re: "Above the Fray" libertarians who white knight for everything Biden...

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I've ... been in conversations with Republicans and other libertarians where any criticism of a (R) means immediate banishment to the world of RINOs or Never-Trumpers.

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Good News!

That NEVER happens here.

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I believe that all just laws are based in natural law

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And I believe that just laws are based upon the non-aggression principle.

If your actions violate the rights of others, it is legitimate to restrict or punish those actions.

If your actions do not violate the rights of anyone else, there is ZERO justification for limiting or punishing those actions, even if those actions would have violated the cultural taboos of Bronze Age nomadic goatherds.

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If your actions violate the rights of others, it is legitimate to restrict or punish those actions.

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The problem is the way you pick and choose whether others rights have been violated. You guys don’t like traffic enforcement, but if it wasn’t being done how many more would be maimed or killed by idiots who think they are Richard Petty?

You guys don’t like drug laws, but completely ignore or discount the rights of the children of drug addled/addicted parents.

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There's no such thing as "natural law". Laws are based on the ideas of men.

Now I personally believe there's such a thing as divine law from a creator, and hopefully we base our principles on those, but at the practical level there are just men and our opinions.

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Natural Law is simply another term for our inalienable rights. Natural law — i. e. our God-bestowed inalienable rights — is the basis for all human freedom throughout history and cultures:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness....”

“The Tao, which others may call Natural Law or Traditional Morality or the First Principles of Practical Reason or the First Platitudes, is not one among a series of possible systems of value. It is the sole source of all value judgments. If it is rejected, all value is rejected. If any value is retained, it is retained. The effort to refute it and raise a new system of value in its place is self-contradictory. There has never been, and never will be, a radically new judgment of value in the history of the world. What purports to be new systems or ideologies all consist of fragments from the Tao itself, arbitrarily wrenched from their context in the whole and then swollen to madness in their isolation, yet still owing to the Tao and to it alone such validity as they posses.” C.S. Lewis: The Abolition of Man.

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You guys don’t like drug laws, but completely ignore or discount the rights of the children of drug addled/addicted parents.

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Any parent that neglects or abuses their children or commits a transgression against another person while under the influence of drugs is necessarily violating the rights of another. Yet drug intoxication in and of itself does not necessarily violate the natural rights of others.

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You guys don’t like traffic enforcement, but if it wasn’t being done how many more would be maimed or killed by idiots who think they are Richard Petty?

You guys don’t like drug laws, but completely ignore or discount the rights of the children of drug addled/addicted parents.

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This point is basically a conflict in ideas about what "law" is designed to do.

Is it designed to maximize freedom but punish a violation of the rights of others, with the consequence of discouraging actions which are likely to give rise to such a violation?

Or is it designed to "protect" members of society from all potential violations of their rights?

DWI laws are the perfect example of this dichotomy. A drunk driver is NOT (standing alone) violating any rights until he hits something with his car and causes personal injury or property damage. The law can either (i) punish him after he causes that damage OR (ii) protect members of the society from ever having to worry about potential injury or damage.

"Open Container" laws are even worse. "The law" had decided to "protect" by punishing people who are not yet even at any significant risk of violating the rights of any other person. Instead, "the law" punishes EVERYONE because SOME of them MIGHT drink to the point of intoxication.

In any case, if you ascribe to the second theory, the laws you mention are indeed justifiable under your ideology. But that IS a "less free" society, by any definition.

As with most things, a workable system probably lies somewhere between those two antipodes.

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Laws are based on the ideas of men.

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And where did those ideas come from?
Murder is against the laws of man.
Murder occurred before laws did.
Nature said the punishment for killing my kid is I crack your skull open with a club.

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Is it designed to maximize freedom but punish a violation of the rights of others, with the consequence of discouraging actions which are likely to give rise to such a violation?

Or is it designed to "protect" members of society from all potential violations of their rights?

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Who ever said it was an either/or proposition? It can, and is both, and always has been. If I conspire to murder you, but never do it, then I haven't violated your rights in any way, have I? But to protect the public, those who do such things are charged and convicted, right?

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Who ever said it was an either/or proposition? It can, and is both, and always has been.

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As I said, a workable system lies somewhere between the antipodes.

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Natural Law is simply another term for our inalienable rights.

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I understand the concept for them exists, but they aren't recorded somewhere in an objective form. If you want laws, you want your preferences (or values or morality or whatever you want to call it) forced on others who may disagree with you. That's how all civilizations function.

Now I agree with Lewis that a creator is the only logical source of an objective set of values (and for me that's the Christian God), but I can't prove that a creator exists and even if I could I can't prove what the creator's values are. I can provide all sorts of evidence, but not concrete proof like we're accustomed to with the scientific method. So at the working level, here on earth, all we have are man's opinion.