Form: Mini Essay

  • 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

  • Institutions That Allow Different Groups To Exchange, Not Pursue Shared Beliefs.

    The Golden Rule is quite simple. But what complexity emerges from it? Property rights are very simple. But what complexity emerges from them? The problem of cooperative politics does not seem simple until we reduce it to these first principles: 1) the dependence by humans on instinct in the face of complexity, and 2) the instinctual and irresolvable conflict in mating strategies between the genders — and the complexity that emerges in society because of that irresolvable conflict. 3) The instinctual, pervasive, and necessary differences in signals between the classes, tribes and races, because of the differences in distribution of ability, exacerbated by a market economy. Yet there is a solution provided by the libertarians: exchange is cooperative, encourages mutual understanding, and produces win-win rather than win-lose outcomes. The English class-based political model was superior to the democratic model for that reason: we now have a winner-take-all society in permanent conflict rather than a system of cooperation between classes with different strategies and no means of resolving that conflict except for class warfare, constant polarization and social disintegration. The solution is to create institutions where classes with different evolutionary strategies can cooperate despite those differences through a process of exchange. Since exchange must be calculable, which in this case means reducible to something so that it can be measured, then we can improve our existing institutions by requiring voluntary exchange between the classes that is reducible to calculative formulae. ie: contracts rather than laws. Data rather than moralistic rationalism. Interest and ownership rather than taxation. It is the process of democratic government as we have constructed it as a winner take all proposition that is the source of both our conflict and social disintegration. And if one is to argue against this strategy, one makes two mistakes. First, that you simply want to win regardless of the wants of others. And as such you expose yourself as impolitic and using the government as a proxy for theft fraud and violence. Second, that the miracle of the west has been its ability to produce of a balace of powers that requires competition and exchange in favor of the masses. And universalism, which the left seeks to embrace, is just the most recent version of the error of simplicity that all other civilizations have fallen into, and has resulted in their impoverishment and suffering. Besides being a vanity, it is a demonstration of a false consensus bias, and ignores the value that comes from competition, and the problems that arise with bureaucracy. The rest of my arguments, which expose and articulate our different strategies, are irrelevant once we create a set of institutions that makes that our differences in strategies something that is to our advantage. We do not need to engage in perpetuating and exacerbating the problem of politics by attempting to get a democratic majority to agree on universal goals. Something which is imposible because of those differences in biological strategies. We need only advocate institutions that allow each group to achieve its goals. Markets are useful in that they produce aggregate beneficial ends for all parties despite differences in preferences, knowledge and ability. And by creating a market for class cooperation we can produce beneficial ends for the aggregate by serving each other rather than destroying each other.

  • Institutions That Allow Different Groups To Exchange, Not Pursue Shared Beliefs.

    The Golden Rule is quite simple. But what complexity emerges from it? Property rights are very simple. But what complexity emerges from them? The problem of cooperative politics does not seem simple until we reduce it to these first principles: 1) the dependence by humans on instinct in the face of complexity, and 2) the instinctual and irresolvable conflict in mating strategies between the genders — and the complexity that emerges in society because of that irresolvable conflict. 3) The instinctual, pervasive, and necessary differences in signals between the classes, tribes and races, because of the differences in distribution of ability, exacerbated by a market economy. Yet there is a solution provided by the libertarians: exchange is cooperative, encourages mutual understanding, and produces win-win rather than win-lose outcomes. The English class-based political model was superior to the democratic model for that reason: we now have a winner-take-all society in permanent conflict rather than a system of cooperation between classes with different strategies and no means of resolving that conflict except for class warfare, constant polarization and social disintegration. The solution is to create institutions where classes with different evolutionary strategies can cooperate despite those differences through a process of exchange. Since exchange must be calculable, which in this case means reducible to something so that it can be measured, then we can improve our existing institutions by requiring voluntary exchange between the classes that is reducible to calculative formulae. ie: contracts rather than laws. Data rather than moralistic rationalism. Interest and ownership rather than taxation. It is the process of democratic government as we have constructed it as a winner take all proposition that is the source of both our conflict and social disintegration. And if one is to argue against this strategy, one makes two mistakes. First, that you simply want to win regardless of the wants of others. And as such you expose yourself as impolitic and using the government as a proxy for theft fraud and violence. Second, that the miracle of the west has been its ability to produce of a balace of powers that requires competition and exchange in favor of the masses. And universalism, which the left seeks to embrace, is just the most recent version of the error of simplicity that all other civilizations have fallen into, and has resulted in their impoverishment and suffering. Besides being a vanity, it is a demonstration of a false consensus bias, and ignores the value that comes from competition, and the problems that arise with bureaucracy. The rest of my arguments, which expose and articulate our different strategies, are irrelevant once we create a set of institutions that makes that our differences in strategies something that is to our advantage. We do not need to engage in perpetuating and exacerbating the problem of politics by attempting to get a democratic majority to agree on universal goals. Something which is imposible because of those differences in biological strategies. We need only advocate institutions that allow each group to achieve its goals. Markets are useful in that they produce aggregate beneficial ends for all parties despite differences in preferences, knowledge and ability. And by creating a market for class cooperation we can produce beneficial ends for the aggregate by serving each other rather than destroying each other.

  • On The Complexity Of Philosophical Arguments, And The Problem Of Conservative And Progressive Discourse.

    [W]estern ethical philosophy consists largely in the analysis of norms for the purpose of conducting a criticism of norms, and hypothesizing the construction of new norms. Political philosophy requires an ethical basis, and therefore depends upon ethical philosophy. Political economy in turn depends upon the implementation of institutions within a political system. Therefore ethics have a universal impact on the economy. All things being equal — which they never are — the only measure of any philosophy is the economic status of its adherents. The process of philosophical argument consists not only in articulating the hypothesis itself — most usually by the reordering of categories in order to establish new categories — but in disproving or diminishing the entire field of alternatives. This process of enumeration, or permutation is taxing. Which is why philosophical arguments are long. For a norm to exist, we must be able to sense it. The problem with economic content, is that it exists independently of our senses. Without abstract tools (data and numbers) we cannot perceive its existence any better than we can that of the extra-newtonian universe. Language consists of a graph of interdependent concepts, all of which are reducible to analogies to sensations. So political economy, which is the study of institutions that govern our norms, whether they are formal rules such as laws or informal habits such as manners ethics and morals, is the reordering of categories whose content we cannot perceive using a language that is contradictory to the subject. Conservative political language is allegorical, social, economic and inter-temporal for this reason. Liberal argument consists almost entirely of fixed categories that are the product of human perception, and limited in scope to that perception. This is why economics is hard to talk about in a language other than the movement of curves on graphs rather than expressions of human actions, and why feelings governed by empathic responses and immediate perception are not difficult to express. It is also why liberals cannot understand the language of conservatives, but conservatives can understand the language of liberals: because liberalism is simplistic evolutionary strategy unconcerned with scarcity and conservatism is a complex evolutionary strategy eminently concerned with scarcity. Conservatism is more complex than liberalism in the number of instinctual concepts it attempts to integrate, the time frame it attempts to solve for, and the purpose of the conservatives sentiments is to produce a superior tribe at the lowest cost in resources, and therefore conservatism requires scientific experimentation and observation, while liberalism requires only simplistic emotions, temporal reasoning, consumption, and the propagation of as many offspring as possible. ie: nesting and little more. And in because of this difference, we are unable to conduct political discourse in a rational fashion. [L]ibertarianism has sought to solve this problem: to expose and articulate conservative principles in rational terms using economic principles and language. This is why libertarianism is limited, as was marxism’s dialectical materialism, to a minority of the population: complexity — that is, unless it is expressed as its first principles: the interdependent ethics of property rights and voluntary transfers. With those two first principles, the conservative evolutionary strategy can be produced without complex articulation of imperceptible concepts. Libertarians have attempted to create the simplicity of religion for the purpose of mass propagation of a highly complex evoluitinoay strategy by articulating the first principles: the minimum precepts necessary from which that complexity to emerge. Voluntarism and property are simply an articulation of the golden rule: do not unto others as you would not have them do unto you, with specific articulation of the concept of property now that we live in an era where property not relations is our primary source of economic security, as well as our only means of economic production. I have made the argument that these two different political preferences correspond to the different reproductive strategies of males and females: all choices must have a source, and even if choice were random a source can be deduced from similarities in choices. Philosophy does not consist of simple statements. It never has. Whether it be the dialogs of socrates captured by plato, or the convoluted attempts to integrate rationalism in to christianity by Augustine, or the abstract justifications of Kant and Heidegger, or the obtuse madness of Marx, or the historical analysis of Hayek. It consists of counter-intuitive arguments precisely because the value of philosophy is in articulating what is counter intuitive to our perceptions. There is nothing simple or direct about it. It is religion and sensation that lay claim to simplicity, and that is why they are both more successful and widely adopted than is rational philosophy. That is why the world relies upon norms and religion rather than reason, philosophy and empirical data: because it’s cost effective for individuals to do so, and moralistic pedagogy that makes use of analogies to experience and mythology will forever be more successful a social system than rationalism and empiricism which is forbidden by biology to the masses. Because we are vastly unequal in our abilities. And only norms which are widely held, and enforced through conformity, can compensate for the difference in those abilities.

  • On The Complexity Of Philosophical Arguments, And The Problem Of Conservative And Progressive Discourse.

    [W]estern ethical philosophy consists largely in the analysis of norms for the purpose of conducting a criticism of norms, and hypothesizing the construction of new norms. Political philosophy requires an ethical basis, and therefore depends upon ethical philosophy. Political economy in turn depends upon the implementation of institutions within a political system. Therefore ethics have a universal impact on the economy. All things being equal — which they never are — the only measure of any philosophy is the economic status of its adherents. The process of philosophical argument consists not only in articulating the hypothesis itself — most usually by the reordering of categories in order to establish new categories — but in disproving or diminishing the entire field of alternatives. This process of enumeration, or permutation is taxing. Which is why philosophical arguments are long. For a norm to exist, we must be able to sense it. The problem with economic content, is that it exists independently of our senses. Without abstract tools (data and numbers) we cannot perceive its existence any better than we can that of the extra-newtonian universe. Language consists of a graph of interdependent concepts, all of which are reducible to analogies to sensations. So political economy, which is the study of institutions that govern our norms, whether they are formal rules such as laws or informal habits such as manners ethics and morals, is the reordering of categories whose content we cannot perceive using a language that is contradictory to the subject. Conservative political language is allegorical, social, economic and inter-temporal for this reason. Liberal argument consists almost entirely of fixed categories that are the product of human perception, and limited in scope to that perception. This is why economics is hard to talk about in a language other than the movement of curves on graphs rather than expressions of human actions, and why feelings governed by empathic responses and immediate perception are not difficult to express. It is also why liberals cannot understand the language of conservatives, but conservatives can understand the language of liberals: because liberalism is simplistic evolutionary strategy unconcerned with scarcity and conservatism is a complex evolutionary strategy eminently concerned with scarcity. Conservatism is more complex than liberalism in the number of instinctual concepts it attempts to integrate, the time frame it attempts to solve for, and the purpose of the conservatives sentiments is to produce a superior tribe at the lowest cost in resources, and therefore conservatism requires scientific experimentation and observation, while liberalism requires only simplistic emotions, temporal reasoning, consumption, and the propagation of as many offspring as possible. ie: nesting and little more. And in because of this difference, we are unable to conduct political discourse in a rational fashion. [L]ibertarianism has sought to solve this problem: to expose and articulate conservative principles in rational terms using economic principles and language. This is why libertarianism is limited, as was marxism’s dialectical materialism, to a minority of the population: complexity — that is, unless it is expressed as its first principles: the interdependent ethics of property rights and voluntary transfers. With those two first principles, the conservative evolutionary strategy can be produced without complex articulation of imperceptible concepts. Libertarians have attempted to create the simplicity of religion for the purpose of mass propagation of a highly complex evoluitinoay strategy by articulating the first principles: the minimum precepts necessary from which that complexity to emerge. Voluntarism and property are simply an articulation of the golden rule: do not unto others as you would not have them do unto you, with specific articulation of the concept of property now that we live in an era where property not relations is our primary source of economic security, as well as our only means of economic production. I have made the argument that these two different political preferences correspond to the different reproductive strategies of males and females: all choices must have a source, and even if choice were random a source can be deduced from similarities in choices. Philosophy does not consist of simple statements. It never has. Whether it be the dialogs of socrates captured by plato, or the convoluted attempts to integrate rationalism in to christianity by Augustine, or the abstract justifications of Kant and Heidegger, or the obtuse madness of Marx, or the historical analysis of Hayek. It consists of counter-intuitive arguments precisely because the value of philosophy is in articulating what is counter intuitive to our perceptions. There is nothing simple or direct about it. It is religion and sensation that lay claim to simplicity, and that is why they are both more successful and widely adopted than is rational philosophy. That is why the world relies upon norms and religion rather than reason, philosophy and empirical data: because it’s cost effective for individuals to do so, and moralistic pedagogy that makes use of analogies to experience and mythology will forever be more successful a social system than rationalism and empiricism which is forbidden by biology to the masses. Because we are vastly unequal in our abilities. And only norms which are widely held, and enforced through conformity, can compensate for the difference in those abilities.

  • The Real Reasons There Aren’t Many High-Earning Female CEO’s And Business Owners

    Peak Oil is nowhere near as troublesome as the different points of Peak Female and Male participation in the workforce. Unemployed women can participate in child rearing. Unemployed men create civil disruptions. via The Real Reasons There Aren’t Many High-Earning Female Business Owners; A New Study from American Express OPEN Explains | Business | TIME.com.

    A new study released this week shows that more women-owned businesses are generating upwards of $1 million in yearly revenue. But while this seems like something to cheer, it obscures the real truth behind women’s progress as firm owners. First of all, the basics. The study, published by American Express OPEN, shows that more women business owners are raking in the seven-digit revenues, according to a Wall Street Journal report. The bad news? These high-earners account for just 1.8% of all female business owners. Even worse, that percentage is identical to what it was in 1997.

    The article then goes on to list the stereotypical reasons: a) Women tend to have multiple priorities in life, while men tend to be myopic. b) Women are less likely to risk capital (take out loans) than their male counterparts. c) Women are more risk averse than men. Or perhaps, men are more risk tolerant than women. To which I’d add two points: THE ECONOMY OF RISK The first is a clarification. What women see as bias men see as efficiency. Men look for a ‘hunting pack’ to belong to constantly, and join more easily, and absorb risk on behalf of the pack more readily. In exchange for risk tolerance, males invest in other males. Over a lifetime of experience, a man learns that women are a higher cost and higher risk partner than men. This risk tolerance shows up in interesting ways: men will take risks on less information especially if they see negligible losses. Failure (especially in the USA) among men is the result of attempting to be heroic and it sends positive status signals to other men and women to have taken risks. Women do not tend to share this self perception even when they appreciate it in men. THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM Secondly, at the risk of being offensive on a terribly sensitive topic, there is one unpleasant elephant in the room: CEO’s of large companies tend to have IQ’s of 130 or higher. And men vary in IQ more widely than women (there are more males below 85 and above 115 than women). At 125 there are two men for every woman. This imbalance continues to a five-to-one, and eventually to as much as a thirty-to-one difference. If we also account for time spent in the work place, it should be statistically unlikely that the number of female CEO’s will increase substantially. At least numerically, it appears that we are already at or near the maximum, and that explains why the curves have flattened. This argument and the supporting data has been out there for quite a while now and simply presents an uncomfortable truth. At the extremes (and ceo’s are outliers) males dominate numerically not only by preference for risk, but by ability. There are just many more males in the upper and lower IQ ranges. Like professional sports, when we are talking CEO’s we are de-facto talking about outliers. This exceptionalism at the margins canot be applied to ‘average’ people. And if they are compared, women possess clear advantages in short term memory and ease of adaption to existing social groups. Men possess clear advantages in dealing with quantitative analysis, risk and abstractions. Female superiority in short term memory is not an advantage in the most demanding roles, but it is a distinct advantage in most roles. Empathy assists in obtaining understanding and compromise, but running large companies is a matter of ‘sensing’ the world through empirical data rather than through empathy. The majority of jobs in the white collar world favors women’s abilities more than mens. And this can be seen in the data. However, this fact has no impact on the small business market in which success is more a matter of relationship building and sales. Women have taken over any number of industries and specializations. The most obvious are medicine: veterinary and general practitioners. Two occupations that were almost exclusively male. But more importantly, women continue to displace men in the middle. And jobs that have been a male specialty because of physical strength continue to disappear. Beginning with farming in the 1850’s, then manufacturing, then construction. All the muscle-work is being replaced by machines. This is creating an unemployment problem for ‘lower end’ men — who usually become a problem for society. So to some degree we have displaced men permanently. And while we may have women feeling unfulfilled to some degree, we have legions of men who are increasingly likely to simply check out of society, and in some cases return to violence and drugs — or the modern equivalent: video games and sports, while remaining permanently underemployed. Otherwise the article is honest and correct. Which is rare for an article on this topic. CONCLUSION? What does this mean? Well, it means that there is a ‘peak’ to women’s participation at the extremes, and a peak to men’s participation in the middle. It looks like both genders have peaked. This doesn’t mean women should stop trying to achieve increases. It means that there is no ‘male conspiracy’ to keep women down. And as a member of the anti-misandry movement, I would prefer that we dealt with the truth rather than ideological fancy that demonizes men as a means of obscuring material differences in ability at the extremes, while ignoring differences in the middle — where most men and women actually exist.

  • William Tell: An Example Of The Virtue Of Violence

    William Tell, came from the town of Bürglen, and was known as a strong man and an expert shot with the crossbow. In his time, the Habsburg emperors of Austria were seeking control of Uri. Albrecht Gessler, the newly appointed Austrian Vogt of Altdorf, raised a pole in the village’s central square, hung his hat on top of it, and demanded that all the townsfolk bow before the hat. On 18 November 1307, Tell visited Altdorf with his young son and passed by the hat, publicly refusing to bow to it, and so was arrested. Gessler — intrigued by Tell’s famed marksmanship, yet resentful of his defiance — devised a cruel punishment: Tell and his son would be executed, but he could redeem his life by shooting an apple off the head of his son, Walter. Tell shot, and in a single attempt, he split the apple with a bolt from his crossbow. But Gessler noticed that Tell had removed two crossbow bolts from his quiver, not one. Before releasing Tell, he asked why. Tell replied that if he had killed his son, he would have used the second bolt on Gessler himself. Gessler was angered, and had Tell bound. He was brought to Gessler’s ship to be taken to his castle at Küssnacht to spend his newly won life in a dungeon. But, as a storm broke on Lake Lucerne, the soldiers were afraid that their boat would founder, and unbound Tell to steer with all his famed strength. Tell made use of the opportunity to escape, leaping from the boat at the rocky site now known as the Tellsplatte (“Tell’s slab”). Tell then ran cross-country to Küssnacht, and as Gessler arrived, Tell assassinated him with the second crossbow bolt along a stretch of the road cut through the rock between Immensee and Küssnacht, now known as the Hohle Gasse. Tell’s blow for liberty sparked a rebellion, in which he played a leading part. That fed the impetus for the nascent Swiss Confederation. He fought again against Austria in the 1315 Battle of Morgarten.

  • William Tell: An Example Of The Virtue Of Violence

    William Tell, came from the town of Bürglen, and was known as a strong man and an expert shot with the crossbow. In his time, the Habsburg emperors of Austria were seeking control of Uri. Albrecht Gessler, the newly appointed Austrian Vogt of Altdorf, raised a pole in the village’s central square, hung his hat on top of it, and demanded that all the townsfolk bow before the hat. On 18 November 1307, Tell visited Altdorf with his young son and passed by the hat, publicly refusing to bow to it, and so was arrested. Gessler — intrigued by Tell’s famed marksmanship, yet resentful of his defiance — devised a cruel punishment: Tell and his son would be executed, but he could redeem his life by shooting an apple off the head of his son, Walter. Tell shot, and in a single attempt, he split the apple with a bolt from his crossbow. But Gessler noticed that Tell had removed two crossbow bolts from his quiver, not one. Before releasing Tell, he asked why. Tell replied that if he had killed his son, he would have used the second bolt on Gessler himself. Gessler was angered, and had Tell bound. He was brought to Gessler’s ship to be taken to his castle at Küssnacht to spend his newly won life in a dungeon. But, as a storm broke on Lake Lucerne, the soldiers were afraid that their boat would founder, and unbound Tell to steer with all his famed strength. Tell made use of the opportunity to escape, leaping from the boat at the rocky site now known as the Tellsplatte (“Tell’s slab”). Tell then ran cross-country to Küssnacht, and as Gessler arrived, Tell assassinated him with the second crossbow bolt along a stretch of the road cut through the rock between Immensee and Küssnacht, now known as the Hohle Gasse. Tell’s blow for liberty sparked a rebellion, in which he played a leading part. That fed the impetus for the nascent Swiss Confederation. He fought again against Austria in the 1315 Battle of Morgarten.

  • WILLIAM TELL An Example Of The Virtue Of Violence William Tell, came from the to

    WILLIAM TELL

    An Example Of The Virtue Of Violence

    William Tell, came from the town of Bürglen, and was known as a strong man and an expert shot with the crossbow. In his time, the Habsburg emperors of Austria were seeking control of Uri.

    Albrecht (or Hermann) Gessler, the newly appointed Austrian Vogt of Altdorf, raised a pole in the village’s central square, hung his hat on top of it, and demanded that all the townsfolk bow before the hat.

    On 18 November 1307, Tell visited Altdorf with his young son and passed by the hat, publicly refusing to bow to it, and so was arrested.

    Gessler — intrigued by Tell’s famed marksmanship, yet resentful of his defiance — devised a cruel punishment: Tell and his son would be executed, but he could redeem his life by shooting an apple off the head of his son, Walter. And, in a single attempt. Tell split the apple with a bolt from his crossbow.

    But Gessler noticed that Tell had removed two crossbow bolts from his quiver, not one. Before releasing Tell, he asked why. Tell replied that if he had killed his son, he would have used the second bolt on Gessler himself. Gessler was angered, and had Tell bound. He was brought to Gessler’s ship to be taken to his castle at Küssnacht to spend his newly won life in a dungeon. But, as a storm broke on Lake Lucerne, the soldiers were afraid that their boat would founder, and unbound Tell to steer with all his famed strength. Tell made use of the opportunity to escape, leaping from the boat at the rocky site now known as the Tellsplatte (“Tell’s slab”).

    Tell ran cross-country to Küssnacht, and as Gessler arrived, Tell assassinated him with the second crossbow bolt along a stretch of the road cut through the rock between Immensee and Küssnacht, now known as the Hohle Gasse.

    Tell’s blow for liberty sparked a rebellion, in which he played a leading part. That fed the impetus for the nascent Swiss Confederation. He fought again against Austria in the 1315 Battle of Morgarten.


    Source date (UTC): 2012-03-12 01:52:00 UTC