“Mic-Check”: Verbal Terrorism and Pushback at UNM

Last Thursday evening when my class on Case Study ended, I stuffed my papers in my notebook and hurried across campus to hear Nonie Darwish speak. I expected a good, tightly focused talk by a woman who has experienced the oppression of Sharia Law firsthand. I did wondered briefly as I approached the Anthropology Building from the rear and cut through the side-hallway where the labs are, whether anyone would attempt to block me getting in, but the night was quiet as a brand new moon dropped in the west.

Nonie Darwish is the daughter of Egyptian General, born during the Revolution of 1952, and is now an American by virtue of her passionate love for liberty. She has spoken at many universities, as well as before the United States Congress, the European Union Parliament, and the British House of Lords.

She was brought to the University of New Mexico by two campus groups, the UNM Israel Alliance and the UNM Conservative Republicans, with funding from the David Horowitz Freedom Center, and sponsorships from organizations affiliated with local synagogues and churches. Her talk was entitled Why the Arab Spring is Failing and How Israel is Involved.

I walked past a dessert table set up by the Israel Alliance, and took a bottle of water on the way in. I was just in time for the talk, so I did not linger. As I went by the table I noticed a young man standing holding a sign that read: “Stop Israel Apartheid.” I swept past him and sat down next to fellow members of Congregation Albert with whom I share almost no political views except support of Israel. We greeted one another with Shalom’s and Howdy Do’s and settled in as Nonie was introduced.

Nonie came on stage, a small, round woman dressed in slacks and a simple red top, full of energy and passion. From the moment she launched into it, her talk was not disappointing. Her thesis was that no Muslim country can expect anything from revolution other than more tyranny because of the structure of Sharia Law, which dictates all aspects of life for Muslims, including the structure and practices of the Islamic state. Throughout her talk, she reiterated that her hatred was not for Muslim people as individuals, but rather for the Sharia Law that keeps them enslaved to a brutal system, one that openly preaches violence against women and non-Muslims.

At the point where Nonie began speaking about the duties and responsibilities of a Muslim dictator under Sharia, there erupted from the back of the room a chant: “Mic Check!” a small group yelled, “Israel is an apartheid state!” I stood up to get a better idea of who was doing what, and I had a terrible sinking feeling that we, the people who had come to hear Nonie Darwish speak, would see her silenced. This initiation of force against those they wish to silence is a favorite tactic of the left. The call for “mic check!” became a favorite method of the Occupy Wall Street “movement”, who have such a sense of entitlement that they act on the belief that only they have freedom of speech because only they have something to say.

So as the disruptors continued their chant, I began chanting: “USA! USA!” I had learned this tactic to counter disruptions when I was trained to monitor Tea Party rallies. But New Mexicans are so generally laid back that we never had occasion to use our training at the Tea Parties. Other audience members had the same idea, and it seemed like many of us started chanting back at the same time, turning to face the disruptive element at the back of the room.

As we stood there chanting, I looked around for security or the UNM police, but neither were anywhere in evidence. (Apparently no one thought it was needed, because those with opposite views in the past had politely tolerated each other’s events). Instead several older men approached the disruptors in a businesslike fashion, and it looked like they were going to force them from the room. One man tried to grab the script from the hands of the leader, but failed. Another seemed to trip over feet or a chair and landed on some of the disruptors. I saw one female disruptor shout “No violence! No violence!”, as these men forced them whole lot of them out of the room. I remember thinking to myself: Sweetie, you asked for it when you used violence against Nonie’s freedom of speech and our right to hear the talk we came to hear.” She looked like one of the (un)Occupy Wall Street chics I had seen last fall, the one who thought it was not okay to occupy except when she was the one doing the occupying.

As soon as the little barbarians were out of the room, people settled down, and Nonie commented: You must feel sorry for them. They cannot stand to have their prejudices confounded by the truth. They hate anyone who disagrees with them, and call them vile names, but they call me the hate monger.” She then continued her speech.

There was one other disruption that came when the President of the Faculty Senate got up and first accused Nonie of hate speech, citing a You Tube video of her speech at a rally honoring an honor killing victim. As Nonie responded that the video had been edited, the dimwit professor went on to interrupt her, and then began to make a speech. The audience was once again on edge, and angry at this professor who had apparently forgotten that the floor was his only to ask a question. There was some booing, but he went on in his ignorant arrogance, until I called out: “What’s you question, sir?” Then another audience member took the microphone from him, and handed it to the next questioner in line.

From that point on, there were no further disruptions, although many questioners disputed Nonie’s talk, and one called her a “bigot.”

Later I learned that the disruptive element came from a campus group, Students for Justice in Palestine, and the (un)Occupy Albuquerque movement. (That familiar looking chic was exactly who I thought she was). Both groups have a very privileged view of rights, believing that they have them because they are right about everything, and nobody else has rights. Therefore, they believe that they have a right to occupy a lecture sponsored and paid for by someone else, and try to shut the speaker down. Of course, the Heckler’s Veto*, as it is popularly called is the initiation of force against the speaker and those who came to hear her. It is violation of the rights of everyone else in the room. As a UC Irvine law professor states:

“You have the right – if you disagree with me – to go outside and perform your protest. But you don’t get the right to come in when I’m talking and shout me down. Otherwise people can always silence a speaker by heckler’s veto, and Babel results.”

Babel did result, but only until the entitled barbarians were forced from the room. No one was hurt, and the men who removed them used only as much force as was necessary to remove them. That force was invited by the disruptive ones themselves, when they initiated force against the speaker the audience came to hear.

This incident leads me to believe that taxpayer money is being wasted at the University of New Mexico. Students there clearly have no idea what rights mean, and believe that they are entitled to shut down a speaker invited and paid for by a campus group because they happen to disagree with her. Others claimed that: “This is OUR university”, to which the audience rightly replied: “No. It is our university. Our tax money built it and funds it.” I would suggest to the dimwit professor who believes he has the right to turn a question into a speech that perhaps he ought to spend his time learning what his contractual responsibilities are, and what the definition of a public lecture is. The event was not a public forum. But even in a public forum, individuals must follow the rules of decorum, taking the floor only when it is yielded and for the purposes defined by the speaker or moderator.

I will be voting no on every bond issue or other allocation of money to UNM until the New Mexico Legislature gets control of the place, and requires all students and faculty to take courses and demonstrate competence in respect for rights, the understanding the difference between rights and privileges (hint: attending university at public expense is not a right, it is a privilege), and in the manners and mores required at public lectures, forums and other events.

I’d say that these kinds of events definitely turn the Town against the Gown. Taxpayers begin to understand why in days of old, the town used to lock the barbarians inside the gates of the University each night at sundown, letting them out on rare occasions and only when they minded their manners and respected their betters—the ones paying for it all.

Hmmm. Maybe we should build a wall around Redondo Drive. A cast-iron gate decorated with gargoyles would be fitting right in front of Sholes Hall.

But until then, I am glad that pushback has started against these barbarian tactics aimed at quashing speech that certain elitist academics have decided must not be heard. And in the process, they demonstrated quite well the truth that Nonie Darwish came to speak.

*This popular notion of the Heckler’s Veto is different than the legal definition, which is the unconstitutional silencing of speech by the government because of a threat of violence on the part of the speaker’s opposition.

____________

A video of Nonie Darwish’s entire speech at UNM may be found here.

When Conservatives Fail to Defend Individual Rights

"Man's rights may not be left at the unilateral decision, the arbitrary
choice, the irrationality, the whim of another man."
-- Ayn Rand, "The Nature of Government", in

Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal

There is a certain segment of the US population that wants to have its cake and eat it, too.
No, I am not talking about progressives, and no, I am not talking about economics. I am talking about Conservatives, and I am talking about their ceaseless mission to make us all Christian, even if that means limiting our liberty.

I have not been paying much attention to politics lately--just a bit of my time here or there--because we are closing on the ranch we are investing in, and that is of greater value to me than fruitless arguing over which criminals ought to replace the current criminals in Washington City.

However, I am not so tied up with contracts, settlement statements, and amendments that I failed to notice that a California Federal Appeals Court struck down Proposition 8--a California referendum that banned civil marriage for gay and lesbian couples.

Though I had ignored this decision on Facebook and in blogs, it was discussed briefly at the Bernalillo County Libertarian Party social hour the other night, and I saw news items about it as well. Today though, I received two different links on my Facebook Wall, both of which surprised me in their absolute religious certainty and fundamental ignorance of the concept of rights. One, by the fiery Danny Gonzales is so typically over the top, that it practically begged a response. I did not give him one, because it would have been "pearls before swine", to quote the wrong testament.

Much of the commentary by the defense of marriage people focuses on the fact that the California Proposition 8 was approved by a majority of voters.

Yes, a majority of Californians did vote to deprive a certain class of people of their unalienable right to contract. And so what? The operative word here is "vote". A right is not granted by any state, constitution or court. It cannot be voted into place or voted away. A right is inherent in the nature of the individual, and must therefore apply to any individual in any situation. If only certain individuals can exercise a particular action freely, that action becomes a privilege--it is no longer being treated as a right. The American philosophy on rights, derived from the English Enlightenment, was clearly stated by Jefferson at the inception of the United States, the only nation in the world that was established on the foundation of the natural rights of man. In the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson wrote:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Although the United States Constitution does not mention these rights in its body, it was written to create a government that was limited in scope to the protection of them, and the anti-Federalists also insisted upon adding the Bill of Rights, the first ten Amendments, in order to make sure that the federal government did not overstep its bounds and begin to violate the life, liberty and property of individual Americans.

For this reason, the federal government cannot establish any law, procedure or regulation that deprives any individual of his rights for any reason. Like all states that entered the Union after the ratification of the Constitution and as a condition of entry, California had to agree to uphold the Bill of Rights for its citizens, and in fact the California State Constitution has a rather elaborate Declaration of Rights, which is Article I of its Constitution, in which the state promises to uphold the equal protection clause from the 14th Amendment of the United States Constitution. Therefore, no state can establish a law that violates the rights of any individual citizen.

In all states of the Union, the rights of every person must be upheld, and are unalienable. That is they cannot be violated by a majority, and neither can any individual willingly give up those rights. And the Bill of Rights, in Amendments 9 & 10, makes it clear that the rights of the individual are unenummerated, whereas the duties of the government are limited.

These are the reasons that the judgment rendered by the US Court of Appeals with respect to the California Proposition 8 is correct. Californians cannot vote away the rights of any individual to life, liberty and property (which includes the right to contract) as a matter of civil law.

The conservatives will and do argue that gays contracting a marriage is a violation of their religious law. That may very well be, but certain Californians may not impose their religious law upon others, any more than any other American may do so. The Bill of Rights is quite clear that government "shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion nor prohibiting the free exercise thereof." Californians whose religions forbid gay marriages are certainly within their rights to morally condemn it, and their churches cannot be forced to conduct such marriage ceremonies, but neither can they interfere with the contractual rights of others who disagree and wish to establish such a relationship civilly or within another church.

For a state to forbid a certain individuals as a class to a contract that is sanctioned for others is discrimination, and establishes that contract as a privilege for some, and violates the liberty of everyone else. It cannot stand. There are two solutions: that the state sanctions that contract for all, or that the state does not sanction the contract for anyone.

Historically, the interference of the state into marriage began following the emancipation of slaves, and the requirement that couples seek the permission of the state to contract a marriage was established in order to prevent interracial marriages. Prior to that, marriage was the province of religion, and especially in the south, many poor people established common-law marriages without benefit of clergy. Although there were social costs to this kind of arrangement, there were no tax costs or benefits applied to marriage.

Free people should not accept the requirement to ask permission of the state to marry, any more than we should expect the state to interfere in any portion of our lives. Liberty means the ability to live our own lives and pursue our own happiness without interference from anybody, so long as we do not violate the life, liberty or property rights of another person.

As I said above, there are two possible solutions to this problem: that the state treat all contracts of marriage or partnership equally, or that the state stays out of marriage entirely. In order to protect everyone's liberty, I believe that the second proposition is far better. Hand marriage over to the religious congregations or to secular marriage establishments, each of which could establish it's own rules as to who may or may not marry together in that particular establishment. Some religions and/or secular establishments would require membership for a marriage to take place under its auspices, some would not. Some would refuse to marry people based on lifestyle, and others based on sexual orientation. Some would require pre-marital counseling, and others would require compatibility tests. All such establishments would be free to make their own rules; and all individuals who did not like their rules would be free to find or create an establishment that would accept them. Everyone would have an equal right to contract in the eyes of the law.

Conservatives who claim to support liberty, but at the same time insist on depriving others of their liberty for religious reasons are either confused about what liberty is, or they believe that they can have liberty while depriving others of its blessings. In religious terms, holiness cannot be achieved by force; an individual must choose it or it is meaningless.

It is time to recognize that the United States is not a Christian nation, that there is a difference between the fact that Christianity is the religion of a majority of Americans, and the establishment of the religion Christianity as the state-approved religion that is incumbent on all citizens to follow. The United States has no established religion and all Americans are free to practice their own religion, or none at all, without government sanction or preferment. But free exercise of one's religion can in no way be interpeted as using force against another person. One does not exercise a right by violating it.

Therefore, I believe the latest ruling from California is a good one. Not because it is popular. Not because a majority of people want it to be that way. But because it upholds the right of every individual to equal justice under the law.

In speaking of conservatives, Ayn Rand said this:

". . .if one wishes to gauge the relationship of freedom to the goals of today’s intellectuals, one may gauge it by the fact that the concept of individual rights is evaded, distorted, perverted and seldom discussed, most conspicuously seldom by the so-called “conservatives." --Ayn Rand, "Man's Rights", in Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal.

Conservatives want to have their liberty and eat it, too. They tend to promote their own right to economic freedom but wish to deprive others of personal liberty even in such intimate parts of their lives as whom they love and wish to marry. This is hypocrisy of the tallest order. It is neither holy nor good. Everyone must be free to choose or no one is, and in such a state of slavery, no one's actions can be moral.

Nobody's Right If Everybody's Wrong

There's battle lines being drawn
Nobody's right if everybody's wrong
Young people speaking their minds
Getting so much resistance from behind
I think it's time we stop, hey, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down

--Buffalo Springfield, For What It's Worth

When I was 10 years old there were battle lines being drawn. We had a politicians war, unrest in the streets, the sexual revolution--I'm glad I was too young to be in the front lines for that one--and students shot down on campus at Kent State. And sometimes when battle lines are being drawn, when sides are chosen up, and when "paranoia strikes deep" it is easy to forget the principles for which we stand because we tend to be "sayin' Hurray for our side."

It happened then.

And now, 40 years later, it's happening again. Intensity is growing, anger is deepening, and we know that choosing a side is not voluntary. If we don't choose, the line will cross us. And in this kind of climate, it is very easy to forget the principles for which we stand in order to keep saying "Hurray for our side."

A small incident in Albuquerque last week illustrates very well that "nobody's right when everybody's wrong." And how those conditions can create a climate where the temptation is to not think, but to "ditto-head" all the way to the end of the Republic.

This morning I received one of those "I won't back down" e-mails. The message was that something happened here last week, and if I wasn't angry about it, why I didn't belong on the mailer's mailing list. But as I read the story and watched the video it became apparent that this was not exactly a case of cop bashing in innocent protestors. But neither was it a case of innocent cop being harrassed by Weathermen Underground wanna be's. Although I think the protestors were more in the wrong, the cop was not exactly a model of mature rectitude and professionalism.

But I am getting ahead of myself. Judge for yourself.

What Happened:

There was a heavy metal concert, Rob Zombies, at the new Hard Rock Cafe Albuquerque, which is not in Albuquerque at all; it is at the Casino on the Isleta Pueblo. Apparently, some Christians disapprove greatly of metal, or maybe of any rock music, because a small group of them appeared with signs and an attitude and stood a few yards away from the concert goers who were standing in line waiting to be admitted. The Christians, not content to carry signs that told the crowd they were going to hell, were also telling the people in the crowd that they were going to hell. Loudly. And did I say with attitude? The crowd was getting angry and shouting a few choice words back at the Christians. Enter a young deputy sheriff, J. Goff. He told the Christians that this was private property and that they would have to leave. The Christians began to argue with him, claiming a non-existent right to free speech and presence on private property. The deputy persisted. The Christians continued to both incite the concert-going crowd and argued with the deputy. With attitude. The concert goers began to look as if they were getting ready to throw things at the Christians. The deputy told them once again it was private property and that they had to leave "right now" or they'd be arrested. As the Christians finally began to leave, video-taping all the way, they also began to tell Deputy Goff that he need to repent or go to hell. Goff--apparently channeling attitude from the Christians--began to mock them saying that he was an unbeliever and that there is no god. He also incited the concert crowd further, asking them if they wanted the Christians to leave or stay.

There was Attitude. There was Unprofessional Behavior. Christians were violating private property rights. A deputy was acting like a snotty teen-ager.

Nobody was right. Everybody was hot.

You can read the story here. (The local paper didn't cover it, though there was a discussion on one of the local afternoon drive talk-shows). There is a You-Tube video associated with the story and that can also be found here. The video was taken by the Christians and in this case, sadly, shows the depths of their ignorance of individual rights. And even more sadly shows the shallowness of the deputy's understanding of his job.

But given the powder keg our nation is sitting on now, we have to keep our heads, and our principles. This is not a free-state vs. police state issue. This is an issue of private property rights and the initiation of force against concert goers by inconsiderate Christians. And I believe that in the present incendiary climate, we cannot get hot under the collar, we cannot be spoiling for a fight while ignoring our principles.

So when the guy who e-mailed me and a dozen or so others, saying:

"There's so going to be a fight" and " if this doesn't make you really, really mad then let me know so I can remove you from my address book",

I sat down and wrote a letter back to the whole list.

Because I refuse to be required to agree with the emotion of the day, and allow it to cloud reasoned defense of principle. Because we can't afford to start a fight over anything less than bedrock principles. And even then, we cannot afford to throw the first punch.

Here is what I wrote:

Given what was said in the WND article--and shown in the video--both the deputy and the protestors were in the wrong. The protestors do not have a constitutional right to trespass on private property for any purpose, but must have the permission of the property owners in order to protest. Clearly they did not, as they had not purchased tickets, and the law was called in to enforce the property rights of the property owners. Being Christian does not excuse one from the responsibility to respect the right to life, liberty and property of others.

However, the deputy needed to handle the situation in a professional manner, and his personal beliefs should have had nothing to do with the situation at all. It really should not have mattered why the protestors were violating the private property rights of the Hard Rock Cafe, only that they were.

It is clear from the beginning of the video that the protestors did not respect the private property of the Hard Rock Cafe, and they had not purchased the right to be on that property in the form of a ticket. Such a purchase is a contract, which requires the ticket-holder to follow the policies of the business that owns the property. The protestors were not only violating property rights; they were also inciting the crowd attending the concert, and the concert goers were responding, and the situation was escalating. In such situations, one particularly nasty gesture or statement could begin a riot. Crowds are not rational. The protestors were not only endangering the concert goers, they were endangering themselves. In such situations, a peace officer has the obligation to get the offenders--in this case the protestors--off the property as quickly as possible. When the protestors heard that they were invading the private property of another, they had the obligation to obey the peace officer or face arrest.

However, by injecting his personal beliefs into the situation, this deputy needlessly increased the tension and insulted all citizens (those who were present and those who were not) who pay his salary. Those citizens have a right to complain about the situation. At the same time, the citizens can request a particular disciplinary action, but they cannot demand it. Peace Officers, like any other laborer, sell their time to the employer--in this case, Bernalillo County--via contract. That contract will generally refer to departmental policies for discipline. The department and Bernalillo County are therefore obligated by contract to follow those policies, which may or may not allow for the deputy to be fired. Those conditions may (and probably do) have contingencies for the type of offense, as well as the record of the officer. The officer also most likely has the right to a disciplinary hearing, and legal representation, as well as arbitration, should he believe that the discipline received is not according to contract.

Overall, this situation was very different from the situation in Michigan in which Christian protestors were handing out copies of a bible to Muslims on a public street. There, the Christians were on public property, and they were not initiating force against anyone; the crowds there were able to refuse the interaction, which is their right.

As Patriots who respect the Constitution, it is incumbent upon all of us to respect the rights of others, to behave in a civil manner and to respect the law that protects our rights. As human beings, it is incumbent upon us to treat other individuals with good will, and to abjure the initiation of force against them and to respect their liberty to disagree with us. Being a Christian does not entitle anyone to violate property rights and incite a crowd. To say otherwise is to sanction mob rule, which is the opposite of the Republic based upon individual rights and the Rule of Law that has been bequeathed to us. All of us must respect the rights of others, including their right to disagree with us peacefully. We must be very careful to exemplify in every way the values that we claim to represent.

Since I am not a Christian, I cannot say what Christian ethics would require in this situation. But I can say that Christians do the Patriot movement no favors if they refuse to respect the rights of individuals who do not subscribe to their sect's particular beliefs. It is clear from the World Net Daily story that some Christians believe that Heavy Metal music is sinful, and others don't.

As a mother, though, I would say that good manners and polite discussion and persuasive arguments are more likely to get the attention of those one disagrees with than rudeness and force. Or as my first-grade teacher used to say, "You can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar." We all get passionate from time to time, but that does not mean it is the best method of persuasion in every time and place.


So many people claim that they stand for liberty, for individual rights, and for the American values. But so many of them appear to have no idea what liberty is, or what individual rights mean. They believe that it is permissible to violate the rights of others because they have "the truth" and therefore can force it upon everyone else. They believe that their rights supercede the rights of others--that rights do not belong equally to all individuals.

These Christian kids were not only initiating force against the property owner, they also videotaped their lack of respect for the rights of the concert goers, their lack of good manners, and they also revealed their embarrassing lack of fundamental knowlege about freedom and liberty. They have the right to free speech--absolutely. But the property owners are not slaves. They are not required to provide protesters with a platform to make that speech.

The concert goers have a right to choose their activity and engage in it without being verbally assaulted without recourse. They paid for the privilege of enjoying that right on the private property of the Hard Rock Cafe. And because of that payment, the Hard Rock Cafe was obligated to remove protestors.

"Paranoia strikes deep,

And into your life it will creep.

It begins when you're always afraid . . ."

If we are to restore the Republic, we must be zealous defenders of liberty. We cannot create paranoia within ourselves by convincing ourselves that peace officers are against us, without considering the parameters of the law. We must stand on the principle that every individual enjoys that same liberty that we expect, even if we do not like him or agree with his activities and choices. We have no right to initiate force against him. And we must know and practice the core principles that created our liberty.

Independence Day 2010: Defiance, Not Obedience!

DONT TREAD ON ME!
That was the motto of the American Revolution.
The rattlesnake represents an animal that will warn a person with the rattle. It will not strike without warning, but if you tread on it, it will STRIKE.

DONT TREAD ON ME!
Is the warning that Americans are now giving, as they go to Tea Parties to protest the abrogation of their liberty through the collectivist agenda of the pols of both parties, the administration and the courts. We will exercise our RIGHTS.

DONT TREAD ON ME!
Is why Cloward and Piven will not work upon Americans.
We will not acquiesce to the imposition of tyranny. We will defy it!
And a new generation is being taught to defy attempts upon their liberty . . .

Ayn Rand wrote:

"A dictatorship cannot take hold in America today. This country, as yet, cannot be ruled—but it can explode. It can blow up into the helpless rage and blind violence of a civil war. It cannot be cowed into submission, passivity, malevolence, resignation. It cannot be “pushed around.” Defiance, not obedience, is the American’s answer to overbearing authority. The nation that ran an underground railroad to help human beings escape from slavery, or began drinking on principle in the face of Prohibition, will not say “Yes, sir,” to the enforcers of ration coupons and cereal prices. Not yet."
From: “Don’t Let It Go,” Philosophy: Who Needs It, 213

To which, for the sake of our children, we reply: NOT EVER!

HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY!

Celebrate the 234th Anniversary of American Independence:

Go Forth and Exercise Your Rights!

Lieberman's Citizenship Bill: An Attack on American Justice

"Those who would give up Essential Liberty

to purchase a little Temporary Safety,

Deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."

--Ben Franklin, 1759


Jumping on bandwagons in response to events rather than dealing with issues according to principle is the MO of a venal politician. We have many venal politicians in Washington and in our State Houses. The Progressive Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., has recently indicated how little he cares for the basic principles of American Justice in his proposed bill that would allow the federal government to strip a person of his US Citizenship without a trial and conviction, simply because the government believes that he has "ties" to a terrorist organization. Here is Lieberman, breaking his Oath of Office by proposing a clearly unconstitutional bill:






This bill is one those act now, think later political moves that come in response to an incident--in this case, the failed car-bomb attack in Times Square last weekend. Since the accused car-bomber, Faisel Shahzad, is a naturalized American citizen, he has certain rights that are protected by the US Constitution. When he was arrested, he was given his Miranda Warning, which is familar to every avid watcher of TV cop shows from Dragnet to CSI. The Miranda Warning is a statement from the arresting officer(s) to the detainee, that explicates his due process rights during police investigation and interrogation. We've all heard it:

"You have the right to remain silent. Anything you do say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed to you. Do you understand these rights as they have been read to you?"

When Shahzad was arrested a firestorm of controversy erupted over the fact that the Miranda Warning was read to him. And so Lieberman, supported by the Scott Brown of Massachusetts proposed that any US citizen who has been accused of "having ties" to a terrorist organization, should be stripped of his citizenship immediately--presumably so that the United States can interrogate him without telling him his rights.

This is wrong on principle, and pernicious as well, and since non-citizens also have certain due process rights in US Courts, it's useless as well.

On principle, the problem is that the United States Constitution guarantees that the rights of any person cannot be removed from him by the United States without due process of law:

"No person shall . . . be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law. . ." (Amendment V)

Note that it says "no person"--it applies to all human beings, not only to American citizens. However, in the Lieberman Bill, a citizen on the mere suspicion of undefined "connections" to terrorist organizations could be deprived of his citizenship and the rights and privileges thereof, without being even suspected of a crime, let alone actually tried and convicted for one. This is an outrageous violation of the liberty (at least) of American citizens. The due process rights in the Bill of Rights includes the right to presentment or indictment by a grand jury for capital and infamous crimes, the right to be free from double-jeopardy, the right to a speedy trial decided by a jury of one's peers, the right to be informed of the charges to be tried, the right to the assistance of counsel, and the right to be confronted by the accusers and witnesses. The Lieberman bill would make a person guilty by mere association, and strip him of his rights on suspicion of such, rendering punishment before he is tried and convicted.

I suppose this is the logical result of the years of trial by media which has culminated in the popular sentiment that a person who is forced to do the "perp walk" before TV cameras is guilty unless he proves himself innocent. And maybe not even then.

This proposed bill is pernicious because it gives the government unprecedented power to violate the rights of any person that it chooses not to like. How hard would it be to fabricate "ties" to some group or organization that the government decides is terrorist? Gentle Reader, if you think this is far-fetched consider the MIAC Fusion Center Report that placed ties with Ron Paul, the Libertarian Party, the use of the Gadsen Flag, and discussion of the US Constitution on par with domestic terrorism. Talking Idiots Heads on MSNBC have all but accused Talk Radio personalities such as Glenn Beck of commiting sedition ( something that should NEVER be a crime in a free country--but that's another blog).

This bill goes far beyond the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798 that caused mass protest across the United States, and even beyond Woodrow Wilson's persecution of those who spoke against US involvement in WWI. Under those equally unconstitutional laws, at the least the accused had to be indicted, tried and convicted prior to being stripped of any rights. Joe Lieberman would strip a person of rights before any trial could occur, and even without suspicion of any "crime."

The passage of this law could and would lead to the worst kind of terrorism: terrorism against the people by their own government and the ongoing repression of speech and thought by the state, and the outright suppression and persecution of dissent upon those opposed to specific policies.

Joe Lieberman wants to keep you safe by stripping you of your rights. He claims that this power would be very limited in scope. I remind you that never in history has a government arrogated to itself power that it did not use. In the immortal words of Judge Andrew Napolitano: "It is not government's job to keep you safe. It is government's job to keep you free!"

The Propaganda of Implied Association

Just before the Sabbath began Friday evening, our rabbi posted a letter by Marianne Williamson at his Facebook account stating that it was rational and important. The letter was an attack on Sarah Palin. Or rather it was an attack on something that Palin wrote in her blog. But rather than being a direct and open critique of Palin's ideas in that blog, Williamson took two lines of metaphor from the end of Palin's statement, and used it to imply that Palin advocated actions that were nowhere stated in the text of Palin's blog. Further, Williamson went on to imply through the use of generalities that Sarah Palin and those who support her or any of her ideas, would then be responsible for the unamed future actions of any individuals who might plan or commit violence against members of the current executive branch.

Williamson's letter is not rational, but it is important because it represents a concerted attack on the free speech of those who oppose the policies of the current administration that has been ongoing in the propaganda of the mainstream media (MSM). And it is important to address what the members of the MSM are doing NOT because I agree with all of Sarah Palin's ideas (I disagree with Palin more often than not), nor because I like Sarah Palin (I don't know her), but because this propaganda technique of implied association can be successfully used to shut down opposition to the policies of any government without the necessity of ever using reasoned arguments to discuss the ideas behind those policies. That almost all members of the MSM use propaganda rather than providing the public with the facts and ideas vis-a-vis specific administration policy indicates that the press is not in any real sense free; that is it is biased in favor of those in power and their policies, whoever those in power happen to be. As such, the product of the work of the media should also be viewed with a great deal of suspicion.

I will quote freely from Palin and from Williamson for the purposes of this essay, but for purpose of space, I will not provide full quotations of both documents. Rather, I will provide links to the full documents on their first citation here.

Williamson's letter purports to be an admonition to Sarah Palin for the use of this metaphor in a blogpost that compares the March Madness NCAA Basketball Tournament with a political campaign. Although Williamson takes the highlighted sentence below out of its context, I quote it here in context:

"To the teams that desire making it this far next year: Gear up! In the battle, set your sights on next year's targets! From the shot across the bow--the first second's tip off--your leaders will be in the enemies crosshairs, so you must execute strong defensive tactics. You won't win only on defense, so get on offense! The crossfire is intense, so penetrate through enemy territory by bombing through the press, and use your strong weapons--your Big Guns--to drive to the hole. Shoot with accuracy, aim high and remember, it takes blood, sweat and tears to win."
(From govenorpalin4president.blogspot.com, March 28, 2010. The full text can be found here).

But what Williamson really does in her open letter to Palin has nothing to do with Palin per se. Rather the letter, with its effusive compliments of Palin's book, and the expression of desire to speak together reasonably, never drops below the surface of glittering generalities. Instead those generalities are used to carefully construct the implication that Sarah Palin is responsible for inciting violence against the President of the United States in this blog entry
by use of the above sports metaphor. She writes:

"Please modify your words.
In my lifetime, we have lost a President (sic), a Civil Rights leader (sic), and a Presidential Candidate (sic), all to gun violence . . . I am not suggesting that you would pick up a gun and shoot anyone; I am suggesting there are other people who would, however, and in your position as a leading political figure you are stoking fires . . . that are too dangerous to be safely stoked."
(From huffingtonpost.com, undated. The full text can be found here).

Here Williamson takes what is clearly a sports metaphor--in which a basketball game is compared to a battle--and indirectly equates it to "gun violence", and further to "gun violence" directed against the President of the United States. After protesting too much that her argument has nothing to do with partisan politics, Williamson then implies that the use of such metaphors will cause "dangerous" people to enter into a Nazi-like "group psychosis." (Remember the MIAC report. The groundwork has been carefully laid by this government and its media cheerleaders to characterize peaceful people like the Tea Parties--even anti-war people like Ron Paul supporters--as dangerous based only on their political beliefs. At the risk of invoking Godwin's Law, isn't that what the Nazi's did?)

Williamson's penultimate paragraph adds insult to injury by using the propaganda technique of "nice words" to imply that not only is Sarah Palin full of hate due to the basketball metaphor that Williamson changed to gun violence, but that it's use is "frightening". This is an appeal to fear--we should all be deathly afraid of Palin and her supporters (and their flying basketballs)--because the desire to win a political battle against the current adminstration is "dangerous." As is the use of free speech. Williamson is so sanctimonious as to make one gag:

"Please join me in turning to a God of Love and not fear . . ."

As if the whole letter was not calculated to inspire fear of Palin and her supporters, and anyone else who wants to defeat the current administration and majority party in 2010 and 2012.

Williamson's sanctimonious propaganda is a nasty attack on its face, but worse is the use to which this letter other such blogs have been put within the context of the current political climate. From the MIAC report, to the harrassment of Campaign for Liberty staffers at airports, to the repeated mischaracterizations of the Tea Partiers as angry racists, a climate of fear is being inculcated among Americans. (Yesterday I spoke for a while to a woman who was quite fearful of the Tea Parties but who could not give me one shred of evidence to support her fear. It turns out she had never even spoken to one of us). But the language of fear is being used by progressive supporters of the Obama administration against those who oppose his policies. It is a craven attempt to avoid a discussion of ideas by use of propaganda, and it is one in which the Obama adminstration and press lackeys have invoked the Vision of Annointed. That is, they have moved the discussion from debate of evidence and facts to one in which they must be right because they are holy, but their opposition is evil because it is wrong.

And this letter from Williamson is part of a concerted attack on the free speech of anyone who opposes Obama's policies in whole or in part. The point is to the plant the seed of doubt about the value of free speech into the minds of Americans by invoking the idea of guilt by implied association. For example, should some crazy person pick up a gun and shoot a politician, it would not be made the fault of the shooter. Rather, anyone who verbally opposed the victim's policy is held responsible for "incitement". And anyone who wanted to defeat that victim in the next election would be held responsible, especially if she used strong, metaphoric language. And anyone who might have at one time or another agreed with one of the myriad ideas that the shooter also happened to espouse, then that person is also responsible. None of these people to be held responsible need ever have known or encountered the shooter.

The point of making such associations is twofold: First, it creates a climate in which people become afraid to make any public statement in opposition to the policies of one of those who hold the Vision of the Annointed, no matter how well reasoned; and 2) it lays the groundwork for a "false-flag" incident through which the opposition can be blamed and then destroyed. (The Reichstag fire was a planned false-flag incident; Krystallnacht was excused by the unplanned death of an SS officer at the hands of a justifiably angry Jew).

This use of collective responsibility through the rhetoric of implied association is a tool of totalitarian dictators the world over. It is used to isolate and exterminate the opposition and other innocent but targeted groups. It is so used because no rational discussion can be had with those who wish to impose their will by force. The progressives have been making an effort of late to disarticulate the concept of force from violence, as if violence were not a species of force (see Amit Ghati's Force and Violence: How the Left Blurs the Terms); and at confusing the INITIATION of Force with defense against it. All force is a violation against the life, liberty or property of another. And it is the INITIATION of force against another that is immoral, not the use of force to defend one's rights against such initiation. The initiation of force is immoral whether it is obtained through fraud, fear, or violence.

It is Williamson, and not Palin, who has hidden motives in this exchange. Palin has made it clear that she opposes the current administration and its policies, and that she would like to see Obama and his supporters defeated in the next election. Williamson would like to make this straightforward political battle into something more. With an iron fist hidden in a velvet glove, she wants to imply that metaphorical speech is direct incitement to violence. She would like her readers to believe that, as one self-proclaimed philosopher on our rabbi's Facebook put it, the free speech of the political opposition needs to be "reigned in." (The "philosopher does not say how so or by whom, but it's a pretty good bet that she means to reign us in by government use of force, for who else would have the power?) The problem with this is that if the rights of any one of us is violated, then the rights of all become mere privileges, to be granted or revoked at the will of the ones with the biggest guns. Then we shall see the real meaning of mere democracy: mob rule.

It is true that these are dangerous times. And we must be extraordinarily careful not to be induced by the mere propaganda of a sanctimonious gun inside a velvet glove into surrendering our rights. Rights were not given by the government, they were "endowed by our Creator" (nature and nature's god); no lien can be placed on them, and any attempt to deny them because they are "dangerous" must be determinedly resisted as peacefully as possible. But make no mistake--peace is the fullness of all aspects of life--the yin and the yang--it is not the refuge of those who are too craven to resist the initiation of force, however siren-like the glittering generalities used to hide it have become. That siren sings a song of hope and change while the chains of our slavery to her power and prestige, unchanged these past administrations, are forged by the venal politicians who place it over and above their oaths of office, there on the plains of the Beltway.

Hard words? Harder are these words:

". . . it is natural to man to indulge in the illusions of hope. We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth, and listen to the song of that siren until she transforms us into beasts. Is this the part of wise men who are engaged in the great and arduous struggle for liberty? Are we disposed to be of the number of those who, having eyes see not, and having ears, hear not, the things which so nearly concern their temporal salvation? For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it may cost, I am willing to know the whole truth, to know the worst and to provide for it.
. . . there is no retreat but in submission and slavery. Our chains are forged . . . is life so dear and peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others take, but as for me, Give me Liberty, or give me Death!"
---Patrick Henry, March 23, 1775

I'll take hard honest words over nice slippery ones any day.

The Value of a Life

In a free-wheeling discussion with a friend the other day, I was broadsided by a comment that did not seem to fit with his libertarian views. The subject had wandered around to the controversy about the Tebow ad during the Super Bowl. And he asked me what I thought about very late term abortions.

I said that I had real moral issues with that, because I could not imagine a situation in which delivery could not be attempted, with the hopes of saving the life of both mother and child. And I had looked but found no information that contradicted my conclusions. I pointed out that I had developed severe pre-eclampsia late in my pregnancy with the Boychick, a condition that required induction of labor in order to save my life and that of the Boychick. Fortunately for me, it was not a difficult decision because the delivery would be less of a risk for me than continuing the pregnacy would have been, and we were so close to term, the Boychick and I, that delivery was not likely to be risky for him either. As it turned out, with the help of modern medicine, we came through the delivery fine, both of us and the neonatal team that was standing by filed out of the room without making any interventions. That said, I told my friend, I would not have wanted a government official interfering with such a potentially life-altering decision. I would not want some bureaucrat to require me to undergo an induction of labor. However, I would expect that doctors would be rightly reluctant to perform late-term abortions.

With this as a jumping off point, my friend commented that he wondered if a murder should be prosecuted if no one cared about the death of the person who had been killed. After all, he said, the dead person would be dead, and if no one was left to be devasted, then it was if the life of the person was unimportant.

I was speechless. One can know a person reasonably well and still be surprised.

I probed. I asked, then does that mean if the parents of a six-month infant murder him, and there is no one else to be outraged, does this mean it is not murder? He said he would have moral concerns about such an action, but that it should not be illegal since no one was injured by the action except the child--who would now be dead.

Immediately, images of concentration camps and gas chambers began to roll across my mind's eye. My argument was that certainly someone has been harmed, and that is the person whose life had been taken unjustly. My friend argued that people die all the time.

Of course, we are mortal, I argued, but there is a difference between dying of disease or accident, and the purposeful taking of a life. Certainly, the person who is murdered values his life. And as we were speaking, I realized that my friend had wandered into a collectivist view of the value of a life. His value of liberty was not completely based on the principle of individual rights. Because if his values were firmly rooted there, he would realize immediately that the value of a life is not based on how useful to society, or how precious that person is to another. The value of a life is the ultimate value to person himself.

I was so disturbed that I stopped the discussion when I realized that all of my attempts to elucidate the principle had not penetrated my friends mind; that to him this had become a sophist's argument--made for the sake of continuing the discussion.

For me, the inheritance of the Holocaust makes these discussions more than argument for the sake of argument. As we spoke, the biblical injunction about the responsiblity of the nearby towns to adjudicate the death of a stranger on the road kept coming to mind.
Even the taking of the life of a stranger for whom no one cares must be treated with justice.

Clarifying The Non-Initiation Principle

We, the undersigned, renounce and condemn any and all

INITIATION of force and will pursue all lawful and

Constitutional means to fulfill our duty."

--The Articles of Freedom:

the Work of Continental Congress 2009

Twice this week I have heard conservatives object to the Non-initiation of Force Principle (NIP) based on what appears to be a misunderstanding or mishearing of the word INITIATION. This is something that I have begun to notice as my political work takes me among conservatives; that they are generally unaware of the meaning or the basis of the Non-initiation principle that stems from the concept of the Rights of Man.

The non-initiation of force principle is a product of the classical liberal thought of the enlightenment and its modern statement is a product of libertarian philosophy and ethics. Its basis is that each individual has "certain unalienable rights." These rights are not granted by any god or government, rather they have their source in the nature of human beings as moral agents. Because they are unalienable, rights cannot be removed from individuals, nor may a person voluntarily surrender them. They are proper to the nature of the human individual. These rights are defined as the right to Life, Liberty and Property. It is these rights that the Declaration of Independence asserts and that the Constitution* was written to protect.

*The Constitution guarantees US citizens that these rights will be protected by the government it forms, but the Constitution does not "grant" them. If it did so, these would be privileges, not rights. Therefore, the concept "constitutional rights" is a misnomer. Rather, these are rights that are protected by the Constitution.

The first explanation I ever saw of how the initiation of force is a violation of individual rights comes from Ayn Rand's Capitalism: the Unknown Ideal. Rand writes:

"To violate a man's rights means to compel him to act against his own judgement or to expropriate his values. Basically, there is only one way to do it: by the use of physical force. There are two potential violators of man's rights: the criminals and the government. The great achievement of the United States was to draw a distinction between these two--by forbidding to the second the legalized version of the activities of the first." (p. 371)

In sum, it is a violation of an individual's natural rights to initiate force against him. Force can violent, as it is when someone is compelled against her will at the point of a gun or by the threat of torture. But there are also non-violent methods of force, such as fraud, deception and neglect.

Adherence to the Non-Initiation Principle means that one agrees not to use force against an innocent individual who has not first violated or threatened one's own right to Life, Liberty or Property. However, it does not mean that one cannot DEFEND against the violation of one's own rights by the meeting force with force. This is so, because by violating the rights of another, the one who initiates force has forfeited his own rights, and has become a criminal. This is true regardless of whether the initiator is acting alone, or in a group. And the person whose rights have been abrogated is morally obligated to use whatever means possible to defend them and restore them, and he may properly ask others to help him in this defense.

Through our Constitution, we have invested our governments (state and federal) with the power to protect our rights by protecting us from the initiation of force. We have authorized government to use force against those who initiate it against us in order to stop the violation of the rights of innocent citizens. For example, we have given* the government the power try and incarcerate a thief in order to protect us from a violation of our property rights.

*Rights belong to the people, and are individual; whereas the government is granted privileges and duty by the people whose individual rights the government exists to secure.

However, a government that violates the rights of its owners, the citizens, by initiating force against them has become a tyranny. And the citizens has the right to defend their rights against it, and more, they have the duty "to throw off such a government, and provide new guards for their future security." (The Declaration of Independence).

Both of the conservatives I spoke with objected to the Non-initiation Principle because they did not hear and/or understand the difference between initiating force against an innocent person, thus violating his rights, and the use of force to meet and repel the force used in those violations. That is, they did not understand the meaning of the word INITIATION in the context of the principle.

So I will state it plainly: the Non-initiation principle does not preclude the use of force as a RESPONSE to the initiation of force against oneself by criminals, whether they be individuals or groups or even associated with government. That is, it does not preclude the use of fraud, deception, neglect or violence to DEFEND one's Life, Liberty or Property. A free individual has no moral obligation to accept the initiation of force against him; rather he has the moral obligation to defend his rights, and he may morally join with others to defend the rights of another free individual.

If we have been subjected by our own government to " a long train of abuses and usurpations" of our rights--as we have been, and if "our most humble petitions for redress of grievances have been met only with repeated injury", then we have the moral obligation, that is the duty, to defend our rights by any means necessary.

However, we have no moral obligation to act imprudently. Rather, as we go about the defense of our rights, prudence dictates that we consider the consequences of our responses to ourselves and to those around us, using violence only when we have exhausted all other means of meeting force with force. Although there is no guarantee that we will be able to stop those abuses and usurpations of our rights by our servant government short of armed resistance, still it is better to try other means, for if we succeed in them, we save our own blood and treasure from destruction.

For a very brief and shining moment in history, the United States, through the Bill of Rights that forbade the government from initiation of force against innocent citizens, achieved a society in which the use of force in relationships among individuals was forbidden and punished, thus allowing for all relationships to be predicated on the freedom of individuals to associate with one another, and to have the unrestricted freedom of contract. But that moment has been superceded by a government that through the corruption of the values of liberty and individual rights, has usurped the sovereignty of the individual, replacing it with the collectivist concept of "the social good."

Our individual rights are almost gone from want of our strong and consistent defense of them. Rights only exist where free individuals have the will to exercise them, and upon their violation, to defend themselves against the usurpers of rights, whether those usurpers be criminals or government.

Is it time to consider meeting force with force?
I believe it is. And prudence dictates that we begin by demanding of the government their compliance with the limitations placed on them by the Constitution, and by meeting their initiation of force against us with strongly asserted, principled civil disobedience.

If you agree that we have the duty to defend our rights, join with us by signing the Articles of Freedom, and making the commitment to engage with millions of other Americans in the civic actions required to withdraw our support from those who have violated our rights.

Long live the Constitution of the United States!

The Philosophy of Liberty Video

I am going into an intense weekend and a full week after that. But here is something to think about until I post again: The Philosophy of Liberty from our own Retake Congress YouTube site. And the music is great, too!

"Everything you need to know about life, liberty, property, ethics, human interaction, commerce, trade, and government wrapped in one nice little 8 minute presentation."

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness." --Declaration of Independence, 1776

Libertarian Ethics: Natural Law and Natural Rights

"If it is said that moral conduct is rational conduct,

what is meant is that it is conduct in accordance

with right reason, reason apprehending the objective good

for man and dictating the means to its attainment."

--F.C. Copleston, SJ: Aquinas (1955)

The principle of individual liberty was established during the Enlightenment by philsophers and was based on the concept of natural law. This concept of liberty is not commonly taught in government schools in a way that elucidates its philosophical origin and the importance thereof; rather liberty and the rights of man are taught as an interesting but somewhat quaint idea produced wholesale by those white men in whigs, the founders of the Republic. This is so because the educational philosophy of government schools is based on unreason; specifically upon the post-modern positivist idea that reality cannot be measured and that values are determined subjectively by each individual based on emotion rather than reason*.

*This is the philosophical legacy of David Hume.

Natural law, however, is based on the idea that a human being, like any other thing in the universe, has an identity that is differentiated from any other thing; that is that humans have a definible nature that differentiates them from anything else, and that human nature is measurable. Thus, for human beings, natural law is used to determine what ends are compatible with the facts of human existence and values are therefore objective. Or as William Blackstone described the natural law as:

" . . . demonstrating that this or that action tends to man's real happiness, and therefore very justly concluding that the performance of it is a part of the law of nature; or, on the other hand, that this or that action is destruction [sic] of man's real happiness, and therefore that the law of nature forbids it." Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England, Vol. I, as cited in Brendan F. Brown (ed.), The Natural Law Reader, p. 106.

Although the Scholastics who developed the concept of natural law believed in a supernatural being, they nevertheless established the natural law upon human reason alone. Currently, therefore, the concept of natural law is opposed by many conservatives who argue that the origin of ethics must come from supernatural revelation (which takes them beyond human reach*); it is also opposed by skeptics who argue that ethics can only be ascertained by human beings subjectively, from emotion (which makes them relative).

*As a Jew, I am opposed to this view. the Rabbinic view is that the law "is not in heaven" based on the Torah portion Nitzavim, which says: "It is not in heaven that you should say who will go after it and bring it to us . . . nay, it is very near to you that you may do it." Thus the Rabbis set up a system whereby they could argue that precepts must be based on human nature and norms.

Because natural law can be determined by reason, it provides an objective standard by which traditional norms can be held accountable and found wanting should they violate basic human nature, thus making it possible for people to find their current legislation wanting. It thus provides a basis for the Rule of Law and the establishment of justice. (This ability to reject the status quo on the basis of natural law differentiates libertarian thinkers from many conservatives, who tend to argue that tradition is good because it is old. A tradition may be good or bad; if it is good, it is not because it is old, but because it is the fulfillment of what is good according to the essential nature of man).

During the Enlightenment, natural law was wedded to the concept of individualism by the English enlightenment philosophers, the greatest of whom was John Locke. From this individualist tradition, Locke developed the idea of the natural rights of man, and this idea was founding philosophy of the American Revolution. Locke based his idea of individual rights upon the foundation of human self-ownership. He wrote that:

"Every man has a property in his own person. This nobody has any right to but himself. The labour of his body and the work of his hands, we may say, are properly his. Whatsoever then, that he removes out of the state that nature hath provided, and left it in, he hath mixed his labour with, and joined to it something that is his own, and thereby makes it his property."

John Locke, An Essay Concerning the True Origin, Extent and End of Civil Government, as cited in Murray N. Rothbard (1980) The Ethics of Liberty.

Essentially, if a person owns his own self, then no one else may own him, and thus he has a right to Liberty. To remove his life from him would be an ultimate theft of his own self, and thus he has a right to Life. Finally, as Locke stated, if he mixes his labour with things in nature, he has the right to keep and control them, the right to Property. These rights are endowed to human beings by virtue of their very nature and are therefore natural law. They are, as Jefferson wrote, "inalienable." They are not given by government, and government cannot take them away. Neither do they accrue to a collection of human beings as a group; rather they belong to each individual as an individual. Thus no group may lawfully (in the sense of the Rule of Law) or morally do anything that the individual does not have the right to do. No group may violate the rights of the individual simply because it is a group. (That is the essence of democracy, mob rule by the will of the majority, legislating away the natural rights of the individual).

These are the individual rights of each person, which are protected by the United States Constitution (currently being honored only in the breach). They are the rights to Life, Liberty and Property. Libertarian ethics begin with the acknowledgement of the natural rights of individual human beings.

Seduced by the Dark Side?

Someone who has commented on some of my blogs also posted a note on Facebook lamenting that I have been seduced by the "dark side". This is because I posted information about the Citizen's Continental Congress, which is to be a peaceful and legal response to the encroachments on the Constitution and upon our natural rights to life, liberty and property.



Part of the problem is that I posted a slide show (also posted below). It is what it is, but it not the slide show that I thought it was. That one was the one that Bob Shulz showed on his 50-State tour last winter and spring, a slide show that educated attendees about the 14 years of petitioning for Redress of Grievances that have yielded no response. (As I wrote in an earlier post about this, a petition for redress requires a response, but it does not dictate the terms of the response. The petitioner may not agree with a response, but if he in fact receives one, then the petition has been addressed).



In any case, I thought this new slide show was a souped-up version of Bob's slide show, but it was not. And I did post it without previewing it, something that a responsible blogger should never, ever do. After viewing the slide-show, I wished I had viewed it first. It contains some of the slides from Bob's original power point, but also has a good many others than present some of the subject matter of petitions as unsupported claims but does not explain the petition process and purpose. This is a good object lesson about checking every source, no matter how well known. (I know Bob and he has posted it at the Continental Congress website, but I do not know the Idaho coordinators that put this particular version together).



I am not going to spend a lot of time on all of the claims, but I do want to highlight two of them.

One was that we are living in a Communist country. I do not agree with that. I do believe that President Obama is Marxian in his philosophy, and that he subscribes to something called black liberation theology, which like other forms of liberation theology, draws heavily on Marxist ideology. However, what I see our Republic being transformed into is not communism; rather it looks to me like a corporatist statism, which I would call fascism (with a small 'f' to distinguish it from Mussolini's fascism). This is not something new, for the Republic has been morphing into statism for more than 100 years, how ever the pace picked up during the Bush II administration, and that pace has increased to an all out run since September of past year.

The other issue I want to briefly comment on is the President Obama birth certificate issue. Obama has refused to allow the publication of his original Hawaiian birth certificate, relying instead on an affidavit. This persistent refusal has fueled an internet meme based upon rumors started by some of his Kenyan family members combined with some true and some false statements about how Hawaii handles birth certificates. Currently, what we are given from the administration are statements from those who claim to have seen the original birth certificate. This is hearsay which will not erase reasonable doubt. There are also those who claim that even if Obama was born in Hawaii, he would not be a natural born citizen of the United States. This second claim is certainly false. The first claim is more problematic because reasonable doubt has been planted in the minds of enough people. For example, although I am inclined to believe that Obama was born in Hawaii, I cannot say that I know that for certain. President Obama could and probably should release the original vault birth certificate as this would erase any reasonable doubt in the minds of most citizens.

Of course, there will always be those who will not accept any response except the one that confirms their theories. That's life, as Frank Sinatra would say. However, this does not mean that everyone who is concerned about the issue is a "conspiracy theorist." On the contrary, if the evidence were to show that Obama was not born in the United States, then we would have a serious constitutional crisis on our hands. This is why We the People Foundation brought the matter to the Supreme Court. The foundation, on behalf of the citizens, wanted the question definitively answered. Like all petitions for redress, the people require an answer to their concern. It would best be answered by disclosure of the birth certificate. This is not an unreasonable request. I have had to show my copy of my birth certificate, the one with the Bureau County Clerk's seal on it, in order to enter school, get a driver's license, get a passport, and get married. It is not unreasonable for the president of the United States to show a birth certificate to demonstrate that he is constitutionally fit to serve.


What is even more problematic about this commenter's accusation that I have gone over to the "dark side" is that it betrays a certain belief about the nature of any political controversy. It is the belief that those who do not support his "side" are not just factually but morally wrong. This is the Vision of the Annointed that progressives use persistently to avoid arguments based on fact and reason, in order to smear their opponents as not only wrong, but as stupid, "loony" and unenlightened, and therefore evil. There can be no rational argument between those who hold the Vision of the Annointed and those who are deemed by them to hold the Vision of the Benighted. The reason for this is that the Annointed make no argument, but use innuendo and insinuation against their enemies in place of an argument. This smear tactic is nothing more than the logical fallacy of the Ad Hominem attack, but it is made particularly vicious by the use of catch phrases such as "conspiracy theory" and "tin-foil hat crazy" in order to shut down any discussion about the issue at hand. What is it about the program of the annointed, one must wonder, that would make them so anxious to avoid any reasonable discussion?

From my perspective, therefore, it is irrational to attempt to respond directly to smears such as this. Rather, I have decided to begin to address the ethical basis for my libertarian stance against collectivism and statism. I will do this in a series of forthcoming posts, addressing the ethics of individual rights, and the economic system that makes liberty possible, capitalism.

Have I gone over to the "dark side?" I would note that in the Star Wars series, Luke Skywalker and the Jedi fought on the side of freedom against a statist empire. I would note that it is much "easier" to believe what those in power want you to believe so that they can control you, than it is to take a stand for the Rule of Law and for Liberty.

I would say that on the contrary, my journey has been one of coming into the light of life. I am using the force that is inherent in every person, the knowledge that human life on this earth is good, and that a person must work and choose the good in order to live it.

Challenging Assumptions: Am I an Atheist?

This is the third in a series of posts that have resulted from a dialogue with C. August of Titanic Deck Chairs about where I stand with respect to Objectivist ideas. As is the nature of good dialogue, C. August has posed a series of challenging questions that probe my assumptions about human reason, religion, and ethics. The post that inspired this dialogue--for it is not a debate: C. August appears to be interested and curious, rather than missionary--was Rules for Patriots? , the first response from Ragamuffin Studies was Objectivist Questions About Rights and Religion (Part I) and the second is more parsimonously titled Objectivist Questions (Part II) .

In his comment to my response to his question about natural rights, C. August begins by saying:

"Thank you for the very detailed response. It's a lot to go through, with the same amount of specialized (Jewish) language and concepts that non-Objectivists must have to deal with when reading detailed Objectivist philosophical arguments."

Very true, and indeed, my specialized vocabulary is probably harder for a non-Jew to wade through than Objectivist arguments are for a non-Objectivist who has some experience with philosophy. I was not trying to snow you--part of the exercise in writing these responses was to answer your questions and thus engage in dialogue with you, but the other part of my purpose is to clarify my own thinking for me, by putting it into words.

C. August then gets right to the point, which is an Objectivist virtue, and says:

"To put it simply, it sounds to me like you have recast Judaism to emulate Objectivism... or perhaps, recast Objectivism to fit Judaism. I'm not sure which. Maybe you even mean that they are basically the same in your eyes, and no recasting was necessary?"

Hmmm. I would say that I started with Judaism as I understand it, and although my practice of Judaism is rather traditional, my thought is not quite in accordance with traditional Jewish belief; rather the bent of my mind requires me to delve into more abstract Jewish philosophy. Jewish ideas concerning moral philosophy and political philosophy have evolved, perhaps rather steadily with one exception, and that is the punctuated leap from the Israelite sacrificial temple cult to modern Rabbinic Judaism that began with the rabbinic notion of Oral Torah--an interpretive tradition that allowed the Rabbis (capitalization denotes the authoritative Talmudic rabbinic tradition) to reinvent the religion while simultaneously claiming authority from the tradition. As the Engineering Geek would say, "very clever, these Hebes."

This evolution is possible because normative Rabbinic Judaism understands the human mind, and the knowledge gained from examination of nature of which it is part, to be equally definitive with the religious tradition. Thus, a Jew must study both Torah and the sefer ha-olam, the book of the world, to fully know the universe. My thought is in line with Maimonides, who fully stated the rabbinic notion that there can be no contradiction between Divine revelation and the discoveries of the human mind. These discoveries were defined by Maimonides to be science and philosophy, in accordance with Aristotle's definitions. Therefore I am no mystic; however, in accordance with Maimonides and unlike Aristotle, I understand Providence to extend to individuals rather than to some collective notion of humanity.

I am still ignorant on the point of whether the universe is purely external (in accordance with Aristotle) or created out of nothing, which is the normative Jewish view. I tend toward the former, but I have not studied the issue sufficiently to say that I know all of the implications of either claim. Suffice it to say that my understanding of G-d* proceeds from the nature of the physical universe alone. I do not accept the concept of a reality that cannot be defined or measured. I do accept that we have not yet measured or defined all of reality. There is ever more to be discovered!

*It is the Jewish custom not to complete the Name out of respect. Some Jews, myself included, use this custom to denote that our understandings of G-d are incomplete, and differ from the cultural Christian norm.

Am I an atheist? I do not define myself as such, rather I identify myself as a Jew.

However, as I state above, I can find no evidence at all for any supernatural (or supranatural?) realm of existence. Therefore, I understand much of the religious mythic tradition to be metaphor for observations about the world and human nature that our ancestors had insufficient knowledge and/or vocabulary to describe in any other way. And taken as metaphor, the mythic tradition can give us insight into the beginnings of human metacognition about human existence and ethics, but it cannot give us any scientific understanding of the universe.

When I say this, though, I need to make clear that I am not a Progressive. That is, I understand there to be certain moral absolutes derived from human nature that cannot be altered by novel political systems imposed on human societies. Human knowledge, understanding and wisdom with respect to the universe in which we live progresses with time, it evolves. But this progress does not imply that human nature is infinitely plastic. Genetic changes in the human brain that would reorganize the large-scale structure would result in speciation--the arrival of a new species on the human cladogram--rather than in the pefection of Homo sapiens as H. sapiens.

Am I an atheist? No, I am a Jew.
But in line with my Jewish understanding, I understand G-d to be bound by the same Natural Law that binds the universe, and that defines human nature as rational, and establishes moral absolutes derived from reason. Therefore, I see reason as primary and autonomous.
Perhaps the Dutch philosopher Grotius put it better than I just did:

" Even the will of an omnipotent being cannot change the principles of morality or abrogate those fundamental rights that are guarranteed by natural laws. These laws would not change their objective validity even if we should assume--per impossibile-- that there is no God or that he does not care for human affairs." --Hugo Grotius, Introduction to De Jure Belli et Pacis, as cited in Cassirir, E. (1946). The Myth of the State. Yale University Press: New Haven. p. 172.

Am I an atheist? I do not define myself as such, but normative Christians probably would. That is their problem, created by their need to define the concept of God universally and in their own image and likeness. It is the same problem that causes liberal Christianity to do mental gymnastics to simultaneously reject Judaism as an acceptable religion according to Christian scripture and yet claim that somehow Jews share in Christian salvation.

As for me, I am a Jew.