Category: Politics, Power, and Governance

(text version) (important) (positive positioning) [It’s what we do. Own it.] Let me stay on message: As a philosopher, I manufacture intellectual weaponry in the war against lies. And I strive to speak truthfully about the causes of the decline of western civilization, and how to repair them permanently. An effort that requires I surface and expose many of the competing enlightenment fallacies, liars, ad lies, that we, from each cultural tradition, hold dear. And this falsification, I admit, I perform prosecutorially, because I believe this is a war not just for western civilization, but for the vast benefits that western civilization has delivered to mankind – often over most of mankind’s passionate objections. But make no mistake that I remain an Aristocratic Egalitarian, a Classical Liberal, and therefore a Libertarian, an ‘Operationalist’ or ‘strict constructionist’ and a universal Nationalist. Where Aristocratic Egalitarian means the natural aristocracy struggles to prevent rule by anyone other than the natural, common, judge-discovered law. Classical Liberal Dissenter means the use of houses of government to construct a market for exchanges in pursuit of mutually beneficial competitive commons, and that we need not agree for groups to construct a commons, only fail to find lawful reason to prevent it. Libertarian means rule of law, using natural, judge-discovered, common law, and voluntary association, disassociation, voluntary cooperation, non-cooperation, via voluntary exchange. Operationalist means that all contract, regulation, legislation, and judge discovered law, must be written in strictly constructed, operational language, operationally articulated from first principles of non-imposition of costs. Universal Nationalist means that I acknowledge that the traditions, institutions, laws, norms, family structures, and policies, required by different tribal groups differ to the extent that we are all better off, happier, and in less conflict, if our governments create commons for the needs of our tribes, rather than to attempt to justify a common good that can only, in the end, seek to make everyone equally unsatisfied. At some point in the past, scale was of such military importance, and the investment necessary to raise people out of illiteracy and poverty, that the benefits of large states were greater than the disadvantages of them. But in the current era, where men with small arms, and a small number of nuclear weapons makes conquest of neighboring states all but impossible, and the cost of corruption in large governments, and the dissatisfaction of increasingly different peoples, whose desires have been let loose by adoption of consumer capitalism, and who struggle to achieve them are constrained by large social and political orders, designed to assist in the transition to modernity, not produce local excellences for local differences. Let a thousand nations with a thousand variations bloom. We are not equal. And our attempts to obtain equality merely convert our potential market compatibility into certain political conflict. Curt Doolittle The Philosophy of Aristocracy The Propertarian Institute

(text version) (important) (positive positioning) [It’s what we do. Own it.] Let me stay on message: As a philosopher, I manufacture intellectual weaponry in the war against lies. And I strive to speak truthfully about the causes of the decline of western civilization, and how to repair them permanently. An effort that requires I surface and expose many of the competing enlightenment fallacies, liars, ad lies, that we, from each cultural tradition, hold dear. And this falsification, I admit, I perform prosecutorially, because I believe this is a war not just for western civilization, but for the vast benefits that western civilization has delivered to mankind – often over most of mankind’s passionate objections. But make no mistake that I remain an Aristocratic Egalitarian, a Classical Liberal, and therefore a Libertarian, an ‘Operationalist’ or ‘strict constructionist’ and a universal Nationalist. Where Aristocratic Egalitarian means the natural aristocracy struggles to prevent rule by anyone other than the natural, common, judge-discovered law. Classical Liberal Dissenter means the use of houses of government to construct a market for exchanges in pursuit of mutually beneficial competitive commons, and that we need not agree for groups to construct a commons, only fail to find lawful reason to prevent it. Libertarian means rule of law, using natural, judge-discovered, common law, and voluntary association, disassociation, voluntary cooperation, non-cooperation, via voluntary exchange. Operationalist means that all contract, regulation, legislation, and judge discovered law, must be written in strictly constructed, operational language, operationally articulated from first principles of non-imposition of costs. Universal Nationalist means that I acknowledge that the traditions, institutions, laws, norms, family structures, and policies, required by different tribal groups differ to the extent that we are all better off, happier, and in less conflict, if our governments create commons for the needs of our tribes, rather than to attempt to justify a common good that can only, in the end, seek to make everyone equally unsatisfied. At some point in the past, scale was of such military importance, and the investment necessary to raise people out of illiteracy and poverty, that the benefits of large states were greater than the disadvantages of them. But in the current era, where men with small arms, and a small number of nuclear weapons makes conquest of neighboring states all but impossible, and the cost of corruption in large governments, and the dissatisfaction of increasingly different peoples, whose desires have been let loose by adoption of consumer capitalism, and who struggle to achieve them are constrained by large social and political orders, designed to assist in the transition to modernity, not produce local excellences for local differences. Let a thousand nations with a thousand variations bloom. We are not equal. And our attempts to obtain equality merely convert our potential market compatibility into certain political conflict. Curt Doolittle The Philosophy of Aristocracy The Propertarian Institute