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il ragno [OP]

2003-01-25 11:38 | User Profile

It's Sobran, so it's worth reading - but it ain't a happy read. Kinda depressing, the way my own most recent posts have been (sorry about that, by the way). In a way this essay charts a retreat into fantasy even as it keeps peeling away perceived truths towards a core of Eternal and Ultimate Truth: Joe's "answer" is to wait for a utopia that has never existed and hope it doesn't simultaneously augur the worst nightmare-scenario of all. As always, religion seems to play a debilitating role here: look to an invisible guy up in the clouds somewhere to make it all ok somehow, even though he's never once bothered to do so in the thousands of years men have been grovelling before him.

Whatever. Let's hope Joe comes out of the John Lennon ether ("Imagine there's no State, it's easy if you try") fairly soon.

[url=http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig3/sobran-j1.html]http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig3/sobran-j1.html[/url]

The Reluctant Anarchist by Joseph Sobran

My arrival (very recently) at philosophical anarchism has disturbed some of my conservative and Christian friends. In fact, it surprises me, going as it does against my own inclinations.

As a child I acquired a deep respect for authority and a horror of chaos. In my case the two things were blended by the uncertainty of my existence after my parents divorced and I bounced from one home to another for several years, often living with strangers. A stable authority was something I yearned for.

Meanwhile, my public-school education imbued me with the sort of patriotism encouraged in all children in those days. I grew up feeling that if there was one thing I could trust and rely on, it was my government. I knew it was strong and benign, even if I didn't know much else about it. The idea that some people – Communists, for example – might want to overthrow the government filled me with horror.

G.K. Chesterton, with his usual gentle audacity, once criticized Rudyard Kipling for his "lack of patriotism." Since Kipling was renowned for glorifying the British Empire, this might have seemed one of Chesterton's "paradoxes"; but it was no such thing, except in the sense that it denied what most readers thought was obvious and incontrovertible.

Chesterton, himself a "Little Englander" and opponent of empire, explained what was wrong with Kipling's view: "He admires England, but he does not love her; for we admire things with reasons, but love them without reason. He admires England because she is strong, not because she is English." Which implies there would be nothing to love her for if she were weak.

Of course Chesterton was right. You love your country as you love your mother – simply because it is yours, not because of its superiority to others, particularly superiority of power.

This seems axiomatic to me now, but it startled me when I first read it. After all, I was an American, and American patriotism typically expresses itself in superlatives. America is the freest, the mightiest, the richest, in short the greatest country in the world, with the greatest form of government – the most democratic. Maybe the poor Finns or Peruvians love their countries too, but heaven knows why – they have so little to be proud of, so few "reasons." America is also the most envied country in the world. Don't all people secretly wish they were Americans?

That was the kind of patriotism instilled in me as a boy, and I was quite typical in this respect. It was the patriotism of supremacy. For one thing, America had never lost a war – I was even proud that America had created the atomic bomb (providentially, it seemed, just in time to crush the Japs) – and this is why the Vietnam war was so bitterly frustrating. Not the dead, but the defeat! The end of history's great winning streak!

As I grew up, my patriotism began to take another form, which it took me a long time to realize was in tension with the patriotism of power. I became a philosophical conservative, with a strong libertarian streak. I believed in government, but it had to be "limited" government – confined to a few legitimate purposes, such as defense abroad and policing at home. These functions, and hardly any others, I accepted, under the influence of writers like Ayn Rand and Henry Hazlitt, whose books I read in my college years.

Though I disliked Rand's atheism (at the time, I was irreligious, but not anti-religious), she had an odd appeal to my residual Catholicism. I had read enough Aquinas to respond to her Aristotelian mantras. Everything had to have its own nature and limitations, including the state; the idea of a state continually growing, knowing no boundaries, forever increasing its claims on the citizen, offended and frightened me. It could only end in tyranny.

I was also powerfully drawn to Bill Buckley, an explicit Catholic, who struck the same Aristotelian note. During his 1965 race for mayor of New York, he made a sublime promise to the voter: he offered "the internal composure that comes of knowing there are rational limits to politics." This may have been the most futile campaign promise of all time, but it would have won my vote!

It was really this Aristotelian sense of "rational limits," rather than any particular doctrine, that made me a conservative. I rejoiced to find it in certain English writers who were remote from American conservatism – Chesterton, of course, Samuel Johnson, Edmund Burke, George Orwell, C.S. Lewis, Michael Oakeshott.

In fact I much preferred a literary, contemplative conservatism to the activist sort that was preoccupied with immediate political issues. During the Reagan years, which I expected to find exciting, I found myself bored to death by supply-side economics, enterprise zones, "privatizing" welfare programs, and similar principle-dodging gimmickry. I failed to see that "movement" conservatives were less interested in principles than in Republican victories. To the extent that I did see it, I failed to grasp what it meant.

Still, the last thing I expected to become was an anarchist. For many years I didn't even know that serious philosophical anarchists existed. I'd never heard of Lysander Spooner or Murray Rothbard. How could society survive at all without a state?

Now I began to be critical of the US Government, though not very. I saw that the welfare state, chiefly the legacy of Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal, violated the principles of limited government and would eventually have to go. But I agreed with other conservatives that in the meantime the urgent global threat of Communism had to be stopped. Since I viewed "defense" as one of the proper tasks of government, I thought of the Cold War as a necessity, the overhead, so to speak, of freedom. If the Soviet threat ever ceased (the prospect seemed remote), we could afford to slash the military budget and get back to the job of dismantling the welfare state.

Somewhere, at the rainbow's end, America would return to her founding principles. The Federal Government would be shrunk, laws would be few, taxes minimal. That was what I thought. Hoped, anyway.

I avidly read conservative and free-market literature during those years with the sense that I was, as a sort of late convert, catching up with the conservative movement. I took it for granted that other conservatives had already read the same books and had taken them to heart. Surely we all wanted the same things! At bottom, the knowledge that there were rational limits to politics. Good old Aristotle. At the time, it seemed a short hop from Aristotle to Barry Goldwater.

As is fairly well known by now, I went to work as a young man for Buckley at National Review and later became a syndicated columnist. I found my niche in conservative journalism as a critic of liberal distortions of the US Constitution, particularly in the Supreme Court's rulings on abortion, pornography, and "freedom of expression."

Gradually I came to see that the conservative challenge to liberalism's jurisprudence of "loose construction" was far too narrow. Nearly everything liberals wanted the Federal Government to do was unconstitutional. The key to it all, I thought, was the Tenth Amendment, which forbids the Federal Government to exercise any powers not specifically assigned to it in the Constitution. But the Tenth Amendment had been comatose since the New Deal, when Roosevelt's Court virtually excised it.

This meant that nearly all Federal legislation from the New Deal to the Great Society and beyond had been unconstitutional. Instead of fighting liberal programs piecemeal, conservatives could undermine the whole lot of them by reviving the true (and, really, obvious) meaning of the Constitution. Liberalism depended on a long series of usurpations of power.

Around the time of Judge Robert Bork's bitterly contested (and defeated) nomination to the US Supreme Court, conservatives spent a lot of energy arguing that the "original intent" of the Constitution must be conclusive. But they applied this principle only to a few ambiguous phrases and passages that bore on specific hot issues of the day – the death penalty, for instance. About the general meaning of the Constitution there could, I thought, be no doubt at all. The ruling principle is that whatever the Federal Government isn't authorized to do, it's forbidden to do.

That alone would invalidate the Federal welfare state and, in fact, nearly all liberal legislation. But I found it hard to persuade most conservatives of this. Bork himself took the view that the Tenth Amendment was unenforceable. If he was right, then the whole Constitution was in vain from the start.

I never thought a constitutional renaissance would be easy, but I did think it could play an indispensable role in subverting the legitimacy of liberalism. Movement conservatives listened politely to my arguments, but without much enthusiasm. They regarded appeals to the Constitution as rather pedantic and, as a practical matter, futile – not much help in the political struggle. Most Americans no longer even remembered what "usurpation" meant. Conservatives themselves hardly knew.

Of course they were right, in an obvious sense. Even conservative courts (if they could be captured) wouldn't be bold enough to throw out the entire liberal legacy at once. But I remained convinced that the conservative movement had to attack liberalism at its constitutional root.

In a way I had transferred my patriotism from America as it then was to America as it had been when it still honored the Constitution. And when had it crossed the line? At first I thought the great corruption had occurred when Franklin Roosevelt subverted the Federal judiciary; later I came to see that the decisive event had been the Civil War, which had effectively destroyed the right of the states to secede from the Union. But this was a very much a minority view among conservatives, particularly at National Review, where I was the only one who held it.

I've written more than enough about my career at the magazine, so I'll confine myself to saying that it was only toward the end of more than two happy decades there that I began to realize that we didn't all want the same things after all. When it happened, it was like learning, after a long and placid marriage, that your spouse is in love with someone else, and has been all along.

Not that I was betrayed. I was merely blind. I have no one to blame but myself. The Buckley crowd, and the conservative movement in general, no more tried to deceive me than I tried to deceive them. We all assumed we were on the same side, when we weren't. If there is any fault for this misunderstanding, it is my own.

In the late 1980s I began mixing with Rothbardian libertarians – they called themselves by the unprepossessing label "anarcho-capitalists" – and even met Rothbard himself. They were a brilliant, combative lot, full of challenging ideas and surprising arguments. Rothbard himself combined a profound theoretical intelligence with a deep knowledge of history. His magnum opus, Man, Economy, and State, had received the most unqualified praise of the usually reserved Henry Hazlitt – in National Review!

I can only say of Murray what so many others have said: never in my life have I encountered such an original and vigorous mind. A short, stocky New York Jew with an explosive cackling laugh, he was always exciting and cheerful company. Pouring out dozens of big books and hundreds of articles, he also found time, heaven knows how, to write (on the old electric typewriter he used to the end) countless long, single-spaced, closely reasoned letters to all sorts of people.

Murray's view of politics was shockingly blunt: the state was nothing but a criminal gang writ large. Much as I agreed with him in general, and fascinating though I found his arguments, I resisted this conclusion. I still wanted to believe in constitutional government.

Murray would have none of this. He insisted that the Philadelphia convention at which the Constitution had been drafted was nothing but a "coup d'état," centralizing power and destroying the far more tolerable arrangements of the Articles of Confederation. This was a direct denial of everything I'd been taught. I'd never heard anyone suggest that the Articles had been preferable to the Constitution! But Murray didn't care what anyone thought – or what everyone thought. (He'd been too radical for Ayn Rand.)

Murray and I shared a love of gangster films, and he once argued to me that the Mafia was preferable to the state, because it survived by providing services people actually wanted. I countered that the Mafia behaved like the state, extorting its own "taxes" in protection rackets directed at shopkeepers; its market was far from "free." He admitted I had a point. I was proud to have won a concession from him.

Murray died a few years ago without quite having made an anarchist of me. It was left to his brilliant disciple, Hans-Hermann Hoppe, to finish my conversion. Hans argued that no constitution could restrain the state. Once its monopoly of force was granted legitimacy, constitutional limits became mere fictions it could disregard; nobody could have the legal standing to enforce those limits. The state itself would decide, by force, what the constitution "meant," steadily ruling in its own favor and increasing its own power. This was true a priori, and American history bore it out.

What if the Federal Government grossly violated the Constitution? Could states withdraw from the Union? Lincoln said no. The Union was "indissoluble" unless all the states agreed to dissolve it. As a practical matter, the Civil War settled that. The United States, plural, were really a single enormous state, as witness the new habit of speaking of "it" rather than "them."

So the people are bound to obey the government even when the rulers betray their oath to uphold the Constitution. The door to escape is barred. Lincoln in effect claimed that it is not our rights but the state that is "unalienable." And he made it stick by force of arms. No transgression of the Constitution can impair the Union's inherited legitimacy. Once established on specific and limited terms, the US Government is forever, even if it refuses to abide by those terms.

As Hoppe argues, this is the flaw in thinking the state can be controlled by a constitution. Once granted, state power naturally becomes absolute. Obedience is a one-way street. Notionally, "We the People" create a government and specify the powers it is allowed to exercise over us; our rulers swear before God that they will respect the limits we impose on them; but when they trample down those limits, our duty to obey them remains.

Yet even after the Civil War, certain scruples survived for a while. Americans still agreed in principle that the Federal Government could acquire new powers only by constitutional amendment. Hence the postwar amendments included the words "Congress shall have power to" enact such and such legislation.

But by the time of the New Deal, such scruples were all but defunct. Franklin Roosevelt and his Supreme Court interpreted the Commerce Clause so broadly as to authorize virtually any Federal claim, and the Tenth Amendment so narrowly as to deprive it of any inhibiting force. Today these heresies are so firmly entrenched that Congress rarely even asks itself whether a proposed law is authorized or forbidden by the Constitution.

In short, the US Constitution is a dead letter. It was mortally wounded in 1865. The corpse can't be revived. This remained hard for me to admit, and even now it pains me to say it.

Other things have helped change my mind. R.J. Rummel of the University of Hawaii calculates that in the twentieth century alone, states murdered about 162,000,000 of their own subjects. This figure doesn't include the tens of millions of foreigners they killed in war. How, then, can we speak of states "protecting" their people? No amount of private crime could have claimed such a toll. As for warfare, Paul Fussell's book Wartime portrays battle with such horrifying vividness that, although this wasn't its intention, I came to doubt whether any war could be justified.

My fellow Christians have argued that the state's authority is divinely given. They cite Christ's injunction "Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's" and St. Paul's words "The powers that be are ordained of God." But Christ didn't say which things – if any – belong to Caesar; his ambiguous words are far from a command to give Caesar whatever he claims. And it's notable that Christ never told his disciples either to establish a state or to engage in politics. They were to preach the Gospel and, if rejected, to move on. He seems never to have imagined the state as something they could or should enlist on their side.

At first sight, St. Paul seems to be more positive in affirming the authority of the state. But he himself, like the other martyrs, died for defying the state, and we honor him for it; to which we may add that he was on one occasion a jailbreaker as well. Evidently the passage in Romans has been misread. It was probably written during the reign of Nero, not the most edifying of rulers; but then Paul also counseled slaves to obey their masters, and nobody construes this as an endorsement of slavery. He may have meant that the state and slavery were here for the foreseeable future, and that Christians must abide them for the sake of peace. Never does he say that either is here forever.

St. Augustine took a dim view of the state, as a punishment for sin. He said that a state without justice is nothing but a gang of robbers writ large, while leaving doubt that any state could ever be otherwise. St. Thomas Aquinas took a more benign view, arguing that the state would be necessary even if man had never fallen from grace; but he agreed with Augustine that an unjust law is no law at all, a doctrine that would severely diminish any known state.

The essence of the state is its legal monopoly of force. But force is subhuman; in words I quote incessantly, Simone Weil defined it as "that which turns a person into a thing – either corpse or slave." It may sometimes be a necessary evil, in self-defense or defense of the innocent, but nobody can have by right what the state claims: an exclusive privilege of using it.

It's entirely possible that states – organized force – will always rule this world, and that we will have at best a choice among evils. And some states are worse than others in important ways: anyone in his right mind would prefer living in the United States to life under a Stalin. But to say a thing is inevitable, or less onerous than something else, is not to say it is good.

For most people, "anarchy" is a disturbing word, suggesting chaos, violence, antinomianism – things they hope the state can control or prevent. The term "state," despite its bloody history, doesn't disturb them. Yet it's the state that is truly chaotic, because it means the rule of the strong and cunning. They imagine that anarchy would naturally terminate in the rule of thugs. But mere thugs can't assert a plausible right to rule. Only the state, with its propaganda apparatus, can do that. This is what "legitimacy" means. Anarchists obviously need a more seductive label.

"But what would you replace the state with?" The question reveals an inability to imagine human society without the state. Yet it would seem that an institution that can take 200,000,000 lives within a century hardly needs to be "replaced."

Christians, and especially Americans, have long been misled about all this by their good fortune. Since the conversion of Rome, most Western rulers have been more or less inhibited by Christian morality (though, often enough, not so's you'd notice), and even warfare became somewhat civilized for centuries; and this has bred the assumption that the state isn't necessarily an evil at all. But as that morality loses its cultural grip, as it is rapidly doing, this confusion will dissipate. More and more we can expect the state to show its nature nakedly.

For me this is anything but a happy conclusion. I miss the serenity of believing I lived under a good government, wisely designed and benevolent in its operation. But, as St. Paul says, there comes a time to put away childish things.

NeoNietzsche

2003-01-25 11:54 | User Profile

3) "AIDS" cases (Arrested Ideological Development Syndrome) are your Libertarians - who have begun to think about the logic of ethics but are unable to see, or must emotionally reject, the implications of their own logic. They refuse to recognize the historicity and politico-economic logic of the Iron Law of Oligarchy, which finds all advanced societies factually and necessarily in the hands of aristocratic and/or theocratic elites. They cannot grasp that to argue over form-of-government and the supposed variety of political "systems" is to discuss a choice of tools and weapons rather than ethics and morality. AIDS cases fail to understand that the issue is not quantity or quality of government - rather it is a question of whose government it is. For all governments are governments of men - a "government of laws" is a pathetic illusion.

NeoNietzsche

2003-01-25 12:36 | User Profile

"'But what would you replace the state with?' The question reveals an inability to imagine human society without the state. Yet it would seem that an institution that can take 200,000,000 lives within a century hardly needs to be 'replaced'."

If the alternative is 2 billion lives lost, a replacement is needed, according to this specified criterion.

And, in any case, states "bootstrap" themselves like hadrons refusing to permit the isolation of quarks.

So, find your Hitler, AIDS sufferers, if you would find your government - for government you shall have, no matter how vigorously you pout, and whine as you might about "thugs" and other meanies who won't play nice according to unspecifiable rules fancifully presumed to exist. Be healed of the obstacles to your intellectual maturation, and leave childish Constitutionalism and notions of the sufficiency of the Decalogue behind you as you would abandon the joyful soiling of your diapers and the comforting sucking of your thumbs.

Grow up.

NeoNietzsche

2003-01-25 13:11 | User Profile

And, having grown up, please make some effort to help the straggling Morons along in their growth toward intellectual maturity.

But if you get to feeling really mature and you think you want to try to flip a Weenie, count on taking two years of round-the-clock work to convert one that's truly worth the effort.

For there are thousands of possible objections that a well-seasoned Weenie can come up with - and you must be prepared to deal with every one, or your case is blown no matter the weight of every other issue successfully met.

Avalanche

2003-01-25 15:33 | User Profile

But mere thugs can't assert a plausible right to rule.

What the hell do thugs need with a "plausible right to rule"? The whole point of thugs is that THEY rule, by FORCE OF ARMS! The mafia doesn't (didn't) keep control because they had a good "right" to rule. They kept it by KILLING or damaging anyone who didn't follow their 'rules.' Protection money means "I won't kill you" -- not "the state will ensure your safety"!

This is cloud-cockoo land! Lincoln prevented succession not by a right to rule, but by war. The Constitution's 'power' comes from the barrel of a gun held by the folks who either will or won't obey or enforce...

People are ONLY ruled by lies or violence, and the lies only work when there is a back-up of potential violence! (See e.g., the armed might of govt "en[u]forcing[/u]" hate laws...)

Avalanche

2003-01-25 15:36 | User Profile

NeoNeotzsche:  But if you get to feeling really mature and you think you want to try to flip a Weenie, count on taking two years of round-the-clock work to convert one that's truly worth the effort.

:( That'd be me.... But at least he thinks I was worth the effort! :)

Buster

2003-01-25 18:15 | User Profile

Sobran's rightward migration continues...

His closing paragraphs indicated that Sobran sees that the authority of the state was tempered and tethered by moral authority. It is worth noting that much of the authority of the modern state (and that of the modern secularized jewish establishment) came about in the wake of the Reformation and in particular the French Revolution. The liberals and the Jews filled the vaccuum created by the displacement of the Church.

Authority is a good thing, not a bad thing, but it matters whence it comes. If re-establishment of Divine authority is sought, that's one thing. But if anarchists believe in a natural, secular authority, I don't think history bodes well. Their solution may be worse than the problem. Authoritarianism is bad. Barbarism is worse.

Okiereddust

2003-01-25 18:32 | User Profile

Check out the Losertarian take on this :rolleyes:

[url=http://www.libertyforum.org/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=news_libertarian&Number=414601&page=0&view=&sb=&o=&part=5&vc=1#Post414601]The Reluctant Anarchist (Liberty Forum)[/url]

edward gibbon

2003-01-25 19:22 | User Profile

il ragno Posted on Jan 25 2003, 12:38

> **It's Sobran, so it's worth reading - but it ain't a happy read. Kinda depressing, the way my own most recent posts have been (sorry about that, by the way). In a way this essay charts a retreat into fantasy even as it keeps peeling away perceived truths towards a core of Eternal and Ultimate Truth: Joe's "answer" is to wait for a utopia that has never existed and hope it doesn't simultaneously augur the worst nightmare-scenario of all. As always, religion seems to play a debilitating role here: look to an invisible guy up in the clouds somewhere to make it all ok somehow, even though he's never once bothered to do so in the thousands of years men have been grovelling before him.

Whatever. Let's hope Joe comes out of the John Lennon ether ("Imagine there's no State, it's easy if you try") fairly soon.**

il ragno summarizes this piece concisely and quite accurately.

**Chesterton, himself a "Little Englander" and opponent of empire, explained what was wrong with Kipling's view: "He admires England, but he does not love her; for we admire things with reasons, but love them without reason. He admires England because she is strong, not because she is English." Which implies there would be nothing to love her for if she were weak.

Of course Chesterton was right. You love your country as you love your mother – simply because it is yours, not because of its superiority to others, particularly superiority of power.**

I came late to the belief that the British Empire was very much a force of good in the world and that the greatest beneficiary of that empire was the United States. The British Empire was largely destroyed by the efforts of FDR and the American State Department. Our great answer was the UN. BTW Hitler greatly admired the British Empire.

Maybe the poor Finns or Peruvians love their countries too, but heaven knows why – they have so little to be proud of, so few "reasons." America is also the most envied country in the world. Don't all people secretly wish they were Americans?

Finland under Mannerheim fought magnificently against all odds in World War II. Their enemy, the USSR, was supported by the most vile of Americans, IF Stone and his kind. I suspect Sobran is attempting some sort of subtlety here, but he is slipping into the Thomas Fleming type of taunting cowardice.> **For one thing, America had never lost a war – I was even proud that America had created the atomic bomb (providentially, it seemed, just in time to crush the Japs) – and this is why the Vietnam war was so bitterly frustrating. Not the dead, but the defeat! The end of history's great winning streak!

As I grew up, my patriotism began to take another form, which it took me a long time to realize was in tension with the patriotism of power. I became a philosophical conservative, with a strong libertarian streak. I believed in government, but it had to be "limited" government – confined to a few legitimate purposes, such as defense abroad and policing at home. **

Where was Sobran when his country needed him in Vietnam?

No amount of private crime could have claimed such a toll. *As for warfare, Paul Fussell's book Wartime portrays battle with such horrifying vividness that, although this wasn't its intention, I came to doubt whether any war could be justified*.

It was Fussell's intention to present war in its vividness and cruelty What Sobran meant was that no war would ever require his attendance. He could always rationalize his cowardice. If Sobran wants to know what war was like on the eastern front he should read Guy Sajek's "Forgotten Soldier". (Sp?)

NeoNietzsche Posted on Jan 25 2003, 12:54 > ** 3) "AIDS" cases (Arrested Ideological Development Syndrome) are your Libertarians - who have begun to think about the logic of ethics but are unable to see, or must emotionally reject, the implications of their own logic.**

I see liberatarians as little better than emotionally disturbed children who believe their existence is of benefit to all humanity and that they have no obligations to history or society.

Stanley

2003-01-25 20:29 | User Profile

This is why I gave up on libertarianism: its premise required me to reject every society that had ever existed as evil. At some point I rejected the premise instead.

Originally posted by NeoNietzsche Jan 25 2003@ 05:54 They refuse to recognize the historicity and politico-economic logic of the Iron Law of Oligarchy, which finds all advanced societies factually and necessarily in the hands of aristocratic and/or theocratic elites. They cannot grasp that to argue over form-of-government and the supposed variety of political "systems" is to discuss a choice of tools and weapons rather than ethics and morality.

Spot on.

Originally posted by edward gibbon Jan 25 2003@ 13:22 > Maybe the poor Finns or Peruvians love their countries too, but heaven knows why – they have so little to be proud of, so few "reasons." America is also the most envied country in the world. Don't all people secretly wish they were Americans? I suspect Sobran is attempting some sort of subtlety here, but he is slipping into the Thomas Fleming type of taunting cowardice.

I'm sure he's being ironic. Keep in mind his quote from Chesterton.

texoma

2003-01-25 22:47 | User Profile

Originally posted by Okiereddust@Jan 25 2003, 18:32 **Check out the Losertarian take on this :rolleyes:

[url=http://www.libertyforum.org/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=news_libertarian&Number=414601&page=0&view=&sb=&o=&part=5&vc=1#Post414601]The Reluctant Anarchist (Liberty Forum)[/url]**

Nice. And, you linked this at LF? How to win friends and influence people.

I haven't seen anything on this thread that even attempts to refute Sobran. Railing at libertarians in general is not a refutation of Sobran's argument. High-fiving one another over the same old rehashed arguments that get dragged out of the paleocon Cliff notes everytime you get confronted with a libertarian gets us nowhere.

Newsflash, guys! Sobran is one of you. Remember how he got fired from National Review?

It sure would be impressive as hell to see someone actually write as if they read what he said.

texoma

2003-01-25 22:56 | User Profile

Originally posted by Stanley@Jan 25 2003, 20:29 **This is why I gave up on libertarianism: its premise required me to reject every society that had ever existed as evil. At some point I rejected the premise instead. **

What is the libertarian premise that requires you to reject every society that ever existed as evil? I must've missed something.

texoma

2003-01-25 23:01 | User Profile

Originally posted by Buster@Jan 25 2003, 18:15 **Sobran's rightward migration continues...

His closing paragraphs indicated that Sobran sees that the authority of the state was tempered and tethered by moral authority.  It is worth noting that much of the authority of the modern state (and that of the modern secularized jewish establishment) came about in the wake of the Reformation and in particular the French Revolution.  The liberals and the Jews filled the vaccuum created by the displacement of the Church.

**

Sobran says people have been DECEIVED by the state so far as morality tempered some of the Western leaders.

. Since the conversion of Rome, most Western rulers have been more or less inhibited by Christian morality (though, often enough, not so's you'd notice), and even warfare became somewhat civilized for centuries; and this has bred the assumption that the state isn't necessarily an evil at all. But as that morality loses its cultural grip, as it is rapidly doing, this confusion will dissipate. More and more we can expect the state to show its nature nakedly.** **

texoma

2003-01-25 23:02 | User Profile

Originally posted by NeoNietzsche@Jan 25 2003, 11:54 3) "AIDS" cases (Arrested Ideological Development Syndrome) are your Libertarians - who have begun to think about the logic of ethics but are unable to see, or must emotionally reject, the implications of their own logic.  **

How is this supposed to relate to Sobran and his argument?

texoma

2003-01-25 23:07 | User Profile

Originally posted by Stanley@Jan 25 2003, 20:29 *** I suspect Sobran is attempting some sort of subtlety here.... 

I'm sure he's being ironic.  *

**

He's being sarcastic. Do all of y'all's criticial faculties fly out the window when someone criticizes the state?

I've never seen such a lame thread on OD before.

Okiereddust

2003-01-25 23:29 | User Profile

Originally posted by texoma+Jan 25 2003, 23:07 -->

QUOTE (texoma @ Jan 25 2003, 23:07 )

He's being sarcastic.*  Do all of y'all's criticial faculties fly out the window when someone criticizes the state? I've never seen such a lame thread on OD before.** No, we all just thought sarcasm was unlibertarian ;) <!--QuoteBegin--juststopit -liberty forum thread What exactly is your problem? Why does everything you say drip of sarcasm? I am getting quite tired of it.* Okiereddust 2003-01-25 23:41 | User Profile Originally posted by texoma@Jan 25 2003, 22:47 **I haven't seen anything on this thread that even attempts to refute Sobran.  Railing at libertarians in general is not a refutation of Sobran's argument.  High-fiving one another over the same old rehashed arguments that get dragged out of the paleocon Cliff notes everytime you get confronted with a libertarian gets us nowhere. ** Hey, your boards aren't any better. **Newsflash, guys!  Sobran is one of you.  Remember how he got fired from National Review?  ** Hey of course we do, re: [url=http://forum.originaldissent.com/index.php?act=ST&f=8&t=1205&hl=sobran,and,buckley]How I was Fired By Bill Buckley[/url] and love all paleolibs, even if he they need to read a little more Samuel Francis and become paleocons to be truly brilliant. texoma 2003-01-26 00:59 | User Profile Originally posted by Okiereddust@Jan 25 2003, 23:41 > Originally posted by texoma@Jan 25 2003, 22:47 I haven't seen anything on this thread that even attempts to refute Sobran.  Railing at libertarians in general is not a refutation of Sobran's argument.  High-fiving one another over the same old rehashed arguments that get dragged out of the paleocon Cliff notes everytime you get confronted with a libertarian gets us nowhere. ** Hey, your boards aren't any better. **Newsflash, guys!  Sobran is one of you.  Remember how he got fired from National Review?  ** Hey of course we do, re: [url=http://forum.originaldissent.com/index.php?act=ST&f=8&t=1205&hl=sobran,and,buckley]How I was Fired By Bill Buckley[/url] and love all paleolibs, even if he they need to read a little more Samuel Francis and become paleocons to be truly brilliant.** MY boards? Aren't you a member of LibertyForum? Don't I post at OD? Debate is debate and this is a piss-poor example of debate. What's this about reading Sam Francis and becoming paleocons? Joe Sobran wrote an essay about his political journey and you write him off without even being able to challenge his argument. If you want all of us paleolib "Losertarians" to piss off, just say so, and I'll ignore you from now on. Otherwise, try to come up with a respectable argument in something less than a condescending, arrogant tone if you wish to debate our repective positions on the merits rather than ad hominem attacks. JustStopIt 2003-01-26 01:24 | User Profile **No, we all just thought sarcasm was unlibertarian  What exactly is your problem? Why does everything you say drip of sarcasm? I am getting quite tired of it.** I was trying to be polite, a form of discourse which seems to be quite beyond you so let me be a little clearer. You are arrogant and insulting. All your posts on that entire thread consisted of pure ad hominem. For that matter, you haven't made any points on this one either. You can't refute Sobran so over there you insult me, my country, my political beliefs and my wife. Here you're not quite so overtly obnoxious. Instead you make snide remarks about "losertarians". Flagging me when you twist my words is common courtesy but it's too much to expect, isn't it? Engaging in honest debate is obviously beyond your capacity. Okiereddust 2003-01-26 02:00 | User Profile Originally posted by JustStopIt@Jan 26 2003, 01:24 **You can't refute Sobran so over there you insult me, my country, my political beliefs and my wife. Here you're not quite so overtly obnoxious. Instead you make snide remarks about "losertarians". ** Now com'mon, I never brought your wife into this. Next thing you know, you'll accuse me of bringing yo momma into things. You'all know we Sutherners don't cotton to that kind of malarky. I feel like I am about to be called to make a rightful accounting on behalf of a challenge to yo proud honor (I is genoursly assuming of course Canucks still consider youselves a countwy and have honor and momma's). I is aware how deeply you business-libertarian Canucks and Nawthenaw's feel about youz momma's. Iz remember in the movie Wall Street were the Corpowate raider tells Ivan Boesky aka Michael Douglas (paraphwased)> You no good lousy scoundrel. You'd sell your own mother down the drain. I'll offer $69. Boesky aka Douglas says since you brought my mother into it, $69&1/2 :P Stanley 2003-01-26 02:36 | User Profile Originally posted by texoma@Jan 25 2003, 16:56 ** What is the libertarian premise that requires you to reject every society that ever existed as evil? I must've missed something. ** The non-aggression principle. No society has ever lived up to it, so every society is evil. NeoNietzsche 2003-01-26 03:21 | User Profile Originally posted by texoma@Jan 25 2003, 17:02 > Originally posted by NeoNietzsche@Jan 25 2003, 11:54 3) "AIDS" cases (Arrested Ideological Development Syndrome) are your Libertarians - who have begun to think about the logic of ethics but are unable to see, or must emotionally reject, the implications of their own logic.  ** How is this supposed to relate to Sobran and his argument?** Quoting Sobran, above: "The essence of the state is its legal monopoly of force. But force is subhuman; in words I quote incessantly, Simone Weil defined it as 'that which turns a person into a thing – either corpse or slave.' It may sometimes be a necessary evil, in self-defense or defense of the innocent, but nobody can have by right what the state claims: an exclusive privilege of using it. "It's entirely possible that states – organized force – will always rule this world, and that we will have at best a choice among evils. And some states are worse than others in important ways: anyone in his right mind would prefer living in the United States to life under a Stalin. But to say a thing is inevitable, or less onerous than something else, is not to say it is good. "For most people, 'anarchy' is a disturbing word, suggesting chaos, violence, antinomianism – things they hope the state can control or prevent. The term 'state,' despite its bloody history, doesn't disturb them. Yet it's the state that is truly chaotic, because it means the rule of the strong and cunning. They imagine that anarchy would naturally terminate in the rule of thugs. But mere thugs can't assert a plausible right to rule. Only the state, with its propaganda apparatus, can do that. This is what 'legitimacy' means. Anarchists obviously need a more seductive label."< Sobran deduces, infirmly, that there will always be a state, in varying measures of "evil" incarnate. And he evidently realizes, dimly, that the state is to the advantage of those who control it, the "strong and cunning". The implication which he refuses to draw, out of prissy distaste for ("subhuman") force, is that a man's unalterable interest is thus in being one of the strong and cunning, who control the state which makes "corpses and slaves" of all others, anarchists presumably included. Okiereddust 2003-01-26 04:35 | User Profile Originally posted by NeoNietzsche@Jan 26 2003, 03:21 **Quoting Sobran, above: Sobran deduces, infirmly, that there will always be a state, in varying measures of "evil" incarnate.  And he evidently realizes, dimly, that the state is to the advantage of those who control it, the "strong and cunning".  The implication which he refuses to draw, out of prissy distaste for ("subhuman") force, is that a man's unalterable interest is thus in being one of the strong and cunning, who control the state which makes "corpses and slaves" of all others, anarchists presumably included.** Originally posted by Stanley@ Jan 26, 02:36 The non-aggression principle. No society has ever lived up to it, so every society is evil Thanks guys for these excellent analyses of libertarian dialectiques - dialectiques which most people, frankly, (such as myself) don't have the patience to wade through. These analyses I think point to one thing about libertarianism that sticks out saliently, its moralizing (based on its classical liberal heritage). Like other utopianisms, it shares this inflexibility on what possibly could be, in a perfect moral world (and libertarianism in the classical liberal sense certainly is moralistic, though it may not be fully conscious of it). edward gibbon 2003-01-26 18:44 | User Profile I make the assumption that everyone who posts on this forum is extremely dissatisfied with the governing class of this country, decline in civility and western values. That our foreign policy is being subverted for Israel does not bother most Americans, even if it bothers most, if not all, who post here. I ask all posters what they are prepared to do about it? Does anyone think those with the Joe Sobran mindset or libertarian values are prepared to do the dirty work? I do not. Courage and willingness to sacrifice have been so denigrated in America by the national elite and media that those who espouse its absolute necessity for a civilized society are regarded as lunatics not worthy of debate. If this country is to change for the better, these two qualities will be needed. I have no illusions that those professing libertarianism will participate in actions necessary to change this country. Like Sobran, they will insist their prissy demonstration of rectitude suffices for their contribution. If we become a third-world country, libertarians will have done far more than their share in making this possible. Please consult Adam Smith on the necessity of manliness. texoma 2003-01-26 19:26 | User Profile Originally posted by Stanley@Jan 26 2003, 02:36 > Originally posted by texoma@Jan 25 2003, 16:56 ** What is the libertarian premise that requires you to reject every society that ever existed as evil?  I must've missed something. ** The non-aggression principle. No society has ever lived up to it, so every society is evil.** The non-aggression principle is held by some libertarians to be a moral principle. "Societies," made up as they are by individuals are not moral or immoral. Your statement regarding the NAP is tantamount to a Christian, Mormon, or muslim condemning every society on the planet because they weren't Christian or Mormon or Islamic, or whatever your personal moral code may be. Libertarians don't even agree about the NAP. See, for instance, L. Neil Smith's argument that the basic principle generally called the NAP should more properly be called the ZAP, or zero aggression principle. Libertarians disagree as to whether the NAP is even a principle: **The NAP is widely supposed to be a fundamental principle. But when treated as such it doesn't work! Thus, for example, the NAP talks about initiating force, not about threatening force. There's a moral connection between the two, but they are not the same thing. If they were, the English language wouldn't have needed those two different words. NAPists like to pretend that to threaten force is to initiate it, but in English that simply isn't so. And in real life threats more often than not don't lead to any actual use of force on either side. NAPists are either being lazy (not spelling it out properly) or dishonest (claiming "initiate" as a technical term that can mean anything they want it to mean, and different things in different circumstances, so that the NAP becomes little more than a con-trick). from anti-state.com forum** I would say that if your reason for washing your hands of libertarianism is as you state, then you quit because you don't understand the philosophy, and you certainly were misled about the conclusions to be properly drawn from the NAP. texoma 2003-01-26 19:36 | User Profile Originally posted by NeoNietzsche@Jan 25 2003, 11:54 3) Sobran deduces, infirmly, that there will always be a state, in varying measures of "evil" incarnate.  And he evidently realizes, dimly, that the state is to the advantage of those who control it, the "strong and cunning".  The implication which he refuses to draw, out of prissy distaste for ("subhuman") force, is that a man's unalterable interest is thus in being one of the strong and cunning, who control the state which makes "corpses and slaves" of all others, anarchists presumably included. Ah. So you say that yes the state is evil, yes it makes corpses and slaves of all others....therefore? What? You vie to be the cunning and strong one who controls this force, even though you know it's evil? I take it you weren't impressed with Tolkien's treatment of Sauron. You would wear the ring. texoma 2003-01-26 19:40 | User Profile Originally posted by wintermute@Jan 26 2003, 07:22 ** Texoma, As a general rule, the responses that you draw on a board represent the thoughts of the people who feel most strongly about the subject in question. Often people who agree with you will choose not to post, since their position is at least marginally represented by the besieged poster. You just happen to find yourself in the hornet's nest, but the illusion that you are alone is just that, an illusion. Now, I'm interested, in a minor way, with the subject discussed on the thread. Not so much that I felt I had to post. Also, I felt that you had things pretty well in hand, even though you were outnumbered. So my energies have been devoted to other threads on this board. But I think the quality of discussion here is enhanced by "palolib losertarians", and I for one think you should stay, hence my drop in on this thread. I'm sure that there are plenty of people who read OD who think you have something to contribute, but who (for various reasons) aren't posting. Don't let their absence spook you. Think of it this way: you're writing for a large audience who don't wish to be seen, for the time being. In fact, despite minor disagreements, this is true for all of us. Wintermute ** Thank you, Wintermute. It is my hope that the paleos of both the lib and con variety might find themselves fighting for at least some of the same goals. I hope we can come to amicable understandings of our differences and at the very least tolerate and respect one another. Maybe this is asking too much. We shall see. texoma 2003-01-26 19:45 | User Profile Originally posted by edward gibbon@Jan 26 2003, 18:44 **I make the assumption that everyone who posts on this forum is extremely dissatisfied with the governing class of this country, decline in civility and western values.  That our foreign policy is being subverted for Israel does not bother most Americans, even if it bothers most, if not all, who post here. I ask all posters what they are prepared to do about it?  Does anyone think those with the Joe Sobran mindset or libertarian values are prepared to do the dirty work?  I do not. Courage and willingness to sacrifice have been so denigrated in America by the national elite and media that those who espouse its absolute necessity for a civilized society are regarded as lunatics not worthy of debate.  If this country is to change for the better, these two qualities will be needed. I have no illusions that those professing libertarianism will participate in actions necessary to change this country.  Like Sobran, they will insist their prissy demonstration of rectitude suffices for their contribution.  If we become a third-world country, libertarians will have done far more than their share in making this possible.  Please consult Adam Smith on the necessity of manliness.** You have provided no evidence for your assumption that there will be "dirty work" nor do you bother to tell us what that may be before you condemn us for not engaging in it. I assume your opinion of Sobran (prissy demonstration of rectitude) changed after you read this article, or has this been your opinion of him all along? *If we become a third-world country, libertarians will have done far more than their share in making this possible. * Your evidence for this claim is what, exactly? The overwhelming political clout libertarians weild, or what? Stanley 2003-01-26 20:34 | User Profile Originally posted by texoma@Jan 26 2003, 13:26 **Your statement regarding the  NAP is tantamount to a Christian, Mormon, or muslim condemning every society on the planet because they weren't Christian or Mormon or Islamic, or whatever your personal moral code may be. ** Precisely. And when I realized how parochial such an attitude was, I abandoned it. I might add that many people, libertarian or not, hold this attitude. Witness the fools yelling for Democracy in Iraq, as if such a thing could last a day after the occupation forces left. Now if the Non-Aggression Principle is not a moral absolute, but simply one practical principle among many on how to organize society, then the next question to ask is, what other principles are there? One might be called the Principle of Viability: a society should be able to survive without outside forces propping it up. A democratic Iraq is not viable. Another is the Principle of Subsidiarity: political decisions should be made as locally as possible. So if, for example, the people of New York want abortion legal under any circumstances and the people of Louisiana want it illegal, both should be respected. The most famous example of this is Stephen Douglas' proposal that the issue of slavery in the territories should be decided by the voters in those territories. I don't pretend to have all the answers. Better men than I are still working this out. But I think Sobran has reached a dead end. NeoNietzsche 2003-01-26 20:47 | User Profile Originally posted by texoma@Jan 26 2003, 13:36 > Originally posted by NeoNietzsche@Jan 25 2003, 11:54 3) Sobran deduces, infirmly, that there will always be a state, in varying measures of "evil" incarnate.  And he evidently realizes, dimly, that the state is to the advantage of those who control it, the "strong and cunning".  The implication which he refuses to draw, out of prissy distaste for ("subhuman") force, is that a man's unalterable interest is thus in being one of the strong and cunning, who control the state which makes "corpses and slaves" of all others, anarchists presumably included.** Ah. So you say that yes the state is evil, yes it makes corpses and slaves of all others....therefore? What? You vie to be the cunning and strong one who controls this force, even though you know it's evil? I take it you weren't impressed with Tolkien's treatment of Sauron. You would wear the ring.** Texoma, Yes, I would "wear the ring" - to answer your question/assertion without quibbling over a cartoonish treatment of the issue. Given my pseudonym and title, you should not have been taken aback and forced to restate for clarification, in mocking tones, my own clear statement - itself the clear implication of Sobran's deductions, as alleged. You have my thanks, however, for confirming my characterization of the libertarians, in your evident distaste for - and incredulity in regard to - reluctantly crediting the implication of your/his own observations. Do you understand what the phrase "Beyond Good and Evil" means? [I'm curious whether Wintermute, my formidable interlocutor, has this one down - few persons do] SARTRE 2003-01-26 21:01 | User Profile edward gibbon, I ask all posters what they are prepared to do about it? Would be please to discuss the options privately. sartre@frontiernet.net or using encryption (you would need an account - still FREE) at: sartre@mailvault.com Thanks for asking. SARTRE :ph34r: il ragno 2003-01-26 21:14 | User Profile Wow, this thread has taken off! Just popping my head above the trenchline a second to say - I wouldn't be as disappointed as I am by this essay if I didn't genuinely respect and admire Joe Sobran. To attack him, or condemn him for cowardice, is unduly harsh. Remember who we're talking about here. Not to put a crown and scepter on him, but Joe Sobran is the finest columnist in America. There have been - and still are - stretches when it seems he's the only columnist in America. He has shown consistent courage; not simply for being a persistent critic of Israel but for remaining steadfastly the same man throughout his slow 20-year marginilization by people who always left the door to big-time syndication open to him if he'd simply stop. And he didn't. Sobran is not a White Nationalist yet he has spoken - eloquently - for white society and of the people who'd like to destroy it, and why. He's not a Holocaust revisionist but he has spoken - again, eloquently - not only for the legitimacy of revisionism as a discipline, but for the decency and humanity of revisionists themselves. He's not a Linderite or NA member, but he'd written fiery condemnations of Israel, Sharon and our own Zionist lobby years before 9/11 gave other journalists a 'legitimate' entree to mention, let alone criticize, those sacred cows. He gained nothing for those efforts - indeed, he garnered more enemies - except whatever satisfaction accrues from telling the truth and speaking for the perpetually shouted-down. Maybe that's not battlefield-courage, but it's a show of heart, and guts. And the only thing he's got to peddle out of it is that lousy newsletter. That's it. No face-time on NIGHTLINE or MSNBC that he can parlay into an Amazon bestseller; no mass syndication he can milk a speaking tour out of; hell, we all read his columns for free twice a week! No, the disappointment in this column is the kind you feel when a close friend starts speaking or behaving irrationally in your presence. If you've read Sobran regularly you know that he'snot a needler or instigator: he's too modest and composed a fellow to try and cattle-prod anyone into a reaction. It's obvious he means it,or he thinks he does. Actually, it reads like the work of a good man in a depressed state; it's shot through with despair, almost. That's why you have to hope it's something he'll snap out of. We all have our blue periods, but they are seldom permanent ones. texoma 2003-01-26 21:20 | User Profile Great post, il ragno. I only disagree with the irrational line, but then I'm just a nutty losertarian anyway. texoma 2003-01-26 21:22 | User Profile Originally posted by NeoNietzsche@Jan 26 2003, 20:47 ** Do you understand what the phrase "Beyond Good and Evil" means?  [I'm curious whether Wintermute, my formidable interlocutor, has this one down - few persons do]** Why don't you just tell us? darkeddy 2003-01-26 21:25 | User Profile One can look to Hoppe for a more realistic liberatarianism. See the 'Introduction' to Democracy: The God that Failed: Studies in the Economics and Politics of Monarchy, Democracy, and Natural Order by Hans-Hermann Hoppe (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 2001) at [url=http://www.mises.org/hoppeintro.asp]http://www.mises.org/hoppeintro.asp[/url] and NATURAL ORDER, THE STATE, AND THE IMMIGRATION PROBLEM by Hans-Hermann Hoppe at [url=http://www.lewrockwell.com/hoppe/hoppe-margins.pdf]http://www.lewrockwell.com/hoppe/hoppe-margins.pdf[/url] Liberatarianism is a political philosophy that focuses on reducing and potentially eliminating 'the state' or government, which is generally understood to be an organization that claims a monopoly on the use of violence in a given territory (it may allow some private violence in the form of 'self-defense' clauses, but it reserves the right to regulate these). Libertariansism further focuses on what is a just social arrangement in the absence of the state. Here there are various theories offered, such as the NAP, the idea of individual, original acquistions of property and just transfers of said property, etc. Here a mooring in the tradition of classical liberalism is necessary, which provides an account of individual rights that are to be respected by other individuals and/or whatever state exists. texoma 2003-01-26 21:26 | User Profile And when I realized how parochial such an attitude was, I abandoned it. Uh...you skipped the part about how this isn't a libertarian attitude. Here's an analogy: I'm not a Christian because I know some Christians who are hypocrites. Stanley 2003-01-26 21:36 | User Profile il ragno When I referred to better men than I, I meant Joe Sobran among others. He has shown considerable insight and moral courage. But I part company with him here. Okiereddust 2003-01-26 21:42 | User Profile Originally posted by texoma@Jan 26 2003, 19:36 > Originally posted by NeoNietzsche@Jan 25 2003, 11:54 3) Sobran deduces, infirmly, that there will always be a state, in varying measures of "evil" incarnate.  And he evidently realizes, dimly, that the state is to the advantage of those who control it, the "strong and cunning".  The implication which he refuses to draw, out of prissy distaste for ("subhuman") force, is that a man's unalterable interest is thus in being one of the strong and cunning, who control the state which makes "corpses and slaves" of all others, anarchists presumably included.** Ah. So you say that yes the state is evil, yes it makes corpses and slaves of all others....therefore? What? You vie to be the cunning and strong one who controls this force, even though you know it's evil? I take it you weren't impressed with Tolkien's treatment of Sauron. You would wear the ring.** If you ask that NeoNietszche ask for a clarification of "Beyond Good and Evil" you might equally explain Tolkien to us nonaffidicos. I suspect its something like the bargain Faust made with the Devil, but I'm not sure. In any sense, NeoNietszche comes up with a very good point with regard to what is essentially wrong with libertarianism, its utopianism. Even though it recognizes it is the nature of man to seek out government, for objectives not entirely virtuous, it insists on absolutely rejecting this option, embracing as it were a sort of moral utopianism. In this regards it shares the general characteristics of the movements MacDonald describes in Culture of Critique I have suggested that there is a fundamental and irresolvable friction between Judaism and prototypical Western political and social structure.  The present  political situation in the United States (and several other western countries) is so dangerous because of the very real possibility that the Western European tendency toward hierarchic harmony has a biological basis. The greatest mistake of the Jewish-dominated intellectual movements described in this volume is that they have attempted to establish the moral superiority of societies that embody a preconceived moral ideal (compatible with the continuation of  Judaism as a group evolutionary strategy) rather than advocate social structures based on the ethical possibilities of naturally occurring types.**** Libertarianism, especially the Rothbardian anarchism that Sobran has imbibed too much of, seems to eptimize this tendency. Not that as a conservative, I feel that I must yield entirely to this impulse of man's moral nature, like extreme Nietszchienism would suggest. They are pessimists regarding human nature and the possibility of restraining its nature for "Will to Power" in the State. Libertarians, like the good classical liberals they are, are optimists. Conservatives, must as Moeller van den Bruck stated of Germans, "live in their antitheses". We are realists. il ragno 2003-01-26 21:46 | User Profile Not my intention to take anyone here - all good men and women - to task, but as Sydney Greenstreet said, "In the heat of anger, men are wont to forget where their best interests lie, and let emotion carry the day." Joe Sobran is one of the Good Guys in a world scandalously understocked with them. You can rip his premise here to pieces if you like - I'm not wildly enthused over it myself - but the man himself has earned more than one benefit of the doubt by now, and deserves respect. darkeddy 2003-01-26 22:06 | User Profile Libertarians can claim to be good conservatives insofar as they can point to the history of English constitutionalism as one of the progress limitation of the power of the state (up until the 20th C). Intelligent libertarians typically see anarchy as an ideal to ground critique, not necessarily a goal that has to be attained anytime soon. This critique does not spring from a 'culture of critique,' it springs from the historical experience of the English-speaking peoples in forging traditions of liberty. Stanley 2003-01-26 22:22 | User Profile Originally posted by texoma@Jan 26 2003, 15:26 **Uh...you skipped the part about how this isn't a libertarian attitude.  ** Would you enlighten me about libertarianism? I think the state should interfere as little as possible in its citizens' lives. But I do not think the Non-Aggression Principle trumps every other. For example, I think that immigration (in the numbers that are now being tolerated) is a danger to this society, and I am willing to see a great deal of force initiated to stop it. Does that make me a libertarian, or not? texoma 2003-01-26 22:48 | User Profile Originally posted by Stanley@Jan 26 2003, 22:22 ** I think the state should interfere as little as possible in its citizens' lives. But I do not think the Non-Aggression Principle trumps every other. For example, I think that immigration (in the numbers that are now being tolerated) is a danger to this society, and I am willing to see a great deal of force initiated to stop it. Does that make me a libertarian, or not?** You are willing to see force initiated how? Can you clarify this a little? Perhaps this would help: [url=http://www.lewrockwell.com/hoppe/hoppe-margins.pdf]The Right to Exclude[/url] by Hans Hermann Hoppe [url=http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig/hermann-hoppe1.html]On Free Immigration and Forced Integration[/url] by Hans Hermann Hoppe Stanley 2003-01-26 23:01 | User Profile Originally posted by darkeddy@Jan 26 2003, 16:06 Libertarians can claim to be good conservatives insofar as they can point to the history of English constitutionalism as one of the progress limitation of the power of the state (up until the 20th C). I am not a conservative. Much as I cherish the heritage of our ancestors, I am afraid we have squandered that birthright. We have to deal with the society we have now. In fact, we can only prepare for the time (soon, I hope) when our current regime finally overreaches and destroys itself. Stanley 2003-01-26 23:36 | User Profile Originally posted by texoma@Jan 26 2003, 16:48 You are willing to see force initiated how?  Can you clarify this a little? Stopping immigrants at the border, deporting those here illegally, fining employers who hire them, that sort of thing. I don't want to turn this into a thread on immigration. I simply used it as an example. The point is to establish your definition of libertarianism. I'm having a lot of trouble posting. Must be the Superbowl. I'll get back when I can. NeoNietzsche 2003-01-27 02:35 | User Profile Originally posted by texoma@Jan 26 2003, 15:22 > Originally posted by NeoNietzsche@Jan 26 2003, 20:47 ** Do you understand what the phrase "Beyond Good and Evil" means?  [I'm curious whether Wintermute, my formidable interlocutor, has this one down - few persons do] Why don't you just tell us?** Because you might already know - and might find being told what you already know patronizing and tiresome. As you evidently do not already know, you might find the following to be of some interest and pertinence: Nietzsche divined that there are two basic moral perspectives: first, good-and-bad and, second, good-and-evil. The first is the ethical spectrum of the aristocrat, descendant of conquerors and violent predators, who can view the world of lies and violence through eyes free of lies, for his ability to see his will performed through the violent alternative. The aristocrat is able to assess his enemy in the same terms of truth, having no need to blacken him out of fear, and is capable of honoring him, and being honored by him, as a fellow warrior. The moral perspective of good-and-evil is the ethical world as seen by the common man, the peasant, the victim, the slave - all those elements beneath the aristocrat, the master, the predator who exploits and dominates the lower orders in a world where those are the alternatives. Nietzsche likens this "under-man" to the "lamb" who contemplates the "bird of prey" in terror drawn in the colors of horrible darkness. [The Jewish portrayal of the Hollywood Nazis for the instruction of the stupid goyim is the classic modern example of this perspective.] Out of inability to resort to the violence which is the monopoly of the masters, the lower man lives by the lies he is told, and readily adopts any enhancement of his natural inclination to view the world in terms of good-and-evil. His enemy thus, of course, becomes the embodiment of black horrors, where, in fact, there is nothing universally recognizable as such in the intrinsically amoral world of inter-tribal/inter-national competition for resources. By virtue of this perspective, as well, the common man reckons himself virtuous - as "good," - since he is ethically the opposite of the predatory, exploitative aristocrat in his insistence upon a "justice," a "freedom," a "fairness," a "liberty," which he has been mis-led into believing could be realized in this world. Rejecting this latter perspective, as would be (for example) a forthright presentation of Judeo-Christian proto-Bolshevik appeals to the Beatitudinally-inclined common folk, the aristocrat is thus "beyond good and evil" - for there is no "evil" in his world of power and courage, honor and truth; there is only the world of actions-have-consequences, where responsible men arrange consequences to their own advantage, protecting and providing for their own at the expense of others where there is no alternative in the largest of contexts. Stanley 2003-01-27 03:54 | User Profile Well, after the game, a stogie, and numerous brewskies, I am ready to make my last post of the evening. I've decided arguing about what is or is not libertarianism is a waste of time. It's just a label. Sobran says that the state is at best a necessary evil. I retain enough of Objectivism to say that if something is necessary or inevitable it cannot be evil. Maybe a stateless society is possible, but at this point it is still a fantasy, and I am not willing to tear down what does exist for the sake of a fantasy. We have the example of the communists to consider. I have put my beliefs into words for the first time in a long time. I guess that's why I joined this forum. darkeddy 2003-01-27 04:49 | User Profile Given that we have some choice in whether we view the world in terms of good v. evil, or in terms of a so-called 'aristocratic' spectrum, I am wondering what motivates the choice of the latter. In particular, why protect 'one's own,' when one can sell them out for fun and profit? Why choose honor, if there is no God? Dishonor and betrayal can be equally spectacular. Sort of like what Nietzsche's family and friends did to him. No, thanks, I will stick with good v. evil. Aristocracy is for animals. NeoNietzsche 2003-01-27 04:56 | User Profile Originally posted by darkeddy@Jan 26 2003, 22:49 **Given that we have some choice in whether we view the world in terms of good v. evil, or in terms of a so-called 'aristocratic' spectrum, I am wondering what motivates the choice of the latter.  In particular, why protect 'one's own,' when one can sell them out for fun and profit?  Why choose honor, if there is no God?  Dishonor and betrayal can be equally spectacular.  Sort of like what Nietzsche's family and friends did to him. No, thanks, I will stick with good v. evil.  Aristocracy is for animals.** Ecce Homo Vulgaricus NeoNietzsche 2003-01-27 05:21 | User Profile Originally posted by NeoNietzsche@Jan 26 2003, 22:56 > Originally posted by darkeddy@Jan 26 2003, 22:49 Given that we have some choice in whether we view the world in terms of good v. evil, or in terms of a so-called 'aristocratic' spectrum, I am wondering what motivates the choice of the latter.  In particular, why protect 'one's own,' when one can sell them out for fun and profit?  Why choose honor, if there is no God?  Dishonor and betrayal can be equally spectacular.  Sort of like what Nietzsche's family and friends did to him. No, thanks, I will stick with good v. evil.  Aristocracy is for animals.** Ecce Homo Vulgaricus** I would be interested in gaining an impression of the proportion of OD contributors who subscribe to the I-am-scum-but-for-the-grace-of-God orientation which cannot understand the alternate, inward and native, inspiration for loyalty and honor. Okiereddust 2003-01-27 09:56 | User Profile Originally posted by wintermute@Jan 27 2003, 09:25 ** All this ugly gumflapping here about Sobran's 'anarchism' hides the fact that he is being punished for a very specific infraction, which  Jared Taylor, Peter Brimelow, Samuel Francis, Pat Buchanan, Le Pen, Haider and various and sundry other    ostensibly 'brave' 'virtuous' and 'manly' types will not even think of doing: he named the Jew. I do not see these other names listed being brought up for the moral once-over, though Sobran has done more for us than any of them. Some of them, like Francis, have nothing at all to lose, which gives them even less excuse. Why the double-standard for Sobran? Much better, I think,  to put the pressure on the others for their cowardice. And all this, for something as petty as expressing admiration for anarchism? A little perspective, please. A man's private fancies are his own business. Unless he is now toting bombs, I have no more problem with Sobran's anarchism than I do with Justin Raimondo's homosexuality. So long as they remain, respectively, paleoanarchists and paleohomosexuals, they're fine by me. ** I really don't see per se, why you, Il Ragno, Texoma and others keep ragging on us for not bowing down in obiesance to everything Saint Joseph says. Sure, is a brave and courageous man, who has sufered greatly for taking on the ADL lobby fearlessly. But that doesn't necessarily mean his overall politics (or Justin's for that matter) deserve special treatment (nothing private about it, when he is promoting it publically). Norm Chomsky says equally strong things and takes action (probably much more effectively for that matter) against the ADL Zionist lobby, but if a Chomskyite came on here criticizing us for rapping Chomsky's left-wing socialism, I'd say he was nuts. Russia's Communist Zhuganov has similarly taken bold actions against his Zionist lobby, but I'm not planning to advocate Communism or hand out party cards. The fact of the matter is that while a few paleolibertarians contest that libertarian logic demand open borders, very few libertarians in general do, and the ones that don't rather hotly dispute the validity in paleolibertarianism tendencies in terms of libetarian validity. Sobran can do anything he wants to, but I for the life of me cannot see how this continuing flirtation with anarchism has any meaning or lessons of value for us. Okiereddust 2003-01-27 10:08 | User Profile Originally posted by darkeddy@Jan 27 2003, 04:49 **Given that we have some choice in whether we view the world in terms of good v. evil, or in terms of a so-called 'aristocratic' spectrum, I am wondering what motivates the choice of the latter.  In particular, why protect 'one's own,' when one can sell them out for fun and profit?  Why choose honor, if there is no God?  Dishonor and betrayal can be equally spectacular.  Sort of like what Nietzsche's family and friends did to him. No, thanks, I will stick with good v. evil.  Aristocracy is for animals.** Opinions differ, and NeoN may put forth his own take, but it certainly is hard to believe those with no individual sense of evil in the classic western/Christian term will not see individual profit in dishonor and betrayal. That is one reason perhaps why National Socialism turned so decisively against individualism and profit, or the constant phrase we heard was "It is the sole duty of man to serve the (National Socialist) state" If conscience is not valid, some other means of suasion must be found, and that often turns out to be the futility of acting against overwhelming brute force of the state. Nihlism and Conservatism here branch very sharply, just as do conservatism and liberalism. Okiereddust 2003-01-27 10:17 | User Profile Originally posted by darkeddy@Jan 26 2003, 22:06 Libertarians can claim to be good conservatives insofar as they can point to the history of English constitutionalism as one of the progress limitation of the power of the state (up until the 20th C).  Intelligent libertarians typically see anarchy as an ideal to ground critique, not necessarily a goal that has to be attained anytime soon.  This critique does not spring from a 'culture of critique,' it springs from the historical experience of the English-speaking peoples in forging traditions of liberty. Libertarians do not ascribe their lineage however not to English conservatives like Burke, but rather to that of English liberals like John Stuart Mill and radicals like Thomas Paine. They thus, rather evidently in this regard, take the role of advocate to Paine's Rights of Man, an attack on Burke's conservatism. Such was not a part of The Culture of Critique per se, but was a part The Culture of Critique uses quite effectively, in that it promotes radical individualism, something MacDonald notes is a prime objective of The Culture of Critique. il ragno 2003-01-27 11:39 | User Profile **I really don't see per se, why you, Il Ragno, Texoma and others keep ragging on us for not bowing down in obiesance to everything Saint Joseph says. ** Oh, for the love of...! Nobody said, inferred or hinted at any such sentiment.... and you know it. The entire thrust of this thread has been critical of That Column. I ought to know, having gotten the ball rolling. Chomsky draws fire -from Jews- because he is a Jew himself. As such, regardless of what comes out of his mouth or flows from his pen, he's in the loop; he has access to the hearts and minds of the public. The Podhoretzim may be angry at Chomsky, but it's prodigal-son anger, not the coolly lethal "what the f*ck are you doing on my property?" heat-vision stare they'd give any gentile mouthing his sentiments re Israel. You know....the kind of look they work tirelessly to reserve, for themselves, the exclusive rights to. When you read a Horowitz call Noam an 'enemy of America', never forget it's only an intramural squabble you're watching; nothing more. Were he goyishe, do you think for a minute that Chomsky would still have his teaching position, his book & speaking contracts, his name recognition (such as it is), his prestige? He'd have walked the plank years ago. They'd have Sobranned him, tout suite, and savaged anyone with the temerity to defend him. If Sobran isn't half as 'effective' an 'activist' as Noam Chomsky, it juuust might have something to do with the ball-gag, handcuffs and leg-irons. NeoNietzsche 2003-01-27 13:30 | User Profile Originally posted by wintermute@Jan 27 2003, 01:54 My provisional hypothesis is that 'beyond good and evil' is where you go when you've internalized the idea that there are no moral phenomena, only moral interpretations of phenomena. I believe that this is strictly correct, but subject to a misinterpretation which Nietzsche failed to anticipate and remedy with sufficient emphasis, and to which Nietzsche contributed with his own, at times, indiscriminate references to "morality". It is evident that N. was not a moral relativist in the sense of having no attachment of his own - rather, it would be reasonable to impute his recovery, for comparative analysis, of master morality to an innate inclination thereto. N. only briefly characterized "master morality" in GM, First Essay, Section 10, second paragraph. Also he wrote of it in BGE, Part Nine, Section 259, with evident approbation. Otherwise he tended to mean only "slave morality" when referring to morality in general discussion, hence the impression, which he explicitly reinforced by referring to himself as an "immoralist," of having no moral attachments at all. NeoNietzsche 2003-01-27 13:38 | User Profile Originally posted by wintermute@Jan 27 2003, 01:54 **Thus, one may be beyond evil, but no one is beyond the Good. Rather, the Good is beyond being and nonbeing. ** Nietzsche himself made the point, at the end of the First Essay (GM), that "'Beyond Good and Evil...' does not mean Beyond Good and Bad". NeoNietzsche 2003-01-27 14:10 | User Profile Originally posted by wintermute@Jan 27 2003, 02:17 > In particular, why protect 'one's own,' when one can sell them out for fun and profit? Why choose honor, if there is no God? Dishonor and betrayal can be equally spectacular. ** These are excellent questions. I'm copying them here to make sure NN doesn't give in to the temptation to assume the exhortation, "Behold the Common Man!" is a substitute for answering them. Wintermute** I thought I had answered them for the personal purposes of OD contributors with my subsequent response, and will thus assume that the question is directed to soliciting prospective measures for coordinating and disciplining the masses of the Morons - those lacking (as assumed by my solicitors) innate loyalty and honor - to the ends of an atheistic, or harmlessly polytheistic, elite. I propose no such measures - other than those which I proffered in another venue with tongue-in-cheek: Q: ...how can I get to a government of men like me? Those who might agree with me on one thing would like to kill me or jail me for something else if they could get away with it. A: Establish your prowess among men of violence and lead them in an assault upon the ramparts of a dying civilization. Establish your dominion upon the ruins, sharing the spoils with your comrades and granting them fiefs as warranted. Or discover that your mother was Jewish and get your weenie whacked. This is not, of course, to coordinate the lower orders other than with armed force initially, so one must eventually consider priest-craft as a long-term indoctination device, and my only candidate for doctrine would be the "Aryan Myth". As I have no sense of the craft of convincingly imposing this under present circumstances, I yield to Wintermute for instruction in the Black Art. NeoNietzsche 2003-01-27 14:37 | User Profile Originally posted by il ragno@Jan 27 2003, 07:58 Transcendence - lifting white men and women out of the mire of defeat and self-hatred our enemies work so diligently at guilting us into choosing to dwell in - means venerating, educating and reawakening the natural aristocracy in every white that we had no right to trade in for shiny trinkets and good intentions. It means reaching out and into the common man and reviving the uncommon man. JustStopIt 2003-01-27 15:26 | User Profile The Non-Aggression Principle is indeed a moral absolute, just like the Golden Rule. Indeed, the NAP is nothing more than the negative version of the Golden Rule. “Do not unto others that which you would not have them do unto you”. The Golden Rule is the appropriate moral principle on which to base intimate groups, families and communities. Similarly, for the larger society to work well, it must be organized according to the principle of a mutual non-aggression pact. In fact, in so far as the larger society works at all, it works through the principle of non-aggression, through hard work, cooperation and voluntary exchange. A society cannot be organized around the principles of force and theft. The latter can only exist as a parasitical entity, living on the parts of society which are based on the NAP and the Golden Rule. The problem with far too many libertarians is that they think it is sufficient to have discovered the appropriate moral principle. They thus spend their time haranguing people about morality and ignore the practical implications. They believe that, through haranguing, it is possible to bring about a perfect world. Well, human beings aren’t perfect and it’s absurd to think that haranguing people will convince them to act morally when it’s not in their interest. Some will. Some won’t. Most will convince themselves that they are acting morally when they are not. But even if people were perfect, it would still be impossible to organize a society around the Non-Aggression Principle. The NAP is a moral principle, not a societal institution like the family. The principle says nothing about the precise definition of “initiation of force”. It provides no way to decide whether a particular use of force is initiatory or defensive. It provides no way to decide what should be done if force is initiated. Thus, "moraltarians" inevitably come to absurd conclusions. They decide that any response is justified in order to stop the initiation of force. For example, The Ayn Rand Institute has decided that Palestinian suicide bombers are initiating force. This idea is not absurd in itself. Innocents are, after all, killed. But since the NAP says nothing about what to do when it is violated, they come to the conclusion that overwhelming force can be justified. They fail to recognize that the response may be more evil than the action itself. Ultimately, this view of justice leads to escalating hostilities until one side is firmly subordinated to the will of the other. E.g. it leads to the State, and a particularly tyrannical form of the State at that. Ironic, isn’t it? The application of the principle leads to the repudiation of the principle. Conservatives see this contradiction and conclude therefore that the principle is invalid and should therefore be rejected. In favour of what exactly? Constitutional government is the typical answer. Conservative are at least as vulnerable to the temptation to moralize as libertarians and consequently like to harangue people about the benefits of constitutional government. But, as Sobran quite lucidly explains in this article, constitutional government contains its own contradictions and, like Randianism, constitutional government inevitably leads to tyranny as well. It just takes a little longer to get there. Both libertarians and conservatives need to understand that a principle is just that – a principle. As such, it provides an insight into how people should act towards each other. It says nothing about how to induce them to do so, still less about what to do if they fail to live up to their moral obligations, whether that failure be from deliberate action, inadvertent error or self-deluded belief. The Golden Rule says nothing about how to encourage people to act morally. It simply says, that morality is treating others as you would have them treat you. This is vague enough way that almost any act could be considered moral. Like the NAP, the principle says nothing about how to act in the real world. That is left up to institutions like Church and Family. Church and family teach people how to live with their intimates. E.g. according to the Golden Rule. The question thus becomes what kinds of institutions are required to encourage people to live as members of the larger polity. E.g. according to the NAP. Sobran’s journey, I think, was a gradual understanding that Church and Family cannot teach this lesson, that instead institutions organized around spontaneous order and polylaw are required if men are to live free and in harmony with each other. My personal path has been in the opposite direction. Having discovered that the State is fundamentally evil and limitlessly tyrannical, that it is incapable of producing liberty and justice, I came to search for institutions to replace it. The answer is the still same, though. Spontaneous order and polylaw. Leveller 2003-01-27 18:26 | User Profile Excellent post JustStopIt, I can see the benefits of what you call 'polylaw', as it stops abuse of a single legal system by allowing secession from it. The flaw I see in it though, is that by allowing choice of arbiters in a dispute, it allows the powerful to be effectively held to a lower standard. If you're rich enough, you could get away with injuring someone at little cost to yourself, by compensating the victim by an amount which satisfied him but wasn't to onerous to yourself. This would be unacceptable to the majority who would rightly see themselves paying an effectively higher price for the equivalent crime. Any thoughts ? (The real problem with the law is the replacement of the medieval idea of common law with the idea of legislation, but that's a somewhat separate topic). edward gibbon 2003-01-27 23:43 | User Profile texoma Posted: Jan 26 2003, 13:45 You have provided no evidence for your assumption that there will be "dirty work" nor do you bother to tell us what that may be before you condemn us for not engaging in it. I assume your opinion of Sobran (prissy demonstration of rectitude) changed after you read this article, or has this been your opinion of him all along? If I need evidence of dirty work to be done, I need only drive little over 10 miles to downtown Philadelphia to see the underclass. Their sense of past injustices has bred fierce resentment and entitlement within them. They sense fear among affluent whites - old line WASP's and Jews. They most likely will have to be confronted physically at some time. Even when Sobran wrote for Buckley, I deemed his generation of the right to be devoid of a nationalist spirit that I judge necessary for civility and manners. They long impressed me as solely being concerned with tax breaks for the rich and little else. Was Sobran so concerned about Vietnam that he volunteered to go? edward gibbon 2003-01-28 00:00 | User Profile wintermute Posted: Jan 27 2003, 03:25 ** ** That our foreign policy is being subverted for Israel does not bother most Americans, even if it bothers most, if not all, who post here.** I think that the fact that our foreign policy is being subverted for Israel is not understood by most Americans. In fact, they've been raised in a climate of opinion which inhibits them even thinking about such topics. I see our job as altering this climate of opinion.** Yesterday I watched a good part of the Super Bowl, much more than I watched the entire season. In the room was a sullen prole who had difficulty raising himself from his overstuffed chair. He watches television incessantly, even reruns of the Simpsons and King of the Hill. When I see him, I must resist the urge to strangle him. He and most of the football jersey wearing numskulls have a dim idea that this country is preparing to enter a war. Most believe we will suffer minor consequences. You certainly are correct that a great number of Americans not only do not think, but do not want to think of topics that stretch their brain. It is time for the 'prevailing structure of taboo' and the 'limits of permissible dissent' to be destroyed. Given that end, violence is both unnecessary and counterproductive. I hope you are right. But I doubt it. **I do not find Sobran lacking in courage or self-sacrifice. Let's remember here: he didn't just lose a job. He probably was exiled from his social circle completely, as well as being held up on many occasions to public scorn. He has left the sunlit upperworld to dwell in outer darkness, where his works can not be distributed, ** I grant I was too harsh. He did do something. In fact he did far more than most. **Adam Smith, I think, would not be dissatisfied with Sobran's courage. As to the libertarian contribution to our coming third-world condition, I think that it is minor, but definitely there. ** Adam Smith was a hairy-chested Christian who thought being a soldier a far more difficult and honorable profession than being a businessman. *I salute you, Edward Gibbon, for the gift of your book.* I also reserve to right to sing the praises of Joseph Sobran, for the courage and self-sacrifice that he has shown in the long, difficult journey of restoring our people to health and sanity. I invite you to join me. I read everything you post. I took your compliment very seriously. It really did make my day. Okiereddust 2003-01-28 00:45 | User Profile Originally posted by NeoNietzsche@Jan 27 2003, 05:21 I would be interested in gaining an impression of the proportion of OD contributors who subscribe to the I-am-scum-but-for-the-grace-of-God orientation which cannot understand the alternate, inward and native, inspiration for loyalty and honor. Go ahead and start a poll. Its a function we don't seem to have used very much around here. Or I could start one if you like. Something about those who rely on a transcendent external spiritual force for their moral beliefs, as opposed to your Nietszche's internal aristocracy. darkeddy 2003-01-28 00:59 | User Profile Originally posted by NeoNietzsche@Jan 27 2003, 09:10 ** Q: ...how can I get to a government of men like me? Those who might agree with me on one thing would like to kill me or jail me for something else if they could get away with it. ** But more than an innante sense of loyalty and honor is required for the Nietzschean aristocrat that NeoN describes. He have a sense sense of loyalty and honor that is far stronger than innate drives for pleasure and self-destruction--or perhaps even for power, if betrayl and dishonor would lead to that.. Such a being is one patholigically conditioned (be it by genetics or early up-bringing) to be loyal and honorable--not a rational being at all. Okiereddust 2003-01-28 01:26 | User Profile Originally posted by JustStopIt@Jan 27 2003, 15:26 **Like the NAP, the principle says nothing about how to act in the real world. That is left up to institutions like Church and Family. Church and family teach people how to live with their intimates. E.g. according to the Golden Rule. The question thus becomes what kinds of institutions are required to encourage people to live as members of the larger polity. E.g. according to the NAP. Sobran’s journey, I think, was a gradual understanding that Church and Family cannot teach this lesson, that instead institutions organized around spontaneous order and polylaw are required if men are to live free and in harmony with each other. My personal path has been in the opposite direction. Having discovered that the State is fundamentally evil and limitlessly tyrannical, that it is incapable of producing liberty and justice, I came to search for institutions to replace it. The answer is the still same, though. Spontaneous order and polylaw.** Spontaneous order and polylaw? It seems a shame, after doing such a masterful and lucid analysis of NAP, you can only come with these esoterical replacements for them. I don't really see, reading Sobran's article, and clear reason why he gave up on constitutionalism anyway. It seems such a los to throw aside our constitution for two abstract entities called "spontaneous order" and "polylaw" even if I don't understand them beyond your Arc De Truimph analogy. Referring to my LF metaphor, I can understand Sobran, sitting in his upturned constitutional cart and shaking his fist at the world for while. I suspect though to achieve something he'll have to retreat to some more mundane activities, like taling to the gendarmanes and checking his driver's license and proof of insurance. :D oldrightlibertarian 2003-01-28 01:41 | User Profile Originally posted by edward gibbon@Jan 26 2003, 18:44 ** I have no illusions that those professing libertarianism will participate in actions necessary to change this country. Like Sobran, they will insist their prissy demonstration of rectitude suffices for their contribution. If we become a third-world country, libertarians will have done far more than their share in making this possible. Please consult Adam Smith on the necessity of manliness. ** What actions are necessary to change this country that libertarians will not be willing to do? What do paleolibs support that will turn this country into a third world nation? NeoNietzsche 2003-01-28 04:44 | User Profile Originally posted by oldrightlibertarian@Jan 27 2003, 19:41 > Originally posted by edward gibbon@Jan 26 2003, 18:44 ** I have no illusions that those professing libertarianism will participate in actions necessary to change this country.  Like Sobran, they will insist their prissy demonstration of rectitude suffices for their contribution.  If we become a third-world country, libertarians will have done far more than their share in making this possible.  Please consult Adam Smith on the necessity of manliness. ** What actions are necessary to change this country that libertarians will not be willing to do? What do paleolibs support that will turn this country into a third world nation?** 1) What actions are necessary to change this country that libertarians will not be willing to do? Forming a white national army. 2) What do paleolibs support that will turn this country into a third world nation? Not forming a white national army. NeoNietzsche 2003-01-28 04:55 | User Profile Originally posted by Okiereddust@Jan 27 2003, 19:26 Spontaneous order and polylaw? It seems a shame, after doing such a masterful and lucid analysis of NAP, you can only come with these esoterical replacements for them. 1) Spontaneous order and polylaw. 2) Mysterious material forces of production and the withering away of the state. 3) Kingdom of God and the Millennium. 4) Peter Pan and Tinkerbell. NeoNietzsche 2003-01-28 05:15 | User Profile Originally posted by darkeddy@Jan 27 2003, 18:59 **But more than an innate sense of loyalty and honor is required for the Nietzschean aristocrat that NeoN describes.  He ha[s] a sense of loyalty and honor that is far stronger than innate drives for pleasure and self-destruction--or perhaps even for power, if betray[a]l and dishonor would lead to that.. Such a being is one pathol[o]gically conditioned (be it by genetics or early up-bringing) to be loyal and honorable-- not a rational being at all.** The world has not been, and cannot be, rationalized after the model of homo economicus, the idealized "rational being". The planet's pathology is evidenced, rather, by this present hypertrophy of his commercial culture, the "rational" reproduction and spread of which is as the growth of a cancer, likewise productive of inward alienation and the ultimate distortion and arrest of natural functions. The aristocrat, as the constituent of oligarchy, naturally manifests loyalty and honor as an indispensable aspect of the unity of his own elite company. The "rational" bourgeois parvenue is not similarly gifted, and so relies upon the inclusion and eventual predominance of ideologically and theologically cohesive elements (Jews, for example) to sustain a perverse regime inclusive of such as himself. darkeddy 2003-01-28 06:04 | User Profile I wouldn't want to reduce rational beings to the category of 'Homo Economicus.' There are many visions of what constitutes a rational being. I mean by a 'rational being,' a being who is ruled by reason. It seems to me that the sort of being who would be the kind of Nietzschean 'Aristocrat' that you describe would either not be such a being, or would be caught up in bad faith about why the innate drive for loyalty and honor is being valued over other drives. To me, the central question here is: why protect one's own? Why protect one's family, relatives, and members of one's racial group (i.e., distant relatives)? The Christian can say: to fulfill one's duty to those to whom one is tied by bood. Both the Christian and the non-Christian might say: to fulfill nature's plan for the species, i.e. to preserve the natural order. Perhaps the neo-Nietzschean can say this as well? If not, why single out the drives for honor and loyalty as most valuable? One can answer that the aristocratic man will simply single out these drives, but this doesn't give a reason to do so. To claim that there is no further reason, but that aristocratic man just will single out these drives is, again, to claim that such a man is either a brute (a being not ruled by reason), or someone who is caught up in bad faith (i.e., a self-deceiver). If someone is a brute (and you are not), then you can negotiate with them, but you can't reason with them. You can't make their plans your plans, or truly take up their ideology. If two brutes with similar value systems are talking, then it is a happy meeting of minds--sort of like long-lost split-molecules reforming. But for the non-brutes and the brutes with different sets of values, it's just a spectacle to watch. NeoNietzsche 2003-01-28 06:15 | User Profile Originally posted by wintermute@Jan 27 2003, 01:54 **By the way, your claim that you'd take the ring doesn't suprise me. I just believe it to be an unskillful choice. But you should be aware that I'd certainly be somewhere near, angling to cut off the offending hand. Just so you know. Wintermute** He who seizes the ring would first hand you your head. Just so you know. NeoNietzsche 2003-01-28 07:03 | User Profile Originally posted by darkeddy@Jan 28 2003, 00:04 **I wouldn't want to reduce rational beings to the category of 'Homo Economicus.'  There are many visions of what constitutes a rational being.  I mean by a 'rational being,' a being who is ruled by reason.  It seems to me that the sort of being who would be the kind of Nietzschean 'Aristocrat' that you describe would either not be such a being, or would be caught up in bad faith about why the innate drive for loyalty and honor is being valued over other drives.  To me, the central question here is:  why protect one's own?  Why protect one's family, relatives, and members of one's racial group (i.e., distant relatives)?  The Christian can say:  to fulfill one's duty to those to whom one is tied by bood.  Both the Christian and the non-Christian might say:  to fulfill nature's plan for the species, i.e. to preserve the natural order.  Perhaps the neo-Nietzschean can say this as well?  If not, why single out the drives for honor and loyalty as most valuable?  One can answer that the aristocratic man will simply single out these drives, but this doesn't give a reason to do so.  To claim that there is no further reason, but that aristocratic man just will single out these drives is, again, to claim that such a man is either a brute (a being not ruled by reason), or someone who is caught up in bad faith (i.e., a self-deceiver).  If someone is a brute (and you are not), then you can negotiate with them, but you can't reason with them.  You can't make their plans your plans, or truly take up their ideology.  If two brutes with similar value systems are talking, then it is a happy meeting of minds--sort of like long-lost split-molecules reforming.  But for the non-brutes and the brutes with different sets of values, it's just a spectacle to watch.** I mean by a 'rational being,' a being who is ruled by reason. But you keep asking about motivation toward ends - in which appetite, passion, and desire are implicit - and engaging in a pretense as to the applicability thereto of "reason," which is merely the use of appropriate means. Thus no one is ruled by "reason" in the sense of being motivated by it. You are merely engaging in the prestidigitation of positing and labeling your individualistic ends as "reasonable" and so arbitrarily dismissing the aristocrat's as otherwise. And thus you inadvertently portray your putatively reasonable, non-brutish orientation as that of a prostitute or gutless wonder, for whom everything is implicitly negotiable, lest "reason" (including personal "advancement" through personal degradation or derogation) not prevail. NeoNietzsche 2003-01-28 08:04 | User Profile Perhaps you should think about signing up with me and my Elven hordes? I feel pretty certain that we can destroy the ring, and thereby reduce our opponents to nonentities. Do you feel up to it? Present your "hordes" for inspection and I'll think about it. > 1) What actions are necessary to change this country that libertarians will not be willing to do? Forming a white national army. 2) What do paleolibs support that will turn this country into a third world nation? Not forming a white national army. ** Grrr. Arrrgh. He-Man and the Masters of the Universe will save us! You know, this tack didn't work for Uncle Adolf, and his army was a whole lot more impressive than any we'll ever work up.** No sht, Wintermute? Did you notice that neither of the questions asked involved specifying that the "actions" to be supported be realizable*? The United States already has the most powerful army on earth, NN. But when it was assembled, Gentiles who think in terms of raw physical force neglected to tend to the mental health of the body politic, and now the dominant ideas and means for the distribution of those ideas are in the hands of mortal enemies. Mortal enemies who, most importantly, direct "the most powerful army on earth". I think you'd agree that there is no need to repeat mistakes, yes? Good. And I'd agree that there is no need to make an observation of the merely obvious - for other than patronizing effect cheaply purchased. JustStopIt 2003-01-28 13:21 | User Profile Originally posted by Okiereddust@Jan 27 2003, 19:26 Spontaneous order and polylaw? It seems a shame, after doing such a masterful and lucid analysis of NAP, you can only come with these esoterical replacements for them. They may be esoteric but they are real. I don't think it's an accident that that these concepts are esoteric. The socialists don't want you to understand them because they threaten their little house of cards. Spontaneous order is the mechanism by which all non-trivial systems organize their behaviour. In a system maintained under spontaneous order, the entities in the system decide themselves how the system will be organized. The opposite of spontaneous order is imposed order – in which some outside entity forces the system to act according to its will. An ecology is an example of spontaneous order. No one tells the cacti to grow in the desert and the polar bears to take to the northern seas; they do so of their own accord. In a garden, by contrast, order is imposed by the gardener. He decides which flowers to grow and where they will do it. A garden is sufficiently simple that it is possible to impose order on it, to organize it according to a human plan. But an ecology is too complex. No one has enough brain power to decide where to place every grass blade and every beetle (and which beetle will eat which blade when). They must be allowed to organize themselves according to their purpose and their own plan. In economics, spontaneous order is commonly called “the free market”. Imposed order is called "socialism". Like an ecology, a economy is too complex for a mere human mind to impose order on. In his classic, [url=http://www.libertyhaven.com/thinkers/leonarderead/ipencil.html]I, Pencil[/url], Leonard Reed lucidly shows how well spontaneous order works in this domain. What’s more he shows that it is impossible to create something as simple as a pencil through imposed order. The system is simply too complex for something as feeble as the human mind to manage. In point of fact socialist countries have never succeeded in producing anything, except by copying what the free market does. Khrushchev, in a rare moment of honesty, once averred that he wanted the whole world to turn to socialism, except New Zealand. Why? Because, as he said, someone has to set the prices! Human society and government is also too complex to impose order on it, which is why constitutional government (a form of imposed order) does not work and contains the seeds of its own destruction. Gradually, over time, the system deteriorates. Things stop working and the government moves from being a force for justice to a force for tyranny. It can be a long process. The start of the destruction of the English legal system, the Common Law, can be traced at least as far back as William the Conqueror. The American Constitution was just a small step in that process. By the middle of the 19th century it was over and it did not take long to go from there to tyranny. By the end of the First World War, all the English-speaking peoples had accepted socialism. In the 17th century, the entire law was pretty much defined by Blackburne's Commentaries. Today, it's a million-page morass which no one can comprehend. It's important to understand the Commentaries were precisely that - commentaries on the Law which had spontaneously emerged in the early Middle Ages. Blackburne did not invent the law. No one did. Polylaw is what you get when spontaneous order is allowed to work its magic in the domain of justice and government. I’ll try to write another post on the topic later today but [url=http://www.libertyforum.org/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=news_history&Number=28885&part=1]here[/url] is an introduction, an excerpt from Bruce Benson's excellent The Enterprise of Law, a book which is required reading for anyone who wants to understand how we lost our liberties. Leveller 2003-01-28 14:41 | User Profile Originally posted by JustStopIt@Jan 28 2003, 13:21 **... The start of the destruction of the English legal system, the Common Law, can be traced at least as far back as William the Conqueror. ** Now that's what I call a conservative. :D Originally posted by JustStopIt@Jan 28 2003, 13:21 **... In the 17th century, the entire law was pretty much defined by Blackburne's Commentaries. Today, it's a million-page morass which no one can comprehend. It's important to understand the Commentaries were precisely that - commentaries on the Law which had spontaneously emerged in the early Middle Ages. Blackburne did not invent the law. No one did. ... ** I think you mean Blackstones Commentaries. They were first published in the 1760's, not the 17th century. Good point about the volume of law. The ancient common law was deemed to be a fixed thing deriving its authority from nature and the customs of the people. There was no authority for anyone to legislate, only for magistrates to 'find' the law, to apply the fixed laws to a new circumstance. Among the original settlers of Iceland, the Lawgiver, the only paid official on the island, had to recite the entire body of law over three annual meetings (a third each time). Anything he couldn't remember and no-one else raised would no longer be part of the law. Imagine a modern politician attempting that!. :blink: NeoNietzsche 2003-01-28 15:46 | User Profile > No sht, Wintermute? Did you notice that neither of the questions asked involved specifying that the "actions" to be supported be realizable?* There's a difference between 'realizable' and 'useful'. I obviously think armies that serve nations are 'realizable'. However, our 'nation' doesn't exist yet, except in potential. Thus my emphasis on creating the nation first, since an 'army', however small, which is raised by a minority in a hostile polity will be destroyed. Thus the libertarian 'opposition' to such a plan is not really part of what's turning us into a third world country. Ditto libertarian lack of support for the same plan.** The point, as I yet experience a disappointing moment of deja vu, is not the above upon which we are already agreed. The questions I answered concerned the measures ("realizability"/"usefulness"/present-effect not in explicit question) which libertarians as such would or would not support. The libertarians are in opposition or sentimental resistance to such ultimately-needed measures on the basis of principles currently being promoted amidst this discussion. Hence I am trying to pursue a discussion of such fundamentals by, among other means, again making provocative observations or asking provocative questions - which you again insist upon mis-taking in terms of intent and upon pursuing in tiresome tangents incorrigibly resistant to correction. I hope that we are agreed that our merely "potential" nation and national army, in avoidance of its repetitive engagement in the service of national enemies, will need leadership inspirited by other than libertarian/anarchist perspectives. > And I'd agree that there is no need to make an observation of the merely obvious - for other than patronizing effect cheaply purchased.** You vant that I should pay retail for patronizing effects?** Yes - if you are not a Jew. > Present your "hordes" for inspection and I'll think about it.** You're already talking to them.** As I suspected. darkeddy 2003-01-28 21:16 | User Profile Originally posted by NeoNietzsche@Jan 28 2003, 02:03 ** But you keep asking about motivation toward ends - in which appetite, passion, and desire are implicit - and engaging in a pretense as to the applicability thereto of "reason," which is merely the use of appropriate means. Thus no one is ruled by "reason" in the sense of being motivated by it. You are merely engaging in the prestidigitation of positing and labeling your individualistic ends as "reasonable" and so arbitrarily dismissing the aristocrat's as otherwise. And thus you inadvertently portray your putatively reasonable, non-brutish orientation as that of a prostitute or gutless wonder, for whom everything is implicitly negotiable, lest "reason" (including personal "advancement" through personal degradation or derogation) not prevail. ** Neo-Nietzsche, you make several jumps in reasoning that do not follow. For example, you claim that I take everything to be negotiable because I find my ends to be reasonable and dismiss the aristocrats. This does not follow. Also, I do not arbitrarily dismiss the aristocrats ends. I merely enquire after their justification. No, I have not asked exclusively about motives. I am interested in both motives and reasons, and in distinguishing the two. I am not sure what individualistic ends you take me to have arbitrarily assigned the status of good reasons. But I waste my time reasoning with brutes and self-deceivers. Your 'Nietzschean' philosophy is obviously just so much proganda with no real foundation. NeoNietzsche 2003-01-29 03:34 | User Profile I do not think libertarians are opposed to armies for 'national defense'. Because they believe, mistakenly, that they can consistently define property rights and non-aggression principles. They are, with the Christians, fatuous universalists in a world that cannot be rationalized in terms of moral/ethical/legal code. They must ultimately be of a mind to engage in national aggression where indicated, if the spirit of a truly tribal national regime is to be manifest. NeoNietzsche 2003-01-29 13:50 | User Profile Originally posted by darkeddy@Jan 28 2003, 15:16 > Originally posted by NeoNietzsche@Jan 28 2003, 02:03 ** But you keep asking about motivation toward ends - in which appetite, passion, and desire are implicit - and engaging in a pretense as to the applicability thereto of "reason," which is merely the use of appropriate means. Thus no one is ruled by "reason" in the sense of being motivated by it.  You are merely engaging in the prestidigitation of positing and labeling your individualistic ends as "reasonable" and so arbitrarily dismissing the aristocrat's as otherwise. And thus you inadvertently portray your putatively reasonable, non-brutish orientation as that of a prostitute or gutless wonder, for whom everything is implicitly negotiable, lest "reason" (including personal "advancement" through personal degradation or derogation) not prevail. ** Neo-Nietzsche, you make several jumps in reasoning that do not follow. For example, you claim that I take everything to be negotiable because I find my ends to be reasonable and dismiss the aristocrats. This does not follow. Also, I do not arbitrarily dismiss the aristocrats ends. I merely enquire after their justification. No, I have not asked exclusively about motives. I am interested in both motives and reasons, and in distinguishing the two. I am not sure what individualistic ends you take me to have arbitrarily assigned the status of good reasons. But I waste my time reasoning with brutes and self-deceivers. Your 'Nietzschean' philosophy is obviously just so much proganda with no real foundation.** To put the matter politely, DE, I do not find your remarks coherent. I will simply reaffirm my characterization of your difficulty. mwdallas 2003-01-29 18:51 | User Profile They must ultimately be of a mind to engage in national aggression where indicated, if the spirit of a truly tribal national regime is to be manifest. ** Adoption of the non-aggression principle as the code of amity, or ingroup morality, is not to preclude a dual morality that allows aggression within the code of enmity, where indicated. mwdallas 2003-01-29 19:10 | User Profile Expanding on Texoma's coherent presentation, JustStopIt wrote: **The Non-Aggression Principle is indeed a moral absolute, just like the Golden Rule. Indeed, the NAP is nothing more than the negative version of the Golden Rule. “Do not unto others that which you would not have them do unto you”. The Golden Rule is the appropriate moral principle on which to base intimate groups, families and communities. Similarly, for the larger society to work well, it must be organized according to the principle of a mutual non-aggression pact. In fact, in so far as the larger society works at all, it works through the principle of non-aggression, through hard work, cooperation and voluntary exchange. A society cannot be organized around the principles of force and theft. The latter can only exist as a parasitical entity, living on the parts of society which are based on the NAP and the Golden Rule.** I agree completely. **The problem with far too many libertarians is that they think it is sufficient to have discovered the appropriate moral principle....  But even if people were perfect, it would still be impossible to organize a society around the Non-Aggression Principle. The NAP is a moral principle, not a societal institution like the family. The principle says nothing about the precise definition of “initiation of force”. It provides no way to decide whether a particular use of force is initiatory or defensive. It provides no way to decide what should be done if force is initiated.** A good point, but we are equipped to address this problem. One of the greatest cultural achievements of our race is the English Common Law. mwdallas 2003-01-29 19:22 | User Profile **Nietzsche himself made the point, at the end of the First Essay (GM), that "'Beyond Good and Evil...' does not mean Beyond Good and Bad". ** Wie schrieb er das auf Deutsch? darkeddy 2003-01-30 01:43 | User Profile Originally posted by NeoNietzsche@Jan 29 2003, 08:50 ** To put the matter politely, DE, I do not find your remarks coherent. I will simply reaffirm my characterization of your difficulty. ** How exciting for you, NeoNietzche. NeoNietzsche 2003-01-30 04:47 | User Profile Originally posted by mwdallas@Jan 29 2003, 13:22 > Nietzsche himself made the point, at the end of the First Essay (GM), that "'Beyond Good and Evil...' does not mean Beyond Good and Bad". ** Wie schrieb er das auf Deutsch?** "War es damit vorbei? Wurde jener grösste aller Ideal-Gegensätze damit für alle Zeiten ad acta gelegt? Oder nur vertagt, auf lange vertagt? Sollte es nicht irgendwann einmal ein noch viel furchtbareres, viel länger vorbereitetes Auflodern des alten Brandes geben müssen? Mehr noch: wäre nicht gerade das aus allen Kräften zu wünschen? selbst zu wollen? selbst zu fördern? Wer an dieser Stelle anfängt, gleich meinen Lesern, nachzudenken, weiterzudenken, der wird schwerlich bald damit zu Ende kommen—Grund genug für mich, selbst zu Ende zu kommen, vorausgesetzt dass es längst zur Genüge klar geworden ist, was ich will, was ich gerade mit jener gefährlichen Losung will, welche meinem letzten Buche auf den Leib geschrieben ist: 'Jenseits von Gut und Böse' . . . Dies heisst zum mindesten nicht 'Jenseits von Gut und Schlecht.'—" [Emphasis mine, NN] NeoNietzsche 2003-01-30 06:10 | User Profile Originally posted by mwdallas@Jan 29 2003, 12:51 > They must ultimately be of a mind to engage in national aggression where indicated, if the spirit of a truly tribal national regime is to be manifest. ** Adoption of the non-aggression principle as the code of amity, or ingroup morality, is not to preclude a dual morality that allows aggression within the code of enmity, where indicated.** There seems, however, no basis in proprietary principle or sentiment for the libertarian/anarchist to limit the embrace of a notional amity code of non-aggression, on the one hand. And on the other, an amity code cannot sustain the embrace of the non-aggression principle, for the latter's failure to meet the test of universal rightly-understood-interest even within the boundaries of civilian commercial life on a national scale. Authentic laissez-faire always becomes intolerable, for its allowance of collusion in restraint or distortion of trade, and ultimately provokes class war. And compensatory regulatory intrusion into the markets or property violates the non-aggression principle. Thus, a non-aggression principle cannot be realized in political economy, in principle. These considerations preclude a durable "dual morality" for libertarians/anarchists in the terms specified. NeoNietzsche 2003-01-30 07:05 | User Profile Originally posted by mwdallas@Jan 29 2003, 13:10 **Expanding on Texoma's coherent presentation, JustStopIt wrote: **The Non-Aggression Principle is indeed a moral absolute, just like the Golden Rule. Indeed, the NAP is nothing more than the negative version of the Golden Rule. “Do not unto others that which you would not have them do unto you”. The Golden Rule is the appropriate moral principle on which to base intimate groups, families and communities. Similarly, for the larger society to work well, it must be organized according to the principle of a mutual non-aggression pact. In fact, in so far as the larger society works at all, it works through the principle of non-aggression, through hard work, cooperation and voluntary exchange. A society cannot be organized around the principles of force and theft. The latter can only exist as a parasitical entity, living on the parts of society which are based on the NAP and the Golden Rule.** I agree completely. **The problem with far too many libertarians is that they think it is sufficient to have discovered the appropriate moral principle....  But even if people were perfect, it would still be impossible to organize a society around the Non-Aggression Principle. The NAP is a moral principle, not a societal institution like the family. The principle says nothing about the precise definition of “initiation of force”. It provides no way to decide whether a particular use of force is initiatory or defensive. It provides no way to decide what should be done if force is initiated.** A good point, but we are equipped to address this problem. One of the greatest cultural achievements of our race is the English Common Law.** A society cannot be organized around the principles of force and theft. A society cannot be organized other than around the principles of force (regulation) and theft (taxation). A good point, but we are equipped to address this problem.  One of the greatest cultural achievements of our race is the English Common Law. Which violates the NAP and necessarily yields to the partisan regulatory policy and agenda of the dominant elite, for its inability to systematize, and thus to permit implementation of, a Law as such governing productive property. The "problem" of defining and dealing with varieties of "force" is thus temporarily and unsystematically palliated at best by ECL's suppression of laissez-faire, but it is never resolved other than through resort to colonial or imperial enterprises. NeoNietzsche 2003-01-30 08:05 | User Profile Originally posted by JustStopIt@Jan 28 2003, 07:21 In economics, spontaneous order is commonly called “the free market”. Imposed order is called "socialism". Like an ecology, a economy is too complex for a mere human mind to impose order on. In his classic, [url=http://www.libertyhaven.com/thinkers/leonarderead/ipencil.html]I, Pencil[/url], Leonard Reed lucidly shows how well spontaneous order works in this domain. What’s more he shows that it is impossible to create something as simple as a pencil through imposed order. The system is simply too complex for something as feeble as the human mind to manage. In point of fact socialist countries have never succeeded in producing anything, except by copying what the free market does. Khrushchev, in a rare moment of honesty, once averred that he wanted the whole world to turn to socialism, except New Zealand. Why? Because, as he said, someone has to set the prices! The spontaneous order of the free market leads to the intolerable order of unregulated monopoly, and hence to an approximation of imposed order in some variety of socialism/fascism/tyranny. NeoNietzsche 2003-01-30 16:07 | User Profile Originally posted by darkeddy@Jan 29 2003, 19:43 > Originally posted by NeoNietzsche@Jan 29 2003, 08:50 ** To put the matter politely, DE, I do not find your remarks coherent. I will simply reaffirm my characterization of your difficulty. ** How exciting for you, NeoNietzche.** I wish you were the occasion for some excitement, DE. mwdallas 2003-01-30 17:01 | User Profile A society cannot be organized other than around the principles of force (regulation) and theft (taxation). I will concede that I should not have adopted JustStopIt's use of "force", but should have replaced it with "aggression". Whether your claim regarding theft (taxation) is empirically true, of course, an important question, but I would prefer to focus on the normative. What is your normative proposal? How should our society be organized? NeoNietzsche 2003-01-31 02:37 | User Profile Originally posted by mwdallas@Jan 30 2003, 11:01 > A society cannot be organized other than around the principles of force (regulation) and theft (taxation).** I will concede that I should not have adopted JustStopIt's use of "force", but should have replaced it with "aggression". Whether your claim regarding theft (taxation) is empirically true, of course, an important question, but I would prefer to focus on the normative. What is your normative proposal? How should our society be organized?** Like all others of traditional pattern, with a "state" composed of a civil service bureaucracy and the armed forces, and a "government" headed by an autocrat supported by an oligarchy of national leaders. The pretense of government by popular assembly would not be indulged. Regulatory supervision of economy and society would be rigorous in time of war and relaxed in time of peace. Cosmopolitan attitudes would be discouraged, and the order of the armed forces would serve as the model for orderly behavior and personal repute. All male children would attend military academies and form a national militia/reserve upon majority. Vice would be de-criminalized and slavery permitted - ideological and theological irrationality would be suppressed. "Conceiving reality as it is," would be the novel objective of philosophical and social science pursuit - natural science, technology, and commerce would stand in the service of the nation. Thus would the leading elements of humanity resume an upward trajectory, for having chosen order over chaos, regularity over diversity, and unity over independence. All this, however, is not to the taste of American Morons, so we'll need to import some Prussian Junkers in considerable quantity.