Category Archives: Political Philosophy

Libertarians And The Sin Of Abstraction

Foreign Policy, libertarianism, Objectivism, Political Philosophy

On EPJ, “Presstitute-Cultivated Ignorance On Ukraine” has elicited one particularly typical libertarian response that demanded a reply. Here is the letter. My response follows below.

TonyFebruary 21, 2014 at 11:09 AM

I like the article overall, but there is too much government-concept worship.

Examples:

“Revered in the US, Pussy Riot is a punk rock Russian band of feminists, whose forté is breast-baring, defiling places of worship, punching the air while shrieking, “F-ck you Putin,” and participating in public-orgy protests and other criminal acts.”

Most of these would not be CLOSE to being “criminal acts” in a libertarian society. And they should not be considered such (by libertarians) in a statist one, with the exception of defiling places of worship.

“The “occupation of government buildings in Kiev and in Western Ukraine”

Oh so what…

“Having flouted America’s national interests and squandered Russian good will—the ignoramuses of the Beltway will have no place in this grand geopolitical realignment.”

There are no such things as “America’s national interests” within libertarian thought. It is a nationalist and collectivist concept.

MERCER Reply:

Nonsense. The article deals in reality, not in pie-in-the-sky libertarian theory. The sin of abstraction is just that: a grave sin. The article, moreover, is for adults, not for the childish libertarian who wishes to remain suspended forever in never-never land. The Pussy Riot retarded sisterhood defiled private property. They copulated in a public setting, paid for by taxpayers. Only a bad writer does a discursive detour into the various contingencies that would apply if we lived in a private-property anarcho-capitalistic society. We don’t! Grow up. Has nobody taught you kids how to stay on topic, or write without flights of fancy? I guess I’m old enough to remember being taught such discipline and learning it from my betters. Does one effect a realistic analysis, which entails the concept of the national interest (peace with Russia, non-interventionism, in this case), or does one twist into ideological pretzels in order to come down on the side of politically proper libertarianism? This column deals in reality. So should you. Deal with real life!

MORE Exchanges On Mark Levin

Constitution, Media, Natural Law, Paleolibertarianism, Political Philosophy, Republicans, States' Rights

Contrary to ML, the libertarian reader who was annoyed with me for giving Mark Levin the time of the day (a premise with which I’d agree were Mr. Levin anything like the rest of the radio mouths; the tele-twits and teletwat, but he isn’t)—another reader, a fan of Mr. Levin, is angry that I dared question The Great One.

He quotes this from “Secession, Not Convention, Offers Salvation”:

The healthiest and most intuitive response to deep-seated, irreconcilable unhappiness – political or personal – is not to hold a constitutional convention, Mark Levin, but to leave, to exit the abusive relationship.

The reader then swats me down, as follows:

Ms. Mercer,
Have you even read The Liberty Amendments? Doesn’t appear so and it doesn’t appear that many posters on the WND website have either. Article V is pretty clear and so is the logical and rational arguments made by Mark Levin. Whose credentials, I would put up against all. Your gratuitous remarks about this “radio mouth” are vapid.

You, along with James McClellan portend there is “no mechanism to compel congress to act” (?) Wrong. Both of you need to go back and reread Article V again. It says “shall”. Not maybe, or might, or could, or probably. SHALL. There’s no gray area here and congressional involvement is limited to 1. putting the process in motion and 2. “as the one or the other mode of ratification may be proposed”. That’s IT. Just because the states historically, haven’t exercised this power means nothing. They certainly have the power to do so.

At the Mt. Vernon Assembly back in early December 32 states had representatives in attendance. This assembly was put in motion way before Mr. Levin ever started talking about his book. People are starting to wake up and understand the “real and present danger” this country is in. Mark Levin concisely lays out how the process would work, what the process would include and how it would be enforced. He also proposes amendments that are directly relevant to the runaway government we have today. If the convention devolved into the so called “runaway convention” enough states withdrawing from the convention to breach that 34 state threshold would end it right there. 33 States voting for “something” would mean nothing. Not to mention the 38 state threshold for ratification.

What is inexplicable Ms. Mercer is your wrongful rationale to shelve our Constitution and in turn, OUR country. Perhaps you should rethink the affinity you have for a nation that welcomed you with open arms with rights and freedoms unfamiliar to your homeland of South Africa. And while “the healthiest and most intuitive response to deep seated, irreconcilable unhappiness” may be best for personal reasons, it’s absurd to apply that rationale to this issue. The analogy is useless.

In closing, we don’t have to wait for a runaway convention. We have one NOW. A “coup d’etat”. Without one shot fired. This regime is pushing lawlessness and a quite anarchy so as to bring this nation to the breaking point. Which is exactly what they want. Don’t think for a split second that obama is not frothing at the mouth to implode this society so that he can declare Marshall Law and do away with the rest of the Bill of Rights. What other plausible explanations can there be for this man’s actions and those of his party? Our Constitution is being amended unlawfully on a daily basis and should be abundantly clear to anyone. We can do this the civil, lawful way or the uncivil way. Do you think that BO would just let us walk away? You’re not paying attention if you answered yes.

Mark Levin’s The Liberty Amendments provides the answer and the road map. Not the absolute anarchy that would come about from your solution.

Time constraints being what they are, here are some of the points made in my short answer (I chose to leave unchallenged the silly, quintessentially Republican notion that the unraveling began with Obama):

Dear D.,

I appreciate your passion, if not your emphasis on legalistic, positivist law, as opposed to the natural law. The first has failed us: http://www.ilanamercer.com/phprunner/public_article_list_view.php?editid1=743

It all began with Mr. Levin’s hero, Abe: http://www.ilanamercer.com/phprunner/public_article_list_view.php?editid1=586 & http://www.ilanamercer.com/phprunner/public_article_list_view.php?editid1=31

MORE here.

As to your claims about secession causing “anarchy”: The only reason chaos—which is what I presume you mean by anarchy—could come about when people, peacefully, go their separate ways is because the central government would launch Total War against peaceful separatists. Consider that! You and Levin would argue that such a war is legal. Maybe so, but such a war [like the War of Northern Aggression] is never naturally licit.

The great Yorktown Patriot Dr. James McClellan has long since passed. He was easily and indisputably one of THIS country’s greatest constitutional scholars. More on McClellan’s constitutional take on secession: http://www.ilanamercer.com/phprunner/public_article_list_view.php?editid1=718

Mark would have to agree, however great our disagreement, that this immigrant is a patriot. He should appreciate any immigrant who has fought for the American Creed as this immigrant has for so long.

I appreciate Mark as a potentially powerful anti-establishment force (witness the fact that he is seldom asked to join the Idiocracy on TV), and as the intellectual the rest (Savage, Prager, Medved, Rush, Laura, etc.) are not.

Best,
ILANA Mercer

UPDATED: A Reader Loathes Levin, Prefers Libertarians Who Create Oscillation

Constitution, libertarianism, Liberty, Media, Neoconservatism, Political Philosophy, Republicans

ML is annoyed with me because of the column titled “Secession, Not Convention, Offers Salvation.” He writes:

Based on my contacts, Mark Levin doesn’t have a big following in Ohio. I’m surrounded by conservatives, but nobody mentions Levin. Ever. And I grew up here. The only time I ever hear his name is when Sean Hannity mentions it and I turn the dial. To the people I deal with in Ohio, Levin is parochial New York.

I don’t pretend to understand the media environment on the East coast, but, from my experience, your information resonates with people in southwest Ohio. I don’t care about anybody’s opinion. I care about information. You supply great information.

That’s why I suggest you never promote Levin. He’s an establishment tool. Any time you write about him, you elevate him. I prefer you counter his oppression with libertarian arguments, than promote him by name.

BTW, I’m a big, recent fan. I’ve read mises.org for years and lewrockwell.com for a year or so, but you bring a point of view that sometimes contrasts with both. Nice job!

“Secession, Not Convention, Offers Salvation” takes on Levin for his odd idea that we look to the states, which are hardly bastions of freedom, to initiate a constitutional amendment or demand a constitutional convention, when this has never occurred before, and when there is no mechanism to compel Congress to hold such a convention.

MORE.

UPDATE: FACEBOOK thread: Levin is not as simple as all that. Item: he rails against establishment Republicans, hates Bush and Rove, and is seldom asked to go on TV with the teletwits. Levin is not as simple as say, Medved or Prager who are pure establishment.

UPDATED: Apartheid South Africa: Reality Vs. Libertarian Fantasy

Free Markets, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, libertarianism, Liberty, Paleolibertarianism, Political Philosophy, Private Property, South-Africa

“Apartheid South Africa: Reality Vs. Libertarian Fantasy” is the new essay, now on WND. It tackles the “economic reductionism, typical of the impoverished analysis of South Africa, offered so authoritatively by libertarian economists stateside.” Excerpted below are two sections therefrom:

LITE LIBERTARIANISM VS. THE RIGHT KIND

Herein lies the difference between the paleolibertarian analysis and what this column has termed the lite libertarian one, philosopher Hans-Hermann Hope being the finest example of the former. The rest fall into the latter, lite category.

A crucial difference between lite libertarians and the Right kind is that to the former, the idea of liberty is propositional–a deracinated principle, unmoored from the realities of history, hierarchy, biology, tradition, culture, values.

Conversely, the paleolibertarian grasps that ordered liberty has a civilizational dimension, stripped of which the libertarian non-aggression axiom, by which we all must live, cannot endure. “The pursuit of the … paleolibertarian ideal,” explained Catholic philosopher Jack Kerwick, Ph.D., “is the pursuit of an ideal of liberty brought down from the clouds to the nit and the grit of the history and culture from which it emerged.” …

FREEDOM VS. EGALITARIANISM

Contra the economic reductionism of the lite libertarian, free-market capitalism is a necessary but insufficient condition to sustain freedom in a country of South Africa’s complexion.

The truth absent from the phantasmagorical formulations critiqued is this: Economic freedom does not necessarily reduce so-called wealth inequality. Inegalitarainism is a feature of a free economy. If history is anything to go by, certain minorities will achieve prosperity from poverty, no matter how gravely the state and society impede them. Jews did it in Europe. Levantines and Indians in Africa and the Middle-East. Chinese in southeast Asia and everywhere else they go. Europeans in South Africa.

Moreover, “While all people want safety and sustenance for themselves, not everyone is prepared to allow those whom they dislike and envy to peacefully pursue the same.” (P. 4.) Free-market capitalism is not enough to safeguard ordered liberty in racially riven societies like South Africa, where the majority will always covet the possessions of immensely wealthier minorities and associate these riches with racial privilege.

Ultimately, the rights to life, liberty and private property will forever be imperiled in a country whose constitution has a clause devoted to “Limitation of Rights,” and where redistributive “justice” is a constitutional article of faith. (P. 101)

This, paleolibertarians (all three of us) know too well.

In “The Cannibal” chapter entitled “Saving South Africans S.O.S.,” secession is explored as one solution, it being a species of the private-law society delineated by Hans-Hermann Hoppe. Hoppe, of course, has never been afraid to speak to the “unequal civilizing potential” (in James Burnham’s coinage) of different people and peoples. …

Read the complete essay. “Apartheid South Africa: Reality Vs. Libertarian Fantasy” is now on WND.

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UPDATE (12/22): INTERESTING DISCUSSION @ PRAGG.ORG, to which I have replied.