I didn't mean to suggest that you're making arguments thoughtlessly; your arguments are consistently thoughtful.

But who says that sufficient constraints can exist outside of government, aside from anarchists?

Also, if a belief in sufficient non-government constraints isn't the cause of a belief in less need for government constraints (as you explicitly argued in #185), then what is the correlation you're proposing?

I agree less with the rest of your post. It's not that I favor expansive regulation of business because I think loss reputation isn't much of a deterrent (I don't favor expansive regulation at all), it's that I think loss of reputation is hardly sufficient for keeping civil society civil or for preventing/punishing harm, and so therefore it's a reason that we need government at all and some government regulation and oversight of business in particular.

Also, I don't see any reason to suppose causality or even correlation between belief in government and belief in non-government constraints.

Ok, I agree with you on this, but we've been talking about constraints on government behavior. If most people end up agreeing too, then the constraint of democracy and elections comes into play.

Sure: the charter document and any other subsequent agreements, interpretation of such documents, self government, competing interests, elections.

These aren't quite principles, I understand (more procedures), but at a certain point it doesn't matter what principle I think should serve as a limit if those around me disagree. If people around me no longer care for a right to bear arms then I'm still protected by the prior agreement we have in place and I can have my day in court. They can change the agreement if enough people agree, but they'll have to go through that exercise at least as long as they still see value in rule of law. If they stop valuing the rule of law then I highly doubt that any abstract principle will constrain that monster anyway.

Because we're primarily talking about the different ways that libertarians and conservatives think about government and the specific ways that the power to make and enforce law is constrained.  And by "law" I mean law in the common sense as opposed to the "private law" sense that Sal was using on that Ethiopian Trucker thread.

I'm still confused, though. What's the alternative for a non-believer if not nihilism?

You're not alone in that struggle, GFL. I think it's a common one for Ricochet members (even us theists), one some of us weren't really conscious of until we came here and were afforded this civil room in which to explore and work things out.

I'm not sure we even need to substitute "intellectual" for "cultural" for your point to be valid. I'm not certain that "intellectual" can be removed from "cultural" without both coming to ruin. Different thread, I know, I just wanted to throw that out there.

First thing's first: I am not a lawyer; I'm an accountant.

To piggyback on Sal's definitions, I'd further say that a libertarian's narrow view of "harm" and "non-aggression" usually puts them in the substantive due process frame of mind while a conservative's broader interpretation usually puts them in a procedural due process frame of mind. For instance: the NYC soda size limit. Libertarians are more likely to argue that NYC has no right to such regulation while a conservative is more likely to argue that NYC (though not  the feds) certainly does have such a right even if we personally think it's a bad idea.

Sal, you beat me to it. "Keeping the government out of places where it doesn't belong" is a substantive or normative assertion if it's to have any real meaning or guiding influence. Libertarians use term like "non-agression", "harm", and "property rights" as if they have objective meanings in accord with libertarian ideals; conservatives also use these words, but we allow that others mean them differently than us and that the currently popular conception will breathe (understandably and acceptably so), so procedural limits are what we rely on to keep things within the margins.

At the risk of losing points: it may testify to superior libertarian tenacity, but it may also suggest that conservatives are better at identifying limitations and adapting to them - because we want an actual good life rather than a theoretically perfect one.

Non-agression is no principle at all unless we all already agree about what it means. I do believe we've covered this ground already. Can I get those points again anyway?

At the rate I'm accumulating points, by my calculations this thread needs to stay active for another 26.897 more days if I'm ever going to earn that prize.

See post #93. You weren't included - I promise!

No, I generally don't make those kinds of assertions even in closed company. Either I can convince somebody or I can't. I tend not to suppose that my failure to persuade is due to a closed mind or a dumb mind.

Out of curiosity, if you didn't mean to imply something about non-libertarians, then what, exactly, were you trying to communicate?

Personally, I don't think libertarianism is entirely wrong. There is much value and truth there.

However, I do think it's incomplete. Rather than acknowledge the realities of "group" the libertarian impulse seems to be to deny or suppress this reality. That's a poor foundation on which to hold forth on proper ways of organizing groups, and I think it causes libertarianism to crumble under its own weight before it really gets going. Sal and some others at Ricochet are somewhat of an exception, but then again Sal's practically a conservative.

By the third point above I don't mean to  suggest that ideology isn't important to libertarians, only that the image thing is often the overriding concern, and often unappealing to a wider audience. We can probably have a whole post devoted to cataloging the different identities common to Libertarium Americanus.

That's certainly one way to look at it, Mike. Not a very inclusive way, but it's one way nonetheless.

Have you ever considered whether:

You could be wrong.

The message might be faulty or incomplete.

The messengers may be offputting (that's been my experience; it seems that for many, libertarianism is just as much about imagined  identity as it is about philosophy - if not more).