StephanKinsella.com

One of Canaletto’s gorgeous paintings of Venice’s Piazza San Marco is used as the header and theme for Libertarian Papers. Our friend and podcast producer Gil Guillory was in Italy for a work assignment recently (no offense, left-libertarian opponents of “wage slavery”) and visited said Piazza–sporting a new beard. Lucky guy!

When I started practicing law in 1992 I had framed some nice prints of the Trumbull painting of the Signing of the Declaration of Independence; a facsimile of the Declaration itself; and the famous Rembrandt Peale portrait of Thomas Jefferson. In the years since I’ve become more and more disgusted and cynical about constitutional sentimentalism and have become much more critical of America’s baleful effect on world history and my rosy view of its founding. Contrary to Randian mythology, America was not some minarchist paradise at its founding (and even if it was, minarchism is just another form of statism; see my What It Means To Be an Anarcho-Capitalist): it was a flawed utopian experiment resulting from an illegal coup d’etat (see my The Institute for Justice on our Munificent Constitution). It was a society that condoned slavery, one of the worst evils ever, while establishing a constructivist new order based on a “rational, scientific” paper document and rejecting traditional, superior, unwritten, monarchist limits on state power, thus setting the world on the path of democracy and democratic tyranny, and all the evils of the 20th Century–WWI, WWII, the Holocaust, the Cold War, Communism, Naziism, Fascism, Great Depressions I and II–not to mention the illegal, immoral, murderous, centralizing War to Prevent Southern Independence (which some “libertarian” centralists for some reason support!) (see my When Did the Trouble Start?; Hoppe’s Murray N. Rothbard and the Ethics of Liberty; also my post Supreme Court: Innocence is No Defense; also Manuel Lora, Constitution Worship Undermines the Cause for Freedom).

And while I still admire many things about Jefferson, let’s face it, he was a slaveowner, probably a slave-raper; he violated the Constitution while in office; and he helped foist on the world this utopian experiment that has led to the present state of the world.

So, I can no longer bear to look at these icons in my office, and am giving them away (maybe to Gil Guillory).

Updates: See my post Jeff Hummel’s “The Constitution as a Counter-Revolution.”

Paul Aubert writes:

Man, you’ve got to chill. Don’t you know that you live in the greatest country ever even thought about, and aren’t you grateful to all of the soldiers who died for you to be able to spew your bile?

Obviously, that was a little bit of my sarcasm, but isn’t it tiring how every single non-Christian holiday turns to military-worship? There is even some military-worship creep in the Christian holidays, like Easter and Christmas. We have (in order):

1. Memorial Day in May, a day to memorialize dead soldiers (and to cheer on our current wars);

2. July 4th, a day originally meant to commemorate the signing of the document of secession from Great Britain, now designed to spew disgusting sayings like, “Remember those soldiers who died so you could be free” (and to cheer on our current wars);

3. Labor Day (in September), a holiday with Communist origins that we somehow link to remembering soldiers who died for our freedom (and to cheer on our current wars); and

4. Veterans Day (in November)…insert everything I just said for Nos. 1-3 above.

Starting in May, there is a day every other month until November to make sure we’re all still on board with the military and killing. We even interject a little military-worship into Thanksgiving (don’t forget to thank those soldiers who are killing, maiming and being killed in places like Afghanistan and Iraq so you can be free).

The absolute worst is when you go to church on the weekend closest to these days; the church is draped in flags, and we sing disgusting songs of murder, like “Glory, Glory, Halleluiah.” We pray for our soldiers to kill foreign civilians before they kill us because we’re free. Mark Twain’s War Prayer is priceless for getting this point across.

It’s gotten to the point where I dread even going to church on those weekends (like the weekend coming up).

Another wrote:

Just read your 6/29/09, 10:26 AM post on the LRC Blog. Also used the included link to re-read your “When Did the Trouble Start?” As had happened before, it reminded me of this closing speech from one of my favorite movies, The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951).*

You probably know about it, but if not . . .

Klaatu: “I am leaving soon, and you will forgive me if I speak bluntly. The universe grows smaller every day, and the threat of aggression by any group, anywhere, can no longer be tolerated. There must be security for all, or no one is secure. Now, this does not mean giving up any freedom, except the freedom to act irresponsibly. Your ancestors knew this when they made laws to govern themselves and hired policemen to enforce them. We, of the other planets, have long accepted this principle. We have an organization for the mutual protection of all planets and for the complete elimination of aggression. The test of any such higher authority is, of course, the police force that supports it. For our policemen, we created a race of robots. Their function is to patrol the planets in spaceships like this one and preserve the peace. In matters of aggression, we have given them absolute power over us. This power cannot be revoked. At the first sign of violence, they act automatically against the aggressor. The penalty for provoking their action is too terrible to risk. The result is, we live in peace, without arms or armies, secure in the knowledge that we are free from aggression and war. Free to pursue more… profitable enterprises. Now, we do not pretend to have achieved perfection, but we do have a system, and it works. I came here to give you these facts. It is no concern of ours how you run your own planet, but if you threaten to extend your violence, this Earth of yours will be reduced to a burned-out cinder. Your choice is simple: join us and live in peace, or pursue your present course and face obliteration. We shall be waiting for your answer. The decision rests with you.”

Now I ask you, how could anyone not love that movie? And let me suggest that you replace those discarded office icons with a nice big beautiful picture of Gort.

*Actress Patricia Neal thought in 1951 this was one of the silliest films ever and, in scene after scene, could barely keep a straight face while delivering her lines. In later years she changed her mind, calling it a marvelous movie that she was very proud to have been in.

Another wrote:

The Catoites rejoice: “This ruling is the latest in a series of steps the Court has taken to strike down race-conscious actions that violate individual rights…” What individual right is Shapiro referring to? The right to get promoted by a government agency?

[Cross-posted at LewRockwell.com]

The Supreme Court has ruled 5-4 in favor of the white firefighters in New Haven, Conn., on the grounds that they “were unfairly denied promotions because of their race.

I predict hypocritical reaction from both left and right, split along the same lines as the majority and dissenting side in this case. The left will decry this, despite it being logically implied by their racialism. The right will support this, despite it flying in the face of their anti-judicial activism and pretend-federalism.

The libertarian centralists (see also Objectivists and Federalism; Bolick on Judicial Activism) will no doubt cheer this case … even though it’s a precarious 5-4, and the next likely Justice, Judge Sotomayor, voted the other way on this case.

[Cross-posted at LRC and The Shadow Justice]

Here:

June 29, 2009 at 05:05

Neverfox, Gary: I am not for closed borders. I am not for the INS. I am for its abolition. My article was “an argument for”–I was trying to present the best argument I could think of for some mild limitation on immigration by the state controlling roads for the benefit of its real owners (to simplify: current US residents and taxpayers). Gary, the “authority” (arguendo) would come from the owners (the US taxpayers) who have a natural ownership claim to the road. But in the end, I am not in favor of the power of the state being used to limit immigration.

Heroic post by Wladimir Kraus: Yes, Socialism is Collectivism and Capitalism is “Wage System”!. See also Rothbard’s The Spooner-Tucker Doctrine: An Economist’s View.

Many libertarians tend to be fans of science fiction. But given that left-libertarians are averse to modern capitalism, industrialism, mass production, the division of labor, and so forth, instead preferring self-sufficient “co-ops” to avoid the “problem” of labor, general purpose machinery, “localism,” and so on, one wonders how an advanced technical society would be possible in left-libertopia. Imagine reaching a level of technological and industrial sophistication needed to build a starship in a society that favors localism and shuns mass production, industrialism, and the division of labor.

Here:

Stephan Kinsella said…

“Brainpolice,” I don’t “act as if individualist anarchism never existed.” In act I am an individualist anarchist. I, however, an a libertarian, and do not accept the various unlibertarian views held by many of the progenitors of and influences on our modern libertarian view, such as the silly economic and land and tax views of the Georgists and their ilk. Rothbard was right: Smith’s labor theory of value was a crucial mistake that lead to flawed Marxoid social analysis and a host of bizarre notions about property and economics still propounded today by the soi-disant allies of libertarianism. We standard libertarians have enough work to do exploring, extending, solidifying, applying, and clarifying our own edifice of thought. If someone can gain a few nuggets of insight picked out of the musty volumes of leftist thinkers’ thought, more power to them. So far the main thing I’ve seen of value come out of this is a welcome caution to over-exuberant, “vulgar” praise of “capitalist” institutions and practices that might be more influenced by state policy that is initially realized by some of the reflexive supporters of the present order. Yet I see no reason to accept the barnacles that encrust these reasonable insights, e.g. localism; tolerance for vandarchism; distaste for the division of labor, industrialism, corporations, “bossism,” “pushing people around,” “exploitation,” “wage slavery,” “alienation” from one’s labor; occupancy; single-tax and associated crankish economic views; obsession with “wildcat unionism,” and so on.

June 25, 2009 10:36 PM [continue reading…]

In one of L. Neil Smith’s libertarian-ish sci-fi novels, I recall in he made a comment that to understand human action, it’s not either nature (genes), or nurture (environment), but rather it’s more like one-third nature, one-third nurture, and one-third free will (choice, volition). I loved it and have long remembered it, but now I can’t find it. If anyone knows where I can find this, please leave a comment below or email me.

***

Found it. From The Probability Broach:

“Philosophers have debated the causes of human behavior: heredity or environment? Are heroes and villains made or born? Confederate school children know that nature and nurture are only part of the answer, two-thirds, to be exact. The remaining third, taken as axiomatic here, is individual free will. They don’t dismiss it as an illusion, or a whimsical choice between trivial alternatives.”

Great post by Sheldon Richman:

Anarchists vs. Minarchists: The Defining Economic Difference

The crux of the economic difference between market anarchists and market minarchists is that the minarchists — a priori — find a market failure in the provision of law and security. Market anarchists do not. Considering that the minarchists embrace market theory in every other area, it seems they have the burden of showing why their own principles don’t apply in those excepted areas. (It is significant that the first market anarchist we know of was an economist, Gustave de Molinari.)

Market anarchists have the theory, the history, and the moral philosophy. What’s left?

POSTED BY SHELDON RICHMAN AT 11:46 AM

LABELS: ANARCHISM, MINARCHISM

***

See also Manuel Lora’s comments on another post here: “I think it’s awesome that minarchsits are being challenged. They hate to be called statists. They either think that the state is not an aggressor or that it’s necessary to have (lest we have chaos!) or something equally flaky. They are principled (more or less) but not at the core.”

My list is here.

Mentioned on:

• Annoying and pretentious terms (Althouse blog)
• Adjectivey, Alliterations, Britishisms, and Loving (Karen De Coster’s blog)
• Stephan Kinsella’s rulings on term coolness (metafilter)

From Althouse:

Annoying and pretentious terms
Collected by N. Stephan Kinsella (via Metafilter). The list is excellent — reminds me of one of my all-time favorite books: Flaubert’s “Dictionary of Accepted Ideas.” The list is also pretty long, so let me select a few that especially annoy me …

You would think libertarians would be unambiguously for freedom of speech. In Intellectual Property vs. Creative Freedom, Cathy Young discusses a literal book banning by a federal judge: he has temporarily enjoined “publication of a novel called 60 Years Later: Coming Through the Rye,” based on copyright claims by “J. D. Salinger, author of the 1951 classic Catcher in the Rye.” The judge is expected to decide soon whether to make the ban permanent. Yes, this is all because of copyright.

Copyright now lasts well over 100 years, due to continual copyright extension over the years–as Young notes, “When copyright legislation was first passed in the United States in 1790, the term of copyright lasted for 14 years, with the option of renewal for another 14.”

Does Ms. Young want to abolish copyright, this obvious threat to freedom of press? Or at least return to the 14 + 14 year system? Why, no. She has figured out the optimal way to handle this: “Personally, I would support a term of 50 years, with a portion of revenues from any derivative work published thereafter going to the original author.” Fifty years. Where she gets this number is anybody’s guess.

This is libertarianism?

[Cross-posted at LRC and AgainstMonopoly.com]