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A sovereign libertarian is an oxymoron, too.
. . .
The Libertarian platform supports sovereignty of the people, yet advocates participation in the democratic form - which requires a surrender of sovereignty - in exchange for the privileges of political liberty.
In short, it is politically impossible for a libertarian to "vote" sovereignty for himself or others.
Under the republican form of government, the people are sovereigns without subjects. But if they consent to be governed, as citizens, all bets are off.
As a theoretical principle yes. However pragmatic libertarianism maximizing libertarian principles seems to work best with a strict authoritarian and absolute set of a very narrow band of rules. Common defense and do not kill etc......
So, if I am reading this correctly, most of the argument in this thread is aimed at an imaginary laissez faire purist and not the current political party operating within our Republic?
If that is the case, my apology for providing an opinion based on the latter.
Especially Protestants which was that essentially. That is to say to have the very right to read the scripture for themselves rather than though the Church. However Islam is again just in another strata. Its actually more decentralized in authority, given anyone can be an Imam. However accepting that rather loose authority then leads to rather strict behavior.
Its in fact perfectly match with tribalism , not statism or individualism....shocking I know....European culture is full of both statism and individualism all while importing tribalism cultures...
Its just another ism and there are certainly risible interpretations of such an ism.
Islam seems to be mostly a totalitarian sociopolitical middle eastern system more than a religion and a poor religion at that. I know at one time the organized, centralized Christian church especially the catholic was sharing power with the state, but that was arguably a corruption of Christianity-and just how things were several centuries back-which is mostly a freewheel internal philosophy not concerned so much about sociopolitics .
So, if I am reading this correctly, most of the argument in this thread is aimed at an imaginary laissez faire purist and not the current political party operating within our Republic?
If that is the case, my apology for providing an opinion based on the latter.
Libertarianism is a philosophy. It's full of thoughts and ideas and a worldview of what is believed is the best course for humanity. And with that said libertarianism in its purest form works. Peoole are adopting libertarIan ism and theyou don't even realize it
Let's just settle with this. If you're looking for protectionism then libertarianism isn't for you.
However, the current Libertarian party, active in United States goverment, might be. Based on their party platform:
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The protection of individual rights is the only proper purpose of government....
We support the maintenance of a sufficient military to defend the United States against aggression....
The defense of the country requires that we have adequate intelligence to detect and to counter threats to domestic security....
Our foreign policy should emphasize defense against attack from abroad...
we support control over the entry into our country of foreign nationals who pose a credible threat to security, health or property.
Quote:
Originally Posted by branh0913
Libertarianism is a philosophy. It's full of thoughts and ideas and a worldview of what is believed is the best course for humanity. And with that said libertarianism in its purest form works. Peoole are adopting libertarIan ism and theyou don't even realize it
So, if I am reading this correctly, most of the argument in this thread is aimed at an imaginary laissez faire purist and not the current political party operating within our Republic?
If that is the case, my apology for providing an opinion based on the latter.
Yes, some imaginary person that I certainly wasn't able to pin down.
Islam seems to be mostly a totalitarian sociopolitical middle eastern system more than a religion and a poor religion at that. I know at one time the organized, centralized Christian church especially the catholic was sharing power with the state, but that was arguably a corruption of Christianity-and just how things were several centuries back-which is mostly a freewheel internal philosophy not concerned so much about sociopolitics .
And in response to gwynedd1 as well:
The origins of Protestantism is that of state churches, national churches, like the Church of England. Martin Luther wanted to establish a church for the Germans.
As opposed to the Catholic claim of universality (all races, all nations, all lands). Albeit, Lutherans and the Church of England still recite the Nicene (spelling?) Creed which states and appeals to being catholic, one holy and catholic Church (with a small c for catholic). It makes no mention of the bible whatsoever.
The English crown seized the property of the Catholic Church in England and to this day has never returned it. Nor did the crown simply "sell it" on the free market or donate it to the poor as socialist.
At any rate, the Catholic Church never made lay Catholics not read the bible. But bible reading is simply not a big part of the culture of Catholicism for its laity. The concept of "Church" in Catholicism and Orthodoxy differs from what it does with Protestants anyways. The former has a concept of "Church" that is more similar to the Muslim concept of the "Holy Ummah" (Ummah is all the universal believers of Islam, all Muslims on earth). The Ummah is superior to any nation-state in Islam, and likewise in Catholicism the "Church" (which not merely earthly, but exists in purgatory and heaven in Catholic belief, this uniting saints in heaven with humans still on earth, ergo the reasons for praying to saints because they are living members of the same supernatural Church that exists in three different worlds: earth, purgatory, and heaven).
But none of that is why I said libertarians are the traditional harbingers of "negative freedom" whereas Republicans and Democrats subscribe to "positive freedom" (freedom and liberty being used interchangeably in the term) like all religions such as Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hindusim etc do.
Libertarians might view gay marriage as immoral per their own personal beliefs, but they believe in the right of gay people to marry. Likewise, they do not believe gay people or the government had the right to force them to accept or believe the gay married couple is living morally right.
So, the libertarian would say the government has no right in outlawing gay marriage, and as well the government has no right in forcing, using coercion, to make a Christian, Muslim, or atheist cake baker that morally objects to homosexual couples bake a gay couple engaged to one another a wedding cake.
Protestant Christianity was never libertarian, aside from punishing heretics or burning witches, that is why you did not find your different Protestant mainstream denominations in the 1700s wedding gay couples.
But "positive freedom" is not really about elites (though it can be that) determining if an individual is free per having obtained "self realization." It is equally about what opinion and conclusion the majority of people in your community, city, or country determine about you. And if globalist have their way it will be what the majority opinion of people on earth or in globalist collective countries think about you. If they determine skinny men marrying overweight women evidence a lack of "self realization" then they will shout profanity to, get enraged over, and shun any couple like that. The more "charitable" among these "enlightened" will push the government to force these couples, as individuals, into reeducation camps. Or such marriages will be outlawed.
Proponents of "positive freedom" often use the drug addict as the example of a person who is not free. Because freedom is internal. Inside the person through self realization. That is why proponents of positive freedom often use an image of a man in prison locked in a cell with his hands on cell bars, as a person who is free. Because locked in prison he obtained "self realization" through the help of the government who locked him in prison.
Negative liberty is the absence of obstacles, barriers or constraints. One has negative liberty to the extent that actions are available to one in this negative sense. Positive liberty is the possibility of acting — or the fact of acting — in such a way as to take control of one's life and realize one's fundamental purposes. While negative liberty is usually attributed to individual agents, positive liberty is sometimes attributed to collectivities, or to individuals considered primarily as members of given collectivities.
A significant amount of debate between libertarian and non-libertarian political thinkers has to do with the distinction between negative and positive liberty. These two technical terms within political philosophy play a large role in determining the limits of permissible state action, as well as establishing just what the state exists to do in the first place.
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If we want to start very simple, keeping our definitions to just two words each, negative liberty means “freedom from,” while positive liberty means “capacity to.”
Another way of thinking about the difference—though again, it’s a rough one—is to see negative liberty as being about the absence of external limits, while positive liberty is about the absence of internal limits.
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