Curt Doolittle

Category: Law, Constitution, and Jurisprudence

  • FAMILY MEMBERSHIP IS NOT A PRIVILEGE – A PRIVILEGE IS A GRANT BY THE STATE A pri

    http://www.angrybearblog.com/2012/05/web-of-privilege-supports-this-so.htmlA FAMILY MEMBERSHIP IS NOT A PRIVILEGE – A PRIVILEGE IS A GRANT BY THE STATE

    A privilege is something granted by the state. He has no such privilege. Instead, it is indeed lucky that one would possess genes and membership in a family with enough credibility to convey trust to investors, so that they would risk giving you money versus risk giving it to the millions of other unknowns that try to obtain it from them. There is no better form of insurance that an investor can buy than familial trust. And there is no inheritance more valuable to protect than that trust. Because, as you say, there may be no value added by his presence, but then there is no value risked by it either. Since all candidates may in fact provide marginal increase in value, the investor selects a candidate due to loss aversion.

    You [Angry Bear] are not following through to the logical conclusion of your statements (and neither is DeLong, but then he’s a hack). A family demonstrates the trustworthiness of its members. But that isn’t the conclusion you would like us to take from this question. Because that would be an indictment of the lower classes. 🙂

    Source date (UTC): 2012-05-16 10:44:00 UTC

  • CANNOT ACHIVE ANY NOTION OF “JUSTICE” BY VOLUNTARY MEANS WITHOUT FORMAL INSTITUT

    http://www.capitalismv3.com/2012/04/26/the-institutional-answer-to-bleeding-heart-libertarianism/YOU CANNOT ACHIVE ANY NOTION OF “JUSTICE” BY VOLUNTARY MEANS WITHOUT FORMAL INSTITUTIONS.

    (Sorry Rothbard, Sorry BHL’s. It is entirely possible to create institutions that assist in inter-temoral coordination between the classes. We do with with banking all day long. But we can’d do it without formal institutions that forbid privatization of public goods.)

    Source date (UTC): 2012-04-26 18:12:00 UTC

  • The Institutional Answer To Bleeding Heart Libertarianism

    From Econlib

    RE: “they insist that social justice ought to be part of libertarianism but are unwilling to tell us what it means.”

    Thats right. They have no program, no argument, no artifice. Only a sentiment. This is why they’ll fail. But libertarianism, or at least propertarian reasoning within libertarianism, provides the solution to ‘social justice’ — if that term has any meaning other than ‘redistribution’. The solution arises from insight is that the ethic of voluntary exchange does not require unanimity of belief in anything. It only requires institutions that provide a means by which we can construct exchanges between groups that are not possible to construct by alternative means due to pervasive ‘cheating’. Cheating which is expressed as competition, is beneficial in a market for consumer goods, but a form of privatization or corruption when applied to infrastructure or services (commons). Institutions are necessary for creating those exchanges free of ‘cheating’– private appropriation of common investments. The problem for us lies in constructing the institutions that allow exchanges between groups. Even assuming representative government is a good, if for no other purpose than to divide the labor of decision making, the classical liberal model of multi-class government should have been expanded and reinforced so that classes could conduct exchanges, most of which are inter-temporal borrowings from one another. Instead we undermined that feature of the classical liberal government with fully democratic solutions disconnected from the material differences in interests in the population. Furthermore, institutions of all forms are under attack by ideological libertarians. Rothbardian Anarchism has stolen the libertarian movement. But, we don’t need to give up on institutions. We need to give up on creating institutions that depend on a unanimity of belief in ends, means and virtues. A requirement that does not pass the most casual scrutiny. Most ‘justice’ is simply accounting for and settlement of differences in production cycles. There is no reason we cannot bring forward to the disadvantaged the benefits of the difference in production cycles between the classes, in the same way we bring forward productivity through borrowing and interest between capitalists and entrepreneurs. There is no reason that is, other than we lack the political institutions to accomplish in politics what we accomplish daily in banking as a matter of course. That’s the answer to bleeding heart libertarianism: institutions. But we have to understand Rotbardianism as all but a prohibition on organization first. Curt

  • THE VIRTUE OF SIMPLE RULES Simple rules compensate for the diversity of human in

    THE VIRTUE OF SIMPLE RULES

    Simple rules compensate for the diversity of human intellectual ability, and the variance in knowledge and experience between the ignorance of youth and the wisdom of old age.

    Do not unto others as you would not have them do unto you.

    Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. (The golden rules two sides of a coin. They produce different results – you have to adhere to both of them.)

    Speak the truth even if it leads to harm.

    Keep your promises even if it causes you losses.

    Adhere to manners, ethics and morals even if they make no sense.

    Take no other person’s words personally – they are a self description of the speaker.

    Save one fifth of everything you make.

    Read at least one book every two weeks.

    Sample every bit of life that you can – we get only one chance at it.

    Master a craft, it is how you become valuable to others.

    Master an additional new craft every seven years.

    Become a skilled and patient lover.

    Keep a dog. It will teach you loyalty and love.

    If you choose to marry, choose well, and late in life. Marrying young, romantically and poorly is the most expensive error we all make.

    There is only one law, and that is property: a prohibition in the involuntary transfer of property by violence, fraud, theft of indirection.

    We are all different. Political equality is achieved not through majority violence, but through exchanges between groups facilitated by institutions. Institutions that compensate for the inter-temporal differences in our productivity, because the incorrectly named division of labor is instead, a division of knowledge and labor in time: we function on different time frames. The future is kaleidic. And we build that future as a division of knowledge and labor and time — not because we agree upon it. But because it is what is possible for us to achieve despite our inability to agree.

    Anything else is not high mindedness, but brutal theft under the mythology of communal government.

    Source date (UTC): 2012-04-23 10:54:00 UTC

  • “Lawmakers parcel out human existence, by right of conquest, like Alexander’s ge

    “Lawmakers parcel out human existence, by right of conquest, like Alexander’s generals sharing the world.” – Benjamin Constant

    (Priceless)

    Source date (UTC): 2012-03-31 10:47:00 UTC

  • Well, Yes The Left Hates The Constitution. But Scalia Is Just Using Absurdity for Illustrative Purposes.

    via Yes, They DO Hate the Constitution! « ACGR’s “News with Attitude”. I hate to stomp on bunnies, but nonsense like this doesn’t do our movement any good:

    However, her  fellow Justice, the supposedly ultra-conservative and strict constructionist Antonin Scalia is quoted as saying “The bill of rights of the former evil empire, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, was much better than ours…we guarantee freedom of speech and of the press, big deal. They guaranteed freedom of speech, of the press, of street demonstrations and protest, and anyone who is caught trying to suppress criticism of the government will be called to account. Whoa, that is wonderful stuff!”

    All I can think of saying is, Holy C&@p!

    It is very frightening that these “reputable” scholars and Justices do not understand the meaning and intent of the Constitution they have sworn to honor and uphold.  The drafters and ratifiers would be appalled at how the Supreme Court has “interpreted” a document meant to secure the rights of the people, not grant rights.

    In that quote, Scalia is being sarcastic. He’s saying that the constitution is insufficient a safeguard. A polity requires the people obey their own restraints. While property rights, and a constitution that protects them, and a judiciary bound to administer disputes according to them, are the necessary institutions for the defense of freedom, the institution that protects them is comprised entirely of the moral habits of the people and the people who administer those institutions in particular. We take for granted, that our suite of norms are natural to man. But they are special, and unique in the world, specifically because they are unnatural to man. Scalia is illustrating this point using absurdity. The left hates the constitution because on the one hand it gives them control of the government by semi-democratic means, but which does so on the premise of property rights. So they have their power, but are limited in the use of it. This internal conflict is traumatic for them. Conservatives are self obligated to remember their position as the group that acknowledges ever present scarcity. Libertarians are self obligated, as the intellectual wing of politics, to avoid making fools of themselves. (Not that we all haven’t done it in our careers.)

  • Well, Yes The Left Hates The Constitution. But Scalia Is Just Using Absurdity for Illustrative Purposes.

    via Yes, They DO Hate the Constitution! « ACGR’s “News with Attitude”. I hate to stomp on bunnies, but nonsense like this doesn’t do our movement any good:

    However, her  fellow Justice, the supposedly ultra-conservative and strict constructionist Antonin Scalia is quoted as saying “The bill of rights of the former evil empire, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, was much better than ours…we guarantee freedom of speech and of the press, big deal. They guaranteed freedom of speech, of the press, of street demonstrations and protest, and anyone who is caught trying to suppress criticism of the government will be called to account. Whoa, that is wonderful stuff!”

    All I can think of saying is, Holy C&@p!

    It is very frightening that these “reputable” scholars and Justices do not understand the meaning and intent of the Constitution they have sworn to honor and uphold.  The drafters and ratifiers would be appalled at how the Supreme Court has “interpreted” a document meant to secure the rights of the people, not grant rights.

    In that quote, Scalia is being sarcastic. He’s saying that the constitution is insufficient a safeguard. A polity requires the people obey their own restraints. While property rights, and a constitution that protects them, and a judiciary bound to administer disputes according to them, are the necessary institutions for the defense of freedom, the institution that protects them is comprised entirely of the moral habits of the people and the people who administer those institutions in particular. We take for granted, that our suite of norms are natural to man. But they are special, and unique in the world, specifically because they are unnatural to man. Scalia is illustrating this point using absurdity. The left hates the constitution because on the one hand it gives them control of the government by semi-democratic means, but which does so on the premise of property rights. So they have their power, but are limited in the use of it. This internal conflict is traumatic for them. Conservatives are self obligated to remember their position as the group that acknowledges ever present scarcity. Libertarians are self obligated, as the intellectual wing of politics, to avoid making fools of themselves. (Not that we all haven’t done it in our careers.)

  • Liberty And Violence

    Liberty is purchased with the tip of a spear, the point of a sword or the barrel of a gun. It is maintained by a hard constitution, the common law, and the mastery of the violence required to prevent its subversion. Righteous indignation is litte more than sound and fury signifying nothing, and those who congratulate themselves on their conviction are merely hiding behind a facade of convenience and cowardice. Violence is a virtue not a vice. We lend our leaders our violence in exchange for liberty. If they do not give us our liberty we must take back our wealth of violence and use it until we can give it again to those who will.

  • Liberty And Violence

    Liberty is purchased with the tip of a spear, the point of a sword or the barrel of a gun. It is maintained by a hard constitution, the common law, and the mastery of the violence required to prevent its subversion. Righteous indignation is litte more than sound and fury signifying nothing, and those who congratulate themselves on their conviction are merely hiding behind a facade of convenience and cowardice. Violence is a virtue not a vice. We lend our leaders our violence in exchange for liberty. If they do not give us our liberty we must take back our wealth of violence and use it until we can give it again to those who will.

  • LIBERTY AND VIOLENCE Liberty is purchased with the tip of a spear, the point of

    LIBERTY AND VIOLENCE

    Liberty is purchased with the tip of a spear, the point of a sword or the barrel of a gun. It is maintained by a hard constitution, the common law, and the mastery of the violence required to prevent its subversion. Righteous indignation is litte more than sound and fury signifying nothing, and those who congratulate themselves on their conviction are merely hiding behind a facade of convenience and cowardice. Violence is a virtue not a vice. We lend our leaders our violence in exchange for liberty. If they do not give us our liberty we must take back our wealth of violence and use it until we can give it again to those who will.

    Source date (UTC): 2012-03-01 10:59:00 UTC