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What say you?
Hey, CL!
I'm late. Very, very late. But Happy Acres wanted a reply:
http://washingtonrebel.typepad.com/washington_rebel/2010/04/manoamano.html
[...] first I found through The Classic Liberal’s blog, who btw, has another followup piece to the Conservative/Libertarian [...]
[...] The CL has more Libertarians and Conservatives [...]
I can't buy this argument.
The very essence of the difference between libertarians and conservatives is the basis of morality. (No, I'm not going to use words like epistemology because I feel they obfuscate more than they add meaning.)
To a conservative, morality comes from God. Thus the Ten Commandments (or their equivalent in other religions, but those will do for the US at present) are above all and beyond questioning, and if a particular conservative interprets them as (for instance) prohibiting homosexuality then he sees no reason the law should not prohibit it.
But to a libertarian, morality comes from the objective principle that we are all thinking beings, with equal rights, and "your right to swing your fist ends where my nose begins." In other words, the only valid limits on one person's rights are those implied by another person's rights, and the law must permit any action that does not violate another person's rights no matter how much it may offend religious people.
Some people try to conflate these two foundations, or to read scripture in such a way that Christ was a libertarian, but I find that question irrelevant.
The bottom line is that a religious person can be a libertarian ONLY if he's willing to accept that neither the state, nor anybody else using force, has the right to try to enforce religious laws upon non-believers merely because he believes in the religion of which they're part. However strong his faith, he must accept that punishing people for disobeying it (when no other person's rights have been violated) is God's place -- not his own (at least not by force), and certainly not government's.
I would like to see a ban on religious teachings that urge anyone to violate this principle. Islam does so routinely, but is far from the only offender.
That's not true. Libertarianism is a political philosophy. It is neither a lifestyle or moral code to live by. Yet the libertarian plumbline - the non-aggression axiom - does encompass both our alienable rights and Christ's golden rule.
See here:
Conservative, Libertarian, Culture and Fusionism
Yes. But wouldn't desire to ban anyone's speech.
I've never heard of any Christian in America, trying to enforce "no other gods before me" or "remember the sabbath" through the force of law. Break the others, murder, theft, etc. and you're still a criminal no matter how you look at it.