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Here on this forum, espousing conservative principles is attacked from the Libertarians more than the liberals. At least some here believe in limited government, but too many have abandoned the moral imperatives that made onservativism work.

You would be hard pressed to find a legitimate libertarian (or Libertarian; it behooves us to note, once again, that not all libertarians join the Libertarian Party) who rejects limited government; indeed, we libertarians (think of many enough of us as conservatives who have been mugged by reality) say the more limited the government, the better.

As for the moral imperatives, I'll speak strictly for myself here: I have not and would not abandon them. Nor would many other libertarians. But I do not believe it's the government's legitimate mission to enforce them (we may ask those in government to live as best they can by them but nothing more than that), especially given the government's track record of late in staying the hell out of matters for which it is neither competent nor Constitutionally welcome. 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.

The government's legitimate mission is nothing more than protecting you as a citizen and all citizens from predators at home (real predators, if you please, not mere vicemongers) and enemies from abroad and that is all she wrote, period dot period. Government that has advanced beyond that is no longer government but is, rather, the State. We turn to the church or the synagogue for upholding and enhancing the moral imperative, that is their proper and legitimate mission.

Let me offer up a separation of church and State that anyone short of a theocrat-in-waiting should be able to live with: keep the State the hell out of the morality business (I hate to phrase it "morality business," but when the State gets involved you'd be hard pressed to find that it hasn't become anything better than a predatory racket that abrogates rather than protects a citizen's life, liberty or property...just ask the late, unlamented Taliban) and back into the business of protecting citizens' lives, liberty, and property, and otherwise butting the hell out of a citizen's business unless - big unless - said citizen would obstruct or abrogate a fellow citizen's equivalent rights. And let the church and synagogue tend our morality and spirituality, without molestation by the State, bothering about political business only to the extent that the church or synagogue's teaching informs our behaviour amidst our familes, our fellows, and yea, verily, even if we are damn fool enough to seek a life of politics.

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 pro-lifers accepted the legitimacy of the Supreme Courts control of the abortion issue, thereby assuring the loss of argument over states rights on this issue. Although I find abortion reprehensible, I would be willing to have each state decide the law for themselves. Statists on the left, used the court to legislate, those on the right want(ed) to use it to legislate from their point of view. This philosophical switch for conservatives, ceded the argument in favor of the liberal idea of a living breathing constitution. Judicial review is not a part of the constitutional mandate of the Supreme courts job. It is at the heart of all problems. They are now supreme rulers, as they can override any and all bills passed, and write laws by invention. As long as the conservatives do not join the war to overturn the power of the Judicial, and restore the balance of our system, there can be no return to the founders principles.