Definition of Libertarian.

Vic Biorseth, Tuesday, February 23, 2010
http://www.Thinking-Catholic-Strategic-Center.com

This definition of Libertarian does not intend to address the metaphysical or philosophical argument supporting free will against the notions of determinism or pre-determinism. This treatment restricts itself to the Libertarian political – economic movement in contemporary American politics.

The nutshell definition of Libertarianism is the political philosophy or ideology promoting the notion of freedom of thought and speech. The Libertarian maintains that a person is the absolute owner of his own life, and that he should be free to do whatever he wishes with his person or his property, provided that he allows all others the exact same freedom, liberty and ultimate authority over their own persons and their own private property.

Libertarianism involves a strong doctrine emphasizing individual liberty over government oversight, scope and regulation, not only in personal behavior matters but in the larger economy. Libertarianism emphasizes free markets and a private economy over government planned or controlled markets. This means a belief in reduced government and expanded individual liberty.

So, the current, American political definition of Libertarian is, one who advocates individual liberty, meaning a reduced or eliminated government regulatory role in matters of personal behavior and the larger national economy, so long as no one else’s rights are violated or their liberty is threatened by his actions or inactions. Libertarianism, by definition, does not consider or even address social constraints or limitations related to morality, because accepting any over-all social moral code means applying force against citizens, and since only government may apply such force it would grant too much power to the state.

Now, all of that is highly commendable as some conservative American ideals (among others) that guide our American political direction. However, what this Libertarian idealism promotes by default is a sense of Practical Atheism over any other common sense of moral norms held by the population. A common morality – a sense of knowing right from wrong held in common – is and always has been necessary for any family, any group, any people or any nation as a foundation for their actual law, or any official set of rules by which all agree to live and abide.

Practical atheism. A Practical Atheist is one who, while perhaps not being an actual atheist, behaves precisely as though he were an atheist, with no consideration for the law of God or the will of God. Even though he may profess being a Christian or a Jew, he is capable of “putting his religion aside” for what is deemed to be a higher purpose. The Practical Atheist compartmentalizes his own personal religious and/or ethical norms and keeps them apart from his more formal social interactions, particularly those related to politics, civil law and work.

No moral code is held to be superior to any other; at least not superior enough to apply force (meaning civil law) to enforce it on everyone. Therefore, no moralist may seek to enforce his morality on any other through state power. This is, almost definitively, moral relativism. If all moralities are the same, then there is no such thing as morality. If all ethics are the same, then there is no such thing as ethical conduct, universally recognized.

Libertarianism is a reaction against the tyrannical state, and against philosophies promoting statism, such as Marxism. Today, at least in America, Marxism and statism are widely recognized by the citizenry (but not by the elites) to be failed approaches to government. Nobody with any common sense believes that private property equates to theft, or that government is a better provider of goods and services than the free market, or that Communism will free mankind, or that the state could do a better job of taking care of us than we can. All of that is just nonsense, and all real world practical men know it. The problem with Libertarianism is that it, too, sees itself as a potential world-wide panacea, or an ultimate world-wide goal for eventual world perfection.

No system – not any form of Marxism, not any form of Conservatism, not Libertarianism, certainly not pure Democracy, not Parliamentarian Democracy, not the unique American Republic, not any form of government existing or yet to come into existence – is ever likely to “convert the world” to itself. No governmental system known or yet to be devised is ever going to do that, nor is anything man comes up with ever going to bring about any perfect world-wide political system. It just ain’t gonna happen.

Each country is just going to have to do the best it can to prosper in peace in a difficult world with dangerous neighbors, and so far, America has done a far better job of it than any other country in world history. That is not to say that America is perfect, nor is it to say that the whole world would be better off if it converted to Americanism. We – the United States of America – are so completely unique that that would be quite impossible. We, like every other nation, need to concentrate our political efforts on the practical, the possible and the attainable. The best that can be hoped for regarding the whole world is that more will hear the Gospel and embrace the message on their own.

The Libertarian political approach is good economically and constitutionally, but it falls down morally, because it misses the point that man needs external moral rules to guide his behavior.

Libertarians support the bogus Separation of Church and State principle to avoid the necessity to honor the Judao-Christian Ethos – based moral rules that come out of our national religion. We have shown that the Separation of Church and State Argument is no constitutional principle at all, and that it was brought into being not by representative legislation, but by unprincipled, unconstitutional and evil adjudication or judicial opinion, establishing “law” by judicial fiat rather than proper constitutional process.

Even above that, Libertarianism denies the very nature of This Christian Nation of America, whose constitution and laws themselves are based upon the Christian morality of our founding fathers and the continuous dominant faith of the citizenry. Look at the Church and State in Art page for graphic examples of the foundation of our own civil law.

Libertarianism supports the notion that we have successfully refuted in the On Legislating Morality argument. Libertarianism denies man’s need for Tradition and Moral Discipline in favor of a hands-off, my morality for me, your morality for you, infinitely variable moral relativism.

Amorality creates a vacuum which will always be filled with immorality. History shows that we began as a moral people; a glance at what’s on TV and on the cover of popular magazines and overpowering the internet reveals what we are becoming. Leading spokesmen for Libertarianism eschew what they refer to as Victimless Crimes. Activities such as prostitution, drug dealing and so forth involve only willing participants who know what they are getting into, and thus all such activity should be legalized.

Libertarians consider themselves “liberated” by the Sexual Revolution, which opened their eyes to the non-hurtful nature of fornication between “consenting adults.” This new “liberated” wisdom sees Open Homosexuality as a cultural blessing and a sign of an enlightened populace.

Libertarian spokesmen favor if not promote Legal Abortion as just another form of Artificial Contraception , but they prefer to call it Choice to hide the truth of what they favor. The sole reason for this particular favoring of “choice” is the promotion of easy, frequent and even casual sexual gratification without responsibility, attachment or even knowing each other’s names. The Libertarian will always support choice so long as he is not the one being aborted.

The bottom line, when you speak of a society’s morality, you cannot make it neutral for very long. A people will either be moral or immoral; amoral, or the absence of morality, can only be a temporary situation. Nature abhors a vacuum.

A Vote Splitting Election Looser. The Libertarian Party, as a “Third Party”, has virtually no chance of winning any national election. America has always been a Two Party Republic, from the original Tories and Whigs to what they morphed into, the Democrats and the Republicans. All other Parties in any national election wind up sidelined also-rans. But that is not to say they have not and will not do damage to one or the other main Party candidates or issues in the process.

America’s most damaging Marxist Presidents until Obama – Carter and Clinton – each had more people voting against them than for them, yet they won their elections, thanks to third Party candidates who split the conservative vote. Clinton did it twice, thanks entirely to third Party conservative candidates.

A lot can happen between now and November 2012, but the way things stand right now, the only possible way Obama could ever hope to win re-election would be through a split conservative vote. The third Party that takes the most conservative votes today is the Libertarian Party. And, unfortunately, more conservative political Parties are springing up like wild flowers, thanks to Republican betrayal and stumbling.

What America (and the world) needs is a strong, reinvigorated, recommitted Republican Party. Men of good faith need to alter it and modify it for the better, getting the best available new grass-roots conservative candidates into all levels, local, state and federal. The worst thing about the Libertarian Party is the same thing that is wrong with the Libertarian movement itself: it has no moral grounding, and it always threatens to poison the well of the possible election of good conservative candidates and issues.

Americans (and the whole world) needs a resurgent, free, strong and vibrant America, and the Republican Party, for all its past failures, for all its disrepair, for all its needed changes, represents the best possible path to a strong and vibrant American nation.

If you are a constitution-loving conservative, then you need to get behind the Republican Party, and get into it, and change it for the better, from top to bottom. Libertarianism is not the way.

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Definition of Libertarian

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