Per Rothbard’s idea, I thought I’d start this thread. Sticky, please. It would be useful in telling newbies what you believe and what you want, and why. (I started this same thread at anti-State).
I will act as clerk for this thread, writing this Constitution in accordance with the majority view (either that, or the mods can edit my post.
If any individual does not believe this Constitution should be decided by the majority, then they will have to convince the majority they are correct or else argue they will defend their view with violence. Only the requests of Market Anarchists on this forum will be considered. Again, if you disagree with this, you will have to either consent or defend your view with violence.
Go.
CONSTITUTION:
Anyone who does not explicitly consent to and sign this document are not legitimately subject to its authority.
The preamble should negate your attempt to force those who don’t consent to the constitution to be effected by it. Anyone who does not explicitly consent to and sign the document are not legitimately subject to its authority. A one-way choice between submission and violence is disingenuous. So I reject the ground rules you have set up for this constitution from the get go. I hereby proclaim my sovereignty as an individual and will refuse to be subject to such a constitution if it is forced onto me. If anyone sticks a gun in my face to attempt to force it on me I will defend myself, as I have not consented to anything.
Added. What about the issue of children? If a child is born, they have not signed and consented to the Constitution, so are they not under its authority?
Does the constitution include a way for dealing with people who don’t sign it, but violate the rights of others? By what principle could such a thing be justified? (Hehe yea, I’m a jerk)
Haha impatient! To be honest, an “Austrian” constitution is a little tricky from the start. To be truly Austrian, it would need to make a concerted effort to being value-free, which would make it sort of uninteresting. “Fiat money shall not be printed by central authorities in accordance with political goals” and “People shall continue to act with the intention of substituting a more desirable state of affairs for that which would have been expected in the absence of action” don’t really get my blood churning…
As for a “libertarian” constitution, which is probably more what you’re after, I’m not sure libertarians agree among themselves to the extent necessary to make this sort of thing worthwhile. I’ll be around with commentary if people start saying ridiculous things, but I don’t consider myself up to this kind of project.
Then why does the Mises Institute publish a Journal on Libertarian thought? Are you trying to tell me they’re not all Libertarians? [:^)]
Also, we’re talking about Austrian political theory here – not just the economic aspects. How and why should there be a Constitution and what should it say? Your inability to answer this most basic question is a huge blow to Rothbardian Anarchism.
Ahem. http://mises.org/about.aspx “The Ludwig von Mises Institute is the research and educational center of classical liberalism, libertarian political theory, and the Austrian School of economics.” Quite simply, the Mises Institute is dedicated to both Austrian economic and libertarianism.
Technically, one could be an Austrian economist and not be a libertarian, but since Austrian economics is basically laissez-faire, it’s hard to imagine a non-libertarian Austrian. You may have noticed, however, that not all Austrian economist types are all anarcho-capitalists or all minarchists. As far as I know, there is no such thing as an “Austrian political theory”.
And your questions about an anarcho-capitalist constitution were already answered at Anti-State.com. You just choose to ignore the answers.
Here’s a rule I think everyone will agree with. As per George Carlin:
“Though shalt always keep thy religion to thyself.”
In reality though maintaining the constitution and establishing a system of balances and checks is a far greater task than simply writing the document. The US constitution was fantastic by any standard, yet it was eroded and is now all but completely ignored, so preserving the constitution should require a lot of thought. And we’re only talking about a small period of perhaps one or two generational gaps. The next generations will not remember, and hence not appreciate the value of freedom since they put little effort in to obtaining it, but rather inherited it.
I reviewed the discussion at the anti-State site and duly noted the lack of serious discussion therein. For those on this site who might consider this subject to be worthy of study, may I recommend an essay I published in 2006-August titled “…to Institute new Government, laying its foundation…”http://tinyurl.com/y9dhae
The following is an excerpt:
…the focus and purpose of this essay is to exercise, in Jefferson’s words, “the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government”.
I submit to the reader, L. Neil Smith’s Covenant of Unanimous Consent [1] (written in 1985 and hereinafter referred to as The Covenant) as the proposed Form of the “new Government”, The Covenant being, in essence, a form of Self-Government. Its foundation rests on the moral statement contained in the Non Aggression Principle [2], which is expressed in the five Precepts of the Covenant. The organization of its powers is described in the Supersedure clause of The Covenant. The powers of The Covenant are indeed derived from the consent of “the governed”, they being the self-governed individual Signatories themselves.
Does this imply that I don’t have the right to try to sell my religious ideas to you? Open a church? Publish something like Jehovas’Witnesses’ magazines?
If phrased in a libertarian way, it would be “Thou shalt not use force or fraud in relation to religious matters.” Which is simply the non-agression axiom applied to religion.
Since I regard religion with a fair bit of disdain (it’s caused more suffering than anything else in this world), I must say that in my opinion religion falls under the fraud axiom.
You’re selling unverified, and unverifiable claims to me, in other words false promises and lies. Sure they might NOT be lies, but the burden of proof lies with the religious, and without proof, in a truely free society I should be able to sue you for brainwashing or making “absurd” claims posed as truths (or worse, ultimate truths).
After all, for every religion claiming one thing, there are hundreds claiming the exact opposite. Why is your religion any more right than the others? And what if they’re all wrong? It’s no wonder I’m an atheist, at least in respect to religions of any sort. With respect to god, or any possible number of them, i’m an agnostic, since to assume that I know that dieties do NOT exist is just as arrogant as to assume that they DO. Although religious zealots usually go a step further and claim they even know what god WANTS you to do. And this my friends, is somehow labeled as meakness.