[rayiner]

(Non-anarchic) Libertarianism goes beyond asserting that certain individual rights are inalienable. It embraces the idea of limited government, which is really quite an insidious and anti democratic concept when you think about it. What classical libertarians believe is that government must exist for certain limited functions, but that democratic forces shouldn't be able to expand the scope of those functions. In other words, people should be bound by government, but not be able to exercise self determination in shaping that government, but rather must be bound by a government designed by philosopher kings, who divine from sacred scripture which functions of government are legitimate and not. The right to property? Makes the cut. Okay for the government to hire jack boot thugs to enforce property rights. The right to live free of discrimination and economic coercion? Doesn't make the cut. Not a legitimate function of government.

[JoeAltmaier]

I was with you up to the sensationalist examples. "Sacred scripture"? How about "bound by a constitution created by the best minds of the day".

And how do you suppose rights are to be enforced if not the constituted government? By saying please? Or everybody shooting it out? Hope you're a good shot or your 'rights' go out the window.

[tptacek]

Why exactly am I meant to be mollified by the fact that our Constitution was the best thing that a bunch of rich, well-connected, slaveholding elites were able to do with trendiest political philosophies of the 1600s?

And, how do you square an appeal to the framers of the Constitution for limited government with the actual decisions of those framers over the first 30 years of the US Government?

In establishing a process that allows for the orderly application of the input of the governed, of "clearing the channels" for democracy, the Constitution has been an extraordinarily effective instrument. In establishing the fundamental principles and values of that government --- something it barely even tries to do --- it is much less effective. Searching the Constitution for principles and values inevitably involves an element of tea leaf reading; pretty quickly you're out of the text of the Constitution and into the Federalist Papers, and now we're talking about a rule by three dead guys.

[rayiner]

If people are bound by a constitution, created by the best minds of the day, which specify a government of limited powers not amenable to democratic expansion, then what is that but rule by philosopher kings?

Note that the U.S. Constitutional scheme is not one of minarchist government. The powers of the federal government are limited to those enumerated, but the scheme presupposes the existence of state governments, whose powers are nearly unlimited.[1] Moreover, the Constitution guarantees that these state governments will have republican form.

[1] More or less, the states were considered to have inherited the sovereign powers of the British Parliament, which were limited only by unwritten British constitution (i.e. the historical rights of Englishmen).