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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: neolib who wrote (7834)	12/21/2005 6:12:10 PM
From: Lane3	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 542043

But they are opposite sides of the Libertarian spectrum. I don't see that. They are on opposite sides of the liberal/conservative spectrum. But both are libertarian in quite the same way--they are not the business of the state.

To: neolib who wrote (7834)	12/21/2005 6:16:09 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 542043

Both anti-sodomy laws and "politically correct" speech codes, would be anti-libertarian. But they are opposite sides of the Libertarian spectrum. Perhaps they are opposite sides of the conventional political spectrum, but most libertarians of almost any type would oppose both. However, the state is not responsible for any group holding views which are contrary to reality. That's not really the issue. Its not really up to the courts or the federal government to determine reality in this situation. Certainly an enforced determination by the government that God doesn't exist or that he didn't create the universe and life in a certain way would itself be constitutionally questionable. The issue in the recent court case is does the teaching of "Intelligent Design" amount to the establishment of religion. If some school wants to teach that the earth is 10 miles across or 1 million miles across that would contradict reality but it would be unlikely to be an establishment issue, and I submit it would take a very activist court (esp. if it was a federal court) to intervene. If a public school district wants to teach, "God created the world in 7 days", and "Jesus is our savior", than it would be establishing religion, and in fact would be establishing religion even if you assume that those statements are true. Same goes for sexual matters. My parents think that increased acceptance of gay's in the USA 'promotes' homosexuality and lowers the nations morals. I think thats simply ignorance. That is a specific conflict. If you believe in resolving such conflicts through centralized control then the government imposes a solution for the whole country or other political entity. An alternate is to have the issue decided at a lower level, this is subsidiarity more then libertarianism, but its very compatible with libertarianism. Its easier for most people to move to a new town, or even a new state rather then a new country, if they don't like the way issues are decided. The libertarian view would be to have individuals decide the issue for themselves as much as possible. You parents could rail against homosexuality, and personally be offended by homosexuals if that is the way they feel, while you could be open and tolerant, and the homosexuals themselves would be free to ignore other people's opinions to a great extent because such opinions wouldn't be imposed by law or force. If someone tried to impose them with illegal force, a libertarian society would believe the state has the right and probably the duty to protect the potential victims of this attack. Of course social pressure would still exist. Libertarianism doesn't mean that you can do whatever you want and everyone has to openly accept and support it. It just means that most of the time the government should leave you alone. What about your 13 year old daughter deciding she has a right to be a prostitute? My personal opinion is that people should have the right to prostitute themselves, however I would give that right to adults, not 13 year olds. The majority of libertarians recognize that children are not ready for adult responsibility. Tim