<p>“Libertarianism is about the limit of big government AND the ability for individuals to freely associate and self-rule. Self-rule is not the same, as no rules or anarchy or anti-constitutional.”</p>
<p>The problem with libertarianism in its pure form, like pure anything, is that as an operating model it assumes that people always act rationally or with the best interests of society. For example, the Pauls, father and son, have argued that civil rights laws like Title IV were illegal, because they violated the right to freely associate, and in effect was arguing that Jim Crow was okay and should only have been removed through will of the majority/democratic principles.</p>
<p>Libertarianism to a certain extent is eschewed in the constitution, despite the claims of the hard right, because the founders of the country were afraid of ‘power of the individual’ or ‘rights by will of the majority’, they called it mob rule. There is a line where the right to self actuation and the right of self rule and the right to freely associate ends, and that is where such a thing hurts the rights of others to there own self determination or the right to be able to do as they want.Our constitution has a ton of things in it that were designed to stop that kind of thinking, because they realized that the society was pluralistic and they knew that the majority or people exerting ‘individual power’ over the public collective caused abuses of basic rights.You said it yourself, even the libertarians have constitutions, rules, so they aren’t for ‘ultimate freedom of the individual’, because they know it doesn’t work.</p>
<p>What a lot of this boils down to is the mission statement of the whole university versus the mission statement of the individual groups, and like the US constitution, it comes down to who has the more power. In the US, the constitution and federal law supercedes state and local law (there is a clause in the constitution saying that state law has to take a back seat to federal law), for example, so if a state wanted to make it legal to segregate black kids from white kids in schools, it would be an illegal law since federal law prohibits that. Groups that want to be an official member of the university community have to abide by their rules, which in turn are influenced by their mission statement, their constitution, whatever you call it. Claiming that religious belief, for example, overrides that overarching constitution is like saying a ballot initiative in California overrides the federal constitution or the state constitution, because ‘people voted it in’, (hint, it doesn’t). </p>
<p>And yes, those using the term “banned” are right wing ‘news’ sites like newmax, the NY Post, and various other organs of the hard right, because it stirs up their base who already believe that 'religion is being stamped down upon by the new world order". The groups aren’t banned, they can meet, there is no security breaking up their meetings, what it means is they don’t have official recognition, which means they receive no funding, they cannot get meeting space on campus (depending on the school, they may be able to, but the way an outside group would), and they can’t post signs on school bulletin boards or websites and such, and they cannot use the school’s name in their group’s name, to make sure no one associates them with the university. </p>
<p>For the record, I don’t know if as a university provost or whatever I would care about the leadership issue, but I also can see how they feel that by not allowing anyone to be a member and run for the leadership, that it sets the tone that you aren’t really welcome, I understand why, just don’t know if I would go that far. One of the problems quite frankly with religious groups on campus is they don’t have the best reputation, they often are places seen as being a bunch of fanatics who routinely denigrate other members of the community, who don’t exactly show the love. Friends of mine went to schools in conservative areas of the country of the 1980’s, just when gay students were first starting to come out, try to have their own clubs, etc, back in the Reagan chautaqua tent years, and saw religious groups who posted signs like “if you are homosexual, you need to look inside yourself, because God is going to” or wearing T shirts with the crap in leviticus, or other cutesy things, and when students tried to get universities to establish policies to help make LGBT students feel safe, it was the religious groups who hollered loudest that doing so ‘violated their beliefs’, so if religious groups tend to run afoul of things like this, not surprising (and no, I am not broad based bashing religious groups as whole, there were ones who weren’t like that, who even if they believe LGBT people were sinning, also knew they all were sinners, too, unlike the holy roller/bac crowd generally seemed to forget).</p>
<p>There is something of an irony to all this, that the idea of the rules they don’t like came from protecting the religious kid’s rights, too, or making them feel welcome. It is very, very easy to sit and think “religious belief is important in determining leaders”, but the problem is where do you draw the line, and when? If i say “religious groups with strongly held beliefs are exempt”, what if a group that has nothing to do with religion (let’s say the Physics Club) bans kids from religious backgrous from being leaders, because they strongly believe that religious people are anti science? What if there is a kind of interfaith group, that decides to exclude evangelicals from running for the leadership,.because they see them as a threat to what the group’s mission should be? </p>
<p>This isn’t schools targeting religious groups, it is schools setting standards that apply to every group and doesn’t allow anyone to be exempt for them for any kind of belief, they are saying “if you want to get recognition, here are the terms”. If a group’s religious beliefs are so strong, if they in good conscience they can’t live with the university rules, then they should reject recognition. These policies were put in place for a reason, they were designed to try and make the community an open one, and carving out exemptions for religious belief or any kind of belief opens the door to a lot of abuse quite frankly. It happens to be that religious groups think they deserve special exemptions, but religious belief is not special in the sense that it is one of many beliefs, and granting it special exemptions should only be done when there is a real threat to rights, which this being a club on a private college doesn’t cut it. The irony of this, of course, is that the biggest threat the religious have faced is from others with religious beliefs, the first amendment wasn’t to protect believers from atheists or ‘secularists’, they didn’t exist when the constitution was written, it was written to protect religious minorities (irony part II: specifically evangelical Christians of the time, Methodists and Presbytyrians) who had been oft brutalized by the dominant Anglican authorities, or the experience of protestants with the Catholic Church in Europe, or the experience of Catholics with protestants, using the government to force their beliefs on others and using it to beat down and suppress those not like them. The rule at the university protects people of all beliefs, the Christian groups there only see their own club,. but they forget it could happen to them, too, what they want to do to others.</p>
I highly recommend taking their test:</p>