In Defense of Libertarianism, from HotWired's Synapse (fwd)

Forwarded message:

> Date: Fri, 12 Sep 1997 07:47:21 -0700 (PDT)
> From: Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com>
> Subject: In Defense of Libertarianism, from HotWired's Synapse

>    Libertarianism is not about anarchy, utopia, or selfishness. Instead,
>    libertarians simply are skeptical of "nanny government," and recognize
>    the many ways state power has been abused in the past. They believe
>    that government programs like health assistance, Social Security,
>    foreign aid, and corporate welfare do more harm than good. They argue
>    that everyone must be equal before the law, and everyone has human
>    rights to personal security, to property, and to free speech that the
>    government must protect, not violate.

If the Libertarians are so gung-ho on avoiding governmental (especialy
federal) intervention in their lives why do they support the 14th Amendment?
Why do they steadfastly stick to the position that the states should be
forced to be homogenous in their laws under the federal government? It is
clear that the founding fathers wanted the situation in the several states
to be quite dynamic and diverse, otherwise why "Congress shall make no
law..." and not something more comprehensive preventing the states from such
laws as well?

Why do they further not ask why the 9th and 10th are not fully respected and
used by both the legislative and judicial branches of the federal
government?

No, the Libertarians have an agenda that is broader than simply reducing the
intervention of government in our daily lives. They want a situation that
provides them the upper hand, both politicaly and economicaly, while at the
same time reducing the ability of their opponents to gain an advantage. From
this perspective they are just another elephant or jackass...


    ____________________________________________________________________
   |                                                                    |
   |    The financial policy of the welfare state requires that there   |
   |    be no way for the owners of wealth to protect themselves.       |
   |                                                                    |
   |                                       -Alan Greenspan-             |
   |                                                                    | 
   |            _____                             The Armadillo Group   |
   |         ,::////;::-.                           Austin, Tx. USA     |
   |        /:'///// ``::>/|/                     http:// www.ssz.com/  |
   |      .',  ||||    `/( e\                                           |
   |  -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'-                         Jim Choate       |
   |                                                 ravage@ssz.com     |
   |                                                  512-451-7087      |
   |____________________________________________________________________|

There's presumably some far more appropriate place for this,
but it's _your_ cypherpunks listserver :-)

At 07:04 PM 9/12/97 -0500, Jim Choate  <ravage@ssz.com> wrote:
>If the Libertarians are so gung-ho on avoiding governmental (especialy
>federal) intervention in their lives why do they support the 14th Amendment?

Libertarians are generally very strong in insisting that the governments
should respect the rights of their citizens, and as the 14th forces the
Bill of Rights on the states, it adds some value.  There's by no means
agreement that the 14th is good, or that the States are or are not
better at things than the Feds (it's pretty much agreed that it's
easier for the States to do Bad Things, but that it's less dangerous when
they do it than when the Feds do, since it's easier to leave a State.)
Heck, many of us think that Lincoln was wrong in reconquering the South,
though many of us also think that they seceeded for bad motives.

>Why do they further not ask why the 9th and 10th are not fully respected and
>used by both the legislative and judicial branches of the federal
>government?

You haven't heard Libs rant for the 9th and 10th?  You've obviously been
tuning out :-)  Must not have the patience ....

>clear that the founding fathers wanted the situation in the several states
>to be quite dynamic and diverse, otherwise why "Congress shall make no
>law..." and not something more comprehensive preventing the states from such
>laws as well?

It's extremely clear that the Founding Finaglers had widely diverse opinions,
some of which wanted central control and fiat currencies, others rabidly
decentralist.  Go read the Anti-Federalist Papers.  And then, of course,
go read the Federalist papers, and realize these were the more
pro-big-government
side of the bunch that overthrew their previous government.

On Sat, 13 Sep 1997, Bill Stewart wrote:

> >clear that the founding fathers wanted the situation in the several states
> >to be quite dynamic and diverse, otherwise why "Congress shall make no
> >law..." and not something more comprehensive preventing the states from such
> >laws as well?
> 
> It's extremely clear that the Founding Finaglers had widely diverse opinions,
> some of which wanted central control and fiat currencies, others rabidly
> decentralist.  Go read the Anti-Federalist Papers.  And then, of course,
> go read the Federalist papers, and realize these were the more
> pro-big-government
> side of the bunch that overthrew their previous government.

Not that everything was wonderful under the Articles of Confederation.
For example states considered it their right to issue paper currency to
pay you, but demand specie when you paid them.  13 little tyrannies
wouldn't provide liberty, nor would it be likely that large states would
not annex the smaller states.  Some states had bills of rights in their
constitutions, and every state might have had them for a while had the
union not come to pass.  But my point is that decentralization does not
insure liberty - many eastern european countries were smaller than US
states but less free.

The Federalists tried, and to a fair extent succeeded in forming a
centralized power that didn't see its first mission as being to grab more
power.  It got around to it after a while, but it prevented the states
from doing it since you now had the federal government warring with the
states in a separation of powers just as necessary as between the
branches of government.

Even your car comes with maintainence instructions.  You need to refill
the gas tank, keep the tires in balance and at the right pressure and
change the oil.  Omit these things and eventually the car has problems.

You can condem the engineers for not producing a maintence free car, but
you wouldn't be able to afford one even if it were possible.

The founders could not create a maintainence free republic, but we have
forgotten that each generation must relearn the lessons first laid down in
the 1770's (yes - in The Declaration which listed the usurpations and the
toll in lives and treasure).  And rights reserved to the states or the
people is part of that lost lesson.

The soviet union kept their dead preserved in a shrine.  We have a similar
monument holding the Declaration, Constitution, and Bill of Rights.

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