Conservatism and Libertarianism

Many thanks to fourtrouble for debating me on this issue. I can not properly express my gratitude. Rather than do a full scale rebuttal, for this final round I'm going to clear up a few major issues, then crystalize my vision of what the three conflicting ideologies are, and why I believe I have proven them as true. I will first clear up the issue that fourtrouble calls the "incoherence of [my] position", which is that individuals ultimately rely on either the state or the family rather than themselves, exposing that individuals are unable to care for themselves as I previously claimed to be contrary to conservatism. Nevermind the fact that he asserted it was a false dichtomy without actually showing another option, his objection seems to, on its face, hold merit. However when scrutiny is applied, the objection falls to peices for one simple reason: individuals can voluntarily leave their families. That they will likely face hard times and rely on their families does not show that they cannot make decisions for themsleves given that remaining within ones family unit is a voluntary, non aggressive action. State intervention, on the other hand, is compulsory. This is, of course, the ultimate flaw of liberalism: since the state is composed of individuals, it is susceptible to the same weaknesses people are-it's just inherently aggressive, unlike families.Thus both libertarianism and conservatism HAVE TO value families. Given that fourtrouble has not properly disputed the logic that it's a choice between families and the state, I'll just extend that all the way across.For some reason, Fourtrouble puts a lot of emphasis on this idea of a libertarian government "emptying history of it's meaning". This is really irrelevant, but even so it makes no sense. Telling events as they happened still gives history meaning-for example, the Holocaust resulted in the comlete destruction of the private property of over 13 million individuals, self evidently evil under the libertarian ethic. I doubt any of us rationally believe that the state needs to tell people that something is wrong for it to be so. If that is the case, than all debates are a non-starter given that governments could just change the ethics we follow. Dont vote off this red-herring. Fourtroubles entire argument violates the framework of the round, which he calls " flawed" and " inconsistent with most ideologies" disregarding that this is just a bare assertion, it's still illogical. Political ideologies are based on morals, given that they're an expression of what the state ought to do to maximize human wellbeing. If morals are subjective to change than every political debate is a non stater given that no opinion is more valid than any other. This defeats his position which puts great emphasis on "meaning" and "positive evolution"-subjective morals give no birghtline to assess meaning or positive evolution. His position is self refuting anyway. An ideology is a worldview, not a set of given examples. For instance, a modern libertarian would not oppose the Spanish-American war because it is no longer an issue, but that does not change the fact the libertarians are fundamentally opposed to wars of aggression. Fourtroubles position posits that conservatism is just adherence to the status quo and then "positive evolution", but without a compelling set of values to measure what is positive (IE and ideology) no changes can be made. Fourtrouble is therefore not advocating an ideology, and failing to represent conservatism leads to his defeat in this debate. He protests that human understanding is limited, but if that is so than there still no brightline to establish what is or isn't good, making his entire position self refuting. Libertarianism Fourtrouble misrepresents my position by trying to portray it as circular logic. This is unfair given that the debate is not about the validity of libertarianism and its goals, but rather than if its goals are compatible with conservatism. His argument that initial coercion is required to keep people from violating the non-aggression is logically flawed given that it isnt an act of aggression to prevent aggression, but it isnt remotely relevant anyway. I fail to understand why he clings to the argument that libertarianism establishes a framework that throws out all values, when it hold the non aggression principle and self ownership (values) as sacred. It is irionic that he derides libertarianism for failing to value philosophy and ethics, when his own idea of conservatism is based soley on a subjective analysis of what is or isn't a positive upward change. He's dropped the fact that private property is inherently discriminatory and un-equal (equality being liberalisms highest value according to him), meaning that his entire argument about libertarianism being liberal is a non-starter. Even so, libertarian doesn't operate under the harm principle, it operates under the non aggression principle. He givs no reason to view them as equivalent. ConservatismFourtrouble justifies statist conservatism by the following statement: "Because conservatives believe, unlike liberals or libertarians, that human beings have involuntary social attachments, picked up during the course of our upbringing." however this does not justify the state in any way, it justifies a society. There is, of course, a difference between the two. In fact, I will go so far as to turn this argument given that a state destroys minority societies within its jurisdiction. If society gives individuals duties to follow, than conflicting duties from the state negates those values. Just because one does not choose the culture they grow up in does not mean they have some obligation to that culture; in fact this serves to further my point about fourtroubles conservatism not actually being an ideology-its perceptions are not dependent on transcendent values. As illuminated in previous rounds, his position doesn't make sense. He says that conservatives draw conclusion through empirics, then immediately says that conservatives cannot prove any philosphical doctrine as valid. Again, without morals ideologies cannot coherently be held.Without a coherent definition of conservatism from the Con, the round is obviously taken by the Pro. The welfare state is responsible for much of the decline of conservative values. This has gone undisputed, and causes the ballot to skew Pro. LiberalismFourtrouble, for good reason, never tries to refute that conservatism is the ideological foe of liberalism, nor that liberalism HAS TO BE funamentally opposed to private property if it is to uphold equality as the highest good. He can state that liberalism supports capitalism and property all he wants, but it's self evident that private property is inherently unequal since some people have more than others. As such, libertarianism and conservatism must be allied against liberalism since it is fundamentally against the values they both hold. ConclusionThis was a great debate, but I have to urge a Pro vote. Fourtroubles definition of conservatism is not articulated bery well, indeed it is not an ideology at all. His position has been shown to be self refuting, and given that he's completely dropped that both ideologies must oppose the welfare state, the resolution can be affirmed. To win, he would've had to prove that libertarianism and conservatism are not only incompatible ideologies but also that they have inconsistent goals ("my opponent needs to show that on balance, the goals of Libertarianism and Conservatism are too far apart to be treated as actual allies."). His version of conservatism has no long term goals since it changes along with the status quo, and as such he's failed to meet his burden of proof. Great job to Fourtrouble, and whatever the result I hope that this exchange of ideas was beneficial to all who read it. Voters, please read this debate carefully because it contains a larg amount of information.