It’s not a fair point at all. You seem to be confusing “free will” with “no consequences”. Freedom doesn’t mean you can do whatever the heck you want and nothing bad ever comes of it. Perhaps that’s something we’ll all remember over the next four years.

Jimmie on November 6, 2008 at 9:52 PM

Modernists do not beleive in conditional love. Look at the financial bailout – do wrong, no penalty. The beauty of life is the fact that it is an adventure. It would be no fun or adventure if you placed a wager on a sporting event and did not receive a reward for winning it – or paying off if losing. Don’t worry, there will be a final payout or reward and it will be eternal. If anything, that is what Christianity brings to the table. This age ignores that at its own peril.

Liberty has been denigrated by the leftist
majority in public education and universities
as well as the chattering classes. American
history has been taught as something shameful.
Individualism is described in negative terms
such as “cowboy mentality” (the rugged gumption
that built this nation) while the group mentality
of socialism is praised and inculcated in our
children from kindergarten on.

As a result, there is a large part of the
electorate that is willing to give up what
they’ve been taught is worthless or selfish,
i.e. individual liberty for community
responsibility. One group wants to be looked
after and another group, mostly white liberals
see themselves as benevolent nannies. The
first is afraid of individual liberty which
brings with it hard work and responsibility
and the nanny despises liberty for making it
harder to herd people into the narrow and rigid
channels of allowable thought (political
correctness).

Liberty needs to be resold and made attractive.
Buford’s idea of empowering the electorate by
believing and acting as a servant of the people
instead of their boss deserves attention.

That’s why I think it’s foolish for us to waste our time concerning government with things like gay marriage if religious ideals are the inspiration for such concern. Sure, the majority of Americans believe the institution should be restricted to one man and one woman, but most of their beliefs are rooted in their faith. A majority opinion does not make an issue politically just, and a political opinion defended by religion but not reason is invalid.

With that said, I think it’s a fair point to remind the Christians that their God may say he offers free will, but in the next breath he warns you of the eternal punishment you’ll suffer if you violate his rules. That’s like saying we’re free to refuse to pay our taxes in the USA. Sure, we can avoid paying the IRS, but if they catch us they’ll throw us in jail for it!

Sign of the Dollar on November 6, 2008 at 3:56 PM

It’s not a fair point at all. You seem to be confusing “free will” with “no consequences”. Freedom doesn’t mean you can do whatever the heck you want and nothing bad ever comes of it. Perhaps that’s something we’ll all remember over the next four years.

Funny. So I guess you are saying the founding fathers were stupid, insipid ignorant men, because their religious feeling ran as deep as their education.

You are the ignorant one. You can’t even boast the sort of education those incredible men had. There is nothing you have to give the nation. Go join the democrats.

Policies are important, but they should fit the values and principles of a party dedicated to individual liberty, and not the other way around.

THIS ^^^ is the basic principle that should guide the Conservative movement and the Republican Party. Individual liberty and responsibility is a concept that ce the umbrella for policies of limited government, low taxes for only those things that Government must necessairly do.

At its heart, yes, this is what libertariansim is all about. Unfortunately, it too has become cluttered with dialtone IQs squabbling over minutia, to the point where many regard libertarianism as some quirky dorky group like the Peoples’ Front of Judea.

LimeyGeek on November 6, 2008 at 4:38 PM

+1

And, in the hands of the Left, “liberty” becomes “anything goes.”

Republicans cannot run on “liberty” — most of us believe that government/society does have a role in regulating certain behaviors. The libertarians who are voting Dem are attracted to the “keep your laws off my body” mindset. Regular folks won’t understand what Republicans mean by “liberty.”

I think the party should run on some variant of “achievement” (aka the “American Dream”). The Joe Wurzelbacher story resonated because he was striving to achieve more (and didn’t want the government to take it away). Libs don’t “get it” because they think he should be know his place and be satisfied with government handouts. Sarah Palin is Reaganesque (obviously not Reagan) because of her optimism and belief in the potential of the individual.

JDPerren on November 6, 2008 at 7:01 PM

I agree 100%. I remember a quote that summarizes the road ahead: ‘We shall do battle with his errors or bring a cure to his ignorance’ With the schools in the shape they are, it is going to be a long hard slog or a very painful cure (in terms of a deep and prolonged depression). If you do not beleive in prayer, I beg you to re-consider.

Liberty is a nice idea. The trouble is when people get too much of it, like when banks lose all controls and take the economy down right before a crucial election. indythinker on November 6, 2008 at 3:05 PM

How exactly do you envision that banks have too much liberty? FDIC, Federal Reserve, SEC, OFHEO, SPIC, FSLIC, etc., etc, etc. Banks can’t scratch their nose without some government edict making sure no one gets a nosebleed.

The problem was the fallout was socialized. That’s not liberty, that’s Fascism. The cause was too little liberty.

Study economics. Read Hazlitt’s Economics in One Lesson. Read Sowell’s Basic Economics. Read Rand’s Capitalism, The Unknown Ideal. Study the history of the Great Depression. Learn how the free market actually works and what happens when government interferes beyond the protections against fraud and theft. Don’t lay the blame at the doorstep of business when it was the government who caused the problem.

You’re such a ridiculous tool. There are few, if any, demographic groups more zealously protective of individual liberty than religious voters.

God and liberty are incapatible, because religion is fundamentally about subjugation to authority.

Enrique on November 6, 2008 at 3:01 PM

Religion is indeed about subjugation; i.e. Islam, Hiduism, et al. You shouldn’t confuse religion with Christ-centered faith and a personal relationship with THE Christ, nor should you make the mistake of confusing liberty with license.

Buford on November 6, 2008 at 4:15 PM

Excellent post

With that said, I think it’s a fair point to remind the Christians that their God may say he offers free will, but in the next breath he warns you of the eternal punishment you’ll suffer if you violate his rules. That’s like saying we’re free to refuse to pay our taxes in the USA. Sure, we can avoid paying the IRS, but if they catch us they’ll throw us in jail for it!

Sign of the Dollar on November 6, 2008 at 3:56 PM
Free will is about the choice. Choose rightly and be rewarded, choose wrongly and be punished. All actions have consequences, we are simply allowed to choose them… and in this case we even have the added benefit of KNOWING IN ADVANCE what the result of our choices will be, there’s no mystery or anxious waiting.

*eats*

Grue in the Attic on November 6, 2008 at 4:06 PM

But…. If the choice were really free, he wouldn’t tell you that the consequences for choosing differently than he wants you to are absolute

Anyway, political platforms must be separate from religious doctrine because – as Christ himself purportedly believed – they answer to different authorities.

Some of the freedoms already established in the US Constitution – if exercised fully (using your freedom of speech to blaspheme God, for example) would conflict with laws of plenty of popular religions.

To be successful, we have to be inclusive. I don’t mean superficially inclusive, like the Democrats, who seek to pigeonhole and bribe ethnic and cultural groups. Valuing freedom from excessive taxation and government regulation, protection from external threats and the preservation of the Constitution is inclusive of all Americans who are of any value in the first place.

Wealth redistribution is in violation of economic liberty.

The fairness doctrine is in fundamental violation of intellectual liberty. That should be our only statement on any plans to revise that plan. How does it look when dinosaur deniers

The war against terrorism is a struggle for all liberty. If defeated, we would lose all of our liberties.

It is in this hour that the Republican party must establish itself as the vanguards of liberty.

Thank you so much for posting this. That is all I have to say.

Kamikaze on November 6, 2008 at 4:33 PM

+1

I was frustrated by the questions at the debates.

My question would have been, “Describe 5 ways you would expand my freedom.”

Instead, the questions were mostly (paraphrased), “What will you give me, Santa Claus?”
__________

Our citizens don’t deserve a reprieve, and I’m sad to think that I will live to see our great country fall.

McCain also said he would balance the budget in the first year. That should have made your milk shoot out of your nose.

I think you have a fundamental lack of understanding of the American theory of natural rights. We have individual liberty in this country because our freedom pre-exists and transcends the state. When we say that “all men are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights,” that means that our rights cannot be violated by the state because they come from a higher authority. It doesn’t matter whether that’s the Christian God or not. Our rights do not devolve from the State. We answer for ourselves to our own God and to no man. It is because our rights come from God and not our government that we have more individual liberties than any other country on earth.

How about Liberty Overground? (to contrast with the vile Democratic Underground folk)

Less on November 6, 2008 at 3:05 PM

I’m game.

he was shunned as a crank, remember?

Dunno how I messed that up….