Live and Let Live
On the thread about social conservatives v. libertarians, much of the latter's argument is that government has no business telling people what to do. The presumption is that this is done only by those who oppose same-sex marriage, abortion, etc. The actuality, for example, is that many of those pushing the progressive social agenda also use the government to get 1) other people to pay for what they want, witness the abortion provisions in Obamacare (which even libertarians should have no trouble opposing as a funding issue); 2) a recent court filing, responding to a San Francisco government resolution (read a few pages into the court filing for the language);accusing the Catholic church of hate speech for not permitting its own adoption agency to place adoptive children with gay men and women. Sure doesn't sound like government willing to live and let live to me.
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Jun '10
Re: Live and Let Live
Abortion is "live and let die," or more accurately, "live and make die." It's not very libertarian.
Sep '10
Re: Live and Let Live
I think the assumption is better defined as a suspicion that social conservatives do not mind government intervening where is shouldn't as long as it is in keeping with their morality. I doubt you'll find many people on the conservative or libertarian spectrum who would deny the liberal bent for social engineering by any means available.
Jun '10
Re: Live and Let Live
Abortion comes down to what the fetus is. If the fetus is a person, it deserves rights under the law (most basically the right to life which is the most basic right even for libertarians). Since no one can prove, philosophically or biologically, that the fetus is not a person, the conservative thing to do would be to treat it as a person. There is vast amounts of evidence that the fetus is, in fact a person - not the least of which is that it was treated as such for the entire history of western society and changed for non-empirical reasons.
My understanding is that libertarians, as defined by Milton Friedman, want maximum freedom so long as that freedom does not infringe on the basic rights (or maybe freedoms) of others. Since the right to life falls under the most foundational basic right category, I shouldn't see why any libertarian would take exception to government performing its most basic function - protecting the lives of its citizens.
Re: Live and Let Live
Metger, that may be. But libertarians were silent on the abortion funding part of Obamacare -- which was the part that, as Rahm Emanuel admitted, almost brought the whole bill down. Technically it wasn't even a social issue: the issue was taxpayer funding, and the overturning of a rough consensus embodied in Hyde.
The other more salient point is that there is no Senator today who is a social conservative who is not also a fiscal conservative. The idea that these are separate is just not real in practice. There may be a handful or two of socially liberal fiscal conservative types, but in real life they are rare. Social liberalism in practice in our politics is hard to separate from government funding and active use of the courts at the expense, in both cases, of the people. .
Re: Live and Let Live
Bill McGurn: Metger, that may be. But libertarians were silent on the abortion funding part of Obamacare -- which was the part that, as Rahm Emanuel admitted, almost brought the whole bill down. Technically it wasn't even a social issue: the issue was taxpayer funding, and the overturning of a rough consensus embodied in Hyde.
The other more salient point is that there is no Senator today who is a social conservative who is not also a fiscal conservative. The idea that these are separate is just not real in practice. There may be a handful or two of socially liberal fiscal conservative types, but in real life they are rare. Social liberalism in practice in our politics is hard to separate from government funding and active use of the courts at the expense, in both cases, of the people. . · Feb 18 at 8:07am
Amen.
Re: Live and Let Live
Mr. McGurn allow me to interpose a strenuous objection.
Your definition of liberal, conservative and libertarian are confusing me; I suspect we define them differently.
Going and hopefully soon gone is the misnomer of "conservative" as a list of Party stances on issues and liberal as a different list. Returning is the day that these words refer to philosophy, and the philosophy gets applied to the issue, not the reverse.
The problem has been that issues ended up on the wrong side of the American "left/right political spectrum."
Left/right truly refers to more government control (left) and less control (right) (or invert protection instead of control). Abortion is government control over the killed baby. Refusal to allow gays to marry is control of consenting adults.
It was inappropriate to see pro-abortion as left and anti-gay marriage as right. Both involve control/lack of protection, therefore both are left wing.
Libertarians are truly right wing - against abortion and for gay marriage. Social Cons are right wing on abortion, left wing on gay marriage.
The Tea Partier is a Social Conservative and Legal Libertarian. We won in 2010. I feel an internal fight coming between us in 2012.
Nov '10
Re: Live and Let Live
Forcing gay marriage on an unwilling population, by the least democratic branch of government, with minimal debate, and without proper protections for religious freedom is control of a lot more people. If you want gay marriage, engage in debate and get it passed through the legislature. A libertarian tyrant is still a tyrant.
Re: Live and Let Live
Charles Lavergne
Forcing gay marriage on an unwilling population, by the least democratic branch of government, with minimal debate, and without proper protections for religious freedom is control of a lot more people. If you want gay marriage, engage in debate and get it passed through the legislature. A libertarian tyrant is still a tyrant. · Feb 18 at 11:03am
Freedom is control? I don't follow. Marry any consenting adult you like.
If you see following the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution designed to protect it's ideals as force upon you, consider yourself forced. We are all forced by the promise of freedom to ensure its equal application.
That is what courts are for.
Edited on Feb 18, 2011 at 11:15amMay '10
Re: Live and Let Live
Again, with this...
The "pro-choice" argument that I have employed in the past holds that the "humanity", as is suggested, of the fetus is insufficient to make it worthy of legal rights. It is not enough that it can feel pain or that it has human DNA or that it probably will, in the absence of any complications, become a physiological separate human entity. Legal rights properly apply only to separate human beings with the actual (adults) or potential (children) capacity to reason. Humans survive by means of reasoning and acting in accordance with their reasoning, unlike that of non-rational animals who survive on instinct. Reasoning and acting in accordance with one's reasoning is possible only within an environment where coercion is absent, i.e., freedom; one cannot reason or act in accordance with their reasoning under duress - not consistently. Legal rights establish such non-coercive conditions, so that humans may survive via their rational faculty.
(Cont.)
May '10
Re: Live and Let Live
A mother is a separate human being with the capacity to reason and a body with which to control via her own free will; as such, she deserves legal rights so that she may employ her rational faculty without interference. A fetus is no such entity, particularly in its first stages of development. It is dependent entirely upon the mother. It manifests from within a pre-existing rational being. Why should the legal rights of the mother, on which her existence depends, be subordinated to a non-reasoning entity that forms from within her long after she has developed her cognition?
The implications of the "pro-life" position have been conceded by a few in past posts I believe. The position would require, among other things, a rape victim to carry a fetus to term. I can't help but be horrified by the prospect that the state would force a women to sustain a fetus, the presence of which she has not consented to, which was produced as a result of a violent sexual assault, until birth. This seems to me to be unconscionable and I plan on posting on this in the future.
Re: Live and Let Live
Michael by your analysis a one month old baby would have no rights.
The only important indicator that should ever be considered is "human." It is scientific. "Person" is political and therefore open to opinion.
"Human" is scientific fact. No civilized person should condone killing a live human without at the very least due process and equal protection of laws.
May '10
Re: Live and Let Live
Moreover, by what right does a fetus live at the expense of another person without that person's consent? When have the needs of some become coercive claims upon the lives of others? This, ironically, has been the premise upon which leftists develop their political program.
Aug '10
Re: Live and Let Live
Tommy De Seno
Marry any consenting adult you like.
Marriage is only partly something that one does; it is also a claim to recognition from others. The aspect of marriage that you do, promising to stay together, to have and to hold, 'til death do you part, no one can prevent homosexuals from doing, and no one, least of all the government, is trying to prevent them.
The only bone of contention, then, is the claim to recognition. This debate has never been about allowing homosexuals to do anything, but has always been about requiring everyone else to change their idea of what marriage is. Apparently, many people have already done so, as evidenced by the quote above. But most people have the same understanding of marriage that virtually everyone has always had, all over the world, throughout human history, without exception, which is that it is about gender.
Today, the left has decided that regarding homosexuality as different in any meaningful way from heterosexuality is a form of bigotry. That violates my fundamental right to regard marriage as what it has always been. It isn't homosexuals who are being oppressed, it's now the rest of us.
May '10
Re: Live and Let Live
A one month year old is physiologically independent and thereby not living at the expense of the mother. A fetus, by contrast, is living at the expense of the mother.
Re: Live and Let Live
Constructive trust. It's a concept of law that if I accidentally come into possession of your property like timber, or metal, or clothing, I can't destroy it. I have to maintain it for you or dispose of it properly. I can't just destroy it. If it's money, I'll probably go to jail if I don't protect it for you.
Yet for a human life, far more valued than the goods I mentioned, we will not extend the doctrine of constructive trust. In America a mother gets to kill over the inalienable right of the child to life and the reproductive fatherhood rights of the other parent.
Edited on Feb 18, 2011 at 1:37pmRe: Live and Let Live
Paul DeRocco
Tommy De Seno
Marry any consenting adult you like.
The only bone of contention, then, is the claim to recognition.
Paul yours is a very important point. I have criticized the rhetoric of gay marriage proponents about it.
They often fail to realize that on the other side is not just a political but a religious conviction. So when gays demand words like "accept us" "honor us" "make us equal" they harm their own cause. They are asking others to abandon their religion.
Gays will often say they don't like the word "tolerate" because "you tolerate a barking dog. Gays want recognition."
I say they should be happy with tolerate. It doesn't require the religious to violate their peronal covenant with God and accept homosexuality.
Further, I argue to gays, why in the world do you want your marriage accepted by straight people? As a straight person, I don't ask that of other straight people. I couldn't care less if they honor. respect or accept my marriage.
I only ask that they just don't stop me form doing it, as others have the right to do it.
Gays should seek the same.
May '10
Re: Live and Let Live
Tommy De Seno
Constructive trust. It's a concept of law that if I accidentally come into possession of your property like timber, or metal, or clothing, I can't destroy it. I have to maintain it for you or dispose of it properly. I can't just destroy it. If it's money, I'll probably go to jail if I don't protect it for you.
A fetus is not analogous to accidental custody of property. Whatever attachment to a fetus one may have, it is undoubtedly true that a fetus survives at the expense of the mother (and not the other way around); it exacts a real physical toll. If one comes to possess the property of another accidentally (in this scenario), the property does not exact a physical toll or subject the new inadvertent possessor to any kind of duress. Since it does not, the new possessor has not right to dispose of it. By contrast, the mother ought to retain the right to evict the fetus because the fetus does subject the mother to a kind of duress.
May '10
Re: Live and Let Live
In addition, constructive trust itself is illegitimate if it imposes a positive obligation on some to safeguard the property of others. If a friend leaves a suitcase full of cash at my apartment (and, hence, in my possession) by accident and I get robbed later and the cash is stolen, it would be wrong for my friend to sue me for compensation by citing constructive trust.
Jan '11
Re: Live and Let Live
Do you have rights only if you have reason? Why is reason a necessary condition to have rights?
You argue that "Humans survive by means of reasoning and acting in accordance with their reasoning, unlike that of non-rational animals who survive on instinct." Does your right to life depend on your reason, because you need reason to survive? That's utterly circular.
Again, you're arguing that biological humanity isn't enough to be a "person." You're arguing that reason is also required. Why? Why is reason required to have rights?
Re: Live and Let Live
Just because you don't like the law doesn't mean it isn't real. It's the law in all 50 states.
And it should extend to babies in utero.