For My Libertarian Purist Brothers

[GodFearinGunTotin]

Backup harmony.

What instrument does he play? My favorite song? Freewill:

[video=youtube;yE2WjSmUcRA]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yE2WjSmUcRA[/video]

 

[ATM]

I'll take any shred of liberty we can wrestle back from the State, but the goal should remain to reclaim all of it.

 

[rhino]

I'll take any shred of liberty we can wrestle back from the State, but the goal should remain to reclaim all of it.

See? ATM demonstrates that one can adhere to one's principles rather strictly and still be practical.

 

[Cerberus]

I may be wrong on this but I am pretty sure he is pro traditional marriage, is against abortion, supported the Iraq War, and believes in God...Among some (not all but more than a few) Libertarians this would make him seem more as a Republican...I may be wrong on his stance but I have read his articles for years and IIRC he believes these things...If I am wrong I apologize because I didn't research this before I posted it..

Unlike Kut I sometimes post before researching....

Way back 30 years ago when I discovered there was an LP, most of them I met could be best described as old school Republicans, the kind you found before the Nixon era. Up though the 90s Libertarians had a pragmatic streak that I saw starting to wane in the 00s and now I'm seeing an anarchist streak, which as far as I'm concerned is not very conducive to realized Liberty and more advantageous to totalitarianism.

Call me a highly pragmatic libertarian, a Christian, that has conservative social issue leanings. I am also pro-war when it's appropriate.

 

[poptab]

As long as we are on the topic... Rothbard took Mises' arguments to thier logical conclusion. Limited government is an oxymoron. If the United States isn't proof enough, maybe this will help: https://mises.org/library/are-libertarians-anarchists

 

[IndyDave1776]

I'll take any shred of liberty we can wrestle back from the State, but the goal should remain to reclaim all of it.

Exactly. The two equal and opposite problems I see are on one hand demanding absolute perfection (never mind the absence of a consensus on what constitutes perfection) and on the other being told that we should accept what we can get, which often is merely a slight deceleration in movement the wrong way. If the latter is the best we can do, I would say we should go with the greater evil and get it over with before I am too old to deal with it.

 

[indiucky]

Call me a highly pragmatic libertarian, a Christian, that has conservative social issue leanings. I am also pro-war when it's appropriate.

That's me...I joke around that I thought I was Libertarian until I got to INGO and realized I was just another statist Republican...You are right about the timeline...Maybe we are Goldwater Republicans? Classic Libertarians???


That would make some heads implode....

"Sorry I don't buy into the whole gay marriage/killing babies thing...I am a Classic Libertarian...You know, back when the party was really pure....."

 

[steveh_131]

“For the government to declare a vice a crime is to violate those natural law guarantees of life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness, which are enunciated in our Declaration of Independence.” Williams’ argument here is straightforward: Since no individual has the right to punish others for their vices, and since the only rights that government possesses are those that it derives from its citizens, government doesn’t have the right to punish individuals for their vices. Thus, prostitution, drug usage, and discrimination in the private sector are among those activities that theUnited Statesgovernment illegitimately proscribes.

Are all the libertarians here on board with a complete end to the drug war, like Walter E. Williams?

 

[GodFearinGunTotin]

Are all the libertarians here on board with a complete end to the drug war, like Walter E. Williams?

Notice he said "activities that the United States government illegitimately proscribes".

 

[IndyDave1776]

“For the government to declare a vice a crime is to violate those natural law guarantees of life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness, which are enunciated in our Declaration of Independence.” Williams’ argument here is straightforward: Since no individual has the right to punish others for their vices, and since the only rights that government possesses are those that it derives from its citizens, government doesn’t have the right to punish individuals for their vices. Thus, prostitution, drug usage, and discrimination in the private sector are among those activities that theUnited Statesgovernment illegitimately proscribes.

Are all the libertarians here on board with a complete end to the drug war, like Walter E. Williams?

I feel the need to address a point here: The standard argument generally is that of the secondary problems often associated with vices, which raises the following:

1. Most of these secondary issues (like crime to support drug habits, for example--not to be confused with the crimes committed in the name of fighting drugs) are already illegal. They are not going to be affected by making something else illegal, or using 'sentencing enhancements' to make them 'more illegaler'.

2. History doesn't support the aforementioned argument. A lot of the roar from the 1920s was the product of prohibition, creating an environment in which criminals had a monopoly on alcohol. Today, a person can go to the local liquor store, grocery store, or most filling stations and buy as much of the sauce as they want without encountering criminal activity of any kind. It leads a person to the conclusion that crime is closely associated with some activities by virtue of prohibitions granting criminals a monopoly on supplying markets which, unfortunately, will be supplied one way or another, as opposed to the supply of those markets causing crime.

3. By the traditional definition of common law which was a universal standard before the misguided notion of reapplying maritime law which, by necessity, is more arbitrary, to the general population, a crime cannot be claimed to have happened in the absence of at least one identifiable victim (i.e., 'society' as a victim or offending the sensibilities of nonparticipants does not wash). I understand that 'sensibilities violations' have occurred, particularly at a local level since before George Washington, but that doesn't change the general principle. This extends to a number of things ranging to actions people do which are harmful to themselves but not others to driving such that a gauge on your dash does not indicate a value matching a sign on the side of the road, as opposed to running over someone, which does in fact generate a victim.

4. I am disturbed by the number of people who cannot understand that just because one arguably should not do something inparticular for a variety of moral and practical reasons, that does NOT mean that it should be illegal or that the government has the proper authority within the Constitution to make it illegal.

 

[IndyDave1776]

Notice he said "activities that the United States government illegitimately proscribes".

You would open this can of worms!

Seriously, he is correct within the context he speaks, and with the fact that most of these prohibitions are federally mandated with the state laws against the same generally being doppelgangers of the federal legislation enacted at the sharp end of one form or other of federal mandates, extortion, bribery (with our own money, I might add), or strongarming.

As for the states, I would argue that anything recognized in our founding documents as a natural right should apply equally to state as well as federal governments since that distinction addresses the fact that those rights are ours independent of government, as opposed to privileges granted at the pleasure of the federal government, and by implication, any other level of government. In other words, if we have the freedom of speech as a natural right, the state has no more proper authority to limit it than the federal government because that right exists independent of any government.

 

[steveh_131]

Notice he said "activities that the United States government illegitimately proscribes".

So you think he supports the drug war at the state level?

 

[steveh_131]

This doesn't strike me as a can of worms. He speaks clearly about government's role in prohibiting vices.

“For the government to declare a vice a crime is to violate those natural law guarantees of life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness, which are enunciated in our Declaration of Independence.”

This isn't specific to the federal government. Walter E. Williams is clearly advocating the decriminalization of all vices, including drugs and prostitution.

You guys still love him? I'm reading his articles and he says mostly the same stuff I've been saying for years, but I get called an anarchist.

 

[IndyDave1776]

This doesn't strike me as a can of worms. He speaks clearly about government's role in prohibiting vices.

“For the government to declare a vice a crime is to violate those natural law guarantees of life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness, which are enunciated in our Declaration of Independence.”

This isn't specific to the federal government. Walter E. Williams is clearly advocating the decriminalization of all vices, including drugs and prostitution.

You guys still love him? I'm reading his articles and he says mostly the same stuff I've been saying for years, but I get called an anarchist.

Can of worms? Not really. I was just giving GFGT a hard time.

I, for one, would not consider you an anarchist, and I would agree with you that in practice we presently have way too much 'archy' imposed on us.

 

[ATM]

This doesn't strike me as a can of worms. He speaks clearly about government's role in prohibiting vices.

“For the government to declare a vice a crime is to violate those natural law guarantees of life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness, which are enunciated in our Declaration of Independence.”

This isn't specific to the federal government. Walter E. Williams is clearly advocating the decriminalization of all vices, including drugs and prostitution.

You guys still love him? I'm reading his articles and he says mostly the same stuff I've been saying for years, but I get called an anarchist.

Decriminalization of all vices would be a nice start to begin the process...

 

[Dead Duck]

I pick my nose sometimes........but I don't eat it.












I draw smiley faces on the bathroom wall with the boogers.

 

[ArmedProgrammer]

Decriminalization of all vices would be a nice start to begin the process...

Decriminalization of any vice would be a helpful start , and the more , the merrier. It needs to be accompanied by the the government not providing incentive for creating the issues that lead to the vice in the first place.

 

[IndyDave1776]

I pick my nose sometimes........but I don't eat it.












I draw smiley faces on the bathroom wall with the boogers.

You can pick your friends, and you can pick your nose, but you can't pick your friend's nose!

 

[GodFearinGunTotin]

So you think he supports the drug war at the state level?

It's possible he's personally against the "drug war" on the federal and state levels but realizes that with deference to the 10th A, it's possible that some people might disagree and ought to have the right to govern themselves according to their conscience.

 

[GodFearinGunTotin]

You can pick your friends, and you can pick your nose, but you can't pick your friend's nose!

...without his/her permission.