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View Full Version : What is Lysander Spooner famous for?




torchbearer
06-27-2007, 08:39 PM
Please educate me. Dr. Paul mentioned Lysander Spooner several times the other day.. and I don't know who he is... inform me.

foofighter20x
06-27-2007, 08:40 PM
Lysander Spooner (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysander_Spooner)

Bluedevil
06-27-2007, 08:41 PM
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysander_Spooner

Original_Intent
06-27-2007, 08:41 PM
Wikipedia and google are your friends. In other words, I didn't know either:D

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysander_Spooner


darn I knew I shouldn't have taken the time for a witty remark!

angelatc
06-27-2007, 08:41 PM
He founded a company that directly competed with the USPS. It offered lower postage rates though, so the government shut it down.

torchbearer
06-27-2007, 08:41 PM
What makes him like Ghandi and MLK?

foofighter20x
06-27-2007, 08:42 PM
He really stuck it to The Man. :D

foofighter20x
06-27-2007, 08:43 PM
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysander_Spooner


Wikipedia and google are your friends. In other words, I didn't know either:D

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysander_Spooner


darn I knew I shouldn't have taken the time for a witty remark!

Slow Pokes :p :D

torchbearer
06-27-2007, 08:43 PM
by creating a private postal service?

torchbearer
06-27-2007, 08:44 PM
Is there a reason Dr. Paul mentioned this guy only in the Cavuto interview? Does wall street have a foundness for Spooner?

foofighter20x
06-27-2007, 08:45 PM
by creating a private postal service?

What better way to stick it to the government than by directly competing with them and making them look bad while doing it? :D

torchbearer
06-27-2007, 08:47 PM
How bad did he get persecuted?

foofighter20x
06-27-2007, 08:50 PM
How badly depends on to what degree of persecution you consider "being litigated into business failure."

torchbearer
06-27-2007, 08:52 PM
Any reason why he'd bring him up while debating Cavuto? he mentioned Ghandi and MLK before, but not lysander.

MsDoodahs
06-27-2007, 08:54 PM
Is there a reason Dr. Paul mentioned this guy only in the Cavuto interview? Does wall street have a foundness for Spooner?

Absolutely not.

Though some who trade are anarchists. :)

ChicagoLawyer
06-27-2007, 08:59 PM
Here's a page that libertarian law professor Randy Barnett put together on Spooner:

http://www.lysanderspooner.org/

He was one of the 19th Century's greatest libertarians. He's perhaps most famous for his argument that slavery violated the Constitution, even before the 13th amendment. He also advocated passive resistance in a way that is similar to MLK and Gandhi. I don't know why it was only on the Fox show that Ron Paul mentioned him, but it's great to hear Spooner's name on the air.

RedStripe
06-27-2007, 09:01 PM
Lysander Spooner is the MAN.

No Treason: The Constitution of No Authority

I have read this many times.

Duckman
06-27-2007, 09:02 PM
Lysander Spooner is considered to be one of the first proto-libertarians. He took several unpopular positions in his life due to his libertarian convictions, such as his argument that the US had no right to force the Southern states to stay in the union (he took this position despite being a radical abolitionist) and his controversial No Treason pamphlet which argued that America had basically become an empire following the Civil War and that the original constitutional pact betwene states was no longer voluntary and therefore no longer valid.

I think Ron Paul certainly looks to Spooner as a role model, and thus the glowing words. But I don't think Spooner was ever the target of the authorities, except when it came to his alternate postal service company.

Beyond the Wikipedia article there are several pages on Spooner in Brian Doherty's book Radicals for Capitalism, which is a very readable history of libertarian thought.

torchbearer
06-27-2007, 09:04 PM
Actually, now i remember Ron Paul talking about 'legalizing competition' in the postal market. i think that may have been on colbert? someone help me here. i'm a big enough addict to remember all his on air speeches.... but i'm a lil' fuzzy right now with my 'night time medicine'.

mesler
06-27-2007, 09:04 PM
I think the point Dr. Paul was making was that disobeying a law that you feel is unjust, while being illegal, is not necessarily immoral, and he cited MLK and Spooner as examples.

I have no idea who Spooner is past his Wikipedia page, so not sure what he did that is considered civil disobedience.

torchbearer
06-27-2007, 09:06 PM
I learn so much from this forum.

sandersondavis
06-27-2007, 09:09 PM
Any reason why he'd bring him up while debating Cavuto? he mentioned Ghandi and MLK before, but not lysander.

Yep there sure is, Lysander is famous among freedom loving people. He was a prolific writer and had a profound influence on many leaders of today's freedom/liberty movement. He was a peaceful man, and advocated non-violence. Read up on him, lots is available, you;ll be glad you did.

Now that YOU know his name you'll start to see it everywhere. Just today I saw it on a bag of steak rub at a meat market. I wonder if the Post Office has ever issued a stamp to honor him.

Swmorgan77
06-27-2007, 09:16 PM
Is there a reason Dr. Paul mentioned this guy only in the Cavuto interview? Does wall street have a foundness for Spooner?

I'm guessing the acts of civil disobedience referred to in the Wiki entry here:


From the publication of this book until 1861, Spooner actively campaigned against slavery. He published subsequent pamphlets on Jury Nullification and other legal defenses for escaped slaves and offered his legal services, often free of charge, to fugitives.

It appears he was violating the anti-fugitive slave law through civil disobedience.

torchbearer
06-27-2007, 09:16 PM
What would be the best biography on the man?

torchbearer
06-27-2007, 09:17 PM
Good Job Swmorgan77!

yongrel
06-27-2007, 09:40 PM
when I was very young, my uncle started a band called "Lysander Spooner and the Letters"

they made terrible music, which isn't necessarily important to the story

LastoftheMohicans
06-27-2007, 09:42 PM
From Spooner's Trial by Jury

"Our American constitutions have provided five of these separate tribunals, to wit, representatives, senate, executive, jury, and judges; and have made it necessary that each enactment shall pass the ordeal of all these separate tribunals, before its authority can be established by the punishment of those who choose to transgress it. And there is no more absurdity or inconsistency in making a jury one of these several tribunals, than there is in making the representatives, or ~t ~e senate, or the executive, or the judges, one of them. There is no more absurdity in giving a jury the veto upon the laws, than there is in giving a veto to each of these other tribunals. The people are no more arrayed against themselves, when a jury puts its veto upon a statute, which the other tribunals have sanctioned, than they are when the same veto is exercised by the representatives, the senate, the executive, or the judges."

Trial by Jury (http://www.lysanderspooner.org/TrialByJury.htm)

torchbearer
06-27-2007, 09:45 PM
From Spooner's Trial by Jury

"Our American constitutions have provided five of these separate tribunals, to wit, representatives, senate, executive, jury, and judges; and have made it necessary that each enactment shall pass the ordeal of all these separate tribunals, before its authority can be established by the punishment of those who choose to transgress it. And there is no more absurdity or inconsistency in making a jury one of these several tribunals, than there is in making the representatives, or ~t ~e senate, or the executive, or the judges, one of them. There is no more absurdity in giving a jury the veto upon the laws, than there is in giving a veto to each of these other tribunals. The people are no more arrayed against themselves, when a jury puts its veto upon a statute, which the other tribunals have sanctioned, than they are when the same veto is exercised by the representatives, the senate, the executive, or the judges."

Trial by Jury (http://www.lysanderspooner.org/TrialByJury.htm)


Powerful shit!! jury nullification. The Jury. the peoples branch of government.
I am one of those notes that love being on a jury. i've been on 2 trial juries and one grand jury that lasted 6 months. we did 5 capitol cases.

joshdvm
06-28-2007, 12:02 AM
I have this mental image of some behind the scenes clueless Fox folks frantically googling 'lysander spooner' during Ron Paul's interview with Cavuto, trying to dig up some dirt.

tsopranos
06-28-2007, 06:44 AM
Please educate me. Dr. Paul mentioned Lysander Spooner several times the other day.. and I don't know who he is... inform me.

One of his more famous writings, and an excellent contribution to libertarian literature..."Vices are Not Crimes".
http://www.mises.org/books/vicescrimes.pdf

Murray Rothbard has a forward in that version.

Here it is by itself...
http://www.mind-trek.com/treatise/ls-vanc.htm

The book that introduced me to libertarian ideas (when I was 17), Peter McWilliams, "Ain't Nobody's Business If You Do: The Absurdity of Consensual Crimes In Our Free Country" is pretty much a more modern version of "Vices are not crimes". I highly recommend it.

http://www.mcwilliams.com/books/books/aint/toc.htm

torchbearer
06-28-2007, 09:29 AM
a good bio?

torchbearer
06-28-2007, 03:11 PM
bump for info

atilla
06-28-2007, 04:13 PM
a good bio?

http://www.lysanderspooner.org/bio_new.htm

lonestarguy
06-29-2007, 08:19 AM
One of his more famous writings, and an excellent contribution to libertarian literature..."Vices are Not Crimes".
http://www.mises.org/books/vicescrimes.pdf

Murray Rothbard has a forward in that version.

Here it is by itself...
http://www.mind-trek.com/treatise/ls-vanc.htm

The book that introduced me to libertarian ideas (when I was 17), Peter McWilliams, "Ain't Nobody's Business If You Do: The Absurdity of Consensual Crimes In Our Free Country" is pretty much a more modern version of "Vices are not crimes". I highly recommend it.

http://www.mcwilliams.com/books/books/aint/toc.htm

Thank you so much for mentioning the name, the late great, Peter McWilliams. His book had a profound impact on me. I second the book recommendation, "Ain't Nobody's Business If You Do." May Peter McWilliams rest in peace. He was hounded by the drug war fed-goons until his untimely death, just a few short years ago, out in California, I believe. I am certain, in spirit, Peter will be fighting along side us, shoulder to shoulder for Ron Paul.