my recommendation - if kamala harris wins....

[tmjbog]

Gay marriage legalization, illicit drug legalization, abortion rights, etc

My apologies if I confused you with a different person from the Hyles forum. I thought you had somewhat frequently cited Lew Rockwell in agreement with that ideology.

During the McCain/Romney years I got into Libertarianism. I still lean that way but I never saw that it conflicted with Christianity. If you asked most Libertarians on whether gay marriage should be legal or not the most common answer would be "It's wrong to assume the government should be in the marriage business at all". I wouldn't claim my marriage valid because a govt official recognized but rather because my church recognized it.
On abortion about 30% of libertarians oppose it, however, it would likely be close to 100% that would oppose govt paid abortions, which would make them more conservative than a lot of our "conservative" candidates.
I somewhat oppose the war on drugs not because I think you should use drugs but because of liberties that have been curtailed in the name of the war on drugs. You travel through the wrong state with a large sum of cash and it will be confiscated until you can prove it was obtained through the drug trade. If you sell drugs out of your mothers house with or without her knowledge her house can be confiscated.

 

[abcaines]

During the McCain/Romney years I got into Libertarianism. I still lean that way but I never saw that it conflicted with Christianity. If you asked most Libertarians on whether gay marriage should be legal or not the most common answer would be "It's wrong to assume the government should be in the marriage business at all". I wouldn't claim my marriage valid because a govt official recognized but rather because my church recognized it.
On abortion about 30% of libertarians oppose it, however, it would likely be close to 100% that would oppose govt paid abortions, which would make them more conservative than a lot of our "conservative" candidates.
I somewhat oppose the war on drugs not because I think you should use drugs but because of liberties that have been curtailed in the name of the war on drugs. You travel through the wrong state with a large sum of cash and it will be confiscated until you can prove it was obtained through the drug trade. If you sell drugs out of your mothers house with or without her knowledge her house can be confiscated.

I think a hard fast political position is fraught with peril. Certainly, I can relate to a libertarian point of view because of my conservativism; the government has no place dictating the minutiae of my life but I am also aware that no man is an island and personal sin often carries sociatal consequences.

 

[Ekklesian]

 

[ALAYMAN]

During the McCain/Romney years I got into Libertarianism. I still lean that way but I never saw that it conflicted with Christianity. If you asked most Libertarians on whether gay marriage should be legal or not the most common answer would be "It's wrong to assume the government should be in the marriage business at all". I wouldn't claim my marriage valid because a govt official recognized but rather because my church recognized it.
On abortion about 30% of libertarians oppose it, however, it would likely be close to 100% that would oppose govt paid abortions, which would make them more conservative than a lot of our "conservative" candidates.
I somewhat oppose the war on drugs not because I think you should use drugs but because of liberties that have been curtailed in the name of the war on drugs. You travel through the wrong state with a large sum of cash and it will be confiscated until you can prove it was obtained through the drug trade. If you sell drugs out of your mothers house with or without her knowledge her house can be confiscated.

I lean a bit libertarian too, but ultimately find too much tension in its philosophical roots. Like many isms, there’s a broad spectrum of beliefs, so I ain’t making a wholesale condemnation of Libertarian thought, but at the end of the day I don’t find its emphasis on individual autonomy to the detriment of collective moral good to be sustainable. Here’s a decent short critique (that I don’t agree with 100% either)….


Link

 

[tmjbog]

I lean a bit libertarian too, but ultimately find too much tension in its philosophical roots. Like many isms, there’s a broad spectrum of beliefs, so I ain’t making a wholesale condemnation of Libertarian thought, but at the end of the day I don’t find its emphasis on individual autonomy to the detriment of collective moral good to be sustainable. Here’s a decent short critique (that I don’t agree with 100% either)….


Link

Certainly agree that Libertarians are weird coalition of rightists and leftists mixed in with some anarchists and a spattering of people who just want drugs legalized. I like the idea of using govt to maintain the moral good as long as we are talking about my definition of the moral good. However, to the leftists allowing women to get abortions (and letting the govt pay for it) as well as allowing kids to chop off body parts is the moral good.

I think looking at it as a numbers game is why I ended up somewhat in agreement with the Libertarians. Biblical Christians continue to become fewer and fewer. This will increasingly mean a non Christian world view will be seen as the moral good. As you saw during COVID shutting down churches was not considered an evil thing. In Canada the greater "good" is seen as justification for punishing pastors for preaching parts of the Bible critical of homosexuality. I see Libertarianism with minimum govt and maximum freedoms as the only hedge against a post Christian nation/world. Of course in reality the Libertarians aren't going to win any significant races so it's just someplace to park your vote when a Mitt Romney runs for office.

 

[ALAYMAN]

Certainly agree that Libertarians are weird coalition of rightists and leftists mixed in with some anarchists and a spattering of people who just want drugs legalized. I like the idea of using govt to maintain the moral good as long as we are talking about my definition of the moral good. However, to the leftists allowing women to get abortions (and letting the govt pay for it) as well as allowing kids to chop off body parts is the moral good.

I think looking at it as a numbers game is why I ended up somewhat in agreement with the Libertarians. Biblical Christians continue to become fewer and fewer. This will increasingly mean a non Christian world view will be seen as the moral good. As you saw during COVID shutting down churches was not considered an evil thing. In Canada the greater "good" is seen as justification for punishing pastors for preaching parts of the Bible critical of homosexuality. I see Libertarianism with minimum govt and maximum freedoms as the only hedge against a post Christian nation/world.

Well said, especially the bolded part above, lol

Of course in reality the Libertarians aren't going to win any significant races so it's just someplace to park your vote when a Mitt Romney runs for office.

I am a very pragmatic person, and this last sentence of yours is where I finally conclude that in that pragmatic world whatever is good about libertarianism, it’s a little too idealistic to work. On the positive side of the ledger, though I think it’s good to have voices of people who come alongside conservatives advocating for minimal government interference.

.

 

[aleshanee]

i used to consider myself a libertarian once - and even voted that way in local elections a few times... .(never in a national election).... i saw libertarians as actually standing to the right of reblicans on many conservative issues and especially when it came to opposing the democrats socialist authoritarian ideology....... .......... ... but then i started seeing their efforts to just be different actually undermine conservatives and enable those democrats they claimed to be most opposed to... . and when made aware of it they didn;t even seem to care.... .. ....and i have never considered myself a "libertarian" since...... ....maybe when the definition of it goes back to what it originally meant i will.. ..... but at the moment they do nothing but serve the democrats..... especially here in hawaii where as many as 13 candidates can show up on a ballot running against one democrat and one republican...... guess who always wins those races.... and often with far less than a majority of the total votes.... ..

but the election is over........ and today i;m just really thankful i don;t have to take my own advice... and work on learning cold weather apocalyptic survival skills... (at least not yet)..... .or worry about getting blown to smithereens by a missile fired from a communist country ..... ...of course that doesn;t mean democrats won;t set off a false alarm of an incoming ballistic missile and scare people on this island to death.... (like they did the last time trump was president)......but with any luck - hopefully i;ll sleep through that one too like i did the last time.... then i can go downstairs after finding out about it and call my friends a bunch of dufuses for running out into the street during the alert and cying into their cell phones. .... .....they did that last time.. .. and i don;t think they have learned anything since..... .

 

[Ekklesian]

Libertarians are essentially anarchists. Economically, I would call them voluntary socialists.

If they could carte blanc restructure society, it would devolve into land of warring clans in a generation.

 

[aleshanee]

Libertarians are essentially anarchists. Economically, I would call them voluntary socialists.

If they could carte blanc restructure society, it would devolve into land of warring clans in a generation.

that;s the way hawaii was before kamehameha.... ...each island had it;s own king and also groups of rebels who fought the kings.... . nobody from any island could get an edge on ousting kings from other islands... .. ... then the english introduced kamehameha to gunpowder.... and gave him a few falconette style cannons which he quickly mounted onto the bows of war canoes..... (one of those actual cannons was displayed at the maritime museum until it closed)...... with those plus a few brown bess muskets also obtained from the british - kamehameha not only successfully invaded each island.... (the toughest of which was oahu)..... but he also defeated each islands army of warriors and wiped out any rebellious opposition....... .....it earned him the nickname "napolean of the pacific".... not all saw it as a good thing.... . but a few generations later when foriegn navies began prowling around hawaii looking for footholds they realized that all the islands standing together as one nation was vital to survival.....

 

[tmjbog]

Libertarians are essentially anarchists. Economically, I would call them voluntary socialists.

If they could carte blanc restructure society, it would devolve into land of warring clans in a generation.

It's difficult to say Libertarians are "essentially" anything. It's more of a coalition of groups that believe that the current direction the nation is taking in regards to personal liberties and size of government is completely wrong and believe we should be going in the opposite direction. Where each of these groups think the train should stop if things were ever to go in the right direction are radically different. When I was involved the right leaning group probably was the largest component (former republican congressman and former GOP governor were the candidates those years). From my time I saw the following groups:

Right Leaning: Mostly former republicans who thought especially during the Bush years the Democrats had become the major socialist party and the Republicans had become the minor socialist party. Many in this group would support a constitutional conservative who limited the federal govt powers to what was spelled out in the constitution.

Left Leaning: Were more about legalizing drugs and keeping abortion legal.

Left Leaning-Greens: Not sure why this group was even in the Libertarian party but they seemed to support using the government to enforce green policies and often were likely to support suppressing free speech as well.

Purists: This group believed in an extreme libertarian view that believed there should be no borders for any nation, barely a government, and even things like roads should be a private enterprise.

Within the party are many contradictions such as the year former republican congressman Bob Barr (one of the architects of the Patriot Act) was their presidential candidate.

 

[abcaines]

Purists: This group believed in an extreme libertarian view that believed there should be no borders for any nation, barely a government, and even things like roads should be a private enterprise.

That sounds a lot like anarchy to me.

 

[Ransom]

I have some small-l libertarian leanings, mainly to do with free speech and censorship. But I used to read a libertarian discussion group that devolved into arguments about whether infrastructure should be public or private, with several people arguing seriously that every landowner should be entitled, if he wished, to erect a toll gate across his personal stretch of road.

At which point I turned the lunacy off.

 

[Bob Jones VI]

start brushing up on your cold weather survival skills now.. ... coz if we see the second
coming of chairman mao and her sidekick elmer fudd take the white house..... and the
worse case scenario laid out by many of the alarmists who say her policys and weaknesses
in the face of foreign adversaris could lead to a 3rd world war......... then those of us who
survive could end up living in a perpetual nuclear winter and literally scratching
for our survival...

it could happen.... . remember where you heard it first......

She lost. We're all safe.

 

[Ekklesian]

We're all safe.

Hardly. It ain't over til it's over.

 

[DrHuk&Duck]

My personal house is okay outside of just a bunch of debris cleaning.

Our family “fish camp” house near the Steinhatchee area got pretty much wiped out by Hurricane Helene. We already had damages in the area from previous storms, but this one was very bad up and down the coast. Fortunately, my FIL is a retired general contractor, so he’s got us already working on rebuilding. He’s also the primary owner, so other than blood, sweat and tears, it’s not costing me too much financially.

Update: my FIL decided to put the Steinhatchee property up for sale for someone interested in just building a new house or just using the property for river access. The main concern was the upcoming flood insurance hikes, and of course the time and cost of repairs needed. He has an RV, so he bought a waterfront RV lot in Suwanee instead. The nice thing about that is the RV can be quickly moved if a hurricane is coming and it’s much more cost effective. The bad thing is it really doesn’t accommodate the entire family like the fish cabin, nor does it have the same atmosphere, but at least it still provides water access. It’s also a little bit closer to where everyone lives, so that’s one perk. Anyway, that’s the post-hurricane update on the fishing cabin. It looks like the neighbor is very interested in purchasing the property and possibly just tearing down the existing fish cabin and instead building a screened in dock on the property, so it might be a quick and easy sale.

 

[aleshanee]

Update: my FIL decided to put the Steinhatchee property up for sale for someone interested in just building a new house or just using the property for river access. The main concern was the upcoming flood insurance hikes, and of course the time and cost of repairs needed. He has an RV, so he bought a waterfront RV lot in Suwanee instead. The nice thing about that is the RV can be quickly moved if a hurricane is coming and it’s much more cost effective. The bad thing is it really doesn’t accommodate the entire family like the fish cabin, nor does it have the same atmosphere, but at least it still provides water access. It’s also a little bit closer to where everyone lives, so that’s one perk. Anyway, that’s the post-hurricane update on the fishing cabin. It looks like the neighbor is very interested in purchasing the property and possibly just tearing down the existing fish cabin and instead building a screened in dock on the property, so it might be a quick and easy sale.

i looked that up on google earth... ..pretty cool looking town... . access to the - soon to be renamed - gulf of america.... .... ..and then i saw the local weather read out - and it was currently 30 degrees F..... ...

 

[DrHuk&Duck]

i looked that up on google earth... ..pretty cool looking town... . access to the - soon to be renamed - gulf of america.... .... ..and then i saw the local weather read out - and it was currently 30 degrees F..... ...

Yeah, it’s been pretty cold in Florida recently, definitely below average temperatures, but cold weather in Florida is very temporary. By the time we get to early March, we could already have highs in the 80s and by early May we’ll be in the 90s.

BTW, this is the same Suwannee River made famous by Al Jolson in a movie back in the 1940s. (You’ll have to excuse the blackface—this was way before political correctness in America).