Category Archives: Conservatism

UPDATE III (1/1/021): Abortion And A Woman’s Title In Her Body

Abortion, Conservatism, Ethics, Feminism, Individual Rights, libertarianism, Liberty, Natural Law, Private Property

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It is clearly untrue to say that a paleolibertarian is one who always opposes a woman’s absolute dominion over her body, as a poster on Wendy McElroy’s Facebook Wall has implied.

Abortion is one hill I do not care to die on; I’ve committed enough professional Seppuku over the years. However, I have repeatedly stated that, for a classical liberal (at least), “it’s [highly] problematic to say that by virtue of her fertility, a woman loses a title in her body.”

To repeat, for me, abortion is not the hill to die on. It seems prudent not to come out on this issue. Division of labor and all that stuff; I’ll leave it to Wendy McElroy, who, I am sure, agrees that “libertarians can agree that no state funding, local or federal, should be allocated to such a procedure.”

Otherwise, here is Wendy’s brilliant articulation of self-ownership. Watch Wendy on Stossel’s, 7:28 minutes in:

Wendy McElroy: As far as I’m concerned, this is my skin. Everything beneath this skin belongs to me, or I don’t own anything. I am a self-owner-

John Stossel: Even if there is a living being inside you?

Wendy McElroy: If there is a living being inside me, I’m glad you used the word “being” and not “individual with rights,” if there is a living being inside me, it exists on my breath, it exists by my, the blood pumping through my veins, by the food I eat. It is within my skin, and if you say to me that there, that I do not have jurisdiction over my body, that, in fact, society or someone else has jurisdiction, the, the word that describes someone else owning my body is slavery.*

UPDATE I: Glad people have remained civil on Facebook, so far. That’s the way. Always. However much one disdains the procedure, you can’t get away from the fact of self-ownership. You have no right to take custody of another person’s body. They either own themselves or don’t.

You can’t “own” your body in conjunction with other busybodies.

UPDATE II (July 21):

From the hopeless Facebook thread:

Your tortured analogy, MW, does not hold or even come close. Any reasoning about this fraught topic must proceed, at the very least, from a correct analogy. This is why this debate cannot proceed from logic. People lose their logic (or perhaps they never had the ability to reason to begin with) when it comes to abortion. Enough, now folks. The most honest position the anti-a-woman’s-right-in-her-body proponents can advance is this: a woman, by virtue of her biology, does not have total title in her body. As a propertarian, I find this position untenable, but agree that individuals who hold it will try to finesse it. So this is the final word. “Respek,” as Ali Gi would say.

JV: This is what I mean by a lack of reasoning faculties on the topic, and plain dissembling. What irks here is not only that I said, “enough,” and this is my Wall. But that you, JV, frame your “distinguishing” argument” as exhaustive. The initiation of force is most certainly not the only distinguishing feature between the mother and the fetus. (Unrelated: there is a prerequisite for Facebook Friendship.)

UPDATE III (1/1/021):

Libertarians view women as having dominion over their bodies! My comment, then, is on the cultural specter of females freed from men, morality and tradition: how quickly they turn into diabolical libertines. Most women need traditional strictures to balance exhibitionism and promiscuity.

UPDATED: What Would John Randolph Of Roanoke Have Said?

Barack Obama, Conservatism, Federalism, Founding Fathers, History, Individualism Vs. Collectivism, States' Rights, The State

Obama’s remarks at Roanoke, Virginia, July 13, 2012, were more than a faux pas.

With these remarks, Obama has outed himself as a most odious collectivist, who believes that government predation is a condition for production:

There are a lot of wealthy, successful Americans who agree with me — because they want to give something back. They know they didn’t — look, if you’ve been successful, you didn’t get there on your own. You didn’t get there on your own. I’m always struck by people who think, well, it must be because I was just so smart. There are a lot of smart people out there. It must be because I worked harder than everybody else. Let me tell you something — there are a whole bunch of hardworking people out there. (Applause.)
If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business — you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen. The Internet didn’t get invented on its own. Government research created the Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet.

That snot Obama uttered these words in a place carrying the name Roanoke. I’m probably in a minority, but the place name makes me think of John Randolph of Roanoke, the great Southern agrarian, radical proponent of the states’ rights doctrine. John Randolph would have driven the parasite Obama off the commonwealth with force, if need be:

“Randolph was especially critical of the commerce clause and the general welfare clause of the Con­stitution. He predicted that the great extension of the power of centralized government would someday occur through these legal avenues. Time has proven him correct.” John Randolph of Roanoke [was] an eccentric genius, unwilling to admit the slightest compromise with the new order. Randolph feared the results of excessive cen­tralization and the impersonality of a government too far removed from the varieties of local experi­ence. Discussing the House of Rep­resentatives, he asked: ‘But, Sir, how shall a man from Mackinaw or the Yellow Stone River respond to the sentiments of the people who live in New Hampshire? It is as great a mockery — a greater mockery, than it was to talk to those colonies about their virtual representation in the British par­liament. I have no hesitation in saying that the liberties of the colonies were safer in the custody of the British parliament than they will be in any portion of this country, if all the powers of the states as well as those of the gen­eral government are devolved upon this House.'”
“Russell Kirk makes Randolph’s attitude completely clear when he writes, ‘For Randolph, the real people of a country were its sub­stantial citizenry, its men of some property, its farmers and mer­chants and men of skill and learn­ing; upon their shoulders rested a country’s duties, and in their hands should repose its govern­ment.’ It is John Randolph who developed much of the political framework later brought to frui­tion by John Calhoun. The primary emphasis in that framework as it developed rested upon the doctrine of states’ rights, a position not without validity. Indeed, an ear­lier biographer of John Randolph, the almost equally eccentric and irascible Henry Adams, has sug­gested that the doctrine of states’ rights was in itself a sound and true doctrine: ‘As a starting point of American history and constitu­tional law, there is no other which will bear a moment’s examination.’
Randolph was especially critical of the commerce clause and the general welfare clause of the Con­stitution. He predicted that the great extension of the power of centralized government would someday occur through these legal avenues. Time has proven him correct.” (“American Federalism: History,” by George Charles Roche III)

UPDATE (July 18): The Law by Frédéric Bastiat:

When successful, we would not have to thank the state for our success. And, conversely, when unsuccessful, we would no more think of blaming the state for our misfortune than would the farmers blame the state because of hail or frost. The state would be felt only by the invaluable blessings of safety provided by this concept of government.

He Contorts, Tom Woods Decides

Conservatism, Constitution, Founding Fathers, Media, Republicans

If Bill O’Reilly proves anything (over and over again) it is that Gresham’s Law (generalized beyond economics) reigns supreme: Specious reasoning will always drive out careful thinking.

Against these odds, Tom Woods tackles O’Reilly’s reliably wonky “constitutional scholarship,” in a masterful YouTube clip, below:

From The O’Reilly Factor, email segment for July 5:

“Bill, you keep asking what the Republicans have to replace Obamacare. Under the Constitution, there is no role for the Federal government in healthcare.”
–Felicia

O’Reilly:
“That’s not true, Felicia. The opening paragraph of the Constitution says the welfare of the people must be promoted. A just healthcare system comes under that banner.”

[Tom Woods] couldn’t resist answering this [for which we should all be grateful].

Blame ‘Supremacy Clause’ For Loss Of Gun Rights

Conservatism, Constitution, Democrats, Foreign Policy, GUNS, Trade, UN

Under UN auspices, an “international Arms Trade Treaty” is being hammered out; one “that could seriously restrict your freedom to own, purchase and carry a firearm.

Warns the Washington Times about the latest gun grab:

The United Nations is deliberating over a treaty that will place comprehensive limits on the international weapons trade. The language of the draft agreement is so expansive it wouldn’t take an Obama-appointed judge very long to extend the treaty to cover the domestic firearms market as well. If American jurists continue to be enamored by the popular trend to consider international precedence when making U.S. rulings, you can kiss the Second Amendment goodbye.

Conservatives almost always get it wrong. Why? Because they seldom object to the structure that undermines liberty, but only to the Other Party’s temporary control over the rights-violating framework. Government monopoly, per se, is not what irks Republicans. Their fight is for their side/values to prevail within the monopoly.

In truth, the Constitution is the thin edge of the wedge that has allowed U.S. governments to cede the rights of Americans to the UN. Specifically, the “Supremacy Clause” in Article VI states that all treaties made by government shall be “the supreme Law of the Land,” and shall usurp state law. Article VI has thus further compounded the loss of individual rights in the U.S. (From “CRADLE OF CORRUPTION.”)