[JME_FAN]

The only thing you libertarian clowns ensure is that we get more socialism.

A serious examination of libertarian principles reveals a doctrine that is essentially the same in its practical results as is liberalism - total moral chaos.

Libertarians have no problem with abortion, or same-sex marriage, or prostitution, or drug use, or any other of the societal failings that corrupt a culture - and send it into swift decline because of an institutionalized indifference to moral rot.

For all practical purposes, the libertarian viewpoint is no different than the utopian imaginings of liberals, that a nation can self govern without moral restraints.

The best quote I may ever use is that from Sir Edmund Burke, attributed to his Letter to a Member of the National Assembly, in 1791. See: The Works of the Right Honorable Edmund Burke, vol. 4, pp. 51–52 (1899):

“Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon their own appetites,—in proportion as their love to justice is above their rapacity,—in proportion as their soundness and sobriety of understanding is above their vanity and presumption,—in proportion as they are more disposed to listen to the counsels of the wise and good, in preference to the flattery of knaves. Society cannot exist, unless a controlling power upon will and appetite be placed somewhere; and the less of it there is within, the more there must be without. It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things, that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters.”

[ek_hornbeck]

“Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon their own appetites,—in proportion as their love to justice is above their rapacity,—in proportion as their soundness and sobriety of understanding is above their vanity and presumption,—in proportion as they are more disposed to listen to the counsels of the wise and good, in preference to the flattery of knaves. Society cannot exist, unless a controlling power upon will and appetite be placed somewhere; and the less of it there is within, the more there must be without. It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things, that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters.”

I agree. A nearly libertarian society is workable in a culturally homogeneous society composed of mostly competent and responsible people - the best example of such a society being the late 18th and early 19th Century United States. Libertarian ideals are a disaster elsewhere, which is why all of these crusades for "Democracy" around the world are misguided and destined for failure. Some societies aren't ready for any form of liberty and are better off under authoritarian governments who can keep the peace.