GT asks a distubingly common question:
“Neo-Cons like to claim that they are libertarians “with a small ‘l'”, and with their economics they are close to Libertarians, but they love that whole authoritarianism thing.”
Errr – what about “Christian Libertarians”?
Yes, I know, it is a contradiction in terms, since, a theocracy is the most evil form of tyranny known, but they exist. Try “Vox Populi” – and yes, I have asked them how they reconcile these views, and got no answer.
Like many of the insufficiently contemplative, GT fails to grasp that there’s simply nothing there requiring reconciliation. There is nothing more inherently contradictory about Christianity and libertarianism than there is about mathematics and libertarianism, Buddhism and libertarianism or la cucina italiana and libertarianism. It’s like demanding someone explain away the contradiction inherent in the phrase Blue Three.
GT’s error is a basic logical one, which is that all Christians are statist theocrats. This is obviously untrue whether one relies on theory or empirical evidence. In fact, if God does not in fact exist, one could make the case that theocrats are rather more similar to anarchists than secular statists.
One wonders if GT and his sort get equally puzzled by concepts such as “Christian Democrats”, “Social Democrats” and “New Laborites”. In fairness, the concept of a “Cameron Tory” does appear to be entirely oxymoronic.