Category Archives: Political Philosophy

Thomas Jefferson & The Tyrants

Classical Liberalism, Fascism, Founding Fathers, libertarianism, Paleolibertarianism, Political Philosophy, Private Property

“During a joint meeting with Vietnamese President Truong Tan Sang,” last Thursday, reports the Washington Times, “President Obama … made the absolutely ludicrous assertion that ‘Ho Chi Minh was actually inspired by the U.S. Declaration of Independence and Constitution, and the words of Thomas Jefferson.”

A fine book on “the political theory of Thomas Jefferson” is “Liberty, State, and Union” by Marco Bassani, professor of history and political theory at the University of Milan, Italy. In it, Bassani notes that all sorts of hideous tyrants (whom Obama joins) have appropriated the decidedly classical liberal thinking of Thomas Jefferson for their own ends.

Still, I wonder if we libertarians do protest too much in an attempt to finesse some of Thomas Jefferson’s philosophical missteps? By way of an example, consider the debate, on the Tenth Amendment Center’s site, expanded upon by historian Tom Woods.

I remain unpersuaded. I believe that Felix Morley, great writer and scholar of the Old Right, was also in no two minds about early Americans having been undeniably influenced by Jean Jacques Rousseau. There was, noted Morley in his magnificent “Freedom and Federalism,” some admiration in America for the manner in which the common democratic will found expression in revolutionary France. The influx of Marxist ideas much later from Europe further cemented America’s ideological immolation.”

I am also not inclined to finesse the odd “slip” that saw this most brilliant man—as Thomas Jefferson no doubt was—replace “property,” in The Declaration, with the “pursuit of happiness.”

The “Virginia Declaration of Rights,” written by George Mason in 1776, harmonizes “property” and the “pursuit of happiness”:

“That all men are by nature equally free and independent and have certain inherent rights, of which, when they enter into a state of society, they cannot, by any compact, deprive or divest their posterity; namely, the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety.”

Elsewhere, Jefferson affirmed the natural right of “all men” to be secure in their enjoyment of their “life, liberty and possessions.” But in the Declaration, somehow, he opted for the inclusiveness of “the pursuit of happiness,” rather than cleave to the precision of “property.”

Unforgivable.

Beware The Country Of ‘Absurdistan’

Constitution, Foreign Policy, Founding Fathers, History, Liberty, Natural Law, Neoconservatism, Political Philosophy, Propaganda, Reason, Republicans, States' Rights, War

My good friend professor Thomas DiLorenzo is on fire today, at LRC.Com, decrying the actions of the “Biggest Bully in the World.” The strictly anti-bullying US government—its overweening, unconstitutional reach extends to educating kids about bullying, or, as Tom puts it, “putting YOUR money where THEIR mouths are by funding all kinds of anti-bullying programs in schools”—is intercepting airplanes not its own, and bullying sovereign governments, all in an attempt to corner a heroic, powerless young man called Edward Snowden.

Then, “National Neocon Review” has been working overtime to justify the crimes of mass murderer Abe Lincoln. But Tom DiLorenzo will have none of it. He smacks that lot down good and proper with foolproof arguments from natural law and logic:

… Studying and writing about Lincoln and the “Civil War” is not, as National Neocon Review implies, the same as attending a football game where one roots for one team or the other. It is about discovering the truth. Criticizing Lincoln does not make one a supporter of the Confederate government any more than criticizing FDR makes one a supporter of the Nazi government. We are supposed to believe that because the Confederate government suspended habeas corpus it is simply irrelevant that the Lincoln regime was a constitutional nightmare. We are supposed to believe the cartoonish Harry Jaffa, says National Neocon Review, when he says that Lincoln never did a single thing that was unconstitutional, contrary to reality and the writings of several generations of scholars who preceded Jaffa. This is reminiscent of the canned response to Lincoln critics by the last generation of Lincoln cultists: Lincoln wasn’t as bad as Hitler or Stalin, they frequently pointed out. So shut up.

MORE.

An Agency Of Thieves (IRS) Expected To Practice Theft And Intimidation With Fairness

Criminal Injustice, Government, Morality, Political Philosophy, Taxation, The State

“Tea party,” “patriot,” “the Constitution and Bill of Rights”: This is the stuff of the American Revolution. These are also the keywords that cued the rogue Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to target conservative organizations.

We are ruled by a traitor class and we’ve become traitors to our founding.

The Washington Post’s Michael Gerson, characteristically, understates the IRS’s abuse of “police power” as “an intrusive, ideologically targeted federal investigation of a political movement.”

WaPo’s Editorial Board stepped it up, conceding that “Any unequal application of the law based on ideological viewpoint is unpardonable — toxic to the legitimacy of the government’s vast law-enforcement authority.”

A forthcoming Treasury Department inspector general’s report finds that IRS staffers looked for applications for tax-exempt status from groups that used in their names words such as “Tea Party,” “Patriots” and “9/12,” as well as ones that contained expressions of concern about government spending or criticism of how the country is run. One manager worried — with reason — that this targeting might result in “over-inclusion” of applications that needed no such scrutiny. By 2011, IRS staff had set aside more than 100 applications for added review. It wasn’t just a couple of wayward staffers involved but rather a number of IRS agents and managers.
The inspector general also reports that Lois Lerner, the head of the IRS’s tax-exempt organization office, knew about the targeting in 2011; she seemed to say Friday that she learned about it from news reports last year. That inconsistency raises suspicions about the agency’s statements that higher-ups didn’t know about the targeting and that there was no political motivation.

Let us remember that the IRS’s activities are immoral, if not illegal. The IRS’s business is legalized theft. However you slice it, there is no moral difference between a lone burglar who steals stuff he doesn’t own and an “organized society” that does the same. Most of what the federal government does is in fact immoral, but not illegal, as it makes up the laws. After all, those in power determine what’s licit and what’s elicit.

Apparently, we expect an agency of thieves (the IRS) to practice theft and intimidation in an even and fair manner.

In a just society, the moral strictures that apply to the individual must also apply to the collective. A society founded on natural rights must not finesse theft. The Founders intended for government to safeguard man’s natural rights. The 16th Amendment changed that—it gave government a limitless lien on a man’s property and, by extension, on his life. The Amendment turned government into the almighty source – rather than the protector – of man’s rights and Americans into indentured slaves.

No one in the US government ever gets punished or demoted. Pundits, no doubt, will soon turn to the question of suing the IRS. And most will agree about the “wisdom” of “governmental immunity,” intended as it is to “stop people from suing the government and government employees and officials in many cases.“

Indeed, legislators have used their position to pass laws exempting themselves and many others from liability.

The sovereign has immunity. And you call this a republic?

UPDATED: Dhimmis Seek ‘Dignified’ Burial For Tamerlan Tsarnaev (Carrion For A Hungry French Vulture?)

America, Environmentalism & Animal Rights, EU, Europe, Islam, Jihad, Morality, Political Philosophy, Russia, Terrorism

His relatives refuse to give the Boston butcher a Muslim burial, so–what do you know?—Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s dhimmi victims are obliging. Apparently interring the dead is another one of those inviolable American values. And not only that, but giving this detritus of humanity a burial that comports with his faith is an obligation as well. All nonsensical, if not plain immoral. Incinerating Tsarnaev’s remains is the moral thing to do. (I was going to write that cremation was a “perfectly American” thing to do here, but I am unsure if we act as a moral people would any longer.) Cremation conserves resources and leaves (almost) nothing behind.

Via Fox News:

Peter Stefan, owner of Graham Putnam and Mahoney Funeral Parlor, agreed to handle the funeral arrangements. He told Fox News:

“They can protest, but what do you do? In this country, we bury the dead.” Stefan said everybody deserves a dignified burial service no matter the circumstances of their death and said he is prepared for protests. But he added that arrangements have yet to be worked out, and finding a final resting plot for the body – which Islamic law says must not be cremated – could prove difficult.

UPDATE (May 5): Carrion For A Hungry French Vulture? Speaking of the detritus of humanity, philosophically, at least: The French are a people whose revolution was a precursor to the Karl-Marx inspired Russian Revolution and the Nazi menaces. During the Reign of Terror, and by popular demand, thousands of the country’s best and brightest—clergy, the aristocracy, and the educated—were guillotined in assembly-lines. This was a dress rehearsal for the industrialized, mass killing of the Communists and Nazis.

Fast forward to France of 2013. Due to EU central planners’ rulings, the vultures of France (the good kind; the birdies) are without carrion. The poor animals are starving. They did what they do best: clean up after human beings. And now French farmers, who can’t survive sans state subsidies (but expect vultures to), want to eradicate the Griffon vultures.

Cut vulture some slack. Can we not send a certain slab of putrefying flesh to poor these scavengers?