So, that explains why liberals are passing all these laws that ban things like smoking and saying bad things against certain favored groups of people.

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A panda walks into a cafe. He orders a sandwich, eats it, then draws a gun and fires two shots in the air.

"Why?" asks the confused waiter, as the panda makes toward the exit. The panda produces a badly punctuated wildlife manual and tosses it over his shoulder.

"I'm a panda," he says at the door. "Look it up."

The waiter turns to the relevant entry and, sure enough, finds an explanation.

"Panda. Large black-and-white bear-like mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves."

Banning smoking cannot be considered a liberal policy. It is categorically anti-liberal to pass such laws.

Ergo, those who support such laws aren't liberals.

Tell that to the liberals who are pushing such laws.

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A panda walks into a cafe. He orders a sandwich, eats it, then draws a gun and fires two shots in the air.

"Why?" asks the confused waiter, as the panda makes toward the exit. The panda produces a badly punctuated wildlife manual and tosses it over his shoulder.

"I'm a panda," he says at the door. "Look it up."

The waiter turns to the relevant entry and, sure enough, finds an explanation.

"Panda. Large black-and-white bear-like mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves."

I don't see these people calling themselves liberals.

I only see those who oppose the policy accusing them of being liberals - based entirely upon their support for the policy. That would be a circular argument.

I would support a ban on smoking in public places, since smoking can hurt your neighbors, and freedom is about letting people do what they want as long as they don't hurt their neighbors.
I think that's somewhat liberal, no?

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"Moreover, I am cognizant of the interrelatedness of all communities and states...Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. Never again can we afford to live with the narrow, provincial "outside agitator" idea. Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider anywhere within its bounds."



~Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Well, let's see, politicians who call themselves liberals are the ones passing these laws. Whether they are truly liberals may be subject to debate.

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A panda walks into a cafe. He orders a sandwich, eats it, then draws a gun and fires two shots in the air.

"Why?" asks the confused waiter, as the panda makes toward the exit. The panda produces a badly punctuated wildlife manual and tosses it over his shoulder.

"I'm a panda," he says at the door. "Look it up."

The waiter turns to the relevant entry and, sure enough, finds an explanation.

"Panda. Large black-and-white bear-like mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves."

Smoking isn't a personal right, either.

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"Moreover, I am cognizant of the interrelatedness of all communities and states...Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. Never again can we afford to live with the narrow, provincial "outside agitator" idea. Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider anywhere within its bounds."



~Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Isn't it?

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A panda walks into a cafe. He orders a sandwich, eats it, then draws a gun and fires two shots in the air.

"Why?" asks the confused waiter, as the panda makes toward the exit. The panda produces a badly punctuated wildlife manual and tosses it over his shoulder.

"I'm a panda," he says at the door. "Look it up."

The waiter turns to the relevant entry and, sure enough, finds an explanation.

"Panda. Large black-and-white bear-like mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves."

As a member of the Libertarian Party (GOP in March when I vote for Ron Paul) and a former campaigner for Michael Badnarik, I'm in a unique position to explain what differentiates us from other political ideologies.

We believe that all humans are born with three natural rights; life, liberty, and property. The premise is that without human interaction, you would be in possession of your life, you would be free to do as you wish, and you would be owner of that which you took from nature and put to productive use (property). This starts to look a bit like anarchy until you include the fact that people DO interact, and so rules must be put in place to govern human interaction.

Understanding that humans are granted their rights to life, liberty, and property not by government, but through existing, those rights may come under attack from other humans. This is where government is appropriate, as a referree. You have the right to do whatever you wish, so long as your actions do not adversely affect the life, liberty, or property of another person without their consent. Government exists solely to punish those who fail to respect these rights, through the police force or the military (depending on if the threat to our rights was domestic or foreign).

That's it. Check out the video in my signature for a really good explanation.

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"If the founding fathers had all been 'go with the flow' kind of guys we'd all be sitting around sipping tea and listening to Oasis right now." - A friend.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=muHg86Mys7I

I've already explained. The US Libertarian party manifesto supports liberty for capital and that's that. The party platform of the US Libertarian Party holds that liberty for humans is only an afterthought and one that is readily ignored if it interferes with liberty for capital.

A short perusal of the US Libertarian Party manifesto shows this bias for corporate capital at the expense of individual liberty quite clearly.

For humans to be born with such rights inherent to them can only be rationally understood one way - God granted them.

There is no other way for human beings to be born with inherent rights.

Are you a theocrat? You seem to believe that the purpose of government is to exercise the Will of God.

That doesn't sound like liberty to me. That smells like theocracy.