Facebook Friends

I've "met" some really smart people on Ye Old Facebook (I still have my language set to English:Pirate, that never gets old!) One of them is a guy who calls himself a Thomist, I guess after Thomas Aquinas, and he's asked me to establish my "First Principles," as a means to begin a conversation about ethics. This has arisen from a number of brief and pithy exchanges in the comment section under our Facebook status updates, where people often post links to articles along with their outrage or approval over this or that development in society, and as often as not, the subject is our nation's wise and munificent ruling elite. Naurally, I'm inclined to respond to their Machiavellian machinations with disapprobation and scorn. This guy, Dave, tends to be a lot more amenable to the diktats of the ruling classes, especially when they dovetail with his conservative, religious point of view. Anyway, I took enough time formulating my response to his request that I thought it deserved wider reading, by all 2 or 3 people who might eventually see this blog. To that end, here it is:

First principles? Well, I believe in a radical notion of equality, in the sense that no man is superior to any other (or woman) in terms of authority. So, there can be no legitimate franchise on the use of force to impose one's will on the whole of society, any more than there can be a legitimate use of force to impose your will directly on your neighbor. Scaling up a crime like armed robbery to the level of a town, state or national government does not change it's fundamental criminality, even if you call it "taxation." That a majority of people with those political jurisdictions approve is no justification, since the common turn of the century rural southern practice of lynching was an expression of popular will which would have been overwhelmingly approved had the matter been put to a vote, yet we realize that is violation of the victim's right to life.

So, my first principles are that all humans are equally important as moral agents, and they are responsible for their own actions, all the time, and that the initiation of force is always immoral, force is only justified in defense of one's self or others against whom force has been initiated. And while I believe that the right to life necessarily precedes the right to property, that strong property rights are a necessary and logical corollary to that right to life, though i balk at calling it "self-ownership," because I think the term is awkward and inapt. Selves do the owning, they cannot simultaneously be owned. But the notion bears some useful fruit, nonetheless.

My approach to rights is that they are very useful concepts, and that they are necessary, in some form or another, for any society to function, and that there is an ideal set of them for maximum liberty and economic productivity. Those societies that place higher value on other concepts, like order, or piety or aesthetics, might choose a different slate of rights, which is fine with me, so long as membership is voluntary and one can opt-out if they find the arrangement unsatisfactory.

I prefer the libertarian ethic of self-governance and individual autonomy coupled with the non-aggression principle. Essentially, you may do whatever you like so long as it occurs on your property or property you have permission to use (or where no one has a claim), imposes no real, physical or financial burdens on me, and that it does not involve the initiation of force or fraud. Taking that concept to its logical conclusion, I take a strictly voluntarist position that rejects any authority beyond the individual, but I do see value in communities that share the same basic principles, in recognition of the fact that rights are only reified in the context of human interaction. This reality requires that one find a community of people who will respect and reciprocate the same set of rights they wish to exercise. Or, it would in a truly free society. As it is, these things are decided for us and imposed by force by a government far away.

I don't know if the diatribe above is what you were after, but I hope you can glean from it what you sought to know about my position on ethics. If there's anything you need clarified, please do ask me, I'll do my best to be more concise, but you can plainly see that brevity is not my forté.

In response to a "Progressive"

The best thing about this brief missive from the Phoenix Progressive Examiner was the Gun Porn used to illustrate it. Looks like a compact Sig Sauer, not a bad little weapon. Anyway, I was moved to comment, and as I suspected, I was roundly ignored. So, I reproduce those comments below, for the sake of posterity:

You know, my first job out of college had me making courtroom exhibits for the state attorney's office, and one of the cases I helped with was the Moon Smoke Shop/Famous Sam's/Firefighter's Union hall murder spree that happened 10 years ago in Tucson. Let me tell you, they were gruesome. What these men did was utterly inhuman, and they deserve whatever punishment can be dished out in this life, or the next. But you know what else it was? Illegal. Laws aren't magic. They don't stop criminals, but they do stop decent, law abiding citizens from defending themselves. I've seen what that looks like, and it isn't pretty. So I'm 100% with the AZ GOP in support of ending these foolish prohibitions on the fundamental human right of self-defense.

So, the next time you sit down to write some screed about "common sense" gun control, think back to that pamphlet that Thomas Paine penned, Common Sense. If he had to register his printing press and pass a Crown competency test and promise, upon pain of imprisonment and the confiscation of his property, not to print anything that might upset others, or incite violence, or God forbid, foment a REVOLUTION, we'd be as surveilled and taxed and regulated (even our speech! But I guess you would like to ban Michael Savage from this country, too) as all the other subjects of the U.K are today. But there was, at the time, a widespread respect for the fundamental human right of free expression.

It's a shame you people have stolen the word liberal from the real classical liberals who founded this country with the enlightenment values of maximum personal freedom and a minimal state (and ask Lysander Spooner about how far they fell short) in mind. The only thing you're liberal about is the application of government to any problem you see, which is essentially the use of VIOLENT FORCE to make people behave as you wish. The only "progessive" action I see is the continued progress of government intrusion into every aspect of our lives, backed up, as it always is, by men with guns. So, just come out and "cop" to your love of and infatuation with guns (used aggressively, not as we 2A folks would have it, in defense ourselves and loved ones), those of you on the left, because that's clearly your favorite solution to any problem. Point a gun at whoever is acting up and make them do as we say! No wonder you like those Che Guevera t-shirts so much. That was one of his favorite solutions too, but it usually ended with him pulling the trigger.

So, my mom is blogging now...

And I'm not. Yet. And, I have got to fix that. I've been looking for other hobbies to fill my evenings besides watching TV and drinking too much, and while softball and Systema have served me well, I think I should spend more time writing. So, I'll try and get back to this blog and in the interest of widening my audience and attracting readers who's anticipation of my ramblings might guilt me into producing some content, I'll broadcast this blog's 3rd or 4th resurrection via Facebook and my various forum signatures. My more epic exertions will be submitted to Strike-the-root.com and LewRockwell.com for consideration. There is nothing in the universe I would love more than to make a little scratch, let a lone a decent living, as a professional libertarian-anarchist-gun nut curmudgeon. Hey, my mom made $6 through Google AdSense, so why not take a stab at it?