Quote from: TowardLiberty on August 01, 2013, 08:51:28 AM
I can't say I have read his article. My interests are more in the direction of economic theory and ethics rather than
political policy.

I take issue with the characterization of libertarians as supporters of a libertine philosophy. Indeed the libertarian philosophy is based on a very strident system of ethics- that of individual self ownership and the illegitimacy of aggression.

I'm not the only one describing Libertarians as having far  too much of a libertine emphasis to reflect the founders principles, or at least not the only one.  Mark Levin and numerous others have recognized this as well.

Libertine:  one devoid of most moral restraints, which are seen as unnecessary or undesirable, especially one who ignores or even spurns accepted morals. A person who is unrestrained by convention or morality.

Quote from: TowardLiberty on August 01, 2013, 08:51:28 AM
Typically libertarians support individual liberty and freedom of association.

The libertarian could not support forcing others to recognize gay marriage no more than they could support forcing people to pay taxes. With that said it would also be inconsistent with libertarian thought for one group to prevent others from entering into whatever contracts they wished, providing the participants are freely consenting adults.

In the case of immigration, free association necessitates that anyone who could freely contract for a job and a place to stay, in another land, should be free to act on this opportunity.

You say you take issue with this description of Libertarians as LIBERTINE, but then proceed, above, to follow through with an entirely libertine rationalization of self-gratification, a reconstruction of society by purely vapid rationalization, and pretend this is any sort of morality.

You reduce marriage to a process of individual freedom of association, literally self-gratification,  when Marriage has just what gratifies one throughout the history of societies over mankind's history, regardless of those societies being separated by time, culture, and geographical boundaries.  In every case the recognition of those man-woman relationships has been because of the benefit the pose to societies in bringing up offspring that necessitate a prolonged developmental period to adolescence, to become proto-citizens.   

In the case of immigration, this "free association" you recognize, does not involve any regard for the association that is a society, nor a country,  nor regard for the individuals in either of these, but rather the individual gratification of those choosing to come and go wherever, basically resulting in a globalist homogenization, boundary-less  statism, and disregard for shared goals of those societies, countries, and individuals.   

Truly, that's not "immigration" at all, that's just "migration" where there's no society whatsoever.

Quote from: TowardLiberty on August 01, 2013, 08:51:28 AM
Indeed this is impossible to characterize as progressive or statist, even if it may seem to be in harmony with certain progressive view points. This is because progressive thought champions collective action and political decision making, with an eye toward improving the alleged deficiencies found in a free society. Freedom is held to be incompatible with social justice, progress and human welfare. So the progressives use the state to improve society. The collective is held to be more important than the individual. And in the process their politics becomes their religion.

The only difference between Progressives and Libertarians is that one, Progressives,  insists on achieving their Social Engineering  of society to suit their gratification by government dictate and force, and the other, Libertarians,  achieves virtually identical results of social engineering of society to meet their gratificationm by deconstruction of society to serve enable that gratification, by dictate of no force, no society,  and no structure.

Both Progressives and Libertarians share the same disregard for outcome. 

At least Progressives are honest in their desire to remake society in their own image, but many, if not most, or even all, of current Libertarians actually have the audacity to claim they're some sort of "original conservatism" embraced by this nation's founders, when they're nothing of the sort,  and only embraced a small warped part pf this nation's principle and magnified to the extreme, individual gratification, devoid of responsibility, an ideology entirely rejected by this nation's founders.

Quote from: TowardLiberty on August 01, 2013, 08:51:28 AM
So it is clear that anything that lifts up the individual and minimizes the role of the state cannot be progressive or statist. Indeed it is the opposite.

It doesn't lift the individual up, it tears the society  down, all to no intelligent end but self gratification.... without any sort of morality at all, and an utter disregard for outcome.  There can be no morality where outcome is no consideration.

No, it is not clear.  The absence of a state,  results in a globalist governance, which is also the end-goal of statists.

Quote from: TowardLiberty on August 01, 2013, 08:51:28 AM
And that is exactly what an open borders perspective does- it minimizes the role of the state in determining who can live where, or what rights people have and which associations they may enter into.

It follows from this that those who champion a larger role for political or collective decision making as it regards the movement of people are the true progressives!

What an open borders does is remove values from society, such as your individual freedoms, that allow you to engage such a blind self-gratification. This may have escaped your vision, but the rest of the world really doesn't care all that much for that sort of total individual freedom, not to mention those same Progressives that Libertarians curiously (and blindly) find themselves so often siding with, by your own admission.

No, it does not "follow" that those who recognize a place for limited government and borders are the progressives; that's just more warped logic in disregard of real outcome.

This government is founded on the wizened perspective that a limited amount of government is necessary to ensure those individual freedoms,  but not one to dictate the terms of society in its own image, or remake it for its own gratification.

And you're the guy who said Cato is not progressive!   

Quote from: Stryke on August 01, 2013, 09:16:02 AM
Nice to know how you feel about veterans' sacrifices.

^ This.

When I went to bed you were still online, and you're still online now. Should I assume this means you've been on for 36 hours? And ---- hey! It's a second hand story. I thought you didn't like those?

Nice. An entire post with nothing but Ad hominem address, and no attempt whatsoever to engage real discussion.

You're looking more and more like a progressive every moment.

Quote from: Trip on August 01, 2013, 10:06:17 AM
I'm not the only one describing Libertarians as having far  too much of a libertine emphasis to reflect the founders principles, or at least not the only one.  Mark Levin and numerous others have recognized this as well.

Libertine:  one devoid of most moral restraints, which are seen as unnecessary or undesirable, especially one who ignores or even spurns accepted morals

Well then we can add another person, Mr. Levin, to the list of those critics of libertarianism who do not truly understand their target.

For libertarianism is nothing if not an ethical system with a clear morality.

Indeed it is the accepted morality of the inviolability of individual rights. The difference is the libertarian is consistent in his ethics.

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You say you take issue with this description of Libertarians as LIBERTINE, but then proceed, above, to follow through with an entirely libertine rationalization of self-gratification, a reconstruction of society by purely vapid rationalization, and pretend this is any sort of morality.

Not at all. There is a rational and moral foundation to my comments and it is the ethics of self ownership. There is nothing libertine about this moral code.

And further the justification for free association is not self-gratification, for all sorts of aggressive acts can be self-gratifying. Self ownership and the right of free association are deduced from ontological facts of human existence.  One could say this is a vapid rationalization but you can't form an argument against self ownership with out at once demonstrating that you do indeed own yourself, lest you wouldn't be able to marshall the resources of body and mind to form an argument. And further the mere forming of an argument is itself a demonstration of the recognition of the self ownership of the listener, for the goal is to convince the listener of something you want them to believe- implying their will is free to choose.

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You reduce marriage to a process of individual freedom of association, literally self-gratification,  when Marriage has just what gratifies one throughout the history of societies over mankind's history, regardless of those societies being separated by time, culture, and geographical boundaries.  In every case the recognition of those man-woman relationships has been because of the benefit the pose to societies in bringing up offspring that necessitate a prolonged developmental period to adolescence, to become proto-citizens.   

In my view tying marriage to individual choices is uplifting marriage rather than debasing it. I see debasement in the discussion of social benefits- as if a "social" conception of the good was more valuable than that of the individual..

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In the case of immigration, this "free association" you recognize, does not involve any regard for the association that is a society, nor a country,  nor regard for the individuals in either of these, but rather the individual gratification of those choosing to come and go wherever, basically resulting in a globalist homogenization, boundary-less  statism, and disregard for shared goals of those societies, countries, and individuals.   

Truly, that's not "immigration" at all, that's just "migration" where there's no society whatsoever.

You are conflating society with state. Society is nothing but those relationships and associations between free people. The only boundaries necessary for society are private property boundaries, rather than national boundaries.

And this free association I am speaking of is not merely self gratifying for every free exchange is a positive sum game. The person hiring the new worker or renting out/ selling their property is also gaining. So this is a mutual gratification.

And how other people feel about the exchange is a moot point providing they have no claim or title to what is being exchanged.

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The only difference between Progressives and Libertarians is that one, Progressives,  insists on achieving their Social Engineering  of society to suit their gratification by government dictate and force, and the other, Libertarians,  achieves virtually identical results of social engineering of society to meet their gratificationm by deconstruction of society to serve enable that gratification, by dictate of no force, no society,  and no structure.

Well that is a pretty big difference. One allows the social pattern to evolve in any way that is peaceful and the other uses the force and authority of the state to dictate how people will live.

And there are other differences regarding the rule of law, the extent of property rights, institutional organization, economic policy, etc.

The claim that a free society involves a form of libertarian social engineering is simply illogical. Libertarians support individual liberty and free association. They recognize individual liberty and private property as the foundation of social cooperation. This means that outcomes are determined in a bottom up rather than top down process. Therefore we have no social engineering.

And the claim that without central planning society will deconstruct as yet to be demonstrated. Though there are many examples of society flourishing as a spontaneous order. 

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Both Progressives and Libertarians share the same disregard for outcome. 

Libertarians and progressives have specific outcomes they are seeking to achieve and they are mutually exclusive. Progressives want to centrally plan the distribution of income and wealth. Libertarians want it to be market determined.

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At least Progressives are honest in their desire to remake society in their own image, but many, if not most, or even all, of current Libertarians actually have the audacity to claim they're some sort of "original conservatism" embraced by this nation's founders, when they're nothing of the sort,  and only embraced a small warped part pf this nation's principle and magnified to the extreme, individual gratification, devoid of responsibility, an ideology entirely rejected by this nation's founders.

I think you may be misreading libertarianism. It is rooted in the natural rights theories that animated the declaration of independence. Libertarian economics is more or less an evolution of the old classically liberal political theory of Locke, Smith, Hume, Turgot, Say, Bastiat, Tracy, etc that so influenced the radicals who founded the US government. Certainly the Hamiltonians are excluded here.

What you call an ideology devoid of responsibility is actually quite the opposite. A society based on private property involves a very clear demarcation of responsibility. Individually we are responsible for the actions that violate the property or rights of another. And the private property society locates the responsibility for individual welfare squarely with the individual, rather than with society or the collective. Since all decision making is individual decision making the responsibility for error is on a single person, rather than on the collective. Indeed the distinction between private property and communal property that characterizes the tragedy of the commons, demonstrates clearly the coordinating effects of private property rights on individual responsibility. We could expand this discussion to talk about public property and externalities, but I think the point has been made.

Just because we can say an act benefits or gratifies those engaging in it, it does not follow that we justify this act based on this gratification. For then we could justify any act no matter how depraved.

The justification that libertarians make for the right to free association is rooted in the ethics of self ownership rather than some shallow belief in the supremacy of gratification.

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It doesn't lift the individual up, it tears the society  down, all to no intelligent end but self gratification.... without any sort of morality at all, and an utter disregard for outcome.  There can be no morality where outcome is no consideration.

Anytime decisions are made at the collective level rather than at the individual level, we have a diminution of individual liberty. And undoing this state of affairs lifts up the individual vs the state.

And you are wrong to characterize this as without any sort of morality at all. Perhaps it is a morality you are not aware of. But there is a very clear and rational system of ethics justifying the peaceful actions of freely associating individuals. And that is the ethics of self ownership.

So you can stop pretending you are describing a libertine philosophy. That is simply a false charge.

Indeed I would love for you to illustrate just what moral system justifies the use of force to prevent others from associating with who they wish, providing the association is peaceful. Just what moral system is capable of justifying restrictions on the peaceful actions of others?

The only "moral" system, if I can call it a moral system, is the system of statism. It is the morality of "might makes rights." It is the system that holds that whatever is good for the state is an ultimate good and that individual needs are subservient to the needs of the collective.

In my book it is the religion of statism that is the truly libertine philosophy, for it lacks a rational ethics.

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No, it is not clear.  The absence of a state,  results in a globalist governance, which is also the end-goal of statists.

The absence of state results in a bigger state? How do you figure?

Wouldn't the absence of a state lead to tendencies for further decentralization? If you look to the history of the EU, and what is happening now on the American continent, you will see that global government is a product of an agreement between states, rather than something between stateless entities.

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What an open borders does is remove values from society, such as your individual freedoms, that allow you to engage such a blind self-gratification. This may have escaped your vision, but the rest of the world really doesn't care all that much for that sort of total individual freedom, not to mention those same Progressives that Libertarians curiously (and blindly) find themselves so often siding with, by your own admission.

Values do not come from political boundaries. That you think they do so clearly illustrates how deeply you have intertwined your ethics with your politics.

The rest of the world doesn't value freedom? Well you are no doubt correct as it regards the dear leaders of those other countries, but it does not apply to the common people. I don't pretend to know the opinions of the rest of the global population but I do know that history is light on instances of people thriving under centralized control and it is human nature to want to thrive.

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No, it does not "follow" that those who recognize a place for limited government and borders are the progressives; that's just more warped logic in disregard of real outcome.

It follows that if you support central planning in some sphere you are a progressive or a statist to a degree more than someone who does not.

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This government is founded on the wizened perspective that a limited amount of government is necessary to ensure those individual freedoms,  but not one to dictate the terms of society in its own image, or remake it for its own gratification.

Limited government?

Do those words have any meaning post Civil War? Or Post WW1-WW2? Or post 9-11?

I can't help but to laugh!

Quote from: Trip on August 01, 2013, 10:14:31 AM
Nice. An entire post with nothing but Ad hominem address, and no attempt whatsoever to engage real discussion.

You're looking more and more like a progressive every moment.

Anyone who believes Boston was an inside job, thinks he is being followed by government agents, thinks Russia as a freer country than the United States, dismisses national security professionals in favor of his own political biases isn't worth a discussion with. The nonsense is too baked in your cake.

Especially when you truly believe freedom tastes no different to those who have fought for it - that wearing the uniform somehow makes you no more credible than anyone else in a national security discussion. That last point alone is why you are not a conservative. In fact, I can't believe you even get away with saying something as disrespectful and unpatriotic like that on these forums. Take that avatar down, you don't rate it.

AND, I might add - this thread isn't supposed to be your personal space to give 6-paragraph responses to every sentence you disagree with. You hijacked this thread in legendary ways, yet, I was the one accused of trolling here? Over the guy who registered two weeks ago and has been posting 10 posts a day?

I'm sure that Rand Paul is just overreacting....our government would NEVER use such private information for anything like harassing innocent folks, right?



Michele Catalano was looking for information online about pressure cookers. Her husband, in the same time frame, was Googling backpacks. Wednesday morning, six men from a joint terrorism task force showed up at their house to see if they were terrorists. Which prompts the question: How'd the government know what they were Googling?

The men identified themselves as members of the "joint terrorism task force." The composition of such task forces depend on the region of the country, but, as we outlined after the Boston bombings, include a variety of federal agencies. Among them: the FBI and Homeland Security

They mentioned that they do this about 100 times a week. And that 99 of those visits turn out to be nothing. I don't know what happens on the other 1% of visits and I'm not sure I want to know what my neighbors are up to.

One hundred times a week, groups of six armed men drive to houses in three black SUVs, conducting consented-if-casual searches of the property perhaps in part because of things people looked up online.

http://www.theatlanticwire.com/national/2013/08/government-knocking-doors-because-google-searches/67864/#.UfqCSAXy7zQ.facebook

Quote from: Stryke on August 01, 2013, 11:14:50 AM
AND, I might add - this thread isn't supposed to be your personal space to give 6-paragraph responses to every sentence you disagree with. You hijacked this thread in legendary ways, yet, I was the one accused of trolling here? Over the guy who registered two weeks ago and has been posting 10 posts a day?

This thread is in Poli, where debate happens.  The thread has not been hijacked.

Then I'd have to say I'd be interested in knowing what your definition of a thread being hijacked is. The monologues he's engaged in for more than 2 pages now has zero to do with the original topic of this thread.

Quote from: Stryke on August 01, 2013, 12:10:35 PM
Then I'd have to say I'd be interested in knowing what your definition of a thread being hijacked is. The monologues he's engaged in for more than 2 pages now has zero to do with the original topic of this thread.

You've engaged for 2 pages, and you hit a point where you now want to call it hijacking.  It doesn't work that way.  The thread, still in the context of your OP in regards to Rand Paul.  Try to keep it non-personal, if you will.

The topic that ended up being discussed was PRISM, when the point of the thread was Rand Paul.

Quote from: Stryke on August 01, 2013, 12:10:35 PM
Then I'd have to say I'd be interested in knowing what your definition of a thread being hijacked is. The monologues he's engaged in for more than 2 pages now has zero to do with the original topic of this thread.

Back to your original question about Rand, he is not a RINO, the party is infested with them, they are worse than the Dims of the 60s, and Rand brings a different position than that of the libs.

Would I rather see Cruz leading the party? In a heart beat, but Rand (at this point in time) is our best shot at beating the libs from the party.

Cruz for Senate Majority Leader.

Quote from: Stryke on August 01, 2013, 12:16:40 PM
The topic that ended up being discussed was PRISM, when the point of the thread was Rand Paul.

Yeah and guess you  inserted the deflection of Prism. You.

Just as with you did with the Louisiana Purchase, and then the Alien & Sedition Acts....

Your desperate search for a nut, isn't my derailing.

Quote from: TowardLiberty on August 01, 2013, 07:17:04 AM
If you associate libertarianism or the CATO Institute with progressive or statist thought then there is something seriously wrong with you.

I am no fan of CATO but they are not progressives. That is just silly.

TL, you might appreciate this, it's what passes for Libertarianism in many minds today, it's an example of how Libertarianism has been bastardized today and why so many young people lean towards it, never actually understanding it.
However, it is also why the Tea movement will pick up a lot of votes, they equate Rand with this bastardized version.

I may not be explaining this very well, I didn't get any sleep last night.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/southamerica/uruguay/10216201/A-guide-to-the-worlds-most-libertarian-countries.html

Why, you ask?  When a thread gets this far off track and the responses back and forth consume nearly a page of print, WHOGAS what's being said.

Quote from: Reality on August 01, 2013, 01:35:09 PM
Why, you ask?  When a thread gets this far off track and the responses back and forth consume nearly a page of print, WHOGAS what's being said.

It's still within the context of the Constitution, if it wanders out of those bounds, then it's off topic.