Recovering from Libertarianism: A Discussion w/Sam Seder (via The Majority Report Podcast)
I took some time last week to call in to The Majority Report Podcast to discuss my recovery from libertarianism with Sam Seder. Enjoy. 😉 --From the Majority Report, live MF 12 noon EST and via daily podcast at Majority.FM
By: Chuck Angeline
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Recovering from Libertarianism: A Discussion w/Sam Seder (via The Majority Report Podcast) - Video
What is Libertarianism?
Libertarianism is a political ideology and party that advocates Liberty, that is, the freedom of the people to do what they wish without unnecessary government intervention. A hybrid of democratic social freedoms and republican economic freedom.
By: JackThinks
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Why Libertarianism Is Not Idiotic
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By: Jacob Spinney
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When human life is considered cheap or easily expendable in one area, eventually nothing is held as sacred and all lives are in jeopardy. Cardinal Joseph Bernardin spoke those words in the early 1980s as he expounded what he termed a consistent ethic of life and what many of us came to know as the seamless garment approach to life issues, the idea that the Church should not focus exclusively on abortion, but see that issue in the context of a culture that had begun to cheapen life and, thus, made abortion thinkable.
Other members of the hierarchy, most notably Cardinals Bernard Law and John OConnor, took issue with the seamless garment approach. They were worried that by expanding the focus of the Churchs concern, the Churchs commitment to fighting abortion might be diluted. They wanted opposition to abortion to remain the central, preeminent focus because they understood, correctly, that in terms of sheer numbers and in terms of the horror of the act, abortion really was a graver sin against humanity than, say, capital punishment. But, however correct they were on the true magnitude of the abortion horror, they were wrong about the culture. It has been thirty years since Bernardin first invoked the seamless garment approach and met with a rebuke from his colleagues, and the pro-life movement has not made any significant advances. It is time for the leaders of the pro-life movement, and especially the leaders of the Church, to give Bernardins seamless garment another try.
I do not say this because I think our chances will improve politically from such a shift, although it is my hope that such an improvementmight come about. I say this because I think the seamless garment approach holds open the possibility of engaging in dialogue with those who do not share currently our concern for the fate of the unborn, but who have, in other areas of life, shown a deep and abiding concern for the suffering of the weak and the marginalized. In short, those we need to convince need to hear an appeal not to what they got wrong but what they got right. When a bishop meets with local legislators, instead of chastising those who are pro-choice, might it not be more effective to say something like, I so value your concern for these undocumented workers. How I hope someday your concern will extend to the unborn children. Or, again, I fully support and applaud your commitment to a living wage for all workers, but I hope someday you will also show a commitment to the right-to-life without which a living wage makes no sense. I think Cardinal Dolan was attempting something like this in his remarks at the Al Smith Dinner, in which he firmly stated the Churchs concern for the uns in our society the undocumented, the unemployed, the unborn, the undereducated, etc.
We cannot be nave about what we are up against. Forty years of propaganda have planted the idea firmly in the national consciousness that, at the end of the day, the decision to procure an abortion must rest with the pregnant woman. It is her body. Of course, that framing of the issue begs the question. If the unborn child is a person, why should the stronger person be able to decide the fate of the weaker? Normally, liberals of all people understand that might does not make right! But, in this instance, for a variety of complicated historical reasons, on this issue, the liberal moral compass gets it profoundly wrong. On this issue, liberals become libertarians, and resist any attempt at regulation.
The consequences are sometimes curious to watch. Last spring, if you tuned in to MSNBC, Rachel Maddow and her line-up of guests were simultaneously defending the individual mandate in the Affordable Care Act and the contraception mandate from HHS while denouncing as somehow extreme the Virginia law that mandated pregnant women have an ultrasound before an abortion. Over at Fox, Sean Hannity and his line-up were denouncing the individual mandate and the HHS contraception mandate as putting the government between a patient and their doctor but applauding the Virginia ultrasound law. Alas, these are the kinds of outcomes one gets when a formal ethics of rights replaces a substantive ethic of the good as determinative in crafting public policy, but let us leave that discussion for another day.
I have said it before and repeat it today, on the eve of the March for Life. The enemy dare I say, the Enemy today in our nations political and cultural life is libertarianism, the idea that no one has any right to tell anyone else how they should live their lives, an excessive focus on the importance of freedom at the expense of other social goods, a liberty run amok. It is found on both sides of the political aisle: Republicans talk about their income the way Democrats talk about womens bodies: Its mine, you cant tell me what to do with it, hands off! Libertarianism is coarse and it is hoary but is amazingly, shockingly attractive, especially to so many of our young people. And, how could it be otherwise? In our culture, children look at TV and every five minutes they see an ad that tells them, no matter what is being sold, that here is a quick, purchasable item that can solve any given problem. Acne? Buy this ointment. Want to listen to the hippest new music? Get this app. Lonely? Sign up for this dating service. Why should we be surprised that when they face an unwanted pregnancy, they look for a solution, and the quicker and easier the better. And, why should we be surprised that a culture that has tolerated legalized violence against the unborn for forty years should also be a culture in which a disturbed young man thinks that the solution to his problems is to take a gun a shoot up a school? Bishop Cupich was spot-on in his Respect Life Sermon, in which he linked the killings in Newtown with the tragedy of abortion. A culture of gun violence and a culture of violence against the unborn stem from the same, evil root.
That evil root is not, fundamentally, moral. It is deeper, prior to moral judgment. It is the inability to see human life as a gift. And here, the co-conspirators in the culture of death include some surprising culprits. Remember these words from George Weigel on Pope Benedicts encyclical Caritas in Veritate: the encyclical states that defeating Third World poverty and underdevelopment requires a necessary openness, in a world context, to forms of economic activity marked by quotas of gratuitousness and communion. This may mean something interesting; it may mean something nave or dumb. But, on its face, it is virtually impossible to know what it means. Weigel could not see what was plainly staring him in the face: A culture in which the fact that all is grace is not affirmed, and affirmed at the beginning, at the root and core of our understanding of the human person, such a culture is askew, such a culture that is forgetful of gratuitousness and communion as intrinsic to the human person, that is a culture that doesnt think twice about exploiting Third World workers or killing unwanted children, and, in both instances, creating euphemisms to obscure the reality of the deed.
What Weigel and Catholic neo-cons (and some Catholic liberals too!) have never understood about either Pope Benedict or Pope John Paul II is that both men wanted the Church to get past a moralism that was already compromised by the culture, to understand that the New Commandment to love one another as He loved us is not New because it features another add-on to the Mosaic law, as if the Law of Moses was somehow incomplete. What is New in the New Commandment is the presence of the Lord Jesus. Pope Benedict has a beautiful passage on this in the second volumeof his trilogy on Jesus of Nazareth when he discussed the washing of the feet at the Last Supper. When we celebrate the liturgy of Holy Thursday, we call the washing of the feet, the Mandatum rite. Mandatum is the opposite of libertarianism, but it is also the opposite of moralism. There is no calculation, no cost-benefit analysis, not assessment of probability. There is a command, not a moral command but something deeper, something that requires us to evaluate not our deeds but our most essential stance towards the world. Is that world something for us to manipulate as we see fit, or are we to view the world as Gods great gift? Only a culture that sees Creation as a gift is a capable of generating a culture of life. A true culture of life is horrified by both abortion and climate change. A true culture of life cares for the right-to-life and the right to a living wage. A true culture of life cares for all the uns of the world. A true culture of life must make room for suffering, for humility, for the poor, for obedience, for all the things that our modern, protean culture does not celebrate.
That is why we need the seamless garment back. Not as a media strategy or a political posture. We need the seamless garment back because it belonged to Christ. Tomorrow, I hope you can march for life, but whether you can or not, pray for life. Pray for the culture. Pray that the author of life, in whom all was created, will effect the conversions of hearts we need, firstly for ourselves for conversion is never a one time thing, but secondly for our friends and family and our neighborhoods and our towns and our nation and our culture. Pope Benedict was right: Only recovering a sense of the intrinsic gratuitousness and communion of all human relations will save us from ourselves by calling our attention to Him who has already saved us.
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Roe, Libertarianism, Moralism: Bring Back the Seamless Garment
Ron Swanson Defines Libertarianism
By: screamqueen6666
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Jason Brennan, "Libertarianism: What Everyone Needs to Know"
Our guest is educator and author Jason Brennan who discusses his latest book titled "Libertarianism: What Everyone Needs to Know." He suggests that his goal in the book was to make libertarianism seem reasonable to people who aren #39;t inclined to know much about it. He describes the book as a primer in the political philosophy described as libertarianism. Brennan reviews well-known libertarians such as Ayn Rand and Milton Friedman, as well as Adam Smith and John Locke.
By: CSPAN
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Jason Brennan, "Libertarianism: What Everyone Needs to Know" - Video
Left Libertarianism by Darian Worden - Alt Expo X (RAW)
By: AltExpo
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Left Libertarianism by Darian Worden - Alt Expo X (RAW) - Video
Libertarianism is just the truth
#168 Technology renders stateless society/Jeffrey Tucker, Prof. Paul Jorgensen Christina Tobin To hear the full podcast: adamvstheman.com Please address hate mail to adam@adamvstheman.com Donate Bitcoin: 1BWeuWdgjrP8PFAwBwgwU9BUqJNewScouy Invest here to support ADAM VS THE MAN! adamvstheman.com
By: AdamKokesh
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Libertarianism Through Thick and Thin, read by Stephanie Murphy on the M!C Audiobook
Original version: http://www.fee.org Expanded version: radgeek.com
By: ALLtowardliberty
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Libertarianism Through Thick and Thin, read by Stephanie Murphy on the M!C Audiobook - Video
Utilitarian libertarianism - Do the activism that #39;s efficient and fun for *you*
Sponsor: WeUseCoins.com - Utilitarian libertarianism - Do the activism that #39;s efficient and fun for *you.* Some or all of the vid in this clip #39;s likely available for you to use, commercially or however you like. Basically anything that was shot by me or was public domain to begin with. My stuff is automatically released into the public domain. At least until I say otherwise. Usually if I shot it, "RidleyReport.com" or "YouTube.com/WinWinParty" will appear at the bottom. Anything which has that super or was obviously shot by me is public domain. This vid is, or likely will be, part of a playlist. A link should eventually appear below, where you can watch in sequence: http://www.youtube.com Illustrated with video, from RidleyReport.com friends. How *you* ... can buy an ad for yourself on the Ridley Report... nhunderground.com activism advice nh how-to raw news videos training vids new hampshire liberty. john stuart mill stewart ron paul. utilitarians dave ridley report. efficiency cops philosophies philosophy on liberty, Creative commons license recommedations police states public domain footage. free talk live ian freeman ridleyreport free state project free to use. resistance movements live free or die, staters gary johnson libertarians politics ideas suggestions political hard-won. commentary. how-to, john stuart mill, philosophy, liberty, free state project, new hampshire, ron paul
By: RidleyReport
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Utilitarian libertarianism - Do the activism that's efficient and fun for *you* - Video
Penn Jillette and Glenn Beck talk Atheism, Libertarianism, and Church/State
This has been edited from the original. The entire interview can be found at the link below and I highly recommend it, especially if you are interested in libertarianism. http://www.youtube.com
By: babate1337
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Penn Jillette and Glenn Beck talk Atheism, Libertarianism, and Church/State - Video
Former Republican presidential candidate Jon Huntsman took a critical look at his own party, asserting that it is devoid of a soul. In a lengthy interview with the UKs Daily Telegraph, Huntsman elaborated on what he viewed as missteps, and offered some advice going forward.
Its troubling that the party currently doesnt have a leader or a defined agenda. But the good news, he said, is that will come in time through the reformation process. The GOP must return the system to the people, Huntsman argued.
In particular, he noted that the party would do well to embrace a strong dose of libertarianism. On social issues specifically, Huntsman said state governments should absolutely be able to implement gay marriage.
Recalling the Republican primary race, during which he was a candidate, Huntsman said the process didnt favor long-term competitive candidates, who would have fared better against Democrats.
The party right now is a holding company thats devoid of a soul and it will be filled up with ideas over time and leaders will take their proper place, he said. We cant be known as a party thats fear-based and doesnt believe in math.
In the end it will come down to a party that believes in opportunity for all our people, economic competitiveness and a strong dose of libertarianism, he said.
Speaking of the future, Huntsman refused to name names when it came to which rising Republican stars he supports. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, and Mitt Romneys former running mate Congressman Paul Ryan all deserve high marks individually, he said but the GOP must go through a very competitive process in terms of ideas.
Audio of the interview here.
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Jon Huntsman: GOP Is ‘Devoid Of A Soul,’ Needs ‘Strong Dose Of Libertarianism’
Over the past month, it has been fascinating to watch commentators offer their advice on Republican Party reform when they have been openly hostile to the principles of the Republican Party.
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Television Christmas -Live 11-29-2009
Anthony Gregory On Freedom Watch with Judge Andrew Napolitano. 7-11-2011. Why the Left Fears Libertarianism lewrockwell.comFrom:Alfred GregoryViews:1 0ratingsTime:03:31More inNews Politics
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Watch Video | Listen to the Audio JUDY WOODRUFF: Finally tonight: an obituary. We take a look at the man whose nomination to the Supreme Court in the 1980s dramatically changed that process. KWAME HOLMAN: As a nationally known jurist and legal scholar, Robert Bork was a mainstay of conservative jurisprudence for more than half-a-century. ROBERT BORK , former Supreme Court nominee: It is not a ...
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Remembering Robert Bork: Law-and-Order Conservative, Supreme Court Nominee Judge
Aaron Gill, a native of the Granite State, ran for but lost the state House of Representatives seat that includes Goffstown, Weare and Deering in the Nov. 6 election. He lost the seat to two-time incumbent Republican Mark Warden, an avowed Free Stater who moved to New Hampshire five years ago from Las Vegas, Nev.
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(Photo credit: Wikipedia) There are signs that the National Rifle Association's power to block gun-control legislation is beginning to slip after the mass murder in Newtown, Connecticut, last Friday. Most visibly, if also vaguely, President Obama said Sunday that he'd "use whatever power this office holds . . . in an effort
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Her suggestion is crazy, right? In many ways, yes, but it should be noted that this is not actually her idea.
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Liberty explained in 1 minute
Inspired by Adam Kokesh, I wanted to give my understanding of freedom libertarianism in 60 seconds. I didn #39;t add special effects to the video, the old webcam warps when there #39;s lots of sunlight lol Go and subscribe Twitter: Veech92From:DyerMediaViews:0 0ratingsTime:01:01More inNews Politics
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Road to Liberty - Vol 3.0 Selling the Goal
How does each of the socio-political systems sell their goal? George Meyers covers three of the ideologies: Fascism, Socialism and Libertarianism.From:WisconsinLibertarianViews:0 0ratingsTime:06:55More inEducation
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