Tuesday, February 22, 2005

Liberservatives or Conertarians?

There's an interesting kerfuffle over what libertarians perceived as a brush off at the recent CPAC conference. It appears that libertarians are threatening to take their marbles and go elsewhere if religious conservatives continue to command more influence than they over the Republican Party.

Most conservatives have a lot of libertarian principles, but the things that seem to separate "social conservatives" from libertarian is that they believe that some government is needed. My belief is that the role of government is to create an environment for the society the people want, so long as that environment doesnt' include denying equal treatment on the basis of race, religion or sex, ("Gender" is a grammatical term, not a biological one.) but that there must be some attention paid to what measures will foster a healthy society. In those respects we have had too much liberty, in the form of millions of aborted fetuses and millions of people who can't control addictions. A healthy society produces good productive citizens. It doesn't tax one generation to support an older one. It doesn't encourage divorce, because good citizens are those who honor their obligations and accept responsibility. It can't force those things, but it can encourage institutions that help produce such citizens, such as public education, religions which teach principles consonant with such a society. It should understand that the economic freedom of people is the engine that makes them prosperous, but that those who don't work when they're able, don't eat. It doesn't eat its seed corn by oppressive taxes and wealth redistribution schemes.

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