What doesn't make sense about Objectivist values

[Wolf DeVoon]

I spent 20 minutes listening to a Tara Smith lecture. If that's Objectivist law, to hell with it.

[Brant Gaede]

Who's Tara Smith?

There's no such thing as "Objectivist law."

--Brant

unlike esthetics, that's beyond even Rand pretension

[Brant Gaede]

Now, an objective law is something else. That's a law or law that protects and not violates individual rights.

--Brant

good luck with--for me--the boring details

[Wolf DeVoon]

Now, an objective law is something else. That's a law or law that protects and not violates individual rights.

--Brant

good luck with--for me--the boring details

Ding ding ding! Tara Smith's thesis in a nutshell -- laws that protect and not violate individual rights.

If that's Objectivist law, I repeat to hell with it.

[Selene]

...laws that protect and not violate individual rights.

If that's Objectivist law, I repeat to hell with it.

OK Wolf, what am I missing here?

Can you be clear.

Also, unless I missed it, you never defined "politician" on another thread where I asked you to define it before we danced the dance that passes for argument from some folks here.

A...

[Wolf DeVoon]

...laws that protect and not violate individual rights.

If that's Objectivist law, I repeat to hell with it.

OK Wolf, what am I missing here?

Can you be clear.

Also, unless I missed it, you never defined "politician" on another thread where I asked you to define it before we danced the dance that passes for argument from some folks here.

A...

Several things wrong with the Tara Smith model.

1. Kills any possibility of a constitutional political compromise ratified by a majority, like the constitution of 1787 (ratified by a very slim majority) and ignores settled law, e.g. Texas v White, Legal Tender, Butler v Perry, U.S. v Richardson.

2. Kills all political parties, legislation, voting, rulemaking (clean air, water) and public works.

3. No provision for selection of law judges, juries, appellate courts sworn to uphold individual rights.

4. No guidance on who qualifies to enjoy individual rights (incompetents, lunatics, teenagers, refugees, debtors).

5. No guidance on funding without taxation.

Bottom line, Tara Smith ignores the widely accepted mission of U.S. government, to regulate the commons (Outer Continental Shelf, airwaves, highways, navigable waters, outer space) and take individual rights to advance the public good defined by majority rule (affirmative action, pork barrel spending, entitlements, public education, public health, zoning). "In substance, the growth of law is legislative. And this in a deeper sense than that, that which the courts declare to have always been the law is in fact new. It is legislative in its grounds. The very considerations which the courts most rarely mention, and always with an apology, are the secret root from which the law draws all the juices of life. We mean, of course, what is expedient for the community." [Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., The Common Law]

The Freeman's Constitution takes no notice of secret juices or politicians (elected officeholders).

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.

The only individual right it recognizes is the right to sue or be sued, to be heard by an impartial court of law.

Tara Smith wants judges and juries to be prejudiced, incapable of hearing a controversy.

[Brant Gaede]

...laws that protect and not violate individual rights.

If that's Objectivist law, I repeat to hell with it.

OK Wolf, what am I missing here?

Can you be clear.

Also, unless I missed it, you never defined "politician" on another thread where I asked you to define it before we danced the dance that passes for argument from some folks here.

A...

Several things wrong with the Tara Smith model.

1. Kills any possibility of a constitutional political compromise ratified by a majority, like the constitution of 1787 (ratified by a very slim majority) and ignores settled law, e.g. Texas v White, Legal Tender, Butler v Perry, U.S. v Richardson.

2. Kills all political parties, legislation, voting, rulemaking (clean air, water) and public works.

3. No provision for selection of law judges, juries, appellate courts sworn to uphold individual rights.

4. No guidance on who qualifies to enjoy individual rights (incompetents, lunatics, teenagers, refugees, debtors).

5. No guidance on funding without taxation.

Bottom line, Tara Smith ignores the widely accepted mission of U.S. government, to regulate the commons (Outer Continental Shelf, airwaves, highways, navigable waters, outer space) and deny individual rights to advance the public good defined by majority rule (affirmative action, pork barrel spending, entitlements, public education, public health, nuclear weapons). "In substance, the growth of law is legislative. And this in a deeper sense than that, that which the courts declare to have always been the law is in fact new. It is legislative in its grounds. The very considerations which the courts most rarely mention, and always with an apology, are the secret root from which the law draws all the juices of life. We mean, of course, what is expedient for the community." [Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., The Common Law]

The Freeman's Constitution takes no notice of secret juices or politicians.

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.

The only individual right I recognize is the right to sue or be sued, to be heard in a court of law.

It's individual rights or it's no rights. So, where does this peculiar "individual right" come from? From what soil does it grow?

--Brant

this Smith model needs a link or actual reference

[Wolf DeVoon]

[Wolf DeVoon]

 

The only individual right I recognize is the right to sue or be sued, to be heard in a court of law.

 

 

So, where does this peculiar "individual right" come from? From what soil does it grow?

 

 

the rule of law arises from and requires all of the following: a constitutional right to practice legal representation on behalf of others; the right of practicing lawyers to associate for the purpose of selecting judges who, on appointment to the bench, are barred from private legal practice; and the right of any person or organized group to obey and execute lawful orders that may be issued from time to time by the courts so created

 

Pretty simple. No lawyers, no legal rights. No engineers, no bridges.

 

 

[Brant Gaede]

This country started as a constitutional republic (many--innumerable--rights) and almost immediately began going downhill to the present day situation. What's to keep your construct* (one right) from doing the same?

--Brant

*seems made by and for engineers

[Wolf DeVoon]

This country started as a constitutional republic (many--innumerable--rights) and almost immediately began going downhill to the present day situation. What's to keep your construct* (one right) from doing the same?

--Brant

*seems made by and for engineers

Civil war was inevitable with Louisiana Purchase (Jefferson). Southern states previously threatened to walk away in 1787 unless the Federalist "constitutional republic" allowed them to keep their slaves. One man one vote (Jackson) did not include slaves. We should reflect on how much damage the Civil War did. Paper money and retroactive cancellation of gold clause contracts. Massive land grants to Wall Street promoters that became fabulously valuable for telegraph right-of-ways and mining in addition to railroads built with coolie labor. Straight line from the Gilded Age to "progressive" trustbusters, social work, marxist trade unions, public works (dams, bridges, ports, highways, parks).

I'm indifferent to what people want for a Legislature or Executive Branch as long as the judiciary is privatized.

[Jonathan]

Several things wrong with the Tara Smith model.

1. Kills any possibility of a constitutional political compromise ratified by a majority, like the constitution of 1787 (ratified by a very slim majority) and ignores settled law, e.g. Texas v White, Legal Tender, Butler v Perry, U.S. v Richardson.

2. Kills all political parties, legislation, voting, rulemaking (clean air, water) and public works.

Similar defects with her model are that she makes no provisions for people voting in favor of slavery, or for allowing for a charismatic dictator to take over. She outlines no provisions for the procedures that should be followed if a group wished to indulge in racial holocaust, or to legalize killing for the purpose of anthropophagy when someone is really hungry but doesn't feel like driving to the store.

J

[moralist]

Wolf writes:

Pretty simple. No lawyers, no legal rights

America was not founded on that premise.

Greg

[Wolf DeVoon]

Wolf writes:

Pretty simple. No lawyers, no legal rights

America was not founded on that premise.

Greg

Bzzzzt! -- I guess you don't know much American history.

Thirty of the fifty-six signers of the Declaration of Independence were lawyers. Of the first five presidents of the United States of America, all but George Washington were lawyers. Key players in the quest for American liberty inspired by the common law philosophy of Sir Edward Coke: lawyers James Otis, Sam Adams, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Wilson, James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, Patrick Henry, John Jay, George Mason. Lawyer signers of the Constitution: Baldwin, Bassett, Bedford, Blair, Brearley, Dayton, Dickinson, Few, Hamilton, Ingersoll, Johnson, King, Livingston, Madison, Morris, Paterson, Pinckney, Read, Rutledge, Sherman, Wilson.

Abe Lincoln was a lawyer.

[moralist]

bzzzt... Wolf, you don't know that lawyers can't create moral law... they can only discover it.

Greg

[Wolf DeVoon]

lawyers can't create moral law... they can only discover it.

Sadly, a moral principle never reaches beyond itself. Its ethical arms are too short, extending no farther than one man's soul, one man's purpose and lifespan. We have to look elsewhere for political guidance, because the thing at issue is "a nation of laws and not of men." [Laissez Faire Law, p.35]

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. [The Freeman's Constitution, emphasis added]

-------------------------------

You chumped me into a response I should not have offered in good faith. The question was historical, on what premise was the U.S. founded? It was founded on the legal principles of British common law and due process -- not "moral" law or "spiritual" law or any other cockamamie lay claptrap.

[Brant Gaede]

lawyers can't create moral law... they can only discover it.

Sadly, a moral principle never reaches beyond itself. Its ethical arms are too short, extending no farther than one man's soul, one man's purpose and lifespan. We have to look elsewhere for political guidance, because the thing at issue is "a nation of laws and not of men." [Laissez Faire Law, p.35]

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. [The Freeman's Constitution, emphasis added]

-------------------------------

You chumped me into a response I should not have offered in good faith. The question was historical, on what premise was the U.S. founded? It was founded on the legal principles of British common law and due process -- not "moral" law or "spiritual" law or any other cockamamie lay claptrap.

Raises the question of what British common law and due process is based on? Why did Britain outlaw the slave trade? What propelled the abolitionists? Why were the corn laws repealed? And you don't seem to understand the moral basis--that there even is one--for individual rights political philosophy. You are slap dab between individualism and collectivism claiming one or the other or both to be futile so you've created a constitutional edifice that boils no water and cooks no food--that does not engage man as a moral creature. Your mighty locomotive has no wheels and is a queer sight indeed with that smoke coming out of your stack.

--Brant

and where's the track made out of Rearden metal--or what have you?

[Wolf DeVoon]

Raises the question of what British common law and due process is based on?

Law derived from judicial decisions instead of from statutes. Early American common law was taken from English common law. [Cornell Legal Information Institute]

Sir Edward Coke is best known in modern times for his Institutes, described by John Rutledge as "almost the foundations of our law",^[3] and his Reports, which have been called "perhaps the single most influential series of named reports".^[4] Historically, he was a highly influential judge; within England and Wales, his statements and works were used to justify the right to silence, while the Statute of Monopolies is considered to be one of the first actions in the conflict between Parliament and monarch that led to the English Civil War. In America, Coke's decision in Dr. Bonham's Case was used to justify the voiding of both the Stamp Act 1765 and writs of assistance, which led to the American War of Independence; after the establishment of the United States his decisions and writings profoundly influenced the Third and Fourth amendments to the United States Constitution while necessitating the Sixteenth. [Wikipedia]

Coke placed the judiciary in the middle of what was becoming a titanic struggle for power between Parliament and the ruler of England. Until the seventeenth century, the English monarchy enjoyed nearly absolute power over all political and legal matters that concerned the country as a whole. Despite the growing popularity and importance of Parliament during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the monarchy's autocratic power, which King James I (1603–25) asserted was divine in origin, included the prerogative to enact laws without parliamentary consent. By the close of the seventeenth century, however, the pendulum of power had swung in favor of Parliament. The Glorious Revolution of 1688 subordinated the power of the English Crown and judiciary to parliamentary sovereignty. In 1765, English jurist Sir William Blackstone described "the power of Parliament" to make laws in England as "absolute," "despotic," and "without control." The American Revolution, which began eleven years after Blackstone's pronouncement of Parliament's unfettered power, was commenced in response to the coercive legislation passed in the colonies by what had become a despotic Parliament. Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and their contemporaries believed that a legislative despot was no better than a monarchical despot. In 1787, the U.S. Constitution established the judiciary as a check on the legislative and executive branches of government, a check that was foreshadowed by Coke's opinion in Bonham's Case... The American colonists were intimately familiar with the writings of Lord Coke. Coke's Reports first came to America on the Mayflower, and the Massachusetts General Court ordered two complete sets from England in 1647. Coke's opinion in Bonham's Case was among his most popular writings. In Paxton's Case of the Writ of Assistance, Quincy 51 (Mass. 1761), colonist James Otis challenged Massachusetts's authority to issue writs of assistance, general search warrants that empowered local sheriffs to enter private homes and businesses to seize smuggled goods. Otis told the colonial court that he objected to such writs, which were created by a parliamentary act in 1662, because they violated the principle of Bonham's Case: "As to acts of parliament, an act against the Constitution is void. An act against natural equity is void; and if an act of parliament should be made in the very words of this petition, it would be void. The Executive Courts must pass such acts into disuse." [The Free Dictionary]

Had little or nothing to do with abstract notions of morality or individual rights political philosophy, Brant. Common law was a decentralized evolution of jury trial and judge-made rules of evidence that replaced medieval trial by combat and trial by ordeal.

[Brant Gaede]

lawyers can't create moral law... they can only discover it.

Sadly, a moral principle never reaches beyond itself. Its ethical arms are too short, extending no farther than one man's soul, one man's purpose and lifespan. We have to look elsewhere for political guidance, because the thing at issue is "a nation of laws and not of men." [Laissez Faire Law, p.35]

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. [The Freeman's Constitution, emphasis added]

-------------------------------

You chumped me into a response I should not have offered in good faith. The question was historical, on what premise was the U.S. founded? It was founded on the legal principles of British common law and due process -- not "moral" law or "spiritual" law or any other cockamamie lay claptrap.

Raises the question of what British common law and due process is based on? Why did Britain outlaw the slave trade? What propelled the abolitionists? Why were the corn laws repealed? And you don't seem to understand the moral basis--that there even is one--for individual rights political philosophy. You are slap dab between individualism and collectivism claiming one or the other or both to be futile so you've created a constitutional edifice that boils no water and cooks no food--that does not engage man as a moral creature. Your mighty locomotive has no wheels and is a queer sight indeed with that smoke coming out of your stack.

--Brant

and where's the track made out of Rearden metal--or what have you?

I hope you realize I couldn't resist these visuals.

--Brant

I post for the fun of it above all

[Brant Gaede]

Wolf. You might enjoy my grandfather's book, The Bill of Rights, It's Origins and Meaning (1965--Irving Brant), which references Coke et al.

--Brant

[moralist]

Wolf writes:

Sadly, a moral principle never reaches beyond itself.

You have only to observe your own life to see exactly how far it can reach.

It was founded on the legal principles of British common law and due process -- not "moral" law or "spiritual" law or any other cockamamie lay claptrap.

Legal principles are designed to serve moral law which is greater than themselves...

...as are we.

Greg

[moralist]

The philosophy of law is a separate branch of science, independent of ethics.

...as are most lawyers.

Greg

[Brant Gaede]

Nasty, nasty.

--Brant

my opinion of Greg is going up

[MereMortal]

I don't care how it's explained away. This stuff is daffy.

1. Rearden romanced and married Lillian. Instead of having children, he adopted her brother.

2. Francisco laid Dagny only once or twice and never touched another woman.

3. Taggart Transcontinental was privately held and profitable.

4. Eddie Willers never loved anyone but Dagny from afar.

5. Ragnar's pirate ship never encountered the Coast Guard or US Navy.

6. Mulligan bought land in Colorado that no county tax assessor knew about.

7. Galt jammed every transmitter in America and broadcast on the same frequencies.

8. A dozen smart people brought down the government and destroyed a society...

9. ...with the expectation that they could rebuild everything later.

This isn't a list of Objectivist values. It's a list of things that some of the Atlas Shrugged characters did. I thought you were going to address the following from Galt's speech:

To live, man must hold three things as the supreme and ruling values of his life: Reason—Purpose—Self-esteem. Reason, as his only tool of knowledge—Purpose, as his choice of the happiness which that tool must proceed to achieve—Self-esteem, as his inviolate certainty that his mind is competent to think and his person is worthy of happiness, which means: is worthy of living.

[moralist]

Mere Mortal quotes:

...and his person is worthy of happiness, which means: is worthy of living.

This is brilliant.

No one will ever be happy as long as they fail to live a life deserving of it.

Greg