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Libertarians, can’t live with ’em

Libertarians, can’t live with ’em

that’s it, sentence over.

Andrew Branca spotted this vehicle in Fredericksburg, VA:

Bumper Sticker - Fredericksburg, VA - Libertarian

Bumper Sticker - Fredericksburg, VA - Fiction

Bumper Sticker - Fredericksburg, VA - Atheist

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Comments

There’s something sadly ironic about militant disbelief.

There’s an old saying, “A closed mouth is the better part of a runaway tongue,” and evidently the same could be said of a billboard of bumper stickers…

Wow.. I love it, especially the “fiction” bit. That’s a classic.

NC Mountain Girl | August 24, 2013 at 10:11 am

Regardless of the political tilt of the stickers, that many of them is surely the sign of a someone you probably don’t want to get to know.

“Fiction”?

That’s apt, considering that a lot of the “quotes” s/he features (see bigger version of photo) are fiction themselves.

This proselytizing evangelical atheist driving around with too-good-to-check fake Jefferson quotes on his/her car is every bit the gullible sheep s/he reckons Christians are.

Baaa-aaa-aaa!

left coast rebel | August 24, 2013 at 10:45 am

What gives – I don’t see a problem here and agree with most of the statements (80%) on the bumper stickers. Why not highlight the Founding Father quotes or pro-capitalism stickers?

Further, I would rather align myself with a movement that truly stands for something (free markets, free will and personal responsibility as the bumper sticker states) than be associated with “republicans” that, in power, don’t believe anything other than increasing the state at all levels while at the same time selling “free market” ideas to the voting public.

I would vote for an honest-to-God prostitute that was hones about decreasing the size and scope of government today than what passes as “republican.”

A lot of knee jerk reaction here to the ‘Atheist’ sticker.

As a former ‘Proselyting Evangelical Theist‘, the real irony is how Theists make the same assertion as Leftists in putting down people who do not subscribe to their religion.

It goes like this. Without God or the State, an individual is immoral or incapable of moral action.

There is more morality summed up in this person’s bumper sticker than you’ll find in the entire Pentateuch.
Free Will. Free Market. Personal Responsibility.

    Free Will is FROM the Pentateuch. We read it this Sabbath.

    Also such concepts as not punishing people for their relatives’ sins, exonerating rape victims, double jeopardy (according to traditional interpretation, and much stricter than under US law), general equality of sexes and classes before the law, requiring witnesses for proof, etc.

    Oh, and the fact that someone else’s (true) need DOES create a (moral) obligation upon me. Sorry, Alica Rosenbaum.

    Really, tell me – how can one, from logic alone, decide when killing someone is a crime?

    The Romans thought the Jews were nuts for criminalizing infanticide.

    Their heirs today think it’s wrong to criminalize a abortion.

    I can tell you what the founders thought, simply by looking at the legislation in all of the colonies. But he founders were not libertarians, not a one.

SoCA Conservative Mom | August 24, 2013 at 11:41 am

When I see a vehicle like this, I always think the person is confused. He wants all the personal freedom to indulge in any behavior without limits (Democrat) and is the stereotypical greedy, tax avoiding, wouldn’t donate 10 cents from his multi-billion dollar stash to save a dying kitten (Republican.)

I had an acquaintance tell me years ago that she and her husband were Democrats until they started making some money and then became Libertarians, because of the tax policy Libertarians espouse. I still chuckled when I think of that.

    ” I always think the person is confused. He wants all the personal freedom to indulge in any behavior without limits (Democrat) and is the stereotypical greedy, tax avoiding, wouldn’t donate 10 cents from his multi-billion dollar stash to save a dying kitten (Republican.)

    This kind of gross misapprehension and generalization is typical of the Big Government Christian Statists.

      SmokeVanThorn in reply to Aucturian. | August 24, 2013 at 4:57 pm

      “As a former ‘Proselyting Evangelical Theist‘, the real irony is how Theists make the same assertion as Leftists in putting down people who do not subscribe to their religion.”

      “This kind of gross misapprehension and generalization is typical of the Big Government Christian Statists.”

      Got Self-Awareness?

    “He wants all the personal freedom to indulge in any behavior without limits (Democrat) and is the stereotypical greedy, tax avoiding, wouldn’t donate 10 cents from his multi-billion dollar stash to save a dying kitten (Republican.)”

    These stereotypes represent the uphill battle faced by the two political groups with which I loosely affiliate myself. As a small ‘l’ libertarian, I have no desire to indulge in most (any) of the behaviors usually falsely associated with Libertarians – pot smoking, etc. I do desire to live in a country where the government minds its own business, and my neighbors do, too. “That government is best which governs least.” (Don’t worry, Amy in FL, I won’t attribute that to Jefferson!) Anyone who doesn’t see that the more government gets involved, the less freedom we have, hasn’t been paying attention. And legislating matters of personal morality doesn’t work. It merely creates new industries for those willing to break ever-expanding laws.

    As a registered Republican, I can attest that not all of us are wealthy. But, as a CPA of 30 years, I can also attest that conservatives are BY FAR more generous WITH THEIR OWN MONEY than liberals are. This holds true not only regarding charitable contributions, but also in honestly paying their tax obligations. Liberals are first to espouse higher taxes for “the wealthy,” and also first to come up with additional, mysterious deductions when presented with a tax bill.

    And yet, the stereotypes persist…

    “He wants all the personal freedom to indulge in any behavior without limits (Democrat) and is the stereotypical greedy, tax avoiding, wouldn’t donate 10 cents from his multi-billion dollar stash to save a dying kitten (Republican.)”

    And to you this is the sum total of Libertarianism? I can imagine even within your own party (whatever that is) it would be difficult to work with you.

    As a Conservative who tries hard to pay all of his taxes (not easy with all of the rules), I would say that Leftists are at least as likely to try to avoid them. And Conservatives believe in helping people through private charity.

    I find it interesting that you said “dying kitten” and not “dying baby”. I would do a great deal to help the baby; the best thing to do for the kitten is to feed it to a worthy predator.

    PS – I realized I was a conservative when I read a Libertarian newsletter and found I agreed with all of the Conservative parts and disagreed with all of the Leftist ones. Too bad many modern Libertarians are not so honest and try to portray themselves as Conservatives or Constitutionalists or following the Founders. The Founders were all extreme social conservatives by modern standards.

I LOVE making fun of atheists… they are so completely enraged and generally “Angry at God for not existing.”

Quote part is from CS Lewis.

    Shane in reply to Andy. | August 24, 2013 at 4:25 pm

    Because that is a mighty theist thing to do. And we wonder why wars are started.

      mzk in reply to Shane. | August 25, 2013 at 4:10 am

      You mean like all of the wars started by the fanatic atheists of the Communist countries?

      Please remember that atheism, in a century, caused more evil, death and suffering than all religions in the entire history of the planet. And I am speaking as a member of the people that they were all busy killing.

      Atheism is the most fanatic, intolerant, murderous religion ever invented. And it is inherent in a religion that recognizes no higher power.

        Henry Hawkins in reply to mzk. | August 25, 2013 at 10:30 am

        You’ve made a correlation error. Totalitarian dictatorships outlaw religion to eliminate competition for leadership. The people of the USSR were religious, but banned from practicing it. Communist China operates much the same. It is the governments, the dictators, that are atheist.

        BrianMacker in reply to mzk. | August 26, 2013 at 7:58 am

        You are extremely ignorant on this subject. Perhaps you should keep you mouth shut about things you don’t understand. It was Marxists, not atheists in general, that committed all those atrocities. Marxists also happen not to believe in leprechans. You will find that the vast majority of crimes throughout history have been commited by those who do not believe in leprechans. Atheism is a lack of belief in imaginary beings just like your lack of belief in leprechans. Do you feel any kinmanship with the Marxist on the basis of your shared disbelief?

        Atheism isn’t a belief system anymore than theism is. It’s a broad category. You don’t get to blame Humanists for Marxist atrocities for the same reason you can’t blame Christians for Aztec ones, even though both are theist.

        However it is worse for your position than that. While theist are often motivated by the beliefs about their god or gods, and what they are purported to say, atheism provides no motivation to do anything. A person who belives in leprechans might be motivated to look for that pot of gold but for the person who doesn’t believe there is not any motive to do anything. Theists are in fact atheists about every god but their own. Are you motivated to murder others because you don’t believe in leprechans or Thor?

        What motivated Marxist to be so evil was the positive beliefs of Marxism, which have little to nothing to do with theism. In fact many of the Marxists who believed these things were theists, and many non-Marxist theists believe the same kindsof things. Marxism was based on both class hatred and antisemitism.

        Go read Marx’s “On the Jewish question” to see what I’m talking about. It is antisemitism that would make Hitler proud. Some quotes: “Indeed, in North America, the practical domination of Judaism over the Christian world has achieved as its unambiguous and normal expression”. Heck it ends with this:

        “Once society has succeeded in abolishing the empirical essence of Judaism – huckstering and its preconditions – the Jew will have become impossible, because his consciousness no longer has an object, because the subjective basis of Judaism, practical need, has been humanized, and because the conflict between man’s individual-sensuous existence and his species-existence has been abolished.

        The social emancipation of the Jew is the emancipation of society from Judaism.”

        Thing is that many Christians believed this same garbage for millenia and persecuted the Jews over it too. Hatred for the rich is a common theme in Christianity to. Is it all surprising that historically you have violent Christian outbreaks where the rich (and Jews) are targeted?

        Marxists also havesome rather unfortunate economic beliefs. But many of those were shared with historical Christian communities. Charging interest as an evil comes to mind. It’s not just Christian theists either. Muslim and other theists have all sorts of bigoted teachings and stupid economic advice handed down directly from or inspired by god.

        In fact, you sir are a bigot. You talk about atheists the way Marx, Hitler, Mohammad, etc. talked about the Jews.

myveryownpointofview | August 24, 2013 at 12:58 pm

LOL, maybe the stickers represent two points of view. Say, it’s the husbands car, so on “his side” the stickers are his views, the wife gets the passenger side for her stickers.

I actually had relatives who did this.

The way I choose to read the “fiction” sticker is that the COEXIST sticker it’s modeled after is fiction. 🙂

myveryownpointofview | August 24, 2013 at 1:00 pm

Wait, I guess that wouldn’t work – that atheist sticker is on the same side as the “quotes”.

“Religion keeps the common people quiet”? Really? You want people to be REAL sheep? Give ’em prostitutes and pot and they’ll never complain about the NSA (or any overreaching government agency) again.

Nothing keeps people docile like letting them indulge in hedonism. Nothing.

“Free Will. Free Market. Personal Responsibility”: Libertarians are such assh*les that they think they’re the only adults in the room. I’m finally so sick of them that I’m writing a book on their asinine philosophy. I’ve finally heard the idiotic line “It’s in a corporation’s own best interest to behave morally” for the last time.

    Haha, you’re funny. 🙂

    Wait…you’re not serious are you?

    Shane in reply to RKae. | August 24, 2013 at 4:24 pm

    ““Free Will. Free Market. Personal Responsibility”: Libertarians are such assh*les that they think they’re the only adults in the room.”

    But truly very many “adults” don’t believe this saying. If you are offended by this saying does that mean you are not secure in your “adultness”?

    “I’m finally so sick of them that I’m writing a book on their asinine philosophy.”

    I can’t imagine that there will be many buyers of this book. Do yourself a favor and stick to the comments, it will be a lot cheaper.

    “I’ve finally heard the idiotic line “It’s in a corporation’s own best interest to behave morally” for the last time.”

    I don’t see where this particular bumpersticker is located maybe you could help my poor eyesight and direct me to it. Or maybe it is something that another poster said, could you be a dear and reference it.

      punfundit in reply to Shane. | August 25, 2013 at 8:14 am

      Ironic that the supposed champions of free will become hysterical whenever someone expresses an opinion counter to their own.

      Like Democrats.

      Not all libertarians are Objectivists, but the Big ‘L’ continues to behave as if they were. This will always be to the liberty movement’s detriment.

      Meanwhile we continue to hear from their high school debate team.

    BrianMacker in reply to RKae. | August 26, 2013 at 8:09 am

    it is certainly in a corporations enlightened best interests to behave morally. It is in everyone’s enlightened best interest to do so. Problem are those who are unenlightened, both inside and outside government. There are all sorts of reasons why this is so that an intelligent libertarian could inform you of. Sounds like either you are talking with the stupid ones or are able to grasp the concepts yourself.

When the owner goes to sell that vehicle, the tan lines and peeled paint will knock $500 off the selling price. And they’ll curse their own stupidity for putting them on there in the first place when it comes time to remove them.

1. Libertarians, can’t live with ‘em

The feeling is mutual.

2. Y2K techies were often libertarian. First thing to do then, is to alienate creative-class weirdos like Harper Reed from the conservative movement.

Oh, wait…Harper Reed is alienated from the conservative movement.

So how’d that work out?

3. Sarcasm aside, iirc a quote by Hayek stated that the provocative attitude of many creative people is a sort of adjunct fee that society pays for their products.

4. Back when I commented regularly here, I became increasingly scathing about the incompetence—worse, the unwillingness—of conservatives to conduct coalition politics.

    SmokeVanThorn in reply to gs. | August 25, 2013 at 12:00 pm

    That’s because “coalition politics” is your code for “you conservatives give up on every issue that matters to you so we can win.” No sale.

Liberalism is unprincipled, while libertarianism is of insufficient principles. They can be interchangeable.

As for atheism, keep the faith! Perhaps they were thinking of a neutral alternative and were hijacked by an atheist proselytizer. This is becoming increasingly common as more people confuse science and philosophy (or religion).

BannedbytheGuardian | August 24, 2013 at 5:31 pm

I think they may be just having fun.

Car stickers are a bit of an American thing . I picked up one advising people to wear seat belts so aliens could not suck them out.

Unfortunately no one even laughed when I showed it back home. They just thought – yeah aren’t Americans for you.

BannedbytheGuardian | August 24, 2013 at 5:38 pm

Correction – Aren’t Americans all like that & That’s Americans for you .

Henry Hawkins | August 24, 2013 at 6:04 pm

“You don’t become an atheist, you go back to being one.”

This has stirred resentment in many, it appears. Why? It is not a statement of opinion, but a simple statement of fact.

People come to religious belief in myriad ways, but most common by far is the traditional way – indoctrination as a child by parents.

We are born without religious beliefs and must be taught them by adults such as parents, other family, preachers, teachers, etc. If this doesn’t happen, the child grows up without religious beliefs. A child, of course, legally and practically, is incapable of informed consent. A child also tends not to question what adults teach them, due to their love and trust in said adults. Children are typically baptized as babies, but the child has no clue what’s going on.

Having said the above, which I see and offer as simple factual observations, I have absolutely no problem with anyone’s religiosity. I’ve been posting here multiple times daily for… three years, perhaps? …and I have never said an ill word about anyone’s religious beliefs, nor against any particular religion, Islam included. I tolerate, and yet, am not always tolerated. I’m a big boy. I’ll get over it.

There may be religious believers who disagree with the factual statement in the bumper sticker I’ve quoted. If so, and if they are willing, I would challenge them to refute the factual claim that we are born without religious beliefs and must be taught them.

    Henry Hawkins in reply to Henry Hawkins. | August 24, 2013 at 6:19 pm

    PS: And for those who like to get into the weeds… the quoted statement, though factual, is incomplete. It describes a person born without religious beliefs, as we all are, who then acquires them, and then drops them, ‘going back’ to the original non-religious state at birth.

    I have no religious beliefs. Since birth. My father was a Scottish immigrant and he and his family were atheists* for generations, but non-activist and non-evangelizing. They didn’t believe and didn’t talk about it. My mother was an Irish immigrant, from generations of Irish Catholics. If asked, she called herself Irish Catholic, but never went to church that I ever saw. They married and had five kids. Religion never came up during my youth. I was never taught to believe as a child and never chose to seek out belief as an adult. Further, I’ve never experienced anything as child or adult that could only be explained by the existence of God. We all grew up to be moral, responsible, reliable, good citizens. Whatever religion is, I may only conclude that it is the answer to a problem I’ve never had, so I never saw cause to seek it out. I respect others’ choice to believe 100%, not just in words, but in actions. I donate routinely to religious groups, not because of what they believe, but to support what they do.
    ____________________________________

    *I detest the label ‘atheist’ because it is self-referent from/by the theist. It’s like calling Americans arussians, because they are not Russians. Only the Russians would come up with that, but Russians do not define Americans, and I don’t let religious people define me.

    Need a new label for those who hold no religious beliefs.

      ‘going back’ to the original non-religious state at birth

      I will pray that you don’t “go back” to the original illiterate, unthinking, non-potty-trained, non-verbal, completely self-absorbed hairless mewling creature who couldn’t even crawl let along walk, that you were at birth, anytime soon.

      I detest the label ‘atheist’ because it is self-referent from/by the theist.

      But that’s the way so many nu-atheists position themselves. They’re not arguing in favor of their particular belief system; they’re just railing against others’ belief systems.

      Without theists, atheists would not exist. They’d have no raisin debt, as my autocorrect would say.

      And the popular trope that “atheism is a religion like not collecting baseball cards is a hobby”, completely falls down when you regard that people who don’t collect baseball cards do not attend tent revival type gatherings of others who do not collect baseball cards; they do not elevate prominent non-baseball card collecting figures as God-heads; they do not spend their lives trumpeting how much better they are than those retarded baseball card collectors; and they do not plaster their cars with memes putting down those who do collect baseball cards.

      When you actively prosecute your belief system on a daily basis, spend your free time attacking those with belief systems different than yours, and proclaim that anyone not adhering to your belief system is not following the One True Path and must therefor be denounced as heretics, that’s pretty much a religion.

        Henry Hawkins in reply to Amy in FL. | August 25, 2013 at 10:34 am

        Except that I and 99% of “atheists” do none of those things.

        Again, I see anger and tolerance, but no refutation. Thanks for playing.

        BrianMacker in reply to Amy in FL. | August 26, 2013 at 8:25 am

        People who collect baseball cards also don’t vilify non-members as amoral and evil criminals who deserve to be tortured for eternity by fire. They also don’t institute laws that discriminate against non-card collectors, and try to pass other laws that infringe on peoples rights in general, on the basis of their beliefs.

        Atheist meetings, clubs, etc. are not at all about what you think they are. They would be like “non-muslim” clubs in a muslim country fighting against Muslim bigotry. Such a club woukd contain Jews, Buddhists, Hindus, and Christians. In other words it woud be diverse. Atheist clubs are diverse like that. Problem is that there has been such a long period of opression by Christians and othe theists that their was no opportunity for such to arise before.

    You weren’t an atheist when you were born, because you weren’t anything, since you were not yet capable of rational thought. To say that you were anything that requires rational thought when you were not yet capable of it is a nonsense statement and pure proselytizing on your part.

    I’ve been a Christian for as long as I’ve been capable of rational thought. If I were to stoop to your level of deception, I would be able to say that I’ve been a Christian since I was born.

      Henry Hawkins in reply to Finrod. | August 24, 2013 at 8:45 pm

      Nice try, but no cigar. I said I didn’t have any religious beliefs when I was born. That is true and nothing you’ve said refutes it. It does not require rational thought to not believe in God – that is our default position at birth. One must be indoctrinated into it as a child or choose it when ‘capable of rational thought’ as you put it.

      Why has what I’ve posted angered you? Do you not recognize your intolerance of a person simply and politely stating his position and how he got there? Yours must be a fragile faith indeed to be so easily threatened.

      As for ‘stooping to deception’, yikes.

        Sorry, but you’re completely full of it. Until we are capable of rational thought, it’s complete nonsense to say that we have any opinions at all about the existence of a deity. All you are doing is rationalizing your own position by defining your position as a default, which is complete nonsense and I’m calling you out on it. If any position could be a default position, it would be agnosticism, which is not knowing whether a deity exists, not atheism, which is a belief that no deity exists. (No, you can’t know for certain that no deity exists, and you’re lying to yourself if you hold that position.) If you are not capable of rational thought, then by definition you can’t know anything, therefore to be more specific you can’t know anything about deities and their existence, which if it’s anything at all, is agnosticism.

        You fail.

          Henry Hawkins in reply to Finrod. | August 25, 2013 at 10:39 am

          Agnosticism, atheism, call it whatever you wish, and remember I’ve already expressed I don’t care for such terms because they emit from the believer, not the non-believer.

          Please learn to retain what your read, or, failing that, please show where I said there is no God. I never said it, and your entire argument is of the straw man variety. You pick a position you can defend and assign it to me (“if you hold that position”) because you can’t refute what I actually said.

        “I didn’t have any religious beliefs when I was born”

        I couldn’t read or do math when I was born; I was incapable of telling right from wrong when I was born, I was utterly self-centered (read: narcissistic sociopath) when I was born, my eyesight was so poor that I would have been considered legally blind when I was born, and I had so little discipline over my bowels and bladder that I shat and weed where I lay, leaving it to others to clean up the mess. Oh, and I cried all the time, and never slept through a whole night until I was three.

        I’m not sure that claiming that it’s A Good Thing® to revert to the primitive unknowing creatures we were when we were born is the best argument for atheism.

          Henry Hawkins in reply to Amy in FL. | August 25, 2013 at 10:43 am

          More failed straw man argumentation. I said that the bumper sticker is factual in that a person born without religious beliefs who attains religious beliefs then abandons religious beliefs is returning to the belief position of birth.

          “I’m not sure that claiming that it’s A Good Thing® to revert to the primitive unknowing creatures we were when we were born is the best argument for atheism.”

          This statement is better than the examples used in logical fallacy iterations. Pure straw man. I have no idea who you are arguing against for I said nothing like this, but that in itself is illustrative.

          BrianMacker in reply to Amy in FL. | August 26, 2013 at 8:34 am

          She’s upset because it bothers her to think of innocent babies as atheists, a group she so wants to hate. Funny thing is that even many Christians recognize this, and their babies go to purgatory until baptized. Not sure how sprinkiling some water on a baby changes their beliefs, but they seem to think it does. I find if laughable that she thinks mere age imbues rationality. It is quite clear that many theists never become rational in the sense of being able to maturely decide on a religion. How can they when they’ve been kept ignorant and told all their lives that questioning will make them deserve hell. Doubting Thomas, the Tree of Knowledge, the superiority of Faith, etc. Are all anti-rational.

          Pardon? “Hate”? Pas moi! I was just pointing out the lunacy of claiming that it’s a good thing to revert to infancy. I would like to think that even you all have learned a thing or two since you were ignorant diaper-soiling mewling wee things. Just because we weren’t born with certain skills and knowledge doesn’t mean that being helpless and ignorant is a superior state.

          Now stop banging your spoon on your highchair tray table for attention; you’re annoying the grown-ups. There’s a good boy.

    Religion and theism are not equivalent. The principle of interest, whether it is theism, atheism, or another philosophical construct is faith. Specifically acknowledging what we know, don’t know, and are incapable of knowing.

    The neutral philosophy, if such exists, is agnostic, which is neither theistic nor atheistic, and makes no attempt to present an affirmative statement in support or opposition of either philosophy.

    The correct judgment of a religion or philosophy is by the principles it engenders. Simply rejecting or accepting a religion or philosophy is juvenile and without merit.

    That said, the nature of our universe is unknown and unknowable. There is an insurmountable constraint imposed upon sentient creatures which exist within the system they hope to characterize. We do not know there is a God. We do know there is an underlying order to the universe. We cannot know what caused that order to exist. The objective “faith” is strictly constrained to a limited frame of reference, which deliberately rejects formal conclusions formed through inference from limited, circumstantial evidence (especially when that condition is permanent). This is the separation between objective and subjective, between science and philosophy (or religion).

      BrianMacker in reply to n.n. | August 26, 2013 at 8:43 am

      “The neutral philosophy, if such exists, is agnostic”
      Not really. It depends on the conception of god or gods we are talking about. Many are easily refuted, or disproved. If your definition of god is self contradictory then it is impossible for that being to exist, like a squared circle.

      Agnostics can be atheist or theist also. So you are talking about overlapping categories.

      Then there is the igtheist, who thinks that both theists of the agnostics and knowing kind, both have now idea what they are talking about when they use terms like, all-powerful, all-knowin, all-loving, and the like. I personaly have no experience with the infinite when applied to things like love, power, etc. I’m pretty wsure they don’t either. It’s ” my dad’s bigger than yours” taken to an absurd level. Why should you beleive in God instead of Thor, because “my gods bigger than yours”.

    Often people who have experienced the Creator’s boundless love and grace, heed the advice of men to “join a church”, where indoctrination gradually strips them of spiritual freedom and makes them into religious ‘sons of hell’. It can be difficult when going through that process, not to throw out the proverbial ‘baby with the bath water’, i.e., revert to atheism, etc.

    I’ve wondered if that experience is an intended (designed) step in the process of spiritual maturation? The Lord did say, after all: “Unless a grain of wheat is buried in the ground, dead to the world, it is never any more than a grain of wheat. But if it is buried, it sprouts and reproduces itself many times over.” Grace plants the seed, religion kills and buries it, resurrection breathes new life into it and produces spiritual fruit.

Judging by the comments, it’s not the libertarian attitudes that are the problem, but the non-Christian ones.

I’ve seen plenty of bumper-sticker posts with libertarian stickers that have been met with great approval. But comes one that mixes a pro-capitalism message with a non-Christian message, and it’s attacked.

So is the message that non-Christians need not apply? Thanks, but no thanks, we don’t want your votes? That’s incredibly short-sighted and stupid if so.

    Not “non-Christian” so much as “anti-Christian”. There is a difference.

    Driving around with more than one bumper sticker proclaiming that people who don’t share your religious beliefs (and yes, atheism is a religious belief as soon as you start publicly proselytizing) are stoopid poopy-pants retards, is pretty much engineered to get those who don’t share your religious beliefs off-side.

    JFTR, my car isn’t plastered with anti-atheist memes, because I don’t believe that’s either appropriate or helpful.

      P.S. What ticked off more than the evangelical atheist anti-religion memes on this car, are the fake Jefferson and Franklin quotes.

      I don’t much care if you try to kick sand in the face of my Lord and Savior — he’s mighty enough to withstand the haters. But slapping fake quotes from Jefferson and Franklin on your car shows an unthinking and gullible propensity for falling for “fake but accurate” internet memes, and there’s just no excuse for that.

    SmokeVanThorn in reply to Joseph. | August 25, 2013 at 12:16 pm

    Your comment would make sense if the photo showed a car covered with pro-religious bumper stickers and anti-libertarian stickers. Of course, it shows the opposite – a libertarian attacking religious belief.

    If anything, it’s libertarians who tell believers that they “need not apply” – unless they are willing to give up on issues that matter to them to further libertarian ends.

      There are plenty of religious libertarians. They’re not all Ayn Randians. Just look at Ron and Rand Paul. You seem perfectly willing to toss aside someone with whom you have strong agreement on economic and political issues, just because they happen not to like your religion.

      Love of freedom and smaller government does not require Christianity. And non-Christians are perfectly entitled to espouse their own beliefs confidently and forcefully. I’m not an atheist myself, but I’m also not so insecure in my own faith that merely being reminded of the fact that someone doesn’t agree with my faith is going to cause me to brush aside their help on political issues with which I *do* agree with them.

What is a libertarian? Let me count the ways:

1. Another word for “anarchist,” according to Europeans
2. A limited-government libertine
3. An Ayn Rand follower, the Objectivist collective, usually with a capital ‘L’
4. A limited-government liberal (not too many of those these days)
5. A “classical liberal” in the Federalist/Antifederalist mode

I’m certain I’ve forgotten some. And I won’t go into the “libertarian socialists” despite their interesting arguments.

Three out of four founders quotes are fake.

75% incorrect, well beyond a failing grade. Everything else I like and agree with. That’s a shame.