By menace I meant libertarians are a threat to the larger conservative movement.
So I am trying to identify this larger movement because it isn't anywhere I can find. I see people speak of it, you have people like Hannity and rush making claims to it, Newt and others claiming something else but overall I see the same thing in the conservative camp as I see in the liberal camp - a mix of people with different ideas defining the movement as they see the need to.
Libertarians, generally speaking, do not share traditional conservative viewpoints on social issues such as abortion, homosexual marriage, etc.
Actually this is a great thing for a lot of reasons, one big reason is that the conservative groups have hijacked a number of Libertarian things, claiming that Libertarians took it from them at the same time. What we are seeing as many voters swing back to the idea that liberty and freedom matters more than social and ideology agendas.
BUT with that said, the key issue that seems to be the basis of the foundation of any conservative group, social, fiscal or just plain vanilla, is smaller less intrusive government. The problem is that conservatism has a serious flaw when they speak of small, less intrusive government and that flaw is that you can't speak or desire it while at the same time demanding that some issues (abortion, homosexual marraige, etc. ... ) are to be 'solved' by the government. In other words the position for any small less intrusive government is hypocritical if you want to address those issues through the government.
The point of view for most libertarians are simple, freedom trumps all. The same goes for in general the classic liberal who thinks that the need to address social issues are done through society, not through the government.
If the GOP is prepared to concede important social and cultural issues to the Liberals and libertarians, then we might as well close shop.
Well you should have closed the shop a while ago. the GOP has, even if they don't want to admit to is concede to very important social and cultural issues - Social Security maybe ring a bell?
Sometimes, I wonder if libertarians just might be infiltrators from the Left dedicated to the destruction of traditional family structure and values.
So it is the libertarians who infiltrated from the left that did this?
Think again.
Outside of the legalize drug crowd, there seems to be a group of people who want the government out of their lives, which means supporting the constitution to allowing people to do what they want with their property.
The destruction of the family unit comes from the present parties in power, and includes a lot of what people consider conservatives. They are the ones who put together a punitive tax system, supported a form of slavery (welfare and social security) and brought us a national health care system. From my point of view (classic liberal) I am against all of that and more but my parting with libertarians has little to do with social/cultural issues but rather economic issues.
Here are two simple points;
Abortion was not about abortion but privacy rights. My take when I look at conservatives screaming about this issue is simple - they can't demand the government to stay out of their medical privacy while interfering with other's. To a libertarian (and classical liberal) the right to privacy matters more and this is a social issue that needs to be address through different avenues but not the government.
Homosexual marriage is not a big deal to me any more. I came to this conclusion when a freind was dying and his "partner" didn't have access to anything while he was in the hospital. They were not gay, but they were friends - they served together in WW2 and saved each other's life. I felt that the restriction on the individual are too much, the one guy should have been able to say "my care is in his control" or "he is family and has permission to ..." but the hospital and the probate court didn't think so. SO to me, a union of sorts is a right of everyone, not just limited to a traditional marriage. Which this goes right back to the rights of the individual trump the rights of the state/feds to define things like this.
Since the Libertarian Party can't get any attention, perhaps their game is to co-opt one of the two dominant parties. I think the libertines would feel right at home with Bill Clinton & Co. Please make them go away. *L*
AND that is what needs to be done. As mention, the conservatives have been hijacking libertarian positions for ages so why not push for a hard takeover of the predominate party of thieves?
I think if you look at the solutions that a libertarian (classic liberal) have for serious issues, it is more than what is spoken about.
