Saturday, April 30, 2011
A question of Authority, libertarians and conservatives
Alot of folks assume conservatism and libertarianism are more or less the same creature, not so and at times they do make strange bedfellows. If I could distill one of the key differences it is this: conservatives are vastly more pro-authority than libertarians although to be sure there are different flavors, genres you could call it of libertarianism. Conservatives generally respect authority far more than libertarians because social and political stability is at the foundation and cornerstone and practically inspires and permeates all conservative thought which is why they were and still are against the hippie upheaval of the Sixties and feel the Vietnam War should have been fought on to ultimate victory. At heart it's really not about the wisdom of the war but about respecting institutions like the military and if you get drafted suck it up like a man and do your duty. Hit the nigger on the head and they'll come up with excuses for the cops. The AZ immigration law, the con 'tude is it's 'bout time, we're gonna kick some alien ass with the new law. Authority itself is problematic for me even though I recognize it is necessary and practically runs through the whole of our existence, how could it not? I've a visceral reaction to it like the boss making your schedule, it's mostly what he or she needs. Now it may be necessary for the workplace to run this way in order to function but at heart authority is a control issue. Think about how many ways your life is not your own. You have to put off your daily run or trip to the pier because somebody else, Authority finds the workplace a far more important place for you to be than you do. Maybe it's good, maybe it ain't but it's still all about authority, control. So how much authority do we need and how much is over the top? Driving drunk is and should be a crime, buckling up should be up to you and when cops are expected to uphold even nonessential laws they in effect symbolize the Power of the State. Think of the sheer power that comes with authority, the power of the few over the many, it's awesome in fact. Anarcho-libertarianism would seem to reject all authority so where do you fall on the spectrum?:)
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Do I even need to answer this?
ReplyDeleteA draft is the most totalitarian thing ever.
Driving drunk is a victimless crime just like smoking a joint. Get back to me when doing so causes property damage or injury/death to another individual.
Just when I get to thinking I understand Libertarian philosophy, I run into what, IMO are anomalies. Like folks on the religious right..an
ReplyDeleteexample of a profile wherein the person's favorite books are-
The Bible
C.S. Lewis
Tolkien
H.G. Wells
James Michener
Ayn Rand
-the first three seem to fit religious right, the
next three seem to be
atheists. On the positive side, this seems eclectic;
otherwise the religious right detests atheists..can they adhere to both? Confusion aside,
I agree there is much difference between libertarians and conservatives (the latter coming in so many flavors)
Isn't this exactly why the Tea Party is right in their push to return this country to its founding principles? Our Founders wanted to role of government to merely protect our individual rights, because when they are providing them or are controlling them, then they do have too much power over us.
ReplyDeleteI totally do not understand why so many Americans today are willing to give the government so much control over them. Would they in 1776 have wanted the king of England to keep being a tyrant and tax them too much? It would appear so!
Which Tea Party? The modern day tea party who's original foundations were birthed in 2007 from Ron Paul's campaign and tea party money bomb OR that BS incorporated/infiltrated by the GOP establishment crap of which Bachman and Palin are the apparent faces of?
ReplyDeleteThe latter is a farce.
Soapie, do strong, conservative women frighten you or what?
ReplyDeleteHardly. In fact quite the opposite. If only you could have been a fly on the wall when we took Ms. Bachman to the woodshed for her Patriot Act vote and her "constitutional" credentials at the convention a few weeks ago.
ReplyDeleteLike a deer in headlights that one. As was her counterpart in MN a one John Kline.
ReplyDeleteBB is right. Apparently the religious right is willing to overlook things like Ayn Rand's view of pro-lifers as vicious, willing to overlook her rather dissolute lifestyle at times because she was a fierce free-marketer. Soap drunk driving is a crime and should be because when a drunk driver kills somebody he or she probably wouldn't have killed somebody except for being under the influence. Buckling up only affects you the driver and it is not the government's job to save us from ourselves whether it be seatbelt use or trans fats. I'd love to hear Lista's views on the matter.
ReplyDeleteI tend to agree with soapie's views on the two tea parties. Bachmann should never have voted to extend certain provisions of the Patriot Act. It's like Yonkers Mayor Phil Amicone and NJ Governor Chris Christie being for all those red-light cams (my pet peeve at the moment) so forgive me but both ran as limited government conservatives. Now Christie was even some type of Tea Party fave and it's simply time to hold their feet to the fire.
ReplyDelete"Soap drunk driving is a crime and should be because when a drunk driver kills somebody he or she probably wouldn't have killed somebody except for being under the influence."
ReplyDeleteYou're missing the point which is that plenty of people drive under the influence of alcohol and never get in an accident. If you want to mandate harsh penalties once someone is injured or killed because of it then do so.
No accident, no damage to property equals NO CRIME.
By this piss poor logic I should be arrested and charged for walking around with a lighter in my pocket because I could start a fire.
Perhaps it is the 'imminent danger'
ReplyDeleteconcept. Guy points a gun in your face. Perfectly legal until he shoots?
That's not an analogy unless in the instance of driving a vehicle someone intentially directs said vehicle into another person or persons.
ReplyDeleteAt that point you can effectively charge intent to injure.
Driving while under the influence of alcohol, while it indeed raises potentiality, is not likely to leave one with a concerted intent to cause injury or death.
Don't mistake my points herein. I'm not advocating the practice. I'm merely pointing out the hypocrisy of our laws.
So what are you saying, soap, that you have to have intent to have a crime?
ReplyDeleteI'm saying they have to prove intent in a court of law with a jury of your peers otherwise it's just plain Orwellian thoughtcrime.
ReplyDeleteThis is why charging someone with a crime for passing out drunk in their car is absurd.
So basically you're saying that if I'm driving along (drunk or sober) and it's night and someone's wearing a dark shirt walking on the side of the road and I don't see them, and hit and kill them because I didn't see them, then there's no crime?
ReplyDeleteI don't know, I don't think I can get down with that.
I guess Minn legal limit is
ReplyDelete0.08. So, here's a calculator to keep you out of trouble:
serious drinking
..I drink and drive quite often, but manage to stay well below the limit (except at my stag party
at an Army base in 1964.
Covered 400 miles and only
threw up 5 times)
3 words Saty. Assumption of risk. You wear a black outfit walking in the dark of night then you really have to do the math on that. It's like being a vaudevillian act where you're the dope on the tilt a wheel having knives thrown at you.
ReplyDeleteNo.. I can't be down with that. I can't define crime by intent.
ReplyDeleteMan owns a building. The building is old, he's done some bare-minimum maintenance, and then one day a ceiling falls in because it was barely maintained and kills three people. He didn't MEAN to kill them per se, so he's innocent?
No.. I can't go here.
Soap, you work for a Law firm, so 'imminent danger'
ReplyDeleteshould be familiar. If not
we note Virginia v Harris:
"Roberts dissented from the Court's denial of certioriari. The Virginia Supreme Court had ruled that a police officer violated the Fourth Amendment when he stopped a driver reported to be drunk and driving dangerously, because the officer did not first independently verify that he was driving dangerously. Roberts questioned the wisdom of this rule given the IMMINENT DANGER posed by drunk driving, characterizing the effect of the decision as "to grant drunk drivers 'one free swerve' before they can be pulled over by the police." Roberts noted that lower courts had split on the issue of when and whether the Fourth Amendment required independent verification. "Maybe the decision of the Virginia Supreme Court was correct," he wrote, "and the Fourth Amendment bars police from acting on anonymous tips of drunk driving unless they can verify each tip. If so, then the dangerous consequences of this rule are unavoidable. But the police should have every legitimate tool at their disposal for getting drunk drivers off the road. I would grant certioriari to determine if this is one of them."
The question that needs to be asked Saty is not whether or not there was intent to have the people die as a result of a collapsed building. Good grief...
ReplyDeleteThe question to ask is whether or not their was a deliberate intent to forego necessary structural improvements to maintain the integrity of the building.
Soap I get your hairsplitting logical point about drunk driving but still feel it should be against the law.
ReplyDeleteConspiracy theory:
ReplyDeleteSoap is a secret member of
MADD....?
Glenn Beck said in one of his books that the group MADD started off good but has evolved into a prohibitionist, anti-alcohol organization. I guess we'll have to run that statement through Politifact.
ReplyDeleteGlenn Beck said THAT? Well,
ReplyDeletehe should know, being Mormon and all that.
"Mormons follow The Word of Wisdom, a commandment that forbids drinking alcohol, coffee, tea, or using tobacco or illegal drugs."
-Mormon Book of Wisdom
(but, admittedly, he knows a lot about drunkeness)
Coffee and tea? What's the rundown on sex, straight missionary?
ReplyDeleteGood question: Mormons wear
ReplyDeleteunique
undies, they have very large families...and hey,
wait a minute..YOU're the
conspiracy guy!
Reluctant conspiracist and there's a difference. As I said to a woman at work yesterday I don't go looking for this stuff but I was dragged into this by the Obama Administration not being transparent. Always felt Mormonism was a cult of some sort.
ReplyDelete"Soap I get your hairsplitting logical point about drunk driving but still feel it should be against the law."
ReplyDeleteTherein lies the problem.
No the problem lies in if you drink and then drink some more and get behind the wheel of a car the odds have just increased dramatically that you will hurt or kill somebody and/or yourself.
ReplyDeleteYeah and when you do, throw the book at them if you wish.
ReplyDeleteI'm not interested in potentialities. I'm not interested in thought crime either.
It is this potentiality bullshit that has been used as a moral justification for immoral wars of aggression against other nations.
"I'm not interested in thought crime either."
ReplyDeleteOn that we're both on the same wavelength. I often blog about things nobody else in their right mind blogs about but the whole UMA/stalker thing. Court-ordered shrink sessions to me amount to a thought crime. I really don't care why this one likes that one, why so-and-so is into Natalie Portman or Keira Knightley. Just deal with the facts m'am, laws broken like trespassing. Hate crimes, another one. If I get beat up real good is it somehow less horrible if I'm not gay?