Category Archives: Political Philosophy

UPDATED: Statism Starts With YOU! (Chuckie Misses Bush)

Debt, Economy, Healthcare, Individual Rights, libertarianism, Liberty, Morality, Political Economy, Political Philosophy, Republicans, The State, Welfare

The following is from “Statism Starts With YOU!”, now on WND.Com:

“Why did federal regulators not intervene sooner? A tragedy could have been averted. That was the first demand made following the accidental death of 8 spectators, and the injury of 12, at the California 200 off-road race. The derby was held in the Mojave Desert, in the Lucerne Valley. The driver of one of the racing trucks lost control of his vehicle, flipped and landed on bystanders, who are in the habit of getting as close as they possibly can to the tracks.”

“Evidently, what draws fans of desert racing to the sport, attest Phil Willon and David Zahniser of the Los Angeles Times, is the ‘the danger, dust and noise of watching 3,500-pound trucks roaring past — close enough almost to touch — and then rocketing into the air over treacherous jumps with nicknames like ‘the rock pile.'”

It’s all great fun until something goes terribly wrong. Then it’s someone else’s fault.” …

This tragedy, off-the-beaten-track, well illustrates the dynamics of state encroachment. Statism always and everywhere begins with The People.”

The complete column is “Statism Starts With YOU!”

Read my libertarian manifesto, Broad Sides: One Woman’s Clash With A Corrupt Society.

The Second Edition features bonus material and reviews. Get your copy (or copies) now!

UPDATE (Aug. 20): “I miss Bush intensely,” said one of the main Republican ideologues, Charles Krauthammer. “Iraq ended this week fairly successfully. And the economy, Obama purchased with the stimulus; it’s his economy.”

That’s the depth of the thinking of your above-average Republican.

What’s Fueling The Fever Of Freedom?

Constitution, Democracy, IMMIGRATION, libertarianism, Liberty, Political Philosophy, Private Property, States' Rights

IMMIGRATION IS. When states stand up to the always-oppressive federal government, it’s a good thing. When issues loom large enough to bring about this necessary rift—necessary if freedom is to prevail—they deserve a closer look, if not, I would argue, our unreserved support. If gay marriage, yea or nay, prompted a state to secede; I’d be the first to cheer that state on.

Virginia’s Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli has ruled that “state law enforcement officers are allowed to check the immigration status of anyone ‘stopped or arrested.” According to FoxNews, Cuccinelli issued a legal opinion on Friday “extending that authority to Virginia police in response to an inquiry over whether his state could mirror the policies passed into law in Arizona.”

“It is my opinion that Virginia law enforcement officers, including conservation officers may, like Arizona police officers, inquire into the immigration status of persons stopped or arrested,” he wrote.

Bring it on is what Cuccinelli is telling the federal government.

According to Lou Dobbs, interviewed by Megyn Kelly, “11 states are preparing to emulate Arizona. It is not what the Obama administration wanted; but it is exactly what the American people want,” he told the host of America’s News. Kelly says there are at least 18 states poised to follow Arizona on immigration and into a conflagration with the feds.

Now, you could challenge me as follows: “Mercer, you are not a proponent of majoritarianism. You’ve argued vigorously against democracy—even have a book due out that is a manifesto against raw democracy. Why are the people’s wishes okay in this instance?”

Because, as I’ve often said (most recently in this blog post), people have negative, leave-me-alone rights. Preventing a foreign invasion is perfectly within the purview of the “night-watchman state of classical-liberal theory,” in the words of the late philosopher, Robert Nozick.

Having delegated defense and policing to government, a people has a right to live free of the dangers that flow from being trespassed upon.

To the American Founding Fathers, Thomas Jefferson especially, secession was essential to the American scheme. Jefferson viewed extreme decentralization as the bulwark of the liberty and rights of man. Consequently, the United States was created as a pact between sovereign states with which the ultimate power lay. Sadly, it has progressed from a decentralized republic into a highly consolidated one.

The Constitution assigns the narrow function of naturalization to the feds. That small thing notwithstanding; I find it hard to fathom a founder arguing that the men and militia of a state should sit on their hands because a tier of tyrants (the feds) told them to (while their farms and nature reserves are trashed and their families endangered).

Neither should libertarians sit this thing out.

What’s Fueling The Fever Of Freedom?

Constitution, IMMIGRATION, libertarianism, Liberty, Political Philosophy, Private Property, States' Rights

IMMIGRATION IS. When states stand up to the always-oppressive federal government, it’s a good thing. When issues loom large enough to bring about this necessary rift—necessary if freedom is to prevail—they deserve a closer look, if not, I would argue, our unreserved support. If gay marriage, yea or nay, prompted a state to secede; I’d be the first to cheer that state on.

Virginia’s Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli has ruled that “state law enforcement officers are allowed to check the immigration status of anyone ‘stopped or arrested.” According to FoxNews, Cuccinelli issued a legal opinion on Friday “extending that authority to Virginia police in response to an inquiry over whether his state could mirror the policies passed into law in Arizona.”

“It is my opinion that Virginia law enforcement officers, including conservation officers may, like Arizona police officers, inquire into the immigration status of persons stopped or arrested,” he wrote.

Bring it on is what Cuccinelli is telling the federal government.

According to Lou Dobbs, interviewed by Megyn Kelly, “11 states are preparing to emulate Arizona. It is not what the Obama administration wanted; but it is exactly what the American people want,” he told the host of America’s News. Kelly says there are at least 18 states poised to follow Arizona on immigration and into a conflagration with the feds.

Now, you could challenge me as follows: “Mercer, you are not a proponent of majoritarianism. You’ve argued vigorously against democracy—even have a book due out that is a manifesto against raw democracy. Why are the people’s wishes okay in this instance?”

Because, as I’ve often said (most recently in this blog post), people have negative, leave-me-alone rights. Preventing a foreign invasion is perfectly within the purview of the “night-watchman state of classical-liberal theory,” in the words of the late philosopher, Robert Nozick.

Having delegated defense and policing to government, a people has a right to live free of the dangers that flow from being trespassed upon.

To the American Founding Fathers, Thomas Jefferson especially, secession was essential to the American scheme. Jefferson viewed extreme decentralization as the bulwark of the liberty and rights of man. Consequently, the United States was created as a pact between sovereign states with which the ultimate power lay. Sadly, it has progressed from a decentralized republic into a highly consolidated one.

The Constitution assigns the narrow function of naturalization to the feds. That small thing notwithstanding; I find it hard to fathom a founder arguing that the men and militia of a state should sit on their hands because a tier of tyrants (the feds) told them to (while their farms and nature reserves are trashed and their families endangered).

Neither should libertarians sit this thing out.

UPDATED: Do Immigration Laws Violate Libertarian Axiom?

Classical Liberalism, Critique, IMMIGRATION, libertarianism, Paleolibertarianism, Political Philosophy

“Showing complete disregard for the Constitution, the rule of law, the democratic will of the people of Arizona, Clinton appointee Susan Bolton issued an injunction against the major aspects of Arizona’s law in federal district court,” writes the Washington Watcher at VDARE.COM.

Of course, “Arizona is doing the work Washington doesn’t want done.”

The other day, I came across the most flighty, possibly even dissembling, libertarian argument so far against the prevention of trespass, and I’ve responded to many before. Here it goes: Immigration restrictions require the use of aggression against non-aggressors. There can be no debate about that. [really?] Therefore any half-decent libertarian must reject any immigration restrictions. That’s all.

Since when are immigration restrictions predicated on aggression against non-aggressors? Only if you believe telling someone, “No, you can’t go there” is tantamount to violence. Let us not trivialize violence.

“A well-policed barrier,” for example, “on the border is the definitive, non-aggressive method of defense against ailments and afflictions. You don’t attack, arrest or otherwise molest undesirables; you keep them at bay, away.” Could it be that the “Libertarian and leftist protest over any impediment to the free flow of people across borders is predicated not on the negative, leave-me-alone rights of the individual, but on the positive, manufactured right of human kind to venture wherever, whenever”?

(From “The Swine (AKA The State) Are AWOL”)

Any law, or any form of ordered liberty, may require the use of aggression, or, inadvertently, culminate in the use of force against non-aggressors. Shall we forfeit all laws?

The above position is anarcho-libertarian, not classical liberal (which is the label I prefer for myself). Anarcho-libertarians must tell their interlocutors that they reject all centrally enforced law and order. Such disclosure is only fair.

This from “TRADE GOODS, NOT PLACES” applies:

“Matters would be simple if all libertarians agreed that a constitutional government has an obligation to repel foreign invaders. They don’t, not if they are anarchists. Both open-border and closed-border libertarian anarcho-capitalists posit that an ideal society is one where there is no entity—government—to monopolize defense and justice functions. In a society based on anarcho-capitalism, where every bit of property is privately owned, the reasoning goes, private property owners cannot object if X invites Y onto his property, so long as he keeps him there, or so long as Y obtains permission to venture onto other spaces. Despite their shared anarchism, limited-immigration anarcho-libertarians and free-immigration anarcho-libertarians arrive respectively at different conclusions when they make the transition from utopia to real life.

The latter believe the state must refrain from interfering with the free movement of people despite the danger they may pose to nationals. The former arrive at the exact opposite conclusion: So long as the modern American Welfare State stands, and so long as it owns large swaths of property, it’s permissible to expect the state to carry out its traditional defensive functions. This includes repelling incomers who may endanger the lives and livelihoods of locals.

The open-border libertarian will claim that his is the less porous position. He will accuse the limited-immigration libertarian of being guilty, on the one hand, of wanting the state to take action to counter immigration, but, on the other hand, because of his anarchism, being at pains to find a basis for the interventions he favors. Not being an anarchist, and hence not having to justify the limited use by government of force against invaders, I hope I have escaped these contradictions.”

[SNIP]

A society cannot be reduced to the skeletal essence of the libertarian non-aggression axiom. I am confident Edmund Burke, of whose Vindication of Natural Society Murray Rothbard thoroughly approved (O’Keeffe 2010: 3), would agree.

UPDATE (July 30): To the comment below: Isn’t an argument about the preservation of civilization nativist? Isn’t the preservation of civilization the prerogative only of non-Occidentals, who are forever threatened by Westerners?