Ultra-libertarian?
Rob Huddleston, who I met this past weekend, is a good guy. He’s thoughtful and quite articulate. Sure, we disagree on a few things but people can’t agree on everything. Rob, in reference to me (note to Rob: if you call me out on something, at least link to me), says:
. . . SayUncle, whose ultra-libertarianism I simply cannot understand, as I don’t see the good in threatening to burn the American flag if it is outlawed, not voting, refusing to recognize that one can be a “conservative” and still not be a “Republican,” and pushing special homosexual rights, but that’s just me.
If you think I’m an ultra-libertarian, you’ve not been paying attention. I want government to be small, the market to be as free as is feasibly possible, and constructionist constitutional law. None of that penumbra crap for me. Say, doesn’t that make me, like, a conservative?
I see nothing conservative about expanding government’s power to regulate desecrating a flag. Such an amendment is an affront to free speech. Sure, it’s the speech of morons, usually, but there is a right to be a moron. We can’t legislate brains.
I have never advocated not voting and I pretty much vote in every election. In 2004, I wasted my vote on the ultra-libertarian Badnarik in protest to the policies of the Republicans. I pretty much voted Republican until 2002. They need to win me back. I have advocated not voting for certain Republicans and not voting for certain Democrats. But never not voting.
I have no idea where he got the idea that I refused to recognize that one can be a “conservative” and still not be a “Republican,”. And I’m not sure what that means. I consider myself fairly conservative on most issues but socially liberal. I did comment when we met that Republicans these days are not necessarily conservative.
And I have never pushed special homosexual rights.
So, I have no idea where Rob is getting these ideas about me (except the flag thing) and need some clarification.
July 7th, 2005 at 12:51 pm
[…] know who the nominee is. Rob Huddleston, who apparently has not seen it fit to address my response to his assertion of my ultra-libertarianism, has a good round up of nomi […]
June 29th, 2005 at 3:17 pm
Well, you did make excuses for gays who sue for a right to gay marriage, and even for Gavin Newsom’s lawlessness. By giving gays license to bypass the legislature completely and jump to the head of the line, it certainly sounds like you are giving them a special right. Unless, of course, you extend the same charity to polygamists, sterile incestuous couples, cheapskates who don’t want to pay a licensing fee, anti-medicine freaks who don’t want blood tests, and anyone else who may seek to shove his non-conforming “marriage” down the legal system’s proverbial throat.
June 29th, 2005 at 3:27 pm
I didn’t make excuses for newsom’s lawlessness. I said I appreciated the civil disobedience and that he violated the law. I also wondered why he hadn’t been arrested. Still hasn’t, to my knowledge.
June 29th, 2005 at 5:00 pm
Suing for marriage is suing for equality, not special rights. If straight people can get married, then gays should be allowed to as well.
And for the record, I have no problems with bigamy, polygamy or incest, as long as everybody is adult and consenting.
The whole ‘special rights’ locution is a conservative creation, a verbal trick to make quests for equal treatment seem unreasonable.
June 29th, 2005 at 5:45 pm
A license is permission from the relevant authority to ask for that which you otherwise would not have the right to do. All free adults have the right to get married. If you don’t like the terms and conditions of the “marriage license”, why did you beg permission for something you already had the right to do (marry)?
At which point, the argument generally devolves to mumbling about privileges like “tax breaks”, instead of inalienable rights.
June 29th, 2005 at 6:42 pm
Actually, damaged, i wonder why the state must be involved in a two-party contract at all? OTher than the legal system to settel disputes regarding the contract, of course.
June 29th, 2005 at 6:53 pm
SayUncle:
If the legal status of marriage didn’t automatically confer certain legal and tax benefits, that would be a legitimate question.
June 29th, 2005 at 8:15 pm
It would be a legitimate question, sure, but it would be more consistent with Rob’s contention that Uncle is an ultra-libertarian than with Uncle’s that he is conservative.
June 29th, 2005 at 8:40 pm
Uhm, minimizing government (like marriage licenses, offices to issue them, etc.) is quite conservative.
June 30th, 2005 at 8:49 am
And i should point out that i’ve always asserted that I am libertarianish, or neo-libertarian or a Raging RINO or whatever you want to call recently disenchanted with the party former Republicans.
June 30th, 2005 at 9:45 am
Seems to me that you are defending / defining yourself amongst people who don’t agree on the definitions of the words each person is using.
Have you considered trying to teach a pig to sing? Might be easier and more productive…
June 30th, 2005 at 10:45 am
Nobody has to wait for a legislature to grant them equal rights. There are three branches to the government, and branch responsible for protecting rights is the judicial branch. In fact, attempts by legislatures to cordon off special rights for heterosexual couples do nothing but waste time and effort. Sooner or later, judges who understand rights and equality will strike down any legislated discrimination.
June 30th, 2005 at 11:57 am
No, it’s not. Conservatives are not anarchists. Primarily, they want to “conserve” the institutions we have, or at least the ones we traditionally had up to the FDR era. Abolishing marriage is about as “conservative” as banning Mom and apple pie.
June 30th, 2005 at 12:13 pm
So, minimizing government is anarchy?
Let’s assume for a moment that I’m OK with the .gov regulating marriage (which i really don’t have a problem with, but question why thet’re involved in said contract). Is it conservative to use such regulation to deny people privileges others enjoy merely because they have matching genitalia?
June 30th, 2005 at 1:14 pm
But that’s just it, Uncle. They’re PRIVILEGES. Not rights.
If you have to ask someone’s permission, it isn’t a right.
June 30th, 2005 at 4:08 pm
If you take the “minimizing” bit to its logical conclusion, yes. It’s hard to get more “minimalist” than zero.
Yes, unless you happen to be Canadian, Spanish, Belgian or Dutch, in which case it is arguably reactionary.
June 30th, 2005 at 4:53 pm
I like that logic. Therfore, taking spaying and neutering your pets to its logical conclusion results in the extinction of dogs. So, it’s not good for dogs to neuter them.
June 30th, 2005 at 5:16 pm
“Liberals” want to strictly restrict what corporations can do while letting individuals do whatever the hell they want (except own guns).
“Conservatives” want to strictly restrict what individuals can do (except own guns) and let corporations do whatever the hell they want.
“Libertarians” want to let individuals and corporations do whatever the hell they want, while not allowing the government to do anything other than what “it absolutely has to do.” (By the way, no two Libertarians have ever agreed on what the government “absolutely has to” do…)
“Greens” want to refrain from bathing, ban meat, and live in smelly hippie communes while never accomplishing anything (other than perhaps assisting in presidential nepotism).
DISCLAIMER: It’s a joke folks, and it’s only for my amusement. If you’re also amused, well that’s just gravy. If you’re offended, lighten up. And if you think these are unfair generalization, no shit, Sherlock.
July 2nd, 2005 at 6:54 pm
Never said an extreme view makes a moderate one bad. All I said is that if you’re going to call someone an ultra-anything, you have to pick the right “anything.” A radical dog-hater who wants the canine population to go extinct is not representative of normal people who promote spaying and neutering any more than a bomb throwing anarchist is representative of a small-government conservative or a sensible liberatarian. He could, however, be accurately described as an “ultra-spay-and-neuterist,” just as a person who wishes to scale back government so much as to abolish a time-honored institution like marriage – which itself has only minimal impacts on individual liberty – can be described as an ultra-libertarian, albeit not quite as ultra as the full-fledged anarchist.
An ultra-conservative, by contrast, would support neither gay marriage nor the abolition of marriage, preferring instead to keep everything under the sun exactly the way it is now, forever.
July 4th, 2005 at 12:10 pm
I tend to disagree. By that rationale, the true (maybe even ultra?) conservative would want us on horses with muskets and none of Al Gore’s Internets.
July 4th, 2005 at 1:17 pm
Not today, they wouldn’t, because that is the status quo. Pushing for a return to the status quo ante is reaction, not conservatism. Anyone who wanted to preserve slavery in the antebellum South would have been rightly described as a conservative in his day, but anyone who calls for a return to it today is a reactionary.
July 4th, 2005 at 1:19 pm
“because that is the status quo” –> “because that is not the status quo.”
July 4th, 2005 at 2:03 pm
Your entire time continuum here is a bit puzzling. If I want to keep things as they are (but not weren’t), I’m conservative. If I want to change things like they were (not aren’t), I’m a reactionary.
So be it, I’m a reactionary conservative. Or something.
July 5th, 2005 at 10:25 am
Sounds right. The words “liberal,” “conservative” and “reactionary” are all morally neutral. Whether they are good or bad depends on what system currently exists, and whether it is one that should be conserved, or if changed, whether the system we had before was better or worse. It’s also why “conservatives” in the U.S. should think twice before getting too excited to see a “conservative” win an election in another country, as the nature of those two countries (and hence, whatever their respective “conservatives” are trying to conserve) may be quite different.
Case in point: Pim Fortuyn, the Dutch “ultra-right” politician who was considered “ultra-right” (and, ultimately, murdered) because he feared that too much unrestricted immigration from countries that do not share Dutch tolerance might undermine it.