Curt Doolittle

Category: Law, Constitution, and Jurisprudence

  • Which Articles Of The Universal Declaration Of Human Rights Are Negative Rights?

    1-2 Address who is included in these rights.

    3-20 Address negative rights. These rights prohibit everyone, including government, from violating the life, body, movement, association, speech,  and property of individuals in various ways.

    21-29 Address positive rights.These are ambitions that all governments are chartered with attempting to achieve.

    30 closes prohibiting exception.

    https://www.quora.com/Which-articles-of-the-Universal-Declaration-of-Human-Rights-are-negative-rights

  • Which Articles Of The Universal Declaration Of Human Rights Are Negative Rights?

    1-2 Address who is included in these rights.

    3-20 Address negative rights. These rights prohibit everyone, including government, from violating the life, body, movement, association, speech,  and property of individuals in various ways.

    21-29 Address positive rights.These are ambitions that all governments are chartered with attempting to achieve.

    30 closes prohibiting exception.

    https://www.quora.com/Which-articles-of-the-Universal-Declaration-of-Human-Rights-are-negative-rights

  • RULE OF LAW SUFFERING CALAMITOUS COLLAPSE Well, that started when the liberals u

    http://www.france24.com/en/20130608-assange-us-rule-law-suffering-calamitous-collapseAMERICAN RULE OF LAW SUFFERING CALAMITOUS COLLAPSE

    Well, that started when the liberals undermined the constitution through the 14th amendment. At that point, we lost rule of law. It’s just taken this long to go from originalism: the constitution is a binding legal document – to ‘it’s a living document’ which is code for, it means whatever we want it to mean – to it’s a guideline for us, but a democratically elected government can pass any law it desires to – to there is no law, only whatever we can get away with.

    Source date (UTC): 2013-06-09 08:43:00 UTC

  • Why Are Gay People Asking For The Right To Marry? If It Is Legal Stuff They Are Asking For, Can’t They Go To Some Separate Setup For Partners?

    1) Corporeal Assets. Because “marriage” under the corporeal state is in fact a CORPORATION, with two shareholders, and all property not specifically set aside in a prenuptial agreement is contributed to, and an asset of, the CORPORATION upon creation of the marriage corporation.  A marriage corporation is a significant benefit to those who enter into them. Economically, a marriage corporation is much more advantageous than an living as an individual (sole proprietorship). Not the least of which is because of the increased credit that is available, and the decreased statistical risk that married couples exhibit.

    2) Parity Membership. (status equality) Because homosexuality is instinctively ostracized in most cultures, and people don’t like being ostracized.  First as a ‘defect’ and secondly as a ‘immoral corruption’.  It appears that homosexuality is an in-utero genetically caused ‘defect’, that ‘defect’ has no negative consequences OTHER than those that derive from our instinctual biases. Secondly, as an in-utero defect, it is not a CHOICE and therefore not a matter of ‘immoral corruptoin’ or a danger to those who are ‘normal’.  As such we have enough knowledge to counter our instinctual biases, and enough knowledge to abandon our cultural biases.

    As such, no longer deserving stigma, homosexuals, as any healthy social human, desire ‘acceptance’ (to receive positive status signals) in the society.

    3) Binding commitment.  Homosexuals demonstrate high levels of promiscuity – and unlike heterosexuals, whose promiscuity creates the problem of children without economic support – there is little harm to it.  As such the function of a marriage corporation creates a greater economic incentive in support of preventing promiscuity and preserving both the economic and emotional investments we make.

    4) Pledge of commitment: The promise of a marriage will tend to give each of us access to superior mates (yes it does).  Without this pledge of commitment homosexuals do not have the way demonstrate their commitment to quality partners.  Trust is a difficult thing to come by.

    5) Conformity to norms. In an effort to obtain the right of marriage the homosexual community has ‘reigned in’ its more extravagant public behavior, which has reduced the level of objection prevoiusly held by moderates.  Further, unlike women’s rights activists and racial activists, homosexuals are not asking for redistribution benefits, OR for other special rights – other than the questionable ‘hate crimes’ that is already in force.

    RESISTANCE BY RELIGIOUS GROUPS
    6) Religions are the last resistance to homosexual marriage.  This is partly for doctrinal reasons, and partly because the gay community aligned with the feminist, and left political wings, and in doing so, added to what religious groups consider an attack on the nuclear family, on traditional male and female roles, to the status signals available to those who fulfill traditional male and female roles – and from their perspective, an attack on civilization itself. This voting block is both activist and uniform, and provides a resistance to both the expansionary state and to culture.  For this reason the real opposition for homosexuals is in fact, organized religion, because organized religion is the source of the nuclear family’s traditional moral legitimacy.


    I hope that is a sufficient answer for you. Although I did have to rush the end a bit.   – Cheers.

    https://www.quora.com/Why-are-gay-people-asking-for-the-right-to-marry-If-it-is-legal-stuff-they-are-asking-for-cant-they-go-to-some-separate-setup-for-partners

  • ANY MONOPOLY DEFINITION OF PROPERTY RIGHTS IS REQUIRED FOR THE RESOLUTION OF DIS

    ANY MONOPOLY DEFINITION OF PROPERTY RIGHTS IS REQUIRED FOR THE RESOLUTION OF DISPUTES:

    “Fundamentally speaking, it is illogical to suggest that a “polyopoly” of property rights and definitions is possible since a homogenous “monopoly” definition of property right is necessary in order to logically resolve disputes over rights, obligations and conflicts. Without property rights, disputes are logically impossible to resolve.

    If there is a monopoly of property rights at any point, that monopolistic definition, in practice, is the premise for all law within that group of people. Therefore even without the institutions of administrative government, any monopoly of property rights is in fact ‘government’. Everything else is just procedure.”

    This is not to say that allocating all property rights exclusively to private property is the only possible solution for a group. We’ve just learned that economic incentives to act, and to produce, and therefore to increase choice and decrease prices, can only exist where individuals have property rights. Without those rights one cannot have incentives. Or rather, without property rights, one’s incentives are balanced between numerous incentives – most of which are not productive, but consumptive.

    Anarchic production and exchange require only private property rights. But if a group with homogenous interests, wants to invest in the development of commons’, most generally called ‘infrastructure’ and in particular, commons that occupy physical (unique) space, then anarchic production under a monopoly definition of property rights alone isn’t sufficient. The reason being, that commons are victim to: (a) free riding (b) competition (c) privatization, and (d) violations of the rights of others. We don’t usually consider competition a problem, but it’s a problem for investors in a commons. And governments ( one or more people) that can outlaw free riding (taxes), competition (indirect privatization), direct privatization (theft), and protect the rights of others from abuses of their property rights through the process of creating commons, turns out to be necessary, since the cost of these appropriations of common investments is higher than the willingness of people to take the risk to develop the commons. Furthermore they also consider free free riding, competition, and privatization to be immoral.

    THis is not to say that private organizations can’t create commons (they can). The difference is that most commons that are other than symbolic such as monuments, are open to such free riding (consumption without compensation) and appropriation (the ancient practice of stealing of stones to build a house from public works for example) that the combination of moral objection and material theft is higher than the desire and willingness to contribute to a commons.

    Furthermore, some commons, like defense, are of such high risk and cost, that near universal free riding (pacifism), or perhaps more clearly, sufficient free riding, is endemic, and therefore it’s very difficult to create both defense, and private property rights. Historically, property rights are determined by those who contribute to defense. Or more commonly, property rights are exclusively possessed by those who contribute to defense

    So that is why we create governments.

    The problem is not that we’ve created governments to resolve conflicts and to create commons. The problem is that the only governments that we’ve been able to create have consisted of monopolies issuing laws rather than a monopoly of property rights under which we issue contracts the terms of which are binding on all members of the group.

    The problems with the organization we call government are (a) lawmaking instead of contract making (b) Monopoly Rule – whether majority, minority, or dictatorship instead of contract negotiating between factions (c) bureaucracy that is insulated from competition and therefore follows its natural incentives to expropriate from shareholders (citizens).

    (Snippet from yesterday’s posting on Quora)

    Source date (UTC): 2013-05-30 23:30:00 UTC

  • Can Anarchy Be Feasibly Set Up?

    THANK YOU FOR ASKING ME TO ANSWER THIS QUESTION

    I’ll try to do give the the best answer that is available to us today.

    1) If we define anarchy as the absence of RULES (MORALS AND NORMS), then no – without morals and norms humans cannot cooperate.
    2) If we define anarchy as the absence of LAWS and JUDGES then no. Without contracts and the common law support of contracts, then no, not in any meaningful sense.
    3) If we define anarchy as the absence of GOVERNMENT (meaning group of people who coordinate investments in commons then possibly anarchy can exist, but under very constrained and simple conditions. Realistically it would be very hard for these people to compete economically with people from other groups.
    4) If we define anarchy as the absence of LAW MAKERS then almost certainly. The common law alone is sufficient for law making.
    5) If we define anarchy as the absence of an abstract corporation we call the ‘STATE’, then absolutely certainly. In fact, when people complain about government they generally are complaining about the behavior of individuals in a monopoly (government) who are insulated from competition, and whose members also for a bureaucracy that is insulated from competition, and who, as members of a bureaucracy, pursue their own interests. 

    Human societies employ at least these five sets of institutions and by and large, the first three are necessary, and the second two are not.  The question is whether in practice a group could compete effectively without the abstract state and the ability to issue commands (we call them laws, but that’s just a way of trying to give commands the legitimacy of natural laws to what are just political ‘commands’.) 

    So, a homogenous body of people who are not very different in character, belief, genetics, status, and wealth can quite easily create anarchy by writing a constitution with just one a half a dozen rules in it, and then hopefully finding judges that will rule according to those rules and no others.

    A government lf laws then, is quite possible.  A government of men isn’t necessary.  And it’s what our founding fathers were trying to prevent.

    Didn’t work well though. Civil war and all that….

    REGARDING “IN A PARTICULAR WORLD”

    Among a population of people with common heritage, mythology, manners, ethics and morals, who are arguably closely related, it is entirely feasible to draft a constitutions and to supply all services by private institutions.  The problem is whether that LACK of a constitutional government creates an opportunity for a private organization to functionally serve the same purpose, and in that same capacity, eventually develop the monopolistic self serviig bureaucracy that evolves the ability to write laws (issue commands) 

    The general argument in favor of minimal government is that some form of government (weak monarchy for example that ‘owns’ the institutions of dispute resolution) is necessary simply to provide competition against other private organizations that would attempt to function as governments.   I do not believe it is possible to counter this argument in any way – it’s quite sound in both theory and practice. ( Although I’m not going to sidetrack into that kind of depth at the moment. )

    IN A BROADER WORLD
    The anarchic research program commonly referred to as “Anarcho Capitalism” has developed a set of solutions to the problem of institutions, using competing private insurance companies rather than public monopolies.  However, this ‘private government’ still does not solve the problem of heterogenous polities (people with different, competing, and irreconcilable differences.).  Some of us are working on that problem.  We tend to call it some variation of ‘contractual’ government.  Meaning that groups make contracts between competing classes rather than allow one class to dominate another class by majority rule. 

    There is no functional reason why this solution would not work even for large heterogenous polities.

    So there are at least two circumstances under which Anarchy is possible, if we define anarchy as the absence of a monopolistic bureaucracy, but not if we define anarchy as the absence of institutions, rules or law. 

    Fundamentally speaking, it is illogical to suggest that a “polyopoly” of property rights and definitions is possible since a homogenous definition of property right is necessary in order to logically resolve disputes over rights, obligations and conflicts.  If there is a monopoly of property rights at any point, that monopolistic definition, in practice, is the premise for all law within that group of people.  Therefore even without the institutions of administrative government, any monopoly of property rights is in fact ‘government’.  Everything else is just procedure.

    That logic may be hard to follow.  But it is what it is.  🙂

    Curt

    https://www.quora.com/Can-anarchy-be-feasibly-set-up

  • PRIVATIZE IRS INSPECTORS AND REQUIRE (a) they have a law degree, and (b) they ar

    PRIVATIZE IRS INSPECTORS AND REQUIRE (a) they have a law degree, and (b) they are CPA’s, and (c) that they are bonded and insured – just like lawyers and doctors.

    This will mean that only very good people will conduct audits and investigations, and that their careers will depend on their neutrality.

    It also means that they will make quite a bit of money, won’t waste their time, will protect their ‘meal ticket’, and will be in short supply, so we don’t have to see them very often.

    Of course, just doing away with the entire institution would be better… 😉

    Source date (UTC): 2013-05-15 09:06:00 UTC

  • PRIVATIZE IRS INSPECTORS AND REQUIRE (a) they have a law degree, and (b) they ar

    PRIVATIZE IRS INSPECTORS AND REQUIRE (a) they have a law degree, and (b) they are CPA’s, and (c) that they are bonded and insured – just like lawyers and doctors.

    This will mean that only very good people will conduct audits and investigations, and that their careers will depend on their neutrality.

    Of course, just doing away with the entire institution would be better… 😉

    Source date (UTC): 2013-05-15 09:05:00 UTC

  • Is Private Property More Natural Than Government? Why Or Why Not? And What Are The Policy Implications?

    AN INTERESTING QUESTION – THANK YOU FOR THE REQUEST TO ANSWER IT.  I’ll try to give you the best answer currently available.

    “We have laws because we have property, we do not have property because we have laws” – Frederic Bastiat.

    PROPERTY AS A SPECTRUM
    We define private property as something over which one EXPECTS TO HAVE exclusive “monopoly” control, and common family property as something over which we expect to have limited control and consumption, and shareholder property something over which one expects to have LIMITED control and prohibition from consumption, and ‘the commons’ over which one expects to be PROHIBITED from consumption and or exclusive control, but where membership is dynamic.

    NATURE
    Many animals treat their nests, stores of food, mates and offspring as property. Humans have more complex memories, and can put objects to a multiplicity of uses.  And humans can learn to specialize in the use of certain resources to produce certain increasingly complex goods and services.

    The first value of memory is to observe resources and avoid dangers. But once we have complex memory, and the abilty to locate and store resources, we can create property, and therefore conserve energy by creating stores for  future consumption, and stores for future production.  The human mind is a is a difference engine, but the primary difference it calculates is property: what can I expect to make use of or not make use of, as a member of a family, band, tribe, or society? 

    We can speak. That we can speak and negotiate demonstrates that property is natural. Without property cooperation would be unnecessary. To debate by definition is to acknowledge the existence of property.  And we were able to speak before we were able to form governments.  We were able to trade before we were able to form governments.

    However, just because property is natural to man, and humans can peaceably cooperate by conducting voluntary exchange of property, that does not mean that humans will do the hard work of trying to satisfy the wants of others. Instead, rather than exchange, humans try to harm, steal, commit fraud, commit fraud by omission.  Rather than adhere to agreements as shareholders, humans free-ride, rent-seek, privatize assets and socialize losses.

    So, despite our natural ability to create and use property, and to negotiate exchanges and contracts, we also require the use of third parties to administer conflicts.   We have used tribal headmen, elders, priests, judges for private matters, and politicians, lawyers, advocates, and lawmaking to regulate the process of dispute resolution itself.

    However, rather than justly administer agreements people engage in all possible manner of direct and systemic corruption.  But, rather than enter political agreements honestly, they lie, cheat, defraud, deceive, use incrementalism, use coercion and bribery.

    So, despite our creation of these administrative institutions, we have created the constitutions, rule of law, and a high court so that we may limit the ability of politicians, kings, bureaucrats to conduct thefts of many kinds.  And hold them accountable.  We have enacted democratic processes to remove them from office if they commit these crimes.

    However, rather than adhere to constitutions and rule of law, people undermine the rule of law, buy voters compliance with redistribution and privileges. Threaten to replace judges if they don’t rule in the politician’s favor. 

    So, despite our creation of limits on politicians and law makers, and the bureaucracy, and judges, we must retain our ability to use violence and revolution in order to defend ourselves from those who would seek to live off our efforts rather than administer our efforts.

    Property is the result of memory. Property is necessary to make use of the vicissitudes of time, to store and produce goods. Property is necessaty to uniquely and efficiently calculate uses of resources. Property is necessary to reduce conflict over possible usees even within families and tribes. Property is necessary for the construction a division of knowledge and labor. Without which we cannot specialize, save time, and produce high value goods that make us independent of nature’s bounty.

    Property is prior to government. Government exists to resolve disputes over property.

    As our division of labor increases, it becomes useful to develop additional common property. In a marketplace, competition provides us with incentives to produce better products and services at lower coasts. Competition is the privatization of other people’s assumptions about the opportunities in the market.  However, common property, unlike private property, is hard to protect from privatization, and necessary to protect from competition, which for any commons, is just a theft from those who organize and pay for the commons by those who fail to organize and pay for the commons. In the market competition and privatization are desirable, but in the production of commons competition is an unnecessary cost.  Therefore, the second purpose of government is to allow the formation of commons at a discount by prohibiting privatization of any commons, and preventing free-riding on any commons  by the use of mandatory taxation.

    THE TWO NECESSARY PROPERTIES OF GOVERNMENT
    These are the only two necessary properties of government.  In order to perform these functions any body of people must have a portfolio of property definitions that describe each kind of property on the spectrum from private to commons. Most difficulties arise from the failure for societies to do so. One of the reasons the west was (and partly remains) superior in economic per capita perormance is that more of the property in the civilization is privatized, and therefore available for frictionless use, and therefore as an incentive for individuals to act to better their status.

    CLOSING
    I won’t carry this further for now, and it is a book length topic, but it is probably the most, if not only, accurate description of property and government that you will be able to find, despite extraordinary efforts to research the subject. That is because I’ve tried to articulate the necessary properties of government not the multitude of abuses we can put it to.

    Cheers
    Curt Doolittle
    The Propertarian Institute, Kiev.

    https://www.quora.com/Is-private-property-more-natural-than-government-Why-or-why-not-And-what-are-the-policy-implications

  • you call spirits from the deep? Can you write good laws? Waiting for Godot. Wait

    http://hisstoryisbunk.blogspot.com/2013/04/a-marxist-walks-into-bureau.htmlCan you call spirits from the deep?

    Can you write good laws?

    Waiting for Godot. Waiting for Superman.

    There is only one ‘law’ and that is property. You cannot write good laws that will be wisely administered by a bureaucracy. You can however, hire multiple firms that must compete to achieve an objective.

    Source date (UTC): 2013-05-07 15:10:00 UTC