Modern American conservatism and libertarianism

Hobbes indeed did not have the faith in humankind and the human spirit that Locke and Rousseau did and believed authoritarian government was necessary. Rousseau believed and argued that liberty is the natural state of humankind and taught that liberty is a moral ends rather than a means to an ends, i.e. liberty itself is the highest moral good. He stood philosophically between Hobbes and Locke, the latter of whom did not believe in any form of authoritarianism in government but promoted social contract, by consent of the people involved to how they would cooperate together.

All three, however, shared the same concept of social contract, and however much you might want to change their definition or deny it, it is a valid concept. Those who join the group later may not have had a say in the original social contract, but they consent to it by joining and/or staying with the group which they are not required to do so. That is what liberty looks like.

The Founders would incorporate parts of the philosophy of all three and others into their own arguments and stated conclusions in how our republic should be structured. They agreed with Hobbes that humankind could not be trusted to not yield to its more hedonistic instincts at the expense of the others, and therefore law and a government to enforce it. They agreed with Rousseau that liberty is the natural state of humankind and is the ultimate goal of all social contract and government, but the weak must be protected from bad intent by the strong. They agreed with Locke that liberty itself is the highest moral good and is the end purpose of good social contract.

 

I don't want to change or deny the definitions of a social contract. I was pointing out that even among its proponents there is no consistent definition. It is what it is, a scam to impose restrictions and duties on the individual based on the whims of the ruling elite, the popular opinion, talking heads and anyone else that can influence society to inflict whatever "contractual" obligations they want. Its carte blanche to abuse.

 

There was/is no inconsistency in how the term is identified except among those who want to deny that it exists. You can differ on opinions on how government should be structured and still be 100% consistent on the definition of social contract that is likely to result in different societal structures, including government.

 

Okay, what are the details of the social contract? What is an individual obligated to do and not do per the social contract? Are the requirements the same in Texas and Massachusetts? Where do we go to sign it or fight its restrictions and requirements? Where can I get a copy?

The social contract is the State's version of your parent's "Because I said so" contract.

 

To my way of thinking, conservatism is about conserving everything that's beneficial to society, a general description of which may be found in the Preamble to the Constitution; and the conservation of beneficial things requires that malignant things, which will naturally ruin beneficial things, are arrested in their development at every opportunity. To this end, We the People, as represented by a supermajority of states, have delegated certain powers to the federal government, and to the governments of the states in which We reside. The remainder of the responsibilities in that regard We reserve to Ourselves individually, just as We reserve to Ourselves the individual liberties which do not conflict the laws enacted by Our consent.

Now from what I've seen of libertarians, they don't understand any of that, because they confuse liberty with license; and that in turn is because, for the most part, they're Godless.

 

Libertarians (large "L") I think mostly don't understand a concept of unalienable rights or social contract. And as a result they are sometimes as authoritarian to radical extremes in their point of view as some leftists are in theirs. Conversely libertarians, 'small L", mostly embrace the classical liberalism of the Founding Fathers. They believed in a government of the people, by the people, and for the people,, and the central government receives its authority from the people who limit it to specific and limited functions.

Once those functions are in place, and the nation is defended from enemies within and without, and the various states are prevented by law from doing economic and physical violence to each other, the people are at liberty to form themselves into whatever sorts of societies they wish to have so long as they do not deny others from doing the same.

One may chose to be peaceful and traditional with a church and a school and chivalry and manners and decent family values. Another may choose anarchy and anything goes including gambling and brothels and you name it. The USA produced both kinds of societies in its early years, but ultimately the people given complete liberty to live their lives as they chose would reject anarchy and choose law and order. What little theocracies existed would all self dissolve and become more accepting communities.

The Founders got it right that people, with their life, liberty, pursuit of happiness and other unalientable rights acknowledged and protected, would make mistakes, get it wrong now and then, but ultimate would conserve what is good and beneficial but reject the bad and choose something better. But that was when Amerians were mostly what would be modern American conservatives and/or libertarians/classical liberals.

But now we have a large segment of America that intends to return us to authoritarianism that would dictate what rights we will be allowed and control every aspect of our lives. Modern American conservatives must push back and defeat that intention or we will lose all the greatness of America that the Founders intended.

 

These people in Congress and talking heads on television calling for the Electoral College to be abolished--AOC unbelievably calls it RACIST!!!!!--scare me to death. I shudder to think that every Democrat candidate asked if they supported giving healthcare to the illegals all of whom they oppose deporting, every single one of them raised his/her hand. People that clueless indeed could be ignorant and clueless enough to end the Electoral College.

I think modern American conservatives/libertarians understand and appreciate the pure genius of the Electoral College:

I ran across an earlier column of Walter and quote an excerpt:

. . .In Federalist Paper No. 10, James Madison wanted to prevent rule by majority faction, saying, “Measures are too often decided, not according to the rules of justice and the rights of the minor party, but by the superior force of an interested and overbearing majority.”

John Adams warned in a letter, “Remember democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet, that did not commit suicide.”

Edmund Randolph said, “That in tracing these evils to their origin, every man had found it in the turbulence and follies of democracy.”

Then-Chief Justice John Marshall observed, “Between a balanced republic and a democracy, the difference is like that between order and chaos.”. . .

The Founders expressed contempt for the tyranny of majority rule, and throughout our Constitution, they placed impediments to that tyranny. Two houses of Congress pose one obstacle to majority rule. That is, 51 senators can block the wishes of 435 representatives and 49 senators.

The president can veto the wishes of 535 members of Congress. It takes two-thirds of both houses of Congress to override a presidential veto.

To change the Constitution requires not a majority but a two-thirds vote of both houses, and if an amendment is approved, it requires ratification by three-fourths of state legislatures.

Finally, the Electoral College is yet another measure that thwarts majority rule. It makes sure that the highly populated states—today, mainly 12 on the east and west coasts, cannot run roughshod over the rest of the nation. That forces a presidential candidate to take into consideration the wishes of the other 38 states. . . .​

https://www.intellectualtakeout.org...uyisMRfwf4Lkp-nit1ye2X8Z1JYrIDwkiLK9eWTPtL84c

If the Electoral College was abolished, Los Angeles County--that is ONE single county--could cancel out the vote of 10 or 11 states. And yet California is rewarded for its large population with its 55 electoral votes cancelling out the EC votes of those 11 states five times over.

Williams sums it up. Do you really want do do away with juries that require unamimous votes to issue a guilty verdict for a serious crime? Or is a majority vote sufficient?

 

If you mean the federal gov't, that is not quite correct, as it is the vassal of the People.

Seeing the slave states did not do so, I don't know how you can say that.

I wonder if you understand that nothing makes a populace more susceptible to that than the confusion of liberty with license.

How, exactly?

 

I have a personal prejudice against chopped up posts that too often destroy context and/or introduce a lot of non sequitur content. Plus they are confusing when you try to respond. But I'll try. Please forgive me if I do not respond to other posts in that manner though.

Abraham Lincoln closed the Gettysburg Address with his now famous quote: ". . .that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth."

And I am pretty sure he took it from the great Daniel Webster speaking from the Senate floor in 1830:
“It is, Sir, the people’s government, made for the people, made by the people, and answerable to the people. The people of the United States have declared that this Constitution shall be the supreme law.”
Daniel Webster (1782-1852)

The concept of course was fully incorporated into the purpose and intent of the U.S. Constitution that drew from the Declaration of Independence to establish a central (federal) government that, for the first time in history, would be a government that drew its authority from the people instead of the other way around.

Your reference to liberty vs license is entirely non sequitur to the point I was making, but yes, there is a difference between those two things. And slavery is a separate issue as well, however many of the states in which slavery was legal had already rejected and ended slavery by the time the Civil War was fought. And most serious students of history agree that the rest would have eventually followed suit, perhaps unders social pressure, had there been no Civil War. Humankind with conservative/libertarian values will generally eventually get it mostly right.

And we push back on the encroaching authoritarianism that the new American left would force on us by rising up and refusing to accept it. We must take back the schools, including Institutions of higher learning, that are mostly no longer teaching the Constitution and almost exclusively ignore the documents that provided the foundation for it. We must be bold and persuasive in pointing out the unintended but destructive/harmful consequences of rampant liberalism and infuse common sense back into the American discourse.

 

I'm not talking about what Webster said, I'm talking about what you said, which differs substantively from what he said.

No it wasn't, and I told you why; and platitudinous repetition does not a credible counterargument make.

Which might be interesting, had I ever claimed it followed from the point you were making.

Not from your claim that "[t]he Founders got it right that people[] ultimate[ly] would conserve what is good and beneficial but reject the bad and choose something better[]", it isn't.

"Most serious students of history" are one thing, actual history quite another; and the latter strongly suggests that if you represent the former accurately, they don't know what the hell they're talking about.

You'd have us believe the Confederate rebellion was rooted in conservative/libertarian values?

 

I'm sorry but you breaking up the context makes it difficult, unpleasant, and impractical to respond. Most especially when you mischaracterize the points I make or put words in my mouth I didn't say. Thanks for understanding.

 

That makes one of us.

Seeing I never did any such thing...

...I could hardly claim to do that without lying.

 

Where is American libertarianism and American conservatism at odds?

 

Well I think that depends on the libertarian. Some libertarians absolutely open boarders. I am not. Some libertarians support Abortion that is an issue I'm torn on though I lean more pro life. Then you have social issues like same sex marriage. That's when I sport but I think the way to get it done should have been different. Either way conservatives at the time wouldn't have liked it. Issues like legalization of marijuana. I'm absolutely for it.

 

I'm not sure how abortion is a libertarian issue other than the principle that women should never be charged for having an illegal abortion, which I agree with. However, the availability of abortion is hardly a libertarian idea. If the government decided to stop allowing abortions in the health system, that's hardly the government involving itself in people's lives.

Different how?

 

again that depends on the libertarian. Does the harm principle apply to the fetus what is individual liberties apply to the woman it's kind of a rock and a hard place.

Instead of the Supreme Court ruling that states must recognize same-sex marriages if they can't recognize any.

 

I can't see where the harm is for the woman. If abortion was removed from the health system, a woman would still have complete control of her body. She could do whatever she wants with it.

What was the alternative? A vote in Congress?

 

what do you mean alternative to what?

This question doesn't make sense to me.

 

The alternative to the Supreme Court being the way that same sex marriage became federal law.

 

I already said, no state recognition of marriage at all.

 

What do you mean "if they can't recognize any?"

 

Or pointing that libertarianism has always been and will always be an abject FAILURE whenever it is attempted.

Just ask the good citizens of Kansas how badly the libertarian policies of the Koch brothers, that were implemented by Brownback, hurt the state and the local economy.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/beltwa...ut-experiment-crashes-and-burns/#18b14cf15508

And let's not forget the damage that libertarianism did to the city of Colorado Springs.

https://www.politico.com/magazine/s...springs-libertarian-experiment-america-215313

All of the pie-in-the-sky libertarian BELIEFS fail miserably when it comes to harsh reality.

And none of those undeniable FACTS can be refuted because the math doesn't lie when it comes to what it ended up costing those taxpayers to FIX the problems that libertarianism CAUSED.

The 1st amendment protects the right to have idealistic beliefs like those of libertarianism but, just like religion, they cause more harm than good when those BELIEFS are IMPOSED on society.

 

Neither of these examples are libertarian. Both are examples of conservative executive politicians imposing top down cost cutting measures that are completely anathema to libertarian principles. If the mayor of Colorado Springs had opened up city services to competition with private service providers, rather than merely cutting the budgets of those services, that would be somewhat more in line with libertarian functions. Retaining centralized government control of services and then providing less of them isn't remotely libertarian; Offering citizens the ability to opt for alternatives to government services by reducing restrictions on competition might be libertarian if the government didn't tip the scales to favored vendors or government provided services. In that case the likely outcome would be more options, more liberty and better prices for wanted services and a reduction in wasteful expenses for services that aren't wanted or needed.

I wouldn't say the town highlighted in this article is any more libertarian than the examples mentioned in your linked articles but it does demonstrate that when done correctly, privatization of public services can be very successful: https://liberty-intl.org/2014/06/the-town-that-privatized-everything/

 

Agree with they shouldn't demand, but they are going to changer our culture, as you admit. That's as American as pizza pie and German potato salad.

 

Kneejerk denialism par for the libertarian course and only to be expected.

Hard to be bragging about a place that is going to have to RAISE TAXES because it has to pay for the UNNECESSARY PROFIT OVERHEADS of all of those PRIVATIZED services.