How many times have you heard libertarians proclaim with thoroughly ego-pleasing self-righteousness, "We never compromise our principles," using such refusal to compromise as an excuse for allowing their values to be compromised by those who are smart enough to really not let their principles be sabotaged?
Principles only exist to serve values. Your spirit's highest value is the fullness of life. Your ego's highest value is your destruction and ultimately your death. So facing every decision, wondering if a principle applies, a question must be asked: does following this principle in this instance serve life or death?
It is believed Joan of Arc refused to compromise her principles. It is said her fate of being burned at the stake was due to her uncompromising stance. So was death her highest value? Or did she maybe fail to question whether there might be an even deeper principle she wasn't seeing, or whether her ego was tempting her to inflexibility in order to destroy her?
Individuals become libertarians because they are sensitive enough to be in-touch with their natural soul-level urge to experience freedom from being ruled by the ego-vested interests of others, which is the same as saying libertarians feel strongly the deep inner desire to experience life in it's fullness.
It is not logical and hardly life-serving to worship principles in and of themselves, divorced from the context of one's highest goal. When faced with a decision, does adhering to a particular principle serve life or death?
Let's imagine in our modern American context a Democratic Party candidate unabashedly favors dictatorship by his favored class of elitists. He justifies his stance by believing that it serves "every one's highest good." But he nonetheless clearly favors dictatorship. This Democrat is unashamedly a "dictator at heart."
Meanwhile, a Republican Party candidate, for all her faults, despite her seeming inability to take the Democrat's worship of dictatorship seriously, is obviously not a "dictator at heart." She may have a split mind confused by conflicting values and issues, but she would not support dictatorship if someone or some circumstance jolted her into seeing clearly.
These two candidates are polling evenly at about 48 or 49 percent each. One of them is going to win the election and rule.
Given this context and imagined scenario, a libertarian is faced with a choice. He can refrain from voting and wish the threat of dictatorship would magically go away. He can vote for a third party candidate "on principle" and hope that the election will not be won by the "dictator at heart." Or he can cast a vote in self-defense knowing that in such close elections sometimes the "dictator at heart" will actually be defeated with the help of votes like his.
If he chooses the third alternative, is he voting on principle? What if there is a principle that says, "Given the existing context in which I live, I will do whatever I can reasonably do to keep a 'dictator at heart' from winning an election and ruling my life!"
What if there is a principle at work in the electoral universe which says if libertarians fail to do everything within reason to keep dictators from winning ... then enough dictators will win to firmly establish their dictatorship?
Maybe libertarians need to ask themselves: "Would I rather discover the deeper underlying principle, or would I rather let myself be burned at the stake?"
To understand the insane psychology of modern "liberal progressives," read Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged."
"God's laws will keep your minds at peace, because peace IS His Will, and His laws are established to uphold it. His are the laws of freedom, but yours are the laws of bondage. Since freedom and bondage are irreconcilable, their laws CANNOT BE UNDERSTOOD TOGETHER. The laws of God work only for your good, and there ARE no other laws beside His. Everything else is merely lawLESS, and therefore chaotic." -Jesus Christ in A Course in Miracles
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