jabowery
08-29-2009, 02:12 PM
What if we discovered that the political failure of liberty was due to the fact that liberty lovers had been mislead about the real meaning of liberty and that simply being true to liberty could lead to nearly immediate and sweeping political success?
Would you be interested? Are you interested in political success? Are you interested in liberty? Or is adherence to a misguided notion of "liberty" so important to you that you are willing to virtually guarantee political failure of liberty?
We have been so mislead and such sweeping political victory for principled liberty is like a basketball hovering over the hoop waiting an instantaneous slam-dunk with our team one point down and seconds left.
Here is the slam-dunk:
Each individual, in a State of Nature -- prior to any social contracts -- has something any animal has: Territory to reproduce. Would you sign a social contract with others in which you are not guaranteed at least the territory necessary for your family? Of course you wouldn't. Moreover, if the decision were up to your children rather than you, would they be any more likely to sign? Of course they wouldn't.
So here is the social contract lovers of liberty should be offering as a political platform for citizens of the United States:
We, the undersigned sovereign individuals, endowed by Nature with sufficient territory to raise our families, hereby jointly invest our subsistence territories into a land trust for our descendants which we vow to defend with our lives and sacred honor from invasion. For this investment we demand a voting share in the land trust for ourselves and for our descendants. Within this land trust we will support property rights beyond those we would be able to maintain in the State of Nature. In exchange for the service of upholding said artificial property rights, we will pay a property insurance fee to the land trust for indemnification against loss due to force and/or fraud.
As share holders in the land trust we demand monthly dividend payments and the right to elect its officers to represent our interests.
That is a social contract that someone in a state of nature might willingly sign.
Compare that to the social contract mislead "libertarians" believe they have signed:
I pledge my life and sacred honor to protect all property rights as sacred regardless of how concentrated in how few hands they are and how deprived my children are. No use fees, taxes or property insurance premiums will be charged to the owners property rights arising out of this contract that would not exist in the state of nature, as that would be theft.
No one in the state of nature would sign such ridiculous terms and it should be no surprise to anyone that the libertarian movement, so abjectly mislead, will never succeed either politically, or succeed in understanding liberty itself.
So here is a simple, single plank, platform for a successful and consensual libertarian movement in the US:
Take the Constitution seriously starting with the “general welfare” clause of the preamble which will be taken to imply that any benefits paid out to the citizenry must be paid out without any discrimination whatsoever—obivating what Charles Murray thought would necessitate a Constitutional Amendment in his plan (http://www.aei.org/docLib/9780844742236.pdf), but also eliminating all spending that does not fall under the umbra of the Constitution’s enumerated powers. Henceforth, falling under the penumbra of the Constitution is not construed as falling under the powers of the Federal government:
The US Federal Budget is currently around $3e12/year.
Eliminating all unconstitutional activities and privatizing those Constitutionally authorized services, such as the postal service, that no longer need be public monopolies, the budget can be reduced to just 4 basic items, all of which can be funded for well under $1 trillion dollars:
1) Executive is reduced to national border defense and investigation of interstate criminal activity.
2) Legislative
3) Judiciary
4) Interest payments
That leaves $2e12 to divide up among less than 2e8 adult resident citizens.
$2e12/2e8 adult resident citizens = $1e4 or $10,000 dividend per citizen per year
All Federal mandates on the States would be repealed as well, freeing them to each solve their problems in their own manner so there is a return to the laboratory of the states intended by the Founders. If one State wants a Drug Administration to test and approve all medical procedures, while another wants to eliminate all medical licensing and malpractice torts, the Federal government would be as powerless to interfere as would those States be to interfere with each other’s preferred policies.
Would you be interested? Are you interested in political success? Are you interested in liberty? Or is adherence to a misguided notion of "liberty" so important to you that you are willing to virtually guarantee political failure of liberty?
We have been so mislead and such sweeping political victory for principled liberty is like a basketball hovering over the hoop waiting an instantaneous slam-dunk with our team one point down and seconds left.
Here is the slam-dunk:
Each individual, in a State of Nature -- prior to any social contracts -- has something any animal has: Territory to reproduce. Would you sign a social contract with others in which you are not guaranteed at least the territory necessary for your family? Of course you wouldn't. Moreover, if the decision were up to your children rather than you, would they be any more likely to sign? Of course they wouldn't.
So here is the social contract lovers of liberty should be offering as a political platform for citizens of the United States:
We, the undersigned sovereign individuals, endowed by Nature with sufficient territory to raise our families, hereby jointly invest our subsistence territories into a land trust for our descendants which we vow to defend with our lives and sacred honor from invasion. For this investment we demand a voting share in the land trust for ourselves and for our descendants. Within this land trust we will support property rights beyond those we would be able to maintain in the State of Nature. In exchange for the service of upholding said artificial property rights, we will pay a property insurance fee to the land trust for indemnification against loss due to force and/or fraud.
As share holders in the land trust we demand monthly dividend payments and the right to elect its officers to represent our interests.
That is a social contract that someone in a state of nature might willingly sign.
Compare that to the social contract mislead "libertarians" believe they have signed:
I pledge my life and sacred honor to protect all property rights as sacred regardless of how concentrated in how few hands they are and how deprived my children are. No use fees, taxes or property insurance premiums will be charged to the owners property rights arising out of this contract that would not exist in the state of nature, as that would be theft.
No one in the state of nature would sign such ridiculous terms and it should be no surprise to anyone that the libertarian movement, so abjectly mislead, will never succeed either politically, or succeed in understanding liberty itself.
So here is a simple, single plank, platform for a successful and consensual libertarian movement in the US:
Take the Constitution seriously starting with the “general welfare” clause of the preamble which will be taken to imply that any benefits paid out to the citizenry must be paid out without any discrimination whatsoever—obivating what Charles Murray thought would necessitate a Constitutional Amendment in his plan (http://www.aei.org/docLib/9780844742236.pdf), but also eliminating all spending that does not fall under the umbra of the Constitution’s enumerated powers. Henceforth, falling under the penumbra of the Constitution is not construed as falling under the powers of the Federal government:
The US Federal Budget is currently around $3e12/year.
Eliminating all unconstitutional activities and privatizing those Constitutionally authorized services, such as the postal service, that no longer need be public monopolies, the budget can be reduced to just 4 basic items, all of which can be funded for well under $1 trillion dollars:
1) Executive is reduced to national border defense and investigation of interstate criminal activity.
2) Legislative
3) Judiciary
4) Interest payments
That leaves $2e12 to divide up among less than 2e8 adult resident citizens.
$2e12/2e8 adult resident citizens = $1e4 or $10,000 dividend per citizen per year
All Federal mandates on the States would be repealed as well, freeing them to each solve their problems in their own manner so there is a return to the laboratory of the states intended by the Founders. If one State wants a Drug Administration to test and approve all medical procedures, while another wants to eliminate all medical licensing and malpractice torts, the Federal government would be as powerless to interfere as would those States be to interfere with each other’s preferred policies.