Category Archives: Private Property

UPDATED: Ann Coulter Disses Barry Goldwater’s Devotion To Private Property

Affirmative Action, Ann Coulter, Individual Rights, libertarianism, Private Property

In her latest column, “DON’T BLAME ROMNEY,” Ms. Coulter suggests that,

…purist libertarian Barry Goldwater … — as you will read in [her] book, ‘Mugged: Racial Demagoguery From the Seventies to Obama’ — nearly destroyed the Republican Party with his pointless pursuit of libertarian perfection in his vote against the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

Well, that immutably just position on private-property rights, taken by “purist libertarian Barry Goldwater,” is the position adopted in Into the Cannibal’s Pot, where I write the following:

In a free society—one not silhouetted by the State—honored is the right of the individual to associate and disassociate, invest and disinvest, speak and misspeak at will. Contrary to the civil servant, the private person’s “refusal to deal” ought to be sacrosanct. … In the encroaching American State, the right of free association has been circumscribed by crippling codes of hiring, firing, renting, and money lending. The culprit is the Civil Rights Act of 1964…

(Pages 119-120)

Cited in Into the Cannibal’s Pot is another “purist” who feels no compunction about defending a sacred individual right: the fine libertarian legal theorist Richard Epstein, author of Forbidden Grounds: The Case Against Employment Discrimination Laws.

(“The Cannibal’s” predictive value seems to dovetail with its respectable Amazon rank below, today:
#3 in Books > Politics & Social Sciences > Politics & Government > Specific Topics > Colonialism & Post-Colonialism
#23 in Books > Politics & Social Sciences > Politics & Government > Specific Topics > Civil Rights & Liberties
#29 in Books > Politics & Social Sciences > Politics & Government > Public Affairs & Policy > Social Policy)

UPDATE: In response to the Facebook thread: Ms. Coulter is very bright. Brilliant in many ways. But she’s not a deep thinker. I think she’s a solid writer and has a quick mind. I’ve always liked her b/c of those qualities, so rare among the the teletwats (sorry, could not help that).

UPDATED: ‘Conservative’ Defects, Announces (D)evolution on Immigration (Tons Of Turncoats)

Conservatism, IMMIGRATION, Paleolibertarianism, Political Correctness, Political Philosophy, Private Property, Republicans, Rights, States' Rights, War on Drugs

A full-throated support for individual freedoms would mean a denunciation of the wicked War on Drugs and an abandonment of the useless and creepy fetish over another person’s prime real estate: a woman’s title in her body.

In a bid to remain in the anchor’s chair and to play a part in national politics, a conservative has chosen, instead, to say bye-bye to borders. Well, sort of.

Sean Hannity said this, on Thursday:

(Politico) Sean Hannity said Thursday he has “evolved” on immigration and now supports a “pathway to citizenship.”
Hannity told his radio listeners Thursday afternoon that the United States needs to “get rid of the immigration issue altogether.”
“It’s simple to me to fix it,” Hannity said.

This, as the country is still surveying the debris left by the “D-Bomb” dropped on Tuesday, Nov. 6. The reference to demographics is from this week’s column, “The D-bomb has Dropped,” now on RT. It speaks to the demographic shift in US population, which only a moratorium on mass immigration, buttressed by strong secessionist movements (as specified in “Into The Cannibal’s Pot”) can remedy.

“Left-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.” (Mercer, May 1, 2009)

UPDATE: TONS OF TURNCOATS. Crybaby Boehner is leading a ton of other “conservatives” to the promised (la-la) land:

”A comprehensive approach is long overdue, and I’m confident that the president, myself, others can find the common ground to take care of this issue once and for all.”

“overhaul,” “reform,” “comprehensive solution” “fixing a broken system”: These are all euphemisms for amnesty, Dream Act, preferential treatment, subsidies continued, etc.

UPDATE II: The D-Bomb Has Dropped

Democrats, Elections, IMMIGRATION, Private Property, Republicans, The State, The West, Welfare

The current column, now on RT, is “The D-Bomb Has Dropped.” Here’s an excerpt:

“…People with higher incomes constitute a minority, an economically dominant minority (to paraphrase Amy Chua). People with low incomes are in the majority, a politically dominant majority.

The rich are politically impoverished; the poor politically rich. The rich dominate the economy, the poor dominate the polity.

When elections roll around, the politically powerful exact their revenge against the economically powerful.

What kind of a right gives one man control over another man’s life? In a democracy, the right to vote does just that.

As for demographics; they have become destiny. They were not necessarily so. Demographics have been the excuse central planners have advanced to persevere with immigration policies that destroy civil society and shore up the welfare state.

The now-waning West became great not because it outbred the rest of the world. The West was once great because of its human capital—innovation, exploration, science, philosophy; because of superior ideas, and the willingness to defend such a civilization, not because it was more populated than the rest of the world.

America doesn’t need more people; it needs better people.

Making nice with constituencies that vote repeatedly and habitually for the candidate who promises them more stuff is tantamount to sleeping with the enemy. The only voters who could be swayed by the promise of the free market are the Democratic Party’s Asian supporters, since they enjoy higher incomes and stabler families than the party’s Hispanic and black devotees.

Ultimately, elections are about perception—the way in which the people perceive the political planks of the two parties. …”

Read the rest of “The D-Bomb Has Dropped,” on RT.

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UPDATED I: Facebook THREAD: In reality, voting Republican does not shrink the state. On the contrary; Republicans are a reliable engine of government growth. But with the importation of constituencies that want stuff, the two parties are competing to satisfy that demand. Importing third-world dependents has only helped grow the welfare state.

UPDATE II: I needed a laugh. A friend needed one. We all need one. Here is Patrick J. Buchanan in one of his finest moments.

‘Bronco Bamma’: A 4×4 Force For The State

Barack Obama, Classical Liberalism, Elections, Paleolibertarianism, Political Philosophy, Politics, Private Property, The State

On voting defensively:

I listened to a young (24), fiercely individualistic, libertarian friend speak about casting his vote for Mitt Romney. My pal may not be finely tuned to every philosophical nuisance, but he lives and breathes individualism. His backbreaking work as a proprietor of a small business means, moreover, that local politics are vital to his bottom-line. My friend explained to me why he would be voting to keep the toxic Dems out of office in our state, and why he supported Romney.

Although wedded to reality, columnist Jack Kerwick is “finely tuned to philosophical nuisance.” As mentioned in “On Living In Sin: The Sin of Abstraction,” Jack and I parted company over his decision to vote Romney. However, I admire Jack for “mixing it up”—for his commitment to arguing the issues and making pragmatic decisions in the rigorous and vigorous Rothbardian tradition.

But then Jack’s a scrappy New Jerseyan.

The entrepreneur (my young friend) and the philosopher (Jack Kerwick) are aligned in this instance.

I will say this unequivocally: “Bronco Bamma” (little girl tires of him and his rival, whose name at least she can pronounce)—Barry Soetoro Frankenstein, spawn of the state—is trash. Mitt Romney, however, is a patrician.

His individual achievements outside politics show that Mr. Romney is nothing like “Bronco Bamma,” who has always been at full throttle for the distributive state.