ParanoiA

I completely agree. That is my same concern. What about a weighted system though? For example, a drafted senator's vote could have a weight of 33%, while the people's vote has a weight of 67%. I'm not sure I like that actually, but thought I'd toss it out there.

Well, with respect to what's going on in other countries, yes. Not my own, because it is and would still be illegal. We're talking about free international markets. If I don't like country "A" because they make child pornography, then I can organize and punish country "A" economically - however little or much it may be. It's not up to my government to police the world. We don't seem to have any issues with slaves in India and child sex trafficing in a dozen countries now and we're not even a libertarian government, so this is not a unique idea, nor a change from the status quo.

Actually there is a pressing need to deport them - jobs and integrity. The arguments I keep hearing from the left is that they do the work the rest of americans won't do. This is true. Americans won't frame a house for 2 dollars an hour. However, this is illegal. I'll bet I can force my kids to do the same thing for a dollar an hour - so is everyone going to come to their defense and claim they're doing the work the rest of us won't do? It's asinine to me. Democrats are actually in favor of holding these immigrants down - keeping them beat down to working under minimum wage rather than fighting for their integrity and demanding fair wages. And these poor immigrants are marching and protesting in favor of it. Shocking to me. Great point. This is why government should be by the people, for the people. It's the people that pay for it.

Well sure it's just a matter of degree, but that's just math. If it was constraint-free it's just zero. Add one lousy law and suddenly we've crossed some major threshold? The political ideology graph is defined by degree of control over personal and economic issues. Off the top of my head I can think of restricting/regulating monopolies, chemicals, toxic waste and etc...anything that undermines the free market or national security is up for pragmatic override in my book. Of course I would. In terms of government position, it's none of our business. In terms of society, we can make it our business by not supporting any of that country's products or motivate a labor stoppage at their US facilities since we will soon become a tax shelter for manufacturing. That's what I said in my previous post. When we recognize our power in organization and collective cooperation, we can be more responsive and effective as a free will society rather than the big government umbrella. When your government takes a stand against another country, it implicates all americans, whether they support it or not. With the free will approach, a stand is only taken when all americans are truly in support of it. It's the same public, government and society, but one is an institution while the other is individual. When we take the power away from the government we will learn how to apply it as individuals - power of pursuasion. I believe this would integrate into our culture resulting in a more informed and proactive society. Just like I'm participating now in not purchasing any miller products due to their support of illegal immigration. Rights aren't abstract at all. Generally speaking, we all have a natural idea of what is right and wrong based on empathy and pity. The degree we differ can be viewed as the gray area of right and wrong. It's easy to agree that murder is wrong, therefore we should have a right to not be murdered. People use the phrase "god given rights" because it's almost instinctive. We all have that innate inclination to free will - liberty - rights. To go back even further, consider the logistics necessary for a large group of humans to cooperatively exist. Humans can't live together successfully while acting out their instinctive, violent behavior on each other. We group up and establish rules of conduct at a bare minimum. The axiom for establishing these rules, at some point, will boil down to rights or a long list of wrongs. Rights are an easy line in the sand and necessary for a nation of laws, such as a democracy. Wrongs seem to be the focus of Islam, and yes, it's a problem. And ours are for sale right now... I don't know how true of a libertarian I am since I have several issues with the ideology at its core, but yes I do have a problem with majority rule about everything. I feel the same as Jefferson and Madison in that majority rule is not really a great idea, it's only better than the alternatives. But, I don't think it's that bad when personal freedoms are not trampled on. When those freedoms are protected, the majority rule is at least plural. The thing is, majority rule is why we have victimless crime and other laws that tread on civil liberties - they're not being protected. And that's what Madison was concerned about.

Sounds like you're confusing libertarian with anarchy. And no ideology is employed 100% and no sane person believes 100% in any ideology. I can accept limited restrictions on the free market and still be quite libertarian. Just like a conservative can be pro-choice and still be quite conservative. The kind of regulation in place today would be stripped away almost entirely, with a bare minimum of checks and balances for responsibility's sake if I had my way about it. Monopolies pose a serious threat to the balance of a free market, for one.

Many feel that welfare is an attitude. And liberals tend to be enablers. If welfare recipients were forced to work for their benefits, there wouldn't be but a fraction of folks on welfare. So, I do agree with you in that the way it is given out creates part of the problem. However, I don't think it's the government's job to do this. You'd be amazed at how motivated people get when the permanent safety net is gone. Americans are not going to let people starve on the street. Charity will work. But charity is doled out by people who have to control their contribution. It's not a limitless money supply that can be augmented with the stroke of a pen. This forces people to make changes in their life and do what they need to do to get what they need.

Sounds like both solutions are just shucking the loss off onto someone else. Classic big business model.

Well, I find it interesting no one brought up anything about victimless crime. This is actually my biggest issue with this country. There are so many people in prison right now - jailed for their behavior only. Two consenting adults agree to sex for money rather than sex for free. Jailed. People all over this land grow a plant that the government doesn't like, which is arguably safer than alcohol. Jailed. That's sick. That's the heart of libertarianism. No victim = no crime. Who are any of you to tell me I can't smoke a joint? What gives you the right to regulate my behavior? Who am I to tell you, you can't eat a box of twinkies? Where do we get off judging people and throwing them in jail for their behavior? It's sick. It's wrong. Good, hard-working moms and dads sitting in prison with their familiy torn to pieces because they got caught buying a bag of pot. I just don't see how anyone can pass judgement on people's behavior like that and still sleep at night.

This is a classic case of impacting the majority to stop the minority. It's like QuikTrip here in Missouri. They have had an increase in gas runs so now, cash customers have to register their name, SSN#, address, - personal info - and QT gives them a gas ID card. So, when you want to pump your gas you have to swipe that ID card first, then they'll trust you and start the pump - you can pay when you're done. Or, you can avoid all of that and use a credit card. This kind of thing impacts the majority of customers, just so QT can keep an incredibly small fraction of people from ripping them off. If there weren't credit cards, people would be pissed. This is the same kind of thing. It causes hassle for all of us, just to stop a minority of people getting away with something and from what I understand it won't even work. Not to mention all of the government invasion. There is already so much privacy violation going on that nobody cares anymore. Status quo is not good in this area. You think it's harmless now. Think ahead. Think beyond your lifetime or your children's lifetimes. Think about incrementalism and how laws like this snowball. Think about the Patriot Act. It's the same kind of civil liberty violation.

Wow. You're the real McCoy. I only "disagreed" with the involuntary military thing. But when you really get into the platform ideology, you don't have any reservations with it?

I've never seen that in the description of libertarianism. I think the point is that we don't infer what's the best thing for people - rather taking responsibility for yourself and your actions. But I can see where the self indulgence = naturalist fallacy. The thing is, that's subjective and people should learn that on their own rather than the government deciding for them.

Yeah, I have two conservative buddies here at work that got labeled left of centrist as well. I think it's the personal freedom issues that do that. If you answer the personal section all "Agree" and the economic section all "disagree" then you get a straight up liberal. The oppostie and you get a straight up conservative. You probably are mostly conservative, but a little more open to personal freedoms??

I've been a self described Libertarian for years, since my views seem to line up with that particular ideology more than the others. But there are some fundamental issues I have with it and I wondered if others are the same. And, just for fun, I advise anyone to take this quickie quiz. Everyone I know that's tried this found they were more libertarian than they thought. http://www.theadvocates.org/quiz.html The problems I see about libertarianism, so far, is this idea of a privatized police force. I don't even see why I would have to formulate an argument to explain why that one sounds bad. Also, I'm not cool with the complete abolition of welfare, because I think we should always support war veterans, the disabled and the elderly - but that's it. Charity can help those of us who fall down and need some help getting back up - not carrying us around like welfare does. Although, I did answer "agree" on that question in the quiz. What do you all think?

I, for one, have ammended my position on christianity since the start of this thread. Excellent response by Dak. I don't know why I hadn't considered those terror attacks by the IRA and such. Although, I do believe alot of that had to do with British domination in the region. Of course, the Arab region can claim the same. But, I think Bettina's point overrides this because the advancement of weaponry, particularly nuclear, makes this kind of extremism more dangerous than any examples of it before. You could make a case that Christianity and Islam are both guilty of racist or violent intent, albeit limited and sparse relevant to the total amount of content available by each religion's documentation. But, the extremism that resulted from this has not been threatening enough to wipe out so many people, so easily and with so little effort as is possible today. I still believe that Islam has more of a blatant racist tone than Christianity, but I'm also beginning to think that's like saying Stalin was worse than Hitler. Neither have anything to brag about. At this point it's too dangerous to all of humanity and its future, to allow this kind of religion to go unchecked when it is the law of the land rather than a freedom of worship under a secular government. The maturity of Islam needs to be on a fast track and I, admittedly, have no idea how to implement that.

I agree. I've always questioned the wisdom in holding teenagers back about sex in the first place. They have such a natural urge to do it with all of that hormonal activity, it seems abstinence is doomed to fail. And since that teaches basically nothing and at its best, just postpones their sexual discovery, I really don't see the sense in it. And I'm not so sure adults aren't even more casual about sex than teens, with more sexual partners - but definitely better educated about it. I've also been kicking around the idea of condensing schooling, so that kids are graduating from high school at 14. We challenge our children so little, in terms of scholastics, so keeping them busy and forcing the 12 year curriculum into 8 years doesn't seem unreasonable to me. Then, when teens are exploring their sexuality and the reproductive hormones begin to take over, they're at least done with the fundamentals of education. At that point, teen pregnancy jeopardizes their college future, not their high school future.

Text book socialism, no. But practical socialism, most certainly. Most of the more socialist countries tend to be more socially judgemental, yet liberal. It's odd, to me. It seems like socialism comes from the vein of regulating behavior while still seemingly encouraging tolerance. It's basically the government legislating behavior. I like the latter whereas I despise the former. That's what I see my country doing more and more everyday. And that has everything to do with this issue. This drug should be available because of our rights to accessibility - not regulated to promote certain public behavior.

Honestly, I think I'll just go. This is not what I signed on for. I fled other forums because of all the immaturity present in the posts. An intelligent mind was difficult to find. I came here because I thought I could escape the silly childish crap that goes along with most forums. Instead, some of your most popular posters have turned out to be intelligent but at a price. It seems smart people think they have a right to be rude to folks who have differing opinions or maybe it's just insecurity issues. I don't see the sense in getting all worked up in a debate just because somebody doesn't agree with you. Lastly, Dak, I understand your point. But that "text" I was referring to was a dictionary worthy example of hypocrisy. So I don't think it's fair to say it was an unsupported assertion on my part. I can only provide the support so much...eventually someone has to read it.

I completely agree with Mokele. And I'm probably guilty of using the wrong tone. I will try to keep that in mind in future posts. You can't pursuade someone by insulting them. And even if I have, what I believe, a good reason to condemn a religion, I should at least be respectful enough to use tact to get my point across. Otherwise, they're just going to lash out and never absorb the substance.

See, that's what I would expect. A point. And that's a good one. I was under the impression that's what fertility clinics are doing everyday. Of course, you probably mean the entire growth schedule. I know we can't do that today, but we will be able to in the future. We will be able to artificially recreate all of the functions of the womb. That was a reply to a suggestion from someone else that it took a womb to make a baby, implantation...etc. So, I was trying to make the point that all of these processes can be artificially done, but fertilization will still be required. I know, it's weak, but that was my point. And when I said I could grow a baby in a dish, I think it was more than obvious I didn't mean myself personally. Weird that you would comment on something so meaningless.