Have I mentioned that George Potter can write? Oh yes, I have. Well, he’s at it again, this time with an allegorical story entitled “The Liberators” on LibertyForum. Well worth your time to read, and worth passing along. If you don’t find it disturbing, you’re dead inside.
‘Tis a consummation devoutly to be wish’d.
In answer to Wilde’s question: Jay Diamond correctly recognizes that principled libertarianism is anti-democratic.
Claire Wolfe asks why the relatively few libertarian women out there tend to be so hardcore. I of course will not pass up the opportunity to feature some hardcore cheesecake.
Typical libertarian chick.My own half-baked theory: There are strong biological reasons for women to value family more than men do. This plays into a tendency to value groups higher with respect to individuals than men do. There are strong social forces which encourage everyone to value the collective above the self, and these are analogous to gravitational force. The biological tendency to value family higher means women have a much higher escape velocity with respect to collectivism, and only the highest energy women break free of the social force.
Okay, maybe half-baked is too generous….
Daniel Drezner writes:
These pop culture sneers do reveal a libertarian dilemma: to put it delicately, defending the right of the idle rich to inherit their wealth in its entirety is one of the knottier positions to advocate in public.
There is no dilemma. The right at stake is not the right to inherit but rather the right to bequeath. Why shouldn’t an individual be free to give his property to whomever he chooses?
Natural economic stimulus or menace?
When people argue for determinism who are they trying to persuade? Doesn’t argument itself imply that the person to be persuaded must be free to choose between alternatives? Greg Swann writes: “I am a materialist, and like Ayn Rand, this creates a real problem for me with respect to will, volition, free moral agency.” The problem Swann is talking about is determinism. But what’s the problem and whose problem is it if Swann’s thoughts and acts are determined? Swann dismisses Rand’s axiomatic dismissal of determinism, but how is one to proceed from the premise that one’s self is determined?
Swann: “…I recognize that all the evidence of physics–that we have so far, an important caveat–is with the physicists”
I think we can be pretty confident that the evidence of physics will always be with the physicists, I fail to see how physics could produce any other sort of evidence. I freely admit I do not understand how my free will is compatible with physics. But I know that I cannot be free to correctly decide that I am not free to decide.
Mark Gillespie’s F**k the Law: Illegal Concealed Carry of course reminded me of Billy Beck’s I, Criminal.
But then who isn’t a criminal in these law choked times?
If hands could free you, heart,
Where would you fly?
Far, beyond every part
Of earth this running sky
Makes desolate? Would you cross
City and hill and sea,
If hands could set you free?
I would not lift the latch;
For I could run
Through fields, pit-valleys, catch
All beauty under the sun–
Still end in loss:
I should find no bent arm, no bed
To rest my head.
“Vita brevis” = “Life is short, but Greg Swann’s articles are long” Keeping one step ahead of Yamamura Sadako’s clutching fingers, I still have a day or so left to deal with this nonsense.
(Onlookers are directed to the comments on this post)
Let us skim lightly over Swann’s tangled mass of argumentation. First he flatly informs us:
“As it happens, I posted at length this morning on how theft terminates property rights.”.
Okay. Let’s get on our magic Internet carpet and go there, shall we? What I find at presenceofmind.net is an extended excerpt from Swann’s novel-like-thing JANIO AT A POINT (1988). The first thing I notice - after suppressing my horror at a character who (grins) - is that the excerpt is an argument against the State, or an argument against forcibly compelling anyone to help you defend your rights - but it does not seem to actually deal with the notion that “theft terminates property rights” Can anyone - even Swann - tell me how the last sentence in the following paragraph is derived from the rest of the paragraph? (Emphasis mine)
You have full right to your person, to your spirit, your mind and your body. You have every right to defend yourself and the things you make with your life. But you have no right of or to another person. If you cannot defend your rights, you yourself or the delegates you hire, you have no right to demand your defense of others, neither as “punishment” for injuries they did not inflict, nor as a salve upon your wounds. You are free and so are they. They do not owe you anything. So if you fail to defend your right to your property, no one else is obliged to defend it for you, or to suffer your loss in your place. Thus can property rights be terminated by theft.
Q.E.D.? Huh? Perhaps I am a poor reader. Okay, onwards. In the next link provided, Swann goes furthur, and informs the bereaved Kennedy that he cannot use force to get his car back from a hypothetical “gangbanger.”
KENNEDY:“Suppose you go to take your car back from the gang-banger and he says “Over my dead body”. And suppose means it. Are you morally entitled to take it back over his dead body, or are you morally obliged to prefer his thieving life to the productive part of your own life that you traded for the car?”
…etc, etc. Swann loftily replies:
SWANN:”The answer to the question is obvious, though. People who kill people present a much greater peril to their neighbors than people who steal cars. The car will be replaced by the insurance company. The life cannot be replaced. Never. Not even in John’s fervid imagination. There are much better arguments against killing–I address them in fiction in A canticle for Kathleen Sullivan–but from the point of view of the polity, a person who behaves as John Kennedy imagines himself behaving is a far greater threat to the peace than is a car thief.
Great. Fuck you, victim. “The car will be replaced by the insurance company.” Those who can’t afford the necessary additional insurance probably shouldn’t own cars. They are undoubtedly anti-reason, anti-life whim-worshippers - and, worst of all they are probably renters*
Oh, wait, there’s one problem. Swann is betrayed by his disembodied lecturer, Janio:
(Again - from JANIO AT A POINT)
So, what happens? Your car is stolen from a parking lot. You report it to your security service, but they can’t find either the car or the thief. No stain on them: the thief drove the car hundreds of miles away. If you had bought that locator they recommended… (grin) Anyway, your car is gone, and, for the sake of the example, let’s say it wasn’t insured for theft. You are out the car for transportation, but you are also out the amount you paid for the car. This is the thief’s fault - but no one else’s…
Whoa. Wait a second here. Swann’s just said (in another post) that force can’t be used to reclaim property! What is Swann’s imaginary “security service” supposed to do if it did catch the thief? Persuade him with sweet reason? Read extended excerpts from JANIO AT A POINT at him until he gives up? They can’t use force - if he resists, they’d risk killing him, and Swann says neither they or anyone else can do that.
How do you think police arrest thieves now, Swann? Do you think those guns are plastic fakes? Or are you saying that “security services” can kill, but the car owner can’t? (Possibly you’ll allow the “security service” to quietly steal the car back. Good luck with that little project! Oh, wait - theft terminates property rights!) Or is it that you just don’t bother reading what you’ve already written when you write something else?
In Mr. Swann’s rhetoric, three goals can be dimly discerned:
1. To present himself as a wild, anarchistical, Objectionist kinda fellow, uncompromising and stern…2. ..While remaining a middle-class, respectable, community involved kinda fellow, who pays his taxes and depends on the local constabulary…
3. …and all times positioned in regards to everyone else as the most moral, most rational person in the room. “Every man for himself and Greg Swann against all.”
Well, I don’t have any of these goals. Even among certain underground business entrepreneurs, Mr. Swann’s unique notion of property rights would not be endorsed - and perhaps violently resented. “Let justice be done though the heavens fall” - and to hell with “the peace”, whatever that is.
*“Unlanded warriors won’t fight like Hoplites, making them poor defenders of liberty. But since they have literally nothing to lose, they will fight for any or no reason, making them excellent offenders against liberty.” - G. Swann, explaining how renters are evil.
In response to my recent questions about how his Terms of Use notice squares with his views on IP, Stephan Kinsella writes:
None of you guessed the obvious: I am simply stating what the law is–as a matter of law, I have a copyright in things I write, whether I register it, put a notice on it, or even want it. You do too. And as a matter of law, legally, you may not republish my stuff without my permission. I didn’t write the law. It’s similar to me saying “you may not exceed 65 mph on a segment of Interstate so marked.” It’s just legal advice. It does not mean I condone the facts.
Just legal advice? In his notice Kinsella clearly is not simply acknowledging the law, he explicitly grants readers some rights to use his material while retaining other rights for himself. How is the legal granting of limited permission to use his work at all consistent with his moral position that nobody needs his permission? Kinsella was perfectly free to legally grant unlimited permission to use his work, which would seem rather more consistent with his moral view.
On the matter of consistency Kinsella writes:
Surely it is not inconsistent to drive on public roads, avail oneself of public military, police & fire department services, use public libraries, attend public schools, fly on a publicly-inspected airplane, eat publicly-inspected food, and so on, by virtue of opposing such public functions. If so, what is the argument that it is is “inconsistent” to oppose IP but to recognize the legal terrain we actually have to cope with?
Here’s the difference: In the absence of government interference it would be perfectly moral to procure any of these goods or services in a free market. But in his legal notice Kinsella reserves rights and privileges which by his own moral theory he could not procure in a free market.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
FANTAGRAPHICS BOOKS
TO PUBLISH
THE COMPLETE PEANUTS
BY CHARLES M. SCHULZSeattle, WA, 10/13/03 — 50 years of art. 25 books. Two books per year for 12 1/2 years. Fantagraphics Books is proud to announce the most eagerly-awaited and ambitious publishing project in the history of the American comic strip: the complete reprinting of CHARLES M. SCHULZ’s classic, PEANUTS. Considered to be one of the most popular comic strips in the history of the world, PEANUTS will be, for the first time, collected in its entirety and published, beginning in April 1, 2004. Fantagraphics will launch THE COMPLETE PEANUTS in a series designed by the cartoonist SETH (Palookaville, It’s A Good Life If You Don’t Weaken) and produced in full cooperation with United Media, Charles M. Schulz Creative Associates, and Mr. Schulz’s widow, Jean Schulz.
Fantagraphics Books co-publisher Gary Groth said that publishing THE COMPLETE PEANUTS represented the apex of the company’s 27-year commitment to publishing the best cartooning in the world. “PEANUTS is a towering achievement in the history of comics,” said Groth. “I can’t think of a better way to honor Schulz’s artistic legacy than to make his oeuvre available to the public in a beautifully designed format that reflects the integrity of the work itself.”
Each volume in the series will run approximately 320 pages in a 8” x 6 1/2” hardcover format, presenting two years of strips along with supplementary material. The series will present the entire run in chronological order, dailies and Sundays. Since the strip began in late 1950, the first volume will include all the strips from 1950, 1951, and 1952, but subsequent volumes will each comprise exactly two years. Dailies will run three to a page, while Sunday strips will each take up a full page and be printed in black-and-white, an aesthetic choice agreed upon by the editors, the designer, and Mrs. Schulz.
Bill O’Reilly plugs his book on The Howard Stern Show.
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