Quote: (12-12-2013 02:36 PM)Sawyer Wrote:
"Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." John Adams
The cultural standards I refer to are simply the mores and standards a people use to govern themselves before Government. These are the standards that create the cultural integrity to limit government and the standards that all governments seek to destroy.
Libertarian behavior is a positive offshoot of a dominant culture being left to its own devices. It is not complex enough of a system to bring about the ends it desires. That's why there is less room for Libertarianism now than 50 years ago (things like being left alone, being paid under the table, working under age, smoking in restaurants, not getting searched before boarding a plane, lower drinking age, etc.). There's nobody left with the decency or self-respect to deny Government anything it wants. We don't have the language, we don't have the culture, and we don't have the backbone. "Doing whatever you want as long as it doesn't effect me" doesn't lead to Libertarianism, it leads to tyranny. Because who is effected by what is something that will only be decided by the arbiter with the biggest guns, and it will never decide against itself.
What we need is a return to State's rights, so people can form communities based on things they most believe will make their lives better.
No, what we need is Constitutionalism to end the tyranny of the majority. The purpose of a Constitution, in a democracy, is to prevent mob rule. To set forth specific rights that protect individual liberty from government or voter subversion. However, corruption was not adequately addressed by the founding fathers.
As a result the Supreme Court, who are supposed to be the keepers of the Constitution and arbiters of it's disputes, has become overrun with partisan political operatives. The separation of powers has been short circuited. Meanwhile, the appointers of these Justices are completely owned by moneyed special interest and buoyed by a money grubbing and apathetic sensationalist media. Gone are the days of Edward R Murrow, replaced by the shock and awe infotainment of modern yellow journalism. Getting eyeballs has long sense surpassed getting facts or the story straight.
The checks and balances conceived by the Fathers have been sabotaged and the result is that ignorance is cultivated in this country like a bumper crop. Ignorant masses rush to the polls to vote for nominees preselected for them by the moneyed special interests and their media pawns. Idiotic legislation results. And all in the name of "cultural standards".