I thought I knew what Libertarian was, but ...

[Skipjack]

Make them ILLEGAL, and see how soon the usage will sky-rocket!

Well, that I can not follow, sorry. In my country usage of (the legal)tabacco ad alcohol is much more common than usage of illegal drugs. So this notion is clearly wrong. I dont think that legalizing a drug will reduce its usage.

[KitemanSA]

Make them ILLEGAL, and see how soon the usage will sky-rocket!

Well, that I can not follow, sorry. In my country usage of (the legal)tabacco ad alcohol is much more common than usage of illegal drugs. So this notion is clearly wrong. I dont think that legalizing a drug will reduce its usage.

I presume in your country you don't have a goodly number of people who are intereted in suppressing the use of liquer and tobacco. In the US, they have been fairly successful at slowly reducing that usage. They have been as successful as they have by using social pressure rather than criminal sanctions.

If they try to crimianlize, the profit involved with breaking the law in the US (which still has a basic anti-government sentiment) would INCREASE the usage rather than decrease it. That is "increase relative to the same products NOW", not relative to hard drugs.

[MSimon]

It is obvious that we have way more government than we can afford.

Those with an interest in the status quo will make smaller government seem like the work of the devil.

Of course Republicans have their pet projects. Which they start pushing and then they lose enough of the vote to give the Ds the reigns.

Case in point 2004 Illinois election I voted for Communist Obama (I have ammunition - so go ahead - pose the question) over the Theocon Keyes. Bush also got my vote.

Besides a center-right polity in the American context implies a solid reservoir at least of libertarian thought. The effort to make it seem unusual will backfire by drawing attention to the question. This thread being a case in point.

[Diogenes]

Abortion was outlawed in the late 1800s

Really? I was under the impression that there was a thriving black market in abortion. That was certainly the case in California before it legalized abortion (late 60s or early 70s IIRC).

Or are you being sarcastic?

Of course it was not to hard to outlaw slavery by fiat. It had become marginally profitable.

I believe the term "outlaw" means to make illegal. It is not synonymous with eliminated. It has been a long time since I researched this, but at one time I had read articles which demonstrated that the Abolitionist movement turned it's efforts to outlawing abortion in the late 1800s. I even recall reading a New York Times article (from the period) urging the passage of laws prohibiting the procedure. As they were successful without all that much effort, the episode is little more than a footnote nowadays, known mostly only to pro-lifers who have sought this information out.




Slavery was not profitable in the North, it was only profitable in the South where the economies were highly dependent on labor intensive agriculture. I dare say, were it profitable in the North, it would have never been eliminated untill it wasn't.

[Diogenes]

We stray from my original point, and I'd like to attempt to induce some commentary on it.



Simon and I have discussed this off-line. I tend to have old-fashioned Republican leanings, and the more I learn about Goldwater, the more I long for that kind of Republican. I've noticed if you talk one-on-one with most Republicans, they confess the same feelings.

That's because you're in Virginia. There are a lot of Rockefeller Republicans on the Eastern seaboard.

I'd call Goldwater the prototype of the modern Libertarian. So how did the party get off on such a religious bedroom-police prayer-in-schools throw-out-the-immigrants bender?

You asked. According to Jonah Goldberg, the Liberals started the Culture war. Liberal Nut case Judges, Appointed by the 20 years worth of Roosevelt/Truman administrations, dramatically transformed the legal landscape. As a result, these Liberal appointees started tearing apart the existing social fabric of the times. In 1948, and later, they made rulings to eliminate prayer in public schools. In the 1960s, they proclaimed more rights for criminals, in 1973, they ordered that the "Penumbra" of the 14th amendment created the right to Abortion, (outraging much of the public at the time.) In 1973, a mob of queer activists descended on the American Psychiatric Association demanding that they remove homosexuality from the list of Mental disorders, overturning centuries of medical opinion on the subject. The Sixties produced the Free love Drug Culture, and Anti-War liberal professors began propagandizing students to rebel against everything America stood for at the time. We had Kent State, the Manson Family, Riots, Jesus Christ Superstar, Desertion, Treason, AIDS, and a Nuclear Holocaust hanging over our heads.

Needless to say, it was a little much for some folk who regarded nothing modern as an improvement on the existing culture. A lot of folks decided to start fighting back. A lot of people believe that solving financial problems without dealing with the underlying social problems is simply impossible, for they have the same root cause. (A lack of responsibility to oneself and ones community.) And of course there is Christianity, which has never before found itself so vehemently attacked, but of course that feeds right into its beliefs. A lot of people noticed that their bibles said these things would come to pass in the last days, and so they regard it as an affirmation of the credibility of their beliefs.

Rather than wondering WHY these people are up in arms, one should wonder rather why they waited so long.

[kcdodd]

It is interesting how liberal/conservative has been twisted around in meaning. Being liberal now includes a whole mix of ideas, not all of which are really liberal. Same for conservative. But that is what you get from one dimensional thinking.

[TallDave]

I guarantee you there are already several people who have become millionaires by evading cigarette taxes.

Graduated Prohibition via the tax code isn't substantially different than the other kind.

Great series of video appearances in the 1970s by Milton Friedman on Facebook. God, some of the lefty ideas that were still current then...

http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/page ... 8511362433

"Liberal" in Australia and some other places is actually much closer to Republican ideals.

[Diogenes]

It is interesting how liberal/conservative has been twisted around in meaning. Being liberal now includes a whole mix of ideas, not all of which are really liberal. Same for conservative. But that is what you get from one dimensional thinking.

The phenomenon has been remarked on for decades. People who study this stuff are aware that conservatives are now what used to be regarded as "classical liberals", while "liberals" now mean those people who promote Utopian statist socialistic ideas.

[KitemanSA]

Just to be clear, the last Libertarian candidate in a presidential campaign I can actually name was Marilyn Chambers (for VP).

Chambers ran for Vice President on the Personal Choice Party ticket, a quasi-libertarian party.

Not Libertarian, quasi-libertarian or perhaps even libertine.

[Tom Ligon]

I saw that today, too, from home. I didn't want to look the subject up on a work computer.

No doubt why I did not see her name on the ballot.

[kcdodd]

It is interesting how liberal/conservative has been twisted around in meaning. Being liberal now includes a whole mix of ideas, not all of which are really liberal. Same for conservative. But that is what you get from one dimensional thinking.

The phenomenon has been remarked on for decades. People who study this stuff are aware that conservatives are now what used to be regarded as "classical liberals", while "liberals" now mean those people who promote Utopian statist socialistic ideas.

Not quite quite as simplistic as that. But then again I already know your position.

[IntLibber]

I saw that today, too, from home. I didn't want to look the subject up on a work computer.

No doubt why I did not see her name on the ballot.

Tom, the turn by the republicans toward religious fundamentalism actually began with Reagan and his mobilization of evangelicals with the help of Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell's Moral Majority. He promised them to overturn Roe v Wade.

This is where Reagan broke from Goldwater in taking the conservative movement hard right.

Shrub pulled the same gimmick in 2000. What helped him with evangelicals is that Bush actually was one himself, born again after kicking booze and drugs.

These types are really softcore fascists who ally with the de facto fascist party, the police chiefs association to label libertarians as the "extremists" when it is they who are extremely to the right of the founding fathers intentions.

Note the media tried hard to paint Rand Paul as a racist opposed to the civil rights act, lying about him all the way. Character assassination is standard procedure with these people.

[Diogenes]

I saw that today, too, from home. I didn't want to look the subject up on a work computer.

No doubt why I did not see her name on the ballot.

Tom, the turn by the republicans toward religious fundamentalism actually began with Reagan and his mobilization of evangelicals with the help of Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell's Moral Majority. He promised them to overturn Roe v Wade.

This is where Reagan broke from Goldwater in taking the conservative movement hard right.

Shrub pulled the same gimmick in 2000. What helped him with evangelicals is that Bush actually was one himself, born again after kicking booze and drugs.

These types are really softcore fascists who ally with the de facto fascist party, the police chiefs association to label libertarians as the "extremists" when it is they who are extremely to the right of the founding fathers intentions.

Note the media tried hard to paint Rand Paul as a racist opposed to the civil rights act, lying about him all the way. Character assassination is standard procedure with these people.

I daresay your history needs some brushing up. By today's standards, the founders were Fanatical right-wing Christian fundamentalists. It is axiomatic nowadays that when a group of people doesn't change their position in a nationwide and generational leftward shift, they are at some point declared to be right-wing extremists, even though THEY haven't moved!

[KitemanSA]

I daresay your history needs some brushing up. By today's standards, the founders were Fanatical right-wing Christian fundamentalists. It is axiomatic nowadays that when a group of people doesn't change their position in a nationwide and generational leftward shift, they are at some point declared to be right-wing extremists, even though THEY haven't moved!

Same back at you. The term "Christian Fundamentalist" describes any of a number of cult movements, old and new. And while it MAY be true that the founding fathers had a stronger faith on average than many today, it is in no way true that they, on average, had the kind of "don't bother me with facts, I got FAITH" attitude that is endemic in current Fundamentalists.

[kcdodd]

And that they were, above all else, secularist.