It seems we should be losing, but we just keep kicking their #$@

This is one of the most satisfying things about being a Republican. The raw potential in every election favors Democrats, yet Republicans win again and again.

For example:

Kansas City Star 07/30/2004 Party courts single women

There is nothing more attractive right now to Democrats than single women.

In sessions, caucuses, rallies, concerts and speeches multiple times a day — from Carole King singing at “Chicks Rock, Chicks Vote,” to Harvard Club tea cakes and strategy at the “Boston She Party” — Democrats are trying every which way they can to reach their greatest untapped potential: the nonvoting single woman.

Single women are a huge untapped voting block. They trend hugely toward liberal politics, but they just don't vote.

The same is illustrated in this story by the California Republican Party:

"While Democrat's hold a lead in voter registration, Republican turnout is consistently higher on a percentage basis. In 2000, the overall voter turnout was 70%. Democrat turnout was approximately 71% and Republican turnout was 76%."

Like the topic of abortion, liberal policies are self-defeating. Liberals are taught to believe that nothing they do matters; their problems - and other people's successes - are the result of chance or corruption; and everyone is a liar or a cheat, so participating in politics won't do them any good anyway.

Conversely, the die-hard principles of conservativism hold us accountable for our actions and for the results of our actions, as well. So if an election doesn't go well, or - in a more mundane illustration - if we go bankrupt, the fault rests at least partly on our shoulders, and we need to get active and do something about it.

So much more than with Republicans, there are all these instinctively liberal people out there who the Dem's wish they could motivate.

But the moment those people might be converted to activist politics, they have to recognize that they are responsible for more than just whining; and that's just the fast-track to joining the Republicans.

internal inconsistencies

Text of John Kerry's speech at Democratic convention:

I will be a commander in chief who will never mislead us into war. I will have a vice president who will not conduct secret meetings with polluters to rewrite our environmental laws. I will have a secretary of Defense who will listen to the best advice of our military leaders. And I will appoint an Attorney General who actually upholds the Constitution of the United States.

I love the fact that with one breath the Democrat candidate for President can say that we are in an utterly optional war that was actually manufactured by Bush, and in the next breath:

I defended this country as a young man and I will defend it as President. Let there be no mistake: I will never hesitate to use force when it is required. Any attack will be met with a swift and certain response. I will never give any nation or international institution a veto over our national security. And I will build a stronger American military.

Now why would he have to parrot the Bush line on defense if Bush himself is lying to the American people about our national security? Only because somehow, poll after poll after poll, John Kerry is seen as weak on national defense, and Bush is 'strong' on defense.

But if the American people actually believe that Bush fraudulently led us into war, I can hardly think that they would simultaneously believe he is the stronger man on defense. So John Kerry must be speaking to two different groups of people and either lying to one or manipulating the other.

Either he's saying he doesn't believe that Bush lied and believes we are threatened as Bush says we are and believes in strengthening our defense as Bush says - or he's telling that second group (the one that believes Bush), "I'll do what Bush is doing, but only because you don't realize Bush is lying to you all."

And this bizarre audience patronizing is further illustrated in his millionth mention of Vietnam, saying

I defended this country as a young man and I will defend it as President.

Only those who haven't studied the slightest bit about Kerry don't know that he came back and claimed that he himself, along with countless others committed atrocities while in Vietnam. And that he joined an anti-Vietnam veterans group that is to this day pro-communist and anti-American. They didn't believe that the Vietnam war was in defense of this nation. They believed, as they believe in this war, that it was a projection of our imperialistic nature.

So Kerry is depending on the ignorance of his audience by throwing in that line about having 'defended this country'. He is depending on his audience being uninvolved and swayed only by what they see at the moment about his Vietnam service.

One thing I notice about the political battle we wage every day: The Dem's have the same targets to shoot at all the time from us, because we are always advocating fundamentally the same thing - in public, and in private.

But the lib's are constantly forced to shift around, forced to pander to what they believe is an ignorant, manipulated mass of voters who need to be nuanced. Kerry is the King of Nuance; it's just too bad that you have to have some charisma to pull off that kind of double-talk.

it's a difference of worldview altogether

Ok, so I have to be eviscerated by a libertarian for challenging the philosophy as morally bankrupt. I admit it gets my gander when people make silly challenges to serious arguments.

A Stranger In A Strange Land: A Weak Analogy on Libertarianism

The fact that this individual puts the word freedom in scare quotes is odd to me.

Freedom is a real thing. I am referring to what Libertarians call freedom as it relates to social policy - which is not actually freedom at all. If a democrat operative says that he is patriotic, meaning that he calls the President a liar and a murderer, we might put 'patriotic' in scare quotes to mean 'what he is calling patriotic'.

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The former refers to the Libertarian Party. The latter refers to the libertarian political philosophy, one that exists on a continuum but is usually made up of traditional fiscal conservative theory and traditional liberal social theory. And small government. Got to have the small government. Because the Cynic regularly uses the word at the beginning of a sentence, I'm not sure if he understands the difference.

Alrighty - you tell me the difference between your libertarianism and Libertarianism. And, where you differ from Libertarianism, how does that differ from conservativism? Where libertarians disagree with Libertarians, they are adhering to conservative philosophy, but wanting for some reason to still call it libertarian.

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There is also a difference between "amoral" and "immoral". The Cynic fails to make the designation between the two.

This is the point - right here. Just because you say there is a difference doesn't end the debate. The difference between "amoral" and "immoral" is one of degree, not of substance.

...

To use the 11th Circuit example, it seems reasonable to imagine that the sale, purchase or personal usage of sex toys doesn't inherently violate the civil liberties of another individual. For someone that finds sex toys immoral they have the option to not purchase them. For someone that doesn't have that moral objection and has a...um...use for those toys, they buy them. No one is hurt, no one's civil liberties are affected, society is preserved. Libertarianism doesn't force people into immoral behavior, it simply allows people to make their own distincions on what constitutes that behavior and to act accordingly.

And with regard to the entire 'sex toy' case, you have avoided the actual argument the courts have to handle. You have argued whether individuals should be allowed to buy sex toys. That is not the question. The question is whether localities or states should be allowed to make laws regarding sex toys, without the interference of the federal government. And that, of course, extrapolates to the question, "Do Americans have a constitutional right to sex toys? They do not. It is that simple.

This is the same debate as the homosexual marriage debate. Homosexuals want to argue that they should be allowed to marry. That is a debate for states to have, not the federal government. The debate for the federal government is, "Do homosexuals have a constitutional right to get married?" And again, they simply do not. There is no such constitutional right. Period.

Libertarianism is fraudulent

EDIT:

At The Volokh Conspiracy - More on the Moral Foundations of Libertarianism, Randy Barnett argues that Libertarianism is not amoral, precisely because it doesn't involve itself with morality. It's tough to summarize the post, so go read/consider it, but he quotes another blogger that:

the sparse libertarian framework can be affirmed from a multiplicity of different points of view, because it is sparse, and because its principles are not bogged down with assumptions unique to any one particular point of view

He then explains:

What amazes me is not that others would disagree with this position, but that they would misunderstand it to assert that Libertarians are somehow amoral, or even against morality, or that Libertarians adopt a political philosophy that permits them to gratify their every whim. To reiterate, separating the political (how society should be structured) from the moral (how people should live their lives) is not to deny existence or importance of the moral.

This, of course, is utterly false.

Libertarianism is morally bankrupt.

If I say to you that I want my household to be financially successful, so our family is not going to spend more than it makes, that might sound very reasonable.

If I then told you that each member of my household, as soon as he or she reached an age of self-awareness, would be given a credit card, drawing upon the household's credit, and that that credit card had no limit, that would sound utterly absurd. Just saying our household won't spend more money than we make isn't going to overcome an environment without limits.

Libertarianism LEGISLATES AMORALITY. It is not passive in this manner. Libertarianism does not merely allow the populace to randomly decide a law here and a law there and concern itself only with lowering taxes. It's proponents actively pursue laws which prevent social accountability.

Libertarian support for open borders, legalized drug use, homosexual marriage, etc. specifically elminate laws that establish a foundation of social norms. Libertarian policy creates a playground of 'freedom' that enables anyone to act in any way for any personal reason, so long as it doesn't interfere with someone else's nose.

That 'freedom' is only a highway to slavery to moral perversion and self-indulgence. We have already seen this every time social norms are relaxed in America - the populace quickly embraces newfound moral 'freedom' and then exploits it for personal pleasure until a new extreme of self-indulgence becomes the social norm and 'restraint' is really only a euphemism for finding some absolute zero of moral standards we're not yet willing to violate.

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Ok, a few things. The preceding post was a quick, butchered reaction fueled by my overall frustration for the seductive effect of Libertarianism on conservatives. I should have been more precise, and, if any of the commenters were more familiar with my writing, you would see that I typically am more careful. A more in-depth look is called for.

But there are two fronts here for discussion. First is the question of whether Libertarianism is the 'true' conservativism, as it is frequently touted. Second, is Libertarianism a truly sound political theory, or is it a hollow construct?

To respond somewhat to the challenges posed:

• I speak of slavery in terms of becoming dependent on personal gratification. Alcohol and drugs are simple examples of situations in which people frequently become 'enslaved'. I am making the argument that a fairly significant portion of the population will allow itself to become dependent on other, less obvious forms of personal gratification when social norms are not just relaxed, but come close to being eliminated.
• My grasp on Libertarianism is quite good. I was speaking rather tongue-in-cheek, although I didn't adequately display that. When I say 'as long as it doesn't interfere with someone else's nose' I am referring to the cliche phrase used by Libertarians to illustrate their idea of personal liberty. But the idea is so nebulous that, as was so nicely pointed out, mismanaging a family budget could then be a case for new laws according to some interpretations of Libertarianism. If we make laws only when it involves one person interfering with another, and mismanaging a budget is considered interference, then we might have to make laws about how families are allowed to budget.
• As to this idea that 'most' people handle this and that properly. Here is where your argument falls short: Although I may handle drugs, alcohol, and fidelity fine, I may have a very serious problem with gambling. My neighbor, on the other hand, may have no problem with gambling, but is an alcoholic waiting to happen. And a third may be a sex-addict. The problem is that if we are not constantly vigilant as a society holding each other accountable (not necessarily legally), then each person is much more likely to fall into the trap to which he or she is most susceptible.
• The question about the 51-49 vote turns morality on its head. It is not because of a vote that something becomes moral or immoral. It is precisely reversed. It is due to an individual's interpretation of morality that he or she votes one way or another. The fact that votes are decided sometimes by very close margins only indicates that there is a stark disagreement about what is right and wrong. The numbers of a vote in and of themselves are not an indication of what is right and wrong. They are an indication of what those people believe to be right and wrong.
• Lastly, if you can say with a straight face that our changing social norms have not made infidelity more acceptable than it was 50-60 years ago, then you are ignorant of history. I'm sorry, but that's just how it is. Most particularly, the 60's counter-cultural revolution changed overall acceptance of previously stigmatized behaviors. That paradigm shift may have occurred at previous times in history (such as the roaring 20's) but for wars, but that is up for debate.
• I'm going to have to make a new post to better explain my interpretation of Libertarianism.