Libertarianism and Abortion

[thoughtomator]

The question this thread aims to answer:

Is Libertarianism properly in favor or against legal abortion?

This discussion aims to sort out a difference of opinion between myself and tpaine on the subject. I contend a true libertarian must be pro-life, tpaine believes libertarianism supports abortion rights.

[exodus]

England, still to this day, leases their land from the crown, they don't own it.
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I thought so, but I wasn't sure.

[JohnGalt]

That is generally the direction I was going in.

The key is that the 'exodus' was arguing that 'Rights' are like the laws of physics and my point was that the forefathers believed no such thing.

[MrLeRoy]

Gotcha.

[exodus]

The (US) government owns 33% of the land out right, owns the money supply and determines it value, and the government owns the financing mechanisms for which so many of us (I am 29) require to purchase a home.
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I believe the percentage is even higher than that.

Yes, we are becoming a socialist nation, which is why I fight so hard against liberal Republicans.

It's bad enough having liberals in the Democratic Party.

[JohnGalt]

""Education in those Rights can return our nation's commitment to freedom. "

Until self-styled libertarians realize that proper self-government is the only solution for our miseries which comes through studying the classic's of Greece and Rome, we have no chance and no hope for survival as a culture.

If an entire generation believes these rights should be enforced through the central state they, as we saw in the Iraq war proceedings, will tend to believe in the good of such ridiculous things as nation building in Iraq or Lincoln's War to prevent Southern Independence.

I see you are trying to claim victory, but this began when I boldly stated there are no rights, simply traditions respected by the community. You proceeded to argue that there are 'Rights' in an abstract sense, which I explained meant they had no meaning if the gubmint could take them away or a culture would not fight to the bloody death to preserve them.

[exodus]

However, you then say: "has sovereignty over any individual's actions" which is what you said. Because states have the power to regulate rights, and they do...
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States do not have the power to regulate Rights.

Rights come from God, not from Man.

States are created by Man. Man cannot delegate a power to the State that he does not possess himself.

[exodus]

"... and you believe in states, by your construct you are the one exercing a socialist (ideological) world view."
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I believe that civilization requires government.

Governments, however, do not have the authority to run roughshod over the Rights of Man. Those Rights, if respected by our leaders, give us Freedom, not socialism.

[tpaine]

You are simply rephrasing your idea that the state can force 'obligations' upon a woman for becoming pregnant.
Not so. -- She has the liberty to abort. -- It is constitutional.
Your insistance that she can be sequestered and forced to term, -- is not.

I was making an ethical rather than a constitutional statement---but are you claiming that the Constitution bars states from restricting or banning abortion? If so, provide evidence for your claim.

We've been arguing about that ~fact~ [the Constitution does indeed bar states from restricting or banning early term abortion] for years now.
No more proof is needed as to the USSC's position.
You dont agree with the USSC on the issue.
Post your constitutional proofs that a pregnant woman can be sequestered and forced to term by the state.

[JohnGalt]

"Governments, however, do not have the authority" but they have the power, and that is all that really matters even once one realizes the DC-tax regime, in our case, has no legitimacy.



"Those Rights, if respected by our leaders, give us Freedom, not socialism. "

This is much closer to a working definition for 'Rights.'

This is much closer to a working definition for 'Rights.'

[traditionalist]

This debate exposes much of the inadequacy of the libertarian worldview.

[MrLeRoy]

No more proof is needed as to the USSC's position.

The USSC's position is not identical to the Constitution.

You dont agree with the USSC on the issue. Post your constitutional proofs that a pregnant woman can be sequestered and forced to term by the state.

Nothing in the Constitution prohibits the states from doing so or authorizes the federal government to prevent the states from doing so.

[exodus]

"... Liberty as the forefathers saw it was not protected by rights or the state, but by institutions which would be maintained and handed down through the generations. Rights are reflected in these insitutions..."
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That's not true, and the proof is easy to find. Governments are to protect Rights, and governments are not expected to last forever, but are to be tolerated only as long as Rights are respected.

Declaration of Independence

"... We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. --That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government ..."

[u-89]

I agree with you that life begins at conception and can not see how people honestly believe otherwise. Most likely the denial of the obvious is a convenient way to soothe the troubled soul of the hardened heart. But whatever the case may be the fact remains that there is a large portion of our society that does not see the issue as we do and since our government, when you boil it down is created by "we the people" and formed by consensus we somehow have to come to terms on this issue in a way most can live with.

One society's murder is another's lawful proceeding. In India a window might be thrown on the funeral pyre of her dead husband. If we moved there we would not like the custom but we would have to live with it. Likewise here we have a clear vision on life in the womb but half our countrymen do not. We can only change the law once men's hearts have been changed and not until then. In the mean time the best we can hope for is to get the issue back to the state level where it belongs where local societies can work it out for themselves.

[exodus]

I will open up a new can of worms; do African fathers have a right as parents to exercise their cultural tradition of preforming clitorectomies on their baby girls?
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You still don't understand what a Right is.

No, fathers do not have a "right" to perform clitorectomies, but the families in those countries do have that power. That is a learned behavior, not a Right.

[JohnGalt]

That is a rehash of posts we had earlier, but I should have put "rights" in quotes.

I metioned that DoI contained French rhetoric on liberty, and that Jefferson believed bloody revolution was the mechanism to correct governments that abused rights and that Patrick Henry believed that rights were protected through insitutions (church, education, justice, congress, and the Executive Branch.)

[JohnGalt]

I know darn well what you are trying to say a right is; I was once like you and learned all about my rights.

My point is that your definition of a right has no practical value (Mr Leroy and you both said 'rights' have political value, potentially anyway) where as my definition gives us a framework for which to think about rights and how best to preserve them for the next generation.


This is right vs left libertarianism 101, so enough with the 'I still don't know stuff...'

[thoughtomator]

Not to belabor the point, but are you able to define 'murder' independently of the authority of the Supreme Court? Had the court never ruled on the matter, how precisely would you define 'murder'?

[exodus]

Have you make a point about the Constitutionality of abortion law?
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No, but I will, since you ask.

Defining what is and is not murder is a State power, not a National power.

The Supreme Court's ruling, an example of legislating from the bench, is contrary to the basis of our law, the Constitution; thus the ruling is unConstitutional.

[exodus]

JohnGalt - Liberty as the forefathers saw it was not protected by rights MrLeRoy - Of course not---rights are a definition of proper liberty.
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Exactly, MrLeRoy!

Liberty is when the State does not interfere with Rights, JohnGalt. Freedom.

[thoughtomator]

What it exposes, rather than inadequacy, is a disagreement on what a 'libertarian worldview' actually means. I maintain that my worldview is both libertarian and adequate for the purposes of a free people.