tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post328438637104249348..comments2024-03-27T11:16:36.951-07:00Comments on One Cʘsmos: Chaocracy and Our Malorderous B.O.Gagdad Bobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14249005793605006679noreply@blogger.comBlogger57125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-38643569174477327842010-04-01T09:53:54.345-07:002010-04-01T09:53:54.345-07:00And a bit further you begin to see the pieces comi...And a bit further you begin to see the pieces coming together,<br /><br />"<i>CHAPTER IV<br />the limits of the sovereign power<br /><b>If the State is a moral person whose life is in the union of its members, and if the most important of its cares is the care for its own preservation, it must have a universal and compelling force, in order to move and dispose each part as may be most advantageous to the whole.</b> As nature gives each man absolute power over all his members, the social compact gives the body politic absolute power over all its members also; and it is this power which, under the direction of the general will, bears, as I have said, the name of Sovereignty.<br /><br />But, besides the public person, we have to consider the private persons composing it, whose life and liberty are naturally independent of it. We are bound then to distinguish clearly between the respective rights of the citizens and the Sovereign,1 and between the duties the former have to fulfil as subjects, and the natural rights they should enjoy as men.<br /><br /><b>Each man alienates, I admit, by the social compact, only such part of his powers, goods and liberty as it is important for the community to control; but it must also be granted that the Sovereign is sole judge of what is important.</b><br /><br />Every service a citizen can render the State he ought to render as soon as the Sovereign demands it; but the Sovereign, for its part, cannot impose upon its subjects any fetters that are useless to the community, nor can it even wish to do so; for no more by the law of reason than by the law of nature can anything occur without a cause.<br /></i> "<br /><br />It is very easy to take Rousseau to appear as you might want to read him, he, like Kant, has many fine sounding things to say - taken in isolation. But when you look to his fundamentals (and you need to read his first celebrated essay against civilization, to begin getting the full picture), you begin to see what has no choice but to follow.<br /><br />Robesspierre slept with Rousseau's works under his pillow, he faithfully employed his ideas in the way they were meant and intended, and the Terror was no accident of the times, but a direct result of the fundamentals which the French Revolution was begun upon.<br /><br />Btw, yes, began with Ayn Rand, but soon moved on as I got into history and found many of her observations incorrect or completely misinterpreted - her ideas on concept formation are excellent, her application of those are often... flawed.<br /><br />And her locating Kant as THE root of evil, way off, For modernity, I'd pick Rousseau as the one who actually knew what he was doing.<br /><br />Sooo late, gotta go.Van Harveyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08470413719262297062noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-29846254772484402942010-04-01T09:51:34.703-07:002010-04-01T09:51:34.703-07:00(cont)
A little further down, you quoted from the ...(cont)<br />A little further down, you quoted from the end of the chapter on slavery, but you missed it's opening,<br />"<i>CHAPTER IV<br />slavery<br />Since no man has a natural authority over his fellow, and force creates no right, we must conclude that conventions form the basis of all legitimate authority among men.</i>"<br /><br />Rousseau <i>did not</i> say that a man has a right not to be enslaved, he said there is no <i>Right</i> to enslave a man, it is merely another one, of many, conventions which society chooses to establish. That really shouldn't put you in a happy comfy place. Rousseau <i>was</i> opposed to Kings, but that does not mean he was for true liberty - he was a radical democrat, egalitarian, and nothing but tyranny of the many can, or ever will, result from that.<br /><br />And a wee bit further,<br />"CHAPTER VII<br />the sovereign<br />"<i>...But the body politic or the Sovereign, drawing its being wholly from the sanctity of the contract, can never bind itself, even to an outsider, to do anything derogatory to the original act, for instance, to alienate any part of itself, or to submit to another Sovereign. Violation of the act by which it exists would be self-annihilation; and that which is itself nothing can create nothing.<br /><br />As soon as this multitude is so united in one body, it is impossible to offend against one of the members without attacking the body, and still more to offend against the body without the members resenting it. Duty and interest therefore equally oblige the two contracting parties to give each other help; and the same men should seek to combine, in their double capacity, all the advantages dependent upon that capacity.<br /><br />Again, the Sovereign, being formed wholly of the individuals who compose it, neither has nor can have any interest contrary to theirs; and consequently the sovereign power need give no guarantee to its subjects, because it is impossible for the body to wish to hurt all its members. We shall also see later on that it cannot hurt any in particular. <b>The Sovereign, merely by virtue of what it is, is always what it should be</b>.<br /><br />This, however, is not the case with the relation of the subjects to the Sovereign, which, despite the common interest, would have no security that they would fulfil their undertakings, unless it found means to assure itself of their fidelity.<br /><br />In fact, each individual, as a man, may have a particular will contrary or dissimilar to the general will which he has as a citizen. His particular interest may speak to him quite differently from the common interest: his absolute and naturally independent existence may make him look upon what he owes to the common cause as a gratuitous contribution, the loss of which will do less harm to others than the payment of it is burdensome to himself; and, regarding the moral person which constitutes the State as a persona ficta, because not a man, he may wish to enjoy the rights of citizenship without being ready to fulfil the duties of a subject. The continuance of such an injustice could not but prove the undoing of the body politic.<br /><br />In order then that the social compact may not be an empty formula, it tacitly includes the undertaking, which alone can give force to the rest, that whoever refuses to obey the general will shall be compelled to do so by the whole body. <b>This means nothing less than that he will be forced to be free; for this is the condition which, by giving each citizen to his country, secures him against all personal dependence.</b> In this lies the key to the working of the political machine; this alone legitimises civil undertakings, which, without it, would be absurd, tyrannical, and liable to the most frightful abuses.</i>"<br />(cont)Van Harveyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08470413719262297062noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-66077393552891751552010-04-01T09:50:26.041-07:002010-04-01T09:50:26.041-07:00(Gagdad, hope you'll pardon a few extended com...(Gagdad, hope you'll pardon a few extended comments)<br />As I said, you've got to get past the marketing material and into the fundamentals. You begin with Book IV and the chapter on Voting, you really need to start at the beginning and see what all of that rests upon. At the moment I've got to mow the lawn and then go out to an appointment, but it's an intersting topic for me, I'll be back. In the meantime, from Book 1, Chapter 1, or <a href="http://oll.libertyfund.org/?option=com_staticxt&staticfile=show.php%3Ftitle=638&chapter=70977&layout=html&Itemid=27" rel="nofollow">The Social Contact</a><br /><br />"<i>CHAPTER I<br />subject of the first book<br />Man is born free; and everywhere he is in chains. One thinks himself the master of others, and still remains a greater slave than they. How did this change come about? I do not know. What can make it legitimate? That question I think I can answer.<br /><br />If I took into account only force, and the effects derived from it, I should say: “As long as a people is compelled to obey, and obeys, it does well; as soon as it can shake off the yoke, and shakes it off, it does still better; for, regaining its liberty by the same right as took it away, either it is justified in resuming it, or there was no justification for those who took it away.” But the social order is a sacred right which is the basis of all other rights. <b>Nevertheless, this right does not come from nature, and must therefore be founded on conventions</b>. Before coming to that, I have to prove what I have just asserted.</i>"<br /><br />That rights do not come from Nature, but from conventions, is exactly what I mentioned above about Calhoun and your other democrat forebears. Individual Rights become what the society feels are useful, not something which society has no right to deprive them of.<br /><br />(cont)Van Harveyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08470413719262297062noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-8309788962632946042010-04-01T08:18:23.222-07:002010-04-01T08:18:23.222-07:00So, from whatever aspect we regard the question, t...<i>So, from whatever aspect we regard the question, the right of slavery is null and void, not only as being illegitimate, but also because it is absurd and meaningless. The words slave and right contradict each other, and are mutually exclusive.<br /><br />I prefer liberty with danger to peace with slavery.<br /><br />There is but one law which, from its nature, needs unanimous consent. This is the social compact; for civil association is the most voluntary of all acts. Every man being born free and his own master, no one, under any pretext whatsoever, can make any man subject without his consent. To decide that the son of a slave is born a slave is to decide that he is not born a man.</i><br />-- Rousseau, The Social Contract<br /><br />I don't see what Rousseau's personal life has to do with anything. You seem to get most of your ideas from Ayn Rand (although you don't mention her explicitly I see the signs of infection). Check into her personal life some time.<br /><br />I see you entirely missed the point about currency. Big surprise there. Hopefully some of the less dense readers got it.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-64990871995054548782010-04-01T06:50:35.448-07:002010-04-01T06:50:35.448-07:00aninnymouse said "Rousseau was pretty clearly...aninnymouse said "Rousseau was pretty clearly opposed to slavery."<br /><br />Yeah... in the same way Obamao is for transparency and the free market. I'm sure your textbook had his deep passion for 'liberty' on display with "<i>“Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains.”, </i>", however, it's unlikely that it also printed the portion, just a little further down in his essay, where he said "<i>This means nothing less than that he will be forced to be free</i> ".<br /><br />If rather than being satisfied with what you were forced to read in school, you want to actually learn what it meant, and means, you can find the links to Rousseau's actual words, in his full context, in the link I provided above. Don't worry your aninnyself too much, Rousseau wasn't nearly as longwinded as I am, they're relatively short essays, and if you can manage to read beyond the marketing phrases to the actual meat of his ideas, you might just learn something.<br /><br />Unlikely, I grant you, but possible.<br /><br />Rousseau was a sick, disgusting person (read his 'Confessions'), had horribly destructive ideas in education, which still form the DNA of modern education (read 'Emile') and the results of <i>that</i> are clearly on display in any public school system today; add to that the fact that each of his new born children, and remember he 'so loves the children', he had taken from their mother's breast shortly after birth, and sent to certain death at a foundling hospital - yeah, he sooo loved the children, and <i>humanity!</i>. He was also quite likely psychotic, read about poor David Hume's nightmare when he invited Rousseau to come visit him in Britain - he accused Hume, and nearly everyone else of plotting against him, and even of trying to poison him. <br /><br />In short, Rousseau perfectly embodied everything the progressive left has ever felt, thought and stood for.<br /><br />"Just like dollars are worth something because everybody uses them, whereas scrip that you print up in your basement is probably not."<br /><br />Thank you mister Keynes! However the present state of the dollar shows how wrong he was. An ounce of gold around 1900 was worth about $20, you could buy a nice suit for it. An ounce of gold today is worth about $1,000... and you can still just about buy a nice suit for it... the difference is that the progressive Keynesians have been at their basement printing press of dreams, cranking out the paper dollars, but there's still only so much value to be represented by the currency. Hazlitt demolished Keyenes(<a href="http://mises.org/books/failureofneweconomics.pdf" rel="nofollow">The Failure of the 'New Economics'</a>), but the left keeps coming back to their power enabler.<br /><br />"If it makes you feel better to believe that, be my guest."<br /><br />Ah, you're right, defeat is the wrong word... inability, incompetence and ignorance are much closer to the mark, and you do demonstrate them so well, you might as well just leave it at that. Unless of course you want to come back with another well supported assertion about Rousseau... I do enjoy a good laugh.Van Harveyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08470413719262297062noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-20325632490045284892010-03-31T21:23:19.442-07:002010-03-31T21:23:19.442-07:00What is relevant, is how slavery was being philoso...<i>What is relevant, is how slavery was being philosophically justified</i><br /><br />Rousseau was pretty clearly opposed to slavery. If some supporters of slavery chose to misuse his writings, that is not really his fault, and less still the fault of the left in general, which is what you claimed.<br /><br /><i>Your definition of 'right' or even of 'definition' is worthless.</i><br /><br />On the contrary, it is worth a lot because it is the one that <i>almost every intelligent person uses</i>. You can make up private definitions all you like, but they will only be of use in talking to similarly-minded idiots. Just like dollars are worth something because everybody uses them, whereas scrip that you print up in your basement is probably not.<br /><br /><i>I accept your concession of defeat.</i><br /><br />If it makes you feel better to believe that, be my guest.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-73214155146691906442010-03-31T11:19:14.806-07:002010-03-31T11:19:14.806-07:00aninnymouse said "Dear boy, African slavery i...aninnymouse said "Dear boy, African slavery in the Americas dates back to the 1..."<br />Dear doofus, Slavery, african or otherwise, has been with us since the before history began to be recorded, and is absolutely irrelevant to the issue.<br /><br />What is relevant, is how slavery was being philosophically justified, and it wasn't being <i>justified</i> simply on 'We got 'em, and we're keeping them' - the time time when that was sufficient, or even using snippets of the Bible would be sufficient, had passed - and slavery as in institution was expected to peter out and exterminate itself some time after the constitutional ban against importing slaves took affect, because the Founders knew that slavery flew in the face of Natural Rights, which were the entire basis for the Revolution and the the conceptual framework from which the Constitution was created and ratified. <br /><br />What Taney, Calhoun, etc, tried to justify their defense of slavery upon, was from Rights being rooted in the society, in the collective (ala the varying tact's of Rousseau, Hobbes, and others), that the Individual did not have Rights derived from Natural Law, from the nature of Man, the individual had no inherent and recognizable Right to 'life, liberty and the pursuit of Happiness' himself, no, the individual had only those rights which fostered and promoted the smooth operation of society, such as recognized by society as a whole, and particularly by those in charge of ordering it - whether that be King, Legislator or Congress was of no real significance to their ideas.<br /><br />That was the only way open for them to argue for owning their fellow man, and through that route, they could also give the appearance of an argument for property rights and states rights, but the core principles which their argument rested upon, was the direct opposite of the Founders understanding of Individual Rights, Property Rights and Natural Law.<br /><br />"The right is by definition the party of tradition, authority, and aristocr..."<br /><br />Your definition of 'right' or even of 'definition' is worthless. Your party, the democrat party, was the party of slavery in the 1860's, because it held the philosophical positions advanced by Rousseau, Hobbes, etc, rather than that of Blackstone, Locke, Cicero, etc.<br /><br />I am a Liberal in the Classical sense, as was Coolidge, Lincoln, Madison, Adams, Burke (who did an excellent job of foretelling the <a href="http://oll.libertyfund.org/index.php?option=com_staticxt&staticfile=show.php%3Fperson=3807&Itemid=28" rel="nofollow">disastrous future in store for France</a>, by its taking seriously the ideas of Rousseau - something we'd better learn from as well, pretty damn quick), Locke, Cicero... etc.<br /><br />BTW, I note that you offer no statement or summary of Rousseau's or your own conception of rights, and so I accept your concession of defeat.Van Harveyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08470413719262297062noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-70394104123523640812010-03-31T09:40:59.139-07:002010-03-31T09:40:59.139-07:00Dear boy, African slavery in the Americas dates ba...Dear boy, African slavery in the Americas dates back to the 1500s (with antecedents that run back to antiquity), so it's a little difficult to pin it on Rousseau who wouldn't be born until 200 years later. I suppose, it being Passover, we can blame him for the bondage of the Jews in Egypt as well.<br /><br />The right is <i>by definition</i> the party of tradition, authority, and aristocracy -- particularly in the 1700s. The Southern slavemaster class was the closest thing we had here to an aristocracy, or pretensions to one, it was a feature of the old world that the US revolution did not succeed in eliminating. That would have to wait until Lincoln, whose exertion and extension of federal authority was opposed by exactly your type using exactly the same constitutional arguments you are using now. Whatever the legal merits of such arguments, it is pretty clear which side was for liberty and which side was for slavery.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-52678115105807983132010-03-31T06:56:25.686-07:002010-03-31T06:56:25.686-07:00Anon. said "tie your shoes," etc.
And t...Anon. said "tie your shoes," etc.<br /><br />And this from a fellow who just "pegged" Reagan as "little better than an anarchist." Riiight.<br /><br />Think it possible Reagan was referring to <a href="http://www.usa.gov/Agencies/Federal/All_Agencies/index.shtml" rel="nofollow">this bloat</a>--not our Constitutional Republic as such?Susannahhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16381272662339466736noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-66410307452259449262010-03-31T03:33:24.400-07:002010-03-31T03:33:24.400-07:00To Anonymouse re:
"What's with the use o...To Anonymouse re:<br /><br />"What's with the use of "ivy leaguer" as a term of opporbrium? Are you people really so disconnected from normality that you automatically discredit something because it's author is at Yale? "<br /><br />It simple, the ivies and their clones, practice one thing: deconstruction. They mask their petty wants in grand theories of social justice to achieve one consistent end: the elevation of themselves over their fellow citizen. Unfortunately, they are only able to elevate themselves by minimizing and reducing others. There is no genius associated with the pursuit but rather the distorted miserliness of a small man attempting to find some meaning to himself by identifying a flaw within greatness. If you wish to know this personality, look no further than the next mirror. <br /><br />Why do you find a professor of law who recommends the avoidance of legal process as preferred path in achieving his "unintelligible" ends? Would any sane man hire him to prepare their taxes or defend them in court? Nothing like a law professor who has contempt for the law. To chastise me for having contempt for the contemptible, seems, well silly.<br /><br />It is clear by reading a few of your professor's paragraphs that he is disconnected and bored. He may want to find a real way to achieve greatness within his life, but that would probably mean accepting the equality of his fellow citizens. My guess is this a bridge too far.Tigtoghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03290914498892961024noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-35628553676969496222010-03-30T23:44:49.121-07:002010-03-30T23:44:49.121-07:00Aninnymouse said "How do you manage to tie yo...Aninnymouse said "How do you manage to tie your shoes in the morning?"<br /><br />Easy, if you tie them well once, you can just slip 'em on and off for weeks without having to tie or untie them. Might drive your wife nuts, but hey, live dangerously.<br /><br />"<i>'leftists from Rousseau on [are] responsible for the Confederate slaveowners...'</i> I confess I can't even imagine what it's like to be stupid enough to believe something like that. "<br /><br />So. I assume if you can type, you can read. Have you actually read Rousseau yourself? Or were you foolish enough to swallow his praises from a textbook, without having actually read what he had to say? <br /><br />If you have actually read him, then how can you be so dense as to <i>not</i> see the similarities? Perhaps you could offer us up your own summation of RueSo's notions of what Rights are (particularly his notions of property rights, that should be rich), where those rights came from and his view of what respect a Legislator owed to the Individual Rights of the common man? <br /><br />If you haven't actually read Rousseau before squeaking off, allow me to offer up a <a href="http://blogodidact.blogspot.com/2009/01/what-is-justice-two-mis-states-of.html" rel="nofollow"> summary of Rousseau & Hobbes</a> with some handy dandy links to the relevant source materials for each.<br /><br />Go on... read him... I'm sure he would have loved you like one of his own children.<br /><br />(yikes)Van Harveyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08470413719262297062noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-88818879738089239592010-03-30T22:31:51.038-07:002010-03-30T22:31:51.038-07:00leftists from Rousseau on [are] responsible for th...<i>leftists from Rousseau on [are] responsible for the Confederate slaveowners...</i><br /><br />I confess I can't even imagine what it's like to be stupid enough to believe something like that. How do you manage to tie your shoes in the morning?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-73003680018969088132010-03-30T22:18:51.131-07:002010-03-30T22:18:51.131-07:00aninnymouse said "Are you people really so di...aninnymouse said "Are you people really so disconnected from normality that you automatically discredit something because it's author is at Yale?"<br /><br />Nah, the fact that what they have to say is stupid is quite sufficient.Van Harveyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08470413719262297062noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-10250176659238118812010-03-30T22:11:08.679-07:002010-03-30T22:11:08.679-07:00aninnymouse said "... how could a contract si...aninnymouse said "... how could a contract signed by a few dozen people over two hundred years ago be binding on 300 million people today?"<br /><br />First, while a few dozen people wrote the constitution, it was 13 states representing a few million people who ratified it. And it was created with this nifty innovative feature providing for constitutional amendments, that allows it to keep up with the times and be self repairing, hence the first 10 (ratified) amendments before it was even a few years old, and others such as the 13th & 14th amendments, ad even quick change and recovery with the 18th amendment and repealing it with the 21st amendment - those are examples of real change, and change done properly and lawfully. Hell, even the 16th & 17th amendments, stupid and destructive as they were, were at least real changes made according to the rule of law, unlike your ObamaoCare abomination.<br /><br />But more importantly, we're not talking about simple covenants, codes and restrictions for a subdivision here, but principles of law, and the core principles such as Property Rights, Free Speech, Freedom of Assembly are concepts which, like murder and thievery, don't change over time, and they don't become 'ok' just because enough ignorant fools at the ballot box think that amounts to change they can believe in, vote for it. <br /><br />We're a Constitutional Republic, not a democracy. <br /><br />ObamaoCare is against the law, constitutional law, from which all other law flows, and whether such things are attempted by Justice Taney or Resident Obamao, it's still unconstitutional, no matter how many 'laws' you pass saying otherwise. The repeal will come. <br /><br />First draft scheduled for delivery Nov 2010.Van Harveyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08470413719262297062noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-76122149545265039252010-03-30T21:43:31.412-07:002010-03-30T21:43:31.412-07:00aninnymouse said "...first the left is respon...aninnymouse said "...first the left is responsible for Hitler, now we're responsible for the Confederate slaveowners? Man, we sure get around."<br /><br />Yep, leftists from Rousseau on, have mistaken changing names and surface appearances for meaningful change.<br /><br />Stupid is as stupid does.Van Harveyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08470413719262297062noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-60211601274500725252010-03-30T20:36:13.875-07:002010-03-30T20:36:13.875-07:00ha! "we can only decide how best to govern.&q...ha! "we can only decide how best to govern." Take the we as an indefinite article, kindly.Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16944447866839624460noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-90934775902573195182010-03-30T20:26:21.251-07:002010-03-30T20:26:21.251-07:00Anon,
The people do not act as a whole in any act...Anon,<br /><br />The people do not act as a whole in any act of government, except in terms of obedience or acquiescence. This is common sense. The various constitutions delineate who has what authority. The people who assume this authority take an oath to the constitutions, not the will of the people, which is unknowable in any case. <br /><br />What you quoted from me I meant as a way of addressing the limits of gov't power. I believe somewhat more firmly in the legitimacy of governments than of societies. I believe in freedom of association in other words. Society and culture are topics of conversation, not political actors. <br /><br />To be blunt, I only have two thoughts about gov't. You quoted the first. The second is that gov't precedes our theories and attempts to understand them. They seem to me as natural and inevitable as families. We can only decide how best to govern, not whether or not to. But I think my two ideas have a nice tension.<br /><br />But from your last post, regarding the difference between contracts and laws, we may agree.Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16944447866839624460noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-58004774113834622732010-03-30T20:23:07.747-07:002010-03-30T20:23:07.747-07:00That article was written by Brian Tamanaha who is ...That article was written by Brian Tamanaha who is at St. John's University, not part of the Ivy League last time I checked. But so what? What's with the use of "ivy leaguer" as a term of opporbrium? Are you people really so disconnected from normality that you automatically discredit something because it's author is at Yale? Where do you get your information, Pat Robertson's Regent U?<br /><br /><i>If the Constitution is not a contract because an ivy leaguer thinks not all living people were afforded the opportunity to agree to the original contract, then why do I have to participate in a Progressive Income Taxation, Social Security and Medicare? I was never allowed the opportunity to choose these schemes? Why would I be required to fund Obamacare, I didn't agree to it personally?</i><br /><br />Because it's the law. Contracts and laws are not the same thing. A contract is has very specific requirements such as mutual consideration and explicit consent. <br /><br /><i>The document outlines transcendent and universal truths regarding our agreed upon construct.</i><br /><br />That is also something not generally found in contracts, because there is no need to have formal consent to "transcendent and universal truths". I'm also a little dubious about that as a description of the Constitution. Since the drafters put in provisions for amending it, they recognized that it did not encode timeless universal truths. <br /><br /><i>Finally, the Constitution is a contract written by common men for common men. </i><br /><br />Most of them were lawyers and it's a good bet they knew what a contract was.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-72908125263641554092010-03-30T18:53:29.141-07:002010-03-30T18:53:29.141-07:00Anonymous, my comment was referring to a few my Ch...Anonymous, my comment was referring to a few my Christian friends, who take Jesus' admonitions to his followers out of context, and try to realize them through government in the most coercive, un-Christ-like manner possible.Susannahhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16381272662339466736noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-75192008758166306932010-03-30T18:44:01.787-07:002010-03-30T18:44:01.787-07:00"What is predictable about the left, is they ..."What is predictable about the left, is they are free to implement any of their utopias in any of the States and cities that they control. The sad fact is once enacted they are faced with the ultimate failure of their design. Instead of learning from failure and changing course they childishly blame republicans for their failures and seek a nationalized solution based on the same failed local design. I guess bigger is better when failing."<br /><br />Well, this pretty much expresses what was on my mind this afternoon, and what I was coming back to say. Thanks!Susannahhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16381272662339466736noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-32511511694486886882010-03-30T18:32:26.990-07:002010-03-30T18:32:26.990-07:00To Anonymouse re No Contract for You.. Soup Nazi
...To Anonymouse re No Contract for You.. Soup Nazi<br /><br />Quote Ivy League Prof you cited:<br /><br />"Sorry for not taking seriously the idea that the Constitution is literally a contract. <br /><br />So let me see if I get it. Just over two hundred years ago, a few thousand people created a "contract" that was binding not only upon the majority of the people at the time who did not consent to the terms of the contract, but upon all future generations as well--many hundreds of millions of people, for hundreds and perhaps thousands of years. In addition, this intrepid group made it extremely difficult (and later nigh impossible) to alter the terms of the contract. And forever after, their shared views about the meaning of the terms of the contract controls all decisions, no matter how much change takes place in society, the economy, the political system, the population, technology, culture, and everything else.<br /><br />Is that an attractive (or sensible) way to understand the foundational terms of our society and government?"<br /><br />Two questions genius, <br /><br />1. If the Constitution is not a contract because an ivy leaguer thinks not all living people were afforded the opportunity to agree to the original contract, then why do I have to participate in a Progressive Income Taxation, Social Security and Medicare? I was never allowed the opportunity to choose these schemes? Why would I be required to fund Obamacare, I didn't agree to it personally?<br /><br />2. Why do public servants swear an oath to a null and void document when taking office? <br /><br />Your ivy leaguer seems all tore up about "how much change takes place in society, the economy, the political system, the population, technology, culture, and everything else" and how hard it is to amend the Constitution. Because there is change the Constitution is not valid? Strange reasoning. Because its hard to amend, according to him, therefore its not a valid contract? This is the dishonesty I spoke about regarding the left, particularly the bigoted ivy league left. My son will often tell me a thousand things that prohibited him from doing his chores and homework. Your ivy leaguer's argument is on par with my sons. A contract by definition should be hard to change, it is after all a contract? The document outlines transcendent and universal truths regarding our agreed upon construct. It is because of this that we swear an oath to uphold and defend it. <br /><br />Its a contract between the States and the Federal Government. Remember, the States created the Federal Government to do only those things that made sense for a Federal Government to do; national defense, common currency, foreign diplomacy. Everything else was reserved for the States and Individuals. You want state run healthcare, move to MA. You want near free college education move to CA or FL. All the ideas you seek are available at the State level and are Constitutional. These are State functions not Federal functions.<br /><br />Finally, the Constitution is a contract written by common men for common men. The language used was precise and clear. It was intended to be read and understood by tradesmen and farmers. There were no law schools when it was written, and no fancy professors of law available to play word games and imagine reasons not to follow its agreed upon precepts. It was and is an honest document between freemen. It has been defended by honest freemen for greater than two centuries. I am not impressed that some asshat from the ivies thinks it an antiquated and difficult thing to deal with. A mans freedom should be difficult to deal with. <br /><br />I thought you could do better than that. Shoosh.Tigtoghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03290914498892961024noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-5443497308737894332010-03-30T18:09:13.507-07:002010-03-30T18:09:13.507-07:00Attention all poets: Anonymous is the unacknowled...Attention all poets: Anonymous is the unacknowledged legislator of the world. He'll let you know what is and isn't a metaphor.The Ministry of Linguisticsnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-51854398237757399412010-03-30T17:29:01.921-07:002010-03-30T17:29:01.921-07:00Tigtog: The Constitution is not a contract. Not ...Tigtog: The Constitution is not a contract. <a href="http://balkin.blogspot.com/2006/12/truly-poor-metaphor-constitution-is.html" rel="nofollow">Not even metaphorically</a>. Think about it for three seconds -- how could a contract signed by a few dozen people over two hundred years ago be binding on 300 million people today? <br /><br />Thank you for illustrating my point -- an actual conservative would have some knowledge about the thing they claimed to be conserving.<br /><br />Van: first the left is responsible for Hitler, now we're responsible for the Confederate slaveowners? Man, we sure get around.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-27177799452989997372010-03-30T15:43:46.728-07:002010-03-30T15:43:46.728-07:00"While I can understand hostility to governme..."While I can understand hostility to government, I do not understand how such a rabidly alienated position can in any way be considered conservative."<br /><br />Its really quite simple, Conservatives conserve the Constitution as written. A contract is a contract, or it isn't one. The left attempts to redefine it through dishonest means (e,g,, populist demands for things not enumerated, penumbras, judicial commands, and new "ivy league" definitions of simple well known terms). The Conservative understands a simple contract, while a leftist sees it as an obstacle (see Obama's Mau Mau of Supreme Court during State of the Union). Basically, like Roosevelt, Obama sees the Constitution as something that needs to be corrupted so that he may succeed. Currently, leftist see a "positive right" to health insurance in a document that clearly only defines the limited reach of the Federal Government with all others rights reserved to the States and Individuals. <br /><br />What is predictable about the left, is they are free to implement any of their utopias in any of the States and cities that they control. The sad fact is once enacted they are faced with the ultimate failure of their design. Instead of learning from failure and changing course they childishly blame republicans for their failures and seek a nationalized solution based on the same failed local design. I guess bigger is better when failing.<br /><br />Do you not find it funny to watch dems in places like San Fran, Detroit, and DC blame republicans for any assorted sins while campaigning for local offices? There hasn't been an active republican party in these precincts for decades, much less any republican control of local or State government. How dysfunctional do you think a population has to be to react to mere fantasies in the direction of their municipal life? Interestingly, it works year in and year out. Amazing. <br /><br />So from my point of view, I find the left dishonest with regard to my contract with my government and I also find their followers to be dangerously unbalanced. So yea, when the dishonest lead to the unbalanced to loot my contractual human rights, I get annoyed. <br /><br />The odd thing is the left is so 19th century in their purported modernity. Socialism and unionism? Come on. Lets grow up, hell the Chinese have.Tigtoghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03290914498892961024noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-30012992223799327002010-03-30T13:49:29.141-07:002010-03-30T13:49:29.141-07:00aninnymouse said "The odd thing about the pre...aninnymouse said "The odd thing about the present day US right is that th..."<br /><br />The odd thing about the present day left, is that they are just like the 1860's Left - they do not recognize Rights as derived from the nature of Man, Natural Rights, they see rights as bestowed, or withheld, by Govt as a result of legislation, to benefit the favored group... they see <i>some</i> people as worthy of treated like property - theirs.<br /><br />As <a href="http://blogodidact.blogspot.com/2010/03/arbitrary-disasters-health-of-justice.html" rel="nofollow">I recently noted</a>, the modern left operates just as the confederacy, who sought to mask their denial of actual Individual Rights under the cover of 'States Rights' & 'Property Rights', but the fact was that,<br /><br />"States Rights and <a href="http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/v1ch16I.html" rel="nofollow">Property Rights</a>, were also not the issue, though pro-slavery apologists eagerly sought to clothe their arguments in them, but what they actually meant were not Property Rights, those rights fundamental to all <a href="http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/v1ch14I.html" rel="nofollow">Individual Rights</a>, and stemming from the <a href="http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/v1ch3s3.html" rel="nofollow">Natural Rights</a> of the individual, no, what men such as Justice Taney (see not only his opinion in Dred Scott, but in the issue of 'mere property rights' such as in the Charles River Bridge case (which <a href="http://blogodidact.blogspot.com/2010/02/what-do-you-say-to-people-who-say-tea.html" rel="nofollow">I noted in a previous post</a>), which Daniel Webster lamented as being the "death of Property Rights", and which made Taney's judgment' in Dred Scott possible) had in mind was a mockery of 'Property Rights', dressing up the mere possession of something as conveying a right to that thing, be it land, bricks or people, and the 'right' to retain that property rested soleyupon the legislation of the government which not only allowed you to retain possession of them, and was competent to, and had the authority to, determine how much control you could have over your property, and when it was ok for the 'greater good' to take that property, or some benefit of it, from you (unless of course the legislation had something to do with the Constitution of the United States asserting that all individuals were born with inalienable rights, in <i>that</i> case those 'laws' (<i>Natural 'Rights'! Pshaw!</i>) were regarded by them as being merely tools of northern aggression and suitable for disregarding.<br /><br />The key point here is that the southern slaveholding aristocracy, much like the modern leftist bureaucratic aristocracy, derided 'Natural Rights', and any claim to inalienable rights and the importance of property rights rooted in them, and instead claimed that 'rights' were bestowed, and withdrawn or diluted by, government legislation - or in other words "Might Makes Right". As I said above,<br /><i>"What it is that actually defines and separates Left from Right - is that if you believe in inalienable rights derived from your nature as man, you are on the Right (and that leaves enough latitude of interpretation to accomodate views as diverse as those of Madison from Hamilton), if, on the other hand, you feel rights are instead a creation of the society and government, you are on the left. No matter your apparent agreements, they are incidental at best, politically speaking - no matter your religious beliefs, economic stances, or party affiliations, <i>This</i> is what defines and separates Left from Right. "</i><br />In short, Callahan, Green, Bray, Justice and Days share a deep affinity with their Democrat forebears who asserted the propriety of Slavery."<br /><br />, and our aninnymice have much more in common with ideas of the slavery promoting confederacy, than with the classical understanding of Liberalism.Van Harveyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08470413719262297062noreply@blogger.com