Rise of the "HomoCon"

[Peace&Freedom]

faux libertarianism ? Libertarianism is an offshoot of Objectivism, which is implicitly moral and Atheist.

You win no points by being ignorant, and claiming that people who don't follow your book of fantasys has no morals.

I have explicit, logical, universally defined morals, based on reality.

I do not believe in your secular religion of "universallly defined morals," or the humanist myth of government neutrality on matters of God (either the state will at least acknowledge God is God, or else by default will treat Man as God). I note with amusement how you wax tyrannically against the 95% of us who hold a view of reality that includes God, while claiming to be tolerant and anti-tyranny. As for your fact-free, post-Rand-only concept of liberty, from Wikipedia, on 'libertarianism':

"The modern meaning of the term "libertarian" is disputed. Because the definition of liberty relies on the definition of freedom, and because freedom means different things to different people, the word "libertarian" has more than one political connotation. It could be anything from more freedom as compared to current affairs, to the minimal level of government in a practical society, to anarchism. This section gives a brief historical review of the term's usage.

The term "libertarian" in a metaphysical or philosophical sense was first used by late-Enlightenment free-thinkers to refer to those who believed in free will, as opposed to determinism...Libertarianism in this sense is still encountered in metaphysics in discussions of free will. The first recorded use was in 1789 by William Belsham in a discussion of free will and in opposition to "necessitarian" (or determinist) views....

Anarchist communist Joseph Déjacque was the first person to describe himself as a libertarian...in May 1857, in an 11-page pamphlet De l'Etre Humain mâle et femelle'...("Concerning the Human Male and Female")... Déjacque accused Proudhon of being "libéral et non LIBERTAIRE" (liberal but not libertarian), that is, the neologism was coined specifically as a distinction from the classical liberalism that Proudhon advocated in relation to economic exchange, in contrast to the more communist approach advocated by Déjacque. Since the 1890s from France,... the term "libertarianism" has often been used as a synonym for anarchism and was used almost exclusively in this sense until the 1950s in the United States;..."

So, since your first point was not remotely accurate, and the rest redundant and ironic reinforcement of the very points I was making, I will simply say I stand by my comments.

 

[Peace&Freedom]

Victimization indeed. You can play that shit with your enemies, but only at the end of a spear. That is the talk of the rule by fist.

You cry victim, because people disagree with you, and then slam your will upon them with physical force, and call that morality?

I condemn you.

How forgiving. In my posts I was talking about the fact that when this country started, and was much more an overtly moral, religious, Christian libertarian nation and country, guess what, there was much more liberty than in our post-Christian, tyrannical time. It takes a moral and religious people to stand up and fight off the central bankers, uphold an honest gold standard, or create and sustain a limited constitutional republic---long before Rand, or even Austrian economics.

It has been precisely during the last century of our country's post-Christian, post-traditional moral collapse that we have been losing our liberties and seeing escalation of force. It is your position that has helped lead us to the rule by fist. This is not reversible by a head knowledge of Mises alone. We simply cannot get our freedom back without God, and cannot expect to enlist His aid if we are victimizing Him with social unrighteousness.


PS: Just to clarify and summarize something that has been mis-described in these posts (but in a manner that does not bump this thread any further): Law as currently practiced reflects a different underlying religion (humanism) that views God as irrelevant, and that the only harm that matters is that of man-to-man. This was exactly my point, and the Agnosticons here have reiterated it even as they keep presuming a secularity in law is, or should be the 'default' position of government. If you think the law is neutral, fine, just stop imputing that EVERYONE thinks it is, and imposing that false 'neutrality' on the rest of us. The Creator has sovereign authority over the whole creation, including all people. God IS relevant and has not granted consent to homosexuality, so the acts being discussed are NOT consensual.

Just as the secularist believers do not try to 'prove' their presumption is right, then neither do I have to 'prove' my position in the law---that's why they're called competing religions, after all. I feel sad for those who think God is irrelevant, and blow off 3,000 years of governments acknowledging His moral law is the same thing as "prohibiting consensual behavior." The state may certainly be neutral or diverse in how it elects to deal with immorality (hopefully as in, the fewer laws or centralized laws about it, the better), but it is NOT neutral if it confers legitimacy to the acts.

 

[SimpleName]

I've read a lot of "moral degradation" threads. I can't help but think this is simply the Good Ole Day Syndrome. There is talk about the super-sexual modern society, but the number of rape cases are wholly ignored; according to the dept of justice, rape cases are down 85% from the 70s. 85%! Is it at all possible that the chastity belt society of the mid-20th century merely fomented natural sexual urges, causing otherwise innocent people to do horrific things? Could it be that given the massive sexual freedom of today, people no longer are afraid to display their sensations?

This is the same for the "values" peoples' claims that violent video games and movies are causing chaos and driving people to murder. I conclude it is much to the contrary. Look at violent crime rates in the last 20 years. They are plummeting precisely as violence becomes second-nature in our entertainment.

And to invoke one of libertarianism's major causes today, compare the above situations to drug/alcohol prohibition. We usually agree that such prohibitions ignite the exact opposite reaction they were meant to cause. It is the same situation with all moral societal dilemmas. The more promiscuous an action is, the more alluring it becomes...as is human nature.

I suggest watching the 20/20 special Sex in America by John Stossel and thinking about whether denouncing "immoral" actions with actually get you more or less of those actions.

 

[PlzPeopleWakeUp]

I love Big Brother.

 

[Peace&Freedom]

I've read a lot of "moral degradation" threads. I can't help but think this is simply the Good Ole Day Syndrome. There is talk about the super-sexual modern society, but the number of rape cases are wholly ignored; according to the dept of justice, rape cases are down 85% from the 70s. 85%!

This is the Good New Days Syndrome. Crime statistics in the US are carefully massaged to help politicians make the public feel good, through techniques like having law enforcement classify domestic disputes leading to rape or sexual assault as a 'civil matter' in the police report, or by conveniently failing to report incidents at all. Cops in NYC have specifically told me this is in large part how Giuliani/Bloomberg were able to campaign on "crime down" sound bites at election time. Superficial stats showing a drop in violence also do not factor in changes in medical response times to heal patients, versus stats on the actual number of lethal attempts made to kill. As Thornton wrote in LRC in 2002:

"The number of murders in 1993 was about 23,000. (The way in which crime statistics are calculated was changed in 1993) This results in a back-of-the-envelope calculation of a murder rate (number of murders per 100,000 population) of 8.5. Dr. Thomas estimates that in that same year, that if they were still using 1960s medical technology and response times, the number of murders would have been around 67,000, or a murder rate of 24.8. This ghastly figure gives us a much clearer picture of what is happening in America, because the 24.8 rate is a better reflection of the number of attempted murders that would otherwise have resulted in death."

http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig/thornton4.html

 

[libertarian4321]

the comments from some of you young people on this forum underscore EXACTLY what I'm talkin about..

You have all been so corrupted by modern society that you can't even see it. Moral standards that were in place for THOUSANDS OF YEARS before you were even born were only overturned in the past 40 years.

You may be old, but you don't know your history.

Homosexuality was very prevalent in many societies historically, including the great societies upon which the western world is based. Homosexuality was widely accepted and practiced, especially among young, unmarried men in both Greece (even in Sparta) and Rome. It was common for unmarried men to have sexual relations with men when young, then they would go off, get married, and have kids. In middle eastern cultures (e.g. Persia) it was also widely accepted.

It was the rise of two religions, Christianity (Catholicism) and Islam that led to the open condemnation of homosexuality and moved it into the closet in the western world- a relatively recent phenomenon historically.

Homosexuality was also widely practiced outside of the European/Mediterranean world- especially in Asia and the South Pacific.

And if that has you fuming, you should know that other "immoral" acts like prostitution were widely accepted by most people in the US and Europe well into the Victorian era, despite condemnation from the monotheistic religious leaders.

Who gets to decide what is "moral" and what is not?

Those same "moral" religious leaders who condemned homosexuality and prostitution did not condemn slavery, nor did they condemn the use of torture. In fact the "moral" religious zealots LOVED to use torture to bring those who "strayed" back into the flock, often they were tortured to death. Those "moral" elders you worship also kept women in servitude to men.

So I'm not sure I'd look to the "wisdom" of the "moral" leaders who gave us the Inquisition for enlightenment on this issue.

 

[Bucjason]

"The nation who [has] never admitted a chapter of morality into her political code,... [will] boldly [avow] that whatever power [she] can make hers is hers of right."

Thomas Jefferson


"Can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are of the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with His wrath?" --Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson





I would suggest , like Jefferson, that we all instintively know what is right and wrong , and what is moral . Because we are rational beings , we are born with this sense. This is what we call "natural rights" and natural law" .

Banning homosexuality does not apply, however , because natural rights come from our desire to protect life, liberty, and pursuit of property(happiness) . Someone else being gay does not prohibit me from any of these goals.

 

[Peace&Freedom]

You may be old, but you don't know your history.

Homosexuality was very prevalent in many societies historically, including the great societies upon which the western world is based. Homosexuality was widely accepted and practiced, especially among young, unmarried men in both Greece (even in Sparta) and Rome. It was common for unmarried men to have sexual relations with men when young, then they would go off, get married, and have kids. In middle eastern cultures (e.g. Persia) it was also widely accepted.

It was the rise of two religions, Christianity (Catholicism) and Islam that led to the open condemnation of homosexuality and moved it into the closet in the western world- a relatively recent phenomenon historically.

Homosexuality was also widely practiced outside of the European/Mediterranean world- especially in Asia and the South Pacific....

So I'm not sure I'd look to the "wisdom" of the "moral" leaders who gave us the Inquisition for enlightenment on this issue.

I wouldn't want our trust continue to be in secular, non-moral leaders who gave us tens of millions of deaths in the Gulag and 30 million abortions for guidance. The Inquisition produced a few hundred deaths, tops, while the last secular century has been bloodier in body count than the prior 20 religious ones combined. All your historical rundown shows is that most ancient societies were pagan (duh), and that a society gets more of the bad behavior it legitimizes (including all its anciliary problems).

A more balanced history, from ReligionFacts:
"In most of Africa, Asia, and Latin America, both the subject and the behaviour are considered taboo, with some slight exception made in urban areas. The ancient Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans were generally accepting of homosexual behavior within certain contexts. Hinduism and Buddhism tend to view homosexuality primarily from the standpoint of its karmic effects, with varying conclusions. Jewish, Christian, Sikh and Muslim cultures have generally perceived homosexual behaviour as sinful..."