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There should be something to prevent people from mislabelling themselves and doing positions injustice.
That's what you want the mods to do?
There should be something to prevent people from mislabelling themselves and doing positions injustice.
[ame=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberalism]Liberal[/ame]:Conservatism is a relativistic term used to describe political philosophies that favor traditional values, where "tradition" refers to religious, cultural, or nationally defined beliefs and customs. The term is derived from the Latin, conservâre, to conserve; "to keep, guard, observe". Since different cultures have different established values, conservatives in different cultures have different goals. Some conservatives seek to preserve the status quo, while others seek to return to the values of an earlier time, the status quo ante.
Samuel Francis defined authentic conservatism as “the survival and enhancement of a particular people and its institutionalized cultural expressions.” Roger Scruton calls it “maintenance of the social ecology” and “the politics of delay, the purpose of which is to maintain in being, for as long as possible, the life and health of a social organism.”
****************************Liberalism refers to a broad array of related doctrines, ideologies, philosophical views, and political traditions which advocate individual liberty. Liberalism has its roots in the Western Age of Enlightenment, but the term has taken on different meanings in different time periods.
Broadly speaking, liberalism emphasizes individual rights. It seeks a society characterized by freedom of thought for individuals, limitations on power (especially of government and religion), the rule of law, the free exchange of ideas, a market economy that supports free private enterprise, and a transparent system of government in which the rights of all citizens are protected. In modern society, liberals favor a liberal democracy with open and fair elections, where all citizens have equal rights by law and an equal opportunity to succeed.
Many new liberals advocate a greater degree of government influence in the free market to protect individual rights (in a broad sense), often in the form of anti-discrimination laws, universal education, and progressive taxation. This philosophy frequently extends to a belief that the government should provide for a degree of general welfare, including benefits for the unemployed, housing for the homeless, and medical care for the sick. Such publicly-funded initiatives in the market are rejected as interference by modern advocates of classical liberalism, which emphasizes free private enterprise, individual property rights and freedom of contract; classical liberals hold that economic inequality, as arising naturally from competition in the free market, does not justify the violation of private property rights.
[ame=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centrist]Centrist[/ame]:In politics, right-wing, the political right, and the right are terms used in the spectrum of Left-Right Politics, and much like the opposite appellation of Left-wing, it has a broad variety of definitions: the same name can, in politics, sometimes mean different things. However, it is generally used to refer to the segments of the political spectrum often associated with any of several strains of conservatism, monarchism, fascism, libertarianism, anarcho-capitalism, reactionism, some forms of populism, the religious right, nationalism, militarism, realism or simply the opposite of left-wing politics.
[ame=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moderate]Moderate[/ame]:In politics, centrism usually refers to the political ideal of promoting moderate policies which land in the middle ground between different political extremes.
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An alternate definition is to assume that the two poles in question (e.g., Left/Right) are well-defined, and then define as 'centrist' any position which the Left considers too far Right and the Right considers too far Left, and define as a 'Centrist' any person who self-identifies more with those positions than either the Left or the Right. The weakness in this argument is that it is difficult to unambiguously and objectively define both poles at once, but that difficulty affects all political definitions, not just centrists.
Left:In politics, a moderate is an individual who holds the middle position between those generally classified as being left-wing, liberal, or socialist and those seen as right-wing, conservative, or capitalist. An alternate definition, and one widely held among swing voters, is that a moderate is one who has firm convictions on all issues, yet some convictions fall just to the left of the spectrum and some fall just to the right.
Political moderates usually seek conciliation between the views of various political parties, and often take positions partially derived from opposite views. For example, political moderates might not support the end of private property in the way advocated by Marxists, but they also might not support laissez-faire capitalism.
Some political moderates are "bi-polar" in the sense that they side with right-wingers on certain classes of issues, but with left-wingers on others, rather than consistently staking out intermediate positions across the board. In the United States, however, the term "libertarian" is often used to denote those who hold fiscal-conservative views on economic issues such as taxes and welfare, but are liberal on social and moral issues like abortion and gay rights. A person holding views opposite to this on both counts—taking a liberal interventionist stand on economic issues while lining up with the conservatives socially and morally—is sometimes characterized as a "communitarian."
"Moderate" is by definition a relative term, since the position considered moderate depends on the nature of the two (or more) competing ideologies that the moderates are trying to conciliate. As such, the moderates in one country often do not share the views of moderates in other countries. Even within the same country or community, the position considered "moderate" changes over time. For example, in the Southern United States during the first half of the 19th century, supporting slavery was considered a sensible and moderate view to hold. Today, in the same geographical area, supporting slavery is considered dangerous and unacceptable extremism.
******************************************In politics, the left-wing, the political left, and the left are terms used in the spectrum of Left-Right politics, defined as against the political right and associated, to varying degrees, with social (as opposed to classical) liberalism, progressivism, American liberalism, some forms of populism, social democracy, socialism, communism, syndicalism, some forms of anarchism, communalism, communitarianism, and green politics.
The left is generally secular. However, in some Roman Catholic countries there is a tradition of Liberation theology which focuses upon "social justice", and in most Protestant countries there is a tradition of Christian Socialism. Religion and left-wing politics have sometimes been allies, for example in the U.S. civil rights movement, and sometimes opponents, for example regarding legalized abortion.
Those on the left view themselves as "progressive", on the side of social progress and openness to change.
[ame=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarianism]Libertarian[/ame]:In politics, an independent is a politician who is not affiliated with any political party. In countries with a two-party system, independents may hold a centrist viewpoint between the two parties, or may feel that neither of the two parties adequately represents their viewpoint.
Other independent candidates are associated with a political party and may be former members of it, but are not able to stand under its label. For instance, after being expelled from the Labour Party but before joining the Respect Coalition, British Member of Parliament (MP) George Galloway described himself as "Independent Labour".
A third category of independents are those who may belong to or support a political party but believe they should not formally represent it and thus be subject to its policies. This was common among members of most political parties for the purpose of British local government elections until the last quarter of the twentieth century.
Libertarianism is a political philosophy maintaining that all persons are the absolute owners of their own lives, and should be free to do whatever they wish with their persons or property, provided they allow others the same liberty and avoid abusing their liberty. Broadly speaking, there are two types of libertarians: consequentialists and rights theorists. Rights theorists hold that it is morally imperative that all human interaction, including government interaction with private individuals, should be voluntary and consensual. They maintain that the initiation of force by any person or government, against another person or their property — with "force" meaning the use of physical force, the threat of it, or the commission of fraud against someone — who has not initiated physical force, threat, or fraud, is a violation of that principle. This form of libertarianism is associated with Objectivists, as well as with individualist anarchists who believe opposition to the state is consistent with this principle.
Consequentialist libertarians do not have a moral prohibition against "initiation of force," but believe that allowing a very large scope of political and economic liberty results in the maximum well-being or efficiency for a society - even if protecting this liberty involves some initiation of force by government. However, such governmental actions are limited in the free society consequentialists envision. This type of libertarianism is associated with Milton Friedman, Ludwig von Mises, and Friedrich Hayek. Some writers who have been called libertarians have also been referred to as classical liberals, by others or themselves. Also, some use the phrase "the freedom philosophy" to refer to libertarianism, classical liberalism, or both.
Libertarians generally do not oppose force used in response to initiatory aggressions such as violence, fraud or trespassing. Libertarians favor an ethic of self-responsibility and strongly oppose conscription and the welfare state, because they believe coercing someone to provide charity and military service is ethically wrong, ultimately counter-productive, or both.
There is.
You.
As a member, that's your job. That's why you created an account and logged in today. To debate.
Personally, I got tired of having to keep explaining the basic positions over and over, so I created a post defining each and saved it with all relivent url, quote, color code in the drafts file of my e-mail. I simply post it when needed instead of rehashing the same oll argument.
But there is nothing forcing people to change those labels. If I completely call out someone and show that they're not a part of that position, then they still can leave that label. The debate wouldn't accomplish anything if that person will still keep that same label.
Thanks.I know. I'm not dumping on you as if you were stating a fact.
Yes. But, back in those times, in most if not all cases, there WAS no separation of church and state. Thus, marriage could be both without issue. I consider it a hold-over from then.That would be extremely difficult to establish, since marriage has been used in every culture since before written history.
The government is allowed to perform religious ceremonies?If the government were to force churches to perform marriages against their tenets, this would be true. However, as it would be courthouses that perform marriages, not churches, the separation of church and state is not threatened.
Not at all. Allowing gay marriage would simply move the marker as to who is defending the government's position from one group to another. The argument would continue.Conversely, so would allowing gay marriage.
Which is EXACTLY what I want to see happen.Well, yes. Removing government, and therefore politics, would indeed remove political debate. However, you would only see the issue picked up just as strongly, if not more so, by theological debate.
Well, not directly.See, I'm just not aware of any pro gay marriage position that states that various religions must accept gay marriage within their own churches.
I AM highly presumptuous.Much has been made of the financial aspect of marriage, but it's more than that. Marriage is a symbol throughout civilization of the ultimate bond between two people . Everything else, such as "civil unions," are watered down concepts which is why a lot of gay people aren't settling for it. And frankly, if marriage were only a religious institution, no atheists would be getting married. Of course, you might say that atheists in this regard are misguided, but that would be highly presumptuous.
I was, and am.I am not personally familiar with courthouses performing marriages with religious overtones, unless you're interpreting the marriage itself as connoting the religious overtone.
Excellent.No prob.
I personally feel that side-stepping the issue is a better option, from a governmental view. Gay couples getting married in a church which allows such would be a result.The world is always changing. Sometimes these changes make me uncomfortable, sometimes not. In the end all I can do to deal with it is determine how concretely or abstractly they effect me. If they affect me personally (and perhaps negatively), I decide if I need to adapt or fight back. If abstractly, I adjust my outlook and roll with it. Not only will governments continue to perform marriages, but gay marriage, nationally, is inevitable. People who were against gay marriage will need to adjust their outlook so that they don't feel their own marriages somehow mean less. I'm not trying to sound condescending, it's just that I genuinely see all this as inevitable.
Glad you agree.True that.
Yes, you're a statist despite wanting government out of marriage. There is no way that you can call yourself a libertarian without cringing with all of the things that you've said on these boards.
Except I can't support that option and I will never vote my support for it. Marriage is between a man and a woman.
That's what's great about libertarianism. The state is out of it and you can call yourselves whatever you want. I don't mind that, but don't expect me to ever support it.
But I've heard you on other issues and you seem to never choose the "freedom maximizing option."
Such as....?
Let's see your criteria for defining Libertarianism. You do realize that absolute libertarian ideas are quite nuts no? That maximizing everyone's freedom to the absolute results in essentially anarchy?
And you call yourself a libertarian? Really?
Did you even read what I wrote? The preferable option is for the state out it and letting individuals and private entities sort it as they see fit. But as earlier stated, that is highly unlikely to happen.
So what is the next more freedom maximizing stance? You seem to want the most freedom maximizing stance (but one that is unrealistic), but then immediately reject the next most freedom maximizing stance and accept the opposite.
And you call yourself a libertarian? Really?
I thought libertarians were for maximizing personal freedom. How can you not keep pushing for the most realistic maximizing personal freedom option if you call yourself a libertarian?
Well that depends on how you define that. After all, you have made is abundantly clear to me that evidence is defined as you see it rather than on some independent method.
Furthermore, I tend to look down the street, several years ahead in fact. If an action that will cause personal freedom to be severely curtailed is the cause of an act right now that increases freedom slightly, it makes little sense for me to support that short term act when the long term impact upon personal freedom is detrimental and highly outweighs the gains now. Paying a little more taxes now to reduce the debt is freedom reducing. Paying 50% of your income purely to pay off bankruptcy the country enters from failure to deal with the debt now is exponentially more freedom reducing than the short term option.
Do you not support spending during a recession and great government regulation?
You don't seem to understand. I don't think that "gay marriage" is marriage. Those are my personal beliefs.
That said, government should have no say and people should be able to call themselves whatever they want to call themselves. Don't expect me to not call it out though. They have as much of a right to call themselves married as I have a right to denounce it.
Was there a typo there? I think a message was lost because I can't get what you were trying to say.
But there is nothing forcing people to change those labels. If I completely call out someone and show that they're not a part of that position, then they still can leave that label. The debate wouldn't accomplish anything if that person will still keep that same label.
And it looks like New York has performed other gay marriages without knowing it.
But what are government officials going to do? Demand to look up the bride's wedding dress each time they grant a marriage license? I would say that would be going too far, as a person's privates are his or her own damn business.
You know, the question and answer I just posed makes makes a case for marriage too - None of the Government's damn business. As for myself, I don't understand why some people are gay, but I am straight, so I will probably never understand. But I do wish the couple a long and happy life together. In the end, that is the whole point of marriage.
Article is here.
Well I just don't think pulling stupid stunts like this is going to help anyone.
I disagree. It puts the issue right out there, front and center.
Yes but it also promotes the idea that the issue is being slid in under the radar. If you have to trick someone into doing something, it probably wasn't the right thing to do to start with.
No.
If you have to trick someone into doing something, it probably wasn't what they thought was the right thing to do to start with.
No, I meant exactly what I said.
Depends on the spending and the regulation. Great refers to what? Size? Depth? The number of pages it's printed on? I don't support debt spending. As earlier stated in a previous thread, a good government would build up surpluses specifically designed for it therefore eliminating the need for debt and thus reduce the taxpayers' risk to having to pay it off. Some regulation is absolutely necessary for freedom to exist. I believe in freedom to make informed decisions. We need regulation to ensure that information being disclosed is accurate and not fraudulent. The stock market wouldn't exist without disclosure regulation. A free market requires a regulatory framework to ensure that the market does not turn into a monopoly. That's the anti-thesis of personal freedom. Being anti-regulation as an absolute results in less personal freedoms. Unless you think that freedom to defraud people should be legal.
You don't seem to understand. A libertarian is for maximizing person freedom. You want the most maximizing freedom option, but then you just rejected the next most personal freedom maximizing option on the basis of your emotional beliefs. If anything, you are not a libertarian because you are willing to have your personal emotional beliefs supersede your belief in maximizing personal freedom. Do I like gay marriage? Not especially. I realize its consequences on our tax revenue and I think two guys kissing is gross. But does that stop me from pushing the next best freedom maximizing option? No. Just because you can't get the MOST freedom maximizing option does not mean you just stop and accept a freedom minimizing option. A libertarian will seek out the most libertarian option that is realistically possible. You don't seem to think this is important, thus I question your libertarianism.
Point is, you appear to think I'm not a libertarian because I don't support the freedom maximizing option. I'm saying you are wrong because your perspective isn't the same as mine. Just because I do not support short term freedom gains does not mean I don't support maximum freedom gains.
The difference between us is that you don't seem to support realistic libertarian goals. Only the lofty, in principle ones.
Fraud would be a breach of contract and one of the purposes of a state is to help uphold contracts.
This is why you're not a libertarian: how should the government react to the economic downturn?
That's like saying that I should support people being enslaved instead of having everyone killed.
Both are wrong, and I aspire for a higher, more principaled goal. So because I don't support the slavery I'm not a libertarian? Seems to be what you're going for.
I'm not one for settling for something that isn't right.
Perhaps obvious Child is a libertarian liberal?
Is that possible?
Earth.
Unless you're homeless.
Or, as George Carlin would say "Houseless" because home is really a state of mind.
But 'home' in the abstract is what he meant, and I think you knew that. So, your clever little comeback wasn't so much clever as it was little.:2razz:
Ideally from a libertarian view, government would get the hell out of marriage and I've gone on record at least five times calling for just that. Realistically, that ain't going to happen. So what's the next freedom maximizing option? Make gay marriage legal.
I totally agree with you on that. Ideally, I want government completely out of marriage; but, marriage laws are so entrenched, they'll never be overturned. The only option for equity is to support gay marriage. To not do so, is to give tacit support to this form of governmental discrimination.
Neither solution is libertarian; but given the realities, which of the two maximizes individual freedom (something very libertarian)?
So you do agree that there is a rational limit to personal freedoms? That the freedom to defraud people is not a personal freedom that should be rationally allowed and that there is a purpose for government to step in and limit specific personal freedoms to maximize total freedoms?
Depends on the downturn and the specific causes and circumstances. You make a lot of absolutist statements without realizing the details that matter. The devil is in the details and you seem to be unaware that he exists. The world is not black and white. Not all events are identical. There is no such thing as one size fits all in philosophical discussions. But you do not seem to care.
I'm not a libertarian because you don't want me to be.
Huh? Did you just make that up hoping it would make sense? You know, insane analogies that are taken to the absolute extreme serve relatively little good in rational discussion. Come back with a rational analogy that actually makes sense.
I can see you are at the bottom of your barrel. And you just admitted what I stated. If you cannot achieve the holy grail, accept Islam. If you cannot have the perfect outcome in terms of libertarianism high ideals, you have no problem accepting antithetical ideas to libertarianism. Thus the difference between you and I. I realize that the high and mighty is unlikely. That does not cause me to entirely abandon libertarianism as you do. I push for the most freedom maximizing option that is left on the table. You accept the antithetical stance to libertarianism. Is removing government from marriage the best outcome? Yes. It is likely? No. Does that mean we accept freedom minimizing outcomes because we can't get the Holy Grail? No. That is abandoning the ideology as you seem very intent upon doing.
Is gay marriage ideal? No. Does it expand personal freedoms? Yes. Therefore, as a realistic libertarian, we should push for it as it expands personal freedoms. It makes no sense as a libertarian to push for something that curtails personal freedom, especially when the long term outcome does not expand personal freedom.
But you are. You claim you follow libertarianism, but you accept antithetical ideas and laws.
How can you call yourself a libertarian when you accept antithetical ideas to libertarianism because you can't get the high and mighty?
If we cannot achieve full fledged democracy, we should install a dictator? What kind of thinking is that?
That's like abandoning Christanity because you cannot imitate Christ absolutely. That's insane. The high and mighty are rarely achieved. That does not mean we throw the baby out with the bathwater.
You call yourself a libertarian. But you have no problems abandoning it at the first sign of trouble.
But there is nothing forcing people to change those labels. If I completely call out someone and show that they're not a part of that position, then they still can leave that label. The debate wouldn't accomplish anything if that person will still keep that same label.
I put down that I lean libertarian, but in truth, libertarianism is idiotic and unworkable. For instance, nobody wants 9 years old driving cars on the freeway. Fortunately, us statists put a stop to it so you can cover yourself in libertarian purity clothing and go around talking about what awful statists the rest of us are while remaining in a functional society.
In calling yourself a libertarian, you don't seem to understand it. If private companies were in charge of the roads, you think that kids would be allowed to drive on them?
The problem is that you're critiquing libertarianism from an interventionist framework. Of course it's going to look bad.
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