Samson Corwell

It's mind independence I mean, in being left alone, and "natural", guys. Millions of Daniel Boones (right?) I don't envisage or wish for - although he would have understood total independence. First cause of loss of freedom is not by Statist power, it is by the overwhelming numbers who crave the authority of the State, abet and so build it. We get what they deserve, to paraphrase Greg.

"It's your mind they want". J. Galt

It's a sculpture of 'The Minuteman' in a national historic park. Re independence of mind, I'm distraught at how little of it I have, using an inherited language, driving a car not of my invention, mindful of ideas coined by others. If I put the entire original output of my life in a pile it wouldn't rise above the dust on my desk -- and I am not being modest, just truthful.

Sadly, I'm not the only mental midget on earth. UK Conservative David Cameron defending the welfare state: The prime minister received a standing ovation as he asked his party conference: "How dare they frighten those who rely on a national health service?" [bBC]

Well, aren't you just a bundle of sunshiny. Why such a gloomy gus?

"Death" - at least a non-life - follows from dictatorship and collectivism (which are one and the same, really).

Only if you insist on butchering the English language.

"To be free, a man must be free of his brothers"- AR

For whatever reason, this reminds me of Rousseau's "force to be free" line.

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.

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.

Samson:

Have you read Alexis de Tocqueville?

A...

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.

what you're saying about affirming=legislating is just nonsense.

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.

SCOTUS modifies or eliminates laws or tells us what the Constitution really means first by affirming "separate but equal" then denying it in 1954. If it affirms any regulations promulgated by bureaucrats but not actually made in a law passed by Congress it has effectively created a law out of whole cloth so de facto becomes de jure but not through an act of Congress. There are four branches of government. The over-whelming number of federal rules and regulations that rule our lives are not properly laws at all. Think in terms of like 99% of them. It may actually be 90% or 99.99%. My only point here is suggest a different, more proper perspective. Then there is the Chief Executive arbitrarily modifiying law to suit its purposes as it has done with "Obamacare."

The entirety of the Federal Government is out to enslave us one way or another for its own good. Laws are taffy in its hands. One can get side-tracked by conflating "original intent" with present consequences.

--Brant

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.

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...

[quote}

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.

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.

The soft tyranny ...see Alexis de Tocqueville and Mark Levin...

"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...

Soft tyranny is an idea first coined by Alexis de Tocqueville in his 1835 work titled Democracy in America.[1] In effect, soft tyranny occurs whenever the social conditions of a particular community hinder any prospect of hope among its members.[2] For Tocqueville, hope is the driving force behind all democratic institutions.[3] As such, whenever this all-encompassing hope is taken away from the people, liberal democracy fails. Examples of this failure can be seen in the Weimar Republic of Germany during the 1930s, in the French Third Republic around 1940 or arguably throughout western democracies since the economic collapse of 2008.

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.

Social Laws, Part 8

Smith explores the historical and theoretical roots of methodological individualism and subjectivism.

My Cato Essay #143 is now up.

Ghs

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).

"Freedom isn't quite synonymous with being left alone in my mind".

I must repeat, freedom is the freedom to act.

(Which implies, "presupposes", being left alone).

Do you read before you reply?

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".

Seen it. Wiki don't prove nothing. By Objectivism, it's a contradiction in terms.

"The distinction between positive and negative rights is not the same as the distinction between positive and negative freedom".[sC]

I didn't say there was.

Freedom to, presupposes freedom from.

"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:

Some philosophers and political scientists make a distinction between claim rights and liberty rights. A claim right is a right which entails responsibilities, duties, or obligations on other parties regarding the right-holder. In contrast, a liberty right is a right which does not entail obligations on other parties, but rather only freedom or permission for the right-holder. The distinction between these two senses of "rights" originates in American jurist Wesley Newcomb Hohfeld's analysis thereof in his seminal work Fundamental Legal Conceptions, As Applied in Judicial Reasoning and Other Legal Essays.

Liberty rights and claim rights are the inverse of one another: a person has a liberty right permitting him to do something only if there is no other person who has a claim right forbidding him from doing so; and likewise, if a person has a claim right against someone else, that other person's liberty is thus limited. This is because the deontic concepts of obligation and permission are De Morgan dual; a person is permitted to do all and only the things he is not obliged to refrain from, and obliged to do all and only the things he is not permitted to refrain from.

Freedom isn't quite synonymous with being left alone in my mind.

Prior to my introduction to libertarianism/Objectivism, I had never of the distinction between "positive freedom" and "negative freedom". "Positive freedom" is "freedom to" whereas "negative freedom" is "freedom from". Those who lean libertarian and/or O'ist consider "negative freedom", specifically "freedom from coercion", to be "truer" than "positive freedom". This usage of "freedom from" and "freedom to" doesn't line up with how I believe the rest of the world uses those two phrases.

In my experience, the meanings are switched around. "Freedom to" means being permitted to do something. "Freedom from" signifies a sort of imperative that conditions must be a certain way. Freedom of religion, freedom of speech, and freedom of choice are instances of "freedom to". Freedom from pollution, freedom from discrimination, and freedom from social pressure are examples "freedom from" (note to self: no shit, Sherlock). These meanings are more common in everyday discourse. Think of how some people, in response to those who do not wish to be offended, will say "it's freedom of speech, not freedom from being offended". Or how some conservatives, in trying to argue against the separation of church and state, will shout at the tops of their lungs "The First Amendment says freedom of religion, not freedom from religion!" (this one's rather stupid).

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.

Freedom to, presupposes freedom from.

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.

(Ref post #1)

Freedom with permission is a contradiction in terms. You are not free if you have "freedom" to do something with permission.

Contrarily, "freedom" to do something with permission is not the right to violate rights and if it sanctions rights' violations then it is wrong. Any action requiring permission is wrong either in the action or in the sanction of a "permission." The statists get to get you coming and going.

--Brant

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.

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?

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.

The soft tyranny ...see Alexis de Tocqueville and Mark Levin...

"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.

Terms for property: legacy, bailment, claim, title, possession. The phrase "as of right" denotes constitutional indemnity.

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?

Terms for property: legacy, bailment, claim, title, possession. The phrase "as of right" denotes constitutional indemnity.

Mind elaborating? I find this interesting.

(Ref post #1)

Freedom with permission is a contradiction in terms. You are not free if you have "freedom" to do something with permission.

Contrarily, "freedom" to do something with permission is not the right to violate rights and if it sanctions rights' violations then it is wrong. Any action requiring permission is wrong either in the action or in the sanction of a "permission." The statists get to get you coming and going.

--Brant

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.

(Ref post #1)

Freedom with permission is a contradiction in terms. You are not free if you have "freedom" to do something with permission.

Contrarily, "freedom" to do something with permission is not the right to violate rights and if it sanctions rights' violations then it is wrong. Any action requiring permission is wrong either in the action or in the sanction of a "permission." The statists get to get you coming and going.

--Brant

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

Social Laws, Part 8

Smith explores the historical and theoretical roots of methodological individualism and subjectivism.

My Cato Essay #143 is now up.

Ghs

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.

Social Laws, Part 8

Smith explores the historical and theoretical roots of methodological individualism and subjectivism.

My Cato Essay #143 is now up.

Ghs

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.

Your revelation. That the. Radio spectrum. Isn't. Scarce. Is quite exciting!

My favorite FM station is at 97.1. There is only one station in my city that broadcasts on that frequency. With your discovery of non-scarcity, it will now be possible for another broadcaster or a million other broadcasters to use that same spot on the radio dial at the same time and not interfere with each other in this city. Apparently "non-tangible" now means "infinitely expandable."

The argument for property is that a man has by occupying and developing a part of the earth made that part his own. If I have built a cabin in the wilderness, I am entitled to call it my own and occupy it exclusively. If scarcity is an argument against property, then every time a man built a cabin in the wilderness, he would have to share it with every traveler that happened along. Like 97.1 FM, perhaps the cabin would magically expand to comfortably fit in everyone that wanted to use it!

I did not miss the point about copyright that you are referring to. I addressed it in an essay I wrote several years ago.

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.

I am not aware of any standard dictionary that treats "fascist" as a synonym for bully. More importantly, where is the evidence of bullying?

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.