Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Reponse to Mike Meredith (and all libertarians out there)

Here is a comment left on my blog by Mike Meredith:
Comment by Jameson Graber on 23 November 2010:
I mostly agree with the views you all are espousing, but I think some commenters here are simplifying the issue far too much. The criticism that the government is “doing things to other people they could never justify if they were in the private sector” is, upon a moment’s reflection, not good enough. The government has the right and even the responsibility to punish offenders of the law, whereas private citizens have no such right. Unless you intend to argue that this is not the way things ought to be (which would be arguing for anarchy) you’d better put forth a more reasonable principle which forbids the government from taking these invasive security measures. The fourth amendment should suffice.

I ran across this post on the Freeman website today and thought a couple of things odd and one humorous. First, how is it that any government has rights? As far as I can tell only people have rights. Second, from whence does government's authority to act derive? I fail to understand why anarchy is implied unless government has power that the people don't. The humor is in supposing that the constitution has force. It hasn't been worth the paper it is written on since the ink dried. Or at least since Marbury vs. Madison in 1803. It has had no force of restraint to speak of on government. And what little it has had diminishes with each passing day.

Mike

And here is my response:


Dear Mike,

Thank you for taking the time to respond to my comment. My response is as follows. First, it must be acknowledged that any serious political thinker of the classical liberal tradition, from Adam Smith to F. A. Hayek, would insist that the government must have certain rights over its citizens in a free society. If you don't believe me, I invite you to read The Constitution of Liberty, particularly the first chapter, where in section 7 Hayek writes,
"Coercion, however, cannot be altogether avoided because the only way to prevent it is by the threat of coercion. Free society has met this problem by conferring the monopoly of coercion on the state and by attempting to limit this power of the state to instances where it is required to prevent coercion by private persons."
There is simply no other way to guarantee freedom than to grant limited coercive power to the state. So in response to your two questions, first, of course the government has rights. The maxim that "only people have rights" has become common these days among libertarians, but it has been largely accepted uncritically by those who are frustrated with the far-reaching powers of the government, and it has not been given much serious philosophical or practical justification. A political theory in which no entity has rights over private citizens can amount to only one thing: anarchy. Government, by definition, must have certain rights over the citizens of a society. In a free society, these rights are clearly defined and not subject to the arbitrary will of those in power.

In response to the second question, the rights of the state are conferred by the consent of the governed, as the Founding Fathers put it. This is, of course, a fairly tricky relationship, but individuals are not entitled to reject the authority of the state without appeal to some higher authority. That is indeed the purpose of the Constitution. By having a written document expressing the general principles on which the rights of the state are based, we as individuals have a source of protection against the arbitrary will of those in authority. It is in some sense fair to say that the Constitution confers the rights of the state, although it would be more precise to say that the principles to which the Constitution points are what gives the state its rights.

You are right to question whether our government has been successfully restrained by our Constitution, but I think your estimation is far too pessimistic. You, after all, are free to post comments as you wish in a medium such as this. You are free to go out in public and espouse your views. As overreaching as the government has in many ways become, we still enjoy the right of free enterprise to a far greater extent than much of the world, to which freedom we owe much of our incredible progress of the last century.

It is indeed unjust the way the State has made its presence felt in every aspect of our lives. But the question is how we begin to remedy this situation. We must first realize that to expect a perfect state is surely a recipe for cynicism, which is as unnecessary as it is unhelpful. Even worse, many libertarians can sound like fatalists, self-styled prophets of doom. This is simply the flip-side of the socialist presumption of the early twentieth century, which boldly proclaimed that socialism was the inevitable culmination of the progress of history. To give into that presumption by tacitly acknowledging its truth would be to overturn everything that great thinkers like Hayek worked for.

It is not inevitable that the government should continue to overextend its authority. Free people can and should stand up and appeal to the principles on which our country was founded, and which still hold as much power today as they ever did at any time in history. What we do and say still matters, no matter how angry or bitter we may have become. We must first examine ourselves to see where we have gone wrong, and then resolve humbly to do whatever it takes to secure a better future for generations to come.

If this is not your belief, then while I respect your opinion, I must also insist that you and I have no common ground on which to stand. For without hope in a better future, what do we have?

Sincerely yours,

Jameson Graber

28 comments:

  1. Jameson,

    You begin your repsonse with a thinly veiled ad hominem. I generally find that when someone resorts to personal attacks, it is because the rest of their thinking is muddled. I can think of a number of serious political thinkers who hold a spectrum of views, none of which includes a government with certain rights, or any rights, over its citizens. We could begin with Bastiat, von Mises, Rothbard, Walter Block, Hans Herman Hoppe, Joseph Sobran.... Simply because one doesn't agree with you doesn't mean they are not serious. Of course, your camp includes every statist of every type.

    But anyway, perhaps you will persude me, or perhaps, I am not serious. Perhaps, just perhaps, Hayek was having a bad day when he penned those lines. I will give him the first sentence. It goes down hill from there. Can you tell me, what is a "free society"? By that I mean of what does it consist? What I am trying to get at is the word "conferring". Who precisely is it who does the conferring? And if it is a who, is it possible for one to confer what one doesn't possess? Who again possessed a monoply of coercion and was able to confer it? And of monoply, perhaps the good Mr. Hayek wasn't being serious. Certainly he didn't really believe that government has a monoply on coercion? Even if we limit it to legitimate uses of coercion. The state has no monoply.

    Perhaps you are asking too much. There is no way to guarentee freedom. Granting limited coercive power (now we are granting limited coercive force? A minute ago it was a monoply.) to anyone is creating a tyrant. With the very rariest of exceptions, those who get power use it to increase it. And because the exceptions are so rare, all states descend into tyranny. History bares this out. There are no exceptions. None.

    I won't argue with you over the term "rights". I think the current usage is a tool of statists to convince the sheep that the state provides them with their "rights" and protects their "rights". I would confine the term to- life, liberty, and ownership of property. The last of which flows from self ownership. These rights inhere in us because we are created in the image of God. To broaden the definition is wander into positivism. I don't want to go there. A non-human entity can not have rights. It might have authority to act in our behalf. You make the terms synonomous. I would be more cautious.

    One final question and I must go for now. At what point would Mr. Hayek declare us all to be surfs?

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  2. Mike,

    "Perhaps Hayek was having a bad day when he penned those lines"? I urge you to reconsider this statement. Moreover, while I'm not entirely certain of the wording which the thinkers you list used, I am almost positive they all shared my exact meaning. I think I see why you refuse to call what the state has "rights," but I call them "rights" in the sense that the state is allowed to use certain powers over its citizens, with impunity. If the term "rights" is too sacred for you, then perhaps "powers" would be more fitting. In any case, we cannot have a state without them, and we cannot have equal justice under law without a state.

    I think you're really misunderstanding "monopoly," and for that reason you're confused as to how one can limit the coercive powers of the state while simultaneously giving the state a monopoly on coercion. Monopoly simply means no one else can produce something. To say the state has a monopoly on coercion means that only the state can provide coercive measures. If we allowed others to coerce, we would in effect have competing states--there would be no unified law of the land. Coercion is, in general, bad. The reason we give the state a monopoly on coercion is so that it happens less often, not more often. We don't give the state an unlimited monopoly, but a limited one. Only the state can coerce, but even it can only coerce under certain prescribed circumstances--either when private citizens are violating the rights of others, or when the nation is under threat of attack.

    I will not argue that the state is the source of rights in a metaphysical sense--that would be absurd. But it is, in point of fact, the institution charged with defending our rights. Without the state, we would each be left to defend our own rights. You say that "Granting limited coercive power...to anyone is creating a tyrant." No, granting someone unlimited coercive power is creating a tyrant. Limited coercive power is necessary for justice. Without a state with power over its citizens, only the strong are able to defend their rights, and this is surely unjust.

    (continued in next comment)

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  3. You say, "These rights inhere in us because we are created in the image of God. To broaden the definition is wander into positivism." First, I fail to see what positivism has to do with this. Second, if you wish to argue that rights are conferred by God, then tell me to which theological tradition you appeal. If it is the Christian one, then let us examine Scripture, particularly Romans 13, where it says, "Let every person be subject to the governing authorities; for there is no authority except from God, and those authorities that exist have been instituted by God." It is by no means straightforward to interpret this statement, but if you're willing to appeal to divine authority, then let us at least be willing to take these words seriously. If God grants rights to human beings in making them in his image, then by all biblical accounts he also grants authority to the state. If you object that such authority cannot be called "rights," then we are merely quibbling over words.

    In response to your more abstract question, a free society, as Hayek defines it (and I would agree), is one in which coercion is at a minimum. That is, it is one where the actions of the individual are the result of the desires and goal of the individual.

    Finally, you have doubly confirmed what I said in my previous response with these words: "With the very rariest of exceptions, those who get power use it to increase it. And because the exceptions are so rare, all states descend into tyranny. History bares this out. There are no exceptions. None." This narrative of history is simplistic and unhelpful. If this is your starting point for thinking about modern political issues, then I'm afraid there's just nothing to talk about. I'm concerned for our nation, that we have lost a great part of our heritage, but I don't think (and neither did Hayek) that we are headed inexorably down the road to serfdom. In response to your question, "At what point would Mr. Hayek declare us all to be surfs?" I would say it is when the government finally declares that they have full discretionary power over every aspect of our lives. Then and only then can we be said to be surfs. Until then, we still have some freedom to work with, and we must not squander it.

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  4. Jameson,

    We don't have equal justice with the state. I read regularly of people prosecuted for the sake of the prosecutors career. People are robbed of property because the government wants to give to others. In the 20th century governments killed more than 100 million of their own citizens. I guess that not even anarchy could be as efficient at murder and meyhem.

    Monopoly isn't a difficult word to understand. The government doesn't have one. Anyone can produce coercive measures. Can you not think of an instance in which you would use coercive force? To say that the government has a monopoly on coercion is akin to saying that it has a monoply on dirt. You can't have a monopoly on something that is freely available to anyone who wants it.

    I am familiar with Romans 13. If governments receive their authority from God, then why does our government murder citizen who are subject to other governments. Why did our government government not respect the God given authority of Iraq? Why does it not respect the God given authority of Pakistan, Afghanistan, Somalia, Yeman, North Korea, Iran? Does our government not draw its authority from the consent of the governed? And if I withdraw my consent?

    My question wasn't abstract at all. It was an attempt to get you to move from the abstract to the concrete. "Free society" is an abstract concept. Abstraction can not act. It can not confer. Individual people confer. However, they can not confer what they do not possess. I can not confer a monopoly of coercion to the government. I do not possess it. The only thing I can confer is what I do possess. I possess a right to defend myself, my family, my property. I may, (or may not) defer to the state to act in my behalf. In a society in which the authority of the government derives from the consent of the governed, legitimate law must flow from this and this only. People can not grant to the government that which they don't have. No legitimate government can do anything that the individual can not do. To do so isn't justice. It is the contrary of justice. Government is another abstract. Why is it that working for the government should give one license to rob, kidnap, and murder?

    On the contrary, there is much to talk about. Our system of government is terminally flawed. It was from the start. The antifederalists told us this would be the result. The question is what to do about it. And in the future, when the light of liberty shines once more, how can we help those lovers of liberty to avoid the missteps we have taken.

    If memory serves, a serf is one required to pay one third of his produce to his lord. We have been slaves for decades.

    Mike

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  5. Mike,

    All of your criticisms of the government we have are valid, and I won't argue with any of them. I thought we were talking theory, not fact. If you wish to talk fact, then in fact the government is very different from what it ought to be. That much I think we can both whole-heartedly agree on.

    What I disagree with you on still are your theoretical principles. "Does our government not draw its authority from the consent of the governed? And if I withdraw my consent?" To which I must reply, it's not that easy. No government is perfect, and if we were free to simply withdraw our consent from the government as soon as we found a serious imperfection, this would be anarchy. Once a state has been established, it must be accepted as legitimate until it becomes intolerable. Perhaps while we consider what's wrong with our government, we might also pause to humbly reflect where we've gone wrong ourselves. If our society has lost much of its freedom, maybe that is not merely the government's doing, but a failing on our own part.

    I intend to get around to reading the Federalist papers pretty soon (it's very close on my reading list). I'm a little hesitant at this point to comment on your anti-federalist sentiment. However, I can say that I disagree with the basic premise that the government should only have the right to do that which private individuals have the right to do. Private citizens don't have the right to bear the sword; the state does. That's not to say the state has the right to bear it for whatever purpose it wishes, but only to execute justice. If we have an unjust government (and we do) then we must speak out against it. But we must also accept that any government, including a perfect one, would have the right to certain functions that private citizens do not.

    To be honest, you still haven't convinced me you're not an anarchist. Your principles seem to lead in that direction. I don't think freedom means freedom from government. Government is necessary for freedom.

    Happy Thanksgiving, Mike. I hope you can be thankful for all the freedom you do, in fact, have.

    Jameson

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  6. Actually, that is exactly what I was getting at. Private citizens absolutely do have the right to bear the sword. The founders saw fit to include it in the constitution. With the intent, by the way, of bearing arms against the state if it became onerous. I would hasten to point out that that is precisely how the Confederation of colonies came into being, by armed resistence to British aggression.

    Again, any government which derives its authority from the consent of the the governed can do anything legitimately that the people granting that authority can not do. They can not confer what they do not have.

    You make a distinction between government and people. But government, like "free society" is simply an abstraction for a class of people. Government is still people. I agree with you, that it is not simply the people in government that are the problem. A large percentage of the American people in government and out are simply no longer suited to freedom. It is the malady of all democracies. As far as I can see, it is a terminal malady. The democracy is inherently cannibalistic. The people learn that they can vote themselves money from the public. And then the parasite kills its host. This would be why the founders wanted to create a republic. They failed. And a number of amendments to the constitution have exacerbated the problem.

    I am not trying to convince you that I am not an anarchist. I am simply in search of truth. Self government is necessary for freedom. That doesn't necessarily imply the state. That is simply what the statists want you to believe.

    If you only read the federalists you will only re-enforce a lopsided view of history. The anti-federalist have been proven by history to have been correct. They argued more than 200 years ago that we were going to end up precisely where we are, with an out of control and uncontrollable central government. They warned us. We didn't heed that warning.

    Mike

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  7. "Private citizens absolutely do have the right to bear the sword." Not in the sense I was using, the sense of Romans 13. Metaphorically, I was saying that only the state should be granted the right to distribute justice. Vigilante justice is not justice, as attractive as it often sounds. Everyone deserves due process of law. For this reason the state is established, and in a perfect world the state would be totally impartial in its distribution of justice. From the fact that private individuals do not have the right to distribute vigilante justice it does not follow that the state cannot be endowed with the right to administer justice with due process. Quite the opposite, really. Justice is an inherently public matter, and we therefore require a public institution to oversee its administration, rather than leave it in the hands of private individuals.

    I appreciate that you are searching for truth, but I can't help but feel you are motivated by a perfectionist ideal of freedom. Does anarchy honestly seem appealing to you? I am fairly certain that if we were to destroy existing governmental structures and start over, people would simply develop new ones. This is because we naturally see the need for an institution which protects the rights of all people impartially. There would be nothing impartial about each of us defending our own rights; only the strong and those whom the strong were willing to tolerate would be free. Hence the need for a state, even an imperfect one.

    I would add that it is in fact essential for us to distinguish sharply between the government and the people. The failure to distinguish between the two is one reason why democracy "cannibalizes" itself. Since the people believe that the public is synonymous with the state, they are convinced that they can enact their will through the legislators they elect. If the public had a stronger sense of the difference between the government and the people, we probably wouldn't see this tendency as much.

    And finally, I fail to see why the individual states under the articles of Confederation would have obviously been better off than the federal system we now have. If the will to power is really so inevitable as you make it sound, I don't see why we needed the federalists to get us to where we are today.

    Jameson

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  8. So the revolution was just vigilante justice, which is not justice at all? I wasn't talking about vigilante justice anyway. But your blanket statement that it is not justice at all is just mistaken. The reason we prefer due process is that justice might be more likely with independent minds judging the issue. It also might not in a corrupt system. But I was thinking more in terms of defending friends and family. I believe you wrote of your cousin's child elsewhere. If you were at the park with the child and someone grabbed her off the slide and began to take her away, would you go to the police station and wait for them to find the body and fill out all the paperwork? Or would you interven?

    I have no allusions of idealism. Particularly regarding the notion of impartial justice. The state doesn't provide it. It robs and murders classes that are out of favor, for the benefit of classes that are in favor. Justice has little or nothing to do with it. For instance. http://www.lewrockwell.com/grigg/grigg-w181.html As I have said before, governments killed about 100 million of their own citizens in the 20th century. Do you think that anarchy could have accomplished such a feat? You state that only the strong would have liberty. In a free society people would be able work together to provide for their security or hire it done. We may see a need for an institutions to protect rights, but supposing that the inherently criminal and unjust government is the best means is on the order of what we think about flatearthers or the evolutionary faithful. Sometimes people take things for granted that just aren't so. Ideas become so engrained in us that we don't examine them objectively. We believe what we have always been told without question. But sometimes those things are just wrong and if we look at them closely we begin to see catastrophic flaws. The founders of our country have been venerated for our entire lives. We have been taught that our system of government is the best in the world. But they were just men, as you and I. The government they created was flawed from the start. It has led us to the place where we are. We are not in a good place. And we are far from where we began.

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  9. Government is simply a category of people. I know of no one who confuses politicans and bureaucrats with normal people. But the canabalization doesn't stop with them. It includes the banksters, large corporations that benefit from writing their own legislation. The military industrial complex. And all those who are on the public dole. Forty two million get food stamps now. Fifteen million are on unemployment. The privileged "green" industries. And on and on... The parasite is bigger than the host now. Twenty three million work for the government now at all levels. Less than 17 million work in manufacturing. That simply can not work. What can not work, will not. At some point it stops. Wishing people to be other than they are will not help. People will tend to take the easy way out. If the government offers to rob others and give some of the loot to them they are willing to take it. The government even encourages this. That the government is doing lends credibility to the crime. It is why democracies are always short lived and always end badly.

    It isn't difficult to see why we might have been better off as a confederation- decentralization of power. What the constitution purported to do but didn't. Was done in the confederation. The several states were still supposed to be soverign under the constitution. They are not. Decentralization of power is key. Power must be pushed as far down the scale as possible. It is much easier to escape a local tyrant than a regional or national one. It is much easier for me to move to St Francis county, than to Argentina. The federalists didn't intend to get us where we are today. They simply miscalculated the will to power. The antifederalist told them what was going to happen. They argued that the constitution was a coup against the revolution. And they were correct.

    Mike

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  10. Mike,

    Vigilante justice is not self-defense. I have no problem with self-defense. Your theory of people working together to buy security or provide their own is, in many ways, already done, particularly among gangs in cities and among criminal organizations selling things on the black market. In other words, what you've described is a perfect image of a lawless society. This has been tried before, and it quite literally is the road to serfdom. A powerful lord comes in and promises the serfs protection, so he builds them a castle and makes the pay tribute in exchange. That's what the decentralized political landscape of Europe looked like during the Middle Ages. Now instead of castles, just substitute tanks and machine guns...

    I said you were perfectionist, not an idealist. Perfectionism very often leads to cynicism, and cynicism seems to dominate your political thought. You think anything less than perfect liberty leads to tyranny, and for that reason you utterly reject the power of the state. I cannot deny what governments have done to people in the 20th century. But to answer your question, yes, I absolutely think people could do even worse without government. Before the age of strong states, warring tribes did many unspeakable atrocities to one another. Now that modern civilization has produced nuclear weapons, I shudder to think what would happen with no authorized law enforcement. I shudder to think what will happen even with law enforcement from the state.

    "We may see a need for an institutions to protect rights, but supposing that the inherently criminal and unjust government is the best means is on the order of what we think about flatearthers or the evolutionary faithful." I'm not sure what "evolutionary faithful" means, so that comment is a bit lost on me. But your assumption that all government is inherently criminal and unjust is just absurd. As if people would be less criminal and more just with no government! One doesn't have to idealize the Founding Fathers to see how ludicrous this is.

    Your point about decentralization is interesting. At some point it will be interesting to read the anti-federalists. But the question is, where does the principle of decentralizing end? I don't see anything inherently better about having more, smaller states. East Berlin made it hard enough just to get over to the other side of the city. It isn't clear that small states are any less capable of tyranny as large ones.

    You're certainly free to preach your doom and gloom, but again, I find it very unhelpful. Who do you expect to convince? What do you expect to accomplish? All you seem to offer is a vague explanation for why all government fails. But do you have any constructive idea for how a society could actually work?

    Jameson

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  11. I didn't bring up the term "vigilante justice" and I didn't attempt to make it synonomous with self-defense. If you have no problem with self-defense, then you have no problem with private individuals using coercive force. If you have no problem with private individuals using coercive force, you don't believe that the state has a monopoly on coercive force. The last step is to understand that the legitimate use of coercive force by the state derives from the natural right of the individual to self-defense. When the state goes beyond that, it becomes illigitimate and a lawless state.

    To say that I am a perfectionist is comical. I am more the imperfectionist. I am simple watching the united States descend into tyranny and madness and commenting on what I see. I don't look for or expect perfect liberty on earth. I am a pilgram in search of a city. It is not an earthly city. It is a heavenly one. All earthly governments are to be expected to be defective, because they consist of defective people. The object is to limit the power that is given with checks and balances and severe consequenses for those who wander beyond the limits given them.

    Warring tribes never had the capacity to kill on the level that modern nation states do. And I shudder when I look at the crimes being committed by "authorzied law enforcement in our society right now, today!

    Umm, yes I wondered if you would get the "evolutionary faithful" reference. I don't like using flatearthers because there were never very many of them in reality. The theory of evolution on the other hand is widely accepted. I take the theory to be the greatest hoax ever perpurtrated on mankind. The theory is a tenet of faith of atheist humanism. The idea that complex information can be added to a system on a scale necessary to life to come about is comical. I take evolution to be a "fact" that "everyone" knows that just ain't so.

    I don't assume that all government is inherently criminal. Just all the ones that I am aware of. Some are less criminal than others. Switzerland for example is mostly benign. The US governments at all levels is quickly becoming one of the worst in the world.

    You are quick to jump to conclusions that do not follow from anything I have said. I don't not think that people would be less criminal simply because there is no government. Well perhaps I do, but it would not be in the way you think. People are more criminal in the US because of the multitude of superflous "laws". But I wouldn't agree that all the dictates of the state are legitimate laws. They increase the power of the state, and they contribute to contempt for all law. But no, liberty has prerequisites. One of the first is fear of God. Ben Franklin said, "If men who fear God are evil, what would men who do not believe in Him be." In order for liberty to exist, men must be suitable to liberty, they must be self governing. This is perhaps what makes me most pessimistic about the US. Too high a percentage of people are no longer suited to liberty. You say I preach gloom and doom. You are correct. I see the empire as being in terminal decline. I hope to convince anyone who will listen to prepare for the hard times to come. If you think it is not helpful don't prepare yourself. I hope to leave a record, so that on the other side of the coming darkness, when the flame of liberty starts to flicker once more, perhaps, just perhaps, those lovers of liberty will not repeat the mistakes we have made.

    Do I have any ideas? Yes. They could never be implimented. There is too much interest vested in our corrupt system.

    Mike

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  12. "If you have no problem with self-defense, then you have no problem with private individuals using coercive force." False. Self-defense is not coercive. Enforcing justice, however, is coercive, which is why I insist the state must have a monopoly on coercion.

    "I am a pilgrim in search of a city." Fine, but some of us aren't simply willing to watch the world as we know it go to the flames while we wait for a heavenly city. In theological terms, I would take the Reformed Christian approach, and it appears you would side with the Anabaptists. You are a perfectionist in the sense that you won't tolerate anything less than perfection. You now have not only condemned those who are not "fit" to be free, you now appear even to condemn those who don't hold a certain theological point of view. Who will you not condemn?

    As for evolution, I find it ironic that you reject biological Darwinism yet seem to embrace social Darwinism. Is that not what your theory amounts to? Only those who are "suitable" for liberty will be prepared for the coming doom?

    "Do I have any ideas? Yes. They could never be implemented. There is too much interest vested in our corrupt system." Then why do you even bother expressing your opinions?

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  13. Definition of COERCE

    transitive verb
    1
    : to restrain or dominate by force
    2
    : to compel to an act or choice
    3
    : to achieve by force or threat

    Huh? Any of those definitions could be applied to self defense. Or preventing an abduction or robbery.

    I haven't condemned anyone. I simply describe what I see. Toleration has nothing to do with it. I don't make society. I simply observe what is happening and think about the consequences. Your very good at jumping to conclusions that don't follow. I have no idea what might lead you to think I embrace social Darwinism. My theory is simply that while history may not repeat, it certainly rhymes. Things that can't work won't, no matter how much we want them to. Life flows in cycles. Nations are born. They mature. They age. And they die. Some faster than others. There is nothing unnatural or unusual about the concept. It is possible that something might be done to delay the process. But the process is the same. Why would I bother to tell someone who is on the railroad track that a train is coming? Is it pointless because I can't stop the train? If I could stop the train I would not need to tell them. It is because I can't stop the train that I speak. To be forewarned is to be prepared, or should be. To continue living in a delusion will not help you. Reality is coming to a town near you. Probably sooner rather than later. But who knows? It is coming. The government is rushing headlong into self destruction. The only questions are what will the final trigger be and what will the level of destruction be.

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  14. Mike, none of those meanings of "coerce" can be applied to self-defense, unless by "self-defense" you mean some sort of "preemptive strike."

    So when our whole civilization comes crashing down, what do you presume should replace it? You have proposed a system in which "people would be able work together to provide for their security or hire it done." If that is not social Darwinism, I don't know what is. If "fend for yourselves" is your rule of social order, then you're a social Darwinist.

    It is true that nations come and go, but you putting yourself in the place of a prophet is every bit as presumptuous as others naively believing that our society as we know it will continue on forever. You keep reminding me of all the things that are wrong with our society. Have you not read anything of what I've ever written? I agree that there are many problems, including the ones you repeat over and over again as if stuck in a trance. But unless you have something constructive to say, some theory of what a just social order would look like, there's no purpose in continuing this conversation.

    Comment all you want; in the interest of free speech, I'll post them. But please consider offering something more than diatribe.

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  15. No, no, I guess you would just wait for the police to recover the body of your cousin's children. You can't coerce the abductor into letting her go.

    Social Darwinism is a pejorative term used in criticism of ideologies or ideas concerning their exploitation of concepts in biology and social sciences to artificially create political change that reduces the fertility of certain individuals, races, and subcultures having certain "undesired ...
    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Darwinism

    No

    A theory that the laws of evolution by natural selection also apply to social structures
    en.wiktionary.org/wiki/social_Darwinism

    No

    A social theory which states that the level a person rises to in society and wealth is determined by their genetic background.
    regentsprep.org/Regents/global/vocab/topic.cfm

    There may be some correlation between genetics and acheivement. Haven't seen any studies on the matter. It sounds plausible. Nurture also has much to do with it.

    refers to the idea that competition spurs growth in groups, societies, and cultures. The survival of the fittest is one idea of social Darwinism.
    www.usa-people-search.com/content-the-dynamic-dictionary-of-sociology-terms.aspx

    I am a fan of competition in economic matters. And social matters also. Have you ever been on a date?

    Belief that Charles Darwin's theory of evolution was applicable to human societies and justified the right of the ruling classes or countries to dominate the weak.
    www.wwnorton.com/college/history/wciv_15e_trial/37_glossary/s.htm

    No

    The application of the concept of evolution to the historical development of human societies, placing special emphasis on the idea of "struggle for survival." Hitler picked up these ideas and incorporated them into Nazism.
    www.theology.edu/theology/glossary.htm

    Not in favor of eugenics.

    A pseudo-biological justification which employs Darwin 's Theory of Evolution to explain the development of human society and provide the genetic reasoning for the superiority of specific humans and/or groups. ...
    www.racetoeducate.com/2008/12/definitions.html

    Pseudo-biological? Where are the studies?

    A discredited social theory stating that the political and economic advantages in a developed society are derived from the biological advantages of its collective membership. Producing a culture that embraces the "survival of the fittest." This is based on a misunderstanding of Darwin's theories.
    www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/The-Berklee-Western-Civ-2-Final-Study-Guide

    I would lean more toward the idea that it's who you know.

    I am not a prophet or the son of a prophet, nor the seventh son of a seventh son. But those who don't learn from history are condemned to repeat it and the main thing that we know from history is that we learn nothing from it.

    You are correct there is no purpose in continuing this conversation. It is not for a lack of substance in the matter at hand. But you apparently have no ideas. Your last comment is basically nothing more than an ad hominem attack. Name calling, social darwinist. Saying that I am putting myself in the place of a prophet. Calling what I write diatribe?
    diatribe-
    : a bitter and abusive speech or piece of writing

    I have not been bitter or abusive, but you have. It seems a result of the shallowness of your thought. You want to believe what you believe irrespective of the truth.

    Mike

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  16. Okay, I'll give you that self-defense (and defense of loved ones) is, strictly speaking, a form of coercion to which individuals are entitled. The original point, which started this conversation in the very beginning, was that only the state is entitled to employ that coercion which is necessary to punish offenders of the law--imprisonment, fines, and other penalties. Individuals are not entitled to employ this kind of coercion. If you eliminate the state, you eliminate all means of enforcing justice and defending the weak.

    Whatever you intended to accomplish with this list of definitions of social Darwinism, you simply evade the issue I was addressing. What form of law enforcement would your free society have? How would the weak be defended? How would those who were unjustly mistreated be vindicated? Several comments you just made suggest that you don't particularly care.

    You wouldn't call your rantings and ravings against the state bitter? Bitterness is all I get from you every time you post a comment.

    "But you apparently have no ideas." My ideas are written all over the very blog to which you're posting right now. You, on the other hand, have not suggested a single constructive idea of what a free society would look like, other than suggesting that all people would simply fend for themselves. I've asked, but you haven't delivered.

    "You are correct there is no purpose in continuing this conversation." I'm glad we've reached some point of agreement.

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  17. "was that only the state is entitled to employ that coercion which is necessary to punish offenders of the law..." But you have just agreed that this isn't so. So we are making some progress. Free society begins with the prerequiste of a people suited to liberty. It stands on the principle of non-aggression. Restitution is the key to dealing with offenders. Prisons punish the innocent, by requiring them and uninvolved to pay for housing and up keep of the caged. Yes liberty requires people to be vigilant in guarding there liberty. Franklin said that those who would trade essential liberty for security didn't deserve liberty and wouldn't have either liberty or security. You mistake is in supposing that the state enforces justice and defends the weak. The US government is the largest preditory criminal enterprise the world has ever seen. It is much easier for the state to rob the innocent than to prosecute and house the guilty.

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  18. "But you have just agreed that this isn't so. So we are making some progress." No, I have not back-tracked in the slightest, except on the point that yes, technically self-defense is a coercive measure. I still maintain that a government is required to provide impartial justice.

    "Restitution is the key to dealing with offenders. Prisons punish the innocent, by requiring them and uninvolved to pay for housing and up keep of the caged." It's probably true that we currently overuse the prison system. However, in principle, we can't avoid "punishing" the public at least to some small extent by demanding taxes to pay for some form of punishment for criminals. Otherwise, justice is left in the hands of private citizens, which is inherently unjust. You might disagree with this (it seems like you do) but it really does not take a great stretch of the imagination to see that when justice becomes a private affair, the weak no longer have any protection. To argue that the weak have no place in a free society (which seems to be what you're saying in the words, "Yes liberty requires people to be vigilant in guarding their liberty") is heartless, and it is no basis for a free society at all.

    "Franklin said that those who would trade essential liberty for security didn't deserve liberty and wouldn't have either liberty or security." The key word there is essential. Franklin believed in the rule of law. If justice is in the hands of private individuals, then there is no rule of law, but only the rule of men.

    "Your mistake is in supposing that the state enforces justice and defends the weak. The US government is the largest predatory criminal enterprise the world has ever seen." It is most likely that you are exaggerating. However, even if you are not, that's not the point. I am not here to debate facts with you, Mike. I am trying to talk about principles. We must build free society on a clear set of principles, or else we will not have freedom. That is precisely why we're in as bad a shape as we are--we have allowed our government to evolve not according to principles, but according to popular sentiments. This is contrary to the rule of law. However, what you propose is not to constrain the government by principles, but rather to do away with government entirely. That is certainly no better than what we have, and it is probably far worse.

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  19. Does "No,... except..." mean yes?

    Can you explain the mechanism by which, when a person becomes a government employee, the are transformed into a higher life form capable of providing impartial justice? Are they not still humans like the rest of us? Are they not even likely to be worse than the rest of us due to the acquision of a little power? Is it not likely that least capable and least trustworthy will seek government jobs because there is no requirement to actually be productive?

    "However, in principle, we can't avoid "punishing" the public at least to some small extent by demanding taxes to pay for some form of punishment for criminals." It seems to me that you begin by building injustice into your system.

    I don't understand where you get your definition of justice. Being just is a moral attribute. There is no requirement of a state in order for men to be just. A man can act justly toward his family, or neighbors, or business associates. There is nothing inherently unjust about that. The idea is ridiculous. The weak can be protected and should be by family, friends and neighbors, or they can enter into voluntary, private protection agreements with private security firms. Would there be people who fall through the cracks? Yes. Would criminals still operate? Yes. But we have that now, and with the largest most powerful government the world has ever seen. The US government has become the largest criminal enterprise on the planet. (I am not exaggerating. Its crimes include extorsion, murder, fraud, kidnapping, counterfeiting, torture, robbery etc., etc., etc.) It doesn't look out for the interest of the weak. It looks to it's own interests. It steals from the weak. It gives to the rich and powerful. It creates volumes of rules and regulations for us to follow and then exempts itself from them.

    I have never argued that the weak have no place. I simply think they would be better off without a giant parasite sucking the life blood out of them.

    "'Yes liberty requires people to be vigilant in guarding their liberty'") is heartless, and it is no basis for a free society at all." This is incoherent. It shows that you have no concept of the nature of liberty. You have no understanding of the nature of man. And you have no sense of history, whatever. You have no respect for the people who gave their lives in the War against British aggression and none for those who gave their lives in the War against northern aggression. It was men and women who stood in the gap to fight and die for liberty and justice not government. It is precisely statements like that, which are completely unhinged from reality, that lead me to pessimism regarding our future. (Note: While this is perhaps forceful, it is not bitter :>)

    You do amuse me. You say you want to talk about principles. Your first principle, which I derive from the following: "The criticism that the government is “doing things to other people they could never justify if they were in the private sector” is, upon a moment’s reflection, not good enough. The government has the right and even the responsibility to punish offenders of the law, whereas private citizens have no such right." is that some people are more equal than others. Next you will be telling us that it is ok for the pigs to consort with humans and to sleep with the dogs in the bed in the farmers house.

    Let me suggest that we begin with the principle of non-aggression.

    I fear though, that attempts to restrain men or governments by principles alone will fail. Men are motivated by their own perception of the risk/reward ratio. This is a principle as well.

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  20. Some suggestions for reading

    The Law, Bastiat http://bastiat.org/en/the_law.html
    Witness, Whittaker Chambers
    Gary North http://garynorth.com/
    Gary North also seems to be in your reformed tradition http://www.reformed-theology.org/
    Lord of the Rings, J. R. R Tolkien
    Walter Block http://www.walterblock.com/publications/#online-arts
    Hans Herman Hoppe http://www.hanshoppe.com/
    Lew Rockwell http://www.lewrockwell.com/
    Walter Williams http://econfaculty.gmu.edu/wew/

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  21. Hey Mike,

    Interesting reading suggestions...especially Lord of the Rings. I kept trying to think of the political implications that was supposed to have, but then I thought maybe you were just recommending a good book.

    The Law is a fabulous essay, and I would recommend it to anyone. I'm familiar with Walter Williams and I've read quite a number of his opinion columns in the past few years. I'm not familiar with Block, Hoppe, or Rockwell, but it looks like they're the most specifically anti-state people on your list. What I'm curious about is whether you think Bastiat (or Walter Williams, for that matter) would be a good source in support of your ideas. You seem to think the only way to limit the powers of the state is to demolish it. Bastiat nowhere indicates such an idea. Neither does Adam Smith, and neither does Friedrich Hayek (two authors with whom I'm now fairly familiar).

    I would say the case for federalism is a fairly good one. You asked, "Can you explain the mechanism by which, when a person becomes a government employee, [he is] transformed into a higher life form capable of providing impartial justice?" Obviously you misunderstand. No "higher life form" is required. But, as Hayek argues in The Constitution of Liberty, quoting Lord Acton, "The Federal system limits and restrains sovereign power by dividing it, and by assigning to Government only certain defined rights."

    Note what Hayek says about the separate states before the Constitution was drafted, that "state legislatures soon came as near to claiming omnipotence as the British Parliament had done." The federalist system was actually designed in part to limit the powers of the several states. This is a perfect illustration of how merely having small states does not actually separate powers or limit the oppressive functions of government. The powers of government must be dispersed institutionally if they are really to be kept in check.

    (continued in next comment)

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  22. Now to respond to your other comments.

    1) "Does "No,... except..." mean yes?"
    No, Mike, it doesn't, and the fact that you continue to misunderstand me on this point suggests a fundamental confusion. I would guess you probably misunderstand Bastiat on this point, when he says, "Thus the principle of collective right — its reason for existing, its lawfulness — is based on individual right." This does not mean that the enforcement of all justice can be taken into the hands of individuals. Now, if someone assaults you or your property, by all means, defend yourself. But this is not the only case where justice needs to be defended. Suppose someone steals something from you, and you don't know who it was. You might track down the perpetrator yourself and accuse him. It is certainly your right to accuse; but it is not your right to convict. Every accused person is entitled to a trial in a court of law. That is why we need government. That is why, if there were none in existence, I would give my support to establishing one. Would you not lend your support?

    2) "It seems to me that you begin by building injustice into your system." The government is and must be a public institution, and as such it must be paid for by all citizens. If you object to this, then you object to the existence of government, in which case go back to part 1).

    3) "I don't understand where you get your definition of justice. Being just is a moral attribute. There is no requirement of a state in order for men to be just." This is simply a lie hidden in a grain of truth. No doubt we don't need the state to build justice from the ground up. Justice, for the most part, is taught to us from our parents and from the cultural norms already established before we are born. But we do need a government if we are to prevent the unrestrained growth of wickedness. If you can name a single nation that has ever enjoyed freedom and prosperity without any government, then perhaps I will listen to your anarchism.

    On a theoretical level, how would you enforce an absence of government? Indeed, you would have to have a government just to prevent government from forming! Otherwise since, as you yourself admitted, people would naturally want to form a state. And if they did, who would stop them? You and your privatized armed forces?

    The fact is, if people are going to live together, it must be by agreeing to abide by certain principles. Yes, the principle of non-aggression is the first of those fundamental principles. But we must do more than agree on what these principles are. We must also agree that these principles be enforced by an institution which is as impartial as we can make it. That is where government comes from, and that is why in a free society we would naturally come to have a government.

    (continued in next comment)

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  23. 4) "You have no respect for the people who gave their lives in the War against British aggression and none for those who gave their lives in the War against northern aggression." Oh, please. Are you going to defend the Confederacy as a bastion of liberty? The very people who defended most vehemently that damnable institution of slavery, which was in every way an enemy of freedom? Well when the South rises again, let me know, so I can see what a truly "free" society looks like.

    5) "It is precisely statements like that, which are completely unhinged from reality, that lead me to pessimism regarding our future."
    Mike, I have not met anyone more "unhinged from reality" than you. Do you really think Americans fought to abolish all government? That is the most absurd claim that has ever been made or will ever be made. If you find me unhinged from reality, then you must certainly find nearly everyone else on the planet completely insane. When was the last time you had a productive conversation about politics?

    6) "Next you will be telling us that it is ok for the pigs to consort with humans and to sleep with the dogs in the bed in the farmers house." Am I arguing that the state has the right to do anything other than enforce the law of the land? I suppose you will now tell me that Friedrich Hayek was a communist.

    7) "I fear though, that attempts to restrain men or governments by principles alone will fail. Men are motivated by their own perception of the risk/reward ratio. This is a principle as well." Oh, the horror of this brief existence! Why, oh cruel world, must you torment us?

    Again, your perfectionism leads you to cynicism. You think that anything less than perfect liberty is the worst thing that ever happened on the planet. In other words, you think that everything that ever happened is the worst thing that ever happened on the planet. You would not be happy in a free society. You would not be happy anywhere. You choose to remain committed to an ideal which has never existed nor will ever exist. And if that's what you're after, fine. Just don't talk about political philosophy. Political philosophy is not for the perfectionist, but for those who care for their fellow human beings here and now, and want to see improvement in society wherever it is possible.

    Jameson

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  24. Lord of the Rings is much more than just a good book. It is among other things a testimony to the nature of power, the effects of power on men, and men's attitudes toward it. If you think about what the One Ring did to Smegal and Bilbo, and even Frodo, it was destroying them. There is the Boromir complex the lust for power, and the delusion that coercive force and be used to bring about good. Gandalf said it best. "You can not give me the Ring, Frodo. I dare not take it. I would use the Ring from a desire to do Good." But he new that it wasn't possible.

    From the notions of government, I would expect that you weren't familiar with The Law and that if you were you disagree with every line of it. "The law is the organization of the natural right of lawful defense. It is the substitution of a common force for individual forces. And this common force is to do only what the individual forces have a natural and lawful right to do: to protect persons, liberties, and properties; to maintain the right of each, and to cause justice to reign over us all." That is the sum of my view of law. You jump to quickly to conclusion that don't follow. I have not argue anywhere for the demolition of the state. I am not averse to the idea. But I am not convinced that it doesn't devolve immediately into feudalism. I would take issue with Bastiat on the idea of taxation. He seems to assume taxation. He definition of law excludes it. Taxation is simply a euphemism for theft. The appropriate size of government is that which can be supported by voluntary contributions. More than that is criminal.

    ...quoting Lord Acton, "The Federal system limits and restrains sovereign power by dividing it, and by assigning to Government only certain defined rights." I fear it doesn't matter much what Lord Acton said on the matter, our own experience has demostrated that divison of power has failed to limit or restrain the consolidation of power in the central government. Paper documents do little to restrain. Particularly when that centralized power has taken upon itself the power to interpret the documents.

    "'state legislatures soon came as near to claiming omnipotence as the British Parliament had done.' The federalist system was actually designed in part to limit the powers of the several states. This is a perfect illustration of how merely having small states does not actually separate powers or limit the oppressive functions of government." But the small state is to be preferred over the large state for a number of reasons. The tyrants are closer to the people they are harassing and can be more easily influenced by them. It is easier to flee a small state than a large one. The representatives will more closely resemble their constituency. And power is divided more completely between the several states. It is the responsibility of the people of there respective states to restrain their politicians. Those who are more successful at than will be more prosperous.
    This is simply not possible on a national scale.

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  25. "...the fact that you continue to misunderstand me on this point suggests a fundamental confusion. I would guess you probably misunderstand Bastiat on this point, when he says, 'Thus the principle of collective right — its reason for existing, its lawfulness — is based on individual right.'" It isn't me who misunderstands this. It is precisely what I have been arguing all along. The government can not, that is can not, do legitimately anything that the individual can not do. That fundamental truth was the basis for my first response to you. You are mistaken regarding theft. I absolutely have a right to retreive my property. That right is prior to government. I may choose to allow the government to act in my behalf if I have confidence that it will act justly. Our current system is based however on theft by government. There is little or no justice in it. And it in fact undermines valid law by its action, as per Bastiat. I wouldn't have any problem supporting a legitimate government. Show me one.

    "The government is and must be a public institution, and as such it must be paid for by all citizens." This is a completely ridiculous statement. Forty three million in the US are paying no income tax. That is 32% of tax payers. http://www.taxfoundation.org/research/show/1410.html The US government is running the largest extortion racket on the planet. Robbing half the population to buy votes from the other half. There is no requirement that government be supported by ALL citizens. A legitimate government would be supported by volutary contributions. If it wanted to continue as government, it would have to provide some preceived good.

    "This is simply a lie hidden in a grain of truth." Your being comical again. You call it a lie, and then explain why it is truth. Perhaps, you could provide an example of a government that didn't come to it's end because of the unrestrained growth of evil. Governments don't restrain the growth of evil. They contribute to it. Ours has been particularly efficient in the endeavour and is at the point of collaspe. But you might find Judges 21 interesting, when compared it to I Samuel 8 where the people demanded a king and were told what the result would be. The notion of necessary government is not true. The prerequiste to liberty is a people suited to liberty. That doesn't mean the entire population. God knows what the percentage is. With a people suited to liberty, liberty will emerge. When the people are no longer suited to liberty they will soon cease to have it.

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  26. Dear Mike,

    This has been a fascinating exchange, but I think I've said all I care to say on the issue. Your reading of history lacks all subtlety. You have no robust theory for how free societies actually emerge, only fantasies. Indeed, your take on the American revolution seems to assume that it was merely a miraculous burst of individualism after centuries of tyranny, which completely fails to take into account the centuries of political theory developed slowly (and largely by accident) upon which the Americans built. You repeatedly misunderstand my arguments, you fail to grasp the need for any sort of public institutions whatever, and you fail even to understand the people you profess to admire (Bastiat being one key example). Most of all, you keep coming back to this idea of an emergence of people "suited to liberty," which constantly suggests to me a hard-hearted attitude toward the weak and toward the society as a whole; you seem to believe "survival of the fittest" is a legitimate rule of society.

    For these reasons I see no reason to continue responding to your comments. I'll keep publishing your comments if you post them, but I've said all I care to.

    Jameson

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  27. You never cease to amuse. Your summary and comments have no relation to anything I have said. You seem incapable of rational organized thought. You might add Mortimer Adler to your reading list. If you work on the reading list I posted, someday, perhaps, you will emerge from that cave into the light of day.

    Good luck,

    Mike

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  28. Is this Mike dude crazy?? I'm thinking he's schizophrenic..

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