Samson Corwell

I'm just going to have to disagree. Sampson: Which of Wolf's statements do you disagree with? 1) SCOTUS [supreme Court of the United States] has no Constitutional power to review legislation sua sponte [by it's own action]; 2) The U.S. Supreme Court has a propensity to create neo-constitutional "rights" and elastic government powers; or 3) all cases come from the lower/inferior courts. A... The first two. The third is obviously true because cases can only reach SCOTUS through an appeals process. Substantive due process, or what you call "creating rights out of thin air" (strange complaint to hear from a natural rightser), is a good thing that's perfectly in line with the constitution and it will be removed when it's pried from my cold, dead hands.

Adam, courtesy suggests you tell why you are asking the question*. If you have previously, my apologies. --Brant *as such it's akin to cross-examination, likely of a hostile witness, but we aren't in court No problem Brant. de Tocqueville is the individual who warned American citizens about the "soft tyranny." Mark Levin has resurrected his words and warning in several of his books, specifically the Liberty Amendments. Samson, upon information and belief elected to proceed on a rant against Mark Levin, who is a libertarian consetrvative in the Burke tradition. I amn just trying to make this discussion about the "soft tyranny" and not about his hatred of Mark Levin. I think it matters to be clear that this is about liberty and it's roots in the American psyche. Hope that answers your question. A... I'm starting to get the feeling that "libertarian" is just a little more of a slippery label than I used to believe. I see Levin as a "conservative". I think the man is a total ass with his rants about "judicial activism" and Islamic jihad. An angry, spiteful populist.

The U.S. Supreme Court has a propensity to create neo-constitutional "rights" and elastic government powers. No judicial review of legislation as such. Cases come from U.S. appellate and state supreme courts. I'm just going to have to disagree.

But it later overturned "separate but equal". And what you're saying about affirming=legislating is just nonsense. If the courts didn't have judicial review, then federal regulation couldn't be challenged to begin with. That they made a mistake with Wickard does not discredit the rest of their decisions. Incorporation of the BoR was the best damn thing to ever happen in this country and I'll be damned if I ever let anyone put that at risk.

Sampson: Apparently, you selectively distort and selectively retain what suits you. Let's recap. The phrase "soft tyranny" was originally created by Alexis de Tocqueville. You seem to refuse to address that and prefer to wed the phrase with Mark Levin who has resurrected the phrase with proper attribution. Second, Mark Levin's proposed amendments are to be processed by the State conventions to propose Amendments to the Constitution as per the "escape clause" provided by the Founders as stated in Article V. Whether his suggested amendment to permit 3/4 of Congress to overturn a Supreme Court decision has a specific and narrow time limit to act. Therefore, you were disingenuous in explaining that proposed amendment. The Founders did not envision a "Supreme Court" that acts as a legislative body that creates laws and penumbras and all sorts of fundamental changes that are in the purview of the other branches. His proposed amendment would put a brake on a judiciary that has grown out of control. Finally, have you ever read Alexis de Tocqueville? A... If SCOTUS "legislates from the bench" then I don't suppose you wouldn't mind telling me what bills they've written. The Supreme Court has done none of those things and this is the sort of crap I'd expect to hear from a Bircher, not someone intelligent like you.

"Soft tyranny"? What nonsense. Levin is too hyperbolic for his own good. Sampson: The phrase soft tyranny was Alexis de Tocqueville's phrase. Here is the Wiki... Apparently you did not see that name in the post. Have you read de Tocqueville? Secondly, have you read any of Mark Levin's books? A... I own a copy of Liberty & Tyranny. Couldn't get through the first few pages. I've also seen his proposed amendments. His amendment to give Congress to overturn SCOTUS decisions is positively fucking insane. It would leave Congress and the Executive unchecked as well as give states the power to enact authoritarian laws.

I read the essay, but I'm not so sure that individualism was an important part of the Enlightenment. That never like that was something it ever touched upon. Although I discussed methodological individualism specifically, other forms of individualism, such as moral and political, were very important aspects of the Enlightenment. Indeed, when 19th movements, such as Romanticism and conservatism, assailed the Enlightenment, they typically focused on individualism (in various forms) as one of its most objectionable features. Even earlier, Edmund Burke blamed the excesses of the French Revolution on Enlightenment individualism, as did his many followers throughout the 19th century.It is a simple matter to list Enlightenment defenders of individualism, such as Thomas Jefferson and James Madison in America; Adam Smith, Joseph Priestley, and Richard Price in Britain, Kant (who stressed the moral autonomy of the individual) in Germany; Diderot and other philosophes in France;, and so forth. It would not be much of a stretch to describe the 18th Century as The Age of Individualism. Ghs Another question on this: was a commerce a big theme for the old classical liberals like Kant and Madison? I ask this because the repeated focus by modern classical liberals on contracts seems to be a major difference between them and the older liberals. Another difference seems to be that today's classical liberals focus on the topic of property a hell of a lot more than the Enlightenment's liberals (the Englightenment focused on property but not to the extent libertarians do today).

Yes, I have and I don't think it presupposes being left alone. That doesn't mean that I think the two are unrelated. In any case, "liberty right" basically means "legal permission", so no, it doesn't presuppose being left alone. You can have legal permission to sing and I can also have legal permission to knock you out if it annoys me. You can have legal permission to repeatedly visit my website and circumvent my bans and I can have legal permission to continually try to keep you out. And again, I am dealing with two senses of freedom here: "freedom from" and "freedom to".

"No, not really. Again, see the distinction between claim rights and liberty rights. You can have a liberty right to speak but not necessarily have a claim right against me gagging you. Maybe this depends on how you frame it". [sC] I don't get you. A "claim right" is a contradiction in terms, actually I think an anti-concept, by which a person's needs and wants necessitate an other's servitude. So it can't be compared with or distinguished from the concept, freedom to act. But I certainly have a "liberty right" to prevent you gagging me. Freedom to do, presupposes you leaving me alone. Click here. Just because you don't understand it doesn't make it an "anti-concept". "Claim right" is most certainly not a contradiction in terms. You have to look at these in a larger context. From the link: Freedom isn't quite synonymous with being left alone in my mind.

Well examined, though I don't believe the O'ist position is that negative freedom is "truer". There is only one freedom, and that is the freedom to act as you choose or please--"freedom to". ... However: act to curtail anyone else's freedom to act (of his physical person or his property) and you must quickly lose all liberty. I think the best approach is to view "freedom to" as a 'metaphysical given' (clearly, not "granted" or permitted by a man-made agency, but protected by such). "Positive" rights as used broadly today is, of course, an aberration. There, you have the "right" (entitled claim) to whatever has been forced by the provision of someone else - so for every "positive right", there's always someone who's suffered a negative loss of rights, his "freedom to". The distinction between positive and negative rights is not the same as the distinction between positive and negative freedom. A bridge between the two might be found in the distinction between claim rights and liberty rights. No, not really. Again, see the distinction between claim rights and liberty rights. You can have a liberty right to speak but not necessarily have a claim right against me gagging you. Maybe this depends on how you frame it.

Substitute "permission" with "permitted to" then. This kind of hand wringing over semantics is both unnecessary and silly. Is this the way you correct or acknowledge a mistake--by calling what I said "semantics," "unnecessary" and "silly"? Go saddle up your grace horse. It won't buck you off like this one did. --Brant "permitted" is no good either; it's a distinction without substance I'm sorry, but it just genuinely seems silly. It's like freaking out over someone who says rights are granted or should be granted. If I admit that property rights are conventional and not natural in and of themselves, then does that consequently mean I'm making myself vulnerable to authoritarianism? Of course not. A great deal has to do with the psychological mind set of who reads these things and getting permission or being permitted goes completely against my grain--like I was back in the army again or in some kind of prison. --Brant I think I understand what you mean.

There is no unitary, theoretical property right. Lots of different contexts, jurisdictions, eminent domain, taxation, zoning, regulation. I think that a majority of libertarians assume a sort of "unitary" property and that you are correct that there is none.

"Soft tyranny"? What nonsense. Levin is too hyperbolic for his own good.

Canada isn't remotely "socialist". North Korea isn't really socialist, either. The USSR? Sure. PRC under Mao? Ehhh. North Korea? Not a chance. They're more or less fascist.

Mind elaborating? I find this interesting. In the current state, for instance, freedom of speech is protected by the 1st Amendment and modern Supreme Court doctrine. Other than that I'm kinda bored with explaining due process under the The Freeman's Constitution. So are you claiming that the "right" in "property right" is misused? Or that it can't be said to hold true in the current state of affairs?

Mind elaborating? I find this interesting.

Substitute "permission" with "permitted to" then. This kind of hand wringing over semantics is both unnecessary and silly. Is this the way you correct or acknowledge a mistake--by calling what I said "semantics," "unnecessary" and "silly"? Go saddle up your grace horse. It won't buck you off like this one did. --Brant "permitted" is no good either; it's a distinction without substance I'm sorry, but it just genuinely seems silly. It's like freaking out over someone who says rights are granted or should be granted. If I admit that property rights are conventional and not natural in and of themselves, then does that consequently mean I'm making myself vulnerable to authoritarianism? Of course not.

Substitute "permission" with "permitted to" then. This kind of hand wringing over semantics is both unnecessary and silly.

I read the essay, but I'm not so sure that individualism was an important part of the Enlightenment. That never like that was something it ever touched upon. Although I discussed methodological individualism specifically, other forms of individualism, such as moral and political, were very important aspects of the Enlightenment. Indeed, when 19th movements, such as Romanticism and conservatism, assailed the Enlightenment, they typically focused on individualism (in various forms) as one of its most objectionable features. Even earlier, Edmund Burke blamed the excesses of the French Revolution on Enlightenment individualism, as did his many followers throughout the 19th century. It is a simple matter to list Enlightenment defenders of individualism, such as Thomas Jefferson and James Madison in America; Adam Smith, Joseph Priestley, and Richard Price in Britain, Kant (who stressed the moral autonomy of the individual) in Germany; Diderot and other philosophes in France;, and so forth. It would not be much of a stretch to describe the 18th Century as The Age of Individualism. Ghs Huh. I suppose I've just never really heard the word use in the context of the Enlightenment much before. Guess libertarians just use the word more often than non-libertarians. Would you necessarily non-individualism implies collectivism? I wouldn't necessarily call, say, the monarchists and Catholic conservatives of the pre-Revolution days "collectivists", though I might have called them "traditionalists". Was contract an important theme in the time of the Enlightenment? Aside from social contract theory, I mean. It seems to me that some people think it was, but it just never jumped out at me as something that was core to the movement. Nor would it seem to me that contract touches upon enough areas to be a fundamental issue given that business is only one domain of life.

I read the essay, but I'm not so sure that individualism was an important part of the Enlightenment. That never like that was something it ever touched upon.

Yes, if scarcity is to be used as a reason for anything related to the topic of property, it makes much more sense to use it to argue against private property than it does to argue for it (not that I agree with this conclusion). If scarcity is a reason for anything, then it's that scarce resources should be jointly managed (not that I agree with this ocnclusion). If the existence of scarcity leads us logically to oppose private property, then all money would have to be owned by the world in common. If Vera gets paid $40 a day for making shirts, she would have to turn that money over to the "public." After all, money is scarce, i.e. finite in quantity. Accordingly, all 7.1 billion people on the planet should have a say in how Vera's 40 bucks are spent. Vera would have a say, too. Her voice would be 1/7,000,000,000 of the final tally. Did it ever dawn on you that some arguments might only apply to only some things/contexts instead of all? That the world isn't all-or-nothing? I didn't say that scarcity means we should abandon ownership. I said that it's a better argument against it than it is for it. That aside, that you can enjoy a copy of a work without depriving someone else of the ability to enjoy a copy is irrelevant to the matter of intellectual property because the belief is that you shouldn't be allowed to without paying for it, so scarcity is ultimately irrelevant to the topic of ownership. Also, it strikes me that you're using "finite"/"infinite" in funny ways. Sure, you might have only $40 dollars in existence, but you can add more to it. Similarly, debt is a type of property, but only for as long as people choose to hold someone accountable for their debts.

George Orwell on the meaning of the word "fascism": "Except for the relatively small number of Fascist sympathizers, almost any English person would accept ‘bully’ as a synonym for ‘Fascist’. That is about as near to a definition as this much-abused word has come.". Hoppe's a fascist because his views are very illiberal. I recall him saying that people without "rational argumentation" could be enslaved. So, yeah, he's an asshole. Orwell, God bless him, is not a standard dictionary. "Illiberal" is another word that does not mean "fascist." Hoppe, in fact, is very much in the classical liberal tradition. Where is the evidence that Hoppe called for enslaving anyone? And once again, where is the evidence that Hoppe bullied anyone? He's called for enslaving debtors, I think, something Rothbard too argued for. He may be a "classical liberal", but he is very much illiberal, much like theocrat Gary North.

Yes, if scarcity is to be used as a reason for anything related to the topic of property, it makes much more sense to use it to argue against private property than it does to argue for it (not that I agree with this conclusion). If scarcity is a reason for anything, then it's that scarce resources should be jointly managed (not that I agree with this ocnclusion).

Nah. Avatar and Avengers top any of the earlier flicks.