the Tea Party grassroots want their social security and medicare taken away.
[quote]Sloth wrote:
[quote]Dustin wrote:
[quote]Sloth wrote:
Nah. I’d vote Democrat before I’d ever vote for a libertarian. [/quote]
Cool, well you will have big government statists as your President for the rest of your life.
Obama’s and W’s, one after the other, after the other.
[/quote]
We’re all ‘statists’ now. When push comes to shove not even the Tea Party grassroots want their social security and medicare taken away. [/quote]
I do!!
[quote]IrishSteel wrote:
[quote]Sloth wrote:
[quote]Dustin wrote:
[quote]Sloth wrote:
Nah. I’d vote Democrat before I’d ever vote for a libertarian. [/quote]
Cool, well you will have big government statists as your President for the rest of your life.
Obama’s and W’s, one after the other, after the other.
[/quote]
We’re all ‘statists’ now. When push comes to shove not even the Tea Party grassroots want their social security and medicare taken away. [/quote]
I do!!
[/quote]
Heh. Taken as a whole, of course.
[quote]Sloth wrote:
[quote]Dustin wrote:
[quote]Sloth wrote:
Nah. I’d vote Democrat before I’d ever vote for a libertarian. [/quote]
Cool, well you will have big government statists as your President for the rest of your life.
Obama’s and W’s, one after the other, after the other.
[/quote]
We’re all ‘statists’ now. [/quote]
No, not everyone. Just you.
You know, since you would vote for another Obama over a libertarian candidate.
[quote]Sloth wrote:
Dustin wrote:
[/quote]
[quote]
The answer is private charity [probably largely religiously inspired], hand outs from churches, care from family members/friends, etc.[/quote]
So you agree with me, good.
Well blame yourself then because this will continue as long as yous guys keep voting for democrats and republicans.
[quote]Sloth wrote:
Can any libertarian answer as to what replaces Social security and medicare? Anyone? No, they can’t.
[/quote]
Why can’t a private company do it? Listen here is the best part about social security, its going do die out and everyone that has been on the dole is going to find themselves screwed.
Medicare is one of the main reasons health care is so expensive, get rid of that program.
Now you don’t get rid of these programs over night, but we should start idk a 20-30 year phasing out process.
Or hell, why can’t the state not the Federal government be in charge of social security if that is what the residents of a particular state want?