I strongly disagree that abortion should be left out of libertarianism, any more than the death penalty, drug laws, the draft, and being forced to serve on juries deciding corporate civil cases, should be left out. These all involve the question of the sovereignty of the individual over his body, and seem axiomatic to me to any discussion of libertarian doctrine. You refer to the infant’s humanity, but the infant only exists after birth; before birth it is a fetus.
The unconstitutionality of the death penalty is not “quite absurd” but obvious. If one accepts the principles enunciated in the Declaration as being axiomatic and inherent in the specific clauses of the Constitution and Bill of Rights, then it’s quite clear. If we accept your assertion (which I don’t) that those who attended the Constitutional Convention didn’t object to the death penalty because they didn’t speak out against it, and thus its constitutional, I would reply that what they thought was immaterial to what they wrote into law. The Declaration states, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, they they are endowed by their Creator with unalienable Rights, among these are Life…That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men…” Therefore, since all men have a Creator-endowed unalienable Right to Life, the State cannot alienate that Right by killing them. Plain as day. In fact, one of the functions of Government is to protect us against the supporters of Capital Punishment. Let’s remember that many at the Constitutional Convention owned slaves which is an infringement of the Right to Liberty. They were hypocrites who wrote the truth.
I would argue, though, that the fact that Jefferson tried to introduce a bill ending capital punishment in Virginia, and that Madison said,“I should not regret a fair and full trial of the entire abolition of capital punishment.” would indicate that they opposed it, and since they both attended the Constitutional Convention, your assertion is false. In my view, the death penalty is one of the cornerstones of fascism, and must be abolished if we are to have a libertarian society in America.
Webster —I would agree, and I think you put it very well when you say,“Prayer in schools…is a matter of being permitted to say private prayers when on school property that cost no other anything.” I don’t think I would object to the Bible class if it were after school, used no lights or chalk, left the room exactly as it was before the class, etc. Some might object that there was wear on the desks. The problem will arrive though when there are 20 classrooms and 21 sects demand use of them under the equal protection clause. Nor would I have any problem with silent or mumbled prayer during recess on the quad. This is the right of the student. Moreover, I’d argue that after school hours, the school is no longer a school, but a public building similar to the lobby of city hall. One has the right to say a prayer there or vigorously discuss the theology of the gods of Vallhalla with impassioned Norwegians, as long as the noise doesn’t interfere with the clerks carrying out their job functions.
However, before we carve rules in stone on school prayer, I think we need to consider several other factors that would affect those rules. 1) Does the state demand and enforce compulsory education? 2) Is home schooling permitted by the state in fulfillment of that demand? 3)Does attendance at a religious or parochial school fulfill the requirement? If home and parochial school are not permitted, and the student must attend public schools, then what happens when the student’s religion requires loud verbal prayer or physical prostration so frequently that the student can’t listen uninterruptedly to a 50 minute lecture? Or what happens if parochial and domestic schooling is permitted, but the student can’t afford the parochial school,or his parents don’t have the time to educate him domestically because they have to work 2 jobs 7 days a week to pay taxes to the Clintons? In this case the student is forced unwillingly to attend public school, and if his religious duties require, as above, loud verbal prayer and physical prostration so frequently that it disrupts class, then what is to be done? I don’t know.
I’m puzzled by your argument that “Yes, having a Bible class in school would be theft, but then again so is having a physics class in school.” As I argued above, the Bible class would be permitted under the circumstances I mentioned, but how is having a physics class theft? The function of the public school is secular education on a wide variety of subjects, so a physics class seems to me perfectly legitimate, unless you refer to a religious person who would claim, “All physical laws are subject to the will of G-d, or gods, and to teach them as immutable laws is blasphemy (a view I’d sympathize with). Therefore, forcing me to attend and pay taxes for the support of these public schools is theft.” Again, this is a situation I don’t know how to deal with. I’d be very interested to hear your views on this seeming dilemma
I’d love that, but I think it will only become a viable option when the old televised and print media has been almost completely replaced by the internet. I also think libertarians need to restructure some of their arguments, and stress how freedom allows people to organize their own societies to live the way they want to, instead of stressing libertarian societies (which scare a lot of people).
Getting government the hell out of education (using vouchers, or whatever) might help, and that can be done through the political process.
Grant — Niccolo speaks of a movement, and you endorse it, but it seems to me a “movement” is a collectivist concept. Libertarianism isn’t a movement. It’s the free activity of individuals in relationship to other free individuals and insensate objects. Austrian economics, (as well as Sartrean existentialism) says there is only the actions of individuals; indeed, we need only speak of actions since “individual” is a mental concept based on the past and its memories. “Movements” imply mass consent, whereas libertarianism is the constant clash of individual’s free actions and thoughts against each other and the world of objects. The Mises Institute and the debates on these forums and blogs virtually prove that.
Yes, and there are no forests either, but its easier to call something a forest than to say “the group of trees enclosed by these long. and lat. coordinates”. Its a useful abstraction. I agree its silly to base political or economic theories on abstractions if you can possible help it. But sometimes its not an abstraction. Sometimes people DO join groups formally. Contracts are signed with businesses, memberships in clubs are purchased. Yes those are individual actions, but individuals can choose to sacrifice for the good of some group. In my opinion the problem with collective groups comes when people abandon the idea that a group is an aggregate of individuals, and start seeing it as an entity unto itself, which is clearly a mistake.
I don’t have a problem with collectivism so long as its not forced on anyone. I wouldn’t want individualism to be forced on anyone either. I think if libertarianism is going to succeed, it has to stress that it will not force any ideology on anyone. If people want to be collectivist, more power to them, but leave me out of it.
Grant — A very thought provoking answer, and well thought out. However, I must disagree with you on several points.
First of all, a very pickayune but necessary observation. You refer to the forest as “the group of tree enclosed…” but I’m afraid you betray collectivist tendencies here, for actually there are only “the individual trees enclosed…,” and also the soil, leaves on ground, etc. That is, there are only specifics. However, a much more important consideration is this: trees are not individuals like humans in that they have no free action (who knows, perhaps they can squirm around a little), but compared to the free action of a human individual, they have nil. So, one could speak of a forest for convenience, but to speak of a “movement” or collective group is impossible; because there are only individuals with their own individual freedoms, and it really distorts clear thinking in Libertarianism to even begin to start thinking of such monstrosities as “movements”. What unites us are broadly shared philosophical ideas that we wish to introduce into society so that life gets better for people. Instead of the universal idea of “doing something”, which all past movements have, we have in Libertarianism for the first time the idea of turning back this “doing something” and dismantling virtually everything that is wrecked, while retaining certain basic necessities (police) that still have to be worked out in this ongoing dialogue. Probably it would lead to a radical free-market capitalism, with minarchist gradualism making it palatable to the vast majority of Americans. So first, let’s make sure we never muddy the waters of Libertarianism with all this fustian about “movements”.
But I aim this criticism much more at Niccolo that at you, for the examples you give of people forming voluntary groups without it compromising there free will are in most cases valid. But for Niccolo, who seems to me to put forth an admiration for anarchism, to speak of a "movement "seems ludicrous. I do not see how anarchists could ever have or form a movement. Let’s say they had a meeting. The first speaker begins, and after a minute someone in the audience gets up and starts to speak loudly, then a second, then a third, each proclaiming his free will to do what he wants. Now, you might say, they all agreed beforehand to certain terms, like “no one can interupt a speaker until he finishes or 5 minutes elapse and we agree to this of our own free will”. But once the meeting starts, someone jumps up a minute into the first speech and starts speaking loudly. If they are true anarchists, they couldn’t stop him or a second from speaking.
People like movements because it makes them feel good; it makes them expand their egos. But they have to give up there freedom and compromise. However, Libertarianism differs; it’s more like a group of anarchistic freedom-loving individuals seeing a problem and its solution spontaneously, and acting coincidentally to solve the problem. Then they retreat into their own free individualism again. Frankly, I think that will make people a lot happier and there will be a lot less frustration in the land. But maybe I’m wrong.
Grant — What I find doubly strange, though, about Niccolo’s suggestion for a movement is that he refers to himself, by implication in his motto, as a Disciple of G-d. Now it seems to me if you are a Disciple of G-d, then you are in an I-Thou “movement” with G-d, and since the mainstream gods tend to be pretty jealous gods, you certainly aren’t going to be allowed to shift your alligence to any entity outside of G-d, and this fact further precludes Niccolo from ever being in a “movement.” I’m afraid he will have to remain an “individual”.
As far as how all this “movement theory” fits in with the theme of this forum, I’d say the Ron Paul campaign will have a very positive influence on Libertarianism because to get elected and to get his programs through, he is going to need a Libertarian Congress. That means not only Dr. Paul, but also hundreds of Libertarian senators and representatives, have to be elected. And as we can see from the debate facilitated by this website, there is such a broad catholicity of views on every topic that Libertarianism is just being formed. The current situation is amorphous and fluid, and, unfortunately, this may be exacerbated greatly if the likely economic chaos caused by more massive deficit spending occurs. In a few years, there may be well be Libertarian wings in Congress, and the Rothbardians will be screaming at the Hayekians, ----but in a friendly, civil way of course.
Well, maybe the language I should have used is “the set of trees enclosed”. A set is a collection of distinct objects, i.e. unique individual trees. Technically a group is a type of set which supports some sort of binary operation, but for the purposes of this post the word I should have used, if I wanted to be technical, was “set” (since I did not supply any operation, like the number of leaves must be greater than 50).
But the thing is, you can put individuals into sets or groups. To deny that would remove credibility from whatever point you are trying to make. The problem isn’t that people are lumped together into groups, the problem is that the statistics from those groups are misused. The process of removing irrelevant details from a group is called abstraction. The libertarian “movement” is an abstraction of individuals who demonstrate a preference for libertarian politics by their actions. Yes the libertarians are more than their political beliefs, but abstractions are useful things for things like political polling, advertisement demographics, etc. Not only are they useful, but abstractions are a requirement for thought, computation, and many other things.
I think the problem comes when people move from demonstrated preference through action to implied preference through action. To say that everyone who votes GOP supports the GOP is false. Preference can only be ordinally demonstrated through action, so anyone who votes for a GOP candidate simply demonstrates his preference over other candidates, but not for the GOP itself. A similar mistake occurs when a Marxist says, “capitalists work for money, therefore capitalists are greedy and only want money”. The capitalist has demonstrated a preference for money, but thats all. No cardinal relationship can be found which can label the capitalists as being more greedy than others because they make more money. I think this sort of error also abounds in egalitarian calculations of social equality. Egalitarians often assume that because people work for money (which provides social status), they must be demonstrating a preference for a higher social status (which likely only exists in the mind of the egalitarian). Of course that is not true, all that is being demonstrated is that people will accept money in return for labor over other methods of payment. But this isn’t an abstraction; its a mistake and a fallacy.
If they were market anarchists, they could. Property rights (whether explicit or implicit) are a requirement of all purposeful cooperative action. Any market anarchist meeting would have either explicit or implicit rules (I’d bet more implicit, because most market anarchists don’t need to be reminded of basic property rights), and such a meeting would likely be treated as the property of those who organized the meeting.
Maybe it will, but if people are happy in their “movements”, who are we to criticize, so long as their movements are peaceful?
“Maybe it will, but if people are happy in their “movements”, who are we to criticize, so long as their movements are peaceful?”
Oh, I’m not criticizing. Just that I don’t believe it’s possible to have a Libertarian movement. If people think it is, and their agenda is congruent, or nearly so, with my political agenda, that’s fine with me. It’s a minor peccadillo in comparison to the big government expansionists on the other side of the aisle. And also I think we should warmly embrace any movement if it staunchly backs the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Many on the Left understand the Libertarian values inherent in the Declaration/Constitution/Bill of Rights, and those Supreme Court Justices who have ruled in a Libertarian manner (like O.W.Holmes ruling against wiretaps when the prohibitionist-collectivists tried to bust the alcohol free-traders —where are men like that now?), but the Left doesn’t have a clue on economics; they fail to see how their policies violate human rights. In most cases, because they’ve never been exposed, or never pondered on economic issues. Doesn’t mean I can’t stand shoulder-to-shoulder on Bill of Rights issues with them as long as they’re not violent or racist? Someone like Sen. Feingold whose got enough sand in his veins to vote against the Patriot Act I can live with, and even greatly admire, even if I disagreed with him on his social legislation and economic philosophy.
And thanks for the clarification on sets and groups.
Maybe you should check your history. The aristocrats were mostly loyalists. I think someone is bitter that europe is a socialist wasteland that hasn’t had a good idea since the 1800s.
What you don’t seem to understand is that the distinction between “fetus” and “infant” is completely arbitrary, a human invention. Just because you don’t consider a fetus to be a human doesn’t mean that it isn’t one. I, and most other pro-lifers out there, believe that a fetus is in fact a human. It has a heart, brain, stomache, lungs, human dna, and human features. It even has a free will. It moves around and makes itself comfortable, and it’s obviously aware in there, because when you take it out, it senses the change and begins to cry.
Ron Paul wants the questions (like abortion) handled in the States. This is not an anarchist position, but it is a MUCH BETTER position than what we have now. Move more decisions to local jurisdictions so that the people have the option of moving elsewhere to escape them.
I can’t think of anything Dr. Paul wants to do that is a step backwards for anarchists.
We have a patient who is in terminal condition with a cancer consuming 50% of its body. The patient thinks that the tumor is good for it and doesn’t want it removed. Dr. Paul wants to reduce 95% of the tumor. If he succeeds that will be a good basis for convincing the patient to remove the remainder as well.
If there is a way to effect change that doesn’t involve riding the Federal government into societal collapse (the natural result of its predations on us) and starting again from the rubble then I’m all for it. In order to rebuild something better people have to understand what is going wrong now or they’ll pin the blame on the wrong donkey. Ron Paul is part of the group explaining what is going wrong now. It is easier to convince a minarchist to be an anarchist than to convince a state-worshipper, I suspect.
“A socialist wasteland that hasn’t had a good idea since the 1800’s?” What about very capitalist England, a nation of small shopkeepers, which wouldn’t be a bad formula for America? Or the Netherlands — pretty capitalistic place historically I’d say, and Libertarian too compared to anything to the east of it. You’re also missing the very obvious example of Mises, Hayek and the intellectual lights of the Austrian school in Vienna, which this site is all about? Sloganeering seems popular when collectivism stifles freedom. But what about the abolition of Capital Punishment? They are way ahead of us on that one. Europe would probably collapse, though, if they weren’t sucking $100+ Billion a year out of the American taxpayer in defence spending welfare, which nonsense President Paul will put a stop to.
Contumacy — On abortion : I understand completely that it is a distinction of medical terminology, but I meant that an infant is one who can survive outside of the womb; I would consider a fetus to mean at least someone who could not exist outside the womb. I would consider an infant a lot closer to an individual than a 3-day old fetus.
You also jump to the conclusion that I don’t consider a fetus to be a human — quite a leap. In point of fact I tend to agree with Dr. Paul that the human does come into being at moment of conception in some mystical sense because G-d is outside the realm of time. You could also say the person is already on their deathbed at moment of conception. But to me there is quite a qualitative difference between a woman with a 3-day old fetus aborting, and a completely healthy woman demanding a partial-birth abortion the day before because 1)she’s a sadist, 2)she’s mentally ill, 3) she’s suddenly terrified at going through the birth process or 4) she wants a test case to bring before the supreme court. But since I’m a man, its comfortably not my body that being legislated over, like the hippie girls that slept with draft resisters but still didn’t have to put their ass on the line in Vietnam. We men are in a similar situation when we pontificate on abortion. There would be enough Libertarian states in America under a Paul sweep to victory, that it might mean a bus ride to Nevada, or just across the border of the neighboring states to get one.
Personally, I think it is a very negative process in many or most cases, but as a philosophical Libertarian I feel it is the woman’s body and we should tend to side with her self-soverignty.
One case, which I have never heard mentioned, where I think a virtual blanket abortion ban might be legal would be if the human race was declining so rapidly due to a drop in male fertility from environmental pollution, that the it was in danger of dying out.
Jim OConnor -----Excellent comments. I couldn’t concur more. When former Libertarian presidential candidate and cannabis-warrior Steve Kubby endorsed Rep. Paul and urged his supporters and the party in general to support him as a practical matter, I wrote a comment in support, saying we were getting 90% of the pie and we should take it. But after hearing Dr. Paul, more closely investigating his votes, and judging his character, now I’d say we’re getting 98% of the pie. Take your profits, man, we’re really lucky to have this gentleman running. Once Libertarians get into Congress, I suspect they will become as schismatic as Protestants in America have been historically.
But there’s a “third” “second side” to Ron Paul’s campaign that I don’t hear emphasized enough, and that’s his whole approach to the medical system which must be looked at and revised and reformed. And only a physician can understand this. Dr. Paul can see how socialized medicine has led to the treatment of patients like cattle, with incredible indifference, disrespect and callousness, especially under the mis-management of the giant HMO-megacorporations and the insurance companies. The small town GP, whose cheering smile, words of reassurance, and slow bedside manner, spoke of a caring that sadly is long gone, and is now replaced by the pill dispenser who rushes you out of the office. And the dedicated nurse, for whom the paycheck was nothing compared to the patient — she is sadly gone too, and we have the mega-corp and the uncaring nurses and technicians, the incredible inefficiencies, and the life -costing and frequent mistakes. Care for all, not for some at the expense of millions of capitalists who don’t qualify because they work hard, or succeed in business, must be dealt with, and terminal arrangements for all, which so far no one individual has figured out how to avoid. This issue alone, if no other, screams for the election of Dr. Paul, not Clinton/Putin collectivism. And Clinton’s corporate “healthcare” will bankrupt us just as surely as Bush’s corporate militarism. Corporate communists are sucking us dry.
His stance on abortion is that the states not the federal government should make this decision. Ultimately he appears to hold that abortion violates a babies right to life.
I find it interesting that you have a car, in that, some of the gas you put in your car was stolen from other countries at gun point. It is also worth noting that the roads you drive on are also paid for with blood money. Do you drive your car on public roads?
I assert that the use of a public resource is a form of voting. Attending a public school is a vote for the existence of that school. Driving on a public road is a vote for that road. Yes you were forced to support that school and road, but you should opt out for consistency sake. Not voting in a public election and not driving on a public road are essentially the same thing. The state developed both systems and pays for them with blood money.
Ultimately, forced taxation is the real problem here. This system creates a dilemma because it assumes that you have a right to lay claim to the fruits of my labor. Why not vote to change the system?