Single Issue Voter?

[loinburger]

Originally posted by Boris Godunov
Any Christian can say that natural rights are God-given, yes?

IIRC he's said this (or something to this extent) before, but that doesn't answer the question of how he (Floyd) knows what those rights are, or how he knows that God made them. The argument isn't meaningless unless Floyd's interpretation of God's will (or word or law or whatever) is itself infallible, something that he has never claimed to be the case.

[NeOmega]

BTW Lazarus guy I read your "sob story".

you spent how many months and you couldn't find a job? even with a college education.

Where were you looking, on top of your T.V. set or in the bottom of your beer can?

[David Floyd]

DF, you are Christian, are you not? If that is so, I don't see why you need to go through this argument. Any Christian can say that natural rights are God-given, yes?

That's a somewhat useless argument, as are all religious arguments, in a setting where not everyone is a Christian.

Other than that, I just worked for ****in' 11 hours, and I'm gonna have to respond to loinburger when my brain is working...

[gsmoove23]

Ugh, that was a long post of mine to get no response

[loinburger]

Originally posted by gsmoove23
Ugh, that was a long post of mine to get no response

I'm speaking for Floyd here (so take this with a grain of salt), but from reading this (and other) threads it appears that Floyd's belief is that somebody has a right to life, liberty, and property (the three so-called "natural rights" whose existence are under question here) and that's the full extent of their rights (which answers the bulk of your post), and that government's sole purpose (and the only legitimate reason that government can levy taxes) is to protect the rights of its citizens with a police/military (e.g. economics should be strictly laissez-faire, welfare is wrong, etc., which answers the remainder of your post). So it's not that everybody ignored your post, it's that (as TheStinger pointed out) Floyd's addressed most of your questions in the course of being given the third degree here.

[gsmoove23]

Thanks, that was a good bare bones description, and this thread is full of philosophical discussion and basic philosophical idea, but I was interested in ideas on practical application, which I fully admit was not in the general direction of the discussion so I acknowledge my rights are limited here but since we were so OT anyway...

[loinburger]

Originally posted by gsmoove23
but I was interested in ideas on practical application

Well, the problem is that practicality is really only a primary concern to Utilitarians, which excludes Floyd from being able to give you a satisfactory answer to your question without bringing philosophy into the picture, and pretty much excludes me as well (not even taking into account the fact that I'm not a Libertarian) -- I usually only take practicality fully into account when trying to discern the lesser of two evils or the greater of two goods.

[Ramo]

I'd say that the Libs would be more popular (not to mention logically consistent ) if they dropped this objectivism nonsense, and took a less arrogant and more of a utilitarian/humanistic approach to what they consider "natural rights."

[NeOmega]

no. we'd just be liberals then. Economic conservatism is quite popular. The idea of paying taxes to fulfill some college kids dream of utopia is very repugnant to many. The idea of paying taxes to fund an abortion is reprehensible, even immoral to many more. Basically I beleive taxes should only be spent and collected on programs that which everyone or at least a good 95% of Americans agree are good programs.

I guarantee you collecting taxes for federally funded abortions, corporate welfare, entitlement programs, mass transit and many other social engineering projects are forcing people at the barrel of a gun to award ineptitude, short sightedness, or in the minds of many Christians, murder.

[Ramo]

Are you trying to tell me that libertarianism without objectivism is liberalism (well, American liberalism; it's somewhat similar to classical liberalism)? I can assure you that just about all libertarian socialists and many libertarian capitalists are certainly not objectivists.

[NeOmega]

Originally posted by Ramo
Are you trying to tell me that libertarianism without objectivism is liberalism (well, American liberalism; it's somewhat similar to classical liberalism)?

that's exactly what I am saying, Liberals want to try and form society and the economy. Libertarians want to simply do their part, be productive, and hold no-one else accountable for their comfort and happiness, than themselves.

I can assure you that just about all libertarian socialists and many libertarian capitalists are certainly not objectivists.

So to reply to your initial post, how are libertarians supposed to lose this objectivism if they are not objectivist in the firt place? You are contradicting yourself.

[Ramo]

Objectivism is a philosophy championed by Rand, that asserts the existence of an objective moral system that umm.. is quite odd. It in no way is the only philosophical system compatible with libertarianism.

So to reply to your initial post, how are libertarians supposed to lose this objectivism if they are not objectivist in the firt place? You are contradicting yourself.

No, I'm not. Many (perhaps most) libertarian capitalists are objectivists. Most libertarian capitalists on this board, AFAIK, are objectivists. This philosophy prevents themselves from spreading libertarian ideas, IMO.

[Ramo]

More to my original point, DF is an objectivist.

[tandeetaylor]

Ramo, you're weird.

Uh oh, I'm throwing around insults again. Watch out.

[Ramo]

Yes I am.