Update II: It’s Life, Liberty, Property

Classical Liberalism, Constitution, Glenn Beck, Individual Rights, Liberty, Private Property

I like Fox broadcaster Glenn Beck, I really do, if only because he exudes sheer goodness and has a visceral feel for freedom. However, starting a confused revolution, as he has, only adds to the philosophical confusion of a people too lazy to plumb the depths of their founding documents.

I’d like to hear less of the “pursuit of happiness” phrase from the Declaration of Independence,” and more about how no “State” shall “deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.”

Thomas Jefferson had opted for the inclusiveness of “the pursuit of happiness,” instead of sticking with the Lockean “life, liberty, property.” He meant property plus, but, instead, bequeathed us a vagueness that has undermined property.

The “Virginia Declaration of Rights,” written by George Mason in 1776, brings together “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.”

The right to property includes self-ownership. As I’ve written: “The right of ownership is an extension of the right to life. If ownership is not an absolute right but is instead subject to the vagaries of majority vote, then so is the right to life.”

Glenn again: Beck insisted some time back that our rights come from God and that unless you believe in the Almighty, you cannot defend rights. That’s a non sequitur. Rights are rooted in the nature of man. Whether one defers to reason or revelation for their justification–the natural rights of man remain inalienable.

Philosopher Ayn Rand anchored man’s rights in his nature. “Rights are conditions of existence required by man’s nature for his survival,” she wrote in Atlas Shrugged. In order to survive, man must—and it is in his nature to—transform the resources around him by mixing his labor with them and making them his own. Man’s labor and property are extensions of himself. The right of ownership is thus an extension of the right to life.

Glenn also asserted that we merely loan our rights to the government temporarily to protect. I understand he means well, but, but…

No! That’s not so. Rights are never on loan; they cannot be alienated (although our friend Walter Block has made an interesting case for supreme freedom by arguing for one’s right to sell oneself into slavery). Unless of course a man takes the life of an innocent other. Then, by virtue of his actions, he has forfeited his right to life.

Back to Beck: The government is merely entrusted with upholding natural rights. It cannot grant or repeal them. We don’t loan our rights to anyone.

It’s bad form and bad language to suggest so.

Update: With reference to The Judge’s comment: rights are never lost–not even when reason is jettisoned. More often than not, however, rights are violated.

Update II (March 16): If you want to find out about natural rights, you have to be prepared to show some initiative and do a bit of searching and reading on this blog and website, where you’ll find ample material—my own in addition to references. Click the Classical Liberalism post on the right. Also, go to the various searches on the main site, here and here.

The ilanamercer.com mother site, to which BAB is a companion, is set up for your convenience. But if you need spoon feeding, how on earth will you be capable of wielding a pitchfork when the time comes?

So too can BAB’s archives be plumbed for entries and discussions of rights, negative vs. positive (the bogus kind). The search-by-categories on BAB can’t be missed.

Big-Time Beggars

America, Barack Obama, Bush, China, Federal Reserve Bank, Inflation

The political class yaks about the fiction of our dependency on foreign oil markets, exploded in “The Goods On Gas.”

We are to believe that, while gas trading is oh-so dangerous to America’s national security, accruing debt and selling it to China—that’s just dandy.
China, reports Bloomberg.com, is worried that its “Treasury holdings [will] be eroded by “reckless policies.”

I wonder whose?

BAB readers will know that “China, the U.S. government’s largest creditor, is ‘worried’ about its holdings of Treasuries and wants assurances that the investment is safe.”

“We have lent a huge amount of money to the United States,” Premier Wen Jiabao said at a press briefing in Beijing today. “I request the U.S. maintain its good credit, to honor its promises and to guarantee the safety of China’s assets.”

Honor? Come again!

“White House National Economic Council Director Lawrence Summers, asked about Wen’s remarks, said overseas ‘confidence’ in Treasuries would be hurt without the administration’s steps to end the economy’s decline. President Barack Obama is relying on China to sustain buying of Treasuries amid record amounts of debt sales to fund a $787 billion stimulus package.”

China is enabling Barack as it did Bush. The only reason it doesn’t put an end to the US’s spending addiction is that it stands to lose a lot if it does:

“‘China won’t sell the U.S. debt now as that will only drive down Treasury prices, hurting not only the U.S. but also the value of its own investments,’ said Shen Jianguang, a Hong Kong- based economist at China International Capital Corp., an investment bank partly owned by Morgan Stanley”

“‘China’s purchases of American debt have been one of the few bolts keeping the wheels on the global economy,’ said Phil Deans, a professor of international affairs at Temple University in Tokyo. ‘If China stops buying, where does Obama’s borrowing to fund his stimulus come from?’”

This reminds me how brain dead are the Sinophobes. Beggars can’t be choosy, and they most certainly can’t afford to be as arrogant as the US is.

CPAC: The Collapse Of The Conservative Movement

Conservatism, IMMIGRATION, Islam, The West

Peter Brimelow captures the collapse in all its vivid, vacuous details. Here are some select excerpts:

“Now, perhaps symptomatic of the general collapse of the Conservative Movement, CPAC is vastly larger but there is no central narrative, and above all, no dissent. …”

“Even back in the 1970s, you sometimes got the feeling that CPAC was run for the benefit of an in-group, despoiling but secretly despising us hayseeds from the boondocks. This is now flagrant. Of course, ‘Inside the Beltway’ has become an intoxicating, and notoriously insular, city-state. Still I’ve never seen a conference in which the speakers and celebrities were so systematically protected, with screened walkways and greenrooms, from contamination by the hoi polloi, general and Diamond alike. …”

“But, basically, I haven’t seen such a cattle call/mass rape of grass roots contributors since I went to my first and last Inaugural Ball in 1980. …”

“In fact, Ann Coulter’s rapid-fire liberal-bashing knockabout routine (much harder than it looks) was easily the most interesting performance. Ann has many jealous detractors among her supposed allies on the Establishment Right, but I have a lot of respect for her intellect and would guess that she could have developed the best political argument too. Significantly, however, she chose not to do so. …” [My emphasis: Peter is polite about Coulter’s lack of intellectual leadership on crucial issues. She’s capable of so much more.]

“Before the conference, Jihad Watch’s Robert Spencer searingly denounced ‘the Norquistian Islam-Is-A-Religion-of-Peace orthodoxy that prevails at CPAC,’ telling Newsweek that ‘conservatives…were fearful of being accused of being anti-Islamic or racist for associating with [Geert Wilders, the Dutch parliamentarian currently being prosecuted for his opposition to Islamization]”.

“And in fact CPAC did not, as Spencer obviously anticipated, find room in its program for Wilders. Instead, he spoke to a packed ancillary meeting organized by supporters.”

“The immigration issue … was almost invisible. At VDARE.COM we have chronicled its inexorable emergence at CPAC, in 2003 (when Michelle Malkin got a standing ovation), 2005 (when Tamar Jacoby was booed) and 2007 (when, with help from some Presidential candidates, immigration reform patriots dominated the sessions). At every stage, it has been apparent that the CPAC audience was solidly in favor of immigration control.”

“No doubt for that reason, this year the CPAC managers took the incredible decision not to discuss immigration at all. …”

Read “‘Regardless Of Their Doom/The Little Victims Play’: CPAC, Frum, Limbaugh…And America?”

Update II: Barack Against The Boys

Barack Obama, Family, Feminism, Gender

The following is an excerpt from “Barack Against The Boys,” my new, WND.com column:

“…Barack’s latest Brownian motion promises to unleash on struggling American businesses armies of strong-arming (and buff-armed, no doubt) Girls Gone Wild, eager for their pound of flesh.

“Another of Obama’s economic prescriptions for a deepening depression was to sign a pay equity act, during which he carped that women still earn just ’78 cents for every dollar men earn—women of color even less.'”

“Such false assertions rely on comparisons of ‘the average wage of all women working fulltime with the average wage of all men working full time.’ Scholarly reams have been written disputing this phony calculus, as it omits vital variables: How long the woman has been in the work force, her age, experience and education; or whether her career has been put on hold to marry and mother.”

“Just as women are more likely than men to have had an interrupted career trajectory, so too are they more inclined to enter lower-paying professions: education instead of engineering, for example.”

“Nonetheless, allow me to dispel distaff America’s claims of disadvantage with a decisive argument:

If women with the same skills as men were getting only 78 cents for every dollar a man earns, men would have long-since priced themselves out of the market.

The fact that the wily entrepreneur doesn’t ditch men in favor of women suggests that different abilities and experience are at work, rather than a conspiracy to suppress women. …”

Read the entire column, “Barack Against The Boys,” on WND.com.

Update I (March 13): “Unemployment: Men Getting Whacked Way More Than Women”:

Such is the word from University of Michigan Professor Mark J.
In the last 12 months, more than 8 of every 10 pink slips have gone to men, he writes.

According to Perry’s blog, Carpe Diem, the lousy economy has idled 1.9 million men, more than four times the number of women let go, 430,000.

The firings have been so gender-lopsided that the male unemployment rate is more than a percentage point higher than that of women.

Previously, women were slightly less likely to have a job.

Perry found suggestions of a cause from a May issue of BusinessWeek. It blamed male dominance in construction work and factory floors, two sectors hardest hit by the credit crunch.

Wall Street also is heavily male and square in the sites of the job-destroying credit crunch.

Update II (March 14): I’m glad Professor Haym B. posted his thoughts in the Comments Section, hereunder. There is a certain comfort in the elegance of immutable logic. At least to this bookish broad.