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Show me a member of government - left or right, I should hasten to say - talking about rejuvenating our moral positions and I'll show you a member of the government who has a few dozen more violations of citizens' rights up his or her sleeve.

And here is the crux of the issue: It is us moral conservatives that gave you those rights. And it is us moral conservatives that wrote the laws that defined right and wrong according to the Bible, and it is those rights and wrongs that libertarians are working to overturn the laws on to allow what you mistakenly call freedom.

A morally bankrupt people are not 'free'. While a people are moral, they are free, but a people that are not moral, they will do and think any wicked thing that amuses them. It is then, that the other people who are in charge of government, have an obligation to enforce laws that govern behaviour. While we were a moral people guided by the Bible, like it used to be until this century, we had laws to define right and wrong, but people knew why things were right and why things were wrong. Now, thanks to the immorality of today's society, no one knows why things are right and wrong anymore except to say that they are legal or not, or whether they infringe upon my 'right' of choice or not.

That is not morality. Because there is no common morality anymore, we have every reason to expect that extreme laws will be passed to control people through the courts, instead of through the pulpits. A Biblical based morality allows all kinds of liberty, while a non-Biblical morality leads to chaos and crime and vice; all the things that libertarians are fighting to allow today, from the Pink Pistols (Gay rights 2nd ammendment group) to those who want to legalize drugs to those who want to legalize prostitution.

And, libertarians will be cheering this removal of morality all the way, because it comes in the way of what is mistakenly called liberty. Liberty in the eyes of a libertarian is license, license to do what you want when you want no matter how immoral it is, no matter how much it destroys families or lives, as long as the government doesn't disallow it, as long as I have free will to do it to myself, libertarians call that liberty.

And that is why I will never be a libertarian.

the other people who are in charge of government, have an obligation to enforce laws that govern behaviour.

A very scary thought.

Stopped reading your 11 at the point where you said you GAVE us those rights. Put arrogance and wrongheadedness at the head of your descriprion.

Liberty in the eyes of a libertarian is license, license to do what you want when you want no matter how immoral it is, no matter how much it destroys families or lives...

Behavior that destroys families or even just puts people at risk of harm is behavior that deprives the innocent of their liberty.

Show me how somebody smoking marijuana deprives an innocent person of their liberty and I will show you a behavior that should be banned. Show me how somebody iinjesting highly addictive psychoactive drugs doesn't affect innocent people and I will show you a behavior that should be legal.

Else the former -- marijuana usage -- is none of my business and the latter -- crack, heroin, etc...usage -- is every bit my business.

It is us moral conservatives that gave you those rights.

Appropriating to yourself the Powers of the Creator? Statements like this show why Conservatives are no defenders of Freedom. "Moral Conservatives" give no rights nor do governments. Non of us owe our rights to you and your ilk (or your mooses^H^H^H^H^H^H meese^H^H^H^H^H moose or your other moose either.)

And here is the crux of the issue: It is us moral conservatives that gave you those rights.

I have a little document in my hand (well, ok, it's reprinted in a small collection of early American political writings, but let's not get technical) that says human beings most certainly did not "give" us those rights. We hold these truths to be self evident; that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness... That wasn't

...and it is those rights and wrongs that libertarians are working to overturn the laws on to allow what you mistakenly call freedom.

A libertarian (and, again, I speak for myself alone) works to overturn nothing of the sort. A libertarian is of the view that there are hundreds of laws which need to be repealed (whenever someone hollers "there oughta be a law," I am always tempted to holler back, "Get the code books out - it'll take you a year, but you'll probably find they already made one"), on the grounds that they have turned the government into not the public protector but rather a public nuisance. And, I repeat, a libertarian is of the view that the government's sole legitimate business is to stay the hell out of your business, of my business, and of every citizen's business, unless one citizen would abrogate a fellow citizen's equivalent rights. That position does not presume or anticipate any sort of overturning of the moral imperative; it merely returns its assignment to the place where it properly belongs - the church, or the synagogue.

While we were a moral people guided by the Bible, like it used to be until this century, we had laws to define right and wrong, but people knew why things were right and why things were wrong. Now, thanks to the immorality of today's society, no one knows why things are right and wrong anymore except to say that they are legal or not, or whether they infringe upon my 'right' of choice or not.

Is it me, or can I think of a near-exact parallel between the deconstruction of society that you have just described and the metastasis of State power into places where the State lacks both the competence and the legitimate Constitutional sanction to exercise? But I will defer to a far wiser mind than mine own who has discoursed very nicely on the subject of choice viz a viz right and wrong; choice viz a viz virtue. You might care to read the following excerpt from an essay, "Freedom, Virtue and Government," by one of the distinguished gentlemen to whom Mr. Sobran alludes, Frank S. Meyer; the essay (I edit out certain references which have only time-and-place interest or connexion; it was first published in National Review in 1957) was published in his anthology, The Conservative Mainstream, in 1969:

...The calamtious socialisation which has descended upon the United States in the years since 1932 is grounded in the very situation against which the framers of our Constitution sought to guard: the use of government to impose upon men positive rules of action.

It has been argued by some conservative opponents of the tendency of contemporary thought and politics that the mischief does not arise at all from the use of government for the purpose of enforcing a putative good, but only from the imputation of good to ends which are in fact evil. Government, they maintain, is the proper agency for the enforcement of proper ends on individual men. It is only that Liberals use it for the wrong ends. Those who argue thus are saying in effect that if only governmental power can be seized and held by governors imbued with true principle, men can be forced to be virtuous.

But, in fact, the only "virtue" that can be so enforced is virtue defined in one of the ways the contemporary relativists define it (acceptance of custom, adjustment to the norm). External coercion could only make men "virtuous" if virtue consisted of conforming one's behaviour to the kind of behaviour those with power prescribe as good. But if virtue is the movement of a man toward an absolute Good exhibited by reason and by love, then by its very nature it cannot be forced, it must be chosen...

Truly to be able to choose good, however, demands a freedom and an autonomy which unfortunately also makes it possible for men to choose evil. Otherwise there is no meaning to choice, and virtue in the true sense is impossible. Therefore, the power of government is a necessary power to prevent the freedom of one man from interfering with the freedom of another. But individual and corporate teaching of the truth and the good is the only activity whereby men can influence other men toward virtue.

The limited government that the founders of the Republic established presupposed a devotion to a common heritage, a common understanding of virtue and the good, based on tradition and reason. The repudiation of the heritage by the Liberal pseudo-libertarians of the day transforms their boasted devotion to personal liberty into wanton presentation of privilege to the beneficiaries of approved intellectual fashion.

But indignation at their misuse of the concept of freedom in the service of the instinct for amoral power will help little if it leads to contempt for freedom and disdain for the concept of limited government which is the political foundation of freedom.

Only men who choose the good freely can be virtuous. It is true that the nature of virtue is not such that men will always bid highest for it in "the free market place of ideas"; but neither is it a cultural badge, like the pigtail of the Chinese of the Manchu dynasty, or the social security number of the American worker, which can be imposed upon the person by the authority of the state. It is best nurtured by the teaching and example of family and church (one could add the school, if our schools had not become creatures of the state); and it is best exercised in a social situation where government limited to the preservation of order and the administration of justice has as its essential aim the guarantee of the maximum possible freedom to each individual person.

And, elsewhere, Mr. Meyer wrote this extract, from a second essay included in the same anthology, an essay called "Why Freedom," published originally in 1962 (in National Review):

Briefly, then: 1) There is great danger to human freedom, and thereby to the achievement of virtue, if any more power than that which is absolutely necessary is lodged in the same set of hands. 2) The state is a necessity as an institution to preserve the freedom of men from infringement by other men through domestic or foreign force or fraud; and to settle the disputes that occur when rights clash with rights. 3) From this necessity are derived the legitimate powers of the state: defence, the preservation of domestic order, the administration of justice. 4) The exercise, however, of these necessary functions requires a dangerous concentration of power - the monopoly of legally and socially accepted force. Any additional control over individual persons in any sphere of their lives adds dangerously to this already dangerous concentration of power. 5) No other activities of men, except these three legitimate functions of the state, require the monopoly of force. All others can be performed by individual persons and voluntary associations of persons. 6) Since the power of the state is dangerous to begin with, and since all other functions beyond its essential three can be performed by men otherwise, the preservation of a truly free political order demands the limitation of the state to these functions.

...The principle that the political order must be a free order if men are to have the maximum possibilities of achieving virtue is, I maintain, inextricably linked, in the tradition of the West and the tradition of the American republic, with the principle that the goal of men is virtue. ..Conservatism, therefore, unites the "traditionalist" emphasis upon virtue and the "libertarian" emphasis upon freedom. The denial of the claims of virtue leads not to conservatism, but to spiritual aridity and social anarchy; the denial of the claims of freedom leads not to conservatism, but to authoritarianism and theocracy.

Frankly speaking, I trust not the State to tend a damn thing. I would trust a properly construed and minimalist government, and not the improperly consecrated State under which we now live, to tend to precisely that mission which Mr. Meyer enunciated above, a mission whose strict tending would leave the government the hell out of trying to tend that which is most properly tended by our churches and synagogues. We have indeed granted the State its opportunities to teach, enhance, and mandate what right and wrong mean, above and beyond the limited and legitimate coordinates of a properly construed government, and the State, as always it does, has screwed up the job royally.

I say again: There can be no coincidence between the decline and deconstruction of society's cumulative sense of right and wrong and the rise and metastasis of the State over, above, and beyond properly construed government.

"...legalize drugs to those who want to legalize prostitution."

Your attitude and that in particular the pro-life demand by the right are exactly why there are many more Democrats than Republicans. The right to choose is not in the Constitution, but neither do the unborn have a right to life expressed in the Constitution. All of these behaviors that you would criminalize are not and cannot be stopped by government unless you intend to make the state far more powerful than it already is. Just as I tell liberals I don't intend to live in world governed by Democrats, neither do I intend to live in world where morality morons like you would make the rules. Understand that power of the police and the right to defend your home and principles cuts two ways. The Second Amendment ensures my right to a gun. My own determination and self defense determine how or when I will use it. Make no mistake, people will defend what they perceive to be their rights. And when you insert yourself into their lives and are determined to impose your views on them, you should be prepared and forewarned to be prepared to suffer the consequences of your actions.

You are part of the problem. Liberals and morality enforcers are the enemies of freedom. How you choose to live your life is no concern to me. But when you would try to impose your moral standards as law, you become my enemy. If you try to enforce your law, you are asking for war.

The people of this country in the past, were not more moral, or more pure, than the people of today. This BS about a return to moral principles, is the same Puritanism reborn and retooled for our age. There was plenty of prostitution in the 1800's, where brothels were accepted as a fact of life. Humans are the same immoral, corrupt, lawless individuals they always were. The US govt is not the proper vehicle for enforcement of laws governing vices, that is the role of the state, county or city. Advocating the Federal War on Drugs, takes away our freedom, not by making drug usage illegal, but by taking the control of the issue out of the hands of the common citizen, and making it impossible to effect a change if it is wanted. Why can't you see that control by the Federal govt in the War on Drugs, is just the govt using the despotic powers of the right hand, while the left hand of the same beast, mandates a right to abort, bussing of school children and even more serious overreaches by an out of control bureaucracy. The battle to stop abortion, or other conservative issues, is the same one as the WODs. The problem is not a fight over who controls the reins of power in DC, but in the fight to keep local control, of these issues in the hands of the state govts. Libertarians want control of all issues not constitutionaly mandated to the feds, returned to the state level. They are willing to take the chance that they can affect a change in laws by fighting in states legislatures. You advocate a rule by the feds because it is easier to control the issues that belong to the states, the same as the liberals do. Libertarians trust the people to do what is in their own best interests, most so called conservatives and liberals speak of morals and the need to protect us from our basest nature. The Conservatives say we will sin badly if the laws aren't strict, and use the federal govt to enforce their vision. The Liberals say that our freedom is dependent on the federal govt making rules to level the playing field. While Libertarians know that freedom is dependent on local control, and a limited federal govt.

It is us moral conservatives that gave you those rights.

If I want to listen to the rantings of some lunatic who believes himself to be God, I'll go find the homeless guy who hangs out on the heat grate down the road.

“a people that are not moral, they will do and think any wicked thing that amuses them”

- RaceBannon