Re: Libertarian cartoons

"D.F. Manno" <dfmanno@xxxxxxxx> writes:

In article
<ee273488-64c6-4d65-8617-7cefc7d21e7d@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
constantinopoli@xxxxxxxxx wrote:

D.F. Manno wrote:
 constantinop...@xxxxxxxxx wrote:

But a minimal state would not control broadcast spectrum (there would
be no FCC)

Which results in the station with the strongest transmitter winning the
game, like the border blasters in Mexico whose 250,000-watt transmitters
drowned out 50,000-watt stations in the U.S.

Not if property rights are established. You are assuming that the only
alternative to direct government control is a war of all against all,
but an alternative superior to both is a system of property rights,
such as we already have for land.

Which rights are enforced by _governments_. They aren't ordained by God,
or endowed by the Property Rights Fairy. Without governments, property
belongs to whoever has the most firepower.


Isn't this a tautology ?

Perhaps I'm making this too simple, but isn't one of, if not THE,
defining attributes of a "government" is that they reserve the
right to themselves to have "the most fire-power". ?

But that leads us to the argument about from where legitmate
governments derive their power.

Again, grossly oversimplifying, that turns out to be an argument
between the "Divine Right of Kings" folks and the "consent of the
governed" folks, and IMHO, a bunch of muddle minded folks who try to
sit on the fence and have it both ways, depending on the specifc
question at hand :-)

Doesn't subscribing to the "without government an indivigual has
no property rights" thesis implicity make you at least a fellow
traveller with the "Divine Right of Kings" group ?

Me, I at least delude myself that I'm pretty firmly in the "consernt
of the governed" camp.

I ( not me personally, my ancestors, I'm not _that_ old ) "signed",
figuratively and literally, a few contracts a couple of hundred years
ago, that I have at least implicitly declined to abrogate.

One of them had the "our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor"
clause in it, which in practice meant, "we know all the smart money is
on us losing, but this is important enough to us to take a more than
50% chance that we will all hang by the neck until dead".

Notably, that same contract is the one that apparently popularized the
phrase "the consent of the governed". It was considered , if I am to
believe everything I heard in my history classes, an incredibly
radical proposition at the time. And it is obvious that, even today, a
lot of folks haven't really fundamentally bought into it, including
all the implications.

Now, specifically as to property rights, my ancestors signed another
contract, created themselves a government, called the Articles of
Confederation. That one didn't work out so well, so they figuratively
and literally blew it up and started over.

The next contract got negotiated by 'the suits', but when they
(figuratively) sent it around for signatures from the full membership,
the signees insisted on a couple (ten) of contract revisions, which they
happened to have called "Amendments".

Amongst these contract revisions were:

No preventing us from meeting to discuss whether we ought to throw
your sorry asses out. And certainly no keeping us from talking about
pretty much anything we please, even if you personally think the topic
is in extremely poor taste.

No cramming your favorite religion down our throats.

No trying to take all our weapons away, which would make a mockery of
the whole "consent of the governed" thing, which you understand, is
near and dear to our hearts.

No confiscating _our_ property.

And some other important ones in the "these powers are too dangerous
to ever delegate to _our_ government".

Alas, the fairly recent Kelo and Heller Supreme Court decisions make
it clear that while my ancestors were paranoid, they weren't paranoid
_enough_.

The "no taking _our_ property without just compensation" contract
revision, specified "for public use", probably because none of them
thought anyone would ever show up to confiscate _their_ property for
_private_ use ... I suspect the expectation was that they'd shoot
anyone ballsy enough to try such a stunt, see also revision #2 for why
they thought they'd be _able_ to shoot their sorry asses.

And the tenth one, the "any power we forgot to explicitly deny you,
that we didn't explicitly _grant_ you, you don't get". Well,
admittedly, its been mostly ignored.

But to me, its a pretty clear statement of the "there is NO Government
Powers Fairy, every power you've got, we _gave_ you" position.

--
#include <disclaimer.std> /* I don't speak for IBM ... */
/* Heck, I don't even speak for myself */
/* Don't believe me ? Ask my wife :-) */
Richard D. Latham lathamr@xxxxxxxxxx
.

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