Anarcho-capitalism VS Objectivism


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If it's Constitutionalism you want, kindly point to a span of more than a few years when government men were held in check by a mere scrap of paper.

FF:

"...a few..." - some hard number please.

Pick any number between two and two hundred. But by saying a "few years" and not "a generation," I've lowered the bar for finding that Holy Grail, the unsullied, still virginal constitution.

"...government men were held in check..." from what? Ordering a cheeseburger? [that is still legal in this country right?]

A...

By all means use cheeseburgers if you wish, provided that you can find a constitution that prohibited its government from ordering them.

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Pick any number between two and two hundred.

How about 39 years? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lochner_era

Allgeyer v. Louisiana, 165 U.S. 578 (1897)

Lochner v. New York, 198 U.S. 45 (1905)

Adair v. United States, 208 U.S. 161 (1908)

Hammer v. Dagenhart, 247 U.S. 251 (1918)

Railroad Retirement Board v. Alton Railroad Co., 295 U.S. 330 (1935)

Schechter Poultry Corp. v. United States, 295 U.S. 495 (1935)

Carter v. Carter Coal Co., 298 U.S. 238 (1936)

United States v. Butler, 297 U.S. 1 (1936)

The Lochner era would have continued, but FDR threatened to "pack the Court" by increasing the number of Justices to 15. Chief Justice Hughes and Justice Roberts suddenly became supportive of New Deal legislation. The Court upheld minimum wage laws in West Coast Hotel Co. v. Parrish (1937) and Social Security Act in Helvering v. Davis (1937) -- by abdicating and renouncing judicial review:

"When money is spent to promote the general welfare, the concept of welfare or the opposite is shaped by Congress" (Helvering)

Bowing to FDR became known as The stitch in time that saved nine.

nd8.jpg

p.s. - There is no legislative power to promote the general welfare in Art. I of the Constitution. A preamble is not an extra grant of power. Jacobson v. Massachusetts (1905): “Although the Preamble indicates the general purposes for which the people ordained and established the Constitution, it has never been regarded as the source of any substantive power conferred on the Government of the United States or on any of its Departments” -- that is, until 1937 when the Court shot itself in the head. In United States v. Carolene Products Co. (1938) the Court held that the constitutional authority of state and federal legislatures over economic matters is plenary, and laws passed to regulate business, mining, farming, and labor are entitled to a presumption of constitutionality. That's how we got saddled with OSHA and EPA. Obamacare was a slam dunk. It promotes the general welfare by emptying my wallet to pay for someone else's food, clothing, shelter, obesity, drug habit, indolence, emergency care, disability, and chronic illnesses. Me looking after myself does not promote 'our' welfare.

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Wolf wrote:

To be outlawed for contempt is a heavy punishment. Stripped of the protection of law, an outlaw has no right to life or liberty, innocent or otherwise. His bankers can empty an outlawed account, his friends and associates are forced to think twice about entering into or continuing to honor what are now illegal, unenforceable agreements with an outlaw, and his personal safety is put in jeopardy, since an outlaw may be detained or harmed by any law-abiding person with impunity.

end quote

George H. Smith once wrote:

Imagine if all humans were physically connected by some kind of umbilical cord, such that people could not move around independently, consume something without it affecting other people, etc. The notion of individual rights, as we now understand that concept, could not be justified in this scenario. Why? Simply because we would not be dealing with physically discrete entities known as "individuals" at all. Rather, the human species would constitute a type of single organism in which harmful actions by one part would adversely affect other parts.

end quote

I first want to say I say that I appreciate Wolfs sincerity, creativity and chutzpah, but sorry Wolf, your new Constitution truly sounds like exile from the Dark Ages, which requires an ant army mentality. The Queen says off with their heads and every cartoon of a human being obeys instantly and without question. You later mention a right of appeal but . . . no thanks. I will attempt to tweak the U.S. Constitution.

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Adam wrote:

However, you need to not refer to the Article V process as a Constitutional convention, it is a Convention of the States to ratify specific proposed Amendments to the founding document.

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Of course you are right but I doubt if I will remember the precise wording.

I like simple solutions for a Constitutional Fix like the Repeal Amendment. Jamie Radtke (a former Senatorial Tea Party and hopeful, Republican candidate from Virginia said):

The Repeal Amendment is a proposed amendment to the US Constitution designed to restore the balance of power between the federal and state governments that our Founders originally envisioned. The amendment states that any law, rule, regulation, or tax passed by Congress can be repealed upon a vote of two-thirds of state legislatures. This does not give absolute power to the statesbut with repeal power, the states could check the current absolute power of the federal government and force Congress to take a second look at unwise legislation.

end quote

What say you? I have yet to read Mark Levins book but someday I plan to do so.

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Wolf answered my negative review of his Articles:

Sometimes I wonder if people can read.

end quote

That is a measured and reasonable response. I will reread your paper.

How does your thinking jibe with that of Rational Anarchism? George H. Smith once wrote:

As I have said before, if Dennis concedes that a Randian government will and must initiate force to maintain its monopoly, then this debate is over. The anarchists have won, because this has always been their key claim.

end quote

Do you not see that your outlaw scenario is the initiation of force to the dissenters who think they are right?

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Wolf answered my negative review of his Articles:

Sometimes I wonder if people can read.

end quote

That is a measured and reasonable response. I will reread your paper.

How does your thinking jibe with that of Rational Anarchism? George H. Smith once wrote:

As I have said before, if Dennis concedes that a Randian government will and must initiate force to maintain its monopoly, then this debate is over. The anarchists have won, because this has always been their key claim.

end quote

Do you not see that your outlaw scenario is the initiation of force to the dissenters who think they are right?

 

You forgot to read the rest of the Comment you quoted in post #53

 

"...There is no greater punishment that public justice allows, than a sentence of outlaw. For this reason, the courts of first instance are not permitted to impose such a punishment without appointing counsel to represent the person accused of contempt, for the purpose of appeal. The presumption of innocence is integral to due process, and the punishment for contempt amounts to a bill of attainder. Appellate judges are not likely to affirm a sentence of exile and outlaw, unless the evidence of contempt is overwhelming and the entire record of the trial court case shows that the accused fled prosecution for felony and the complainant had sufficient evidence and sworn testimony to obtain a grand jury indictment."

 

A comment is not substantive law, nor a judgment in case law, nor an appellate decision. Article I of the Freeman's Constitution provides in relevant part: "Any natural person ... may petition the courts and enjoy the full protection of due process of law, including appellate review and petition for writ of certiorari in the Supreme Court as a matter of natural right."

 

If someone flees prosecution, refuses to appear in court, or refuses to obey a lawful order, what do you suggest?

 

(see action at ~10:00 in North Hollywood video)

 

 

On the larger question of "initiation of force" please consider the difference between ethics and law:

 

The philosophy of law is a separate branch of science, independent of ethics. Moral inquiry pertains specifically to the interests, powers, and dilemmas of an individual, epitomized by the question: "What shall I do?" Legal philosophy addresses impersonal administration of public justice, litigation among parties in dispute, the combined might of a community, and custodial guardianship of certain individuals who are unable or legally prohibited to conduct their own affairs.

 

[Freeman's Constitution, Preamble, COGIGG p.121]

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Francisco wrote:

So it is logical to advocate only political systems that we can point to historically? Then where in history do you point, Mr. Taylor, when you wish to suggest something other than the status quo? . . . If it's Constitutionalism you want, kindly point to a span of more than a few years when government men were held in check by a mere scrap of paper.

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There have been documents throughout history advocating freedom, and since 1776 you have been even more legally and emphatically able to write your dissenting opinions. Only the initiation of force is frowned upon with an iron Constitutional lip. (Iron fist, iron lip. ARRGH) After that initial agreement to establish a Government, would implied consent be moral for all those living here freely? Most emphatically yes!

Francisco, I remember George H. Smith in his book The System of Liberty, touches upon the questions of is our government being held in check and when is rebellion moral?

Notes from: "Philip Coates"

To: "owl"

Subject: OWL: Secession is Contextual

Date: Fri, 19 Apr 2002 15:20:42 -0700

Subject: Secession is Contextual

Larry Sechrest (4/19) asks: "By what principle does one restrict secession so that any given individual cannot secede from ALL governments?"

If an individual (or a town or a "block association" or a group of people) can have the unrestricted right to "secede", then it means he / it is not subject to the jurisdiction of the surrounding government.

This means that the police cannot interrogate him, bring him to justice for crimes, or enforce its laws against him. (And it says nothing about whether or not he has his own police.)

But, if this is an unrestricted right valid in any context, this means that any lone criminal can deflect retaliation simply by suddenly "seceding". Or suppose the mafia takes over a block or a town using force or by buying up enough property that it controls a majority of the votes in, say, Atlantic City?

This means secession can become a clever mechanism to allow the initiation of force (or, less cynically and more idealistically, suppose a religious organization wants to prevent its members from leaving and constitutes the majority in, say, Amish country and does not to wish to have its use of force against its members interfered with by the state government).

In all three of these concrete cases (Example One--the lone criminal; Example Two--the criminal majority; Example Three--the idealistic cult or movement which does not believe in the absolutism of individual rights), "secession" allows the initiation of force or the violation of rights by protecting it from retaliation.

So, to answer Larry's question, there are two principles (at least) which restrict secession [i say 'restrict' because I don't wish to suggest that _all_ secession is illegitimate...or to try to define in a short post where the boundaries are -- I'm merely suggesting that secession is a contextual issue, not an absolute right]:

1. Burden of proof or validation. Before one can ask someone to defend the 'restriction' of a right, one must first prove the right exists.

2. Rights must not be multiplied beyond necessity. There are only a few rights which apply universally and in every situation and context in libertarian and objectivist theory.

"Secession" is an argument often used by anarcho-capitalists to (try to) trap Oists and limited government advocates in an (alleged) contradiction and thereby force them to renounce limited government:

a) they construct a scenario in which secession is actually legitimate: A country has become a dictatorship or just relatively unfree and a province wants to break away in order to have greater (not less) freedom and in fact has written documents signifying that inclination...such as, the American colonies vs. Britain. Plus the difference in rights is measurable. Plus the country being seceded from is unwilling to grant the rights. Plus the geography and size issues are such that the secession is practical and a legitimate legal entity can indeed be formed.

b) they then claim that, you see, secession is a valid principle _in general_.

c) once the respondent has said, yes, that makes sense, they then extend it to contexts in which it's not valid...why can't an individual secede (after all you've accepted the principle)?

d) if you accept that, anarchism (and not merely anarcho-capitalism, but _any rules which the seceding parties choose to set up_) immediately follows....if an individual can secede than surely the members of a competing protective association, or competing government can.

The basic error is epistemological:

the failure to detect a floating abstraction you are being asked to accept. The only way to protect yourself from this fallacious reasoning is to think in very real world terms, to concretize. When someone says "You would agree with secession wouldn't you?", you should answer: "It depends. Let's get real and specific, please. Let's sit down and meticulously specify the exact who-what-when- where and . . . most importantly . . . _how_ and _why_ of the secession you are proposing."

--Philip Coates

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Wolf asked:

If someone flees prosecution, refuses to appear in court, or refuses to obey a court order, what do you suggest?

end quote

An All Points Bulletin or the newer admonition to Be On The Lookout For? I will try to refrain from any more correspondence until I have read more from your alternate universe : - ) I still have not figured out just how radical you are. Rebellion? Replacement? Amendment?

It’s 83 degrees on a Saturday and time to jog. I only mention it so you won’t think I do not sufficiently appreciate your innovative ideas by not answering in a quicker fashion.

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"Let's sit down and meticulously specify the exact who-what-when-where ... of the secession you are proposing." (Philip Coates)

ARTICLE V

THE RIGHT TO REVOLUTION

When otherwise law abiding and peaceful freemen are imperiled as a class by force of arms, or arrest and imprisonment, or conscription, or surveillance, or involuntary taxation levied by a state or legislature in denial and derogation of innocent liberty, such acts of terrorism and oppression shall be interpreted as a campaign of war against humanity, and every natural person or group acting in concert possesses the legal right and duty to throw off such tyranny and to resist its evil by prudent and vigorous self-defense, including but not limited to flight, armed rebellion, sabotage, and use of disguise to avoid capture...

COMMENTS ON ARTICLE V

A state of revolutionary war exists at the time of this writing and shall likely continue during the indefinite future, until the United States of America ceases to assert its "sovereign power" over free men and women, whose right to innocent liberty admits of no limitation by legislatures, territorial states, or previous condition of citizenship.

[Freeman's Constitution, COGIGG p. 129]

related comments: Associations, partnerships, corporations, trusts, states, and other fictional legal persons have no intrinsic right to life or liberty. The fundamental legal character of all such entities is that of shared or managed property, title to which is in dispute. Fictional legal persons cannot prosecute crime, other than misdemeanor trespass or burglary. Laissez faire law does not recognize the "sovereign power" of a state to levy taxes, issue passports, coin money, or regulate banking or commerce. [ibid, p. 127]

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Francisco wrote:

So it is logical to advocate only political systems that we can point to historically? Then where in history do you point, Mr. Taylor, when you wish to suggest something other than the status quo? . . . If it's Constitutionalism you want, kindly point to a span of more than a few years when government men were held in check by a mere scrap of paper.

end quote

There have been documents throughout history advocating freedom, and since 1776 you have been even more legally and emphatically able to write your dissenting opinions. Only the initiation of force is frowned upon with an iron Constitutional lip. (Iron fist, iron lip. ARRGH) After that initial agreement to establish a Government, would implied consent be moral for all those living here freely? Most emphatically yes!

I understood that your complaint against anarchism was that it "has no *history.*" You wrote in Post #44, "The basic problem with anarchism as a valid political or scientific theory is that it has not fulfilled the requirement that you can point to it. You cant even point to a successful experimental model like a commune that I know of."

Accordingly, I assumed that you would require the same "point to it" standard for your own pet theory, Constitutionalism, and asked you for an example of a successful instance of it.

Yet the best you can come up with is the government that followed the Revolution of 1776? Seriously?

"Constitutionalism" is "adherence to a system of constitutional government." But there has been no adherence of the U.S. government to its founding document--not even under its first president, who suppressed an insurrection without the approval of Congress, to which such power is exclusively delegated.

The Congress shall have Power To ...provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions....

Article I, Section 8, Clause 15

Thus your example fails to meet your own criterion for taking a political theory seriously. "You can't even point to a successful experimental model."

The implied consent theory has been trashed frequently over the decades by better minds than mine, starting with Lysander Spooner. So quickly: Some men at the time of the nation's founding agreed to the establishment of government. Their consent is only binding upon themselves. They had no authority to bind third parties, including present day neighbors or future generations without their explicit consent.

It is particularly odious for Implied Consenters to employ their theory in the defense of a government that has engaged in regular and wide-scale predations on individual rights. Raise your hands for the Fugitive Slave Clause. Or military conscription. Or the federal income tax.

If we embraced implied consent, we'd have to insist that Obamacare is no violation of our rights. Living here implies consent to have our medical care socialized, right?

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Some men at the time of the nation's founding agreed to the establishment of government.

To put things in perspective, please consider that among the 3,317,000 people in the newly-organized United States of America, less than 20% could vote. Slightly more than half of these voters had consented to the new form of government. A total of 142 electors were chosen to represent "the people" during the first presidential election. George Washington was selected by 69 of them. [Laissez Faire Law, p.18]

Every Fourth of July, my fellow countrymen celebrate the mistaken notion that the United States was conceived in liberty. This reveals how little our constitutional history is studied. The U.S. Constitution was not conceived at all — it was a bastard product of compromise ... winning ratification by a slim margin among the 20 percent of colonial population who were eligible to vote for assemblies of state politicians who narrowly approved it: Pennsylvania 46-23, Virginia 89-79, New York 30-27. [COGIGG, p.122]

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Some men at the time of the nation's founding agreed to the establishment of government.

To put things in perspective, please consider that among the 3,317,000 people in the newly-organized United States of America, less than 20% could vote. Slightly more than half of these voters had consented to the new form of government. A total of 142 electors were chosen to represent "the people" during the first presidential election. George Washington was selected by 69 of them. [Laissez Faire Law, p.18]

Every Fourth of July, my fellow countrymen celebrate the mistaken notion that the United States was conceived in liberty. This reveals how little our constitutional history is studied. The U.S. Constitution was not conceived at all — it was a bastard product of compromise ... winning ratification by a slim margin among the 20 percent of colonial population who were eligible to vote for assemblies of state politicians who narrowly approved it: Pennsylvania 46-23, Virginia 89-79, New York 30-27. [COGIGG, p.122]

An accidental confluence of bastard ideas that produced unimaginable wealth, economic and scientific and technological progress to the point where people seriously talk about the near future when all the material wants of all people are a given and work of any kind is totally voluntary. This with a flawed constitution which produced for a few decades an environment of freedom that did not discourage individual initiative or take away the rewards of hard work. The fact that a very small fraction of people understand how or why this worked or could predict it before hand is not surprising given the fact that today the entire population of the world takes for granted technology that a very tiny fraction even pretends, or cares, to understand how it works.

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Some men at the time of the nation's founding agreed to the establishment of government.

To put things in perspective, please consider that among the 3,317,000 people in the newly-organized United States of America, less than 20% could vote. Slightly more than half of these voters had consented to the new form of government. A total of 142 electors were chosen to represent "the people" during the first presidential election. George Washington was selected by 69 of them. [Laissez Faire Law, p.18]

Every Fourth of July, my fellow countrymen celebrate the mistaken notion that the United States was conceived in liberty. This reveals how little our constitutional history is studied. The U.S. Constitution was not conceived at all — it was a bastard product of compromise ... winning ratification by a slim margin among the 20 percent of colonial population who were eligible to vote for assemblies of state politicians who narrowly approved it: Pennsylvania 46-23, Virginia 89-79, New York 30-27. [COGIGG, p.122]

An accidental confluence of bastard ideas that produced unimaginable wealth, economic and scientific and technological progress to the point where people seriously talk about the near future when all the material wants of all people are a given and work of any kind is totally voluntary. This with a flawed constitution which produced for a few decades an environment of freedom that did not discourage individual initiative or take away the rewards of hard work. The fact that a very small fraction of people understand how or why this worked or could predict it before hand is not surprising given the fact that today the entire population of the world takes for granted technology that a very tiny fraction even pretends, or cares, to understand how it works.

Let's keep things in context. The compromise of 1787 resulted in Civil War and 15 new amendments. World War II explains the rest.

"Contrary to textbook U.S. history, the crucial factor that saved us during World War I and II was geography. Americans were neither heroic nor blessed by advanced technology. Our industrial potential had been hobbled with senseless regulation, taxes, trade unions, and macro-economic mismanagement. We were only marginally stronger than Germany at the commencement of World War II and, hence, no one in the United States believed that we could fight and win a global conflict, without England at our back and France in the vanguard. Both of those allies were crushed in 1941. The only thing that kept the United States from suffering a similar fate was distance -- the great oceans of the Atlantic and the Pacific -- which gave Franklin Roosevelt ample time to expropriate every factory and to enslave every American worker for the purpose of warfare. It was the wholesale sacrifice of U.S. private property and civil liberty that made us a military-industrial imperial power, able to project mechanized force across the great oceans. Our opponents were stretched thin, unable to counterattack on American soil. And so, at the end of World War II, only one industrialized nation remained intact and unharmed. Geography and curtailment of liberty transformed the U.S. into a superpower." [Laissez Faire Law, pp. 84-85]

Computers, the internet, cheap funding -- all of it was initiated and guided by government for government.

Uncle Sam and the Computer Revolution http://www.atariarchives.org/deli/uncle_sam.php

Federal spending on software totaled $25 billion by 1977 http://books.google.com/books?id=Tu-35olCjcEC&pg=PA3&lpg=PA3&dq=government+spending+on+computers+and+software&source=bl&ots=vMISuqjco2&sig=5QLPkkq6xWsDMcVaHfJ_CrUVDqA&hl=en&sa=X&ei=XpHmU7rWGuml8QGr5oHgDQ&ved=0CDQQ6AEwBDgK#v=onepage&q=government%20spending%20on%20computers%20and%20software&f=false

Federal spending on IT is now $80 billion per year http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/09/de-dupe-time-gao-finds-321-million-in-redundant-government-it-spending/

ARPANET and government agencies http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Internet#From_ARPANET_to_NSFNET

Defense Information Systems Network http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_Information_Systems_Network

-- other DOD information technology http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:United_States_Department_of_Defense_information_technology

NSA internet surveillance system http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/11/nsa-internet-surveillance-email

NSA domestic spying program https://www.eff.org/nsa-spying/how-it-works

NSA mines Facebook profiles http://www.cnn.com/2013/09/30/us/nsa-social-networks/

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"..and to enslave every American worker for the purpose of warfare."

My aunt and uncle were certainly not slaves. When my uncle was rejected by the army after trying to enlist the day after Pearl Harbor he took his wife from Idaho to the shipyards in Richmond California and they both spent the war welding, making ships. People were strongly motivated to win the war, strongly motivated people are not slaves. You illustrate what I think is very wrong about much libertarian, anarchist, objectivist literature, you show contempt for people and misrepresent their motives and denigrate their intelligence. Big mistake. How many generations of gaining zero traction will it take?

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"..and to enslave every American worker for the purpose of warfare."

My aunt and uncle were certainly not slaves. When my uncle was rejected by the army after trying to enlist the day after Pearl Harbor he took his wife from Idaho to the shipyards in Richmond California and they both spent the war welding, making ships. People were strongly motivated to win the war, strongly motivated people are not slaves. You illustrate what I think is very wrong about much libertarian, anarchist, objectivist literature, you show contempt for people and misrepresent their motives and denigrate their intelligence. Big mistake. How many generations of gaining zero traction will it take?

That's the way they tell it now, no mention of rationing, constant bombardment by propaganda on radio and in movie theaters.

"Starting at 45 percent of GDP in 1941 federal debt zoomed, reaching almost 119 percent of GDP in 1946 after the end of the war,

with state and local debt adding another 7 percent." http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/debt_deficit_history

Let's move on to today. Maximum internet surveillance in Russia, China, India, KSA, Iran, Sudan ... and USA.

600px-Internet_Censorship_World_Map.svg. Yeah, you're right, who cares?

chart-debt.jpgHuh? - are we at war with Germany again?

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"That's the way they tell it now," They're long dead. "...no mention of rationing," Yes, they had souvenirs from the war, including zinc pennies. "...constant bombardment by propaganda on radio and in movie theaters." You can still find the news movie clips about the war, call it propaganda if you like.

"Let's move on..." Yeah, sure.

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As I have quoted before here is a reminder from The Ayn Rand Lexicon of the Fallacy of the Stolen Concept:

The stolen concept fallacy, first identified by Ayn Rand, is the fallacy of using a concept while denying the validity of its genetic roots, i.e., of an earlier concept(s) on which it logically depends.

end quote

Francisco wrote:

If we embraced implied consent, we'd have to insist that Obamacare is no violation of our rights. Living here implies consent to have our medical care socialized, right?

end quote

No. Implied Consent merely means that a citizen lives by his nations laws, but is free to try and change all laws that infringe on individual rights. I protest socialized medicine as do you. Yet our current freedom in the United States is what our freely given protests logically presume. Ayn Rand moved to America and did not immigrate to a more free land, nor did she return to The Soviet Union when she understood the challenge of changing America. She never demanded perfection in Government except theoretically as an ideal. She accepted Social Security and Medicare, paid her taxes, and believed in voluntary taxation as the end game of a free society. She gave her consent to be governed by immigrating here. And all citizens give their consent by remaining and not joining an armed rebellion.

Rand was a patriot but she continuously advocated a stricter interpretation of the US Constitution. Rand used her freedom of speech to protest all encroachments on her individual liberties. To reiterate, you cannot ignore the freedom you have. You cannot protest your lack of freedom unless you are free to protest, which you ARE OBVIOUSLY DOING because I can hear you. (joke you write loud.)

As Thomas Paine wrote in Common Sense, The cause of America is in a great measure the cause of all mankind.

end quote

I wish you well, Francisco. Never stop protesting.

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Wolf quoted The Freeman's Constitution:

A state of revolutionary war exists at the time of this writing.

end quote

Hold your horses, Wolf. No revolution exists. The time that our Constitution has existed without revolution proves my claim. Nor am I attempting a philosophical cop out as illustrated below.

Thomas Paine in Common Sense wrote:

Perhaps the sentiments contained in the following pages, are not YET sufficiently fashionable to procure them general favour; a long habit of not thinking a thing WRONG, gives it a superficial appearance of being RIGHT, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defense of custom. But the tumult soon subsides. Time makes more converts than reason.

end quote

They may not apply to you, and it does not apply to me. Constitutional longevity without an armed revolt simply proves that it is doing something right. And if your supposed weapons of war are rhetoric then WE are not in a war or a revolution. Furthermore, a benign dictatorship tends to ignore its citizens who criticize it until they become a threat. If The United States were a dictatorship and some Sovereign Citizens were currently revolting they would not be broadcasting that news for fear that the government would in some way further decrease their freedom of action. Yet you are very loudly declaring you are in revolt. Bah. Humbug. Am I wrong? Are you speaking loudly and carrying a little or nonexistent stick?

Every time I start to read some of your Freeman's Constitution I stop with a feeling of revulsion. I went to the Veterans Administration out clinic for my six month physical yesterday. There, I saw some real warriors, some in pretty bad shape, who had fought for our freedom. Burns. Limps. Wheel chairs. No, Wolf, the revolution has not been declared. Citizens are arming themselves to protect America.

As you seem to be doing at times, what I like to see from you are side by side comparisons of portions of the U.S. Constitution and how you would change it to more securely protect individual rights. For example the Ninth Amendment states:

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

end quote

I dont care to read a faux Constitution. I want the one we currently have to be tinkered with. Randy Barnett attempts a re-write of the Ninth without throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

Introduction: Implementing the Ninth Amendment, by Randy E. Barnett:

Implementing the ninth amendment challenges us to protect unen-umerated rights without determining a final list of such rights and without lending credence to illegitimate claims of right. This challenge has proved too much for most judges and constitutional scholars. Even for those who have the will to implement the ninth amendment, there seems to be no practical way. But there is.

As long as they do not violate the rights of others (as defined by the common law of property, contract and tort), persons can be presumed to be "immune" from interference by government. Such a presumption means that citizens may challenge any government action that restricts their otherwise rightful conduct, and the burden is on the government to show that its action is within its proper powers or scope. At the national level, the government would bear the burden of showing that its acts were both "necessary and proper" to accomplish an enumerated function, rather than, as now, forcing the citizen to prove why it is he or she should be left alone. At the state level, the burden would fall upon state government to show that legislation infringing the liberty of its citizens was a necessary exercise of its "police power"that is, the state's power to protect the rights of its citizens.

end quote

How would Wolf DeVoon, whos stated interest is constitutional law, change the Ninth Amendment?

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As I have quoted before here is a reminder from The Ayn Rand Lexicon of the Fallacy of the Stolen Concept:

The stolen concept fallacy, first identified by Ayn Rand, is the fallacy of using a concept while denying the validity of its genetic roots, i.e., of an earlier concept(s) on which it logically depends.

end quote

Francisco wrote:

If we embraced implied consent, we'd have to insist that Obamacare is no violation of our rights. Living here implies consent to have our medical care socialized, right?

end quote

No. Implied Consent merely means that a citizen lives by his nations laws, but is free to try and change all laws that infringe on individual rights. I protest socialized medicine as do you. Yet our current freedom in the United States is what our freely given protests logically presume. Ayn Rand moved to America and did not immigrate to a more free land, nor did she return to The Soviet Union when she understood the challenge of changing America. She never demanded perfection in Government except theoretically as an ideal. She accepted Social Security and Medicare, paid her taxes, and believed in voluntary taxation as the end game of a free society. She gave her consent to be governed by immigrating here. And all citizens give their consent by remaining and not joining an armed rebellion.

Let us suppose the following:

1. Citizen A lives by Country X's laws.

2. Citizen A is free to free to try and change all laws in Country X that infringe on A's individual rights.

If both 1. and 2, are true, how do we reach your conclusion that "After that initial agreement to establish a Government, would implied consent be moral for all those living here freely? Most emphatically yes!"?

Citizen A's living by the laws may merely imply he does not wish to spend any portion of his life in jail. Citizen A's attempts to change the laws through legal channels may merely be an admission that at present violent actions to overthrow the government are suicidal.

In short, avoiding arrest and death by government bullets implies no degree of consent at all--only common sense.

"Yet our current freedom in the United States is what our freely given protests logically presume."

Presuming we are free to protest is hardly the same thing as presuming that the government in power is legitimate or has rightful authority over us.

"And all citizens give their consent by remaining and not joining an armed rebellion."

By that logic the only people who are actually being robbed by Obamacare are those that are engaging in an armed rebellion. The rest of us (by not picking up a rifle and heading for the hills) have surrendered our inalienable rights to private care.

The conclusion must be that socialists in Washington have a moral right to our lives and our fortunes.

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Wolf quoted The Freeman's Constitution:

A state of revolutionary war exists at the time of this writing.

end quote

Hold your horses, Wolf. No revolution exists...

 

It did 15 years ago. The Freeman's Constitution was written to address problems that had arisen back then. Its provisions endure.

 

 

How would Wolf DeVoon, whose stated interest is constitutional law, change the Ninth Amendment?

 

I wouldn't. Barnett and Levin are chasing a pipedream. The US Constitution has no fixed meaning

per Justice Sotomayor (CBS 60 Minutes clip) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHvgiEWH6A4

 

see also

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Living_Constitution#Applying_a_living_constitution

http://www.heritage.org/initiatives/rule-of-law/judicial-activism/cases/griswold-v-connecticut

 

For those who are interested in US constitutional law, here's a debate between Justices Breyer and Scalia. They begin

discussing laws enacted by Congress, but quickly move on to the idea of a "living constitution" and sparks start to fly.

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