-- Comment At Your Own Risk --
"No libertarian I know thinks that it's up to the government to keep us safe..."
No argument here. It is the natural right of every person to defend themselves. Those that surrender this right are asking to be abused. Those that campaign for the people to "delegate" their rights to self-defense to the gov't are asking to be tyrants.
"...or protect our rights in any proactive sense. The proper role of government is to adjudicate accusations of violations of our rights..."
I kinda like Craig's take on this best. The purpose of government is to keep order among individuals. It accomplishes this through the law. This could be seen as "proactive" in that it establishes the environment where freedom is maximized.
Grover Norquist stated the Libertarian position on government to be: (1) protect the citizens from being robbed, (2) protect citizens from foreigners attacking, and (3) something else I don't remember (source of my info being the scholarly Colbert report while Norquist was talking about his book "Leave us alone"). His position seemd at least minimally pro-active on the "protection" bit. I don't think you can have protection of citizens if you only adjudicate disputes after the fact. You need to pro-actively prevent them too, non? If I see a young girl about to be attacked, I'm not going to adjudicate after the fact.
If I see a young girl about to be attacked, I'm not going to adjudicate after the fact.
That's intervention though (which I support but didn't include), not proactive prevention. Proactive would be a cop seeing a man talking to a young girl and arresting or otherwise harassing him for what the cop thinks he may or may not be thinking of doing to the girl.
Once you allow for proactive prevention you open the door to all kinds of invasions that are only limited by political, technological and economic reasons. If it was feasible for the government to force us to all put little black boxes in our cars that reported back to them our speed, etc., I have no doubt they would do that "in the interest of safety." But for now, they couldn't get away with it. Already there has been talk about forcing car manufacturers to include breath testers in cars so that people can't drive drunk. Fortunately, those ideas are being shot down.
Why not just place recorders in every home so that officials can, if need be review everything you say in the privacy of your own home just in case it leads to the discovery of criminal activity. Really, they won't violate the privacy of law abiding people, it's just the criminals they're after.
I know I just made WAY too much out of your statement that you weren't implying, I just wanted to carry the "proactive" argument to its logical conclusion.
"invaders to conquer us" mmmm, explore this land baby 
Very strange. Every one of those statements on what libertarians believe should begin with the word "some." In other words, "Some libertarians believe that animals have no rights." In fact, some libertarians believe animals have as many rights as people. I've called myself a libertarian for nearly 20 years, and I have always believed that animals have some rights, albeit not the same rights as people.
I believe that what you do in the privacy of your own home is very much God's business. Very rarely would it ever become your neighbor's business.
I believe that everyone has obligations to the poor, the sick, and the otherwise unfortunate. I also believe that forced charity is an oxymoron and that no one has the right to force me to pay for every stranger's education, medical care, groceries, or housing. You want my help? Come and ask me for it. Very, very few libertarians don't believe in helping the poor.
I fully support the death penalty for a whole host of offenses. If only our government could be trusted to convict the right person.
I have never believed that people are not under God's authority.
What does man's possession of WMDs have to do with God's use of his own power? We don't control God. He blesses whom he will bless, and he curses whom he will curse. Those libertarians who are opposed to God's genocides tend not to believe in God at all.
I believe that government exists in part to help keep us safe. It is just another weapon in our arsenal against chaos and injustice. It stands next to the rights to own and carry personal weapons and to kill home invaders.
By all means, show me where in the New Testament that the death penalty is applicable. I go back and forth on this issue to be honest. On the one hand there are some people that just need to die. On the other hand, I don't really trust the state to have the power of death and use it wisely or judiciously.
Doesn't OS mean we all get the death penalty? That's not really something the state is capable of as far as I'm aware.
Best post you've written in all the time I've been reading you, Dif.
Made it all worthwhile.
.
I agree with you that libertarianism is the best application of Christianity. God, however, is quite the authoritarian.
That's okay. It's his universe, we just be living in it.
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