The Washington Conservative Union released its rating of Washington State Legislators based on how conservative, or liberal, their voting record was in the past session.
Three state senators and eight representatives received a hundred percent conservative rating:
Senators Mike Hewitt, Mark Schoesler and Val Stevens along with Representatives John Ahern, Bruce Chandler, Larry Crouse, Steve Hailey, Joel Kretz, Dan Kristiansen, Lynn Schindler, and Judy Warnick.
This curiously enough represents the entire Republican caucus in the legislature when you subtract Rep. Fred Jarrett of Mercer Island who is branded with a 33 percent rating for 2007; 37 percent lifetime. OK, maybe this is a slight exaggeration of the GOP's minority status...
Democrat senator Tim Sheldon of Mason County had a 73 percent rating last year; 84 percent lifetime. This honor will no doubt earn him another challenger in the primary.
The WCU graded the legislators based on votes taken on issues including homosexual rights, limits on taxing and spending, education, and voter integrity.
When defining somebody as a conservative or a liberal it is easy to get into the sticky thickets about what is actually a conservative principle.
As an example, a vote against HB 1379 permitting "state monopoly sales of liquor on Sundays" is seen as "pro-family". Many conservatives though, and of course libertarians, will ask why is the state in the liquor business to begin with and why an obsolete blue law restricting liquor sales to adults eliminated decades ago. (Of course I'm biased but then I like the demon rum...)
Opposition to a fifteen cent gas tax, SB 6103, is a "taxpayer friendly" vote. Voting no against taxes is all very well and good until you get to the point where you need to improve, widen and repair the state's highways and infrastructure. As we saw in the Prop. 1 debate and the Viaduct vote, voting for roads so state residents can get to work, deliver goods and go about their lives makes you a conservative. Liberals and progressives hate roads because they cause global warming and they want folks dependent on government run mass transit systems. (The debate is more complicated, of course, with enough gray to color the Seattle sky).
For the most part though, the majority of the issues-based criteria appear straight forward left-or-right questions.
You can see the entire conservative/liberal breakdown here.
The WCU was formed in 1978 and is chaired by Richard Derham.
We Libertarians, and small-l libertarians who tend to vote Republican, are fiscal conservatives. Whether we are social conservatives or not, we tend to support limited government in that area, instead of legislating morality.
There are big-government social conservatives as well, who want to see the government tax us in order to preserve the family, or engage in charity.
When I see a measure of how "conservative" a politician is, I really want to know how fiscally conservative he or she is. "Conservative" just mixes apples and oranges.
Posted by: Bruce Guthrie on December 3, 2007 04:57 AMBut if a "dogs run free, why can't we?" society appeals to you, vote Libertarian.
Posted by: Saltherring on December 3, 2007 08:04 AMActually if you go to the WCU link provided, there's a matrix of all the votes that these ratings are based on and how each legislator voted. You could, if you wanted to, compile your own rating system based on which votes you consider positive for each legislator. This would entail a bit of work of course but you would be able to make it available to other like minded people.
Posted by: RBW on December 3, 2007 10:12 AMAnd please, don't insult my intelligence with "If we had only run "real" Conservatives in every race we'd win!" crap.
Posted by: cliff on December 3, 2007 11:54 AMYes, I feel lucky to be in the 39th!
Cliff: there is a lot of truth to that "crap" you refer to.
Posted by: pudge on December 3, 2007 11:57 AMIt ususally rings true, by the way, if you want a fiscal conservative, vote for a social conservative. The moral roots are the same, Huckabee notwithstanding.
It's easier to fake "fiscal conservatism." All you do is say, "I'm for LESS Government!!" when what you really mean is "marginally smaller tax increases than the Democrats are offering."
Legislating morality, by the way, Bruce, is all government does. Any time you determine that a principle is so important that you're willing to put someone in jail for breaking it, you're establishing your morality.
Posted by: Doug Parris on December 3, 2007 02:09 PMI like the guy. He seems like a genuine good guy, and I agree with him on a lot of issues.
I just watched This Week and Peggy Noonan was on and she said that Huckabee is a compassionate conservative in the mold of GW Bush.
Exactly, which is why I want Fred!
Regardless, you're right, which is why I am also very skeptical of the fiscal conservatism of Romney and Giuliani. McCain has good -- not great, but good -- social conservative credentials, but he has proven his fiscal conservatism time and again.
Fred's proven in both areas.
So are Tancredo and Hunter. If Fred weren't in the race, I very well could be voting for Hunter, knowing full well he doesn't have much of a chance. I like him an awful lot.
Posted by: pudge on December 3, 2007 03:58 PMFred looks so old, pudge. I've been shocked at how aged he looks in just about all the photos. He needs to get to Clinton's botox supplier- that doctor has done wonder for THAT WOMAN.
Posted by: swatter on December 3, 2007 04:53 PMLet me know when you find one.
Posted by: Independent Voter on December 3, 2007 07:21 PMPosted by: cliff on December 3, 2007 11:54 AM
All of the moderates have lost? Cliff, you're not very familiar with the Republican Caucus, are you? Can I introduce you to Fred Jarrett, Shirley Hankins, Larry Haler, Mary Skinner, Tom Campbell and Skip Priest?
Posted by: ram on December 3, 2007 08:35 PMDoug P. @ 10, you are right, of course. All laws have some moral philosophy underlying them. What I meant to say is that you can't legislate the MERELY moral.
Here is my distinction. It should be against the law to violate the rights to life, liberty or property of another person. That is the sole, legitimate function of government: to defend our equal, individual rights to life, liberty and property. This is why murder, kidnapping, and theft are all illegal, and should be. These are clearly moral issues; I agree. But how about all the things that some people think are immoral, that do NOT violate the rights of others? What I am thinking of is:
Dancing in Lynden, WA on Sundays
Eating trans-fats or pate foi gras
Smoking tobbaco in a bar where the owner allows it
Drinking (and not driving)
Gambling
Smoking pot in your basement
Buying and viewing pornography
Prostitution
etc.
All of these activities can be engaged in while violating NO right of another. Each of these are considered immoral by at least one group of people. All of these have been or still are illegal. All of these, when illegal are victimless crimes.
I call these the MERELY moral issues, because they are moral issues, but engaging in them, in itself, violates no rights.
It is in this sense that I think it is true that you can not legislate morality. You can not legislate these MERELY moral things. Why? Well, prohibition of all of these things just does not work! There are unintended consequences such as creating gang violence and corruption of the police and violating Alan R's excellent limited govrernment position above. Making these illegal also violates our rights to liberty, the very thing government is charged with defending.
We'd like to see (almost) all of these things reduced in society, but government does not do these things well, and private organizations have been at least partially effective, and have a chance. Leave them legal, and then we have a chance to reduce their incidence.
Here, fiscal conservatives (limited government types) and social conservatives are at odds. Their positions are INCOMPATIBLE.
I don't engage in any of these activities (well, I have about a beer a week...) but I defend the rights of others to do these things, as long as in so doing they violate the rights of no other person. The vast majority of the people who do these things just hurt themselves, and not others. It is nanny-state-liberals who want to protect us from ourselves, not conservatives. It is probably not in your interest to engage in these activities above, but since when does the state get to tell you where your interest lies! No way! That violates liberty!
Regarding the WCU scores, I guess I am lazy. I'd like to see these WCU fiscal and social conservative scores totaled up for me separately. The two are distinct in my mind.
Huckabee is a social conservative, but he is no fiscal conservative. I think that there are internal inconsistencies in the conservative philosophy. Why do you defend property rights, but so often fail to defend our rights to liberty? Why do you defend the right to life, but not the right of peaceful people to be left alone?
It just seems inconsistent to me. If you want your rights to be honored, you have to defend rights that you, yourself, may never chose to exercise, or peaceful actions that you might find distasteful. This is the Libertarian philosophy. Tolerance of all peaceful activity. Defense of free trade. Free minds and free markets. Liberty! Join us! :)
Posted by: Bruce Guthrie on December 3, 2007 09:57 PMStevens, Kristiansen, and Pearson!
Posted by: Right Wing Wacko on December 3, 2007 10:22 PMMany theists believe that an atheist can have no morals. This is a misconception. I am a moral realist, not a relativist, as many liberals and progressives are. I believe there are absolute moral principles, that apply to everyone, and I think reason is a good way to discover these.
My basic moral assumptions, which I take to be self-evident, are that we own our own lives and our own bodies, and that it is never morally acceptable to make the first use of force against a peaceful person, though violence in self defense is acceptable. Reality exists, and our sense perceptions can tell us something about it. Reason is a good tool for gaining better and better ideas about what the world really is.
In response to your questions, I used marijuana about 5 times, I used psychadelic mushrooms twice and cocaine once all before 1985. I'm glad for the experience, though I never need to do that again. I've been drunk a few dozen times, but now I only have about one beer a week. I've never had the desire to gamble, and have never bet over $1. It just has no pull for me.
As for illicit sex, I've never paid for it, and as far as extra-marital sex goes, I don't kiss and tell! :) But I have no moral problem with any consensual sex acts between adults of any gender, whether inside or outside of marriage. I'm straight, but not narrow.
I do feel guilty about "using" a few girlfriends while in college. Ahh, well, I guess most of us have sewn our wild oats. But again, I won't kiss and tell... I have made two marriage vows in my life, and have kept them both. My first wife of almost 17 years, died of cancer at the end of 2005. I stuck wih her to the end, through 8 long years of cancer and remission. I lived with her at Swedish Hospital for a year. She was also an atheist.
Why you care about this is beyond me, but since you asked, there you go! :)
Personally, I don't care about your past, because what is important is your ideas and the quality of your arguments. I would never judge your arguments by the other activities you have engaged in over the course of your life, whether you are proud of them or not. They are irrelevant in a discussion of political philosophy. They would be ad hominem. Tell me your reasoned arguments, and I will respond to them alone.
I'm looking forward to your full reply to my post @ 15. I especially look forward to any justification you might have for advocating legislating the MERELY moral, as I define it above. I suspect they will have to be fundamentally socialistic arguments.
Allan R. @ 19, there are many small "l" libertarians within the Republican Party. We need good people like you fighting for liberty both within and without the R Party structure. Those on the outside keep the party honest, by threatening to take votes from them if they do not stick to their limited government principles. If they think we HAVE to vote for them, because the D's are worse, then we have no influence.
I think that a fiscally conservative Democrat (if there are any) might be a small "l" libertarian as well.
Posted by: Bruce Guthrie on December 4, 2007 12:33 PMNow, given some scientific evidence for the existence of God, I might change my mind. But none has ever been presented to me. This is why I don't call myself an agnostic. I am not agnostic about orbiting teapots or God. I am an unbeliver, or as the Muslims would call it, an infidel.
Morality is the theory of right and wrong behavior. It is based on certain fundamental axioms, assumptions or self-evident principles. Some fundamental principles are better than others because they conform better with the human condition, human nature, and the facts of reality. I think that the principles I mention @ 15 are self-evident truths. Do you have any objections to them? I could be wrong, but right now, I don't think I am! :)
Some people think that faith in God is necessary for morality. I disagree. Some liberals who have no faith in God conclude that all morality is relative. I disagree with that as well.
I am a moral realist, and for that reason I tend to come to many of the same conclusions as religious people, but not all.
What contradictions did you find in my working definition of morality? I do not claim to be a perfect user of reason, and would love to learn how I can eliminate a contradiction in my thinking. Please enlighten me! :)
By the way, I am not a "sexual anarchist," as you imply above. I think that rape and all non-consensual sexual acts should be illegal. Laws imply government, not anarchy. Also, I think sex between adults and minors should be illegal, even if aparently consensual. I think that sex that violates a marriage contract, such as an affair, is immoral, and that courts can and should enforce breeches in such voluntary contracts.
Your term "sexual anarchist," is a straw man, meant to make my position look bad. But I am no sexual anarchist. This would be the same as my calling you a "sexual authoritarian" if you want to attempt to prohibit consensual sex between same-sex adult couples in the privacy of their own homes. But I won't do that. That would just amount to name-calling. I don't do that.
By the way, if you want to promulgate such legislation, what is your reason? What is your justification for violating the liberty of peaceful gays and lesbians?
Posted by: Bruce Guthrie on December 4, 2007 04:19 PMI extend to you a cordial invitation to join our merry band of liberty lovers! :)
http://www.lp.org/
Or just send a check to Ron Paul. No member of Congress or Presidential candidate is a better defender of the Constitution than he is.
http://www.ronpaul2008.com
And I love your fact about WV! I wish more people knew about the many times our government has cut corners with the Constitution. Lincoln was a prime offender. Sic semper tyrannis!
Posted by: Bruce Guthrie on December 4, 2007 04:37 PMBut a speed skater?!? That just chaps my hide...
Shish!
suc·cinct
adj. suc·cinct·er, suc·cinct·est
Characterized by clear, precise expression in few words; concise and terse: a succinct reply; a succinct style.
American Heritage Dictionary
Posted by: Brian Thomas on December 4, 2007 07:15 PMHow do we know, for instance, that the Nazis ran concentration camps? Have you ever seen one? How do you know the photographs were not contrived? The testimony of witnesses. Can someone be convicted of a crime beyond reasonable doubt? Yes. The testimony of witnesses. Did George Washington exist?
I am a witness to the existence of God, by direct evidence, and I am far from alone. That is the testimony of the Bible, as well. You will find few "theorists" in its pages. "Simon the Sorcerer" is the only one that comes readily to mind, but he theorized from the NCA point of view. The Bible is full of supernatural occurrences and the direct intervention of a powerful, living God, not any compelling theory.
To independently verify the testimony of astronauts, in the analogy, one would have to mount an expedition to space. It might be decided not to do so for any of various reasons.
To independently verify the testimony of untold numbers of Christians, one must also "get off the couch," so to speak, but the fact is that the existence of God is verifiable, not a matter of philosophical assumption or logic.
Even if belief in God were only theory (which it is not), lack of evidence for that theory would not amount to proof of its falsity. I cannot prove that the Loch Ness monster does not exist. That is not proof that he does. That is why atheism (faith in the non-existence of God), that cannot be demonstrated, is a tall order and agnosticism (doubt of the existence of God) seems a more rational approach.
But I'll continue the digression.
Your point seems to be, if enough people say they believe it, it must therefore be true, and others should believe it as well. A lot of people believe in God, therefor others should accept the position as well. They should accept their "evidence" as proof.
So, when people thought the earth was flat, the minority that thought it was spherical should have believed it as well. Or since a few people belive that lucky rabbits feet work, the rest of us should as well.
The problem is that large portions of the populace, sometimes even large majorities, can be wrong or deluded. How do we know that belief in God doesn't fall in to that category?
I happen to think that it does.
Regarding your argument about historical events such as the Holocaust, we have physical evidence that these occurred. There is no physical evidence that distiguishes between a divine creation of the universe and a purely naturalistic one.
We know very little with 100% certainty. (I think the only candidate is DesCartes' cogito, ergo sum...) I claim to be certain of the existence of my desk to only 99.99999% certainty. I've been fooled before, afterall. It is to almost this extent that I am certain that G. Washington existed (99%) and that the Holocaust occured (99.99%).
I could be wrong about just about anything, all but the fact that I am a thinking thing. To be wrong about that is not possible because in order to be wrong, one must exist...
But to what extent can anyone say they are sure that God exists? Even the most devout have significant doubts from time to time, and there is good reason for this. Lack of evidence.
I have said that I am a teapot atheist. I am 98% sure there is no teapot in orbit around the sun between the orbits of earth and mars. I am about 98% sure there is no God.
But an agnostic might be more like 50-50. This would completely misrepresent my position. Atheist is much closer. And 100% certainty is not possible for either the atheist or the theist's position.
Even an agnostic who believed it was not IN PRINCIPLE possible to know whether God exists or not can not be 100% certain of his own position on the unknowability issue.
So atheism is a more rational label for my views than agnosticism.
As a child of about seven, I was cast in the role of doubting Thomas for a Sunday school play. I loved the role, and still do.
You claim that the existence of God is verifiable. Please, tell me the scientific experiment I must perform in order to know the truth?
Posted by: Bruce Guthrie on December 5, 2007 01:23 AMYou say, "...I am not a 'sexual anarchist,'"
I disagree. Except in the matter of pedophilia (which is inconsistent with your other views), you oppose any enforced rule with regard to sexuality.
Rape, and all non-consensual sex acts can be opposed, not as sexual deviance, but as violence. That is why you oppose them, not on any sexual grounds. You oppose violation of a marital contract on contractual, not sexual grounds.
It would be the same if a person advocated the eradication of all traffic laws, except where they impinged on private property. So one could drive on either side of the street, at any speed, did not have to stop for traffic lights and could park anywhere, except on your lawn (or in privately regulated malls). It would be accurate to call such a person's views "traffic anarchy," the few exceptions having nothing to do with the heart or bulk of vehicle traffic.
The term "sexual anarchist" is, therefore, not a "straw man," nor is it "name-calling" because it accurately represents your views. You do not believe in the proscription of any sexual act (except pedophilia) on sexual grounds. The term makes your position look bad only because your position is bad.
I believe in the legal proscription of many sexual perversions, as do most Americans, and most civilized people in history. You are welcome to call us "sexual authoritarians," if you like. But be forewarned, you will be pictured between a prostitute and a drag queen in the political cartoons, shrieking it, gaily. Lol.
You ask, "By the way, if you want to promulgate such legislation, what is your reason?"
Aside from the fact that, as you seem unaware, most of such legislation has always existed and much of it still does, and, hence, needs not promulgation, but only defense, that is the subject of the upcoming article for which you are the subject of my research, here, at Sound Politics, the Republican test tube.
You ask, "What is your justification for violating the liberty of peaceful gays and lesbians?"
It will be covered, as well.
But in the meantime... what is your justification for violating the liberty of peaceful sharers, those oppressed people, who, like ancient Native Americans, do not have a "private" property orientation, but have and "open" property orientation where all the world's bounty is free for all to share? They have endured centuries of hate and abuse, being called "thief" and "burglar" and "Communist." There is enough for all to share! "If you can't be with the stuff you have, take the stuff you're with!" Property laws are "merely moral."
Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
Nothing to kill or die for
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people, living for the day... OOOO HOOO!
What you really have is a hypothesis that God exists. This sounds like a technicality, but it becomes important when we talk about the theory of evolution... It's not "just a theory." It's proven, scientific fact.
Now, the burden of proof is on the proposer of an idea, not on the listener. If I propose that there is a teapot in a solar orbit between the earth and mars, it is up to me to prove it, not to you to disprove it. I can't say "well, you haven't disproven it yet, so it must be true!"
Similarly, it is theists who propose the hypothesis that God exists. It is therefore their burden to prove it.
Since that has not been done, atheism is justified. One never has to prove the existence of nothing. Nothingness is the underlying background on which all other things exist. Atheism is the position that on the subject of God, there is, in fact, nothing.
It is rational to be an "a-teapot-ist" until the "teapot-ists" show us their proof. This is why I am an a-theist, and not an agnostic.
Posted by: Bruce Guthrie on December 5, 2007 01:41 AMPresumably, we VALUE these beings. I do, don't you? If so, this value serves as another self-evident assumption underlying a rational morality. To NOT value human life is absurd. I seek my own survival, and that of my loved ones. If I do so, then there are certain moral principles that are rational, such as the non-initiation of force, the proscription against lying, and the morality of keeping one's word and one's contracts.
I also "...believe that morality (right and wrong) means adherence to non-optional principles that supercede personal preference." But my cosmology gives rise to such principles, based on reason, not based on the existence of a God, which, by the way, is still an un-proven idea.
Yes, what you should do IS just what is in your own long-term rational self interest, and this often includes loving your neighbor, cooperating with others, giving to charity, improving your community, and doing the right thing. Don't you agree that lying and killing peaceful people is not in your own long-term rational self-interest? I think that you and I will come to the same conclusions about what is moral to do most of the time. You, from a theological perspective, and me from the perspective of long-term rational self-interest.
We avoid the claims of the collectivist through the principle of self-ownership, the non-initiation of force principle, and Adam Smith's idea of the invisible hand.
OK, OK, I admit, on the limited topic of sex between consenting adults in private, I am an anarchist. There, are you satisfied? By the way, I would happily appear in the political cartoon between the prostitute and the homosexual saying "I do not personally value what you do, but I will defend to the death your right to do it." Defending unpopular but just causes on principle is an act of virtue.
Your threat to put me there is not a rational argument. It is a threat of public ridicule, by a public that holds an irrational view.
And I still won't call you a sexual authoritarian. Instead, I'll turn the other cheek. :)
Consensual sodomy between two guys is no longer illegal. The Supreme Court struck that down. I assume you ARE promulgating such a law. Am I wrong?
The right to property is a direct result of my self-evident assumption of self-ownership. If we own our own bodies, then we own our time and our labor, and all that we trade it for without force or fraud. The "sharers" you refer to above are indeed nothing but theives. But if they want to voluntarily enter in to their own collectivist communes, they have a right to do that, as long as no one is forced... especially you and me! :)
Most of this comes from Ayn Rand. If you are interested, you might pick up a copy of "Atlas Shrugged." I hear that a study done by Readers' Digest and a national library association done in 1992 lists "Atlas Shrugged" as the second most influential book of all time among serious readers. It was second only to your favorite book, the Bible. Worth a read, especially if you are a fan of enterprise, and the free market.
Posted by: Bruce Guthrie on December 5, 2007 02:16 AM
con·cise
-adjective expressing or covering much in few words; brief in form but comprehensive in scope; succinct; terse
--Related forms
con·cise·ly, adverb
--Synonyms pithy, compendious, laconic. Concise, succinct, terse all refer to speech or writing that uses few words to say much. Concise usually implies that unnecessary details or verbiage have been eliminated from a more wordy statement: a concise summary of the speech. Succinct, on the other hand, implies that the message is as originally composed and is expressed in as few words as possible: a succinct statement of the problem. Terse sometimes suggests brevity combined with wit or polish to produce particularly effective expression: a terse, almost aphoristic, style. It may also suggest brusqueness or curtness: a terse reply that was almost rude.
Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1)
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2006.
Your assertion, that I think the existence or God, or any other allegation of fact, is a matter of majority opinion, is insulting and cannot be deduced from anything I said. In the analogy, the astronauts' opinion is the only one with any weight. The opinions of a thousand who believe them, or disbelieve them, second hand, is immaterial. The astronauts are either deluded, telling the truth, or lying about their lunar experience, but they are not "theorizing" about the teapot. They either saw it or they did not. Further, their testimony is evidence, not proof, to the rest of us. It alleges an ostensibly verifiable fact. So do I.
"There is no physical evidence that distiguishes between a divine creation of the universe and a purely naturalistic one."
Talk about a red herring! The history of Christianity is not of people having breakthroughs in their analysis of physical evidence concerning the origins of the universe. That is a straw man.
Descartes... knowing with certainty... "doubting Thomas". Now, we're talking.
Thomas required "tangible" evidence. But you have jumped ahead of the game. You point out that even tangible evidence can be doubted. Quite right. There is, at bottom, the question of the basis of knowledge. We perceive that the five senses can be deceived. You, with Descartes, assert the superiority of something else. It is that perception of yourself, thinking. You engage in action, by your will, that we call "thought": ideas pour through your mind and you know, by direct experience, that you have generated them. "I think" you say. This, my friend, is the spirit. The thing that operates on the will, and thereby, thinks, and knows itself. Terri Schiavo, perhaps, could no longer think, but she knew, as well, that she existed by the same, direct experience. Even shorn of the five senses, or of faith in their reliability, even shorn of the ability to think, we know of our existence.
But your experience, there, in your spirit, in that little spiritual world, where you are certain of something, is small. Tiny, actually. You don't know much... yet.
You awake from a dream. You knew its perceptions were unreliable, illusory. You know, in your spirit, that the five senses, the province of material science, are unreliable as well. They are not as certain as that spiritual experience.
God is a spirit and you may know him in spirit. It is possible to be more certain of the existence of God than your desk. It is also possible to stand before him, physically, but that, you will agree, is unnecessary if you know him, certainly, as you know yourself to exist.
Are you ready?
Therefore: "I don't buy it."
Posted by: Bruce Guthrie on December 5, 2007 03:14 AMNo, not if your theory is correct. What you call "thinking" is not "free" at all, but, rather determined by physical properties as certain as the operation of gravity on bodies with mass. Your ideas, or anyone's have no more possibility of connection to "truth" in such a world, because they are "thought" than if they were the result of being struck in the head by a sharp object. Our minds are only like computers, in your world, if there are no operators of the computers, for, in fact, if all of existence is, as you say, just matter, there is no difference between what we, erroneously, perceive as "operators" and the keyboards, or, to be sure, the dust on the keyboards.
"Presumably, we VALUE these beings. I do, don't you?"
Yes, but I do so rationally, because I know them to be persons, not complex, temporary configurations of meaningless matter.
"another self-evident assumption"
this is the appellation you give to the ideas you hold but cannot justify by your materialist cosmology. You can sense the truth, that there are spiritual realities, but you cannot admit it. So you have invented a philosophical "get out of jail free" card. You assert "truths" that need no proof, and base your behavior on them, even while complaining that "God," the rational explanation, has "no proof". You hold them tightly, and out of reach of the discussion and say, "it's self evident!" But the conclusions that the existence of those same spiritual realities rationally lead to, you reject without reason.
It is "self-evident" that you are on the wrong track.
"Consensual sodomy between two guys is no longer illegal."
The Supreme Court took the action you describe, but, of course, that action was, itself, illegal. Hopefully, the Paul Revolution will restore Constitutional government.
But there is much, much more down the road of sexual anarchy, some of it more principled than yours. Consensual pedophilia, for instance, makes perfect sense by your "rationality." For the Government to tell children what is in their interest, against their will, is, as you point out, tyranny. That door will open as it is opening in Holland and Switzerland and Denmark, and other advanced societies (by your standards), where prostitution has increased, following legalization, by 25% in a single year and is still growing, where prostitutes are imported from third world countries and Prostitution is, in one country, already FIVE PERCENT OF THE GNP. And we have not yet begun to exhume necrophilia and beastiality and cannibalism. (all consensual, of course, at least officially). Rape remains illegal, but not "rape play" and, well, how do you determine the difference after the fact? And then there is the aggressive marketing of suicide drugs and slower chemical routes to the same destination, the hard narcotics and methamphetamines. Demand, they say, is outstripping supply. But some who would ordinarily opt out of prostitution, might find a strong propensity to gambling... and take out loans... or need a fix... and find some accomodation. Many will, of course find the "life" a little empty and want more... And there is always more...
The men of Sodom arrived at Lot's door and demanded that he send out his guests that they might "know" them sexually...
Those men (the guests) just happened to be in the category of the "self-evident," a little beyond your level.
The rest, as they say, is history.
I'm glad we agree that to value human life is rational.
All of my basic moral assumptions become absurd if you flip them around. To believe the opposite of them is to believe something that is really weird. For instance:
Others own our bodies and our lives.
It is fine (or mandatory?) to make the first use of force against others who are peaceful.
Human beings have no value.
All three of these statements are patently false. It is in this sense that the opposites of these statments are self-evident. The Declaration of Independance contains the phrase as well: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the persuit of happiness, that to secure these rights governments are instituted among men..."
(By the way, the creator, above COULD be the process of natural selection and evolution...)
I'll tell you what, can you tell me which of the three "opposite" statments above you agree with? Better yet, can you name me a person who consistently follows any one of these three statements? I don't think it is possible.
I don't think I am doing anything weasily by calling them self-evident. I'll bet that most people agree with me that they are.
Furthermore, it is pretty clear to me that "God does not exist" is not self-evidently false. I think the claim that there exists an all-powerful, omniscient, omnipresent being who cares about us is quite an astonishing claim, especially considering the problem of evil...
The action of the Supreme Court (in striking down sodomy laws) defended the right to Liberty, and the 14th amendment applies that authority over the other states. In what way was their act illegal?
Self-ownership accrues to legal adults, not to children. When individuals are under a certain age, they are a partial form of property of their parents. They are not a complete form, because they can not be sold or killed, but they can not be assumed to give consent, they can not enter in to legal contracts, and they have parents for legal guardians. Duh.
The line for adulthood is arbitrary, but this is only because we lack a reliable test for maturity.
Dead bodies become the property of the next of kin. Digging them up to have sex with them violates property rights. But dead people themselves have no rights. They no longer exist.
If cutting me up to donate my organs does not hurt me after I am dead, then how can sodomizing my dead body hurt me?
Would you really prosecute a bereaved widower for having sex with his recently deceased wife's body? As long as he did not murder her before the sexual act, and does it in the privacy of his own home, who's rights have been violated? I agree, this would be disgusting, but I can not see how making this illegal would improve the situation. It would be no deterrent, and because it would be hard to discover, it would be essentially unenforcible. Seems to me your law is silly, no matter how disgusting the actions are.
The test for illegality must be rights violations, not MERE morality or taste.
Drug and prostitution prohibition are equally ineffectual, and I would argue are actually counter-productive for reasons I have explained further above.
And as I recall, instead of kicking the male guests (angels?) out in to the crowd that wanted to rape them, Lot sent out his own daughters, who were raped by the crowd. How was this moral? Care to defend the Bible on this one?
The rest, as they say, is mythology.
Thanks for the effort. Albeit brief.
Posted by: Brian Thomas on December 5, 2007 09:06 AMDelete the IRS and replace it with nothing? Sure. All you have to do is stop funding the defense of foreigners, and reduce spending to 2000 levels.
Sound wacky? It's all true. What else do you find wacky in Ron Paul? Odds are, if you look in to it you will learn something very interesting.
Posted by: Bruce Guthrie on December 5, 2007 02:48 PMCan't we keep it more positive?
I couldn't bring myself to respond to besitality and cannibalism. But I could. Yucko. I'll save what few readers we may have left.
Posted by: Bruce Guthrie on December 5, 2007 02:52 PMCan't we keep it more positive?
I couldn't bring myself to respond to besitality and cannibalism. But I could. Yucko. I'll save what few readers we may have left.
Posted by: Bruce Guthrie on December 5, 2007 02:53 PMTo the extent that Ron Paul sounds like a nut, don't you and I both share this appearance?
After all, we are saying essentially the same things...
Libertarians have been sounding like nuts for almost four decades now, but my guess is that the time for our "nutty" limited government ideas is coming, and that the amazing and unprecedented popular support for Ron Paul is the indicator of this groundswell, and just the tip of the iceberg in the small "l" libetarian attitude change in America.
It is a reaction to the big government folks on the left and the right. I think it is a very hopeful sign! :)
Republicans can capitalize on this sea change, by nominating Ron Paul!
Posted by: Bruce Guthrie on December 6, 2007 03:05 PM