JF has a few questions:
I posted a question in one of the topics on your blog, but didn’t get a response. Basically you said something about extra-governmental ways to stop immoral behavior. I was wondering if you can expand on that. For example, I’m kind of at a loss for what should be done about the gay marriage thing. I’m not a fan of the constitutional amendment idea, mainly because I don’t think the constitution should be used to limit people’s freedom when it was meant to limit the government. However, I think something needs to be done about this constant pushing of the homosexual agenda. I am by no means a homophobe… I don’t believe they are any more sinful than I am, but I’m not trying to get society to recognize my sin as “normal” and “natural”. What are your thoughts?
The marriage amendment is a bad idea because it is relying on government to fix what government has destroyed. This is the classic conservative blunder. When the Constitution was written, the current libertarian position was the norm – government had no relationship or authority over marriage whatsoever. Most of the states didn’t even bother tracking them, it was not a civil affair.
Since that time, government first began tracking them, then registering them, then issuing licenses for them, then federalizing them and destroying them (through divorce laws.) Only removing the government from the equation can prevent it from redefining it; the thousands of gun laws on the books as well as the total impotence of the 10th Amendment should adequately demonstrate the federal government’s ability to evade its Constitutional limitations.
Also, what made you chose the LP over the CP? The CP seems pretty in line with what you believe, from what I can tell in your writings. I just started reading you blog during this whole campaign… I’m now wishing I had read longer and been convinced that Bush is truly not a conservative. I can’t believe the whole Specter nonsense and now Gonzales. I guess it kind of makes me sad to think that this country is going down the crapper and not much we can do about it.
As to Bush, you can’t say I didn’t warn you. I believe the fate of this country was sealed long ago, probably during the Nixon administration, but perhaps as far back as the New Deal. That’s fine, we live in a fallen world anyhow and certainly our unconstitutional government is still preferable to the vast majority of regimes, past and present. As Christians, we’re not expected to utterly defeat the prince of this world, we’re supposed to resist and hold on until the cavalry arrives.
I prefer the LP because it attempts to work from first principles instead of fetishizing a document which it ignores whenever it feels like it. Some of the LP’s current positions are wrong, but I believe the method of approach is intellectually right as it allows for self-correction and is less prone to getting hijacked. Don’t get me wrong, I salute the CP and I believe that at some point, a rapproachment will be necessary and there must be a single, decentralized party dedicated to freedom and liberty if we want to present the American people with a viable political alternative to the bifactional ruling party.