Life of the Party is declaring today–November 24–”Pro-Life Libertarian Appreciation Day” in honor of Justice Richard Sanders of the Washington State Supreme Court. In Washington State, we elect our judges and they are non-partisan positions. But Justice Sanders has always been considered “conservative/libertarian leaning” and his pro-life views are widely known. Yet, he has managed to get elected to a statewide office for three terms. (Are you reading this, Chris Vance?)
If you’ve been closely following the news, you might know that this comes on the heels of a controversy with Justice Sanders.
During a speech given by U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey to a Federalist Society meeting, a “heckler” in the audience interupted with an outburst, calling Mukaley a “Tyrant!” The “heckler” is now reported to be Justice Sanders. So naturally, he is drawing fire from conservative bloggers, including former Sanders defender and fan, Michelle Malkin. Why? Because he has dared to question the constitutionality of “The Patriot Act” and has been critical of its threat to civil liberties, and during Michael Mukasey’s speech defending it and demeaning its critics, Sanders (reportedly) could no longer contain his outrage.
While the conservative blogosphere wants to tar and feather anyone who dares criticize the increasing power of the federal government because the power grab happens to be coming from a Republican administration, Life of the Party wishes to celebrate pro-life libertarians. While they want to institute a litmus test for conservative credentials based on a constitutionally questionable piece of legislation, Life of the Party asks Republicans to consider bringing back constitutionally based litmus tests. While the Republican Party wants to kick libertarians out of the “Big Tent”, Life of the Party asks Republicans to consider Ronald Reagan’s words, “If you analyze it I believe the very heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism” and embrace libertarians into the party.
While Republicans everywhere discuss where the party has gone wrong and reached this level of failure, we ought to consider all of the coalition of conservatives that Reagan brought together, which has completely fallen apart. Most conservatives assume that we can’t work with libertarians because we differ on too much. Most would even be surprised that any pro-life libertarians exist. I submit to you they do. Justice Sanders is exhibit A. Ron Paul is exhibit B. And being pro-life is consistent with being a libertarian. Let’s rebuild the coalition! Show appreciation for libertarians today, especially pro-life libertarians.
As a pro-life libertarian, I say “amen”.
My comments about Sanders had nothing to do with his position on the Patriot Act. It was solely based on his unprofessional behavior and his attack on a man invited to speak that night.
Even though he is an activist Judge, surely he could have found another way to express himself. He has every right to be against the Patriot Act, just as anyone has the right to be for it.
I beg to differ, Maggie. Criminal activity is not a right and the collusion, between branches of the Federal Government, to violate the Constitution collectively is the worst sort of criminal activity… worse than murder, worse than rape.
Sanders’ alleged action (interrupting a speech), assuming he is the one that did it, is indefensible unless he is right… unless he is standing up against a force that has already, sysematically violated the Constititution and thus created a juggernaut of executive and military officers each of whom has become complicit in that process, in turn, violating their oaths of office.
If Sanders is right, the act of interrupting a speech is the very least of the inconveniences that should be suffered by the cabal that has done this.
The world awaits a generation that is willing to ignore social convention, that will flush the criminals in government out of their bureaucratic hideouts and track them into the open.
The world awaits a generation that will sacrifice itself to restore our freedom while there is still time. A generation that will shatter the glass and pull the alarm.
This is an Emergency.
Doug,
What you need to remember is that Ayn Rand, the founder of the Libertarian Party (and the Objectivist philosophy on which it was built), was notoriously anti-Christian and atheist. Consequently, the Libertarian Party contains a major faction which is virulently opposed to the “social” conservative agenda and a good many of them vote with the Left in the general elections. I know, I used to BE one before I was saved. I’m sure that you’ve tangled with some of these yourself, especially since many are registered RINO’s errrr…. I mean Republicans… who got tired of losing elections. But of course, there ARE notable exceptions, such as this one: A Libertarian Defense of Social Conservatism.
Personally, I would rather see the Republican Party STAND for all of the principles of conservatism with bold integrity so that those “pro-life” libertarians would come back.
Fat chance though, if the leadership at the RNC never repents of its pursuit of the definition of insanity! Michael Steele’s Consultants Reflect “DC Insider” Connections. Same stuff, different day.
I guess my comments should have been directed at Maggie, don’t you think Michelle? See what I mean about conservatives who rather lose than be perceived to be “rude”.
It is because of people like Maggie that we have lost our country. And after these last few weeks (of inaction on the part of conservatives) I don’t think we are getting it back.
Maggie, you obviously don’t love America, not enough!
Think that’s harsh? You bet. Do you think it was uncalled for?
I don’t think so.
One of the things that really make me mad about our side is how so many on our side aren’t willing to do what it takes to win. They want to stick to “Marquess of Queensberry Rules” and seem to rather lose then be perceived of being rude.
If one really, really loves something, I mean if something is really, really, important. Well then they will do anything to protect and fight for it.
This isn’t some boxing match, some football game, or some debate club championship, there’s no mere trophy at stake here. THIS IS THE FUTURE OF OUR COUNTRY AT STAKE HERE!
Thank God there are still people out there willing to be rude. Thank God there are people who will still stand up and yell “Tyrant” when the situation demands it.
You do know it is okay to call out FIRE in a crowded theater if there is actually a fire, don’t you?
Look, I know you will respond with how offended you are and a list of the sacrifices you have made for America and all that, and I am sure that’s all true. But in the end you would not go the needed extra mile.
And I know, if you (not your ancestors but you) were back in colonial times, you would be a Royalist for those calling for Independence they are, so, so rude. And they really shouldn’t have stolen that tea company’s tea and dumped it into the harbor like they did. It was “disappointing” that they did that.
Silly Lizzie,
I think you’re on the right track, however nothing in your first paragraph makes any sense in the context of what you’re responding to and the examples you offer.
1) Ayn Rand did not found the Libertarian Party. If it were any one person it was David Nolan, with much contribution from the great Murran Rothbard.
2) Rand’s Objectivism is not the ideological foundation of the Libertarian Party, nor is it the foundation of Libertarianism. Try classical liberalism rooted in Locke, and the expression of which was the founding generation giving us our nation – a radical development in history!
3) You seem to be assuming that “social conservative” and “Christian” are one and the same, but I’m sure you know this is false. If you actually read Rand’s opus, Atlas Shrugged, you’d know that 3 of the male characters (Franciso d’Anconia, Hank Rearden and John Galt) all are either generally social conservatives in practice or make great secular arguments for socially conservative behavior.
4) “Libertarian” does not necessarily refer to the Libertarian Party. In fact, the Libertarian Party was formed by a coalition of Taft Republicans, Objectivists and anarcho-capitalists who shared an opposition to the state. The libertarian tradition was a general state of mind among much of America, I would argue still is, but was best expressed politically by Jefferson’s Democrat-Republicans, and then the Democratic Party up until Cleveland (arguably our most Libertarian President).
5) I’m not sure why you being ’saved’ has made you lose your love for Liberty. What is not libertarian about Jesus?
6) I doubt the social conservatism of the writer of the weakly argued article you cite. You must have been sleeping this past year if you had to dig this deep to find a Libertarian argument for social conservatism.
Enter Congressman and former presidential candidate, Ron Paul.
I’m sure you hate him (because ‘they’ said you must), but now that the establishment had its presidential primary and election victories, you can secretly read this man’s own words and take his arguments for what they are. There has, to my knowledge, never been a politician who more carefully followed both the law and protected Liberty as if it were as precious as it is. What I’ve read of Grover Cleveland and Robert Taft make them seem close, but they also had their weaknesses.
Also, Paul (a Lutheran) doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Read the late non-practicing Jew, Murray Rothbard, the (I think) Catholic Lew Rockwell, and all the other writers, economists, philosophers and policy experts associated with the Ludwig von Mises Institute, American Conservative Magazine, the New American and LewRockwell.com for more examples and well-reasoned arguments for libertarian advocacy of social conservatism.
However, since, to the libertarian, the real enemy is the state, not the personal and private behavior of his neighbor, you’ll will find that most articles are mostly against the use and abuse of government power, not social liberalism. As it should be, since a state that can mandate social conservatism will also have the legal authority and power to legislate social liberalism when the pendulum has swung the other direction.
7) You and many others I’ve heard recently seem to speak fondly of getting the Republican Party back on track and “STAND” for its principles -as if social conservatism, limited government and liberty are its default principles. Our first Republican President, Lincoln, was an atheist, actually spoke very negatively of Christians, was one of the biggest statists our country has ever had, and he was… a tyrant. Yeah – there, I said it. Everything good you know about Abraham Lincoln is a myth perpetuated (now) by the Left to justify all their horrors and Marxist interpretation of the state to a mostly conservative and patriotic body politic. And the rest?
Let’s see…
T. Roosevelt was a socialist, or “progressive”, who served as a spoiler to prevent the second term of the decent Willaim Taft, and propel to power the abominable Wilson, who some suggest Roosevelt conspired with.
Hoover… also a socialist. The idea that his laissez faire policies caused the Great Depression is a popular myth perpetuated by Marxists at all levels, in all parties. In fact, Hoover began many of the policies which FDR expanded upon.
Eisenhower… an internationalist liberal who promoted US subjugation to international bureaucracy, among other things.
Nixon… Milton Friedman, in the the 90’s or early 00’s said he was the biggest-government president of the 20th Century, i.e. in US history. Nixon made the ghastly statement, “We are all Keynesians now.” (Keynes was a Marxist committed to the end of capitalism) Nixon instituted price controls, which even the leftist Carter repealed, and was responsible, along with LBJ, for much of the disastrous economic turmoil which Carter, though very guilty as well, gets blamed for. He was also a social liberal. Power was Nixon’s only principle.
Reagan… I’m prepared to get attacked. But… although his rhetoric was great, although I get pumped every time I see, hear or read “The Speech”, and although his anecdotes which I read and hear on the radio from time to time are great expositions of republicanism and liberty… the proof is simply not in the pudding. Maybe he didn’t get all the things done which he wanted to. Maybe he was hampered by a Democratic Congress. I fear what would have happened had Reagan not won in 1980 and ‘84. When I hear the word “President” even now, a quick image of the Gipper flashes in my mind – since he was president through the brunt of my younger childhood.
However, government and debt massively expanded under Reagan. He instituted his own price controls. His great tax cut was eventually accompanied by some of the largest tax increases ever. He ballooned the debt. Empire grew, and Reagan brought neoconservatives to power. Also, government in California got ever bigger under Reagan as well. Would that Reagan delivered what I’ve read of his campaign promises.
And what about Goldwater? The more I look into him, it seems he was only mildly socially conservative (actually pro-choice – his wife started planned parenthood in AZ) and espoused limited government and liberty only when he was running for President. It seems the rest of his career belied this rhetoric.
But Coolidge was pretty good, and Harding as well. They get slammed for corruption, but they presided over an era of prosperity and government reductions in reaction to the fascism of Wilson. Best of all, though, the post-Wilson days gave us the Taft Republicans, a great libertarian movement in America’s history, although they were a perpetual minority. However politically ineffectual they were, if it were not for these stalwarts, we may have a country far more socialist than we could imagine. Unfortunately, that movement died after most of them left office and Senator Robert Taft died in the 50’s. Since then, the parties have more or less coalesced into being what Rothbard called “two wings of the same bird of prey.”
We need to move forward with our eyes open, being honest about the past and steadfast about the future. The trials we are to face may be greater than we can even imagine at this moment, even with the communo-fascist Obama prepared to rule, world banksters and socialists prepared to tamper with our currency, “a major event” predicted by Colin Powell to occur on 1/20 or 1/21, 4.6 tera dollars spent, printed and borrowed by the banksters ruining the country, or the 7.7 total that is proposed. Tera dollars – that’s trillion dollars! So dig your heels in, and remember what we’re in this fight for!
Oh yeah, those Taft Republicans were also against:
getting involved in WWII (until we were attacked)
NATO
the Marshall Plan
the Korean War
the New Deal
joining the UN
and …ta da – the expansion of the police state/national security state which curbs individual liberty and is the greatest threat to our Constitutional republic.
So there Malkin!
And Phyllis Schlafly was a Taft Republican. Read “A Choice Not an Echo”.
“Enter Congressman and former presidential candidate, Ron Paul. ”
Enter?
I want to know where Ron Paul is? Is he still alive?
Of course I assume he is because I haven’t heard otherwise but a lot of money was raised on his behalf and I just don’t see any it being used productively.
Well, you say he didn’t win the Republican nomination. Well as important as it is there is more to politics than the Presidential campaign.
Look at T Boone Pickens and how he is using his money in hopes to effect a political outcome. Why can’t Paul put some ads on TV to the effect call your legislators,stop the bailout? He could have at least made it a little hotter for them before they voted fo the bailout?
I hate to think bad of the man but that is getting harder and harder to avoid. Were we all taken in by a con-man? If not why is so much money just siting there in some bank (or more likely many banks) out there collecting interests instead of for mounting some political effort like the people who donated the money intended it for. Even during the primaries when he had a chance (albeit a small one) the amount he put out campaigning was significantly lower than the amount he raised. Sure it might have not made any difference but if it wouldn’t have made a difference why were the funds raised in the first place?
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2008/11/ron-paul-2012.html
Pete
You made two comments at which I take deep offense. Why don’t you stop putting words in people’s mouths?
First, you said that I “seem” to equate being a social conservative with Christian. I do NOT!!!!! Nothing I said even remotely implies that.
A Muslim can be a social conservative, yet I consider that religion to be a demonic cult, Just because they chose to build their twisted cult on top of the Bible, creating an overlap in some “shared” moral stances, does not mean that there is agreement either in how those positions are derived or the applications, i.e. morally, socially, politically, or policies.
Conversely, it is FACT that the majority of those who are labeled as the “Religious Right” ARE primarily drawn from the ranks of evangelical Christianity as well as the pro-life wing of the Catholic Church. Whereas the majority of non-evangelical “mainstream” Christian denominations fall in line with extreme liberals and are allied with the statist Left. (e.g. liberal Catholics, United Methodists, Episcopalians, Lutherans, to name a few).
Second, the comment that “being saved has made me lose my love of liberty” is an uncalled for verbal slap that reveals how mean-spirited, ignorant, and arrogant you are. It doesn’t deserve an answer.
That being said, you are correct to point out that Ayn Rand did not “found” the LP. It is also true that Ayn Rand herself never embraced the Libertarian Party as politically credible or viable. I should have used the word “inspired” instead of “founded”.
Nevertheless, Ayn Rand was the “fountainhead” for many of the ideas which inspired Noland and Rothbard. Rand was, and continues to be, a big “draw” for many of those who consider themselves libertarians, whether or not they are officially subscribed in the political party by that name.
Since you failed to grasp it, my comment was simply intended to rebut this statement:
“While the Republican Party wants to kick libertarians out of the “Big Tent”, Life of the Party asks Republicans to consider Ronald Reagan’s words, “If you analyze it I believe the very heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism” and embrace libertarians into the party.”
My intention was to point out that there is very little to unite social conservatives with libertarians because many (if not most) libertarians are social, moral and political anarchists. They are libertarians BECAUSE they share Rand’s philosophy of atheism, secularist rejection of divine standards and divine authority. And that view is just the OPPOSITE of John Locke whom you quoted. At worst, a significant number of libertarians are anti-Christian bigots much in the same spirit as Leonard Peikoff, Ayn Rand’s intellectual heir, who blames Christianity for the rise of Nazism and Hitler.
I simply fail to see how social conservatives could possibly join in any kind of political alliance with libertarians of that ilk against the Left. In fact, the left shares much of the same bilge belief system with libertarians, united by anti-Christian atheism. except that the Left holds it in the context of collectivism. And that is why the Libertarian Party is politically ZERO, spit out of relevance by both sides.
Those of us who consider ourselves Christians and conservatives are neither in the camps of the anarchist or the collectivist. The only Christians who could embrace libertarians as allies are those who are simply ignorant of what they’re dealing with.
As to your comment on Randall Hoven’s article — I was trying to throw Doug Parris a bone since he so desperately wants to build coalitions with the unthinkable. But thank you for reiterating my point for me — there is NO “politics makes strange bedfellows” case to be made between social conservatives and libertarians. I will make the case that “prolife libertarians” are lost sheep who need to be rescued from the foxholes.
As for the rest of your rant, it was mind bogglingly full of errors, albeit among a few things you got right.
Let’s start with the claim that Lincoln was an atheist. Lincoln was raised in a Primitive Baptist family, a baptist sect which espouses a hyper-calvinistic anti-missionary theology. There are many within the Christian community who struggle with that doctrinal system even today, but it HARDLY throws them either out of the Christian faith, much less into atheism. In fact, biographers have said that he was a man of simple faith rooted in the bible, not in “church”. But he was certainly no atheist.
In addition, Lincoln’s addresses, speeches, and messages are liberally infused with scriptural quotations For example, here is a paragraph from his Second Inaugural Address delivered March 4, 1865:
“The Almighty has his own purposes. ‘Woe unto the world because of offenses! for it must needs be that offenses come; but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh.’ If we shall suppose that American Slavery is one of those offenses which in the providence of God must needs come, but which having continued through his appointed time, he now wills to remove, and that he gives to both North and South this terrible war, as the woe due to those by whom the offense come, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to him ? Fondly do we hope—fervently do we pray—that this mighty scourge of war may pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondman’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said, ‘ The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.’”
That statement alone contains TWO quotations from the New Testament. In fact, it is known that his motives for waging the war against the southern states had much to do with preserving the UNION, the “ONE nation, under GOD”, as asserted in the Declaration of Independence which rests the inalienable rights of man as endowed upon us by our Creator!
When one lacks even the most rudimentary discernment and intellectual honesty to misrepresent a great president as an atheist and a tyrant, I have no interest in investing any more of my time in this discussion, MUCH LESS any political alliance. As far as I’m concerned, most libertarians are just petty little selfish bullies who never grew up, and throw their tantrums wrapped in the Constitution in order to get attention from their mommies.
Steve,
Ron Paul is very much alive .
You are absolutely right that “there is more to politics than the Presidential campaign.”
See Ron Paul’s new organization, the Campaign for Liberty. Since the primaries, Ron Paul has been quite busy and the financial crisis has made him more relevant than ever. Just since summer, Paul alone, or he and his new organization have released a #1 bestlesser; thrown the most substantive party of the year; provided a scathing analysis of our government and a positive vision for the future; started a foundation to educate the public; formed a PAC to get candidates elected; built a bridge across party lines and formed an unlikely alliance on the most pressing issues of our time; probably did more than anyone else in the country to fight the bailout; and actively campaigned against all politicians who voted for the bail-out; and done what most politicians won’t do – generally told it like it is.
Campaign for Liberty is a totally new type of political organization focused on grassroots activism at the precinct level.
As for the money, who knows, but I’d imagine that these various organizations and activities have taken up much of it.
Well, I hope his main goal is to get his people out to the Republican conventions in the next two years (as well as enough lawyers to record illegal activity by the party establishment trying to keep his people out).
Because the Republican party needs to be changed from within but that takes money as well as a concerted effort.
Here what the dirt bags at Sound Politics are saying.
If the Republican Party is going to survive to save America people like the scum who post on this site (especially Eric Earling) must be removed from any position of influence.
http://soundpolitics.com/archives/012155.html
They have had their way in the Republican party for years and for years the Republican party has gone further and further to the Left.
Here is their vision for the future of the state Republican party.
http://soundpolitics.com/archives/012150.html
Scary, isn’t it???
I followed your links, Steve. I posted the first time, but couldn’t bring myself to completely read the threads either time. “Cameras in the coffin, interviewing worms.”
The Sound Politics site came to the forefront of Republican debate because of Stefan Sharkansky’s excellent work on the Rossi election fraud debacle, in 2004. It began its mission in the middle: fiscally conservative and socially liberal. The foundation of Sound Politics was popular libertarianism, as Molly Meggyesy and other social liberals within the Ron Paul Campaign have defined it. I have always been and am willing to coalition with those who hold that philosophy. It is 50% better than what we have now. The dominant philosophy steering the State and National Parties, now, is thinly disguised, but intractable liberalism. (See: McCain, 2008).
But (and it is a very big But) as has always been the case, historically, those who are 50% Republican (and that is precisely what they were) find help and acceptance with “Mainstream Republicans” who are 100% Democrat and lying about it.
So over the last four years we have seen the gradual erosion of any conservatism, there, at all. They have consolidated agenda with the GOP Left, exalted the vacuous Eric Erling to Editor and become a mouthpiece for all that is wrong with the Republican Party.
A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump.
We cannot succeed while abandoning the little ones to slaughter. God will requite our actions.
Left-wing factions of the Ron Paul campaign are already negotiating the terms of their “inclusion” into the Pragmatic oligarchy that has ruined us and the terms are similar to joining any street gang. “Commit a crime.” It is very possible to become a part of the Socialist Snowball, to “work from within” as it were. They will extoll “smaller government” as their candidates make it larger. They will extoll the “Constitution” as their executives dismantle it.
They will talk of their electoral “success” as they lead our Party to permanent minority status.
“Well hath Esaias prophesied of you hypocrites, as it is written, This people honoureth me with their lips, but their heart is far from me.”
Mene Mene Tekel Upharsin.