On 7/26/05, [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > How in the world can a libertarian be a social conservative?
Actually, a libertarian view would be very consistent with social conservativism. On what issues do you think they are inconsistent? On homosexuality, most social conservatives do not favor laws prohibiting sodomy, but they do resist employment and housing laws which require them to "accept" the "lifestyle." On gay marriage, a libertarian view would be that the state should not bless and recognize any marriages at all, that this should be simply a private matter. On education, they favor eirther getting the government out of the field altogether, or at least privitizing it so that the government is only the "single payer." Abortion is a special case, in that it depends on whether one is willing to recognize the fetus as having the same rights of someone outside the womb - and one's position on that issue is not governed by how libertarian one is; even the most radical libertarians support laws against murder. Certainly, there are some "social conservative" views held by some that are not libertarian (government sponsorship of specific religions, no flag burning) but not all social conservatives support those policies, and there is nothing inconsistent about the social conservatism of a libertarian. > Similarly, how can a libertarian fault rights because they are allegedly > "invented" by courts? Should any self-respecting libertarian reject > "rights" only if they are not part of natural law or whatever he or she > deems the correct political theory of rights? And isn't the role of the > courts in determining the correct set of rights completely irrelevant to > rights embraced by libertarian theory? In other words, one would think that > a libertarian--even a constitutional libertarian--wouldn't care a bit about > whether courts "invented" rights just so long as normative political theory > embraces those rights? Anybody, not just a libertarian, can contend that the government should support certain liberties, but admit that these liberties are not necessarily protected by the Constitution. So, such a person (if he or she is a strict constructionist) would support Constitutiional decisions which protect rights actually located in the Constitution, and support legislation to protect other liberties. Just because one is a libertarian does not mean that he or she would support stretching the Constitution to support his own agenda (especially when he or she knows that such stretching historicly has been used to promote other agendas). Sam Ventola Denver, Colorado _______________________________________________ To post, send message to Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as private. Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the messages to others.
