Journal Bill Dog's Journal: why shouldn't it work both ways 20
Stossel's show was irritating tonight. The topic was Conservatism vs. Libertarianism. As a Libertarian, Stossel misrepresented Conservatism, and various Conservatives were on appealing to the same things Lefties appeal to; the greater good, majority norms.
Stossel said he used to be a Liberal, so that explains enough of an inability to think straight about things to be able to be a Libertarian. But it's shocking how Conservatives seem blithely unaware that effectively saying it's okay to legislate morality, means then the other side can legislate its morality on us. (And where we're only for it in certain cases, the Left is for doing it all but a few cases. I.e. it's a patently dangerous idea, and used vastly more against us than in what we favor.)
I might journal about some of the topics later (maybe if I can find a refresher of my memory of it on youtube), but the show spurred a chain of thinking on a particular topic that led me to the following.
Let's say I'm a landlord, and I'm also bigoted against homosexuals (which I am, but not in the following way), and refused to rent to them. Most people would say the government should step in and force me to rent to them. I.e. Despite homosexuals offending my sensibilities, I should be forced to associate with them anyways. Because otherwise they could potentially have a hard time finding a rental place to live.
Now let's say that instead I'm a landlord, and I don't refuse to rent to them, but I'm a very outspoken disparager of them in the region, and the homosexual community knows it. And let's say the homosexual community represents a significant %-age of the region. What if I'm having trouble keeping the complex full all the time? Should the government force some homosexuals to live in my complex and pay me rent, despite my offending their sensibilities?
And what about quotas. Lefties say that if a community is 10% Black, then roughly 10% of the programming jobs in that community must be filled with Blacks. Else there's racial inequities.
Well janitorial jobs, at least around here, seem to be disproportionately filled by Hispanics. Should the government tell Black people in that area that 10% of them need to switch careers into the custodial arts?
It seems like either quotas are a good idea or they aren't. And it seems like if it's good to force association between parties when one desires not to do so, then it's good.
If it's one thing I can respect Libertarians for, it's at least they're consistent*
*Well, except for their being pro-choice, which flies squarely in the face of being for individual rights.
Great post (Score:1)
A deep read of the Roman Epistle, while certainly not pro-gay, is definitely anti-external legislation. Legislating morality is a fools errand. .
While enjoying all people around me, I am opposed to the concept of homosexual relationships, mainly because it is akin to a car with a sealed gas tank. You can tool aroun
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Evidently this "replenishment" you speak of is having children? Gay couples can always adopt, if you're suggesting that when the initial passion has faded that a love relationship needs the pitter patter of little feet to keep it going. Or are you saying that a love relationship can only be replenished by the raising of blood offspring?
Maybe I'd believe differently if I was Married With Children[TM], but since I don't want kids, I cling to the idea that a relationship can be whatever the people involved d
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I commend to you the institution of fatherhood. Truly a crucial piece of the overall human experience--don't deny yourself.
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My opinion is it's not the crux that ideally children are raised by both genders, but that ideally they're raised by both gender roles. And as far as I can tell, homosexual couples typically contain a more feminized member and a more masculinized one.
And ideally children are raised by people who actually want children. In this case, the experience I'm "denying myself" is not like going for bungee jumping; it involves bringing a new life into the world and a long-term commitment. That's not something I'd
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That a large chunk of hetero parents are also jacked up is both true and peripheral to the point that 2+2!=5. If consenting adults want to go at each other with dodgy book-keeping, that's on them. But let us spare the children.
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I'm against the government doing what it takes to enforce ideal childrearing circumstances as much as I am against it doing what it takes to enforce ideal security circumstances. The cost in individual liberty is way, way too high. I'm perfectly fine with an imperfect society, where at least I can live free.
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The problem with that theory (Score:2)
Is that neither the left nor the right are moral.
The left wants sexual liberty, the right wants fiscal liberty. NEITHER is for the common good, only the individual, and does not understand the chaos they've unleashed on everybody else in their lust and greed.
That's why I have my doubts about the entire concept of liberty and freedom. It breaks down to just license to harm other people. Especially homosexuality, which is inherently unjust and makes a mockery of the concept of love [blogspot.com].
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Is that neither the left nor the right are moral.
The left wants sexual liberty, the right wants fiscal liberty. NEITHER is for the common good, only the individual, and does not understand the chaos they've unleashed on everybody else in their lust and greed.
That's why I have my doubts about the entire concept of liberty and freedom. It breaks down to just license to harm other people. Especially homosexuality, which is inherently unjust and makes a mockery of the concept of love [blogspot.com].
Well, okay, by "legislate morality" I meant "legislate one's side's morality". And not necessarily "the", or God's, morality.
Does God not understand the chaos He's unleashed by giving us Free Will? He could've created us like the rest of the animals, as just more NPC's in this game of life, incapable of reasoning and independent decision making and only led by the set of basic instincts genetically programmed. Like a RPG in a self-play mode. While that would not necessarily be for the common good (anima
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Souls for God are a positive good, is the reason to procreate (and a reason why the chronologically first commandment mankind ever received from God was "be fruitful and multiply"). Even with the sin. Even with the free will.
Now having said that, I can't think of a single good reason to set up a governmental, or economic, system that *encourages* sin. I simply can't. And that's why to me, partisan legislating of morality fails, because as you say, it's always about the morality of others, never the mora
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I thought you were in favor of legislating (Catholic) morality, so I'm confused.
And I don't see how our systems encourage sin. "Encouraging" is not the same as "allowing", because it's fully one step further. God did not encourage Adam and Eve to sin by having the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil in the Garden.
But I couldn't disagree with you any amount more on the following:
While the chaos is kind of the point- learning to overcome the chaos is the lesson in the chaos.
The chaos is the point, but the lesson is not in overcoming it (and hence becoming gods ourselves), but to figure out that we ulti
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"And I don't see how our systems encourage sin."
By positively rewarding it. When a businessman lowers costs (by paying workers less) and raises prices (to whatever he can get away with), he takes home more profit, is one example.
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When a businessman lowers costs, you can afford a microwave, a VCR, and an iphone. You disdain capitalism because you don't understand it. You only understand it thru the distorted lens of Leftism. A businessman doesn't want to charge the most he can for something, he wants to make the most money he can. I can't buy a new car by bringing before and after price tags from my business in and telling the dealership I'm good at raising prices. They don't give a fuck, they just want money. So that's all I w
Libertarians are pro-choice? (Score:1)
The ones I know are split 50/50 on the issue. Most of the elected officials classically associated with Libertarianism are pro-life. The official party platform seems agnostic about the issue, which seems like a cop out (regardless of which side you come down on) but there you go....
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Here, let me Google that for you:
http://www.lp.org/platform [lp.org]:
LIBERTARIAN PARTY PLATFORM
As adopted in Convention, May 2012, Las Vegas, Nevada
1.0 Personal Liberty
1.4 Abortion
Recognizing that abortion is a sensitive issue and that people can hold good-faith views on all sides, we believe that government should be kept out of the matter, leaving the question to each person for their conscientious consideration.
Believing that abortion should be legal without restrictions is what is known as being "pro-choice" on the issue.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarian_perspectives_on_abortion [wikipedia.org]:
In the abortion debate the majority of libertarians support legal access to abortion as part of their general support for individual rights, especially in regard to what they consider to be a woman's right to control her body.
[...]
Philosopher Ayn Rand argued that the notion of a fetus having a right to life is "vicious nonsense" and stated, "An embryo has no rights... a child cannot acquire any rights until it is born."
That even half of the people you know who are registered members of the Libertarian Party are pro-choice, is a galling absurdity of epic proportions. We scientifically know that a fertilized human egg is a genetically distinct individual. And that's not based on predicti
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I read the platform, there's no reason to link to it. Hence my statement of "The official party platform seems agnostic about the issue" Their position is guaranteed to piss off everybody who truly cares about the issue, on both sides. You likely don't care, but my take on the issue is that it is a human life from both a scientific and spiritual point of view. Alas, so long as it's dependent on another person for life the law has the balance the rights of both individuals. The day we can make an artifi
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I resent your weaseling with "agnostic" (as much as when atheists do it on the God issue), and I don't think I like the implication that the law has some special balancing of rights to do on this issue.
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You resent too easily.
"agnostic (noun): a person who holds neither of two opposing positions on a topic
That's the most apt word I can think of to apply to their position on this issue. Obviously you disagree, which is your prerogative, but to resent my opinion of another opinion? Someone is taking this internet thing very seriously indeed.
I don't think I like the implication that the law has some special balancing of rights to do on this issue.
Also your prerogative, and where I get off the bus. You can no more force someone to carry a baby to term than you can force me to give you my kidney if you're near
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I can't imagine why you're being so blatantly dishonest here. Of course having one of two opposing positions is not the having of neither of two opposing positions, and of course I can force someone to carry a baby to term more than I can force donation of a kidney for the reason that a baby is a human being (and human beings are supposed to have rights) and a kidney is not. And I don't understand why you're the one who ceased relationship over this. I thought about it, because the transparency of the bu