Someone emailed us a while ago asking what the difference was between Matt’s classical liberalism and my libertarianism, where did we part company and why did we define ourselves this way. We never answered because we have never really tried to pin it down before, we knew there we differed on some things and we […]
Entries Tagged as 'Role of the State'
Voting, the Role of the State and Similarities Between libertarianism and Christianity
October 10th, 2008 14 Comments
Tags: Classical Liberalism · Elections · Libertarianism · Role of the State · Voting
That Is Soooo Unfair
September 13th, 2007 1 Comment
Frequently when my six year old son tries to take something from his siblings, something that belongs to them and he has not asked for, he attempts to justify his actions with the phrase “but I want it” said in an annoying whiny, loud, self-pitying tone. An important part of moral education is to teach […]
Tags: Moral Discourse · Personal Responsibility · Role of the State · Statist Mindset
Sanctions and Siege Warfare
December 14th, 2006 6 Comments
I believe that a state has the right to wage war only to defend those living with in its boarders from attack. A state’s authority to use coercion to uphold justice is limited to its borders. Just as a state has no right to prosecute a person for committing a crime committed outside NZ or to make laws regulating peoples behaviour beyond its shores, it has no duty to defend people in other countries.
Tags: Fiji · Helen Clark · Role of the State · War Ethics
Democracy and Legitimacy
December 5th, 2006 Comments Off on Democracy and Legitimacy
The founding statement of liberal political theory, John Locke’s Two Treaties of Civil Government, opens with the following statement: Reader, thou hast here the beginning and end of a discourse concerning government; what fate has otherwise disposed of the papers that should have filled up the middle, and were more than all the rest, it […]
Tags: Declaration of Independence · Fiji · John Locke · Liberty · Role of the State · War Ethics
A common objection to belief in the God of the Bible is that a good, kind, and loving deity would never command the wholesale slaughter of nations. In the tradition of his popular Is God a Moral Monster?, Paul Copan teams up with Matthew Flannagan to tackle some of the most confusing and uncomfortable passages of Scripture. Together they help the Christian and nonbeliever alike understand the biblical, theological, philosophical, and ethical implications of Old Testament warfare passages.
A Voting Guide
November 7th, 2008 13 Comments
How to choose who to vote for tomorrow, from Glenn (once again – what can we say? he is brilliant and we ran out of time *ahem*) Extract from: So who AM I voting for? (the election blog, part 3) Basic Human rights/freedomsThere are some bottom line human rights and liberties that should always be […]
Tags: ACT Party · Christian Parties · Due Process · Elections · Glenn Peoples · National Party · Rights and Freedoms · Role of the State · Welfare