Interesting topic–and de Jasay is not a bad pick.
Even more interesting may be the question: who is the most overrated libertarian theorist? Hayek? Nozick? Rand?
I’m not sure. I agree with him however that bowtie’s should come back into popularity. If done right. Do you have a link? 
I’m not making comments about de Jasay, I’m making comments about you [ unless you are de Jasay to which I say, no fair you can’t nominate yourself]. Do you have any works I need to familiarize myself with before I critique your comments?
Libertarianism is an ethical system, how we get to it, either by deontological means or utilitarian means, establishes an ethical base to which we can judge what is right and wrong.
Didn’t you admit that you’ve read neither The Constitution of Liberty nor Law, Legislation and Liberty? My vote goes to Rothbard and Hoppe for most overrated libertarian theorists.
I’m sure that Giles thinks that everyone at GMU is underrated, especially Peter Boettke. Lol. 
Rothbard for the being the most over-rated appeal to authority (but this doesn’t diminish his importance; one’s followers of an ideology cannot have enough criticism of their own ideological idols, methinks).
The only place I think Hoppe is “over-hyped” or “over-rated” is @ LRC, but elsewhere it seems fashionable to attack him, so I suppose it balances out.
Rand: for simply being over-rated in everything, mainly due to her idiotic followers of the New Piekoff Order & the cult of celebrity. She would’ve been more relevant & less mis-understood if there was no post-humus limelight, imo.
Carl Watner & Auberon Herbert could be considered under-rated (per their contributions to voluntaryism, not necessarily libertarianism).
I also think Hayek, despite being a popular “safe choice” in the mainstream, concerning libertarianism (imo); all could be considered under-rated, methinks.
I’m sure I would’ve come up with better candidates if I had read more material, though :\
I would obviously postulate that Giles is the most underrated libertarian…though he is not a libertarian. Alas, he will have to settle with being underrated with everything else in life.
Lol.
Good call on Spencer. He would have been my number two most underrated.
You accused me of conflating morality with religion. Do you gave any evidence for this assertion at all? I very well know they difference between ethics, epistemology, logic, and religion. If you would please read any of Jasay’s works you might have some clue about what I am talking about.The Philosopher of Science, Gerard Radnitzky, put it this way:
Instead of deriving the Presumption of Liberty from ethical premises, he derives them from epistemological (more specifically, Critical Rationalist) and logical premises. I await either evidence of my having conflated morality with religion or else an apology for your unfounded assertion.
Why is liberty something to be presumed? How can one advocate the abilities of liberty without announcing that it is either good or bad? In a sense, how can it be established that NAP is a positive good without establishing a system of good and bad? Perhaps you may state that the NAP is logical, ok…but why is logical action good action?
Concerning the morality/religion comment, your argument seem to me to resemble one that treats ethical principles as some article of faith that one must believe in and cannot be rationally deduced or empirically shown. Like the ethics of libertarianism are some testament of faith that are somehow immature or overzealous. Hence the conflating morality with religion.
Because in the process of not presuming it you commit yourself to a fundamental epistemological error (you would know this if you would bother to read Jasay instead of merely dismissing his project as impossible).
By constructing arguments that use only descriptive statements among the premises. One can advocate the rules of logic as being true without saying that they are “good” or “bad”.
I didn’t mention the NAP a single time in this entire thread.
The burden of proof is on you to show where I conflated the two. It is not up to me to show that I did not. I’m waiting…
Which error? If I do not presume to be in liberty then what fallacy am I transgressing? If we do reside in liberty…what is the purpose of the state? Is the state apart of that environment of liberty? If so then why in the quote you gave me does the author ask legislators to not enact their profession upon us? If the state is not apart of the environment of liberty and yet the state asserts itself in almost every manner of our daily lives, then how can one presume to be under liberty with some third party institution that is the negation of said liberty?
Yet in stating there is logic in not being violent and postulating that logic is neither good or bad is a platitude or a form of emotivism. It’s like saying logic demands nonviolence, well why should I pursue logic [ without attaching some implication towards good/bad]? What of those who act illogically?
The basis of liberty is of course the NAP, deciding which is correct or incorrect action on the part of the actor.
Is libertarianism based upon some form of ethics? And if not, do you feel that morality is irrelevant? An article of faith? A strange subjective impulse? Irrational?
you are misunderstanding. De Jasay is not saying that everyone is free. there’s no point to being libertarian if everyone is at liberty (without your help).
he is saying that if its the case that an action may be objected to and that that the objection would be grounds for not doing it. then rather than ‘presuming unfreedom’ and demanding that every action be justified before it is done, i.e. the do-er broadcasts to everyone else why his action is not objectionable, anticipating each ones posible objections and mustering counterarguments… well that is an impossible system…
only presuming freedom is tenable. as such the burden of proof is on those who would take away your freedom to act to object to your free act. Obviously, I personally have not found the states ‘objections’ convincing at all.
Full points to Nitro (although, I don’t know about Herbert Spencer). I think you hit the nail on the hit with regards to Hayek, Hoppe and Rothbard. I’ve not read a lot of his stuff, but I’m tempted to say Eric Mack.
It is obvious from the context that you don’t even know what the Presumption of Liberty is. The Presumption of Liberty is like the Presumption of Innocence. It is a epistemological principle, not primarily an ethical one. It has absolutely nothing to do with being in an “environment of liberty” or whether or not a state exists.
The Presumption of Liberty doesn’t say that you shouldn’t be violent. It isn’t simply a logical argument, it is an argument that relies on logical and epistemological principles as premises and is sound. I never said that logic demands nonviolence or anything about violence for that matter. No point in his argument does he use the word “should” or “ought”, except when he refers to “ought implies can”. I didn’t say that “there is logic in being nonviolent” and neither does de Jasay. Seriously, if you want to argue, stop putting words into your opponents mouths that (a) they don’t agree with, and that (b) they never even hinted at.
If you would read the review I linked to you would know that de Jasay has provided an alternative basis for liberty that doesn’t rely on the NAP. Again the burden of proof is on you when you claim that the basis of liberty must be the NAP. All I am claiming is that liberty can have a basis in epistemology and not only ethics (which I have summarized and de Jasay has demonstrated in his work).
Again you refuse to cite a single example of where I conflated ethics with religion. If I claimed that you had murdered someone, the Presumption of Innocence (an epistemological principle) would show that the burden of proof is on me to demonstrate that you are a murderer, not on you to show that you aren’t. Unless you have any evidence at all that I conflated the two then retract your assertion.
i think the good news its its fully compatible with the NAP,
one could even translate ‘presumption of liberty’ to ‘presumption of right to not be faced with initiated aggression’.
being at liberty and the state of not being aggressed upon are the same thing.
Indeed, I definitely mixed up two names in that post: I meant to refer to Auberon Herbert, of The Right and Wrong of Compulsion by the State fame (whom originated the term voluntaryist, I believe), not Herbert Spencer, whom is more of a classical liberal than libertarian.
However, I would also posit that Auberon Herbert was influenced a great deal by Herbert Spencer.
An aside: I also recently found an interesting thesis on Auberon Herbert that also says he was influenced by J.S. Mill here.
The abstract also proposes that Auberon was one of the “most prominent English libertarians of the nineteenth century”, so perhaps he’s finally getting his dues, as well
I have yet to read it all, but it might be interesting reading for those craving a little history before bedtime.
The NAP and the Presumption of Liberty are more than compatible, they are complimentary. Your translation doesn’t really hold up in de Jasay’s terminology. He distinguishes between liberties and rights. All rights have obligations as their corollaries, and liberties can be converted into obligations through contract. You are basically right, but his terminology really cleans up confusions created by social contract theorists better than the tradition rights=liberties terminology.
Well I hope it isn’t like the presumption of innocence because such a premise doesn’t exist.
Liberty implies some restriction on violent nature such as not violating the ability of A to enacting his/her desires or actions with threat of coercion. Coercion being the threat or enacting of physical violence.
What is the basis of liberty for your theory so I can disprove it without you changing the wording?
I’m obviously asking a question to build my case against you. Are you going to answer it?