Conservatives Against Liberty
- Thread starter drbrumley
- Start date
Originally Posted by drbrumley
Social conservatives object to libertarians because social conservatives wish to use government power to force people to be good.
More like punish them when they're bad.
4For the one in authority is God's servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for rulers do not bear the sword for no reason. They are God's servants, agents of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer.
Romans 13:4
That's not to say that punishment doesn't encourage people to do good, i.e. abide by the law.
Social conservatives object to libertarians because social conservatives wish to use government power to force people to be good.
More like punish them when they're bad.
4For the one in authority is God's servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for rulers do not bear the sword for no reason. They are God's servants, agents of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer.
Romans 13:4
That's not to say that punishment doesn't encourage people to do good, i.e. abide by the law.
Whatcha doin linking a Libertarian website anna?
annabenedetti
like marbles on glass
It related to the OP although I don't care if it's libertarian, although I'm not. It resonated in more than one way, but one reason is because I see conservatives as having abandoned any pretense of a desire for small government, as long as they're in charge of it.
Interesting article. Let's put aside the idea that municipalities and State governments have some kind of "right" to indoctrinate children at "Drag Queen Story Hour", as it has absolutely nothing to do with nationalism.
Yet the true object of the nationalists' ire is much closer to home: They cannot abide individual Americans making social and economic choices they do not like. For consumers, the question might be whether to buy foreign or domestic. For a business owner, it might be where to open a factory. For a parent, it might be whether or not to attend drag queen story hour at the local library. Regardless, the new nationalists have decided not only that there is a right answer from a moral perspective but that government should force you to choose correctly.
Let's talk about economic nationalism and whether or not I should support your American business and hence build a strong economy here at home instead of supporting the mass murdering Communist Chinese and the corporations that make an easy buck off of slave labor.
I found these words in the article to be less than forthright, for the simple reason you can't effectively put tariffs on goods coming in from other countries unless you have massive businesses here at home that supply the same goods.
Practically speaking, the nationalist agenda is largely focused on the need for a federal "industrial policy." For Breitbart's John Carney, that means tariffs, and lots of them.
I'll guarantee you that for every product that says "Made in America" there's hundreds more that say "Made in China".
You have proved yourself either completely ignorant of our government as set up by the founding fathers, or very dishonest.
Our legal system was for years based upon Blackstone's Commentaries which are directly based upon Biblical legal concepts. It wasn't until the late 19th century that the current concepts of law as practiced now were introduced into this nation. And our founders set us up so that in our political system the most power was held at the township level, a lesser amount of power at the county level, an even lesser amount of power at the state level, and the weakest least powerful part of government at the federal level. That has been completely turned on its ear for the federal government is now the supreme power in the US. IOWs our constitution has been destroyed qnd the state has usurped the power originally held by the individual. And that is what you advocate. You are a totalitarian and you prove it with every post you create.
Austrian economics is Biblical. Look at how God originally set up the nation of Isreal's economy. The only restrictions on it were those placed on it by the 10 commandments which are the perfect set of moral laws. Those laws governed the moral character of the individual, and only indirectly governed business. It did that by requiring moral behavior of the individual, You want to prove that wrong? Show me scripture giving business regulations telling the Israelites/Jews how to set up and run their businesses. As all means of production was owned by the individual it was capitalism in it's purest sense. And that is what is taught by Hayek, von Mises, Rothbard, and others. If you were a thinking individual you would already know that the only way to have a moral society, and businesses run in a moral way is through self-government of the individual in the areas of morality for that is what the Bible teaches us. Moral people make moral choices. Immoral people make immoral choices. You're never going to legislate that out of existence.
I'm only going to respond to what I emphasized above.
So, in a world of sin everyone should just throw caution to the wind and trust government to force everyone to be moral? No one should show judgment in who to trust and who to not trust, and should throw self-preservation on the arms of an incorruptible government. Right? No government has ever been corrupt in the history of our planet. Right? There is no corruption in our nation's politicians and never has been. Right? All government inspectors/regulators are completely moral, above reproach, and way, way above ever being corruptible. Right?
The link below is who you say we should trust to be honest, forthright, and incorruptible.
https://www.naturalnews.com/035641_corruption_FDA_Big_Pharma.html
Now, as to your misapplication of Paul's writings. In your mind the Roman government was cooperating with God and doing His work when they hung Peter upside down. They were also doing God's will when they threw Christians to the lions in the amphitheaters. They were also doing God's will when they killed the man you quoted. And the Jewish leadership combined with Pilate and Herod were doing God's will when they killed not only John the Baptist, but Jesus as well. I suppose Ahab and Jezebel were God's servants as well as they were the government of Israel. How about when the Hugenot's were slaughtered in France? That was government doing God's will, right? How about the governments of the world that cooperated with the Inquisition for centuries? They were doing God's will, right? Government is just sooooo beneficient, kind, loving, and has such a tender moral conscience. Right?
Are unchecked private property rights that adversely affect your neighbor biblical? Are anti zoning laws biblical? Is failing to provide your customers with a safe and healthy place to purchase goods biblical?
That's the God ordained role of civil government, to punish those who do evil.
A righteous civil government can't force people to do good, but it can punish them when they're not. In essence that's encouraging them to do good.
Corruption in civil government and continuing to allow it to happen is on the people who elect those public officials, not on the institution itself. God created civil government for a purpose (to punish evil) and commands what kind of civil leaders should rule so that there won't be corruption.
What you're talking about isn't even addressed under Austrian economic theory. Do God's laws address these issues? They do for Jesus said the entire law and the prophets hangs upon the golden rule. Like I said before, God set up the nation of Israel so that economic issues were only indirectly affected by the laws of God. He set up no laws concerning economics other than giving the individual the ownership of all means of production. That is capitalism. And that is how liberty works.
Israel's business climate was controlled by each individual's personal morality. That's how God set it up. You want to argue with that you need to take it up with God and tell Him He didn't do things the right way.
When the Israelites/Jews would get corrupt by not following God's laws what would happen is that God would condemn their lack of relationship with Him and their individual lack of morality, not set up more laws governing behavior for everything in life. You ought to actually read the Bible some times so you'll know what's in it.
Your argument flies in the face of reality. You're going to have to show how governments down through history have been incorruptible and have always supported those who did right and always punished those who did wrong. The entire history of humanity demonstrates that has never happened.
Corruption in civil government in a system like ours is today is directly due those in it being part of a corrupt population. I address this issue in my signature: “Society is endangered not by the great profligacy of a few, but by the laxity of morals amongst all.” You cannot have a government free of corruption when those who lead it are all members of a corrupt society. Thus, to limit government corruption the power of government itself has to be limited. The founders understood this and thus our nation was set up with its power structure exactly the opposite of what it is now for the more power that is invested in government remote from the individuals it governs the more it feeds corruption for it is putting corrupt individuals in positions of more and more power to enrich themselves at the expense of their fellow man.
Stop looking to corrupt people in government to stop being corrupt and look at ways to limit corruption by limiting the power of an ever more powerful government. Power corrupts, and you ignore that axiom and look to increase the power of the few over the many. That makes you a totalitarian, and an unapologetic one at that.
Selling the Mall at the Corner of Caveat and Emptor
https://austrian.economicblogs.org/wolf-street/2017/mcnellis-mall-caveat-emptor/
Zoning is Theft
https://mises.org/library/zoning-theft
And as long as mankind has a sinful nature, corruption will continue, including in the institutions that God created for mankind, but that doesn't change what the role of government is and what kind people a nation is to select as it's leaders.
Thank you, but it has nothing to do with the US representative constitutional republic.
An excellent point. The legislative, judicial and executive branches of our nation was designed exactly to do that and the Constitution is to keep those 3 branches in check. Now if the people of the US would only educate themselves and understand what a great document our Founding Fathers gave us.
In closing: remember that God created 3 institutions for the governance of mankind (the family and the Church being the other two) and that all 3 are dependent upon each other for a nation to thrive or go down in history as yet another fallen nation.
http://vftonline.org/VFTfiles/thesi...HE NEGLECTED MINISTRY, by Archie P_ Jones.htm
So, you finally admit that government is always corrupt for humanity is corrupt. The only conclusion to be drawn from this is that since government is, and always has been, corrupt that it's power must be limited. It's control over its citizens must be limited as much as possible. Yet you have argued against that constantly and for government to affect every part of human life.
Your link shows it's basis in fallacy very early. God set up a theocracy which is not a "civil government". It was a government with God at it's center. A civil government is a government with man at it's center. Therefore it is necessarily corrupt.
The basis for workable governance is, and always has been for that is how God set up the nation of Israel, the population putting God at the center of their lives and the family as the basic societal structure. The introduction of a civil government, a king, was according to God a rejection of Him and thus His choice of governance for the nation of Israel, for that is exactly what He said to Samuel when Samuel told God that Israel had rejected him as its leader. There never was to be a third leg in the system of governance if Israel had followed God's leading. It was the civil government that was in a great degree the cause for leading Israel, as a nation, away from God. The heads of the civil government were time and time again completely corrupt and encouraged Israel, and Judah, to imitate the nations around them in their pagan worship practices. Thus, civil government was never God's plan for the Israelites/Jews.
It is not the function of our government to keep us good. As Madison pointed out, governments established to do so have led to corruption and evil.
We will have a theocracy when God sees fit to give us one. Those who try to push Him along by doing it for Him, are not His people.
We will have a theocracy when God sees fit to give us one. Those who try to push Him along by doing it for Him, are not His people.
I have three questions for you:
1. Which laws work better:
A) man's laws
B) God's laws
2. Would it be better for man's laws to be arbitrary, or for man's laws to reflect God's laws?
3. Do you know the difference between theocracy and theonomy?
God created the institution of government for a specific purpose, therefore the institution in and of itself cannot be corrupt. An immoral nation (a corrupt people) are responsible for the corruption in government by the people they choose. If people who look to the Bible for answers simply just followed the commands of God and "select out of all the people able men who fear God, men of truth, those who hate dishonest gain" (Exodus 18:21) and held those elected officials to those standards, the corruption would disappear. Regarding the size of government: a moral nation only needs a "limited government", it's when they step away from biblical directives that it becomes huge and out of control.
While God did create a theocracy in ancient Israel, that doesn't mean that His institution of civil government wasn't used throughout the rest of the world. Whether or not those governments chose to do good or evil, was dependent upon the people who they chose as their rulers.
That's the key to a nation that will be prosperous, healthy and happy: Whether or not God is put at the center of their lives within the 3 institutions that God created for the governance of man: the family, the Church and civil government.
Hence the reason Libertarianism has never worked and never will work: God is left out.
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Lying is a sin.
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The basis of Libertarianism is completely compatible with the Bible and does not exclude God in any way.
You can beat up your straw-man, but that will prove nothing.
The Bible verses that you love to quote do NOT give government the authority to mandate meat inspectors, etc. etc. etc.
In a free society, there would be trusted third parties that would handle the situation quite well. No need for the government monster to invade to save the day. Government is always the last resort.