To the extent the Constitution comports with the natural law—upholding the sanctity of life, liberty, privacy, property and due process—it is good; to the extent it doesn’t, it is bad. The manner in which the courts have interpreted the U.S. Constitution makes the Articles of Confederation, which were usurped in favor of the Constitution at the Philadelphia convention, a much better founding document than the Constitution.

THE SIN OF ABSTRACTION

Unless remarkably sophisticated and brilliant (as only Hans-Hermann Hoppe indubitably is), the libertarian anarchist invariably falls into sloth. Forever suspended between what is and what ought to be, he settles on a non-committal, idle incoherence, spitting venom like a cobra at those of us who do the work he won’t or cannot do: address reality as it is. This specimen has little to say about policy and politics for fear of compromising his theoretical virginity.

Suspended as he is in the arid arena of pure thought, the garden-variety libertarian anarchist will settle for nothing other than the anarchist ideal. And since utopia will never be upon us, he opts to live in perpetual sin: the sin of abstraction.

Indeed, arguing from anarchism is problematic. It is difficult to wrestle with reality from this perspective. This is not to say that a government-free universe is undesirable. To the contrary. However, the sensible libertarian is obliged to anchor his reasoning in reality and in “the nit and the grit of the history and culture from which it emerged,” in the words of columnist Jack Kerwick.

This mindset maligned here is not only lazy but—dare I say?—un-Rothbaridan. For economist and political philosopher Murray Rothbard did not sit on the fence reveling in his immaculate libertarian purity; he dove right into “the nit and the grit of the issues.” And the “nit and grit” for this not-quite anarchist concerns the problems presented by the private production of justice.

COMPETING THEORIES OF JUSTICE

A belief in the immutably just nature of the natural law must elicit questions about the wisdom of the private production of defense, especially in the case of violent crime, as this could, in turn, give rise to legitimate law-enforcement agencies that uphold laws for communities in which natural justice has been perverted (in favor of Sharia law, for example).

It’s inevitable: In an anarcho-capitalistic universe, fundamentally different and competing views of justice (right and wrong) will arise. And while competing, private protection agencies are both welcome and desirable; an understanding of justice, predicated as it is on the natural law, does not allow for competing views of justice, certainly not in the case of violent crime.

How, then, does one reconcile this inevitable outcome with the natural law and the emphasis on the search for truth as the ultimate goal of justice?

To let the victim forfeit—or choose his own form of—redress for certain misdemeanors is fine. Many legal solutions are a result of mediation and other perfectly private solutions to non-violent offenses. To leave punishment for murder, rape and other violent crime to the vicissitudes of the victim or his proxies is, however, unacceptable. The likelihood that in a stateless state-of-affairs, a victim or her proxies will choose to let a violent offender go free in favor of financial restitution cannot be ignored or tolerated.

It matters not that such an eventuality may be rare, or that similar injustices occurs under the state. These should never happen. Not under the state. Not under anarchy.

Furthermore, does the voluntary forfeiture of just retribution not imply, in the case of murder, that the right to life is a right the victim’s surrogates may choose to alienate or relinquish at will? How else does one construe this position? The danger of reducing justice, in cases of violent crime like homicide, to a negotiated deal amounts to moral relativism and is a recipe for nihilism.

Anarchists also ignore that a violent offender presents a clear and present danger to others, and that his fate, at least in a civilized society, is the prerogative not only of the victim. Libertarian anarchists will correctly counter that, under a minimal state and certainly under the state today, criminals could—and do every day—get away with murder. This is because the justice system is horribly flawed. This fact is insufficient a reason to support a state of affairs where, as a matter of principle, proportional, moral retribution will not necessarily be the goal of justice.

The kind of justice sought in anarchy would depend on the victim, not so? It is unlikely that she will support unconditional love—euphemized these days as restorative justice—as an antidote to rape. But if she’s of the Left, it’s quite possible.

Conversely, under a system in which competing theories of justice prevail, personalized “justice” may well take the form of vendetta. For example, and as one anarchist retorted: “If a woman is raped, she could demand proportional restitution (e.g., whatever fines imposed on the criminal necessary for the emotional harm caused her, including castration and the unexpected forced rape of the criminal). The criminal would simply be enslaved to the victim (or her punishment agency, more likely, if she didn’t want to deal with him), until repayment had been met. The court could decide, for example, that for restitution, the rapist is to pay the victim $1 million and be violently raped himself.”

What if the offender dies due to castration or forced rape? Is that proportional justice? What was suggested above is barbaric vigilantism. Under anarchism, the proposal above could be adopted as a matter of principle rather than as an aberration to be rectified. Civilized, moral retribution should aim to avoid such barbarism.

JUSTICE FOR ALL VS. CLIENT-CENTERED JUSTICE

As was observed, victims could demand disproportionate punishment and the enforcement agency would comply. Not all victims, moreover, will be covered by private protection agencies. Who ensures that justice is meted in cases where individuals cannot afford or opt not to contract with a private protection firm? There is little if no incentive for such an agency to pursue a dangerous offender who has not harmed their client. Do we, then, rely on good Samaritans to take up arms and hunt down the offender? Or do we as a society, through the common law, make a public declaration of the few abiding values we wish to uphold?

To the extent possible, there must be a commitment, however imperfect, to justice for all and not only for those who’ve contracted with a private protection agency.

So while the current criminal justice system is often egregious in its approach to victims, the libertarian’s characterization of the private production of defense as “victim-centered” is misleading. It is client-centered.

Again, that we suffer depredations under the state is insufficient an argument for making this state-of-affairs a viable, “principled” option, which would likely be the case under anarchy.

Finally, libertarian anarchists often make their case with wacky references to anarchism in small homogeneous societies—Medieval Viking Age Iceland—or even less convincingly, among the murderous tribes of Africa. For some loopy reason, they prefer this no-man’s la-la land to the followers of John Locke. I don’t conceal my preference for Western tradition, nor the positive view I hold of the accretive genius of the common law.

Ultimately, it is better to distinguish good from bad arguments than to separate anarchist from minarchist positions. The goal of libertarian justice should therefore be to advance just, rights-based positions.

©ILANA Mercer
WND, Junge Freiheit, Quarterly Review, Praag.org ,
The Libertarian Alliance, The Unz Review & The Lions of Liberty Broadcast
April 10, 2015

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 David Frum hasn’t got a ‘De Profundis” (Oscar Wilde’s really profound essay) in him ~ilana

William Rusher of the Claremont Institute is right. There is an ideological war between Bush’s social democrats, known as neoconservatives, and those of us who stand on the Old Right, namely paleoconservatives and paleolibertarians.

Rusher, however, is not about to tell his readers what it is about the set of policies neoconservatives support that makes them global social democrats or rank leftists. It’s probably more accurate to speak both of modern-day liberals and neoconservatives as proponents of a highly centralized—and hence dictatorial—managerial form of government, except that the neoconservatives are proving to be far more dangerous to life, liberty, and livelihoods.

Nor is Rusher writing to sound the alarm, as paleos are, about an administration that is using war and manufacturing crisis to grow government to unprecedented levels, unseen since Lyndon Johnson. The neoconservatives’ aggrandizing zeal to make the world safe for democracy is making, to paraphrase Felix Morley in Freedom and Federalism, a constitutional government unsafe in the U.S.

Not a sound from Rusher about these paleo observations, nor a reminder that neoconservatives are more the sons and daughters of and FDR than of Ronald Reagan.

What Rusher does inform his readers of is that his buddy, neoconservative David Frum, has written an essay entitled “Unpatriotic Conservatives,” and that the thing constitutes a profound condemnation of paleoconservatives. So profound is Frum’s indictment that Rusher can’t quite bring himself to summarize it.

I’ll do the honors.

Having read it, I can say that Frum hasn’t got a “De Profundis” (Oscar Wilde’s really profound essay) in him. He’s way too shallow.

In the praised essay, Frum remains faithful to the gossipy style of his tittle-tattle tome, and produces a series of vignettes designed to “prove” that paleoconservatives, whom he slothfully lumps with paleolibertarians, developed an ideology in order to compensate for alleged career failure.

Contrary to Frum and Rusher’s ad libs, Murray N. Rothbard traced the American Old Right’s inception to a reaction against the New Deal and its crushing of the old republic’s classical-liberal foundations. Members of the original Right wanted to abolish the Welfare State ushered in by the New Deal and return to the traditional American foreign policy. Anyone remember George Washington’s wisdom about aiming at extensive commercial but no political foreign entanglements?

Rusher and Frum share the same debating habits. They both bog down in gossip and name dropping to build a political pedigree, mentioning the many retreaded communists that make up their neoconservative movement. It’s thus hard to see how Frum warrants such superlatives if he never deals with the substance of paleo ideas.

Once he gets past Frum’s tall tales about allegedly belligerent paleo personalities and their putative professional failures, the reader might just have wanted to know that paleolibertarians care first about the effects of the state on civil society.

Everything flows from the passion for “the Old Republic of property rights, freedom of association, and radical political decentralization,” as Lew Rockwell writes. The main point of contention between paleos and neocons is thus the role arrogated to the state. Yet the main “profundity” Rusher and Frum are able to parrot is to charge paleos with racism.

The paleolibertarian beef, of course, is with the coercive distribution by the state of wealth from those who create it to those who consume it. Even Frum must be cognizant of discernible trends in wealth creation and wealth consumption. Ditto where crime is concerned: Certain populations are more likely to be perpetrators, others more likely to be victims. To the extent that it is a relevant variable in crime and welfare, paleos comment honestly about demographics. This may not be politically correct, but it’s hardly racist. If so “profound,” why does Frum’s silly screed not factor in the state, considering it’s such a crucial construct here?

Clearly, it isn’t flattering to have to admit that the force of the Frum faction comes from its endorsement of the state, while the tenacity of the paleolibertarian team comes from its enduring commitment to natural rights, to justice, and to society, not to the state. Frum and Rusher’s attempt to cast these paleo ideas as new and discontinuous is clearly ignorant of the history of the ideas.

Don’t wait, then, for neocons to tell you that, had they been catapulted by a time machine into the U.S. of the 21st century, the Founding Fathers would be called libertarians and would be firmly ensconced on the Old Right, in the paleo camp.

The founders, moreover, would be leading an armed revolution against this dictatorial anti-republican centralization of power promoted by both parties, but especially escalated under Bush’s neoconservatives.

©By ILANA MERCER
LewRockwell.com (& WorldNetDaily.com)
March 26, 2003

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A recent internal memo obtained from the Canadian Ministry of Finance under the Access to Information Act revealed that the Ministry may be about to advise the Governor of the Bank of Canada against a further interest rate hike. The economy, claimed one of the minister’s deputies, has ample room to grow before inflation becomes a concern, the subtext, of course, being that a hike would be “politically unpopular.” The only newsworthy item, of course, was the surprise expressed by the reporter that government should consider interfering with monetary policy.

Less in the realm of subterfuge is the news that there are two new candidates under consideration for position of head honcho at the Bank of Canada. The ostensible lack of public interest in the candidates prompted one financial op-ed commentator to liken the toss-up to one between two types of tofu. I’ll add a qualification: However you slice it, and whichever of two slivers of slimy tofu your palate can tolerate, the mere endorsement of a Central Bank must give pause. Think of it: whether it is raising or lowering interest rates, this pecuniary plutocracy is directing the lifeblood of the economy. Has central planning not proven deadly to economies? Why then is this any less true of the reign over the money of Federal Reserve Bank chairman Alan Greenspan or his Canadian counterparts who trail with their own raft of abuses, not least the manipulation of growth rates and unemployment rates.

With its origins in the Bank of England of the 1690s, central, cartelized banking is now commonplace. The blatant printing of money, one object of which is to finance government deficits, however, has since been refined into “fractional reserve banking.” Fractional-reserve banking, explain economists John P. Cochran, Steven T. Call, and Fred R. Glahe, is a credit creation process, which involves the banks in granting credit through issuing “notes and bank balances that are not covered by money.” Economist Murray Rothbard vividly illustrates the process: The Federal Reserve Bank permits the commercial banks to pyramid checkbook money on top of their own reserves by a multiple of approximately 6:1, so that if bank reserves at the Fed increase by $1 billion, the banks can and do pyramid their deposits by $6 billion.

If the Fed wants to expand the money supply, it no longer blatantly prints money, it will simply increase the reserves it gives to banks say by $1 billion, and leave it up to the banks to max their respective lending to the tune of $6 billion of checkbook money. Whether through serving as a reserve for essentially fraudulent banks, or purchasing assets, usually government securities, on the free market, the Fed is involved in increasing the money supply. As economists Hans H. Hoppe, Jorg G. Hulsmann and Walter Block point out, this money substitute, created out of thin air, represents no more than an additional supply of property titles, while the supply of property remains constant. The ‘money’ very plainly does not exist, making the issuance of such paper notes–called fiduciary media–tantamount to fraud.

Amidst pronouncements of plenty, crucial to understand is that, unlike other goods, the excess of which benefit consumers, excess money originating in this government-directed counterfeit creates inflation and diminishes purchasing power. Having cautioned that “paper money cannot replace production,” Economist Frank Shostak confirmed that the yearly rate of Fed-directed growth of the money base has been climbing consistently since 1996, this “large increase in the money supply” being the essence of inflation.

In an unhampered market, the natural rate of interest would properly reflect the net choices of all lenders and borrowers to consume or postpone consumption. The expansion of credit by the Central and commercial banks distorts this rate, causing interest rates to fall below the natural rate, hence an artificial stimulation of economic activity. To reduce fake growth, the Fed must raise interest rates and tightens credit. But by this time, misdirected investment has already occurred.

Incidentally, the policies of the two Canadian candidates are fissured along the same lines that distinguish Alan Greenspan from his opponents. Greenspan, more of an “inflation dove”, believes that 4 percent unemployment is compatible with stable inflation. ‘Hard-line’ Fed governor Laurence Meyer insists growth must further be slowed to combat inflation at the risk of a rise in unemployment.

My bet hedges on the anti-interest-hike, inflation-tolerant advocate. As the late indefatigable scholar of central banking, Murray Rothbard, observed, the first to get the new money are the counterfeiters themselves. By the time it has percolated down to the economically marginal, monetary inflation has reduced its value. Some coincidence it is then that those who perch atop the cartel’s pecking order, like Alan Greespan and the Canadian fecund fellows, are also “inflation doves”.

©2000 By Ilana Mercer
The Calgary Herald
August 31

*Image courtesy Getty

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