Final Victory in the War of Ideas?

A friend of mine believes that this recent election may signal a final defeat for the ideals of conservatism, that no genuine right wing alliance will ever again regain control of the country.

While I fundamentally disagree, I'll grant him certain points.

• On some social issues (homosexuality, immigration, and other types of xenophobia) the conservatives will moderate significantly over the next 10 years.
• Conservative aversion to changes to the patent law may reduce as changes in the software industry make those changes more evidently necessary.
• On environmental issues, the conservatives will drop the issue of whether global warming is an issue, and focus on policies that help the market incorporate environmental cost into their decision making (carbon tax or 'cap-n-trade' vs. arbitrary per-company pollution controls).

There are a few other issues where I wish they would change the party line, but these are the ones I think will actually change. Once these changes are made, the conservative party will have a far more focused platform based on consistent principles. It will still be necessary to find a leader who can articulate those principles well to the masses, but those come in time.

The modern GOP is very different from the 1950's GOP which was far away from the 1900's GOP. Political platforms change to fit the times, but some ideas don't become less correct.

To justify 'spreading the wealth around,' one has to accept that wealth does not belong to the individual who creates it. Is wealth created by the social environment that created the person, or is it the creative and motivated character of the person that creates both the wealth and the social environment? If you claim that the social forces created the person's character, than it becomes one social duty to do everything possible to forcibly improve the social environment. That can and will be used to permit government control of anything that affects the social environment, words, print, businesses that compete with government programs, etc. If you deny the basic premise that a person owns the product of their work, then you deny the basic freedom that a person even owns his/her self.

Philosophy of Liberty

This was posted 2 years ago, and I just now found it. I have now seen it 3 times, examining it closely for any idea that I even in part disagree with. The only point I have found is a minor one that can wait until you've seen the clip.



Back to that point, When the author says that people should stop asking their governments to initiate force on their behalf, it assumes democratic governments. Dictators pursue ownership of the life and liberty of their subjects as an objective for their own life. And may cause global atrocities without the deliberate consent of their people.

Immigration Regulations

On the other side of this argument are the well reasoned arguments of Samuel Huntington in Who We Are. My personal perspective is more along the lines of how immigration restriction restricts freedom, here explained by Don Boudreaux.

Huntington's point about culture is true, immigrants will change a culture, and ideal characteristics that attracted the immigrants are likely to be watered down or eliminated. But immigration is the very freedom that allowed those settlers to create this nation in the first place and removing that freedom seems very wrong to me. A wall on the border, for it's own sake seems like a perfectly reasonable project to me, but not for the purposes of keeping immigrants out. The great wall of china was built for real security reasons, I have no problem with that. I'd support the wall, if open immigration were in place on a very permanent basis.

Hat tip to Ampersand at Alas, a blog.

Libertarian Solution to a Political Conflict

A Libertarian Solution to Evolution Controversy: No More Public Schools

When you force people to teach a subject in a way they don't want it taught, and the school system is a political beast, which our public schools are, you're going to see the curriculum you have in mind corrupted by the political process. People campaigning for strong teaching of evolutionary biology in public schools are ignoring that this is what's purportedly been going for the last 50 years. There are no states with a theistic presentation in their classrooms. Real science is what's supposed to be taught; yet when you look at polling data, the ones who see a non-theistic, purely naturalist explanation are in the minority.

The particular libertarian speaking there is strongly pro-evolution, and is trying to resolve the debate about whether to allow the intelligent design curriculum to be taught in public schools.
A lot of people feel very strongly that EVERYONE should be well educated. I rather agree with that, education expands the human experience and gives them the tools to provide high quality services to the people around them throughout their lives. It preserves the knowledge base for a growing economy.
Many people assume however, that the ONLY way to do this is through a ubiquitous government run public education system. The argument for 'school choice' is that you could use the same tax dollars used to fund the public education system to provide limited credits that can be used to pay tuition at all sorts of educational institutions. This would make the market for education more competitive, raising quality, lowering price, and vastly simplifying the content debate.

I am in favor of school choice from kindergarden through the fourth year of college.

Big brother in your lap

Laptops Searched and Confiscated at U.S. Border

The government can and apparently does search your laptop contents when you travel internationally.

For those of you who may want to be safe in this, here's a coupe of encryption programs that will help you hide your contraband data.

TrueCrypt
&
Omziff

Immigration

BBC NEWS | Europe | Swiss citizenship system 'racist'
The Swiss citizenship system deemed 'racist' because communities vote about whether an applicant may be accepted.

Libertarians & immigration - Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
Opinion, a citizen's right of domain does not legitimize government
control of immigration. Promotes open border policy. (Authored by Don
Boudreaux)

StephanKinsella.com Critique of Libertarians & Immigration
Disputes some of Boudreaux's assertions.


Technically speaking, the first link is about citizenship, not immigration, but it raises a point. Even if governments should restrict immigration, is it moral for those restrictions to be based on nation of origin? When you consider that most of the population of a country will be of one race, why isn't it considered racist for the United States to have special rules for immigrants from Mexico, or Japan, or where ever.

If you read the opinion pieces, then the set up of Switzerland is probably the closest practical implimentation of what Hoppe proposes.

Both of the opinion authors are primarily freedom focused, but there is much more to life than freedom and some people claim that some of those values require sacrifices of freedom. Values like, Security, Equality, Culture, even Religion.

One proponent of sacrificing immigration freedom in the interest of culture is Samuel Huntington, who is a professor at Harvard, and if you read his bio, is something of a prodigy.

Who Are We? The Challenges to America's National Identity - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I havn't really made up my mind about this yet. I really like freedom, and I have a hard time thinking its ok to spend it on anything. I might think it was ok to spend it on a closer relationship with God, if it wasn't God that gave it to us in the first place. After that, If it's not worth spending it to get closer to God, then what could be more valuable than God?

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