[OutrightLibertarians] FW: Individual rights are not a "lifestyle"

I didn't ask for a condemnation of "social friction." I simply noted that Libertarians believe that social friction should remain in the sphere of public debate, not government intervention or policy.

The Libertarian presidential candidates, for the most part, believe this. Ron Paul does not. Hence my motivation for not supporting Ron Paul.

As for our policies on prejudice, I think that both Outright and the average Libertarian "not of the majority class" voter agrees that we don't want the LP "taking sides" on moral issues. We want the LP affirming things like:

1) Nobody has a right to tell anyone whether they're married or not, and that if you have a government program linked to "marriage," it needs to be open to all;

2) Nobody has a right to make another's body the property of the state to enforce their religious beliefs on that person against their will;

3) Peaceful immigration is something that is beneficial to America as a whole (an economically indisputable fact), and that immigrants should expect nothing more nor less than their constitutional rights (i.e. no welfare, etc.);

4) Foreign countries with different cultures from ours have the right to conduct their affairs as they see fit, so long as they do not initiate force against us.

Unfortunately, these policies clash with the Republican voters that the LRC wants to transform our party in order to attract. They want to ban gay marriage, make a woman's uterus property of the state, ban peaceful immigration of people of Latino origin, and launch a war against an entire major religion's adherents -- using government power to do this.

The Libertarian Party has never stood for using government power to "take sides" in that debate -- until the LRC started changing things. That's why I don't agree with their agenda.

Incidentally, I'd oppose the LRC if it also started saying that the LP "shouldn't take sides in the divisive health care debate" or other gobbledygook from the left. It's just that the LRC represents a Republican agenda rather than a Democratic one, and we're the Libertarian Party.

Cheers,

Brian