WHY ARE CLASSICAL LIBERALS (LIBERTARIANS) CONCERNED WITH “RIGHTS”? ANSWER: RULE

WHY ARE CLASSICAL LIBERALS (LIBERTARIANS) CONCERNED WITH “RIGHTS”? ANSWER: RULE OF LAW.

Our only known method of eliminating authority, is to create rules of behavior under rule of law, where (a) all rights are expressed as property rights, (b) all obligations and prohibitions apply to all, without exception, (c) all rights evolve from property rights by judicial application of the principles of property rights: (i)requirement for production/ prohibition on parasitism / non-conflict, via (ii) homesteading/first-use/abandonment and voluntary-exchange/construction, under (iii) the presumption of reasonable knowledge, and reasonable actor (Propertarianism:sympathetic testing), (iv) truthful testimony, (v) judged by peers – to new circumstances. Propertarianism requires also, (vi) such judgements be expressed as (vi.i) original intentions and (vi.ii) strict construction, and (vi.iii) in operational language.

NOTES

1) Progressives: Moral intuitions are insufficient for judgement in these matters, regressive, and dysgenic for these matters. Reason is insufficient for these matters. Our reason has ALWAYS failed us, in no small part because we are victims of cognitive bias that only disciplined application of science can moderately mitigate.

2) Conservatives: Moral traditions are insufficiently adaptive in real time for these matters. Our traditions evolved when technology was relatively static. and our traditions failed us when technology changed faster than our traditions could adapt.

3) Libertines: amorality is insufficient for the formation of a polity that does not resort to either retaliation or authority to prevent retaliation.