No, the question is, if I choose a lifestyle YOU and your science find useless and pointless, do I still have the right to exist?

beselfish on September 10, 2012 at 4:23 PM

No, the question is should your lifestyle have a government imprimatur? No one says you can’t be gay. On the other hand no one says the government has to support you in being gay. Or to force others into accepting your lifestyle and paying for it. There’s nothing that says government MUST support every and all lifestyles. The government only has to ensure that society continues.
And why the hostility to science? There’s nothing wrong with letting science inform public policy. Our founding documents are informed by Natural Law! In this situation science and religion are on the same side. Whoda thunk it?

It is possible to fight vehemently for concervative values but without demanding government programs to help you do so. It seems some social concervatives can not even conceptualize this for some reason.

Resolute on September 10, 2012 at 2:03 PM

We have the welfare state fighting against conservative values every day. So long as it continues we will never reverse the progressive slide.

We oppose gay “marriage” again not only because of its moral pitfalls, but for the dead-end nature of the relationship as no offspring arise, not to mention the monetary costs due to higher medical costs and shortened life expectancy. I keep saying that if the gay lifestyle was treated like a simple health issue like cigarettes, it would be banned.

So… two men can’t pay surrogate moms to have their kids? Lesbians can’t be artificially inseminated? And how do you go about enforcing a ban on homosexuality? As for the comparison to cigarettes, no one catches “secondhand gay” from a gay person.

These issues are more than just moral issues, there is a negative economic costs associated with them, and drug abuse too come to think of it. So the argument that “Leave me alone, I’m not hurting anyone” isn’t really true when you factor in the cost to society. Look at the costs to society because of the disintegration of the black family.

Detail-oriented solutions would work best here. Why is it costing society? Is the cause the lack of incentive to get off welfare? The cost to incarcerate drug offenders vs. the cost to rehabilitate those who can’t handle their habit? There’s lots and lots of people who are productive members of society AND use illicit substances in careful moderation, ya know.

The question isn’t whether or not gay or single parents have good outcomes. The question is what is best for society? What policies will bring the most good to the most people? The values and policies of So-Cons work. They’ve been proven and time tested. Society benefits when they’re followed. We know this. Its time to stand up and defend them.

You can promote your socially conservative lifestyles without banning the lifestyles you don’t agree with. Having to conform to one kind of family unit, or banning stuff that can be easily controlled or moderated, doesn’t sound a lot like “individual liberty” to me.

No, the question is, if I choose a lifestyle YOU and your science find useless and pointless, do I still have the right to exist?

beselfish on September 10, 2012 at 4:23 PM

Sure, you have the right to exist.

You don’t, however, have the right to force everyone else to approve of your lifestyle.

Iblis on September 10, 2012 at 12:51 PM

I agree the results of the science is not about one’s rights. YOU are the one conflating. You want to say that as a result of the science, public policy should therefore follow accordingly. It’s in your very next paragraph!

Politics is about the direction society is to take. It makes sense that if you want society to continue you adopt those policies most likely to have the best outcomes for society in general.

The question is what is best for society?

No, the question is, if I choose a lifestyle YOU and your science find useless and pointless, do I still have the right to exist?

Another thought has come to me. If Rand Paul thinks Libertarianism is so awesome, why is he a member of the GOP? Why not join the Libertarian party and promote it?

Conservative Samizdat on September 10, 2012 at 3:19 PM

I’ll make a guess: It’s because the capital-L Libertarians in most places have no ground game to speak of. I’ve watched them since the 1980s, shaking my head all the time, because all they seem to want is the big win — the Presidency. They seem to think that if they can just focus all their efforts, they can elect a Libertarian President, and then he’ll be able to fix everything.

But that’s magical thinking. How could a hypothetical Libertarian President fix everything without any Libertarians in Congress? With executive orders? We deplore that in Obama, and it would be equally unconstitutional no matter who the President was.

No. While I admire small-l libertarian principles, I don’t have much respect for the capital-L Libertarian Party. They remind me of my ex-brother-in-law: They want the big corner office without having to work their way up through the ranks.

If Libertarians really want to make headway in changing the politics of this country, they need to start with the smallest offices. IMHO, most of the damage to society starts at the local level. Homeowner’s Associations, neighborhood councils, town councils, city and county offices — those are the real cradles of oppression.

Those small, even petty offices are where our leftie friends get their start. That’s where they learn that (1) being a busybody pays handsomely and (2) the sweet, sweet feeling of wielding power over your neighbors just because they can is better than crack, better than s*x, better than Heaven, better than anything. And that is the arena where we have to fight them. Do that successfully, and higher offices will follow.

I think Rand Paul knows he has ready-made loyalty from his dad’s supporters, and he wants to mainstream them into the Republican party for his own political ambitions. I’m with you.

INC on September 10, 2012 at 1:19 AM

If Rand Paul is such a fan of Libertarianism, why doesn’t he champion the Libertarian party rather than trying to mainstream libertarians into the GOP?

In the market place of ideas, Rand and Ron Paul aren’t even trying to convince people to join their party. They have to invade the GOP party to remake it into another Libertarian party. If that happens, the GOP will be irrelevant third party as just as the Libertarian party is.

Progressives used to belong to the communist party. They’ve infiltrated the Democratic party. Lets not allow Libertarians to infiltrate the GOP and corrupt it.

1)concervative libertarian
2)convervative interventionists
3)liberal libertarian
4)liberal interventionists

It is possible to fight vehemently for concervative values but without demanding government programs to help you do so. It seems some social concervatives can not even conceptualize this for some reason.

The right to your own life is irrefutable. The right to “issue-free” parenting and upbringing does not exist.
beselfish on September 10, 2012 at 8:18 AM

I never said you had a right to a issue free upbringing (if only). You’re conflating rights and results to obfuscate the argument because you lost. I wrote and science proves that the best outcomes come from what we now call “traditional” relationships. That’s not about your rights that’s just simple results.

Politics is about the direction society is to take. It makes sense that if you want society to continue you adopt those policies most likely to have the best outcomes for society in general. See this is where the extreme individualism of libertarians clashes with the ideas of a societal good. We’re not all hermits (again if only).

Conservatives oppose abortion not only because it is morally abhorrent, but because it denies the future. We oppose gay “marriage” again not only because of its moral pitfalls, but for the dead-end nature of the relationship as no offspring arise, not to mention the monetary costs due to higher medical costs and shortened life expectancy. I keep saying that if the gay lifestyle was treated like a simple health issue like cigarettes, it would be banned.
These issues are more than just moral issues, there is a negative economic costs associated with them, and drug abuse too come to think of it. So the argument that “Leave me alone, I’m not hurting anyone” isn’t really true when you factor in the cost to society. Look at the costs to society because of the disintegration of the black family.
The question isn’t whether or not gay or single parents have good outcomes. The question is what is best for society? What policies will bring the most good to the most people? The values and policies of So-Cons work. They’ve been proven and time tested. Society benefits when they’re followed. We know this. Its time to stand up and defend them.

Tossing the So-cons is a positive thing because the fundamental principles that support their fiscal conservatism are at odds with their edicts on issues like gay marriage and abortion.

beselfish on September 10, 2012 at 8:18 AM

Liberals and libertarians push this meme all the time.

It’s a lie.

The fact is, it’s the strong social conservatives in congress who are also the strongest fiscal conservatives. It’s the squishy “moderate” RINOs who are liberal on social issues, who are the first to cave in to the democrats on spending.

So too is Romney as the standard bearer of the Republican, the once conservative now preservative, party.

astonerii on September 9, 2012 at 10:14 PM

You make my argument for me. The fact that Romney is the GOP nominee is precisely, and ONLY, because the social liberals, including the libertarians, within the Republican party refuse to tolerate a nominee with bedrock convictions. Romney is a decent man with respectable values in a number of ways, I will not trash him as a human being. But he is not in the slightest an originalist regarding Constitutional law, he has never in his political life taken a firm stand on hardline social issues (until he determined that the shifting winds favored those positions), and I believe that he will disappoint often regarding issues that seem small, but are in fact hugely important to this nation’s well-being. And I’m not referring to legalizing dope.

However, the disappointments we can expect from Romney aren’t even in the same zipcode as the anti-constitutional, tyrannical, despotic actions of a second Obama term. For one such as you to argue so, wipes any credibility you could hope to have with any audience possessed of common sense.

Actual libertarian parties exist in those states, and they can’t even get a state rep elected, forget about national elections.

Rebar on September 9, 2012 at 10:41 PM

You are so right. There maybe 15% Libertarians out there. Good luck winning elections.

They see the 10 commandments, thou shalt not murder, thou shalt not steal, all very sensible. Then why are they commandments? These are honest hardworking people that when confronted with seemingly sensible commandments which are nothing more than edicts, they forget about their quest for a rational approach to living.

beselfish on September 10, 2012 at 9:34 AM

Some of those commandments have been subject to debate, which may be part of the problem. Some think adultery is just sleeping around while married (which I believe), others believe it’s ANY type of sexual activity other than between two people married to each other. The “graven images” commandment… is it wrong to make the images, or can you make them and just not worship the objects themselves (instead of what they represent)? Everything’s up for debate, and will always be up for debate, as long as we’re under the protection of the First Amendment.

I think the vast majority of us ARE on that quest for a rational approach to living, and I would feel it best to take on the “live and let live” approach. Protect life, liberty and property, and as long as you respect those three in regards to other people, do as you see fit.

Libertarian thought has nothing to do, and wants nothing to do with religion, major rhetoric fail. Also, getting government out of the marriage business abandons nothing and allows churches to discriminate as they see fit while allowing the degenerates to do their thing in whatever “sacred” ceremony will accept them. Win-win my good man.

I agree. In California my wife and I were only legally married when we signed the paperwork at the City Hall, not the ceremony we had for our family and faith. So at least in CA, what the state recognizes is the legal contract of marriage, not the ceremony. I don’t see how allowing 1% of the population access to the legal contract process is a threat to traditional marriage, and if that’s permitted, then the State has no power to force a church and congregation to marry anybody they don’t want to.

So in CA, what Paul is saying makes total sense. The state is just too generally socially liberal for a “traditional” Republican to win across much of it, but many people want an alternative to the crazy spending/union-controlled Democrats, but since they are hung up on emotional social issues they can’t bring themselves to vote GOP despite acknowledging how screwed up the state is and how tired they are of being pushed around by the public employee unions.

By the way, if Nature’s God doesn’t exist, upon what authority do we place our rights–power, man, government, astronomy, evolution (from what to what?) Who or what decides that?

Don L on September 10, 2012 at 8:14 AM

Our rights do not follow from any authority. They follow from the nature of man and the facts of reality in which he lives.

I do believe that many religious people (even zealots) are interested in a rational approach to living, hence the question from Don L. But, as so often happens with many big mistakes, in their search they drop context. They see the 10 commandments, thou shalt not murder, thou shalt not steal, all very sensible. Then why are they commandments? These are honest hardworking people that when confronted with seemingly sensible commandments which are nothing more than edicts, they forget about their quest for a rational approach to living.

Did they get lazy? maybe. But, if more religious people were seriously interested in the answer I offered to Don L. at top of this post, it’d be easier to explain the futility of the So-cons crusade.

Faith in God is not obsession. Atheists believe that rocks came from nothing and then turned into people. I think atheists have more faith than I do.

Mojave Mark on September 10, 2012 at 7:23 AM

Since we know that matter and energy cannot be created or destroyed only transformed, the more likely scenario is that existents (i.e. “things” for those in Rio Vista) have always existed. Therefore rendering your “rock-from-nothing” retort as more arbitrary pap meant to inflame rather than explain.

But, then again, immersed in faith as you evidently are, one should not be surprised at your indifference to explanation.

I would say, faith in god is more a rationalization than an obsession. Given the nature of rationalization as emotional, this supports the idea that at root, faith is emotional.

Thanks, but no thanks.

Should we mention that libertarians also believe States could legalize prostitution, just to make their self-righteous sensibilities explode? It is hopeless to maintain a discussion based on logic with social conservatives who are compelled by emotion. They know what’s best, so shut up and sit down.

John the Libertarian on September 10, 2012 at 5:52 AM

STFU and get stoned. It is what you “Libertarians” do best.