Category Archives: Liberty

Updated: Insane McCain (Part II)

Constitution, Elections 2008, John McCain, Liberty

Stumpy arms moving rapidly and rigidly up and down, McCain can be heard these day shouting the following mantra in that deranged monotone: “Stand up, stand up, stand up and fight! America is worth fighting for…fight, fight fight…”

What is he fulminating about? Senile git.

I understand those who say they will vote for McCain because he’s somehow more palatable than the radical Obama. But those who’ve begun to see in McCain a man who knows something about the Constitution and the limits of government are worse than Panglossian.

McCain has been among the worse offenders against liberty and the Constitution.

In a sense, McCain is more dishonest than Obama, who has a Constitutional philosophy he does not hide. Obama believes in sundering the Founders’ Constitution by means of the living-constitution doctrine.

McCain, whose idols are Teddy Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln, doesn’t believe in the Constitution at all, although he claims to be an original intent or strict constructionist.

I recommend Matt Walsh’s piece “Be Afraid of President McCain,” as it addresses McCain’s philosophy of government. Barry Goldwater’s dislike for McCain is especially telling:

McCain is at his most unintentionally revealing when writing about his Republican predecessor in the Senate, Barry Goldwater. “I really don’t think he liked me much,” he wrote in Worth the Fighting For. “I don’t know why that was.…He was usually cordial, just never as affectionate as I would have liked.”
That it never occurred to McCain why a libertarian Westerner might keep a “national greatness” conservative and D.C.-bred carpetbagger at arm’s length is both touching and deeply worrisome. Does he not understand that there are at least some people in American life who take liberty as seriously as McCain takes his notions of national duty? Judging by a comment he made recently on the Don Imus radio show, the answer seems to be no. Defending campaign finance reform, McCain said, “I would rather have a clean government than one…where ‘First Amendment rights’ are being respected that has become corrupt. If I had my choice I’d rather have a clean government.

Insane McCain (Part I)

Update (November 4): McCain AGAIN today: “fight for America, fight for this country, America is worth fighting for… I choose to fight; fight, fight, fight, fight.”

Definitely “borderline senile.”

A July Fourth Toast To Thomas Jefferson—And The Anglo-Saxon Tradition

Founding Fathers, Government, History, IMMIGRATION, Liberty, Natural Law, The West

I’m delighted to inform you that I will be joining the valorous VDARE.COM family with a regular monthly column.

Here is an excerpt from the first. It’s titled “A July Fourth Toast To Thomas Jefferson—And The Anglo-Saxon Tradition”:

“…Jefferson’s muse for the ‘American Mind’ is even older.”

“The Whig tradition is undeniably Anglo-Saxon. Our founding fathers’ political philosophy originated with their Saxon forefathers, and the ancient rights guaranteed by the Saxon constitution. With the Declaration, Jefferson told Henry Lee in 1825, he was also protesting England’s violation of her own ancient tradition of natural rights. As Jefferson saw it, the Colonies were upholding a tradition the Crown had abrogated.”

“Philosophical purist that he was, moreover, Jefferson considered the Norman Conquest to have tainted this English tradition with the taint of feudalism. ‘To the Whig historian,’ writes Mayer, ‘the whole of English constitutional history since the Conquest was the story of a perpetual claim kept up by the English nation for a restoration of Saxon laws and the ancient rights guaranteed by those laws.'”

“If Jefferson begrudged the Normans’ malign influence on the natural law he cherished, imagine how he’d view our contemporary cultural conquistadors from the South, whose customs preclude natural rights and natural reason! …”

Read the rest on VDARE.COM.

Classical Liberalism

Classical Liberalism, Ilana Mercer, Ilana On Radio & TV, Individual Rights, libertarianism, Liberty, Natural Law, Paleolibertarianism

Jerri from Righttalk.com, with whom I used to do a short commentary segment fortnightly, once asked what “classical liberalism” meant. How about the principles upon which America was founded?

Not so long ago I became acquainted with the writings of French classical liberal, Benjamin Constant (1767-1830). And in particular, his treatise on the Principles of Politics. Frederic Bastiat was, “in some ways,” Constant’s heir.

I liked Constant’s definition of freedom: “Individuals must enjoy a boundless freedom in the use of their property and the exercise of their labor, as long as in disposing of their property or exercising their labor they do not harm others who have the same rights.” Of course, today’s statist interpretation of “harm” would include competition: setting up a Wal-Mart adjacent to a mom-and-pop shop.

More pearls from Constant: “Society has no right to be unjust toward a single of its members … the whole society minus one is not authorized to obstruct the latter in his opinions, nor in those actions which are not harmful, in the use of his property or the exercise of his labor, save in those cases where that use or that exercise would obstruct another individual possessing the same right.”

A contemporary gem is my friend, renowned British philosopher, David Conway. As a teacher, David explains freedom splendidly in Classical Liberalism; The Unvarnished Ideal. Contact him to obtain the book.

Liberty is explained in “Jackass Cooper & The 1-Trick Donkeys”: “Classical liberals (this writer) are distinguished in that the only rights they recognize are the individual’s right to life, liberty and property, and the pursuit of happiness. The sole role of a legitimate government is to protect only those liberties. Why life, liberty, and property, and not housing, food, education, health care, child benefits, emotional well-being, enriching employment, ad infinitum? Because the former impose no obligations on other free individuals; the latter enslave some in the service of others.”

In addition to an application of the principles of liberty, my columns/essays almost always include references. It’s about taking the time to work through the columns and extract the references. I have links on my Links Page to great classical liberal sites.

My Articles Archive is easy to navigate. Begin with Ludwig von Mises, Murray Rothbard, Ayn Rand, Henry Hazlitt, Frederic Bastiat, F. A. Hayek, Lysander Spooner, and the great heroes of the Old Right, Frank Chodorov, Garet Garrett, John T. Flynn, and Felix Morley. Morely’s “Freedom and Federalism” is a must in every American bookcase.

A discussion of natural rights can be found in “CRADLE OF CORRUPTION.”

“Older Liberals Like Me.”

UPDATE I (3/31/2017): MORE BOOKS.

If you want to understand The Idea of America, read foundational books on American republican virtues (not least the title linked). Begin with the book The Power in The People by Felix Morley, and you’ll be able to watch or read Bill O’Reilly’s folderol, and such stuff, and assess it for the shallow nothingness that it is.

Truth is not about the penny plan, or the red line in Syria, or whether to beat up on Russia or not. It’s about grasping the foundational principles of liberty and the limits of government—the principles Jefferson, Madison, Mason, John Roanoke, John Calhoun held dear; grasping those creedal core issues and applying them to the issues of the day.

The other exquisite text by Morley aforementioned is Freedom and Federalism.

For starters, let’s see these texts on your coffee tables.

UPDATE II (12/2):