My Cato Essays

[George H. Smith]

Thomas Paine Versus Edmund Burke, Part 3

Smith discusses Thomas Erskine’s ideas on libel laws and freedom of the press, and how he incorporated those ideas during his defense of Thomas Paine.

My Cato Essay 126 is now up.

Ghs

[George H. Smith]

Thomas Paine Versus Edmund Burke, Part 4

Smith discusses Thomas Paine’s theory of rights.

My Cato Essay #127 is now up.

Ghs

[Brant Gaede]

You have natural rights and you have government. No matter how much one adduces good and bad to one or the other or even both, the good guys fight for freedom. Some of them might be even found in natural bad-guy land, the government. But if you don't refer to rights don't pretend you are fighting for liberty or freedom. Even the good of the public weal absent that is likely for naught.

--Brant

[George H. Smith]

Thomas Paine Versus Edmund Burke, Part 5

Smith continues his discussion of Thomas Paine’s theory of rights and government.

My Cato Essay #128 is now up.

Ghs

[Brant Gaede]

I don't think a civil society as in Massachusetts back then has to descend into dog-eat-dog anarchy, but that some SOBs or even innocent theorists will come along anyway and make a governemnt that will eventually become a state. Therefore we might posit that the Constitutional Convention was a diasaster and a disaster that would make the Civil War inevitable.

My grandfather, Irving Brant, was criticised, so I was told, for quoting Madison in support of FDR's New Deal in Congressional testimony in the 1930s. This is one of the reasons he wrote his great Madison biography. I couldn't understand how the two could be related that way until rather recently. He also told me in 1960, when I was lookiing at the proofs for volume 6 in Washington, D.C., that Madison needed a good biography in a way no other significant President, who hadn't one already, did.

--Brant

[George H. Smith]

http://www.libertarianism.org/columns/thomas-paine-versus-edmund-burke-part-6'> Thomas Paine Versus Edmund Burke, Part 6

How the libertarian ideas of Richard Price motivated Edmund Burke to write Reflections on the Revolution in France, and how Thomas Paine dealt with the controversy.

My Cato Essay #129 is now up.

Ghs

[George H. Smith]

http://www.libertarianism.org/columns/thomas-paine-versus-edmund-burke-part-6

Thomas Paine Versus Edmund Burke, Part 6

How the libertarian ideas of Richard Price motivated Edmund Burke to write Reflections on the Revolution in France, and how Thomas Paine dealt with the controversy.

My Cato Essay #129 is now up.

Ghs

[BaalChatzaf]

http://www.libertarianism.org/columns/thomas-paine-versus-edmund-burke-part-6

Thomas Paine Versus Edmund Burke, Part 6

How the libertarian ideas of Richard Price motivated Edmund Burke to write Reflections on the Revolution in France, and how Thomas Paine dealt with the controversy.

My Cato Essay #129 is now up.

Ghs

Paine's response to Burke was a think of beauty. He sliced and diced Burke.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[George H. Smith]

Thomas Paine Versus Edmund Burke, Part 7

Smith explains Paine's constitutional theory and why he believed that Britain had no constitution.

My Cato Essay #130 is now up.

(I mention Rand in this piece, if only in passing.)

Ghs

[Brant Gaede]

Considering how widely Paine was read in the colonies, it is simply staggering to compare the real levels of comprehensive and caring intelligence then to now.

--Brant

[Wolf DeVoon]

Considering how widely Paine was read in the colonies, it is simply staggering to compare the real levels of comprehensive and caring intelligence then to now.

--Brant

If Wikipedia is to be believed, Paine had five years of grammar school. Apparently I was over-educated. I had nine.

[Mark]

The multi-volume collected works of Paine -- The Life and Works of Thomas Paine, 10 Volumes, I found it in Pittsburgh's main public library -- features an admiring introduction by Thomas Edison. (I can't remember why but I remember thinking when I read it that it looked like the transcription of a short speech.) He says he had read Paine in his father's library as a boy.

After the American Revolution Paine went to France for a time. At one point he was jailed and sentenced to be executed. A guard went down the corridor chalking an X on the door of each prisoner scheduled for execution that day. At the time another guard happened to be bringing Paine food (or something, I've forgotten) and Paine's door was open, flat against the outer wall. Paine was scheduled for execution and the first mentioned guard dutifully chalked an X on the door. When the time came to bring out those to be shot Paine's door was closed, hiding the X. Before the next round of executions he was released -- I've forgotten the details.

[Brant Gaede]

The multi-volume collected works of Paine -- The Life and Works of Thomas Paine, 10 Volumes, I found it in Pittsburgh's main public library -- features an admiring introduction by Thomas Edison. (I can't remember why but I remember thinking when I read it that it looked like the transcription of a short speech.) He says he had read Paine in his father's library as a boy.

After the American Revolution Paine went to France for a time. At one point he was jailed and sentenced to be executed. A guard went down the corridor chalking an X on the door of each prisoner scheduled for execution that day. At the time another guard happened to be bringing Paine food (or something, I've forgotten) and Paine's door was open, flat against the outer wall. Paine was scheduled for execution and the first mentioned guard dutifully chalked an X on the door. When the time came to bring out those to be shot Paine's door was closed, hiding the X. Before the next round of executions he was released -- I've forgotten the details.

They "shot" them?

Nice story.

--Brant

[George H. Smith]

Considering how widely Paine was read in the colonies, it is simply staggering to compare the real levels of comprehensive and caring intelligence then to now.

--Brant

Good point; the same thing has occurred to me as well. Paine was widely criticized for catering to the "common man" by dumbing down his ideas, and the style of his writing was attacked as crude. Yet a lot of college students would have trouble following him today.

Ghs

[George H. Smith]

The multi-volume collected works of Paine -- The Life and Works of Thomas Paine, 10 Volumes, I found it in Pittsburgh's main public library -- features an admiring introduction by Thomas Edison. (I can't remember why but I remember thinking when I read it that it looked like the transcription of a short speech.) He says he had read Paine in his father's library as a boy.

After the American Revolution Paine went to France for a time. At one point he was jailed and sentenced to be executed. A guard went down the corridor chalking an X on the door of each prisoner scheduled for execution that day. At the time another guard happened to be bringing Paine food (or something, I've forgotten) and Paine's door was open, flat against the outer wall. Paine was scheduled for execution and the first mentioned guard dutifully chalked an X on the door. When the time came to bring out those to be shot Paine's door was closed, hiding the X. Before the next round of executions he was released -- I've forgotten the details.

They "shot" them?

Nice story.

--Brant

Guillotined, not shot. But the rest of Mark's account is accurate, except that the mark was put on the door of Paine's cell the night before his sceduled execution. (The door was open because Paine was desperately sick, indeed unconscious, from an abcess on his side, and his cellmates got permission to keep the door open for air.) I may touch on Paine's narrow escape in a later series, when I discuss Paine's role in the French Revolution.

Ghs

[Wolf DeVoon]

His was a superlative achievement:

"A Constitution is a Thing antecedent to Government, and a Government is only the Creature of a Constitution. The Constitution of a Country is not the act of its Government, but of the People constituting a Government. It is the Body of Elements to which you can refer and quote article by article; and which contains the principles upon which the Government shall be established, the manner in which it shall be organized, the powers it shall have, the Mode of Elections, the Duration of Parliaments, or by what other name such Bodies may be called; the powers which the executive part of the Government shall have; and, in fine, every thing that relates to the compleat organization of a civil government, and the principles upon which it shall act, and by which it shall be bound."

[Mark]

They "shot" them?

I see what you mean. I'd have to check the collected works and I left Pittsburgh long ago. (That’s where I got the story, first hand you might say.)

The guillotine was invented in 1792 and according to Wikipedia Paine was imprisoned December 1793 and released sometime in 1794, so beheading might have been the execution method when the incident occurred.

ADDED: I see GHS has already corrected me. Thanks.

[George H. Smith]

They "shot" them?

I see what you mean. I'd have to check the collected works and I left Pittsburgh long ago. (That’s where I got the story, first hand you might say.)

The guillotine was invented in 1792 and according to Wikipedia Paine was imprisoned December 1793 and released sometime in 1794, so beheading might have been the execution method when the incident occurred.

ADDED: I see GHS has already corrected me. Thanks.

The 4-volume Moncure Conway edition of Paine's works and letters (along with valuable notes by Conway) can be found on the Online Library of Liberty website, an offshoot of Liberty Fund.

http://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/1743

Although some additional items by Paine have been discovered since this edition was published in 1894, they don't amount to much. Conway was the outstanding Paine scholar of his time -- his 2-volume Life of Thomas Paine is excellent, even better than some recent biographies -- so this Paine collection is very reliable.

The story and details of Paine's brush with death came from Paine himself. I don't recall the exact source offhand, but it certainly can be found somewhere in the Conway set.

Ghs

[Brant Gaede]

Considering how widely Paine was read in the colonies, it is simply staggering to compare the real levels of comprehensive and caring intelligence then to now.

--Brant

Good point; the same thing has occurred to me as well. Paine was widely criticized for catering to the "common man" by dumbing down his ideas, and the style of his writing was attacked as crude. Yet a lot of college students would have trouble following him today.

Ghs

I think it's partly a consequence of the terribly destructive nature of public education going back well over 150 years.

--Brant

[Wolf DeVoon]

 

I think it's partly a consequence of the terribly destructive nature of public education going back well over 150 years.

 

--Brant

 

 

Yep. Northwest Ordinance (1785): "There shall be reserved the lot No. 16, of every township, for the maintenance of public schools within the said township." Land Grant College Act (1862) granted each state 30,000 acres for each of its congressional seats to establish state universities with colleges of education. Current enrollment in public elementary and secondary schools: 50 million kids, compared to 5 million in private schools -- of which half are Catholic and another quarter wacko Protestant sects.

 

13 million are enrolled in public colleges and universities, compared to 4 million in private higher ed (again, about 3/4 religion-based). The free market "for profit" post-secondary racket snares 3 million suckers a year to learn hairdressing and IT support, loading them with huge student loans that will never be repaid. The sector is responsible for nearly half of all student loan defaults.

 

Worldwide, we rank slightly below mediocre in math. Socialist Sweden, France, New Zealand and Oz are slipping fast.

 

We're too busy with other shit to worry about math, I guess.

BELLINGHAM, Wash. -- A Bellingham High School drama teacher has issued a formal apology after her awards ceremony devolved into an evening of profanity, jokes about a priest having sex with kids, and a box of sex toys.

[George H. Smith]

Thomas Paine Versus Edmund Burke, Part 8

Smith explains Burke’s argument against majority rule and a constitution based on the consent of the governed.

My Cato Essay #131 is now up.

Ghs

[Brant Gaede]

I think the issue of consent is bogus as even with the American Revolution and its aftermath the government was never absent though sometimes in abeyance--that is, throwing off English sovereignty was not putting the colonies into a state of anarchy. The French Revolution was as close to a major country self-ripping out most governance and putting in a new one as one might see in the historical record and completely vulnerable to Burke's critique.

Consent is when you don't rebel--that is, object to the state of the state. Rebellion has no lack of moral legitimacy unless it is in the form of literal warfare, then to be questioned and justified.

Governments just are. On the practical level that's where one starts. The best theory assumes perfection, but also assumes never ending lack of perfection realized. That's why limited government theory is superior to any anarchial theory, for in neither case, except perhaps in very small cases, can you get there from here, but the anarchists don't believe it or simply prefer the seemingly moral superiority of their unrealizeable system which lives in their heads. Ayn Rand's mistake was never realizing or acknowledging this. She too indicated her system was obtainable. This may be reflective of her perfect man complimentary mistake and poor understanding of what free will also does to "perfect" in human endeavor and institutions: macerates it.

You deserve the government you do not object to, fight or rebel against--that is, you consent to it. Literal warfare is just the last, most difficult and morally problematic course--the use of force. There is a good/bad ratio in government both in itself and respecting the current existential (anti-freedom) state of affairs it must deal with to protect the citizenry. No matter how small the "bad" part of the ratio, there will always be some bad there. As for "good"? That can be completely wiped out. It's in the near-historical record.

--Brant

[Samson Corwell]

From Thomas Paine Versus Edmund Burke, Part 8

Burke maintained that those philosophers who begin with natural rights in a state of nature are forever doomed, theoretically speaking, to remain in that anarchistic condition, because the requirement of unanimous consent has never, and will never, be met.

Ironically perhaps, Burkes argument bears an uncanny resemblance to the argument later presented by Lysander Spooner in No Treason: The Constitution of No Authority. But whereas Burke invoked the radical implications of consent theory as a reason to reject the theory, Spooner embraced both the theory and its radical implications. But that is a topic for another discussion.

As near and dear to my heart consent of the governed is, I believe that I might need to side with Burke in the end. Whatever government is in place has a duty to do its duty, like putting the kibosh on local ochlocrats (try to say that five times fast) and maintaining order. However, I still do think governments should be afraid of their people. It would seem to me that Hobbes' non-propertied state of nature is more accurate than Locke's propertied one, too.

George, what do you think the ramifications of applying the principle of consent of the governed to an ancap community might be? I ask this because I've seen proposed communities that strike me as very, um, unfree (HHH's despotic mafia state comes to mind).

Edited June 16, 2014 by Samson Corwell

[Wolf DeVoon]

George, what do you think the ramifications of apply consent of the governed to ancap community might be?

The question interests me as well. And Hoppe be damned.

[George H. Smith]

Thomas Paine Versus Edmund Burke, Part 9

Smith explains some of Paine’s ideas about the nature of a republic and the benefits of a representative form of government.

My Cato Essay #132 is now up.

Ghs