Category Archives: Liberty

Should A Vocal, Veteran Critic Of Islam ‘Conference’ In Turkey?

Free Speech, Freedom of Religion, Ilana Mercer, Islam, libertarianism, Liberty, Private Property

First, in order of importance, forgive the verbing of the noun “conference.” Bad form.

Next: Young Keir Martland, of The Libertarian Alliance (my British home, and where you can find my weekly column), describes an exhilarating conference at the Property & Freedom Society, hosted by the fabulous Hans-Hermann Hoppe whom I know and admire, and his wife, Dr. Guelcin Imre Hoppe.

Place: The majestic Hotel Karia Princess in Bodrum, Turkey.

In the past, Dr. Hoppe had graciously extended an invitation to me. But let’s be frank. Turkey is not safe for anyone with a long and known record as a vocal critic of the religion of peace—and I here finesse my stance on Islam. Nor have I been a wallflower about the campaign waged by the Turkish government against Kurdish separatists. I don’t see how libertarians can countenance the Turks in this dispute.

It’s true that the US is also unsafe for critics of Islam (read my analysis of the attempt on the life of free-speech Jewish activist Pamela Geller), but Turkey even less so. The last is not a point of debate. “Bad things could happen anywhere, these days” won’t wash to dismiss the illiberal political and religious direction taken by the Turkish State.

In the US, we still have more rights to defend our prime real estate—OURSELVES—than elsewhere in the world (although I’m eyeing Hungary and Poland, which don’t admit refugees). The rest of the world is slowly becoming Dar al-Islam (House of Islam). In other words, it’s being made safe for Islam, but not its critics.

A whimsical, “Oh, plenty Jews attended and were safe at the Property & Freedom Society is also bogus, as none, as far as I know, has beat up on Islam systematically, in writing, for a very long time.

If anything, “Those Cartoons: A Reply To Walter Block,” critiqued attendee Dr. Block for asserting, in 2006, “under the rubric of a libertarian analysis, that libertarians would view [Muhammad-mocking] cartoons as immoral and that ‘from the libertarian perspective, both sets of acts—’drawing [forbidden] pictures of Muhammad’ and offending ‘western sensibilities’—are ‘improper.” I wrote:

… If a radical proponent of freedom such as Dr. Block can dub mild satire immoral, inadvertently tainting innocent, non-aggressive satirists, then it’s imperative to address the substance of the speech being debated, lest innocent polemicists and illustrators be maligned. What is Dr. Block’s premise for asserting these things are immoral? Other than that they offend Muslims, I see none. And to give offense is not always immoral. It is certainly not immoral to lampoon the connection between Muhammad, author of Islam, and the savagery and atavism that grip the Muslim world today. …

Nah. I don’t think Turkey is the place for my opinion, although Dr. Block is safe with his.

Dr. Block’s original article was removed. In a corrected version of “Those Cartoons: A Libertarian Analysis linked here, Walter said he offered some correction to his original apologia. I couldn’t see it (which could be my shortfall).

In any event, my point obtains. As a longtime, public critic of Islam, I would not “conference” in Turkey, not even for Hans Hoppe.

Perhaps I should have titled the post, “The Islam In the Room.”

Turkey:

 

Is It Better To Die Than Endure ‘Police Bias’?

Crime, Law, Liberty, Race, Racism

On August 10, a Fox News correspondent reported thus about “Findings of [alleged] Police Bias in Baltimore,” and I paraphrase: Reduced homicide rates of 60 percent in Baltimore have come at a remarkable cost (to liberty).

So I ask: What are these costs to liberty of better longevity in Baltimore (and isn’t longevity the ultimate liberty to trump all)? Are these “costs” about stopping blacks disproportionately to their numbers in the community?

MORE: “Findings of Police Bias in Baltimore Validate What Many Have Long Felt.”

Schooling Sanders On ‘Inequality Of Condition’ As Essential To Progress & Liberty

Constitution, Democracy, Federalism, Founding Fathers, Liberty, Socialism, Taxation

In his spectacular “Disquisition on Government,” John C. Calhoun, one of America’s greatest political thinkers, outlines why it is so dangerous to depict liberty as meaningless without equality, when the opposite is the truth. From A Disquisition on Government:

… There is another error, not less great and dangerous, usually associated with the one which has just been considered. I refer to the opinion, that liberty and equality are so intimately united, that liberty cannot be perfect without perfect equality.

That they are united to a certain extent — and that equality of citizens, in the eyes of the law, is essential to liberty in a popular government, is conceded. But to go further, and make equality of condition essential to liberty, would be to destroy both liberty and progress. The reason is, that inequality of condition, while it is a necessary consequence of liberty, is, at the same time, indispensable to progress. In order to understand why this is so, it is necessary to bear in mind, that the main spring to progress is, the desire of individuals to better their condition; and that the strongest impulse which can be given to it is, to leave individuals free to exert themselves in the manner they may deem best for that purpose, as far at least as it can be done consistently with the ends for which government is ordained — and to secure to all the fruits of their exertions.

Now, as individuals differ greatly from each other, in intelligence, sagacity, energy, perseverance, skill, habit of industry and economy, physical power, position and opportunity — the necessary effect of leaving all free to exert themselves to better their condition, must be a corresponding inequality between those who may possess these qualities and advantages in a high degree, and those who may be deficient in them. The only means by which this result can be prevented are, either to impose such restrictions on the exertions of those who may possess them in a high degree, as will place them on a level with those who do not; or to deprive them of the fruits of their exertions.

But to impose such restrictions on them would be destructive of liberty — while, to deprive them of the fruits of their exertions, could be to destroy the desire of bettering their condition. It is, indeed, his inequality of condition between the front and rear ranks, in the march of progress, which gives so strong an impulse to the former to maintain their position, and to the latter to press forward into their files. This gives to progress its greatest impulse. To force the front rank back to the rear, or attempt to push forward the rear into line with the front, by the interposition of the government, would put an end to the impulse, and effectually arrest the march of progress.

These great and dangerous errors have their origin in the prevalent opinion that all men are born free and equal — than which nothing can be more unfounded and false. It rests upon the assumption of a fact, which is contrary to universal observation, in whatever light it may be regarded. It is, indeed, difficult to explain how an opinion so destitute of all sound season, ever could have been so extensively entertained, unless we regard it as being confounded with another, which has some semblance of truth — but which, when properly understood, is not less false and dangerous. …

MORE Disquisition on Government.

Schooling Beck On Trump’s Nullification Promise

Constitution, Donald Trump, Elections, Glenn Beck, Law, Liberty

“Schooling Beck On Trump’s Nullification Promise” is the current column, now on WND. An excerpt:

Former Fox News Channel broadcaster Glenn Beck, now of The Blaze TV, has been warning theatrically of an inchoate catastrophe should the country choose Donald J. Trump “as its next president.”

Trump “will be a monster much, much worse” than Barack Obama, says Beck. …

… “Where are the people who say we stand with the Constitution,” protested Beck. Trump fails to talk about the Constitution in depth, he blathered.

True. Trump is not a TV talker. Moreover, all candidates who talk about the Constitution “in depth” are dishonest. For there is no Constitution left to talk about. That thing died over the course of centuries of legislative, executive and judicial usurpation. That’s why when Iraqis were composing their Constitution (after no. 43 destroyed their country), the late Joe Sobran recommended we give them ours because we don’t use it.

Mention of the Constitution means nothing. It’s on the list of items candidates check when they con constituents. Beck went on to OMG it about Trump saying this: “President Obama’s irresponsible use of executive orders has paved the way for him to also use them freely if he wins the presidential race.”

Amen—provided Trump uses executive power to repeal lots of laws, not make them. We live under an administrative “Secret State.” Very many, maybe most, of the laws under which Americans labor ought to be repealed. The only laws that are naturally inviolable are those upholding life, liberty and property.

Trump, thankfully, has proclaimed: “the one thing good about executive orders: The new president, if he comes in – boom, first day, first hour, first minute, you can rescind that.”

Beck has protested. He apparently accepts the inherent legitimacy of Barack Obama’s executive orders. Beck also seems to believe that the Constitution, or some other higher order, demands that people continue to labor under burdensome government edicts forever after, and that to promise repeal is the act of a progressive.

“Ted Cruz,” countered Beck, who has since endorsed candidate Cruz, “is the guy who says he’s for certain principles and will be tethered and tied to them, exactly like Ronald Reagan was.”

Well, another of Eland’s discomforting observations about Reagan is that he “enhanced executive power through questionable means. Although presidential signing statements, accompanying bills passed by Congress, had been around since George Washington, Reagan began to use these signing statement to contravene or nullify Congress’s will without giving that body a chance to override a formal presidential veto.”

There’s nothing necessarily progressive about overturning laws that have been passed.

There is nothing sacred about every law an overweening national government and its unelected agencies inflict on the people. “At the federal level alone,” the number of laws totaled 160,000 pages,” in 2012. By John Stossel’s estimation, “Government adds 80,000 pages of rules and regulations every year.” According to the Heritage Foundation, “Congress continues to criminalize at an average rate of one new crime for every week of every year.”

America has become a nation of thousands-upon-thousands of arbitrary laws, whose effect is to criminalize naturally licit conduct. …

… Read the rest.“Schooling Beck On Trump’s Nullification Promise” is now on WND.