If it is hypocritical (and it is) to insist that the government belongs in the workplace but not in the bedroom, is it not equally hypocritical to insist that the government belongs in the bedroom but not the workplace? The government belongs in both, when and where someone's rights are being violated. The government belongs in a workplace where the boss whips workers if they slow down and won't let them quit or leave. The government belongs in a bedroom if the people in that bedroom are a pedophile and an 8 year old kid.
The question is not whether the government "belongs" in this or that place but what sort of things fall under its purview. The answer was given by our Founding Fathers: governments are instituted among men to secure certain inalienable rights. Thus, governments "belong" when and where those rights are being violated - which can happen in any "place".
If it is hypocritical to advocate the Bible's "social justice" concerns while opposing its sexual restrictions,
It's not hypocritical to advocate the Bible's "social justice" concerns (by which I assume you mean, advocating forced socialism by government) while preaching free love in the first place, because (most of) the people who preach socialism do not get their socialism from the Bible.
And those who do, are misreading the Bible.
is not the opposite position equally indefensible?
If there are people who advocate stoning adulteresses because it's in the Bible but do not advocate kicking people out of voluntary communes for hoarding property, then yes I suppose they're hypocritical, but this has little bearing on any modern political debates actually taking place in the U.S.
This means that conservatives have come to reflexively endorse the opposite of the liberal position, whatever it is.
I'd say, rather, that those we call "liberals" (who are not actually very liberal) have come to reflexively oppose "conservative" position (which is often, as well, the liberal position). In short, those we call "liberals" are the conservatives in our society.
For example, because liberals hypocritically war against smoking (of tobacco, not marijuana), conservatives (many of whom come from religious traditions that have condemned tobacco long before any liberal ever did) have come to reflexively defend "the right to smoke" (tobacco, not marijuana) even though they may find it "personally repulsive"
I don't know which conservatives you speak of here. All I can say is this does not describe me. I defend the right to smoke not because "liberals" war against it (see what a misnomer "liberal" really is in most contexts?).
Also, I tend to favor legalization of marijuana....
And because liberals have become advocates of statism, conservatives have come to think of libertarianism as the very essence of their identity.
I don't think so. Conservatives rallied around the Iraq war. (In fact, nowadays in most debates "conservative" tends to mean "supported the Iraq war" while "liberal" means "opposed the Iraq war" :)
Many if not most libertarians were opposed to it.
It is true enough that conservatism has a deep libertarian, or classical liberal, strain. That is because what conservatives want to conserve, naturally enough, is the American tradition - which is very classically liberal!
But if atheism is ridiculous as a basis for statism . . . what kind of bedrock does religion serve for libertarianism and laissez faire?
A pretty good one, if you believe in a religion that values free will and mutual respect and the essential nobility of all individuals....
Americans thing of "the state" as a contract among sovereign individuals (even though no one has ever signed this contract or been given the option to defer from signing it).
The "Founding Fathers" signed it in the late 1780s-early 1790s. We were born into it as a sort of privilege of birthright. If you find it repellent there is always the option of emigration....
But in earlier times the state was G-d's agent for enforcing Divine Law.
Yes and the U.S. was founded in direct rebuke to that concept.
Unfortunately, the traditional American concept of the state has basically destroyed the correct understanding of man's evil nature.
If that's true it would be very depressing, because the U.S. was founded on a greater assumption of man's evil nature than certain other countries one could name... think of the French Revolution or USSR with their notions of the perfectibility of man..
If the state is a mere contract among sovereign individuals rather than G-d's agent in enforcing His laws, then what is that agent?
conscience?
The problem is, in order for private man (individually or societally) to be the proper and sufficient enforcer of Divine Law, man would have to have an inherently good nature.
I guess Christianity is self-refuting then. Christians believe in original sin, Christians believe that God redeemed man, that by faith man can come to know God and overcome separation from God, and this is what God wants. You're saying that's all impossible I take it.
His instincts would have to be an infallible guide to G-d's law.
This is like saying that in order for vision to be useful in marksmanship, vision has to be an infallible guide to the exterior world, and since nobody's vision is perfect, marksmanship is impossible.
Yet people do come close don't they!
I think it's good enough if man's instincts are usually more right than wrong and if he is open to self-criticism and change.
Yet ironically, many people whose theology has the lowest opinion of human nature (such as Calvinists) are today the loudest defenders of the sufficiency of the private sphere as the sufficient guardian or morality.
For above reasons - I don't find that ironic.
By the way, this "sufficiency" concept is somewhat of a straw man. I doubt Calvinists or anyone else goes around saying that "the private sphere is a sufficient guardian of morality". One can agree that the private sphere sucks at "guarding" morality but still think that relying on the government would be far worse...
What kind of religious believer believes in such an exaggerated notion of individual autonomy and human goodness?
Nobody believes in "human goodness", that's a straw man (see above). As for who believes in individual autonomy - Protestants, generally speaking... and the Deists such as those who formed our country... etc.
If the state is so inherently evil and man so inherently good, why not abolish it altogether?
I have no idea what you're talking about. I do not see either "the state is inherently evil" or "man is inherently good" as informing American tradition to any significant extent.
And it isn't just the left. It's the right. It's people who believe in G-d who don't think there should be any laws, or at least that morality ceases to apply outside the bedroom.
And who are these people?
Morality doesn't come from our instincts. It comes from an objective G-d Who exists outside and apart from all of us.
Okay. And where do we go from there? I don't see any ramifications of this observation for government, necessarily. Suppose I agree that the objective God has objectively decided that e.g. adultery is immoral. That's a separate question from whether it ought to be criminalized.
Is it really treason, is it really madness, to suggest that maybe both sides have gotten things backwards?
Madness, perhaps (because I have no idea what you're talking about by this point). ;-)
If we're going to be against all "statism" and all "government interference" and all "social engineering," mustn't we also eventually defend ourselves from the claims of G-d?
-What pray tell are the "claims of God"?
-Who (besides Ayn Rand) exactly is against "all" statism, etc.?
Is not G-d, the Creator of all that is, the Ultimate (and the only truly legitimate) Social Engineer?
Perhaps, but if so he certainly doesn't work through something as trivial and banal as government. Sacrificing his Son was, perhaps, indeed a sublime exercise in Social Engineering. That is the type of Social Engineering he seems to engage in; and notice, He works on a scale of thousands of years rather than five year plans. And his area of interest is the human soul rather than political economy.
Assuming God exists, I doubt very much if He concerns Himself with our marginal tax rates.
If G-d is the Master of the Universe then He must be acknowledged both individually and corporately, and the state and its laws must derive from Him and not from either groundless social engineering or from ethno-cultural holdovers that may or may not be correct.
Why?
Let me raise one point that may be germane to this claim of yours: Religion flourishes in the laissez-faire United States. Religion is dying in the Officially-Catholic country of, say, France.
Do you think there may be a correlation here? What if having a government "derive from" religion, kills religion? Would God want that?
Maybe government as an institution simply isn't suited to "enforce God's law" any more than Wal-mart or Radio Shack as an institution would be suited to enforce God's law. Should the constitution and makeup of Radio Shack "derive from" God? If not why not (after all, G-d is the Master of the Universe and He must be acknowledged both individually and corporately, right)?
But unfortunately American ideology was flawed in its very conception by Lockean "contract" philosophy.
You say unfortunately, I say fortunately... tomayto, tomahto...
In fact, Halakhically it is quite difficult to prosecute someone for a sin, especially a capital offense.
I'll have to take your word for it. (Halakhically = ?)
But even though the laws are not "enforceable," it is nevertheless society's (the state's) obligation to have those laws.
Having unenforceable laws is highly damaging to the Rule of Law, and thus to civil society and the social fabric.
So, uh, I disagree.
I am merely advocating replacing the secular state with its myriad human laws with a state whose laws come from G-d
Good luck with that. Not here, though. See: Amendment #1.
I fear that the conventional "conservative" alternative--a minimalist "watchtower state"--cuts the ground completely from under us in our arguments against secularist social engineering.
So you would replace it with your theocratic social engineering.
I suggest that what we need is a philosophical realignment in which believers advocate the the governmental "regulartion" that G-d intended (and no other!) and secularist believers in utter meaninglessness become libertarians who believe in live-and-let-live.
There's a huge false dichotomy here (one either believes in "regulation that God intended" or believes in "utter meaningless"? Talk about your excluded middles..). But hey, go right ahead, give it your best shot: make your attempt at this realignment, by forming the "Believers In God's Regulations" Party, or whatever you want to call it, and see how many votes you get.
If your views are close to a plurality then it could indeed cause a realignment in our politics. I wouldn't bet on it however.
Fundamentalist Protestants have come to believe that man's fallen nature makes "big government" a bad thing (since government is run, after all, by fallen people) but that somehow human nature in the absence of the government isn't quite so fallen after all.
I think I've already told you this is a straw man but it bears repeating. Human nature is fallen, we agree even though you don't think so. But that doesn't support the rest of your arguments like you seem to think it does.
As a result they have tended to internalize alien concepts and spend more time fighting for "small government" than they do for their own moral and religious beliefs.
Does it occur to you that to many conservatives, our moral and religious beliefs do not extend much into the arena of government, but are focused elsewhere?
It's a shame that in order to fend off abominations that could lead to Divine punishment I have to vote for people who have become convinced that some form of relief (even government relief) by [sic] people who have no alternative is basically indistinguishable from G-dless Communism.
For what it's worth, I too disagree with the idea that a safety net is "basically indistinguishable from G-dless Communism". But I don't think that that's what most conservatives think in the first place.
As long as this remains so, I shall "vote against my own economic best interest" until I die, as I have done all my life.
This reference is lost on me. What makes you think that you are voting against your own economic best interest?
PS: I just hope that when I log back on on sunday morning I haven't been kicked off this libertarian forum!
Funny, I thought it was a conservative forum.
Your comic book is funny, too, pageonetoo....My dad was career navy, for 20 yrs. He then became employed at various colleges and universities, as a physical plant engineer/ construction foreman. After his second twenty year career, he was ordained as an Episcopal priest... he is now 82, and still serving God...
I was baptized as a baby, into the Episcopal Church. My grandfather was an Episcopal priest, as were 3 of his 4 brothers. I was conirmed, into the faith, at age 13, by the Bishop. At age 17, I was president of our local Episcopal Youth group
I was "saved", into a charismatic fellowship, back in the 70's, and sort of gravitated to the Assemblys of God, then Southern Baptist.
I had spent time at a bible college, and enjoy scripture. I believe God has provided every anser within His Word. After their teacher of 40 years died, I was asked to teach the "graduating class", at the Baptist Church. They were a fun group, and had me elected a deacon. The qualification for membership was age 65, except for their young teacher. That experience had me delving more into the Word, than my college days. They never let me make an error in quotation. Believe me, there is no better knowledge of Scripture available, than the old ladies class at a Baptist Church... We always had a good conversation, and discussion, until I moved from the area. It was a highlight !
My predecessor, Howard, had never missed sunday school. He died at age 60, and had an attendance pen, for every year. If he was sick, and unable to attend, during all those years, his teacher would bring the lesson to him, and teach it. If traveling, he would stop on sunday morning, wherever there was a Baptist church, and attend, to keep the string going... His shoes had been tough to fill, and I will never goet an attendance pin, but I trust God, for my future salvation.
Howards's dead, and gone to his reward. I wonder sometimes, if he did get any extra benfits, in heaven!
I thank my folks for a moral, Christian upbringing. I screwed up more than once, but always came back to the roots.
Faith, in God, is the only strength for any situation, good or bad...
If you think you have had a bad day, ponder our brother, Job... I look to him as a knowing friend!
That is a good point, But I think that most on the right intrinsically understand the relationship between rights and responsibilities. Whereas the left doesn't see things that way.
I don't buy the old argument about tobacco and marijuana though. If you want to make that argument at least compare alcohol and marijuana.