Shouldn't Republicans, By Definition, Be Somewhat Socially Liberal?

[EnlightenedChosenOne]

Republicans are the very first to hate on big brother and say how they don't need no big gubnt to control their lives, yet republicans want to regulate people who make decisions they don't necessarily agree with.

What gives?

[TxHoops]

It is why libertarians exist. They believe, consistently, that government should stay out of people's lives. The hypocrisy of many GOP'ers is that they scream and cry for smaller government (they mean fiscally), while at the same time forcing their way into our homes and bedrooms, telling us what we should and shouldn't do and wih whom we should or shouldn't do it.

[PN-G bamatex]

Am I correct in assuming you're talking about gay marriage and abortion?

[stevenash]

Permit me to counter with the lefts cry for individual freedoms but when it comes to me and my money, to he-- with individual freedoms. Then its all about the "common good"

[TxHoops]

Am I correct in assuming you're talking about gay marriage and abortion?

Gay marriage yes. Abortion is a different matter because it at least arguably (and IMO) involves a "victim." Individual liberties end when you infringe upon another's.

[TxHoops]

Permit me to counter with the lefts cry for individual freedoms but when it comes to me and my money, to he-- with individual freedoms. Then its all about the "common good"

You miss the point of my post and the OP''s with your "but what about them" finger pointing. I have no idea where you stand on social issues so I won't presume where you stand. However, ECO was asking how one justifies demanding less government economically but is all for legislating morality. Or at least that was my interpretation. Maybe I'm a "low comprehension reader" like Smitty.

[PN-G bamatex]

Gay marriage yes. Abortion is a different matter because it at least arguably (and IMO) involves a "victim." Individual liberties end when you infringe upon another's.

 

That's where I was going to go with the abortion issue depending on the answer to the question.

 

As for gay marriage, I believe marriage is a religious institution at its core, and thus can't be redefined by a government entity. It wasn't instituted by government, it was instituted by religion and then the government basically tried to take it over. The first time it ever became a government issue was when the king of England decided he wanted a divorce, and even then, he split the churches to be able to do it. A couple of centuries later, several states, Alabama being one of them, only started issuing marriage licenses as a way of regulating the institution to prevent interracial marriage, and many others only instituted marriage licenses for tax purposes.On that note, in this state, marriage licenses weren't even issued until the 1960s; both of my sets of grandparents received marriage certificates from the Methodist church, not marriage licenses from the county.

 

My thoughts are that there never should have been any marriage licenses. Leave marriage to the churches to sort out. Some of them, undoubtedly, will be willing to confer the institution of marriage on same-sex couples, and some won't. At the end of the day, however, it's up to he individual churches, thus preserving religious freedom and the separation of church and state.

 

And no, for those who are wondering, I don't have anything against polygamy, either.

[TxHoops]

That's where I was going to go with the abortion issue depending on the answer to the question.

 

As for gay marriage, I believe marriage is a religious institution at its core, and thus can't be redefined by a government entity. It wasn't instituted by government, it was instituted by religion and then the government basically tried to take it over. The first time it ever became a government issue was when the king of England decided he wanted a divorce, and even then, he split the churches to be able to do it. A couple of centuries later, several states, Alabama being one of them, only started issuing marriage licenses as a way of regulating the institution to prevent interracial marriage, and many others only instituted marriage licenses for tax purposes.On that note, in this state, marriage licenses weren't even issued until the 1960s; both of my sets of grandparents received marriage certificates from the Methodist church, not marriage licenses from the county.

 

My thoughts are that there never should have been any marriage licenses. Leave marriage to the churches to sort out. Some of them, undoubtedly, will be willing to confer the institution of marriage on same-sex couples, and some won't. At the end of the day, however, it's up to he individual churches, thus preserving religious freedom and the separation of church and state.

 

And no, for those who are wondering, I don't have anything against polygamy, either.

 

Couldn't agree more.  On the polygamy issue as well (assuming it doesn't involve the FLDS types who use underage girls like currency - which I am confident you would obviously take issue with too).  I have the exact same basis for my belief as well.  Separation of church and state and religious freedom.  Some of the self-proclaimed constitutionalists on this site forget that little nugget of the very founding of our country. 

[PN-G bamatex]

Couldn't agree more.  On the polygamy issue as well (assuming it doesn't involve the FLDS types who use underage girls like currency - which I am confident you would obviously take issue with too).  I have the exact same basis for my belief as well.  Separation of church and state and religious freedom.  Some of the self-proclaimed constitutionalists on this site forget that little nugget of the very founding of our country. 

 

Giving marriage back to the church doesn't mean throwing consent laws out the window with it.  :D

[LumRaiderFan]

Couldn't agree more.  On the polygamy issue as well (assuming it doesn't involve the FLDS types who use underage girls like currency - which I am confident you would obviously take issue with too).  I have the exact same basis for my belief as well.  Separation of church and state and religious freedom.  Some of the self-proclaimed constitutionalists on this site forget that little nugget of the very founding of our country.

Couldn't agree more on the marriage issue...no gov involvement needed.

I would assume as a self-proclaimed Constitutionalist, you would agree the fed gov should not be providing welfare.

[NorthoftheBorder]

At the core of what is at issue here is historical Christian beliefs versus secular beliefs.  Christians believe the best way to live is based on Judeo-Christian ethics as laid out in the bible.  Consequently, our laws and regulations were set up along those beliefs.  The rapidly radical secularization of this country over the last 40+ years has put those laws and regulations at odds with a growing and restless populace in this country.  What we have is a significant clash of belief systems.  So, I believe that same sex sexual relations, as clearly outlined in the Judeo-Christian bible, is offensive to God.  Many of you think it is just fine and dandy, and maybe the superior sexual practice.  As a Christian, I believe that you should not practice that just as I would believe you shouldn't commit heterosexual adultery, or you should not steal, lie, murder etc.  If you do not rub it in my face and keep what you do in your bedroom to yourself, I will almost assuredly keep my opinion to myself.  If you ask me, I will tell you how I believe and why.   

[EnlightenedChosenOne]

Typical Stevenash post attempting to derail the original discussion.

Permit me to counter with the lefts cry for individual freedoms but when it comes to me and my money, to he-- with individual freedoms. Then its all about the "common good"

[EnlightenedChosenOne]

Gay marriage

Abortion

Recreational drugs

Prostitution

Am I correct in assuming you're talking about gay marriage and abortion?

[TxHoops]

Couldn't agree more on the marriage issue...no gov involvement needed.

I would assume as a self-proclaimed Constitutionalist, you would agree the fed gov should not be providing welfare.

I don't refer to myself in the third person.

I did have the great fortune (although I thought I was very unlucky at the time) to learn the subject from Charles Alan Wright (God rest his soul). He is widely believed to have been the greatest constitutional scholar of the 20th century. Great man, even though he was a Republican. Never opened a book or brought a note to class and picked up the next lecture exactly where he left off the previous one. And he was in his late 60s at the time.

I tell you this for a reason. The one thing I can tell you after a semester with Charlie Wright is that I am no expert in Constitutional Law. However, I can tell you that he did not believe that men 250 years ago could envision all the problems in the world today, much less foresee them. When the topic of whether the Constitution is a "living, breathing" document would arise, reference was usually made to the existence of constitutional amendments.

[PN-G bamatex]

Gay marriage

Abortion

Recreational drugs

Prostitution

 

Gay marriage and abortion have already been addressed to some degree, so I'm going to leave those two alone.

 

To answer the questions, I'm going to get really abstract for a minute and then come back to the issues. Before I get started, forgive me if some of the details are incorrect; it's been two years since I took a political theory class where we discussed any of this in depth, so I may be a little rusty. Also, kind of like my comment on affirmative action, this is written by an undergraduate political science student who only knows so much about these subjects because it's a lifelong interest.

 

If the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence contained references and a "Works Cited" page, the works they would refer to would be the writings of a core group of political philosophers the Founding Fathers based their entire system of beliefs on in one way or another. Those philosophers are John Locke, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and, to a lesser extent, Thomas Hobbes, who was Locke's mentor. All three had kind of covered different aspects of political philosophy (Rousseau did more with democracy, Locke did more with individual rights and liberties) and all of them had their own ideas about the optimal forms of government (Hobbes, for instance, basically spent all of Leviathan trying to justify the monarchy, and Rousseau was really a socialist at heart who accepted property and capitalism as necessary evils). But the one thing that formed the foundation of all of their beliefs was the state of nature - the original environment in which man first lived, from which we, and everything we know, evolved.

 

In that state of nature, they theorized that man was perfectly free. A person was accountable only to himself, and could do anything he wanted without any unnatural consequences imposed by any authority of any kind. It was pure and unlimited freedom. And thus, man being perfectly free in nature meant that man had a natural right to be free, according to their reasoning.

 

Of course, the reality of that, as recognized by all three of them, was chaos. When you remove the structure of morality, community and government and tell people they can do whatever they want without consequences, the result is anarchy, death and destruction. Thus, they reasoned that man gave up all or part of that natural right of freedom to achieve peace and order in the course of social and political evolution. As I mentioned in parentheses earlier, Hobbes spent all of Leviathan expounding on this very concept; the actual "leviathan" was the power embodied in a king amassed from all of those individual rights given up collectively by his subjects to create order, stability and security.

 

The reality of that, on the other hand, was tyranny. Giving up all natural rights to a single power left too much room for abuse, and that was the typical result. That's where Locke comes in and starts talking about the concept of liberty. To try and break that down succinctly, liberty is the balance between ordered tyranny on one end, and chaotic freedom on the other. It basically tries to give us the best of both worlds. The natural freedom gets broken down into more basic rights that are secured to us with certain limitations to ensure we can maintain domain over our own lives, while the government still receives the minimum amount of power necessary to maintain peace and stability. In essence, it's the maximum amount of freedom we can have without killing, robbing or maiming each other.

 

So how does that relate to prostitution and drugs? Well, what it comes back to is whether we can have those two things without increasing the level of chaos in society.

 

When it comes to prostitution, I think we can now. At one time, the public health concerns that came with prostitution might have been enough to justify an outright ban absent of any moral arguments. In fact, I think it's fair to say that if we had allowed prostitution without any checks two thousand years ago, AIDS would have exterminated the human race by now. But, with today's technology and resources, I think we could probably legalize it and regulate it effectively enough to minimize, if not nearly eradicate, the risk. Not to mention that taxing it could bring in some extra revenue and we would have a new, legitimate form of employment. Anytime we can expand freedoms without risking public safety, especially with those benefits, I'm all for it, even if I find the practice reprehensible on a personal level.

 

Drugs, on the other hand, are a different kind of issue. Drugs, to varying degrees depending on the specific drug, deprive a person of his ability to think rationally and reasonably. The only way we can have a society that is both free and peaceable - the only way we can achieve the delicate balance of liberty - is to have reasonable, rational citizens. Along those lines, the risk to the public safety of legalizing certain drugs like marijuana may be debatable, and an appropriate balance might be achievable through compromise. When it comes to other drugs, though, the risk is simply too great. For instance, you'll never be able to justify legalizing PCP - it makes people too aggressive and too likely to do something that may jeopardize the safety of others. So, to sum things up, each drug has to be evaluated individually to determine the correct course of action.

 

Hopefully that makes things more clear, although probably not.

 

Also, on an aside, Karl Marx completely rejected the "state of nature" concept, which is why he ended up with such radically different conclusions after his own analyses and ramblings. Typical of a communist to ignore human nature and substitute his own views.  :D

[TROJANSWIN]

Gay marriage

Abortion

Recreational drugs

Prostitution

I think hoops and bama have about covered the gay marriage and abortion part of this in a way that I agree with and can't add much to. As far as prostitution, according to my understanding of my religion is wrong, but similar to gay marriage, it is not my place to judge what other people do. As long as both parties are legally consenting, and the prostitute is not victimized by a pimp or some other entity that is controlling him/her then I think it should not be illegal, and also should not be regulated by the government other than for sex slaves or children being forced into it.
Drugs should be legalized, but should not be an excuse or immunity to prosecution for other crimes. If you are high and commit a crime, then you cannot claim you were not in control because of the drug use. Just like smoking tobacco, everyone knows what the risks are with using a currently illegal drug. If you make that choice, then you are responsible for what happens after. Get addicted and lose your job, sucks for you. Overdose and die, sure hate to hear it. It is time for people to be responsible for themselves and make their own decisions. We just have to be prepared for the consequences that come with those decisions.

[TROJANSWIN]

Republicans are the very first to hate on big brother and say how they don't need no big gubnt to control their lives, yet republicans want to regulate people who make decisions they don't necessarily agree with.

What gives?

This question is the very reason that our country is in the political turmoil and economic mess it is in! You are 100% right about republicans. Yet, I would argue Democrats have the exact same problem. They just want to control different things than the republicans.
Both groups think they are the only ones who are smart enough to tell other people what to do and how to do it.

[TxHoops]

I think hoops and bama have about covered the gay marriage and abortion part of this in a way that I agree with and can't add much to. As far as prostitution, according to my understanding of my religion is wrong, but similar to gay marriage, it is not my place to judge what other people do. As long as both parties are legally consenting, and the prostitute is not victimized by a pimp or some other entity that is controlling him/her then I think it should not be illegal, and also should not be regulated by the government other than for sex slaves or children being forced into it.
Drugs should be legalized, but should not be an excuse or immunity to prosecution for other crimes. If you are high and commit a crime, then you cannot claim you were not in control because of the drug use. Just like smoking tobacco, everyone knows what the risks are with using a currently illegal drug. If you make that choice, then you are responsible for what happens after. Get addicted and lose your job, sucks for you. Overdose and die, sure hate to hear it. It is time for people to be responsible for themselves and make their own decisions. We just have to be prepared for the consequences that come with those decisions.

 

+1 for me on absolutely all of that.

[LumRaiderFan]

Bottom line is the fed gov should not be involved in any of these issues...among about 1000 more that they are involved in.

[shovel]

I dont know if prostitution or drugs should be legalized, but the they both need to be decriminalized. By legalizing either, the governemnt would get involved, levy taxes and probably make it things worse. Nobody should be in jail for prostitution or using drugs. Another example is when Sherrif Woods rounded up all the nudists on the beach a few years ago. While the nudists might be breaking the law, dont you think LEO resources could be put to better use?

[LumRaiderFan]

I don't refer to myself in the third person.

I did have the great fortune (although I thought I was very unlucky at the time) to learn the subject from Charles Alan Wright (God rest his soul). He is widely believed to have been the greatest constitutional scholar of the 20th century. Great man, even though he was a Republican. Never opened a book or brought a note to class and picked up the next lecture exactly where he left off the previous one. And he was in his late 60s at the time.

I tell you this for a reason. The one thing I can tell you after a semester with Charlie Wright is that I am no expert in Constitutional Law. However, I can tell you that he did not believe that men 250 years ago could envision all the problems in the world today, much less foresee them. When the topic of whether the Constitution is a "living, breathing" document would arise, reference was usually made to the existence of constitutional amendments.

 

He could have been a great man BECAUSE he was a Republican.  :)

 

I will also agree that the Founders could not have envisioned our problems of today, but it was their wisdom that allowed for the Constitution to be amended...not easy, but possible.

[EnlightenedChosenOne]

100% correct.

The people who back their party 100% and check R or D down the line have ruined modern day politics.

Of course, some republican is going to follow up on my post some with lame ass "only issue is democrats who vote all democrats hurr durrr durrrr I'm so smart"

This question is the very reason that our country is in the political turmoil and economic mess it is in! You are 100% right about republicans. Yet, I would argue Democrats have the exact same problem. They just want to control different things than the republicans.
Both groups think they are the only ones who are smart enough to tell other people what to do and how to do it.

[NorthoftheBorder]

100% correct.

The people who back their party 100% and check R or D down the line have ruined modern day politics.

Of course, some republican is going to follow up on my post some with lame ass "only issue is democrats who vote all democrats hurr durrr durrrr I'm so smart"
 

It very telling that you didn't say "Of course some Democat" and chose Republican to link to "lame ass"!

[EnlightenedChosenOne]

Well if you'd use your brain, you'd realize the vast majority of the board is republican.

It very telling that you didn't say "Of course some Democat" and chose Republican to link to "lame ass"!

[stevenash]

I tried to make that point LumRaiderFan but was chastised by EOC for "derailing" the topic. ( which anyone can readily see, did not happen)