Posted on 11/11/2004 9:34:13 AM PST by Tailgunner Joe
Libertarianism is a political philosophy that holds that consent is the basis of morality and therefore that any activity - prostitution, "assisted" suicide, you-name-it between consenting adults ought to be legal. Libertarians also believe that man "owns" himself, and therefore may do anything to himself he pleases - use drugs, commit suicide, again, you-name-it.
It is logically impossible for Libertarianism to be America's founding philosophy.
At least 30 years ago, most Americans could quote the beginning of the second paragraph of the 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."
Whether you say UNalienable or INalienable, understanding the concept of rights you can't give, sell, or trade away is key to understanding Christian freedom.
First, let's be clear what each of these rights are and where they come from. The right to life is pretty straightforward. All rights arise from the prohibition of moral rules, and the right to life comes from God's rule that says it is wrong to kill innocent people. Although you can't give it away, you can forfeit your right to life when you initiate the use of deadly force against another without first having been threatened with deadly force by the person you attack. This is why God had to command us to use capital punishment, and gave us examples in the Old Testament to show that self-defense was justified. Otherwise, since God's rules apply all the time, we might be confused into thinking that the commandment against murder prevented us from resisting someone who was trying to kill us, or punishing one who had killed another.
To understand the right to "liberty" we need to know what liberty is. Say you have $100, and you were planning to buy your self a real nice dinner with it. Then a thief steals your $100. You have lost the "liberty" to control how the $100 is spent. You have lost liberty.
The same analysis applies if someone makes you a slave against your will. You have lost the "liberty" to control how your labor is employed. The slave owner takes this liberty from you.
We lose "liberty" whenever someone violates God's moral rules. The right to liberty is a command to government to prevent and punish those who would violate God's moral rules.
The right to the pursuit of happiness is similar to the right to liberty. The right to liberty recognizes that we lose our liberty when our fellow men violate God's moral rules. Protecting our liberty is the reason we command government to set up police forces, armies and navies. They protect us from foreign aggressors and domestic criminals. But what protects us from government itself?
Protecting us from government is the work of the right to the pursuit of happiness. This right does not mean license to do whatever gives us pleasure. We cannot molest children, say, and claim the protection of the right to pursue happiness.
This right is based on the idea that God made us in such a way that we cannot be truly happy unless we follow God's moral rules. As a political right, then, the right to the pursuit of happiness is a right to be free from a government that commands us - or just allows us - to do what God forbids, or that forbids us to do what God commands, or just allows.
For example, God does not command us to have children, but if we are married, he allows us to engage in the activity that can result in reproduction. China, however, forbids people to have more than two children. China thus forbids what God allows, and it interferes with the right to the pursuit of happiness of its citizens.
The U.S. government allows its citizens to have abortions, though it does not (yet) command abortions as China does. Nevertheless, simply by allowing evil - the murder of the unborn - the U.S. government interferes with the right to the pursuit of happiness of both born and unborn citizens. It allows citizens to commit evil that will cause them pain and remorse later.
Okay, we know what these rights are now, but why is it important that we not be able to give or sell them? After all, if two adults consent to some voluntary transaction, shouldn't government allow them to engage in it?
The answer is unalienable rights cannot exist if consent, not God's rules, defines what is right and wrong.
If consent defines what is right, there is no inalienable right to life. Imagine I'm a poor man but want to leave a large inheritance to my children. Say I agree to "star" in a snuff film - to be killed on camera in return for a big chunk of cash which I will bequeath to my kids. If government honors my contract with the producer, it has just thrown my inalienable right to life out the window. It has also thrown God's commandment not to murder innocent people out the window, too.
Likewise, say I want to be a prostitute, and other consenting adults want to hire me for sex. No one else is involved, right? Why shouldn't government honor my agreement with my "johns."
This situation is a bit more subtle, but presents the same conflict - either consent is the basis of right and wrong, or God's rules are.
If the "john" is married, clearly there is an external cost to allowing prostitution. The john's wife has a right to fidelity - the husband's faithfulness - created both by God's commandment against adultery and by contact - by the husband's promise. But the external cost of prostitution is imposed not only on the wife, but also on society. Marriage is a bilateral monopoly that increases human productivity by taking many transactions out of the market. When the costs of prostitution are not stopped, they reduce the value of marriage. At the margin, there are fewer marriages, and society - all of us - loose the savings that marriages produce. We are all made poorer.
But what if the prostitute's customer is single? Surely then nobody else is involved and we ought to allow the consensual prostitution, right?
We can answer this question by looking to see whether God's rules apply to us as individuals at all times, or if they only have force when we interact with others. The truth is, of course, that God's rules apply to us at all times. What we call "virtues" arise from the application of God's moral rules to the self. For example, if I do not have the virtue of thrift - if I spend my money like there was no tomorrow - I rob myself of my future consumption. The virtue of "thrift" arises from applying God's moral rule against theft to the self.
To return to our example with the prostitute and the unmarried customer, God's moral rules for sex tell us that sex is the physical manifestation of a spiritual union between a man and a woman brought together by God. To use sex as just a meaningless recreational pursuit violates this rule. But applying this rule to the self - even when that "self" is unmarried - gives rise to the virtue of chastity.
Is there a practical reason that government should encourage chastity by refusing to enforce a contract for prostitution - or the same thing, heterosexual or homosexual promiscuity - between two unmarried people?
The answer depends on whether using sex in a way that violates God's rules can really increase the welfare of the individuals who engage in that activity. All sin appears pleasurable for a short time, but in the long run it produces more costs than benefits.
In the case of adultery, the momentary pleasure must be weighed against the risk of disease and the cost of the losing the true happiness that can only come from following God's moral rules. The lesson of history is that prohibiting prostitution is not a rule without a reason. Every society that has bowed to the desire for a short term pleasure that is less than the long term benefits foregone has fallen - look particularly at Greece and Rome.
America today is under attack by people who claim to champion freedom but who, in reality, champion a philosophy that would destroy freedom because it would destroy our inalienable rights. These people call themselves "Libertarians." They claim that the basis of right and wrong in interactions between people is only consent - not God's rules - and that society has no power to impose any standard of right and wrong on individuals in how they use their own bodies. Libertarians think prostitution, drug use, and suicide should all be legalized.
John Locke answered the Libertarians more than 300 years ago. Locke said, in his Second Treatise on Government, that merely having the power to engage in an activity does not make it right. For Locke, as for America's Founders, the only true source of right was God's moral rules. But if consent is the basis of right and wrong, there can be no inalienable rights, because one can always consent to give his rights away.
We may legitimately question whether we want to use law, the coercive power of the state, to enforce God's rules or rely on extra-legal sanctions like social norms. The answer is always that we want to use the enforcement method that produces the greatest benefits at the least cost. For example, we could not afford to put policemen in every individual's bedroom, so we have traditionally relied on social norms to enforce moral rules relating to sex.
But the lesson of the last 150 years of American history is that evil first attacks and destroys social norms, then changes the law.
Rights arise from moral rules. But the moral rules that create our law are simply whatever a majority of citizens believe is right or wrong. If we want Godly laws, we must bring a majority of citizens into agreement with God by introducing them to Jesus Christ.
"You are your brothers keeper."
Nice to see you are finally owning up to your socialism.
The article derails right here.
The double negative here can be translated into "the right to the pursuit of happiness means we must have a gov't that makes us do what God commands". You've just attempted to argue for a theocracy.
Bzzzt. Thanks for playing.
LQ
The anarchist coalition of junkies, pimps, and homos are the friends of the extreme left in America, the Christian Right are their enemies.
btw, only commies claim that Jesus was a liberal and a socialist.
There is no liberty without morality.
You nailed it, LQ. The "arguments" stated above are exactly the same as those used by the mullahs in Iran, or the Taliban in Afghanistan.
This is one of the reasons that Jefferson used "Natures God" and not any single religions "god" in the Declaration of Independence, and why the Constitution forbids the establishment of a State religion in the Bill of Rights.
"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."
Whether you say UNalienable or INalienable, understanding the concept of rights you can't give, sell, or trade away is key to understanding Christian freedom.
I searched my copy of the Constitution and it seems the word Christian was omitted.
It's also one of the more incoherent articles I've seen here in awhile. I tried tracking through the arguments but kept finding that it repeatedly tried to prove an assumption by making that same assumption and went around in circles.
LQ
Did you, or did you not just post that? Does it, or does it not, match socialist dogma? Be as Christian as you want, right up until you start being as socialist as the leftists. Then expect to get called on it.
Personally, I don't want the Sky Pilot's Union advising me on which rights are alienable.
You are not property. You are a human being.
Amen. On that we agree. So why post an entire screed the tries to point out how much everyone owns everyone else and how all morality flows directly from your particular brand of priesthood?
The Declaration of Independence refers to "The Laws of Nature and Nature's God" but also to the "Creator," as well as "appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world," and "with a firm reliance on the Protection of Divine Providence."
Humane Laws are measures in respect of Men, whose actions they must direct, howbeit such measures they are as have also their higher Rules to be measured by, which Rules are two, the Law of God, and the Law of Nature; so that Laws Humane must be made according to the general Laws of Nature, and without contradiction to any positive Law of Scripture, otherwise they are ill made. - John Locke, Two Treatises on Government
The Constitution did not forbid the establishment of state religions. The first amendment protected state establishments from encroachment by the establishment of a national religion. Many states had established churches after the ratification of the Constitution. Only after the Civil War and the passage of the fourteenth amendment was the Bill of Rights applied to the state governments.
You assume that if no one else owns you, then you must own yourself. Not so. No one owns you. You are not property and you cannot do whatever you want with yourself.
Man. Trying to decide what load of crap to address first was difficult until I realized that since the whole article was based on this flawed premise, the details didn't matter. Consent and morality are two totally different animals. While they may agree at times, often they do not. If you were to state that 'libertarianism holds that consent is the the basis of legality', it might be closer to accurate, but then that makes the rest of the article pointless. Your aticle equates morality with legality. Using the Christian idea of morality (which I personally ascribe to) as a basis for legal code is the definition of a Theocracy.
All laws are based on morality. Christianity has always been recognized as part of America's common law.
Now, you are just contradicting yourself. Or, you just aren't smart enough to see it? I assume you are alluding to God owning me? Which God? Odin? Jehova? Buddha? Who says that particular God owns me? Your priests? Mine?
Better still, aren't those claims of ownership between me and whatever God/s I adhere to and not up to any State entity? If a State acts in a Gods name and claims ownership of me, how is that different from the socialists "God" that is the State itself?
This is fun beating you up with your own lack of anything remotely close to logic. You make it almost too easy.
Bravo Sierra. Prove it. It isn't in the Constitution. It is no where in Blackstones. It isn't in the USC anywhere.
The Founders were not stupid -- they understood quite well what they were doing when they attributed our "unalienable rights" to the action of a Creator.
Here's your assignment: try to logically derive the idea of "unalienable" principles without reference to a Creator.
You can't do it without resorting to self-defeating utilitarian (or otherwise relativist) arguments that render moot the whole idea of "unalienable rights."
The next step is to ask whether the logically necessary Creator is equivalent to a Christian God (which is what I think TG's point boils down to). On that score, we can only observe that the "unalienable rights" have historically been enumerated by Christian culture, and few if any others.
Certainly the tenets of Christianity are fully consistent with the unalienable rights we take for granted in the US, even if we do not consistently follow those tenets.
"For example, God does not command us to have children..."
Wrong!
Genesis 1:28
And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it:...
Man, considered as a creature, must necessarily be subject to the laws of his Creator, for he is entirely a dependent being. And consequently, as man depends absolutely upon his Maker for everything, it is necessary that he should, in all points, conform to his Maker's will.This will of his Maker is called the law of nature.
This law of nature, being coeval with mankind, and dictated by God himself, is of course superior in obligation to any other. It is binding over all the globe in all countries, and at all times: no human laws are of any validity, if contrary to this; and such of them as are valid derive all their force and all their authority, mediately or immediately, from this original. The doctrines thus delivered we call the revealed or divine law, and they are to be found only in the holy scriptures. These precepts, when revealed, are found upon comparison to be really a part of the original law of nature, as they tend in all their consequences to man's felicity.
Upon these two foundations, the law of nature and the law of revelation, depend all human laws; that is to say, no human laws should be suffered to contradict these. - Blackstone - Of the Nature of Laws in General.
Even by your own tennets, it is your God that gave you free will. For another mere human to take that free will away from you is a violation of Gods will.
Christian culture? Like the Christian Kings of England and their treatment of the peasant class? Or the Emporers of Rome after conversion to Christianity and the abuses done in their names?
History, it seems, is against you on that one.
The very idea of "common law", which should be called "english common law" (as it was adopted), predated christianity in england. It would be just as accurate to say "Paganism has always been recognised as part of America's common law". Our government and our legal system was based on reason.
You are hopeless. Have fun pushing your priesthood driven brand of socialism. Just have the balls to call it what it is.
youve gotta see this
Brehon law had the same basic principles in it as the Founders espoused. Are you sure it wasn't based off of that? Makes more sense really. Instead of having an Inquisition deciding what the law was and how it applied, or a sovreign King deciding law, the old Celts had a seperate and educated adjudication class. Sounds a lot more like our modern legal system than some priest saying "God told me to tell you this".
I believe in the rule of law, not your godless anarchy. Black anarchy is the wrecking ball for red communism. You and the Socialists are allies against traditional religion and civil society. The only difference is that you really believe in the commietopian "withering away of the state" whereas the reds know it's all a con job.
Nonsense.
I didn't ask you to make unfounded assertions. I asked you to prove it using logic and reason.
Hmmm... What's this?
And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.
Genesis 1:28
And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth.
Genesis 9:1
Thy wife shall be as a fruitful vine by the sides of thine house: thy children like olive plants round about thy table.
Psalm 128:3
And, not coincidentally, in violation of the tenets of Christianity.....
Maybe you are right, from a moral point of view. Maybe God has a higher "ownership" right in my person than I do.
However, I have a higher "ownership" right in my person than does any other human being. So, no other human being has the right to tell me what to do with my person unless my actions impact the liberty of another person.
Just look around, and you'll see that it's not nonsense.
Are you saying that "Love your neighbor" should be a law? Do I really need to be forced by government to love my neighbor, or just not do anything that interferes with his rights, without his consent? Are you going to confiscate ten percent of my earnings and give it to the church? When are the mass baptisms at the point of a gun scheduled?
You may say that Christianity is the part of America's common law, and you may find quotes of founding fathers to support that. Why, then, were some Christian rules made laws, while others weren't? Could it be that some rules, some morality, should not be forced, but are a personal decision?
While the literal definition of a theocracy may be a government beholden to the priests, if the rules of Christianity are the law, administered by whatever legal means, is their really a difference?
I like the Libertarians' view on some things. Too bad they lean waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too far left for me.
What is it with you libertarians? You all think we should be ruled by "philosopher kings" who just "reason" up the law as they go along. Why do you want us to be ruled by elites?
Libertarians are like Marxists in that they think that only their philosophical school has the capacity to reason and they have all the answers. If only the people would see the wisdom of voting Libertarian, then America would be a utopia with no need of government at all. The only difference between this childish fantasy and Marxism are that they're different roads to achieve the same impossible goal.
A sinner or immoral person does not impact my liberty unless they engage in sins or immoral actions that impact my rights. Want to engage in orgies? Fine, do it on your own property and out of sight of non-participants. Want to worship a golden calf? Fine, but don't expect me to pay for it.
What the state should do is much more limited than what religious morality requires you to do. The only proper role of the state is to punish or ban behavior that harms the person or property of a nonconsenting party.
Only radical libertarians and anarchists call for an end to the state. The vast majority of people with libertarian leanings only want to severely limit what the state is allowed to do.
You, on the other hand, love Big Government as much as Hillary Clinton. You just want to use Big Government for your own ends.
I don't.
But what I want to know is why you want us to be ruled by the churches (your flavor only, of course). At least that's what your side in these debates always seem to espouse.
tnlibertarian said it well. When are the gunpoint baptisms starting? Or is that not what you want? If not, then what?
LQ
Thou shalt have no other gods before me
It's not illegal to worship any god other then the Christian god.
Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me. And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments
It is not illegal to make idols and worship them.
Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain; for the LORD will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.
It is not illegal to commit blasphemy.
Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.
It is not illegal to ignore the sabbath.
Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee.
It not not illegal to dishonor your father or mother.
Thou shalt not kill(or murder depending on translation)
Murder is illegal
Thou shalt not commit adultery
This has been both legal and illegal in our history. It is currently legal but may face civil penalty.
Thou shalt not steal
This is illegal.
Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor
Perjury is illegal as is slander.
Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour's
Not illegal
For the being the foundation of our legal system we sure seem to be missing a lot of the basics from Christianity. Of government was created, based on reason, to protect out rights. Those things that are illegal are those things which abridge our rights. It is no coincidence that the commandments that share an analog in our legal system are also those that infringe on rights.
Man's laws just can't contradict God's law. So for example if we made a laws that said, "no one can prevent a woman from killing her unborn baby," or "same-sex sodomites have a right to marry each other" then these laws would be found unGodstitutional and struck down.
ROFLMAO!!! I thought the words I made up were out there but that one is just cracking me up....
LQ
You love dope pushers, pimps, and the gay agenda as much as Hillary.
Why is it that when I listen to the Christian Conservatives I get the impression that activist judges are a problem only if they are from the left. What ever happened to strict constructionism. Common law? We have a WRITTEN constitution.
You guys are hysterical. Ashcroft is out of office you know, he's not snooping on your library lists anymore.
Hmmm... Okay:
Thou shalt have no other gods before me
And yet, in our society, people are legally allowed to worship Ba'al, Mithras or Odin.
Is a law that distinctly goes against God's law by allowing the worship of other Gods therefore "unGodstitutional?"
If we did away with the laws against gambling, for instance, would that be okay? There would be no laws concerning gambling at all, therefore there would be no law against God's law.
Let's see: Hillary is a big supporter of the drug war and is also opposed to the legalization of prostitution. After all, liberals of all stripes love to use government to control what consenting adults do with their bodies. So, you and Hil should get along smashingly.
As for the gay agenda, well, I'm opposed to gay marriage but I am also opposed to sodomy laws.
Nice try, though. Everyone who reads your posts knows that you worship Big Government over any other gods.
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