I was tagged in a recent Facebook Post by Reformed Christian and Libertarian Gregory Baus about his recent video arguing that non-Christian libertarians should become Christians (and in a sense, already are “religious”). His site contains various libertarian resources. 1
My view is that rights are metanorms, not morals themselves. I used to think rights are a subset of morals. Now I think that the sets are intersecting, that most rights violations are immoral but not necessarily so as the purpose of rights is to tell us which laws are justified not how to act on a day to day basis. There might be situations where it is moral to violate rights (breaking into a cabin in the woods to save your baby) and where is is immoral to stand on one’s rights (being needlessly cruel to your grandma doens’t violate rights but is immoral). [continue reading…]
I just interviewed Jack Spirko for the Tom Woods Show about his new book Laws of Life: Ditch the System, Design Your Life. The interview will be released next Thursday.
One thing that came up was Jack’s insistence that we focus most of our energy and attention on things that are within our control. (His view is a bit more nuanced than that, but this is a mere email, dear reader.)
I don’t like that the U.S. government spends as much as it does. But there is nothing I can do about that.
I can make a long list of things I disapprove of that I have no way of changing.
But there are plenty of things I can do, in the here and now, to create a more secure and fulfilling life for my family and me.”
The following is adapted from a note I wrote to Tom in reply. [continue reading…]
I’ve argued that Hoppe has a point that in today’s democratic system, immigration, whatever the state policy is, some rights are violated: either those of the would-be host/employer (forced exclusion) or those of citizens (forced integration). [continue reading…]
One of my friends on the Left Coast has had his cybertruck defaced twice now by the commies. I mused that it would be funny to rig it up to detect approaching commies by smelling their patchouli and shocking them, but that lawyers might warn that might be risky, and told Grok to write me some lyrics for a song. I then fed them into Suno and told it to make a country song. It’s not bad…. [continue reading…]
Thomas and Alito are the worst conservative judges.
“The 5th Amendment entitles aliens to due process of law in the context of removal proceedings. Procedural due process rules are meant to protect” against “the mistaken or unjustified deprivation of life, liberty, or property,” the majority said. “We have long held that no person shall be removed from the United States without opportunity, at some time, to be heard.”
Justices Samuel A. Alito Jr. and Clarence Thomas dissented last month, and they did the same on Friday.
The comments of my libertarian lawyer friend, F, with mine interspersed: [continue reading…]
Last week, after a trip to Nice with my wife (facebook), I joined some friends in Istanbul—Hans Hoppe, Saifedean Ammous, Greg Morin, and a few others (facebook) (some additional pix below). Had several interesting conversations, with Hans in particular. Since I sometimes act as his amanuensis—his Boswell to Johnson—1 I might as well record some of his comments I found interesting. [continue reading…]
I enjoyed James Boswell’s, The LIfe of Samuel Johnson (1791), and as a former Objectivist I always recall this savage review of Barbara Branden’s biography of Ayn Rand, Louis Torres, “Boswell’s Johnson—Branden’s Rand: ‘The Passion of Ayn Rand’ in Historical Perspective,” Aristos 3, no. 5 (May 1987): 1–6; see the obituary for Branden in Aristos, Dec. 2013. [↩]
Block argues that Rothbard and Mises are wrong that any supply of money is optimal, since if new gold is mined without violating rights, that consumers demonstrate their preference for this, thus demonstrating that the old supply was not optimal. I sensed something was wrong with this; that somehow Walter was conflating descriptive economics with normative, legal, and rights matters. The fact that rights are not violated in increasing the supply of money does not mean that the previous supply was not optimal. I sensed that this was some kind of hypersubjectivism run amok. [continue reading…]
[This post needs to be organized, it’s here in raw form for now]
As I said in another post, “I ran this idea by Hans Hoppe last night by Hans Hoppe, with whom I was having dinner in Istanbul, and he immediately saw it the same way. I don’t mind operating without a net, but it’s nice to have one.”
I’m sure all the post-libertarian/waystation libertarian/thuggocrat/”got to fight fire with fire”/you don’t bring a knife to a gun fight/”high trust”/crypto-racist/anti-Jew “libertarians” will cheer on this increase in state taxation of private institutions by trotting out some… https://t.co/3B3a2KMQYh
Many times I have noted that one criticism of libertarianism is that it is too simplistic, in that its “only value” is liberty. This is usually stated by some statist who grudgingly concedes that they value liberty, that liberty is a value, but for them it’s not the only value. 1 As I wrote previously,
Calling rights absolute is just a tactic of those who simply have no principled opposition to aggression. They believe aggression is usually wrong, or unjust—but not always. In other words, they think it is not unjust to commit aggression. This is why they do not respect property rights on principled grounds and are willing to infringe property rights if there is a more important value, like “freedom.” Or some other value, like equality or basic welfare rights, and so on. Those who favor “non-absolute” rights really favor or condone aggression (in some circumstances), and should not hide behind misleading characterizations of libertarian opponents of aggression as being “absolutists.” Liberty is not our “only value,” but it is a value, and we oppose aggression. As I wrote in my book:
Now, as a human being, I, like every other libertarian, have values other than liberty. We are not just libertarians, ever. However, we do value liberty, and we oppose aggression. For us it is a “side-constraint,” to use Nozick’s phrase: we believe aggression is simply wrong, or unjustifiable. As Nozick wrote, “Individuals have rights, and there are things no person or group may do to them (without violating their rights).”13 When the conservative, or liberal, or minarchist, or “bleeding heart” libertarian starts wagging their finger and tut-tutting that they oppose aggression but that unlike the “simpleminded” libertarian it is not their “only value,” you can be sure they are setting the stage to propose or endorse or condone some kind of invasion of liberty—some act of aggression. That is, when I hear people, even some libertarians, condescendingly denounce our focus on aggression as the primary social evil, …. I want to hold onto my wallet, because they are coming after it. Or as Ayn Rand says in “Francisco’s Money Speech,” “Run for your life from any man who tells you that money is evil. That sentence is the leper’s bell of an approaching looter.”14 Likewise, when someone says aggression is not the only thing that matters, they are about to advocate aggression. Keep an eye on these people. 2
A recent example is by conservative James Orr in a debate with Stephen Hicks, an Objectivist if I am not mistaken, where Orr repeats this tired canard. 3 Orr says, around 1:01:34, “if you’ve got freedom as the highest value—and just and let’s just assume you can sequester it within a political domain—that’s only going to work if you’ve got, outside the political domain, a sense of what makes life meaningful that is shared at least to some degree…”
It’s like playing whack-a-mole with these aggression-condoning weasels.
Update: See also Johnny Kramer, “What Libertarianism Is Not,” LewRockwell.com (Aug. 19, 2008), section 2, “Libertarianism is not an exaltation of individual liberty above all — especially not above property rights.”
A manufactured conflict is flashing through libertarianism: self-described “humanitarians” versus insultingly-labeled “brutalists.” In a much circulated article entitled “Against Libertarian Brutalism,” the libertarian luminary Jeffrey Tucker defines the “humanitarians” (of whom he is one) as people who love liberty because it “allows peaceful human cooperation… creative service… keeps violence at bay… allows for capital formation and prosperity… leads to a world in which people are valued as ends in themselves.” In short, “humanitarian libertarians” value liberty because of the sheer beauty of the society it creates. (Note: The article was published in a March issue of FEE but the faux conflict is still active.)
By contrast, “brutal libertarians” are said to find “what’s impressive about liberty is that it allows people to assert their individual preferences, to form homogeneous tribes, to work out their biases in action, to ostracize people based on ‘politically incorrect’ standards, to hate to their heart’s content so long as no violence is used… to be openly racist and sexist.” In short, “brutal libertarians” value liberty because it allows them to hate and to discriminate.
Unfortunately, the article also defines “brutal libertarians” as being “rooted in the pure theory of the rights of individuals to live their values whatever they may be.” In other words, we (I am a brutalist by the preceding definition) believe in living peacefully without imposing our moral values on others; we view the non-aggression principle as the non-aggression principle. Politically-speaking, I adhere to nonviolence and for this I am considered hate-filled.
Tucker offers the example of “a town that is taken over by a fundamentalist sect that excludes all peoples not of the faith, forces women into burka-like clothing, imposes a theocratic legal code, and ostracizes gays and lesbians.” And, yet, everyone is there voluntarily. He continues, “The brutalists will… defend such a microtyranny on grounds of decentralization, rights of property, and the right to discriminate and exclude – completely dismissing the larger picture here that, after all, people’s core aspirations to live a full and free life are being denied on a daily basis.”
Ignore errors such as presuming that decentralization or property ownership are used by libertarians to defend a violation of rights. Forget how difficult (or impossible) it is to find someone who advocates and lives nonviolence because he is hate-filled. Or the strong tendency for such a person to also adopt a moral code of civil behavior toward others. I do not know any voluntaryist who does not also have a strong personal ethics that includes tolerance, if not kindness toward others. But also, they believe their moral sentiments must not be imposed; what cannot be accomplished by peaceful means should not be accomplished at all.
Consider instead how easily the article skips over the “voluntary” aspect of the town. Or how a voluntary town could “force” women into burka-like clothing. Or how the article presumes that accommodating the aspirations of others is the responsibility of strangers.
I’ve tried to extract something positive from the article’s “humanitarian” argument, and there is an interesting question raised, albeit obliquely. The question: What is the relationship between politics and morality?
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