• Welcome to Religious Forums, a friendly forum to discuss all religions in a friendly surrounding.

    Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to the following site features:
    • Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
    • Our modern chat room. No add-ons or extensions required, just login and start chatting!
    • Access to private conversations with other members.

    We hope to see you as a part of our community soon!

Virtue and Morals and Ethics and Ayn Rand

beenherebeforeagain

Rogue Animist
Premium Member
If you are an American, let me suggest you go read the Preamble to the Constitution of the United States of America, and then dive in and read the rest.
If i may be so bold to add, including the Amendments. After that, I'd read The Federalist Papers as well as The Anti-Federalist Papers and other writings about origins of the Constitution and the principles underlying American government and law. That will include getting familiar with the major (and many of the minor) Supreme Court decisions. Once you've got a good handle on the national level, then I suggest you start looking at the state constitutions. You might be quite surprised to find what the actual, legal powers of government are, and how the interpretation and understanding of those powers and responsibilities has changed over the last 200+ years, both in the legal and broader contexts.

Government has the responsibility to prevent fraud, the initiation of force, and to protect private property rights including those private property rights which are personal rights.
Article I, Section 8 lays out the powers of the federal government, and other portions lay out some of how the government might go about doing those things, the rest having been developed through practice and case law.

Now, of course, if you're not talking about the actual law of the land, but are talking about the Libertarian ideal government, then I understand your argument to be that legitimate Libertarian government SHOULD do those things you listed, whereas the nation's laws do not specify "prevention" of fraud or use of force between individuals (although there is a basis for establishing standards, regulating commerce, and providing an independent judiciary to judge such cases), and the government is certainly authorized to use initiation of force on all--a government without that power would have no power to enforce "honest" business practices. The protection of individual rights is assumed under the Constitution, primarily by the limitations on what the government can and cannot do to individuals (writ of habeus corpus, freedom of assembly, due process of law, etc.).

Of course, if you're not an American or in America, you have very different laws and legal systems to deal with...but I'm even more doubtful of Libertarian ideas such as you express being incorporated into other nations' laws than America's.
 

metis

aged ecumenical anthropologist
If i may be so bold to add, including the Amendments. After that, I'd read The Federalist Papers as well as The Anti-Federalist Papers and other writings about origins of the Constitution and the principles underlying American government and law. That will include getting familiar with the major (and many of the minor) Supreme Court decisions. Once you've got a good handle on the national level, then I suggest you start looking at the state constitutions. You might be quite surprised to find what the actual, legal powers of government are, and how the interpretation and understanding of those powers and responsibilities has changed over the last 200+ years, both in the legal and broader contexts.
Nah, I don't think I'd be surprised, probably because I taught political science courses for roughly 25 years.

BTW, "the Amendments" are considered as part of the Constitution.

fini
 

beenherebeforeagain

Rogue Animist
Premium Member
Nah, I don't think I'd be surprised, probably because I taught political science courses for roughly 25 years.

BTW, "the Amendments" are considered as part of the Constitution.

fini
Yah, I know you wouldn't be surprised; I was trying to extend your comment to RHB. And You and I both know that the Amendments are part of the Constitution, but I've run into an awful lot of people out there who try to maintain a distinction, especially about the income tax...
 
Top