tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8586459318685172946.post6846813632266188241..comments2022-09-25T06:37:04.206-07:00Comments on The Localist: The Problem With Self-OwnershipMark Moore (Moderator)http://www.blogger.com/profile/17386056132530808723noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8586459318685172946.post-36575771115554141672013-04-19T11:11:02.608-07:002013-04-19T11:11:02.608-07:00"Child support is already run by the states, ..."Child support is already run by the states, what are you talking about?"<br /><br /><br />I am talking about leaving that moral imperative under the jurisdiction of the government, even though it violates the principle of self-ownership. I am saying that current law might be closer to moral reality than the change suggested by the principle of self-ownership used as an absolute.<br /><br /><br />"States (along with counties and cities) already have wildly different laws, how is the marketplace working out currently?"<br /><br />To the extent it has been allowed to happen, it worked quite well. The US went from a few tiny colonies to the most powerful, most free, and most prosperous nation on earth under a system much like the one localism suggests. But we are going the other way. Increasingly, cities, counties and states are being treated as mere administrative units of the central government.<br /><br />This lack of choice and diversity is a lack of freedom. We have been going the other way for over 100 years, accelerated after the civil war and 1913. <br /><br />But it still works. We see people fleeing socialist big-government states like California and going states which have less government overhead. What I am saying is let's take the central government almost all of the way out of it and REALLY unleash the market.Mark Moore (Moderator)https://www.blogger.com/profile/17386056132530808723noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8586459318685172946.post-30024782605771773682013-04-19T11:01:17.561-07:002013-04-19T11:01:17.561-07:00"Some might argue that the libertarian tack i..."Some might argue that the libertarian tack is expressly *not* enforcing moral imperatives from the central government. Even so, you still seem to have a list of moral imperatives enforced by the central government in localism, don't you?"<br /><br />I don't see that in the book, do you? Have you actually read it? I will admit it assumes that the reader knows a lot already. <br /><br />Libertarians DO support moral imperatives, that is what the Non Aggression Principle is. In Minarchist Libertarianism (the dominant kind) the state can enforce laws that are violations of the NAP. It leaves open whether the power to apply the NAP and enforce laws should be done by 1) a central government, 2) a decentralized government or 3) a private network in anarchism<br /><br />Under localism, the central government would not have the power to reach out and touch individual citizens, even to the extent permitted in a central minarchist libertarian state. For example the central government would not have the power to put an income or consumption tax on individuals for national defense, which is a legitimate mandatory taxable function under a minarchist libertarian state, since it protects citizens from NAP violations by foreign actors.<br /><br />It is true that in Localism individual states can go beyond the NAP in enforcing moral imperatives. Imagine a nation in which a dozen states use the NAP as the limit of state action, and the rest have various sort of Republics where rights are listed, but the government still has more reach than under an NAP Republic. If the NAP really does best express more closely the moral order of the universe, then it should in time attract more people and produce more freedom and prosperity. The other states can either adjust their constitutions accordingly or lose more citizens to those who do. That is what I mean about the market place.<br />Mark Moore (Moderator)https://www.blogger.com/profile/17386056132530808723noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8586459318685172946.post-44346554637223103612013-04-19T10:28:01.646-07:002013-04-19T10:28:01.646-07:00"Can you explain, why, after arguing away sel..."Can you explain, why, after arguing away self-ownership and the right to determine our own morality, it's acceptable to govern at all? How can a man, unable to determine his own morality, determine the morality of others?"<br /><br />They don't get to do that either, not justly. The classic answer is that the state is the minister of God as regards to meting out justice. IOW, the state is obligated to honor the moral order that is in the universe, not make its own. The Chinese concept for this is that a government loses the "Mandate of Heaven" when they rule out of compliance with God's moral order in the universe.<br /><br />We may see through a mirror dimly, we may not understand it perfectly, or even very well, but our obligation is to seek out and seek to comply with the moral order that is in the universe. Now most of that moral order government should have NOTHING to do with. Much of the moral order has to do with MERCY and CHARITY. Government is restricted to that part of the moral order that is JUSTICE.<br />Mark Moore (Moderator)https://www.blogger.com/profile/17386056132530808723noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8586459318685172946.post-9201881663537447362013-04-19T10:24:09.245-07:002013-04-19T10:24:09.245-07:00I don't get your analogy about the tornado goi...I don't get your analogy about the tornado going over the house at all. The house is like the paycheck. That is, the same reasons that you would say that you "own" your paycheck would apply to the house that you bought with that paycheck. But such reasons do not apply to you. You did not "earn" your existence. It was given to you by Others.Mark Moore (Moderator)https://www.blogger.com/profile/17386056132530808723noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8586459318685172946.post-55546398608928377962013-04-19T10:21:33.417-07:002013-04-19T10:21:33.417-07:00Hi Andy, good to hear from you again.
I don't...Hi Andy, good to hear from you again.<br /><br />I don't quite get what you mean about "ignore the contracted to supply part." In the vast majority of unplanned pregnancies of unmarried persons, there is no "contract" to support the children. Oh I know that some will say there is an "implied" contract, but if we can slap "implied" contracts on one another then that undermines the whole self-ownership thing anyway doesn't it? Who are you to say what I "implied"?<br /><br />I have had libertarians, all claiming to hold the NAP as an absolute, run the gambit of trying to shoe horn an "implied contract" into that scenario to claiming it is slavery to force them to support a child that they had not agreed to care for.<br />Mark Moore (Moderator)https://www.blogger.com/profile/17386056132530808723noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8586459318685172946.post-9730347934660288762013-04-11T00:49:56.149-07:002013-04-11T00:49:56.149-07:00"Who could argue with that? Lot's of dece..."Who could argue with that? Lot's of decent people, once you apply that absolute to some sticky situations. An example might be whether a man who got a woman pregnant had any obligation to pay child support. Insisting someone share the bill for national defense, or anything else with "free rider" issues, might be another example."<br /><br />Well, if you completely ignore the "contracted to supply" part of "owes no service or product to anyone else that he has not contracted to supply".<br /><br />"Each day a thousand things we cannot control in the heavens and on earth are necessary to sustain our lives. Self-ownership does not seem a rational position."<br /><br />I don't quite see how these two things are related. It's like saying that because tornadoes blow over your house, you don't really own your house. This isn't a bad personal philosophy, but it's a terrible legal concept.<br /><br />"That is why I am a Localist"<br /><br />Can you explain, why, after arguing away self-ownership and the right to determine our own morality, it's acceptable to govern at all? How can a man, unable to determine his own morality, determine the morality of others?<br /><br />"central government would get no gun for enforcing moral imperatives, be that gun libertarian, fascist, conservative, liberal, or whatever."<br /><br />Some might argue that the libertarian tack is expressly *not* enforcing moral imperatives from the central government. Even so, you still seem to have a list of moral imperatives enforced by the central government in localism, don't you?<br /><br />"States and localities would, retaining their right to sanction moral behavior such as mandating child support."<br /><br />Child support is already run by the states, what are you talking about?<br /><br />"Decentralizing power would make the government subject to the marketplace."<br /><br />States (along with counties and cities) already have wildly different laws, how is the marketplace working out currently?Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16094410232081261114noreply@blogger.com