Posted on 05/03/2006 2:49:08 PM PDT by ghostmonkey
Often I see Libertarians refer to themselves as "Conservatives" or "Right". Yet, many times, on many web-boards, I see the libertarians taking the same positions as Demonrats, and they seem to support Demonrats over Republicans.
I did a bit of research, and I found why this might be the case. Libertarianism is actually in the same political system as Liberalism.
http://www.moral-politics.com/xPolitics.aspx?menu=Political_Ideologies&action=Draw&choice=PoliticalIdeologies.All
But you see the one thing that stands in the way of a libertarian utopia is the same that will never allow for the socialist utopia that leftists dream of.
That thing being human nature,which is comprised of such things as greed,laziness etc.
Paradoxically, that's going to get you labeled as a liberal/libertarian when it comes time to talk about using the federal government as a means of controlling individual vices. I don't think that's accidental.
Ah yes, the elusive pro-censorship libertarians.
lol -- liberians
Make that libertarians!
Equally, both terms, with liberal added as well, have meant quite varied things in different countries and periods of history.
The person who sees his conservatism as chiefly liberty guided and adheres to original founders restraints often self-styles themselves as libertarian. Reagan used the term in that sense and I think Sowell does as well.
Hayek best defined himself as "an old whig" a term that even Russell Kirk found appealing.
The Libertarian Party member is something that varies with the candidates endorsed.
The sort of libertarianism that I find as ill suited to conservatism's big umbrella is the ideological libertarian. I use "ideological" in the sense explain by Kirk in The Politics of Prudence where he begins by quoting Minogue:
“to denote any doctrine which presents the hidden and saving truth about the world in the form of social analysis. It is a feature of all such doctrines to incorporate a general theory of the mistakes of everybody else.”That “hidden and saving truth” is a fraud—a complex of contrived falsifying“myths”, disguised as history, about the society we have inherited.There are those that in the sixties would have been labeled Randian Objectivists that take the J. S. Mill non-agression principle and see it a single and saving truth that all society can be built upon. While holding individuals of that group in general regard, I can't buy that koolaid.Raymond Aron, in The Opium of the Intellectuals, analyzes the three myths that have seduced Parisian intellectuals: the myths of the Left, of the Revolution, of the Proletariat.
To summarize the analysis of ideology undertaken by such scholars as Minogue, Aron, J. L. Talmon, Thomas Molnar, Lewis Feuer, and Hans Barth, this word ideology, since the Second World War, usually has signified a dogmatic political theory which is an endeavor to substitute secular goals and doctrines for religious goals and doctrines; and which promises to overthrow present dominations so that the oppressed may be liberated. Ideology’s promises are what Talmon calls “political messianism”.
The ideologue promises salvation in this world, hotly declaring that there exists no other realm of being.
Eric Voegelin, Gerhart Niemeyer, and other writers have emphasized that ideologues “immanentize the symbols of transcendence”—that is, corrupt the vision of salvation through grace in death into false promises of complete happiness inthis mundane realm. Ideology, in short, is a political formula that promises mankind an earthly paradise; but in cruel fact what ideology has created is a series of terrestrial hells.
I set down below some of the vices of ideology.
1) Ideology is inverted religion, denying the Christian doctrine of salvation through grace in death, and substituting collective salvation here on earth through violent revolution. Ideology inherits the fanaticism that sometimes has afflicted religious faith, and applies that intolerant belief to concerns secular.
2) Ideology makes political compromise impossible: the ideologue will accept no deviation from the Absolute Truth of his secular revelation. This narrow vision brings about civil war, extirpation of “reactionaries”, and the destruction of beneficial functioning social institutions.
3) Ideologues vie one with another in fancied fidelity to their Absolute Truth;and they are quick to denounce deviationists or defectors from their partyorthodoxy. Thus fierce factions are raised up among the ideologues themselves, and they war mercilessly and endlessly upon one another, as did Trotskyites and Stalinists. The evidence of ideological ruin lies all about us. How then can it be that theallurements of ideology retain great power in much of the world? The answer to that question is given in part by this observation from Raymond Aron: “When the intellectual feels no longer attached either to the community orthe religion of his forebears, he looks to progressive ideology to fill the vacuum. The main difference between the progressivism of the disciple of Harold Laski or Bertrand Russell and the Communism of the disciple of Lenin concerns not so much the content as the style of the ideologies and the allegiance they demand. ”Ideology provides sham religion and sham philosophy, comforting in its way to those who have lost or never have known genuine religious faith, and to those not sufficiently intelligent to apprehend real philosophy. The fundamental reason why we must set our faces against ideology—so wrote the wise Swiss editor Hans Barth—is that ideology is opposed to truth: it denies the possibility of truth in politics or in anything else, substituting economic motive and class interest for abiding norms. Ideology even denies human consciousness and power of choice. In Barth’s words, “The disastrous effect of ideological thinking in its radical form is not only to cast doubt on the quality and structure of the mind that constitute man’s distinguishing characteristic but also to undermine the foundation of his social life.” --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Also, libertarianism USES human greed as a positive force for advancement and change. Innovation. You get to keep what you EARN, but try and steal anything and your victim just may kill you and be morally right to do so.
BIG behavioral modifier there, that whole "death" thing. Zero recidivism rate.
Ouch!
Dang, can't you pull the punches just a little?
You have only theory, and Heinlein fiction. No proof.
I think Walter Williams (*swoon*) would disagree with your assessment. And I have great respect for Walter.
A mapping of people's political views onto two dimensions will be oversimplified, but not nearly as eggregiously so as the even more common mapping onto a single dimension. A method of quantifying the usefulness of the two-dimensional mapping would be to rate various people on a third dimension and then produce a 3d scatterplot using that new dimension along with the existing two. If the 2d mapping does well to determine people's positions on the third issue, the resulting points will be concentrated along a 2d contour (analagous to the way nice data will be concentrated along a 1d curve on a 2d scatterplot). If the third issue is orthagonal to the first two dimensions, then no such concentration will exist.
Personally, I would think it interesting to plot "abortion" as a third axis, where positive maximum allows abortion on demand for any reason at any time, while negative maximum forbids any and all abortions, period. I would expect a loose clustering of the abortion result along a contour, but with a lot of scatter.
Before the Founders wrote the Constitution, it was only theory and no proof.
Huh? I think Libertarians and Constitutionalists are probably closer to each other than to the Elephant.
The only problem with that is it assumes that the person getting killed is the one attempting to steal.
If you take away the stigma of the law and its consequences,which you would do if there was no government,how do you know that someone today who would not steal would be tempted to,knowing that he can get away with it if he kills you first.
I can, but the people that buy into this foolishness aren't going to.
Splendid word! Somebody notify Webster's and have them add it to the next dictionary edition!
A thief might have a 90% chance of getting away with it. Maybe a little more when he first steps into town, but less after word spreads of his crimes. It wouldn't take long for the thief's odds to catch up with him. And most would-be thieves would know that ahead of time.
Alas, this may be true now.
I've considered the Libertarians to be left of the Pubs and the CP to the right, hence my statement. But lately it seems that we are stuck out here on the Right all by our lonesome, no Pubs in sight.
If you are pointing a gun at me demanding me wallet, there is no doubt what your intentions are or who I should shoot. Same goes for if I come home and you are loading things from my garage into the back of your truck. Same if you are half in, half out of my car trying to hotwire it at 2AM. Identification is pretty darn easy from the victims viewpoint at the time off the offense.
For most people, it is our own personal beliefs and morality that define our actions. Not some arbitrary law. If cocaine were legal tomorrow, I'd still have zero interest in trying it. Same for some 90% of those out there. The 10% will do it no matter what laws you pass, so what good are they?
Thieves have been around as long as whores. Right now, we elect a few whores and thieves to office and incarcerate the rest to cut down on thier competition...
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