Time to get Political again.

And it has to do with Religion, too. So strap in and prepare for some honesty.

I just recollected my day, and realized I’d spend a good amount of time explaining my beliefs today. My beliefs both political and religious. So I thought that perhaps I should write them down for easier dissemination.

I’m a Constitutional Libertarian, and a Christian. I believe those go together seamlessly. If you’re curious about it, and want to know clear definitions of both, as well as what a Democrat is, and a Republican is, in plain English… read on. (Man, was that a run-on sentence or WHAT!?)

In one conversation today, several very nice examples came forward. Criminalization of drugs, helping the poor, and legislation of Morality.

Here we go.

Republicans are social conservatives, as well as fiscal conservatives (at least this was true up until 2000). They believe that laws and government are a bad thing, unless we’re considering Morals. “Keep your hands out of my pocket and business… unless it involves doing something I think is morally wrong.” So taxes and government are bad. But we need to protect our kids from drugs and open gay-ness. In my view, a total copout for lazy parents.

Democrats are social liberals, as well as fiscal liberals. So they believe that government can cure all sorts of societal ills. We can have government take care of the poor, and protect the masses from the moral strictures of one religion or another. “Everyone should be free to do what they want. That freedom comes with a price – taxes. We need to protect everyone’s rights to the point of paying for everyone to excersize those rights.” An extreme would be government funding of abortion.

Libertarians are social liberals, but fiscal conservatives. My simplistic explanation is, “People should be free to do whatever they like, as long as it doesn’t hurt anyone else… and as long as I don’t have to pay for it!” Government is an unfortunately necessary evil, and should be limited to its absolute minimum. After all, it is intrinsically inefficient in getting anything done, and highly susceptible to corruption and unfair influence. Separation of church and state is obvious. Government shouldn’t have time for such silliness.

Democrats like to think “We care for the poor and disenfranchised.” But the fact is, they really DON’T like caring for them… they would rather have the government do that for them. They can just pay their taxes and feel good about themselves. They can ignore the fact that the government takes three times the cash to do the job as a good charity or church… after all, they don’t want to “judge” anyone in the process.

Don’t think Republicans are off the hook on this one. They like to deal with societal problems by… not doing anything about them. Unfortunate circumstances are merely a motivation for people to “pick themselves up by their bootstraps”; or worse – Social Darwinism dictates that these people need to be allowed to be culled from society. If they want help, they can seek it in the Church.

Libertarians would prefer to handle these kinds of problems themselves. Don’t take away my disposable income in the form of taxes to help the poor… I can get thrice the bang for my buck myself! We should be actively contributing to local charities and churches, both financially and with our labors. Taking all that away and relegating it to a government agency steals me of my personal satisfaction of participating in the effort myself.

So what about this same-sex marriage thing? Didn’t I just say I was a Christian?

I see one very prominent theme in the Bible. It’s the basis for everything! God gave us Free Will. It is how we deal with this freedom that forges our character. It is how we make decisions within that freedom that brings us closer to, or more distant from God. If we design a society that legislates that freedom away from everyone, we’ve taken that God-given free will away. Isn’t that a direct violation of what God set up for us?

So making same-sex marriage illegal is outside the bounds of government. So is making mind-altering substances illegal. Take the temptations away… and free will is not in effect. I, personally, draw the line at abortion. That falls under the “do what you like as long as you don’t hurt someone else” statement. Killing an unborn child… is hurting them in the extreme.

When presenting government in this sort of “plain English”, I’m not surprised to find most young people classifying themselves as Libertarian. It is just plain logic. The Constitution really is the only needed law of the land. The framers of it were primarily Christian, and wanted to protect their freedom to practice their religious beliefs from outside intervention. They spent an ENORMOUS amount of time and debate in creating it, and making it timeless. They made it terribly difficult to modify – as any modification would inevitably involve a whole lot of private interest and undue influence. It should only be changed if just about everyone agrees to the changes.

So everything that’s been tacked on to that very simple codification of Law should be repealed.

Let freedom ring!

Nathan Anderson

Comments Feed

1. Rick Butts says:

   Nathan,

   You are making too much common sense here. This is a dangerous trend and you will need to be closely monitored by both campaigns.

   The “inside the beltway” corruption is so pervasive and entrenched – that it is hard to imagine how to break the scab and fix it.

   The best solution I have seen so far is laid out pretty clearly in Newt Gingrich’s new book Real Change. Talk about content!

   Okay – I got to get some sleep.

   It’s a lot of work making http://RickButts.com so increbily tasty…

   Your friend, Rick

   June 18^th, 2008 at 2:12 am

2. Kevin Reid says:

   Oh what fun we will have discussing these topics in Chicago!

   I see the role of government to protect the rights of its citizens, and overall to protect people. And if corruption and evil are going to exist with or without goverment, then taxes are going to be necessary to support at least a minimal infrastructure to combat the “evildoers” (I don’t get to use that word much in conversation – queue the dramatic music).

   Income tax to fund entitlements has killed motivation for more community service and charatible donations – why do it when the big G (not Google) is paid to do that?

   I’ll save the rest for live conversation…

   June 18^th, 2008 at 4:20 am

3. John Martel says:

   Hey Nathan,

   Go ahead, keep making that kind of sense and you’re going to have some of those nasty 3 letter agencies knocking on your door.

   I’ll be happy if and when we finally get a real 3rd choice. I’ve voted Libertarian before and wish there was a real choice that had a chance, but sadly there isn’t at the national or rarely at the state level. Sometimes at the local level, but I guess it has to start somewhere.

   Any way, great points – thanks for sharing your views. Now to get back to making money even though I’m supposed to be a sheeple and participate in this recession or whatever. No thanks, I’ll pass on that.

   Take care buddy,
   John

   June 18^th, 2008 at 12:25 pm

4. Nathan says:

   You know John, we got pretty close this time with Ron Paul. He ran as a Republican, but has always been (and still clearly is) a Libertarian. He got some serious mileage and made a decent impact.

   June 18^th, 2008 at 3:03 pm

5. JP Micek says:

   First off Nathan, kudos on having the b@lls to share this. For far too long political correctness has made it a “sin” for anyone with “conservative” ideology to openly share their beliefs. It’s been one-sided long enough.

   When it comes to the party of conservatism, you’re right – the Republican Party has dropped the ball. They’ve become competitors in many ways with Liberals in spending money on social welfare programs to buy votes.

   That will change as true conservatives (like the new Governor of Louisiana, Bobby Jindal,) rise up the ranks. But that ground-up rebuilding of the Republican conservative base is another story in itself.

   Now when it comes to liberalism, I must be blunt. It’s a failed ideology. Much like Socialism & Communisim, it fails every time it’s tried. That’s historical fact, not opinion. (For a short list, see this short starter list http://snipurl.com/libfailures)

   Laws based on liberalism! Don’t get me going! They never fail to hurt the ones they’re supposed to help. (For ex. NY Times article http://snipurl.com/consequences by the authors of Freakonomics.)

   And frankly, liberal ideology when it comes to national security… it’s downright dangerous! To our troops, the average person on the street, and our kids.

   I mean, when you have Richard Danzig, (who served as Navy Secretary under President Clinton and is tipped to become National Security Adviser in an Obama White House) using ‘Winnie the Pooh’ as a guidebook for foreign policy — that’s scary! (NO joke kiddies! http://snurl.com/2k2gu)

   Bottom line is, these are dangerous times. We have an enemies outside who want to kill us. And we have an enemy within wanting to tax us into oblivion and give terrorists the rights fought for and reserved for US citizens.

   We live in the greatest country to ever exist on Earth. It’s time to be proud of our country and being proud of the values it was founded on. There is so much more power and potential in our midst. Let’s get the barriers out of the way and start giving people a hand-up instead of a handout.

   June 18^th, 2008 at 5:03 pm

6. Rev. Ray Dubuque says:

   Nathan,
   I don’t know what fool told you that Democrats believe“Everyone should be free to do what they want.”
   I’ve been a very involved Democrat for 50 years and don’t know any Democrats who believe that. What we believe is that there should be MORE rights for the poor and the weak, while Republicans believe that the rich and the powerful “should be free to do what they want, which revolved pretty much around getting ever more rich and more powerful.”

   For those who aren’t satisfied with kindergarden definitions of the parties, I recommend my http://LiberalsLikeChrist.Org/definition page which shows the real differences between “liberal”, “conservative” and “libertarian”, which is what differentiates the various public parties in the U.S. today.

   June 18^th, 2008 at 5:36 pm

7. Nathan says:

   Thanks for your comments, JP! And thanks for your opinions and resources, Rev. Dubuque. Don’t get me wrong… I am in NO WAY suggesting that Democrats or Republicans are poor Christians. I was merely showing how my faith integrates with my political beliefs.

   And yes, these definitions are intentionally “kindergarten”.

   June 19^th, 2008 at 1:26 am

8. Eric Farewell says:

   Heck yes brother!
   Our spiritual, and political beliefs are pretty much the same… And I dig it!

   See you in San Antonio?

   June 25^th, 2008 at 1:12 pm

9. John Martel says:

   Ron Paul is fine running for Senate as a Republican, but sadly as well as he did, he just didn’t have a prayer in the race for the White House. It would sort of be nice if he ran as a Libertarian – still no chance in heck, but it would be nice to see him out there again actually bringing some truth and reason to the debates.

   June 25^th, 2008 at 6:12 pm

10. Darin Paul says:

    With sense like this, why aren’t you on the radio and Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Mark Levine are?

    June 29^th, 2008 at 5:19 am

11. Jack Somers says:

    Nathan, Thanks for sharing your beliefs. While I tend to be a bit more republican than libertarian, I am starting to lean more that way. I am still not sold on John McCain…depending on who he picks as VP I could possibly vote Bob Barr. Glad to see John Martell above..reminds me of the old metawebs days! Take care!

    Jack Somers

    August 6^th, 2008 at 1:13 pm

12. John Irwin says:

    Nathan Anderson. Thanks for the insight of how the US government parties stand and what and who they represent. John, Australia.

    October 3^rd, 2008 at 3:56 pm

13. Nathan Anderson (indiana) says:

    Imagine that, Another Nathan Anderson calling it how he sees it. Keep up the good work nate, very insightful sight you have here.

    September 1^st, 2009 at 2:21 pm

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