Curt Doolittle

Category: Politics, Power, and Governance

  • Why Are Conservatives Missing The Point?

    Because they, like liberals, operate under the assumptions that: a) A unanimity of agreement on means and ends is possible – when it’s questionable if it’s even remotely desirable. b) Our legislative process is an absolute ‘good’ instead of an demonstrably destructive bad. The evidence of the failure of our legislative process was visible as early as 1812, most notably in 1863, certainly in 1911, pervasively in 1933, and persistently since then. THE GOVERNMENT IS NOT THE SOURCE OF OUR PROSPERITY Americans rationalize this tragedy as producing positive ends, when that logic is absurd: Americans have been prosperous because of a conquered continent, the sale of land and household consumption to immigrants during the hight of the industrial revolution, the founding of fossil fuel technologies, and the suicide of europe in the great european civil war. If we must have taxes in order to prevent free riders from living off the contributions of others, why can they not be structured as contracts and litigated as contracts. THE GOVERNMENT IS THE SOURCE OF OUR PROBLEMS Our government has prevented what we might have achieved were it less of an obstacle, and vehicle for class warfare, rather than the source of the prosperity we claim that came from it. Any despot can sell off a continent and raise taxes by filling new households with consumer goods. It doesn’t take democracy to do that. Any despot can inherit the British Empire and gain a market for selling a new currency. Any despot could financialize an economy and lay the false promise of an upper middle class lifestyle as the logical consequence of an expensive education, instead of investing in the international competitiveness of its working classes. Hasn’t the legislature been used to grant nearly infinite powers to the state through nothing more than a hole in the commerce clause? Hasn’t the constitution and property rights been undermined to the point that it is irrrelevant? Thereby eliminating the rule of law. CONSERVATIVES ARE THE PEOPLE WHO ARE SUPPOSED TO HAVE A CORRECT VIEW OF HUMAN NATURE, A CORRECT VIEW OF INTER-TEMPORAL SCARCITY, AND A CORRECT VIEW OF ECONOMICS. SO WHY DO WE HAVE TO HAVE AN ERRONEOUS AND COUNTERFACTUAL VIEW OF OUR REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT’S LEGISLATIVE RECORD? That’s why Conservative debate concerns me. It seeks first to defend our system of government, rather than the rule of law, and it seeks converts rather than superior institutions that do not require converts, only those who naturally disagree with us. The institutions of classical liberal government are the problem. The most severe aspect of that problem is the very existence of our legislative institutions and the very concept that men can make laws, rather than agree to contracts. Laws are made, and broken by the next law that is passed. It is impossible in this context to create a durable contract of exchange between groups — effectively there is no means of holding each side responsible. Taxes pool and thereby unaccountably launder causality and responsibility from financial information. We’re conservatives. We’re libertarians. We’re classical liberals. We’re supposed to be the smart people. Leave the irrational concepts of human nature, the absurd concept of infinite plenty, and the incomprehension of economic necessity to the left. But do not defend against the left by thinking our form of government is effective or that it has produced positive ends. Those positive ends are the product of cheap land, labor and consumption. The good that is in our government is not from its legislative institutions, but was created by our very distant anglo saxon ancestors, and as the byproduct of the self-interest of the Church in accidentally creating the Rule of Law, and the breaking of tribal and family bonds by the prohibition of intermarriage out to as many as six generations. WE SHOULD DEFEND THE RULE OF LAW WITH A GOVERNMENT OF CONTRACTS, NOT LAWS. MEN CANNOT MAKE LAWS. THEY CAN ONLY DISCOVER THEM. LAWS ARE NOTHING BUT A VEHICLE FOR OPPRESSION, CONTRACTS ARE VOLUNTARY. LAW IS THE SOURCE OF TYRANNY. AND LEGISLATURES ARE THE SOURCE OF LAW. AND OUR EXISTING GOVERNMENT CONSISTS OF LEGISLATURES. THE ANALOGY OF THE PARABLE OF LIES: The Parable Of LIes says that if you tell a lie, you have to tell seventeen lies to cover it, and seventeen for each of those, and seventeen for each of those, until your world consists of nothing but lies. Likewise, Laws are lies. They are an application of violence. Conversely, Contracts are voluntary. They are an exchange. Chosen representatives should negotiate contracts on our behalf which may not be broken without compensation, and which must adhere to natural, common and constitutional law. All of us should preserve our right of juridical defense, and no man should be free from legal action under the pretense that he create’s an arbitrary codification of violence called a ‘law’. Rousseau was as evil as Marx, and caused proportionately almost as many deaths. The idea of a social contract is nothing more than an attempt to legitimize the dictatorship of the majority by law. It is simply the divine right of kings, or a prohibition against heresy by the monopolistic Church. No wonder Rousseau caused so many deaths, and was responsible for such bloodshed. We do not need a social contract. BUT WE NEED A SOCIETY OF CONTRACTS. If we are to have any government at all, we should have one that is not an instrument of tyranny. And legislation is tyranny. Conservatives and libertarians need to address the root of the problem: our institutions. We should not seek to create ideological converts so that we may have a government we prefer. We should create a government so that ideological preferences can be resolved through consensual agreement rather than a gladiatorial battle of dishonesty between lawyers whose actions simply mask the violence and theft that they levy upon us all. Because we’re supposed to be the smart people after all.

  • Why Are Conservatives Missing The Point?

    Because they, like liberals, operate under the assumptions that: a) A unanimity of agreement on means and ends is possible – when it’s questionable if it’s even remotely desirable. b) Our legislative process is an absolute ‘good’ instead of an demonstrably destructive bad. The evidence of the failure of our legislative process was visible as early as 1812, most notably in 1863, certainly in 1911, pervasively in 1933, and persistently since then. THE GOVERNMENT IS NOT THE SOURCE OF OUR PROSPERITY Americans rationalize this tragedy as producing positive ends, when that logic is absurd: Americans have been prosperous because of a conquered continent, the sale of land and household consumption to immigrants during the hight of the industrial revolution, the founding of fossil fuel technologies, and the suicide of europe in the great european civil war. If we must have taxes in order to prevent free riders from living off the contributions of others, why can they not be structured as contracts and litigated as contracts. THE GOVERNMENT IS THE SOURCE OF OUR PROBLEMS Our government has prevented what we might have achieved were it less of an obstacle, and vehicle for class warfare, rather than the source of the prosperity we claim that came from it. Any despot can sell off a continent and raise taxes by filling new households with consumer goods. It doesn’t take democracy to do that. Any despot can inherit the British Empire and gain a market for selling a new currency. Any despot could financialize an economy and lay the false promise of an upper middle class lifestyle as the logical consequence of an expensive education, instead of investing in the international competitiveness of its working classes. Hasn’t the legislature been used to grant nearly infinite powers to the state through nothing more than a hole in the commerce clause? Hasn’t the constitution and property rights been undermined to the point that it is irrrelevant? Thereby eliminating the rule of law. CONSERVATIVES ARE THE PEOPLE WHO ARE SUPPOSED TO HAVE A CORRECT VIEW OF HUMAN NATURE, A CORRECT VIEW OF INTER-TEMPORAL SCARCITY, AND A CORRECT VIEW OF ECONOMICS. SO WHY DO WE HAVE TO HAVE AN ERRONEOUS AND COUNTERFACTUAL VIEW OF OUR REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT’S LEGISLATIVE RECORD? That’s why Conservative debate concerns me. It seeks first to defend our system of government, rather than the rule of law, and it seeks converts rather than superior institutions that do not require converts, only those who naturally disagree with us. The institutions of classical liberal government are the problem. The most severe aspect of that problem is the very existence of our legislative institutions and the very concept that men can make laws, rather than agree to contracts. Laws are made, and broken by the next law that is passed. It is impossible in this context to create a durable contract of exchange between groups — effectively there is no means of holding each side responsible. Taxes pool and thereby unaccountably launder causality and responsibility from financial information. We’re conservatives. We’re libertarians. We’re classical liberals. We’re supposed to be the smart people. Leave the irrational concepts of human nature, the absurd concept of infinite plenty, and the incomprehension of economic necessity to the left. But do not defend against the left by thinking our form of government is effective or that it has produced positive ends. Those positive ends are the product of cheap land, labor and consumption. The good that is in our government is not from its legislative institutions, but was created by our very distant anglo saxon ancestors, and as the byproduct of the self-interest of the Church in accidentally creating the Rule of Law, and the breaking of tribal and family bonds by the prohibition of intermarriage out to as many as six generations. WE SHOULD DEFEND THE RULE OF LAW WITH A GOVERNMENT OF CONTRACTS, NOT LAWS. MEN CANNOT MAKE LAWS. THEY CAN ONLY DISCOVER THEM. LAWS ARE NOTHING BUT A VEHICLE FOR OPPRESSION, CONTRACTS ARE VOLUNTARY. LAW IS THE SOURCE OF TYRANNY. AND LEGISLATURES ARE THE SOURCE OF LAW. AND OUR EXISTING GOVERNMENT CONSISTS OF LEGISLATURES. THE ANALOGY OF THE PARABLE OF LIES: The Parable Of LIes says that if you tell a lie, you have to tell seventeen lies to cover it, and seventeen for each of those, and seventeen for each of those, until your world consists of nothing but lies. Likewise, Laws are lies. They are an application of violence. Conversely, Contracts are voluntary. They are an exchange. Chosen representatives should negotiate contracts on our behalf which may not be broken without compensation, and which must adhere to natural, common and constitutional law. All of us should preserve our right of juridical defense, and no man should be free from legal action under the pretense that he create’s an arbitrary codification of violence called a ‘law’. Rousseau was as evil as Marx, and caused proportionately almost as many deaths. The idea of a social contract is nothing more than an attempt to legitimize the dictatorship of the majority by law. It is simply the divine right of kings, or a prohibition against heresy by the monopolistic Church. No wonder Rousseau caused so many deaths, and was responsible for such bloodshed. We do not need a social contract. BUT WE NEED A SOCIETY OF CONTRACTS. If we are to have any government at all, we should have one that is not an instrument of tyranny. And legislation is tyranny. Conservatives and libertarians need to address the root of the problem: our institutions. We should not seek to create ideological converts so that we may have a government we prefer. We should create a government so that ideological preferences can be resolved through consensual agreement rather than a gladiatorial battle of dishonesty between lawyers whose actions simply mask the violence and theft that they levy upon us all. Because we’re supposed to be the smart people after all.

  • Why Do We Conduct Ideological Warfare? Democracy. That’s why.

    Because, under Democratic Republicanism, and under Social Democracy, we conceive of government as majority right to establish laws under which we all must conform to a singular perception of the means and ends by which we create the common good, rather than a process by which we can negotiate contracts consisting of exchanges with one another despite our different preferences for means and definitions of the common good.

    Laws evolve, and are discovered not made. Contracts are made with the intention of mutual benefit. The problem with ‘laws’ is that the next legislator can break the contract between groups willfully, and bad laws do not expire with the tenure of the people who wrote them.

    Government as we have constructed it is destroying our society.

    Yes we need a new civic religion. But democratic government that makes laws, rather than contracts within the one law of voluntary exchange, should be left behind on the dustbin of history with the magical gods and treated as a superstition equal to them.

    via Curt Doolittle.

  • Why Do We Conduct Ideological Warfare? Democracy. That’s why.

    Because, under Democratic Republicanism, and under Social Democracy, we conceive of government as majority right to establish laws under which we all must conform to a singular perception of the means and ends by which we create the common good, rather than a process by which we can negotiate contracts consisting of exchanges with one another despite our different preferences for means and definitions of the common good.

    Laws evolve, and are discovered not made. Contracts are made with the intention of mutual benefit. The problem with ‘laws’ is that the next legislator can break the contract between groups willfully, and bad laws do not expire with the tenure of the people who wrote them.

    Government as we have constructed it is destroying our society.

    Yes we need a new civic religion. But democratic government that makes laws, rather than contracts within the one law of voluntary exchange, should be left behind on the dustbin of history with the magical gods and treated as a superstition equal to them.

    via Curt Doolittle.

  • THE ONLY REASON FOR IDEOLOGICAL WARFARE? Because we conceive of government as ma

    THE ONLY REASON FOR IDEOLOGICAL WARFARE?

    Because we conceive of government as majority right to establish laws to which we all must conform to a singular perception of the means and ends by which we create the common good, rather than a process by which we can negotiate contracts consisting of exchanges with one another despite our different preferences for means and definitions of the common good.

    Laws evolve, and are discovered not made. Contracts are made with the intention of mutual benefit. The problem with ‘laws’ is that the next legislator can break the contract between groups willfully, and bad laws do not expire with the tenure of the people who wrote them.

    Government as we have constructed it is destroying our society.

    Yes we need a new civic religion. But democratic government that makes laws, rather than contracts within the one law of voluntary exchange, should be left behind on the dustbin of history with the magical gods and treated as a superstition equal to them.

    Source date (UTC): 2012-03-31 10:56:00 UTC

  • Is Political Legitimacy Possible?

    Is Political Legitimacy Possible? http://www.capitalismv3.com/2012/03/30/is-political-legitimacy-possible/

    Source date (UTC): 2012-03-30 19:25:56 UTC

    Original post: https://twitter.com/i/web/status/185810107504918528

  • Is Political Legitimacy Possible?

    Legitimacy would be ‘perfect’ if the actions of a representative (the government) were identical in both priority and content to the preferences of the individual. Legitimacy is neutral if the preferences and priorities are unobjectionable. Legitimacy is lost when the preferences and priorities are actively unwanted, despised or damaging. We can consider tyranny an absolute moral concept. Or a praxeological concept. As a praxeological concept, tyranny is the use of property (resources) to accomplish ends using means that we disagree with. Since there are three economies we operate within: the material, the normative, and the signaling economy, the chance of tyranny increases with the heterogeneity of material economic, normative economic, and signaling economies. As such tyranny is less likely to be expressed in a small homogenous society, and more likely, if not mandatory, in a large heterogenous society. This is one of the reasons that small european states preserved individual liberty, and consequential economic experimentation and innovation, while the competing civilizations, most of which were older and wealthier, were left behind by the competing disorganized european micro-states. As libertarians, it is useful to use praxeological analysis (the study of actions and transfers) rather than to stick with imprecise use of dogmatic first principles. Those first principles are useful because of their generality and wide applicability, but imprecise because of that generality. General principles, rather than causal explanations, may not inform us as to what insights and actions can actually help us achieve our objective: freedom, rather than simply whine about it.

  • Is Political Legitimacy Possible?

    Legitimacy would be ‘perfect’ if the actions of a representative (the government) were identical in both priority and content to the preferences of the individual. Legitimacy is neutral if the preferences and priorities are unobjectionable. Legitimacy is lost when the preferences and priorities are actively unwanted, despised or damaging. We can consider tyranny an absolute moral concept. Or a praxeological concept. As a praxeological concept, tyranny is the use of property (resources) to accomplish ends using means that we disagree with. Since there are three economies we operate within: the material, the normative, and the signaling economy, the chance of tyranny increases with the heterogeneity of material economic, normative economic, and signaling economies. As such tyranny is less likely to be expressed in a small homogenous society, and more likely, if not mandatory, in a large heterogenous society. This is one of the reasons that small european states preserved individual liberty, and consequential economic experimentation and innovation, while the competing civilizations, most of which were older and wealthier, were left behind by the competing disorganized european micro-states. As libertarians, it is useful to use praxeological analysis (the study of actions and transfers) rather than to stick with imprecise use of dogmatic first principles. Those first principles are useful because of their generality and wide applicability, but imprecise because of that generality. General principles, rather than causal explanations, may not inform us as to what insights and actions can actually help us achieve our objective: freedom, rather than simply whine about it.

  • POLITICAL LEGITIMACY POSSIBLE? Legitimacy would be ‘perfect’ if the actions of a

    http://www.libertarianism.org/blog/important-concepts-political-obligationIS POLITICAL LEGITIMACY POSSIBLE?

    Legitimacy would be ‘perfect’ if the actions of a representative (the government) were identical in both priority and content to the preferences of the individual.

    Legitimacy is neutral if the preferences and priorities are unobjectionable. Legitimacy is lost when the preferences and priorities are actively unwanted, despised or damaging.

    We can consider tyranny an absolute moral concept. Or a praxeological concept. As a praxeological concept, tyranny is the use of property (resources) to accomplish ends using means that we disagree with. Since there are three economies we operate within: the material, the normative, and the signaling economy, the chance of tyranny increases with the heterogeneity of material economic, normative economic, and signaling economies. As such tyranny is less likely to be expressed in a small homogenous society, and more likely, if not mandatory, in a large heterogenous society. This is one of the reasons that small european states preserved individual liberty, and consequential economic experimentation and innovation, while the competing civilizations, most of which were older and wealthier, were left behind by the competing disorganized european micro-states.

    As libertarians, it is useful to use praxeological analysis (the study of actions and transfers) rather than to stick with imprecise use of dogmatic first principles. Those first principles are useful because of their generality and wide applicability, but imprecise because of that generality. General principles, rather than causal explanations, may not inform us as to what insights and actions can actually help us achieve our objective: freedom, rather than simply whine about it.

    Source date (UTC): 2012-03-30 11:53:00 UTC

  • authority cannot emereg among disparate economic, biological, or signalingdivers

    http://www.libertarianism.org/blog/important-concepts-political-obligationLegitimate authority cannot emereg among disparate economic, biological, or signalingdiversities. But otherwise this is solid thinking.

    Source date (UTC): 2012-03-30 11:35:00 UTC