I'm a Christian but I so very much agree with you when you say you cannot legislate morality. Even if I consider myself conservative and orthodox in my Christian beliefs, I am completely against this idea that Christian morality and beliefs should be enforced in law. Perhaps its my independent Baptist background, but I believe the founding fathers were quite prudent to establish a freedom of religion (or none) and that the best situation is one where we give each other room to be free and learn to hold civil discourse and to get along even when we don't agree.
Of course there has to be some limits and this is why I don't quite ascribe to the Libertarian platform myself, because humans have a very real propensity for ever increasing depths of depravity when all restraint is tossed, and even with those who remained civilized, one person's rights should never destroy those of another, but we should be very, very leery about demanding "a law" on something without thinking through the consequences that come from that. I find it quite interesting that those who demanded "a law" 20 years ago are now lamenting that law now that its being used against them.
It seems like there should be at least a minimum of things we could agree [as a culture] deserve consequences. Libertarianism gets the 'don't hurt people and don't mess with their stuff' part right. However, I used to be opposed to drug laws and now I'm wishing things hadn't changed so much. Portugal is doing a good job with that, but we aren't.
I'm a Christian but I so very much agree with you when you say you cannot legislate morality. Even if I consider myself conservative and orthodox in my Christian beliefs, I am completely against this idea that Christian morality and beliefs should be enforced in law. Perhaps its my independent Baptist background, but I believe the founding fathers were quite prudent to establish a freedom of religion (or none) and that the best situation is one where we give each other room to be free and learn to hold civil discourse and to get along even when we don't agree.
Of course there has to be some limits and this is why I don't quite ascribe to the Libertarian platform myself, because humans have a very real propensity for ever increasing depths of depravity when all restraint is tossed, and even with those who remained civilized, one person's rights should never destroy those of another, but we should be very, very leery about demanding "a law" on something without thinking through the consequences that come from that. I find it quite interesting that those who demanded "a law" 20 years ago are now lamenting that law now that its being used against them.
It seems like there should be at least a minimum of things we could agree [as a culture] deserve consequences. Libertarianism gets the 'don't hurt people and don't mess with their stuff' part right. However, I used to be opposed to drug laws and now I'm wishing things hadn't changed so much. Portugal is doing a good job with that, but we aren't.
exactly! We need government but keep it to the minimum as much as is possible!