Good evening again, Conster! And, welcome back!
Conster wrote, in part, to Jay P. Hailey... You previously wrote to Jay: > >>plus selling to the youngest people they can find, thus allowing > >> people under age to become adults of age, To which, Jay replied: > >If some one wants to buy Meth why is that any skin off my nose? And, you returned: > What if it's your kid or your grand kid? To hell with them? Just let > them ruin your kids life? What the heck, we aren't here to protect our > underage children are we? Let me confess, up front, I'm not sure what "ZAP" indicates in the subject line. I did however, read the the last two or three posts between you and Jay on an issue with profound implications. First let me just say, the Libertarian Party neither supports nor discourages the use, sale or distribution of [harmful] or any drugs such as Meth. What people choose to purchase for themselves, and what people choose to make available on an otherwise free market, is entirely their choice to make. Everyone has choices to make over such things as what they choose to consume, purchase, or sell. There are also responsibilities, and more than that, there are always consequences to the choices in which we make as free individuals. Some of these choices will obviously be very bad ones, and the consequences will accordingly be rather severe, or, in some cases, even lethal. I guess I can best summarize that by simply saying that EVERY choice each and everyone of us makes everyday, has personal consequences. And, each and every one of us, are entirely responsible for the consequences of the 'bad' or 'good' choices we choose to make in our lives. The idea here is to promote the realization that individuals ought to make the best possible personal choices for themselves, their families and over their private property, and such choices are entirely their own. The consequences for such choices are entirely their own too. To put this another way, the Libertarian Party believes that the use of government force to protect people from themselves is morally wrong and unacceptable. It is a humangeous misuse and abuse of power, and a huge miscarriage of government power. Most of all, such edicts deprive individuals of their most fundamental rights over their own lives, their families, and their enjoyment, use and control, over their own private property. Connie, now you raise the interesting spectre of children and grandchildren. I appreciate that, I really do. Now the question arises, as it surely must: Who ought to be the foundation for the raising of our children, and grandchildren? The government? God have mercy! I sure don't want any government to be my children's and grandchildren's foundation of moral values and lifestyle choices! Such values ought not to arise from political force, but from parental control. To do that, parents must have more power and control over their own families, and government should mostly stay completely away from that as a moral duty to protecting and defending our rights, not taking them away. Keep in mind here that 'government' is nothing more than pure power, and such power without restraint is dangerous and inherently evil. Connie, there are several alternatives to the use of government force for ensuring that your children and grandchildren are safe, or at least much safer than under the current status quo. Libertarians also believe: 1. Education ought to be totally under the control of parents and family decisions, and that a 'separation of government and schools' are ultimately necessary for education America's youth. 2. We believe individuals ought to be free to make personal contracts and obligations with other individuals of like mind, to educate our children, and teach moral and family values, and government shouldn't have anything whatsoever to do with any of that. 3. Churches, Pastors, civil and business leaders, anyone and everyone, ought to be in the forefront for promoting honest values within community settings, and not government bureaucrats and flunkies. You might be surprised at just how many volunteers are really out there and willing to do a lot of great things that the government cannot or will not by law, ever do to improve the environment our kids live in these days! Because of bandwidth and time, I'm leaving a lot more of this out here. Jay may have come across to you a bit rude as if it didn't matter to him. But you got to know, there are a lot of us who are members of churches and other civic groups, including private schools and other educational endeavours, who are working hard to help individuals find ways of making difficult choices. I suspect you might really be surprised at the sheer number of people who really do care about the things you mentioned here tonight. Libertarians are NEVER opposed to any of that, in fact, you'll probably find, that most of us fully support private alternatives to the current status quo on every issue you just raised moments ago. A couple of days ago the Boundary County (Idaho) Property Owner's Association had a meeting. This is NOT a government group. It is a private association of county property owners. We invited and received the 'other side', a group dedicated to growing the county government over our lives and choices. We discussed together the mess in our public schools. This meeting was not hostile. Both sides seemed to want the best for our children in THIS community. If you can brace yourself a moment, and imagine this, indulge me for a time: I spoke on behalf of privatization in education in this county. I spoke of the benefits of electing public legislators who would support this concept of education, in that public education was miserably failing, and must be forced to compete in the arena of education with all other choices that PARENTS and FAMILIES chose to make, including: public education as it exists today, Charter Schools, Private Schools, and Home Schooling. In this collective meeting between the Property Owner's Association, and the Public School minded government advocate lobby, no one, and I mean 'no one' challenged me on this concept. Both sides seemed to agree that Parent and Families ought to make the final decisions based upon specifically what is best for them. Here in America, it took us a long time to reach the stench of Meth Labs and the loss of at least two generations of American children. Nothing is going to change in the next 24 hours, or the next few weeks or months. However, in the long run, the best way to tackle such problems is for community leaders, individual people and families, to get together and make decisions, choices, and make mutual commitments and compacts that meet their own needs, and without resorting to government force, cohersion and power. So Connie, I am not, and would not suggest, that your issues here are not real, or imagined. They are real. I could obviously go one much further here and suggest that the government has exacerbated our current problems and make them a lot, lot worse that they would have been otherwise if the government had never become involved in them in the first place. You mentioned to me a few moments ago, in another post, if you needed to be 100 percent Libertarian to post here. I think you might find, that my post tonight will answer your question. There will likely be other "Libertarians" that might even largely disagree with what *I* just wrote! Stay tuned. Kindest regards, Frank _______________________________________________ Libnw mailing list Libnw@immosys.com List info and subscriber options: http://immosys.com/mailman/listinfo/libnw Archives: http://immosys.com/mailman//pipermail/libnw
