Bush's Fowl Play
In a classic case of News of the Weird, President Bush gave a press conference to announce yet another central plan to deal with yet another disaster — this time an impending disaster, or so he claimed. It seems that some birds are catching a flu called Avian Influenza or, more commonly, the bird flu. It causes ruffled feathers and a drop in egg production. It can kill a chicken in two days flat. Scary. Say goodbye to your liberties. FULL ARTICLE
Comments (100)
Great article and right on track. This should be front-page news. For updates on a tragedy unfolding on a daily basis, (politics, vaccine, Tamiflu, big money, etc), please link to www.BirdFluHype.com
There is no need for all this hysteria. The loss of our freedom; more "breaking the bank" to develop a vaccine that won't work; and the possibility of UN Peacekeepers in our back yards is real (read the WHO plan!). Please continue to get the word out!
Published: November 9, 2005 9:31 AM
There's pandemic alright, but it's not Avian Bird Flu. It's the taxpayers becoming birds, ostrichs' in fact, burying their heads in the sand while the political classes and their nefarious friends continue to steal them blind.
This just the latest "saleable" excuse.
The pandemic is severe abulia wherein Americans no longer act with their Republican (as in the republic of 1776) sensibilities and responsibilities.
Published: November 9, 2005 9:36 AM
Hey, as an 80-year-old, may I suggest that that flu might be the answer to the problems of Medicare and Social Security. They call pneumonia "the old folks' friend." Maybe flu can do the same.
Published: November 9, 2005 10:01 AM
wow, a whole website on the bird flu hoax! thanks so much.
Published: November 9, 2005 10:04 AM
Perhaps 20% useful, 20% irrelevant and tangential, and 60% criticism that is invalid as it is not supported contextually. Bottom line: Prescriptive and preventative action by force may be necessary to contain a serious flu outbreak.
Decent criticism of whether there is an avian flu (although we need a lot more info on that point), whether it will mutuate into person-to-person transmission (not much on that), and a point-by-point economic analysis of Bush's plan (vague). Clearly a mass quarantine would require state action and delivery of goods and services, and quarantine is the only known method of maximally preserving life and containing the spread of disease.
Tangential issues are somewhat bizarre. The military did spread Democracy in WWII and has also later to varying degrees of success and non-success, or would it be better to live under the Imperial Japanese or Hitler? Get some historical context. The military solution isn't always right, but it's not always wrong either.
The question is to what extent the Govenrment should be involved and what they should do and how to (1) evaluate the threat given the propensity of the gov to magnify their power and (2) constrain the government to legitimate action.
My vote is for Mises.org to return to an economics website (wertfrei or value free as Mises would say), not a "libertarian at all costs" website. You can't marry your sister or abandon your children (the latter after Rothbard's "Ethics of Liberty"). Clearly, state action is not limited to purely preventing or responding to actual aggression. Prescriptive solutions are necessary and essential, although what the government does is counterproductive - but not EVERYTHING the government does is bad, nor is it right to consistently criticize America without the context of the brutal sick and twisted regimes of other countries (lewrockwell.com apparently finds sin mostly in America and Bush to the extent of embracing the left wing's factual and historical inaccuracies). An economic analysis of the means by which the government proposes to solve a crisis is more logical and powerful when it sticks to what can be known and understood by human action, rather than a Rothbardian species of libertarian morality couched in (what appears to be growing) anti-American sentiment. None (likely not even one) of the framing fathers agreed with Rothbardian morality stuff -- and they were darn smart.
Published: November 9, 2005 10:12 AM
Great article! What ever happened to the days when Republicans were for minimal government and lower spending?! Reagan should be rolling over in his grave!
Published: November 9, 2005 10:21 AM
Jim,
The US Military did NOT "spread Democracy", as you so blithely put it - it imposed it by force upon the prostrated peoples of Germany, Italy, and Japan. To the extent it has thrived in those countries it is to the credit (or blame, whatever) of the people of those nations, and is absolutely not due to any kind of moral leadership by us. (This is a "wertfrei" analysis, as you seem to prefer).
If a flu pandemic occurs, it is quite likely that it will have been caused by our Federal government. This is not "tinfoil hat" stuff. The recent articles on the reconstitution of the 1918 flu pandemic virus at the CDC did not make much of the fact that the team that did this monstrous thing was led by a SENIOR MILITARY SCIENTIST. But the Libertyguys did;
http://www.libertyguys.org/articles/detail.asp?ArtID=1003
So, sorry Jim. The founders were pretty smart guys, true. But they were as self-interested as anyone. And they never forsaw any of this. Who could?
Published: November 9, 2005 10:26 AM
Jim,
Mere assertions, not backed by historical facts or argument.
It is not obvious that, had the US not intervened, Hitler would have conquered the world. In fact, many US policies undermined internal resistance to Hitler. Furthermore, WWI most likely would have ended in stalemate if not for US entry. And the treaty of Versailles was what created the situation for someone like Hitler to rise in Germany.
It isn't obvious that quarantines can only be accomplished by State action. In fact, recognizing the fact that there is private property -- that no-one has the right to step on anyone else's private property -- immediately allows for people to deal with quarantines. So too does health insurance, if it were allowed to operate properly.
The idea of a militarily imposed mass quarantine from the Federal government is proposterous, and you don't need to be a radical Laissez Faire Classical Liberal or a hard-core libertarian to realize that. The Founding Father's certainly didn't want a government of the current size, not even Alexander Hamilton. This is nothing more than a ruse by the State to grab more power for itself, and keep that power long after the population has forgotten about the bird flu. I'm surprised so many people are suckered by this nonsense.
As for your "vote" on what Mises.org should do, fortunately, Mises.org is private property, and what the website talks about isn't decided by the democratic process. The LvMI institute has, from the very start, been about not just economics, but also about promoting freedom, property rights, laissez faire, classical liberalism, and libertarianism.
Published: November 9, 2005 11:01 AM
not supported contextually
What "context" is needed? Mr. Tucker's thesis is that the vast majority of Americans no longer see outrageous proposals for massive government action as anything other than the norm.
Proposals for massive government action should, in theory, be based on a substantial likelihood of future harm, and narrowly tailored to remedy the harm with as little infringement on our liberties as reasonably necessary.
40,000 people die in America in automobile collisions every year.
90,000 people die each year from staph infections.
Several people have died from bird flu since 1997.
A $7.1 billion proposal to deal with the bird flu is simply ridiculous.
If the bird flu does defy expectations and become a problem for people, how much would it cost for every man, woman and child to buy surgical masks and gloves (for those who choose to leave the house)? Probably less than each person's share of $7.1 billion, I'd guess.
As for "spreading democracy," that was the favored policy of Woodrow Wilson, whose democracy-exporting venture led directly to the advent of totalitarianism in Europe.
Published: November 9, 2005 11:06 AM
Jim,
Thank you for exposing, albeit unintentionally, the moral and intellectual vacuity of neoconservatism. You make our job a lot easier.
Published: November 9, 2005 11:26 AM
Jim,
When "military solution" presupposes State action, the "military solution" is always wrong. Now, when the undertaking of bearing arms by individuals is commenced in response to a prior State action, that is legitimately in the realm of self-defense, not military action. ;-)
WWII was a miscalculation on Hitler's part. He felt that the UK would remain on the fence, and he had no plans to attack UK directly. His goal was to get status as a "world power" and any confrontation with the UK was to be undertaken MUCH later, perhaps even a generation later. I've read several good bios of Hitler and it's plain that (1) stategy was not his forte, (2) neither was tactics, and (3) he was most likely quite mad with syphiletic brain damage by the time his life ended. Germany conquer the world if the U.S. didn't intervene? Please! You are very well indoctrinated by the U.S. public school system, aren't you? Take heart, however, deprogramming IS possible, you're reading from an example.
Back to bird flu ...
Are we at greater risk from a flu pandemic based on U.S. military re-creation of the 1918 Spanish Flu in the laboratory? I wonder if they plan to "weaponize" the virus?
http://www.cavalierdaily.com/CVArticle.asp?ID=24936&pid=1356
"The 1918 Spanish flu is back. Earlier this month, U.S. scientists announced they had created a living copy of this deadly pathogen, which has not been seen on Earth for the last 85 years.
[snip]
In 1995, pathologist Jeffrey Taubenberger of the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology and his group of researchers began working to piece together the viral genome."
Several prominent doctors think the bird flu is not worth worrying about.
http://www.gainesville.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051101/LOCAL/51101021/1078/news
Donald Rumsfeld is a large holder of GILD (maker of Tamiflu). I wonder who else in the administration is?
http://www.iht.com/getina/files/287680.html
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0511/S00124.htm
"From $7 to $50 translates into a neat 720% profit for Mr. Rumsfeld’s Gilead stock holdings since he went to Washington four-and-a-half years ago. Since the start of the carefully orchestrated current Bird Flu hysteria this March, Rummy’s Gilead stocks have gained a neat 56% alone.
That might explain why, instead of dumping his shares as one might expect from an honest government official wanting to avoid a conflict of interest, he instead opted to buy another $18 million worth. Curiously, the Secretary waited until October 26, 2005 before issuing an official Department of Defense press statement that he had ‘recused’ himself from involvement in any future Pentagon decisions involving Gilead Sciences. By then, of course, the horse had long burst out of the barn door and the price of Gideon was racing at full gallop as the Pentagon and the Administration had already decided to stockpile millions of doses of Tamiflu."
Published: November 9, 2005 11:39 AM
relax. we are not going to die. weridos.
Published: November 9, 2005 11:42 AM
Jim -
If the Bush administration would stick to what IT ought to do, websites like this that provide great commentary on economics wouldn't feel inclined to warn people about the pandemic of government paranoia. I'll take useful information for what it's worth, wherever I may find it. The article makes the point, and you concur, that there is little evidence to support the possibility of an actual pandemic. Yet you go on in defense of senseless panic-induced "emergency" budgeting (ignoring Mr. Tucker's valid argument that people are already incentivized to protect their health and that private industry would accomodate that) by saying "The question is to what extent the Govenrment should be involved ...". I don't even need to finish that quote- that's where it should end: To what extent should the government be involved? And then intelligent people would respond, 'Involved in what?' As it stands now, there is nothing to be involved in, let alone 7.1 billion dollars worth of involved in, and I feel that is precisely the point Mr. Tucker makes. -There is nothing to worry about yet, and you already agree with that. This article provides a great perspective, as it takes a step back from the hysteria and resorts to reason and logic in opposition to blind force. As a sidenote, it's funny you would mention tangential subjects- in your analysis of why the arguments in the article are invalid, you mentioned that they were "...couched in (what appears to be growing) anti-american sentiment." Once again, take an argument for what it's worth.
Published: November 9, 2005 12:06 PM
Great column Jeff.
I am no expert on flu viruses, but what is remarkable to me is the number of doctors that are looking for "guidance" from government as to whether they should prescribe to patients the potential avian flu fighting drug Tamiflu:
http://www.menrohm.com/2005/10/doctors-are-looking-for-guidance.html
Has the world really developed to a point where group think in the medical community is so bad that it looks to government to determine whether they should prescribe patients with a potentially lifesaving drug?
Of course, one guy who doesn't need guidance and has taken a decidedly free market approach is Richard Branson. He just went out and bought a chunk of Tamiflu for his entire flight crew:
http://www.menrohm.com/2005/11/virgin-air-buys-10000-doses-of-tamiflu.html
Published: November 9, 2005 12:09 PM
Jim sez;
"You can't marry your sister or abandon your children (the latter after Rothbard's "Ethics of Liberty")"
Straw man, straw man. The fact of the matter is, your two examples (or similar) happen every day, despite government prescriptions, and with or without a "libertarian government" (see the "gay marriage issue"). And I doubt Rothbard meant what he said in precisely the way that you did (talk about context!).
Published: November 9, 2005 12:51 PM
I am continually astounded by people who think there is some magic barrier between government action and the "economy". Every single penny the government spends is taken, by force at gunpoint, from someone who would have saved it or spent it to the betterment of their own and other peoples lives.
Every action of government can be considered economic in scope. Gee, what was that title again, _HUMAN ACTION_?
Mr. Tucker, you bring up the one truly depressing aspect of all this: Are we so jaded that we hear the President announcing the complete nationalization of industry and abolition of the right to travel, and simply yawn?
No, but since no candidate I've voted for has ever won an election, no ballot I've voted against gone quietly into obscurity, and no tax-bill arrived with a "pretty please" note attached, I'm kind of stuck. What is left other than yawning and turning the channel?
It's just not feasable yet to individually say "No." As Claire Wolfe has said,
America is at that awkward stage: It's too late to work within the system, and too early to shoot the [gentlemen]."
Published: November 9, 2005 1:14 PM
Jim,
Right on. Unfortunately, too many people who write for this blog are neither economists, historians, nor (in this case) epidemiologists. Instead, the Mises blog has become a haven for creationists, "black helicopter" types, and Charles Lindbergh-style isolationists. It just confirms my hunch that the once-cosmopolitan Austrian movement has taken on some of the worst manifestations of Sunbelt conservatism.
Published: November 9, 2005 2:18 PM
Ummm ... not sure why this is "news" ... the story has been ongoing for a while now, and the facts in this column are about two weeks old already. Bottom line is, there is at least as much indication that this is another "swine flu" scam, or that it is being used as another excuse for ratcheting down the thumbscrews again. And the Rumsfeld connection to Tamiflu just makes it more suspect ... I refer you to either Free Market News (http://www.fmnn.com) or MEDICAL FREEDOM CHANNEL (http://medicalfreedom.isil.org) for the latest news ... and even updated comments ;)
Published: November 9, 2005 2:27 PM
Bruce,
Hmm...let's see. Mises demonstrated that socialism -- which is what Bush is proposing, the complete command-control takeover of the economy -- cannot rationally allocate resources; that is, socialism is doomed to failure, given its state goals (that is, wealth, prosperity, an the waters of the ocean turning to lemonaide, and all that other humbug). So, how exactly is it that, in a potential disaster, socialism is somehow a great idea? It isn't. The free market is the only way to rationally allocate resources, and that is particularly true during crises. Jeff Tucker gave some pretty clear explanations. He explained it pretty clearly, perhaps you should review it.
It's also quite rational of Tucker to expose this non-sense of a panic over the bird-flu. He clearly explained the incentives of the State to promote this kind of thing, as that gives it more power. This is politico-economics.
Published: November 9, 2005 3:15 PM
The problem with the expected pandemic is that most of us… okay, at least some of us believe that this will be the largest pandemic that never happened. Why? Well, the estimates are being made on the basis of the Spanish Flu outbreak that came at the end of WWI. There is a slight set of significant differences between the populations then and now.
One, the population then was concentrated in more rural backgrounds, not having the exposure to the wide variety of foreign agents our bodies experience every year. The cities were much smaller and the distribution of people and their exposure to foreign matter was very limited compared with walking down the street of any moderate to large sized city these days. The range of pathogens to which people have been exposed is just so much larger, particularly in urban centers in the west, that serious susceptibility is just not the issue is was almost 90 years ago.
Two, given this local exposure you also have to consider those people who travel through North America and Europe via airplanes. They will tell you directly that what one person has on an airplane, everyone will share whether they want to or not. Often you can engender initial resistance to a pathogen via limited contact so that when serious exposure is confronted, the resistance response is large and more effective.
Three, there was very little travel 90 years ago. Cars had not yet made it onto the roads in any significant number, so people were mostly left in their villages or towns.
Fourth, huge portions of the war-ridden populations were malnourished, exhausted, drained, and the returning troops were probably suffering that decrease in resistance experienced when an ongoing tension disappears, i.e., graduate student syndrome where the first thing that often happens after exams or a thesis defence is an illness of one sort or another.
Fifth, diagnostic skills involving microbial agents was non-existent.
And the list can go on for a considerable time, I think.
What I think we’re seeing here is the budget-busting exercise that has become the hallmark of the health sciences since the serious advent of AIDS. It was played out for us a few years ago, i.e., mid 90’s in Britain when the mad-cow “epidemic�[sic] made significant headlines, great public expenditure, vast budgets and public pronouncements, enhanced exercises in statist controls, and resulted in the death of tens of thousands of cows only to find out that the number of increased CJD cases was… zip. The trumpeted pandemic in CJD fizzled more than a virgin bachelor’s expectations on his wedding night. There was none. It didn’t happen. There was a blip in the years preceding that I’m sure will be shown to have been due to something else unrelated.
This is not terribly different from the CDC changes in the late 80’s when AIDS cases were not meeting their target growth expectations – meaning budget funding was likely to be cut if the disease threat was diminishing – so at that time ALL, not just the ones from identified AIDS victims, but ALL TB patients were thereafter defined as AIDS cases. WOW! There went the numbers! This was great, budget funding increased! Hallelujah’s all around the corridors of medical research clerks.
And you wonder who are the larger fools: the government for falling for this, the people for allowing it, or the populace overall for letting the politicians and their “friends� fleece them of dollars for such obvious sham exercises.
My prediction? We’ll still be waiting for this “pandemic� in a year… two years… three years… then, somehow, there will be something else that the health-budget-devouring-folks will raise as a threat to our very survival.
My problem is that I can’t figure out who really plays the part of Chicken Little.
Or, who convinced George W. that Edwina Currie knew something about chickens [references a faux-alarm of the early 90’s in Britain that killed millions of chickens by mistake; an event reminiscent of the great cranberry-carcinogenic scare of the 70’s].
Published: November 9, 2005 3:37 PM
Bruce and Jim,
If you want to engage this extremely intelligent, well-read bunch of people in reasoned debate, then by all means stay and offer a cogent argument, a reasoned opinion, a salient fact, a citation, something. Otherwise, there are lots of other blogs much more dedicated to your apparent style and taste in debate than Mises.org. There is nothing "black helicopter" about this crowd - ironic, since apparently, the CIA DOES have black helicopters (and white Gulfstream jets) with which it illegally remands prisoners to former Soviet Gulags for torture;
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/01/AR2005110101644.html
So, what were your questions again?
Published: November 9, 2005 4:30 PM
"nor is it right to consistently criticize America without the context of the brutal sick and twisted regimes of other countries"
Jim seems to believe the old canard "the government is we, and we are the government." So if you criticize the feds, then you are dissing mom and apple pie.
This parasite that is called the US government sucks somewhere near half of America's blood and treasure every year in exchange for a welfare/warfare state that enriches the political class and its favored clients.
One could reasonably take the logic of the black helicopter crowd any day of the week over the naive rumblings of the typical boot licking state apologist.
Published: November 9, 2005 5:04 PM
If judging the merit of our government's actions required context, then the existence of the always present monsters in regimes of this world would elevate our ordinary thugs to a level of respectability. It does nothing of the kind, however, and the surest way to guarantee the descent of any government into thuggery and beyond is to pronounce it a sacred cow, immune from criticism. And I'm sorry, I should have said our extraordinary thugs. We are so very good at killing hosts of foreigners. Thanks be that focus hasn't turned to home. Yet.
On a side note, when the Bush prediction of a plague first appeared, it immediately brought back memories of the worldwide military alert that Richard Nixon called as his downfall loomed. I hope that history is repeating itself, and am surprised not to see more comment anywhere about the similarity of these blatant misuses of power to divert the killing spotlight. Nixon of course was a choir boy when his transgressions are compared to those of the presently sitting poltroon. Not to mention that he had a functioning brain.
Published: November 10, 2005 3:27 AM
Bush hasn't exaggerated the risk any more than the WHO did. The H5N1 strain is particularly virulent, and the mortality rate has been over 50% so far.
But do tell, how is the private sector supposed to impose a quarantine or treat the homeless?
You do realize that every victim becomes a potential killer. That if certain people, like public health workers, aren't guaranteed a vaccine, then the pandemic would kill a lot more people.
I know, I'll just use my guns to shoot the virus, or at least shoot anyone who coughs on me.
Published: November 10, 2005 5:13 AM
To me, this is an issue of comparing probabilities. What is intuitive probability of a pandemic of the type mentioned? Maybe one in 100 million, given that roughly a hundred folks got that flu over a period of more than 5 years.
Compare that with the probability that Al Qaida will have ageents come through our porous borders over the next 5-10 years. My intuitive probability of that one is closer to 9 out of 10. Why? We are dealing here with antagonistic folks with the intelligence associated with the human species, not viruses.
Where, then, should that 7.1 billion dollars go?
best wishes all,
Mike
Published: November 10, 2005 5:36 AM
The people who brought you those bogeyman stories about the Soviet Union and East Germany and trotted out all the folks who "fled to freedom" and the rest-of-it are exactly, to the person, the folks bringing you bird flu as something requiring introduction of fascism. They tried back in those days to float fascism as anti-communist "saving you from external threats" and now they float fascism as saving the people from bird flu as "external threat".
Published: November 10, 2005 7:04 AM
Since his "Unsafe At Any Speed", Ralph Nader has waged a fairly successful campaign on the notion that if we pass enough laws, write enough regulations and spend enough money, we'll have a nice, safe, warm fuzzy world. The majority of those who vote have bought into this line of thought.
Bush is merely reacting to this national philosophy that Security Is All. He's trying to pre-emptively "Do something!" If he follows this website's advice, he'll be accused of not caring, which is one of America's Deadly Sins. And, of course, if this variety of flu does do a WW I repeat and become a pandemic, he'll be the Man on the White Horse.
Why would folks expect differently?
Art
Published: November 10, 2005 7:23 AM
Tammy Flew (nice puns!) said;
"Bush hasn't exaggerated the risk any more than the WHO did. The H5N1 strain is particularly virulent, and the mortality rate has been over 50% so far."
Leaving aside the fact that organizations like the WHO WILDLY overstate risks as a matter of course (because of how they are funded), the 1918 Pandemic was as deadly as it was, in large part, due to the devastation, dislocation, and horrible living conditions extant in much of Europe at the close of the "Great War". Large, displaced populations of sick, injured, and otherwise unhealthy people living in cramped conditions with inadequate sanitation helped incubate the virus and facilitate its ultimate strength and its transmission. And, as stated earlier, the medical community and the general populace were much less well-equipped to deal with a flu threat than they are now. And when you speak of a 50% mortality rate, you know of course that the number is based on a small sample of a vulnerable population (poor people living in close contact with lots of birds). None of these conditions translates to conditions existing in this country, unless you are a poor person raising chickens in a Harlem tenament. Obviously mine is an "a priori" analysis, and I could do much better if I had the time to sit down and run some numbers. The bottom line is that we in the US have little if nothing to worry about from this particular avian flu, statistically speaking. This is $7 BILLION that will just disappear down the government rathole, year after wasteful year, enriching researchers, bureaucrats, and favored vaccine makers, impoverishing everyone else.
All bets are off, however, if the Feds have somehow manipulated their evil reconstituted flu virus (aka, biological weapon) to greatly increase its transmissibility and lethality - then, yes, let's get scared.
Published: November 10, 2005 7:46 AM
From December 2003 to October 25 2005, the H5N1 bird flu virus has been responsible for the documented infection of 121 people, 91 one of whom caught the virus in Vietnam.
From Jan 1 2005 to Oct 18 2005, there were 299 murders in Philadelphia. Every year about 45,000 motorists die on american roads. Perspective, people, perspective! I wouldn't be surprised if the government of Vietnam had killed more of their own citizens since Dec 2003 than H5N1 did!
Speaking of unsanitary conditions, let's talk about venereal disease, which had an infection rate among U.S. troops in WWI of 70% - it wasn't just airborne diseases that these soldiers were constantly exposed to! There were different attitudes towards condom usage in those days, certainly there was objection to widespread issuing of them to troops, and there was also little treatment for some of the most common forms of VD, since penicillin hadn't been found yet. Could the mortality and/or infection rate of the flu related to untreatable venereal disease infections among its victims?
Supposedly one mark of the 1918 epidemic was virulence among those in the “primes of their life� – keep in mind that over half the U.S. war dead were from the flu.
Circulation of military personnel was the leading vector for infecting civilian populations the world over. Our present war is not involved in anything close to trench warfare, and the total percentage of the U.S. population involved in Iraq and Afghanistan is only 0.05 percent (compared to the 2.0 percent in World War I). Why the high involvement? Active enslav ... er, conscript ... er, a draft. Yeah, let's call it a draft. Also keep in mind the current war is predominantly U.S. troops in Iraq, not U.S., French, German, English, Russian, etc. troops all co-mingling to some extent across multiple fronts of a war that covered a much wider geographic territory.
According to a 1931 study of the 1918 flu pandemic by the U.S. Public Health Service, the poor were about 20 percent to 30 percent more likely to contract the flu, and overall mortality rates of the "well-to-do" were less than half that of the "poor" and "very poor." This is true of most epidemics throughout history. Kudos to the first person who posts the exception!
I’ve read that the 1918 pandemic was similar in that the majority of those who died, died not from the primary attack of the flu but from secondary infections -- typically bacteria or fungal -- that triggered pneumonia. Antibiotics are useless against viruses, but useful in preventing pneumonia. Penicillin was discovered in 1929, but it wasn't until the 1940's that they knew what they had and started mass-producing it.
Published: November 10, 2005 8:36 AM
Good column. But you should have added the sound principle of following the money. Rumsfeld personally stands to make a lot of money from this chicanery. See http://www.mercola.com/2005/oct/25/rumsfeld_to_profit_from_avian_flu_hoax.htm#
Published: November 10, 2005 10:34 AM
I will tell Mises what I have told other web sites on this Bird Flu scam. That is:
Expect to lose liberty when a politician creates a new word for something. Note that the term "pandemic" has appeard which is different than the worse epidemic on definition only.
And you know what, I have see and read dozens of shows and articles and NO ONE has yet to define the difference between the two.
Published: November 10, 2005 11:38 AM
The idiocy of Bush's (and all bureaucrat's) approach to the possibility of a pandemic is that it assumes those in the employ of the state will somehow be spared of the disease. Why else would they think that government would succeed and the private sector would not be capable of functioning?
Published: November 10, 2005 12:05 PM
A Pandemic can occur when: (a) a new virus emerges (no antibodies) (b) it infects humans with the appropriate level of severity (not too quickly fatal) (c) it becomes person-to-person. (c) is the only element not (yet?) present. There is no preventative "private property right" that will protect the uninfected without forcible action (and forced testing) that will restrain a group of infected people from spreading the disease.
The state will be and should be involved as it has the monopoly on violence. I don't like George Bush's government bias, but I don't hate him either. He's not always wrong. It's a three front struggle: fighting our own government, fighting other governments, fighting our citizenry that doesn't have a clue.
Brief responses
Vince - A representative government is always and ultimately "imposed by force" by the citizenry ... that's why we have a 2nd Amendment. And yes our way of thinking (Constitutional law) IS "more moral" than many other government structures. And our founding fathers knew they were signing their death warrants when they signed the Declaration of Independence (nearly all of them were killed). That's not just "self interest". Where do you get your history?
David - "Hitler conquers the world" isn't the subject of debate and is irrelevant whether he would have or not. Certainly Europe is better of and so are we for having supported the Allies. Freedom does cost. Nearly all action can be accomplished by the market, but not everything. A state of the appropriate strength is a "necessary evil".
Bill - State military action defending your property is wrong? Come on Bill. Hitler being a great strategest isn't the subject of debate, neither is the fact that the military has engineered pathological weapons. And who owns what stocks isn't the subject of debate either (certainly we both agree that government is corrupt).
Jason - I'm not pro-Bush and freedom doesn't exist without morality. Tangential subjects are what a blog is for, not an article. Really sorry to see Mises.org taken over by the anarcho-Libertarian worldview which completely misses that freedom cannot exist without an agreed upon moral structure (which is why the Catholic Church and Christianity had such a huge positive influence on the formation of the U.S.). A lot of (old style) conservatives have ideals very close to yours.
Vince - Throwing out "straw man" is nonsense. That's the logical endpoint to which Rothbardian anarcho-libertarianism takes us. Yes there ARE moral issues which should be legislated (parental notification of abortion of underage minors, etc. etc.) Children are "quasi-property" but they cannot simply be "left to starve" because people are not atomistic individuals. They are connected to one another as God has decided.
Bruce - I'd believe in creationism long before the new priesthood of evolutionary "science" which is in actuality an untestable, unverifiable contradictory theory of what happened in history. What happened to empiricism in science? That frankly is religion.
Steve - it's a three front struggle: against our government, against other governments, against citizens that don't support freedom.
Finally criticism of anarcho-libertarianism evokes the strangest response -- almost as if treading on hallowed ground. Get real guys. This isn't "religion" ... or is it?
Published: November 10, 2005 12:15 PM
Jim,
I'd like an example of state action defending my property, please.
;-0
I'd also like to know what makes you think we have Constitutional Law in the U.S.
You should also define the citizenry in your "imposed by force" sentence. Are the people whom force is used against in this "imposition" part of the citizenry? If so, why are they imposing force against themselves? If not, why are the citizens imposing force against them? After all, if they're not citizens, they shouldn't be subject to social contract, should they?
I didn't sign the Constitution. Does that mean I don't have to abide by it?
Freedom DOES cost. However, the State does not provide freedom, although it, too, DOES cost. There are NO necessary evils.
Actually, an agreed-upon moral structure is the first step in the EROSION of freedom. From agreement, it is only a tiny nudge to enforcement. I'm one of "those" anarcho-capitalists who believes that vigilantism will be a necessary part of a free world, and that vigilantism isn't "evil."
Now, back to bird flu. I think we have firmly established that
1. Contextually the risk is small and overblown
2. Comparisons to the 1918 flu are invalid
3. Certain members of the administration are personally profiting financially from it
4. It will be used as a stepping stone for further erosion of our political liberties.
Published: November 10, 2005 1:20 PM
It was precisely "forcible action" by the federal government, forcing companies to sell vaccines at a greatly reduced price in the name of "public health", thereby reducing incentive for companies to produce vaccines, that led to the reduced supply of vaccines we are enjoying today. I’m sure when the government takes charge of any flu outbreak we’ll see healthy citizens forced to be quarantined and medical personnel not allowed access to treat the sick because they don’t have proper ID or whatever bureaucratic red tape. Take a lesson from New Orleans. Also, I believe a fundamental tenet of “anarcho-capitalism� is that every individual has their own moral structure which is to be respected and that government is inherently immoral. The Virginia Act for Establishing Religious Freedom, written by Thomas Jefferson, is a good indication of how many of the founders of America viewed freedom and “moral structure�.
Published: November 10, 2005 2:05 PM
Bill R - Every day thousands of state actions both defend and subvert your right to your property and your life. From stoplights to taxes, court decisions, border disputes, and military defense of the U.S. Only seeing one side is a problem because it's inaccurate.
No we don't have 100% Constitutional Law in the U.S. and I didn't make that claim. I made the claim that Constitutional Law is more moral, and we do have a percentage of Constitutional Law still active, even if only to "disburse the corruption" so that we demand of each other to live to a better standard.
No you didn't sign the Constitution. Neither did you self-create. You did not pay the price to establish this great country or (as far as I know) to attain your political freedom. You get the benefits whose costs you never bore, and pay the price of bad decisions from others.
What's the point to selecting all the negative, Bill? That you feel it is your right to live in a world where it is not necessary to pay prices you don't want to? I can say that won't happen until God himself sets things right. Until then, good people have to pay the price. And representative government has been imposed by force by the U.S. and it's allies (meaning the foreign government is destroyed and also so are the citizens that are unfortunately fighting for it) to prevent another imperial war (for instance, in Japan or Germany). I wish it were otherwise, but it is not.
That this kind of discussion is necessary says a lot about the anarcho-libertarian viewpoint, 90% of which I agree with, but I can't move into the "atomized individual" zone. That's something in common with the left: society owes me x and y and z. No. Good people have to pay the cost. That is the nature of politics. There's a serious "reality principle" lacking in the viewpoint.
And moral structure does have to be widely agreed upon for there to be any justice -- else what you propose is we make decisions by POWER only. Even Rothbard was against that (Power versus Freedom being a major theme in his history works).
I have no idea whether bird flu is a danger or not, but it depends on the facts, not whether "government is involved" or "Bush did this" or "this guy owns this stock" -- all of which are surely important considerations, but they are tangent to the main issue.
Published: November 10, 2005 2:32 PM
Andrew - I think we're in agreement in regards to whether the government should subsidize research.
But to say "every individual has their own moral structure which is to be respected" is just nonsense and self-contradictory (as it denies the very real difference between good and evil). I refuse to honor rapists, thugs, murderers, dictators, or any other impossible morality with respect (or allowance) for their viewpoints or feelings or behavior and will actively, and if necessary, violently fight them.
I do concur with your feeling about government.
It self contradicts.
Let me throw this one at you: I believe murder is okay for me" and I'm willing to kill to stop anyone that believes against me. Now what? Or is there (just perhaps) a fundamental requirement to have a decent and just society that goes beyond "anarcho-libertarianism" ...
Published: November 10, 2005 2:41 PM
Jim,
I thought you were a soulmate. Alas, you just proved my point. Please consult ANY college level biology text to find a HUGE quantity of empirical evidence that validates evolution. Just talk to ANY professor of biology, genetics, or anthropology (or at least one not on the payroll of the Discovery Institute). Or for heaven's sake, just read "On the Origins of Species."
Obviously, all scientific theories are subject to revision in the light of new evidence or new theoretical findings. Maybe 500 years from now we'll look back on evolution and see it as a giant intellectual mistake. I doubt it, but you never know for sure.
But to assert that an ancient superstition like creationism is more "empirical" than fossil records, genetic evidence, analogies from animal breeding, and other evidence that supports evolutionary theory is...well...it is characteristic of Sunbelt conservatism.
And it would make Hayek and Mises cringe. I wonder what those grand old secular rationalists would think if they could read this blog. Gag.
Published: November 10, 2005 4:53 PM
Jim,
But apart from evolution, your other comments are good. PLEASE keep contributing to this blog!
Published: November 10, 2005 5:07 PM
Jim,
But apart from evolution, your other comments are good. PLEASE keep contributing to this blog!
Published: November 10, 2005 5:07 PM
To, ahem, get back on topic, let's assume for the sake of argument that Bush is right and that there will be a pandemic of bird flu. Why should anyone believe the government can do a better job of dealing with it than non-governmental agencies? The situation in New Orleans certainly comes to mind, as does the government's previous and current handling of flu vaccines. "Tammy Flew's" comments are without justification.
Of course, that's a big IF. I agree with most of you that such a pandemic is highly unlikely.
Published: November 10, 2005 5:29 PM
Bruce - Agree with 98% of what you say. That's pretty good.
Fossil records very much support sudden and abrupt complex forms appearing and no transitional forms. (we've about 100 million fossils with a black hole between them -- i.e. just zero transitional forms) "Genetic evidence" isn't evolutionary: it shows specified complexity and a language of "nature" that was created from an uncomprehensible intelligence. Species aren't evolving, they are dying out. The timeframe doesn't fit. Etc. Etc.
There's tons of real world today evidence that evolution isn't a viable description of history, plus the assumption that physical constants always were what they are today I think is a huge, huge "non-scientific" hole. We just flat out don't know, and it's wrong to say that we do and it's wrong to act like it's science.
So whatever our disagreement about the evidence for or against evolution, evolution is not science. "Science" is empirical: it can be validated, duplicated, and tested by anyone with the requisite skills. "Interpretation of 4 billion years of history" isn't science ... it is radical assumption making, and unfortunately forms a "priesthood" of its own.
Don't know about Mises personal beliefs, but I submit that the contribution made by the correct religious worldview about the nature of man is a huge force for good ... It's not just "secular" principles (enlightenment, etc.) that have built this country, but intensely religious ones (the Reformation) as well.
Ultimately all worldviews can be reduced to a set of primary assumptions or "faith". In that respect, worldviews should be considered carefully for their root assumptions. In my opinion, there's only one person that truly lived up to God's standard: Jesus Christ. And if that's true, and if he paid the price, then we've an obligation not only to accept that gift, but also to commit ourselves to actively promoting right -- which includes rolling back the state (an argument commonly found in the early Pre-American Revolution).
Published: November 10, 2005 5:32 PM
Jeffrey Tucker should get a Pulitzer prize for creative writing. I'm still "cracking up" over the clever puns.
Published: November 10, 2005 5:36 PM
Larry - I don't think anyone here (so far) believes the government will do a better job. I think there's a disagreement as to the role of the government as to the preventative action (no role, versus some role) and the actual action should the threat materialize (no role versus some role). I think it's agreed that subsidies are counterproductive.
Published: November 10, 2005 5:40 PM
Jim wrote:
""Science" is empirical: it can be validated, duplicated, and tested by anyone with the requisite skills. "Interpretation of 4 billion years of history" isn't science ..."
This definition of yours would invalidate creationism as science in the same manner, since it is as historical as evolution, per your view.
Published: November 10, 2005 6:04 PM
You "can't move into the 'atomized individual' zone? Well, neither can a libertarian worthy of the name. For to believe in libertarianism is to understand, as Mises did, that society is the source and sustenance of the human enterprise:
"The idea that anybody would have fared better under an asocial state of mankind and is wronged by the very existence of society is absurd. Thanks to the higher productivity of social cooperation the human species has multiplied far beyond the margin of subsistence."
We are lost without each other, in other words, and were we allowed to socialize -- i.e., to engage in the voluntary cooperation that is the essence of the social enterprise -- without the relentless interference of the state, there is no telling how far beyond the "margin of subsistence" we would already be.
But as we must do battle with those, like yourself, who apologize for the state in the name of God, on it goes, to the detriment of humanity as a whole.
Published: November 10, 2005 7:38 PM
To clarify, my post above was directed at Jim Bradley.
Published: November 10, 2005 7:41 PM
Mr. Martin, I agree. Not one iota of evidence has been presented to demonstrate that government action would be more effective than private action in the event of a "pandemic".
Much evidence can be presented from past disasters to show that government action is substantially less efficient, regardless of the quantity of resources taken from other uses.
Which leads to only one logical conclusion: Get government out of the way as quickly and completely as possible. Any other assertion is false. Period.
Published: November 10, 2005 8:05 PM
most of you guys have forgotten how much heat the liberals gave the current administration for
the 9-11 disaster----specifically the part about
not being prepared! Having the government in-
volved in anything always brings on a slew of
snafus. perhaps you guys could come up with your own plan for saving millions of lives just
in case a flu pandemic does fly........well?
ldfref
Published: November 11, 2005 12:07 AM
Francisco - Correct - creationism isn't science either: it's metaphysics and philosophy, just like evolution. And it's not "my" definition of science, it's the commonly accepted definition of science among scientists themselves. Science does have a metaphysics, by the way: it assumes that natural events have natural and discoverable causes ... an assumption that cannot be proven by science, hence it is philosophy. Bottom line, the fundamental assumptions should be spelled out because that is a real education -- and following the "standards" of educational science when teaching science (honesty, disclosure, repeatability, verifiability, etc.) are essential.
Curt - It's already been agreed that the government should not subsidize research. However, government action IS the only action during (for example) quarantine unless you want to propose a theory of individual rights whereby people can forcibly require testing and quarantine on other people. Seems to me that the anarcho-libertarian position falls down here. That's why the article makes only partial sense.
Published: November 11, 2005 9:18 AM
David - you do owe people more than the "anarcho-libertarian" view. You owe your children support. You owe your wife fidelity. You owe our American forefathers respect and thanks (and appropriate contextual criticism) and the Police (when they serve the public) as well.
The proper sphere of government is NOT coincident with the anarcho-libertarian view. You may not acquire nuclear secrets. You may not marry your sister. You may not copulate on the front lawn (unless you happen to live somewhere where you can't be seen). You must support your children. You cannot distribute X-rated material to minors or entice them to smoke or drink or gamble. Yada Yada. Come on. This stuff is just unarguable. Read Rothbard's "Ethics of Liberty" and see if you're really ready for the anarcho-libertarian kind of society. I appreciate his honesty, but I in no way support that level of "hands-off" morality (abandon your children to starve? Come on!) There absolutely IS a requirement for a shared morality that goes beyond anarcho-libertarianism. There are a lot of "conservative libertarians" ... i.e. old style Constitutionalists that are in your limited-government camp but realize that morality is as important to future freedom as is capitalism. Join up.
Published: November 11, 2005 9:31 AM
Jim,
You certainly know how to put words in someone's mouth!
As I have consistently said on this site, while I despise the term anarcho-capitalism -- BOTH words being counterproductive in a world in which anarchy is associated with chaos (think New Orleans) and capitalism with corporatism (think Halliburton) -- I embrace the notion that government should limit itself to the protection of life, liberty, and property and that the state is not only not necessary for this purpose but is inimical to it.
I do NOT owe "our American forefathers respect and thanks," nor do I believe in constitutionalism, agreeing with Lysander Spooner in this matter ("No Treason") that one has no obligation to abide by a document to which one has not given consent.
As for "hands-off" morality, I believe in no such thing beyond the non-aggression principle that is central to libertarian thought. Respecting the rights of others to their life, liberty, and property, is a very hands-on morality insofar as the social enterprise in general depends on its constant application.
As for the state -- which is not synonymous with government but is mere a form thereof -- because it is founded on aggression (see Franz Openheimer's "The State"), it is fundamentally immoral, and whatever good it does for one or another group, it does far more harm to the remainder of society.
Nor is the American state -- which was founded in conquest and subjugation -- in any way an exception, especially now that it has metastasized into a welfare-warfare colossus bent on world domination.
Published: November 11, 2005 10:28 AM
Jim,
Rothbard was not laying out a complete moral framework. He was laying out a system of political ethics: the only question which concerned him was, "What should be prohibited by force, and what shouldn't?" The other question that interested in (from an economic viewpoint) was what are the effects of State intervention in the free market (which undermines property rights), and why the free market was better.
You just make a bunch of mindless assertions, without providing any logical support. There is no justifiable reason why it should be criminal to marry one's sister, as long as some Church is willing to do the marrying. Of course, as for the contractual matters, that can all be established absent a Church condoning the marriage, and absent the State. Whether or not it is moral to marry (and have intercourse with) one's sister is another matter. It is certainly not in violation of the non-aggression axiom (political ethics), nor even in violation of the Golden Rule. The only argument is that it is in violation of God's law, a sin against God. And even if that is so, that still doesn't mean that such should be prohibited by coercive force. We are only justified in prohibiting those things by coercive force, which constitute the initiation of aggression in the first place, and incest (whatever else one can say about it) certainly doesn't constitute the initiation of aggression.
As for the Founding Fathers, I don't owe them anything, nor do I owe anything to a modern-day policeman. Both are providing something I did not voluntarily consent to. It is a racket, no different than me making some widget, placing it on your doorstep, and then demanding that you give me $10,000 dollars.
Regarding one's parents and children, not all natural rights libertarians are in agreement with Rothbard that one can abandon one's children. I'd argue that one can abandon one's children, so-long as one notifies others of such. This is because parents homestead custodial rights -- the right and responsibility to raise the child -- and such cannot be abandoned without notifying others of said abandonment. Again, whether or not this is moral is a separate issue. I'd argue that taking one's children out to the middle of no-where and abandoning them constitutes nothing short of murder.
I'd also note that Hoppe's concept of community covenants could make alot of things criminal, simply by setting up community covenant rules on private property. E.g., "anyone living in this covenant agrees not to do X," where X could be anything. Hoppe argues that any covenant to be lasting would have to prohibit the advocacy of non-family centered values and other things that undermine the community covenant; e.g., the advocacy of nature-worship, homosexuality, socialism, communism, etc (I'd also add affirmative action, egalitarianism, modern-day feminism, and a host of other leftist junk).
Btw, if you are going to espouse Christian values, you should know that Jesus was a pacifist, which also means necessarily libertarian. The non-aggression axiom is essentially a subset of the Golden Rule. And the Bible provides very very strong support for property rights (propertarianism), as Gary North has demonstrated in his commentaries.
Published: November 11, 2005 11:20 AM
David White - We owe thanks to a great many people: mathematicians, businesspeople, statesmen, (hopefully) good parents, etc. many of whom did not reap the benefits of their work. Newton said he could see farther because he stood on the shoulders of Giants. Mises.org is a non-profit as well ... What gives?
We disagree as to the sphere of proper government action. Shared morality is broader than the non-aggression principle, as easily demonstrated by the list of "hard cases" already given. The Federal government (being a centralized authority) has no business legislating the kind of morality desired by Pat Robertson, but smaller state governments (or towns and cities) should and do.
It sounds like Lysander's ideology presumes an alternative universe: one cannot simply imagine away the problems of commons or of inherited benefits (and costs). Example: what about a land-owner that becomes surrounded by other owners? How does "pure individualism" handle that case if the surrounding landowners should forcibly defend their property? Can landowners surround an individual and prevent him from crossing their land so he dies? Can people refuse to sell food to minorities? Really, a functional legal system makes many determinations that "violate" libertarian property principles - but they do so in the name and purpose of protecting the individual.
All surviving social structures are "founded on aggression" meaning that to prevail, they must exercise violence to protect their lives, liberty, and property. America was founded not ONLY on conquest and subjugation, but also by the principles of her Constitution. There's no reason to believe in only one side, irrespective of our current (and unfortunate) large government.
Published: November 11, 2005 12:06 PM
Jim,
Yes, we owe thanks to a great many people, as everything we enjoy today is the result of the cumulative efforts of those who have gone before us. That they did so largely in spite of, rather than because of, state action is the salient point, however, and it is impossible for us to imagine how much farther humanity would have advanced without the endless depredations of the state.
Yes, shared morality is broader than the non-aggression principle, precisely as I said -- i.e., society depends on the shared respect for the life, liberty, and property of others.
As for Spooner, my point was about the failure of constitutionalism to pass muster from the standpoint of government by consent of the governed. Beyond that -- i.e., how a stateless society would work -- Stefan Molyneux has does some excellent work here -- http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig6/molyneux1.html, though Hans-Hermann Hoppe's "Democracy: The God That Failed" is probably your best resource -- http://www.lewrockwell.com/hoppe/hoppe4.html.
As for surviving social structuress being "founded on aggression," you err by conflating aggression and violence, as violence is only aggression when it is initiated. When it is used in self-defense, it is not aggression, and in a truly free society -- as opposed to statist society -- social structures would be maintained via the non-aggression principle and free-market protections of life, liberty, and property.
Lastly, there is every reason to believe in "only one side," just as there is reason to side with truth rather than falsehood. And don't tell me that YOU don't believe in "only one side" when it comes to your religious fundamentalism.
Published: November 11, 2005 1:05 PM
Jim,
So what, Mises.org is a non-profit organization? What exactly is your point? That we should bow down and worship the government for not stealing all of our money, for allowing some institutions (with specific organizations) to go untaxed?
Shared morality is broader than the non-aggression principle, yes. The non-aggression principle, as noted, however, is a principle of political ethics, of law: what should be prohibited by force. There are many things that may be immoral -- incest, adultery, disrespectfulness, arrogance, hatred, lust, gluttony, sloth, worshipping of false idols -- but that are not, or should not be prohibited by law (that is, that shouldn't be prevented by coercive force, that we're not justified in preventing by coercive force). Regarding these things, I'd note that Hoppe's conception of community covenants allows people to voluntarily segregate into relatively homogenous groups with shared moralities, thus allowing for alignment and order within a community.
As for the problem of the commons, this is a problem created by State intervention, when private property (homesteading) is not allowed. This ties into a bunch of silly fallacies by mainstream economists about externalities, all of which are refuted by Rothbard and Block.
Your example of new homesteaders homesteading around an existing property owner, and preventing him from getting off of his property, is quite ridiculous. This property owner would already have homesteaded an easement to get off his property, and no homesteading of of property around him could alter that. Title insurance could also deal with such a thing.
As for refusing to sell a good to a minority, yes, that is the right of a private property owner. Any transgression of that constitutes a violation of natural law. This is no different than throwing a party in one's house, and refusing to allow minorities in. It is the right of the property owner to do such, and the minority's rights were not in any way violated. Of course, someone refusing to sell a good to a minority is passing up a profit opportunity, and leaves that open to his competitors; namely, he incurs a natural cost of such behaviour. It is ridiculous to assume that on the free market, no-one would be willing to sell anything to minorities; extremely ridiculous, if you consider that minorities can also open up stores.
Also, you haven't provided one iota of an argument against Spooner's No Treason. He thoroughly demolishes any arguments for the legitimacy of the US Constitution.
Published: November 11, 2005 1:25 PM
Jim:
You said "...a functional legal system makes many determinations that "violate" libertarian property principles - but they do so in the name and purpose of protecting the individual."
One cannot apply non-libertarian means to obtain libertarian ends. That idea is an illusion and is not possible. One cannot propose to protect the individual’s rights by advocating the violation of his rights. A deceptive politician or a misguided individual may argue it can and should be done, but it is to repeat a lie. And where does lying sit on our moral scale?
I will answer your specific objections that you mention above, but i hope doing so will inspire you at some point to read some of the volumes of literature available here and elsewhere that answers such questions better than i am about to do.
1. How does "pure individualism" handle that case if the surrounding landowners should forcibly defend their property? Can landowners surround an individual and prevent him from crossing their land so he dies?
A. The fact that the original land owner lived on his property first means that he also owned the access to his land first. He could not be forced to give up access to it and would not. Therefore, there is no possibility of new neighbors forcibly revoking the first landowner’s right of access to his property. The concern is usually the other way around. How could a land-owner sell land without providing a contractual guarantee to access to the property they are considering buying. He couldn’t.
2. Can people refuse to sell food to minorities?
A. Are you suggesting that ethics dictates who you can and cannot sell food to? I do not sell food to minorities, should i be forced to? I don't sell food to anyone, should i be forced to? I'm not in the food industry, should i be forced to be?
But this is not your thrust. What you mean is, if you have already chosen to sell food to people, you should be forced to sell to anyone who wants to buy from you. But i answer, if you can force a food seller to sell to people he does not wish to sell to, it is consistent to force people who don't want to sell food to anyone to be forced to sell food to anyone who wants to buy. This is fine to a statist; it is unacceptable to a libertarian.
Published: November 11, 2005 1:39 PM
"parents homestead custodial rights" !!!
It never fails to amaze me, the kind of fanciful abstractions you folks advance. Ownership does not apply to children, nor does endangerment or abandonment alter its criminality by notifying the neighbors, for pete's sake.
Published: November 11, 2005 1:53 PM
Jim,
The problem is with your concepts: science is not about repeatabily and experimentation only, but also about EVIDENCE and cogent theories. If experimentation and repeatability were to be the only two tennets necessary for all scientific knowledge, then geology would not be science [let's tell the oil explorers that their drill sites are all a result of happenstance!!] Plate tectonics would have to be a figment of the imagination; sedimentary rock would be something else, and so on. Even forensic science would not be a science if the necessary elements for knowledge were based sorely on experimentation - it would be quite impossible to simply experiment on a murder, for example. Yet, we arrive at information by gathering and looking at evidence and making informed, logical inferences. The naturalistic cause of everything is indeed a philosophy and an assumption; however, one cannot start to KNOW things if one does not start from an assumption. In the case of the natural sciences, it is the assumption that all things in nature have a natural cause. One cannot prove this is the case ALL THE TIME, but without proof of another cause, the evidence is pretty good on the naturalistic cause for planetary movement, chemical reactions, rocks falling from high places, lighting, plate tectonics, you name it... and by inferrence, there is no reason to think that life is NOT the result of a natural process other than a different, but otherwise unproven, cosmology.
Oh, by the way: Evolution is NOT a theory, it is a natural, observable fact, like rain, or snow. What IS theory is Natural Selection, or one explanation of how evolution works. The other explanation was the theory on adquired traits, but it was disproved by the time Darwin and Wallace came with the Natural Selection and Mutation theories.
Published: November 11, 2005 2:20 PM
Fransisco:
By the end of your first paragraph you had me convinced that you were saying that evolution is an "assumption". And i thought that you put up a pretty good argument on that front. i was quite prepared to agree with you that the existence of gravity does nothing to provide evidence of evolution.
So i was surprised when your second paragraph began with the contrary assertion that evolution is an observable fact.
I am always curious when someone holds that evolution is a fact; do they believe this because they believe the fossil record substantiates it, or despite the fact that it does not. Is it not important what the paleontologists and geologists have to say about the lack of evidence for evolution in the fossil record? I would think it should have caused quite a stir by now. In fact it remains one of the best kept secrets of "science" of all time, and understandably so. (In case anyone reading assumes that the fossil record confirms evolution i have a news flash: it does not.)
Really, I think Darwin has been the physical science’s answer to Keynes. Well marketed and powerfully promoted ideas, strongly held by the masses to have sound merit, and only a very small and elite group understand and keep to themselves the magnificent weaknesses of their own theories. And then off to the side there is a small group of dissenters who see through the exaggerations and misrepresentations. What a fun parallel between economics and science, mixed with some cruel irony.
Published: November 11, 2005 3:13 PM
Paul,
You read that wrong. I did not say evolution is an assumption, but that knowledge starts with assumptions, otherwise you would not know where to start looking.
I am not aware of paleontologists or geologists that state there is no evidence of an evolutionary process in the fossil record, except of course of those from the Discovery Institute and the Institute of Creation "Science". By the mere fact that outside my town (Monterrey, Mexico) fossils can be bought for $0.30 USD, I imagine they are quite abundant to miss.
Evolution as a process was first recognized by an obvious fact: that many animals LOOK alike. Birds look like other birds, and mammals look like other mammals, yet they are different in certain features. Fossils simply introduced the idea of OLDER forms of life that do not exist in the present. From this many hypothesis were discussed during the XVIII and XIX Centuries, but it wasn't until Darwin and Wallace that a cogent, evidence-supported theory explained how evolution worked. Interesting how anti-evolutionists (really, fundamentalists) call the theory of Natural Selection "darwinism", and not wallacism (from Alfred Russell Wallace, who arrived at the same conclusions as Darwin entirely on his own, with different evidence, giving corroboration to his investigations.)
Saying that Natural Selection is like Keynesianism is totally without foundation. Where Keynes advocated omnipotent control of a seemingly control-less process (government over economics) Darwin explained how a seemingly control-less process worked without the need of omnipotent intervention (God over nature.) They both seem to be contradictory to me...
Published: November 11, 2005 3:30 PM
By the way, as it has been said before, this is not the proper forum to discuss evolutionary theory. I will restrain myself from further discussion on the matter.
Published: November 11, 2005 3:32 PM
Mark Fiore should do a cartoon on this latest fear mongering debacle. Along the same theme, I have seen Mark Fiore's cartoons showing Ashcroft as the dirty bomber propagandist and Tom Ridge as the Minister of Fear.
Published: November 11, 2005 3:54 PM
David - The first point is that you do owe thanks to many people, whether it's offered or not. The second point is there's probably no (reality based) way that a universal "non violence" morality will work. Enough examples were given (abandonment of children, forced starvation, land-locked ownership, x-rated materials to kids, drugs or alcohol to children, etc.) to demonstrate it. I think the theory of libertarianism falls down especially hard in the cases of children.
I think your best argument (which you indirectly made) is that a libertarian society will have a shared morality enforced by the right to buy or sell with people with whom you morally agree and you may legally refuse to deal with anyone else. Refusing to prosecute might solve other intractable instances like a 30 yr old man making advances to their 13 yr old star-struck daughter. I'd bet most of the framing fathers (who had an amazing libertarian streak!) would go about threatening (or achieving) the liberation of his soul from his body. Interesting their practical and non-libertarian viewpoint even from a non-violent act ...
Franciso - I think you've one part backwards and an important part correct. Natural selection is an observable fact (the fittest / most adaptable survive). However "the rise of man from muck over 4 billions years" is flat out speculation (and actively contradicted by fossil evidence) not even worthy of the word "theory". The facts are in opposition to the theory. NO interspecies transfer, NO intermediate forms, NO measurement, Specified Complexity, General trend toward extinction, etc. etc.
Forensic science, oil exploration science -- all those are based on things we can measure right now, things we have measured recently, things that can be verified, and on facts we can observe to be true. Since when have scientists got 4 billion year old measurements of the "speed of light" or any other data necessary? Frankly, evolution borders on the absurd to be taught in science class.
But your other comment is really on target. "One cannot start to KNOW things if one does not start from an assumption." And that's exactly what Christianity says... you can't get to God without first believing he exists and he rewards those who seek him. Seeing that Creationism is a "competitor" of sorts with evolution, it's ironic that it isn't given the same respect with regards to the necessary assumptive starting point of knowledge, and unfortunate that Christianity is seen as "religion" while evolution is seen as "science". They are both religion ...
Published: November 11, 2005 4:17 PM
Jim,
There may be many people I owe thanks to. That doesn't mean that anyone is entitled to point a gun to my head and force me to pay taxes. I stand by my position that me being forced to pay for a monopoly police provider is a racket.
Your examples are all non-starters, and can be dealt with easily. Child abandonment, unless done while notifying others, arguably constitutes murder. It could very well be punished by protection agencies in a Stateless society. I have no idea what you mean by forced starvation, unless you mean someone tying up a person and not feeding him. Such is certainly criminal by libertarianism. So too is not feeding one's kids. Refusing to sell groceries to a minority isn't criminal, and to believe that the right of property owners to do such would be some kind of serious problem is to display ignorance of economics. Land-locked ownership is a ridiculous accusation that Walter Block has dealt with. X-rated materials to kids -- again, ridiculous. Community covenants would prevent such things. Alcohol and drugs to children arguably constitutes the initiation of aggression against them. Child molestation would be dealt with in likewise manner as rape. As for the age of consent, that's a continuum problem; Walter Block has discussed it in a paper (in short, when a child demonstrates that they're capable of making decisions for themselves -- that is, by moving out of their parents homes, and supporting themselves -- they are to be considered an adult by law; absent such demonstration, common law would determine an age).
I also noticed that you ignored my points on Christianity and Jesus. I find this interesting. Do you only refer to Christianity when it backs up your preconceptions, and choose to ignore or distort the words and life of Jesus when it suits you?
Published: November 11, 2005 4:37 PM
“I am not aware…�
And you are not alone in your unawareness. As i said, it’s a trade secret amongst the paleontologists. At any rate: Niles Eldridge and Stephen Jay Gould. Now you are aware, although I have heard it is hardest to wake a man who is only feigning sleep. And now i will desist as well.
Published: November 11, 2005 5:11 PM
"...there's probably no (reality based) way that a universal "non violence" morality will work."
Jim, I never said there was. What I said, and will continue to say (having no thought that it will penetrate your thick, fundamentalist skull), is that the non-aggression principle, backed up by the private protection of life, liberty, and property, would minimize violence and maximize social cooperation.
My God, what irritant you are, nipping at heels of rational discourse like the intellectual chihuahua that you are. Ugh!
Published: November 11, 2005 5:47 PM
David - Unless I'm mistaken, this is the first time you've tied "thanks" to taxes. No doubt we share common ground in taxes.
I believe we agree that property rights and "initiating aggression" are not the only legitimate moral boundry able to be prescribed by law (or "covenant") -- unless you want to do severe damange to the definition of aggression.
As far as the rest of the exchange, the idea that people either join into a community and it's covenants or are forcibly excluded seems dramatically like our present situation, a situation you say is untenable because you personally didn't sign up for the Constitution or the laws in your town ... What gives?
Externalities are not refuted by Rothbard and Block, but both authors correctly point out the absurdity to which the statists have taken the argument. However the same absurdity can be leveled at Rothbard for his views on incest (yes it should be illegal) and other issues.
And Jesus was a pacifist because he is the Son of God sent to earth for a specific reason -- contrary to you and I who are fallen men: a dramatic difference. I don't think you or I believe in pacifism, so I left it alone.
The practical effects of Lysander's position if you present it correctly (I'll have to read it) are that we never get off the ground and we have a different government incapable of passing on wealth and a shared morality to succeeding generations and a government incapable of uniting various state governments or for providing for the common defense. This is simply fantasy. I appreciate good libertarian arguments that are practical.
Published: November 11, 2005 6:00 PM
Aside from the fact that you are confusing matters by not distinguishing between David White and David Heinrich (not that he and I are in disagreement), until you actually read the libertarian texts to which we, and others, refer, you are but a barbarian at the gate of rational discourse.
Come back when you've done your homework, in other words, and maybe we can talk.
Published: November 11, 2005 7:05 PM
"A representative government is always and ultimately "imposed by force" by the citizenry ... that's why we have a 2nd Amendment."
I can't figure out whether that is the smartest or the dumbest thing I have ever read on here.
If you had said only that "A representative government is always and ultimately "imposed by force", I'd have to agree with you!
But to say that the justification for the 2nd Amendment is to impose representative government by force is simply perverse.
I do happen to agree with you when you assert that the Declaration of Independence was an idealist manifesto.
The Constitution, however, was a good deal less based on idealism, and most of its signers died of old age, snug in their beds. It was completely a product of self-interest - the fact that it supported a modicum of liberty for 70 years or so was simply a coincidence, a matter of the pace of industrial and economic development at the time, rather than some sacred trust.
Published: November 11, 2005 8:07 PM
Jim,
Briefly responding...
1. I don't believe I expressed any thankfulness that we habe taxes.
2. I should define what covenant is: covenant is something that all whom agree to it are bound by it. A community covenant would have to be completely voluntary, under libertarian principles. Let's say that you, me, and 98 other people are living in one continuous geographical region (that is, we all own property, either through trade or homesteading there). The me and the other 98 people can't get together and form a covenant which binds you, without your permission. Unless you assented, the covenant could only bind me and the other 98 people, although it could include provisions against anyone who wouldn't accept it (e.g., me and the other 98 agree not to trade with you unless you accept our covenant). Those provisions, however, could not legitimately include anything that would violate your property rights.
This wouldn't be a serious barrier to the formation of community covenants, as such things already privately exist in the US to some extent. When allowed freedom and property rights, people naturally segregate; forced integration between radically clashing cultures is the result of various State programs.
3. Actually, Block and Rothbard make some very good arguments against the idea of externalities in the first place, not just the extent to which they've been taken. For one thing, due to the fact that value is subjective, and the interpersonal utility comparisons are impossible, it is impossible to say if something is a "negative" or "positive" externality, absent universal empirical knowledge of it's consideration as a negative externality or positive externality. In short, what is a positive externality to you may be a negative externality to me.
This can easily be seen by considering the case of a naked woman walking down a neighborhood street. Perhaps to some exciteable teenager, this is a positive externality; but to a Christian father and mother with young children, it is a negative externality.
On externalities, see: Simpson, Barry. Why Externalities are Not a Case of Market Failure, Block, Walter. Public Goods and Externalities: The Case of Roads, Halbrooks, Jacob. The "Externalities" Argument, and Rothbard, Murray. Toward a Reconstruction of Welfare and Utility Economics.
4. Saying that Jesus had a purpose being on this Earth is not an adequate defense of the State, nor any kind of refutation that pacifism is the morally correct way to lead one's life. Despite the fact that man is "fallen", Christians are supposed to strive for a life as Christ-like as possible. This means pacifism, which means any advocacy of a State or use of aggression goes against such.
5. As for Spooner's argument, it is that no arrangement can be legitimate absent the agreement of all upon whom it binds. The US State never obtained anything near, or even approaching -- in the vaguest of ways -- the consent of all those bound by violent force. Hence, it is illegitimate from the very start.
Why is it so difficult to understand that if 9 people get together and "agree" or "vote" to steal from the 10th person, that's still stealing, immoral, unjustifiable? That's exactly what the founding of the US was, except it was more like a few men (the Founding Fathers) getting together and setting out the terms on which they could get away with robbing thousands.
Published: November 11, 2005 9:42 PM
Jim said,
"You may not acquire nuclear secrets. You may not marry your sister. You may not copulate on the front lawn (unless you happen to live somewhere where you can't be seen). You must support your children. You cannot distribute X-rated material to minors or entice them to smoke or drink or gamble. "
You seem to believe that such things are rare under the current system, and that forcible government punishes each instance of such. If you look carefully, the opposite is true. Forcible government does not effectively prohibit or punish such behavior, but rather drive it underground, making it much harder for moral or legal force to act upon it.
Published: November 12, 2005 9:37 AM
One more birdbrained scheme by the Federal government to increase its malignant and corrupt power over every American's life and property, as usual orchestrated by a President whose resume of "achievements" is a litany of idiotic failures from the smashing of New York's twin towers to making Afghanistan the heroin dealer to the world, to creating chaos and starvation in an Iraq safe for democrazy, disrupting legitimate rescue efforts in the Aftermath of hurricanes, hastening the bankruptcy of Social Security, and skyrocketing the costs of prescription drugs through Medicare "reform".
Now the birdbrain in chief is ready to wage war against so-called avian flu. I can hardly wait!
Published: November 12, 2005 10:42 AM
David J -
If a "covenant" could be used by force to violate (what otherwise would be) an owner's private property rights - we're back to where we started. Each state or city has "covenants" (in a matter of speaking) as well. Cities may also sign on to pre-emption of local authority in order to accomplish a broader standard for trade (such as the UCC code).
That fact makes your points moot. It is legitimate to force a parent to pay to feed their children (or garnish wages for child support), or prevent a person from posting x-rated materials in plain view of minors (on their own land even) or some other negative "spiritual" acts which aren't handled by property rights. And in fact, provision would likely be made for townspeople to amend their charter to include things not yet needed -- very much the situation we have now.
That means a trade-off between what a larger government is allowed to do and what towns and cities can do with their political power. But it is not "libertarianism everywhere"... it cannot be. Congrats ... we're about back to reality in which some things are hands off at the Federal level but are open to states.
Externalities are agreed as positive or negative by the majority within limits as proscribed by a common adherence to individual rights, as that is the only practical way of making political decisions in a free country.
I think we can be grateful to Block et. all for pointing out that a lot is workable within the private property paradigm, but to say it's best to "go pure" is just foolishness. Bottom line for practical reasons, we need to dissolve the Federal Government except for the common defense (and Constitutional "interstate commerce") and coining money and leave it at that rather than get buried in libertarian fantasies. Mises.org should be contributing to that rather than alienating themselves those conservative brothers that share a lot in common.
(Random thoughts: Never intended to "defend the state" so I've no idea what you're saying about Jesus. As far as being more Christlike, sacrifice for greater evil is not right, only sacrifice for good as a person is led ... so universal pacifism is a strange interpretation of Christianity which would spread evil. Not only that, Jesus did what we could not by his sacrifice, we are not called to duplicate Jesus, but to submit to the will of God like Jesus did, but not necessarily in the same way. Sometimes that means aggressive and violent defense of one's life and property. It certainly did to the early settlers. And yes, I understand that some things are outside the purvue of voting ... that's the reason for "individual rights".
Published: November 12, 2005 11:54 AM
Vince - "such things" are made rarer by raising the price of doing them which reduces the activity. That's straight economics.
Published: November 12, 2005 12:00 PM
Jim B says;
""such things" are made rarer by raising the price of doing them which reduces the activity. That's straight economics."
Is THAT why the Drug War is so successful?
Published: November 12, 2005 12:49 PM
All right, that was a flippant answer. Let me say this - in a voluntary society, the moral approbation attached to such behavior may outweigh the costs under the current force regime.
Published: November 12, 2005 12:52 PM
David W - I've read the texts. I've not defended the "moral or intellectual vacuity" of neoconservatism, nor have I "apologized for the state in the name of God". I think you are uncivilly liberal in your assumptions.
Men survive by aggression. That's why Spain, France and Britain attempted to colonize and conquer the new world -- to do otherwise would invite a huge imbalance of power. I'd like a more libertarian society (well circumscribed and limited powers of the government), but "libertarianism" isn't the way to get it.
It's a fantasy (in practice) to believe "there's no allegiance at all of yourself to the Constitution" unless you've the violent power to make your own country (and given that it would take aggressive violence on your own part against people who are not responsible for your plight, how does that work, anyway?)
But that attitude is ludricrous on another level -- as if "history started when you were born". i.e. you are a completely autonomous person who has the right to discard all relations to society once you come of age and can survive "purely by libertarian trade" and further stridently demands that it be so. But it can't be so. Interactions between men are ultimately governed by the use of force. Decentralizing power doesn't mean justice, it means a Darwinian struggle whereby naturally stronger and politically connected people dominate others ... diametrically opposed to the libertarian fantasy. The transition will cause far less freedom, not more.
Libertarianism share that in common with the left wing. What socialism really is, is denied by socialists. What libertarianism is, is denied by libertarians by definition. But the species call "libertarianism" cannot exist in real life because it is contradictory -- not necessarily theoretically, but because it is unachievable by any known method even if the fantasy that men were born "in a state of nature" with their own private property intact.
Frankly libertarianism is only good for a benchmark.
Published: November 12, 2005 1:40 PM
I wonder what makes Jim think that 'morality' is a
synonim for his own (narrow minded) views about, say, somebody marrying a sister. (Wich
means somebody marrying a brother as well, I guess ?) Or having nuclear weapons...
The only moral principle wich can be considered universal is non-agression.
Among other things, it means you should tolerate things you don't like.
I think Jim fails to realize what private property - material and moral - really means. He wants
private property as long as it is used according to his neoconservative worldview. But when people
behave in ways he doesn't like, yet fully respecting private property, Jim thinks he's entitled
to coherce them into his 'moral' standard. Such a system is a nice recipe for tyranny.
Published: November 12, 2005 2:00 PM
Jim,
SOME men "survive by aggression," but not all and not even most. On the contrary, a relative few survive my what Oppenheimer called "the political means" -- i.e., by theft of that which the vast majority creates by "the economic means" -- i.e., work. That the political means has trumped the economic means via an aggressor otherwise known as the state is the very history of the world, and your apology for its actions, as a fundamentalist Christian, is what gives you the moral and intellectual vacuity of the statist neocon that you are.
You'd "like a more libertarian society" but believe that it can't be achieved without aggression? Seems to me that Gandhi used non-aggression to shame his country's aggressor into packing up and leaving, having taken the advice of an American libertarian by the name of Henry David Thoreau. And of course there's Jesus, who seems to have gotten his message across rather well without resorting to the use of force. (Tell me again why it is you worship the guy?)
Then of course you resort to your stock in trade -- putting words in my mouth -- this time by saying that I belive "history started when [I was] born," to which I reply by quoting Mises (whom you might want to read sometime, rather than continuing, so rudely, to display your profound ignorance of his ideas):
"Society is concerted action, cooperation…the outcome of conscious and purposeful behavior. … Individual man is born into a socially organized environment. In this sense alone we may accept the saying that society is—logically and historically -- antecedent to the individual. In every other sense this dictum is either empty or nonsensical. The individual lives and acts within society. But society is nothing but the combination of individuals for cooperative effort."
Because you believe, in blatant contradiction of your religious beliefs, not in survival by cooperation but in survival by aggression, you are no better than the murderous "Christian" who presently resides in the White House. By what particular form of aggression you yourself survive, I don't know, but I can tell you one thing: try surviving by aggressing against me, and your ass will be grass.
Published: November 12, 2005 4:16 PM
Jim,
You seem to have a misunderstanding as to what libertarianism, and community covenants are about. Despite your quoting of Ethics of Liberty, you have various misconceptions. I'd suggest For a New Liberty by Rothbard and Democracy: The God That Failed by Hoppe.
1. A community covenant, as Hoppe discusses it, would have to be completely voluntarily assented to on the part of all whom it binds. It would effectively be a contract between two or more property owners on various standards in their neighborhood. Your talk about "being back to where we started" is moot, because covenants can't legitimately bind those who don't agree to them.
2. As for libertarianism never being able to exist in the real world, well, Stateless societies that have been very libertarian in their Statelessness have existed. See Ancient Ireland and Ancient Iceland.
3. Jesus said turn the other cheek and do unto others as you'd have them do unto yourself. He wasn't just doing this himself, he was also instructing his followers -- that is, today, Christians -- how to act.
Published: November 12, 2005 4:18 PM
"A community covenant, as Hoppe discusses it, would have to be completely voluntarily assented to on the part of all whom it binds."
As I've said previously, Hoppe is irrelevant. I do not share Jim's view, and I have long advanced the notion that government is unable to govern much of anything except their own bureaucracy and its economic hostage contractors. Four out of ten U.S. jobs and miscellaneous household income is disbursed by government, Federal + state + local, so they control a plurality of voters.
Liberty as a benchmark is an extremely dour outlook. But I can see why Jim thinks that state force is a certainty for the future.
I say Hoppe is irrelevant because the question is liberty for our children, who cannot be bound by any covenant entered into by their parents. It is a specific human right to repudiate covenants for cause, and the causes are always numerous. It can be as simple as changing your mind. That's the meaning of equity jurisdiction, as opposed to common law.
Published: November 12, 2005 4:43 PM
by the way, for some good articles on pacifism, see:
Murphy, Robert. Was Jesus a Pacifist
Murphy, Robert. On Pacifism
Murphy, Robert. Further Thoughts on Pacifism
Murphy, Robert. Final Thoughts on Pacifism
Published: November 12, 2005 4:45 PM
Wolf,
I disagree. Certainly, there are some ways in which covenants cannot bind children. However, there are others in which they can.
An example of a way in which a covenant can't bind a child would be a covenant for something like molesting children. This couldn't be binding because it involves initiating aggression against the child.
Other covenant clauses -- in-so-far as parents normally can, within their parental rights, restrict/direct the behaviour of their children -- could be binding on children, through their parents. E.g., dress codes, rules of behaviour, rules on when there is not to be lots of noise, and so-on and so-forth.
When the child gets older, there's a very clear decision within a covenant, as there is for every child when living with his or her parents: either obey the rules of the house, or leave. This is because the house belongs to the parents, and the child has to obey whatever rules are established, provided they do not involve the initiation of aggression.
Published: November 12, 2005 4:49 PM
David W -- All men survive by the threat and use of force at some ultimate point... Those people that you propose "do not" survive by force in fact do -- the police use force in their favor (hence you saying you "owe nothing" to the police I can understand from one point of view: you owe them nothing in terms of forced tax collection beyond legitimate actions of the state but it is incorrect to carry that farther because you do live in a society of - relatively speaking - just laws from which you benefit and in fact you agree that you benefit). You likely "owe" the government as much money as it takes for the police to perform legitimate duties.
It is true in one sense that no one survives by the use of force because violence cannot create wealth. In other words, it is assuredly false that "surviving solely by the use of force" can be a universal ethic -- it can be an ethic only of predators (hence our problem with politicians).
The idea that following Jesus is purely non-aggression is not a view universally agreed upon by the Christian church or our founding fathers, many of them Christians and deeply religious. It's also not possible to love your children (or your neighbors or country) and leave them to evil. I believe we are commanded to conquer evil as best we can with the methods to which we are individually called, not submit to it. If you're called to be a pacifist (pretty sure here you don't believe you are) go forth.
"Turn the other cheek" was in reference to face slapping, on the same level as "walk the extra mile" and "give a person the coat off your back" -- Jesus did not call us to sacrifice for evil, but the opposite: To accomplish a good mission that may require sacrifice. That's totally different than the pacifist ideology which yields good to evil.
-- Ghandi's nonaggression united the masses which is essentially a threat of majority unity (i.e. a threat of political power and / or aggression) unless the masses were simply willing to die rather than give in. Ghandi was willing to die and he was indeed quite Christlike.
Leave off the accusations of "not having read" Mises it's a waste of space. I've read Human Action and a number of Mises other works and nearly everything written by Rothbard and many other Austrian authors. The arguments stand or fall on their own merits.
George - The accusation of "narrow mindedness" is worthless. "Tolerance" doesn't meet its own standard of being tolerant of anything else but itself, yielding it self-contradictory. A shared morality is necessary (whether by "covenant" or by some political structure). Private property cannot handle various egregious cases of immoral and dangerous behavior. It cannot force people to get tested for bird flu or be quarantined for "public health". It's interesting the libertarian arguments parallel that of materialism: private property is the sum total of legitimate actionable force, contrary to the fact that man is indeed a spiritual being ...
David H - quote: "Your talk about "being back to where we started" is moot, because covenants can't legitimately bind those who don't agree to them." That's not the reason we're back where we started: we're back because you've conceded that there's a necessity for a morality exceeding private property so we are therefore arguing the feasibility of implementation. I submit that the "Lysander Spooner" method of politics is impossible hence unworkable. Every person that comes-of-age essentially has NO commitment even to that of libertarianism and apparently can't be forced to join up (or if they can by ostracism by the "majority" then what's the practical difference)? That's why I believe this stuff is (a) an exercise in fantasy or (b) no different than the Constitutional system we would have if we truly followed the Constitution. So join up. We have what you want already.
Published: November 12, 2005 5:42 PM
Jim is worried that non-agression equals pacificism. I refuted that notion conclusively here; http://www.libertyguys.org/articles/detail.asp?ArtID=973
Non-aggression does not equal pacifism. Self-defense is always permissible and is in no way the same as aggression. I do not accept the need to aggress to secure my rights. I support anyone who defends his own life or property, just as I understand that a pacificist is perfectly within his rights not to do so, or to pay others to do so, or to rely on the moral approbation of others vs perpetrators of violence.
Published: November 12, 2005 8:45 PM
Jim said libertarianism "is (a) an exercise in fantasy or (b) no d