Ultron

I wanted to add something to this comment. States CAN list rights of their own people, easily. They just can't conflict with federally-protected rights. That's certainly 10th Amendment. And certainly liberties where federal and state laws don't infringe on are rights nonetheless, but that doesn't mean even those rights can't be infringed upon. There are no protections on them.

Even FEDERALLY-protected rights can be infringed upon, legally. Not easily, but even the 1st Amendment can be thrown out.

How?

Simple, through further Amendments, or a new Constitutional convention. For example the 18th Amendment was repealed by the 21st Amendment.

Zar

We should add the (tm) symbol after the word "conservatives".

Fascinating words coming from you. Briefly, why is this so, since the discussion seems to have hinged off this statement? I'm sure a few tories would contend with this -- not that I would support them.

Kinross

I wouldn't say that. Conservatives are both socially and economicly conservative while Libertarians are economicly conservative and socially liberal.

The way I see it,
Conservative = Father knows best state
Liberal = Nanny state
Libertarian = Personal responsibility state.

Kinross

No, by obtaining child porn you are contributing to the rape of the child. Its similar to if I hired a hitman to kill someone. I didn't pull the trigger but I comissioned the killing.

Dr. Retard

By the same argument, we should abolish national sovereignty in Europe. All European nation-states should be completely consolidated under the EU.

And all of Europe and Asia should also join together.

And all power should be placed in the hands of a single Sovereign world leader.

Come on, there's clearly an issue as how centralized and how decentralized political power ought to be. No a priori appeals to "[t]he idea of government" are going to settle the issue. And so the question of how much power a federal government should have, in comparison with its constituent states, is still a live one.

Loren Pechtel

The Supreme Court hasn't been able to bring itself to strike down all anti-porn laws but they've used some pretty twisted logic to support any restrictions.

Loren Pechtel

Originally posted by Ultron
Porn isn't speech. It's not protected. You can't walk down main street with child porn for example without being prosecuted. This is a basic 1st Amendment issue.

Porn *IS* speech--and as such it deserves the same protections as all other speech.

Child porn is a separate issue, being a real depiction of an illegal action.

Autonemesis

I agree. The libertarian and/or less-government-is-better philosophies are basically upset with government corruption. They seek to eliminate government corruption by making government so weak that corrupting it is pointless.

I think I need not point out the unavoidable problem with this approach (but I will ). A government that is so weak that there is no opportunity for advantage through corrupting it, must also be rather ineffective at governing.

Ultron

By the same logic Al Jazeera contributed to the murder of those soliders by airing footage of their dead bodies. That logic doesn't work under scrutiny.

Someone that gets child porn down the line had nothing to do with the criminal act of filming that child nude. That's not to say there's nothing wrong with having child porn on it's own merits.

Ultron

How many of you would want George Bush as World Executive? I don't think anyone REALLY wants to surrunder their national sovereignty to the world, really. How can you seriously expect to have 6 Billion people represented adequately at that level?

Same goes for a World Congress and a World Court. How much of a difference can any group of people make when they are such a small statistic?