By Mike Appleton, Guest Blogger
“We pledge ourselves to use all lawful means to bring about a reversal of this decision which is contrary to the Constitution and to prevent the use of force in its implementation.
-The Southern Manifesto, Cong. Rec., 84th Cong. 2d Session, Vol. 102, part 4 (March 12, 1956)
‘This was an activist court that you saw today. Anytime the Supreme Court renders something constitutional that is clearly unconstitutional, that undermines the credibility of the Supreme Court. I do believe the court’s credibility was undermined severely today.”
-Michele Bachmann (R. Minn.), June 26 2012
Most people are familiar with the opinion in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, et al., 349 U.S. 483 (1954), in which a unanimous Supreme Court summarily outlawed public school segregation by tersely declaring, “Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.” 349 U.S. at 495. But many people do not know that Brown involved a consolidation of cases from four states. The “et al.” in the style refers to decisions on similar facts in Delaware, South Carolina and Virginia. And the response of Virginia to the ruling in Brown provides an interesting comparison with the actions leading to the current government shutdown.
In 1951 the population of Prince Edward County, Virginia was approximately 15,000, more than half of whom were African-American. The county maintained two high schools to accommodate 386 black students and 346 white students. Robert R. Moton High School lacked adequate science facilities and offered a more restricted curriculum than the high school reserved for white students. It had no gym, showers or dressing rooms, no cafeteria and no restrooms for teachers. Students at Moton High were even required to ride in older school buses.
Suit was filed in federal district court challenging the Virginia constitutional and statutory provisions mandating segregated public schools. Although the trial court agreed that the school board had failed to provide a substantially equal education for African-American students, it declined to invalidate the Virginia laws, concluding that segregation was not based “upon prejudice, on caprice, nor upon any other measureless foundation,” but reflected “ways of life in Virginia” which “has for generations been a part of the mores of the people.” Davis v. County School Board of Prince Edward County, 103 F. Supp. 337, 339 (E.D. Va. 1952). Instead, the court ordered the school board to proceed with the completion of existing plans to upgrade the curriculum, physical plant and buses at Moton High School. When the plaintiffs took an appeal from the decision, the Democratic machine that had for many years controlled Virginia politics under the firm hand of Sen. Harry Byrd had little reason to believe that “ways of life” that had prevailed since the end of the Reconstruction era would soon be declared illegal.
When the Brown decision was announced, the reaction in Virginia was shock, disbelief and anger. Reflecting the prevailing attitudes, the Richmond News Leader railed against “the encroachment of the Federal government, through judicial legislation, upon the reserved powers of the States.” The Virginia legislature adopted a resolution of “interposition” asserting its right to “interpose” between unconstitutional federal mandates and local authorities under principles of state sovereignty. And Sen. Byrd organized a campaign of opposition that came to be known as “Massive Resistance.”
In August of 1954 a commission was appointed to formulate a plan to preserve segregated schools. Late in 1955, it presented its recommendations, including eliminating mandatory school attendance, empowering local school boards to assign students to schools and creating special tuition grants to enable white students to attend private schools. Enabling legislation was quickly adopted and “segregation academies” began forming around the state. Subsequent legislation went even further by prohibiting state funding of schools that chose to integrate.
In March of 1956, 19 senators and 77 house members from 11 southern states signed what is popularly known as “The Southern Manifesto,” in which they declared, “Even though we constitute a minority in the present Congress, we have full faith that a majority of the American people believe in the dual system of government which has enabled us to achieve our greatness and will in time demand that the reserved rights of the States and of the people be made secure against judicial usurpation.”
Throughout this period the Prince Edward County schools remained segregated, but when various court rulings invalidated Virginia’s various attempts to avoid integration, the school board took its final stand. It refused to authorize funds to operate any schools in the district, and all public schools in the county were simply closed, and remained closed from 1959 to 1964.
There are striking similarities between Sen. Byrd’s failed plan of Massive Resistance and Republican efforts to prevent implementation of the Affordable Care Act. There was widespread confidence among conservatives that the Supreme Court would declare the Act unconstitutional. When that did not occur, legislators such as Michele Bachmann, quoted above, attempted to deny the legitimacy of the Court’s ruling. Brent Bozell went further, denouncing Chief Justice Roberts as “a traitor to his own philosophy,” hearkening back to the days when southern roadsides were replete with billboards demanding the impeachment of Chief Justice Earl Warren.
The House of Representatives has taken over 40 votes to repeal the ACA, quixotic efforts pursued for reasons known only to John Boehner and his colleagues. And in accordance with the Virginia legislative model, the House has attempted to starve the ACA by eliminating it from funding bills. Following the failure of these efforts, Republicans have elected to pursue the path ultimately taken by the school board of Prince Edward County and have shut down the government.
Even the strategy followed by Republicans is largely a southern effort. Approximately 60% of the Tea Party Caucus is from the South. Nineteen of the 32 Republican members of the House who have been instrumental in orchestrating the shutdown are from southern states. It is hardly surprising therefore, that the current impasse is characterized by the time-honored southern belief in nullification theory as a proper antidote to disfavored decisions by a congressional majority.
In reflecting upon the experience of Virginia many years later, former Gov. Linwood Holton noted, “Massive resistance … served mostly to exacerbate emotions arrayed in a lost cause.” Republicans would do well to ponder the wisdom in that observation.
You all miss the point of natural law theory as it relates to legalism.
Natural law is universal and inalienable and almost always a negative right, i.e. a right that is not to be infringed upon by others or by government (absent some conflict with positive law), and these form the basis of many protected rights in our Constitutional form of government. Free Exercise is an example of a negative natural right: all people are entitled to a faith (or none) as their conscience dictates. This is in contrast to positive rights which are derived from man-made laws as shaped by the society in which they exist. The Right to Counsel in criminal cases is an example of a positive legal right.
Natural law arose (not as David so ignorantly implies over and over again) as some twisted form of “God’s Law” but rather as a counter to the Medieval notion of the Divine Right of Kings. Its purpose was to form a new basis for the social compact that puts all on an equitable footing in respect to the law by recognizing that some rights can never be alienated in their entirety. An example of this is that everyone owns their own body and as such involuntary slavery is not only unethical, but an abrogation of an inalienable natural right. Just so, making the counter-argument in contract for indentured servitude fails because it is also an abrogation of an inalienable natural right. However, no right can withstand the common/public good. That is why murderers can be sent to prison for life – a form of coerced servitude – for their crimes and it isn’t unethical. The good of the many at having a killer segregated from the rest of society outweighs his particular individual interest in his inherent ownership (and control) of his body. Consequently, that is part and parcel of the argument around the death penalty: does a punishment that completely negates a natural right be ethical?
Just so, Tony (slightly) misses the fact that he gets the point despite being hung up on the words “Natural law” and “state of nature” albeit from the opposite end of the spectrum. Writer’s like Hobbes and Locke and Paine were intelligent men who knew that nature has one rule: force. The “state of nature” is metaphor for lawlessness where all rights are absolute contingent upon the individuals ability to enforce their claim. They were using that language to imply that some rights are both inherent and inalienable and manifestly self-evident. The modern formulation of understanding natural law as it relates to legalism and the social compact is more in line with John Finnis’ interpretation of natural law: natural law and natural rights are derived from self-evident principles, not from speculation or fact.
And Skip just misses the point altogether so he calls natural law a cliché and then boasts that Libertarians embrace instead . . . the core concept of natural law. And that is so like a Libertarian: heart in the right place but their brain is in orbit around Mars so they pick and choose what they like and often don’t realize they speak in contradictions, strange loops and malapropism.
And David and Skip both fail (but Tony realizes because despite his language hangup, he’s not bereft of logic or an understanding of the very basic structure of social compact theory) to recognize that in a society operating under a social compact (which is all of them not operating under divine right) that (to quote Francis Hutcheson in Inquiry into the Original of Our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue) “there can be no Right, or Limitation of Right, inconsistent with, or opposite to the greatest publick [sic] Good.” In a social compact, your rights are not absolute. They are counterbalanced against the public good and the rights of others. If you want your rights to be absolute, Somalia awaits you. Take ammo. Lots of it. Be ready to kill.
And here’s another historical tidbit for the Libertarian selective history crowd: Jefferson’s language in the DOI about “the pursuit of happiness” that replaced Locke’s property language?
Came from Hutcheson.
Now.
I’m rather busy at the moment and haven’t had much time to spend on my favorite hobby and probably won’t for next while, however, reading Tony tie you into knots is almost as much fun as doing it myself.
Carry on.
Gene H wrote: “Natural law is universal and inalienable and almost always a negative right, i.e. a right that is not to be infringed upon by others or by government (absent some conflict with positive law), and these form the basis of many protected rights in our Constitutional form of government.”
Natural rights are generally positive when viewed from the aspect of the individual, but negative when viewed from government’s perspective. I have the positive right to speak my mind, to share information, to own property, to act in self defense, to labor in a way that benefits me or my family or friends or strangers, to embrace a religion, to pray, to worship or not worship, to give to others or not to give, to reproduce and to raise my children.
Gene H wrote: “Natural law arose (not as David so ignorantly implies over and over again) as some twisted form of “God’s Law” but rather as a counter to the Medieval notion of the Divine Right of Kings.”
You are a little hypersensitive toward theism. I have never implied any twisted form of “God’s Law” when speaking about natural law. Furthermore, the concept of natural law arose long before the concept of the Divine Right of Kings. The concept is found as far back as Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, Gaius, Gratian, and Thomas Aquinas. The concept was revived in response to the Divine Right of Kings, and further developed by people like Hobbes, Locke, Blackstone, etc., but it did not originate as a response to it.
Gene H wrote: “Its purpose was to form a new basis for the social compact that puts all on an equitable footing in respect to the law by recognizing that some rights can never be alienated in their entirety. An example of this is that everyone owns their own body and as such involuntary slavery is not only unethical, but an abrogation of an inalienable natural right.”
Actually, many who embraced natural law theory justified slavery. For example, Locke’s perspective was that slaves were taken in war and would have been killed. His life is prolonged only by service to his master. Therefore, if the slave prefers life to death, his will must be subject to his master’s will and he continues to live as long as his master’s will is to allow him to live. Nevertheless, your concept is correct for free citizens even though the example is not a good one.
Gene H wrote: “In a social compact, your rights are not absolute. They are counterbalanced against the public good and the rights of others.”
As long as you hold onto this socialist philosophy, there will be contention between people who have a different perspective of where that balance ought to be. Sometimes individual rights and societal rights are aligned. Sometimes they are not. The entire arguments about government have always been about which rights rule supreme. The libertarian says the balance should be toward the rights of individuals whereas the socialist says that the balance should be toward society. Some believe that government should only punish wrongdoing that is serious enough to warrant punishment, whereas others believe government must force individuals to provide for the needs of everyone in society. Some people believe in the virtue of individuals giving voluntarily to society for the public good, whereas others view that society should take by force from individuals to provide for society for the public good.
Gene H wrote: “And here’s another historical tidbit for the Libertarian selective history crowd: Jefferson’s language in the DOI about “the pursuit of happiness” that replaced Locke’s property language? Came from Hutcheson.”
Kind of like how your formulations of government and social compact theory come from Jeremy Bentham?
You might consider an alternative viewpoint that Jefferson’s language came from John Locke’s essay “Concerning Human Understanding”.
See Carol Hamilton’s
The Surprising Origins and Meaning of the “Pursuit of Happiness”
http://hnn.us/article/46460
John Locke:
“The necessity of pursuing happiness [is] the foundation of liberty. As therefore the highest perfection of intellectual nature lies in a careful and constant pursuit of true and solid happiness; so the care of ourselves, that we mistake not imaginary for real happiness, is the necessary foundation of our liberty. The stronger ties we have to an unalterable pursuit of happiness in general, which is our greatest good, and which, as such, our desires always follow, the more are we free from any necessary determination of our will to any particular action, and from a necessary compliance with our desire, set upon any particular, and then appearing preferable good, till we have duly examined whether it has a tendency to, or be inconsistent with, our real happiness: and therefore, till we are as much informed upon this inquiry as the weight of the matter, and the nature of the case demands, we are, by the necessity of preferring and pursuing true happiness as our greatest good, obliged to suspend the satisfaction of our desires in particular cases.”
DavidM: Ultimately I don’t understand your confusion. Put your preconceived notions of property rights being preeminent aside for a moment; and read the Declaration of Independence. It is a list of grievances at oppressive treatment, the majority (and first ten) do not have anything to do with any property rights at all.
It says: But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism,
That DOI is about oppression and unfair treatment of the colonists; it really has little to do with property, in my opinion. The passing reference to Natural Law is about people being entitled to separate themselves politically. It is only saying what I am saying by a different route: I also say Separation is justifiable if oppression is evident. My route does not arrive at that conclusion using the false premise that people are property; which is the route I prefer.
If you think the American Revolution was justified, then similar oppressions should equally justify a revolution or war of Independence.
Tony C wrote: “That DOI is about oppression and unfair treatment of the colonists; it really has little to do with property, in my opinion.”
The right to property is not the only natural right, so I’m not sure why you think I would have property in mind with regards to the Declaration of Independence. Also, England had a long history of recognizing individual property ownership. According to Locke, property was much more valued in England than in America, so I doubt there was huge fighting over that.
Tony C wrote: “My route does not arrive at that conclusion using the false premise that people are property; which is the route I prefer.”
People are property? I have no idea what you are talking about. Sometimes I wonder if you are responding to my posts or somebody else’s posts.
DavidM: Seeing that you separate society from government, how much of society is sufficient to have a revolution and fire a bad government?
I don’t know what you mean by “sufficient.” I think you want me to say that at some threshold, a group is justified in overthrowing a government. I do not think such a threshold can be determined. Oppressed people are justified in fighting their oppression, on an individual basis. That is the basis of our own self-defense laws; if you consider an assailant an oppressor.
I think on a larger and less obvious scale, the question becomes one of equity; is it plausible that overthrow of one’s government creates more good than harm in the eyes of the populace affected?
On the individual and obvious basis, being attacked without provocation is cause for justifiable self defense because the victim is obviously better off stopping the attack than allowing it to continue; and the assailant (in my view) is the one that assumed the risk by committing the unprovoked attack.
To scale that to the societal or governmental level, the harm being done by the government to society must be likewise clear, it must be obvious to the society that allowing that harm to continue (or increase) is likely worse for them than overthrowing the government.
How much harm is being done will have to be taken into account, and even if the majority do not advocate overthrow or rebellion, it is the individuals within the society that must decide whether to fight the rebellion or fight the government. In the case of the Revolution, I think the majority chose to side with the Rebellion, whether they would have started it or not.
That answer applies to your Republican Party and State Secession questions.
DavidM says: What if a group of people go buy land in the heartland and claim their own government separate from the United States? Is that valid because it is that society’s choice?
I don’t know what you mean by “valid”!! Is it a right? No, it is not a Right unless granted and protected by others in the society. We had no Right to rebel against the Crown, either.
You seem to be looking for some synonym to Right. Justified is not synonymous with a Right. So might that be justified? Sure, it might be. It would be justifiable if it increase equitable treatment; it would be unjustifiable if it decreased equitable treatment. The American Revolution increased the net equitable treatment. Putting aside soldiers, it did not decrease the equitable treatment of any British citizens, and by ending the oppression of colonists, it increased the equitable treatment of them.
DavidM says: doubt you support these things, but it seems logically consistent with the way you have framed your philosophy of rights.
I might support them; I support increases in equitable treatment, both for those presently living and the future living. I believe the Revolution and WW II increased equitable treatment of people, both immediately and in the long term. I believe other wars we have chosen have increased the inequitable treatment of people; particularly recently.
If State secession increase the equitable treatment of people I would support it; the reason I don’t is that all the states that want to secede seem primarily interested in racism, fascism and other forms of oppression, particularly the oppression of the working class poor by the rich and the continued oppression of minorities and women. Although I am not a minority or female or particularly poor, I still side with them against their inequitable treatment by our society and government.
However, I do not think even the vast majority of them would see overthrowing the government (or secession or rebellion) as the most probable route to improving their equitable treatment. Working within the system still seems the most probable route. That may change as the wealth gap increases and oppression increases, as both seem likely to do.
Tony C wrote: “Oppressed people are justified in fighting their oppression, on an individual basis. That is the basis of our own self-defense laws; if you consider an assailant an oppressor.”
Self defense is understood to be a natural right, which is why government is not allowed to interfere with that right. But you do not recognize any natural rights, so you have some other basis for why laws recognize self defense. You use the word “oppression,” so that perhaps is what serves as your basis for defining the right of revolt.
From my perspective, an individual has the right to fight government oppression using only words. For example, if a person is threatened with imprisonment by government for a crime he did not do, it is not justified for him to take up arms and kill the judge, jury, policeman and others involved in threatening him with imprisonment. He is expected to suffer unjustly, but also has the right to use words to assert his innocence and to criticize the unjust government which oppresses him.
Based upon the logic you use above, you say that on an individual basis, a person is justified to take up arms against their government? Such makes little sense to me, as well as most of the rest of your post. You reject premises about natural rights and government rights that I hold onto, and instead have some system of equitable treatment and whether that is increased or decreased? I see equitable treatment as simply a tenet of law, that every law must apply equally to all. I do not believe that laws must force people to treat everyone equally or to hold the same opinion of people equally. It is legal and justified for me to think President Obama is a very poor President while Ronald Reagan was a good President. I can have a poor opinion of homosexuals for destroying the institution of marriage and have a high opinion of Christians who seek to preserve it. You can have a poor opinion of me and a high opinion of Gene H. That’s life. No efforts should be made to force people through the color of law to treat everyone equally. Such is a lost cause.
DavidM: What you expose here, Tony, is the same thing Gene H has exposed about himself in past discourse. Ignorance of the concept of Natural Law.
I am fully aware of it, and have discussed it at length on this blog in the past; and the reasons I disagree with it. In fact Gene and I have disagreed on this sharply, I reject the premises of Natural Law and Gene defends them. And I, at least, think Gene fully understands it, and you do not.
DavidM says: You are arguing from the perspective of Positivism and thereby seem unable to comprehend someone who offers dialogue from the premise of Natural Law.
You are wrong, I am arguing de novo. My original thoughts, based on logic and a knowledge of anthropology, archeology, evolutionary psychology and the medical and scientific study of biological thought, including the operation of neurons in brains.
I do not parrot any philosophy, David, I have my own that I built from the ground up. I am a research scientist, and a good one, and I do not ever subscribe to any philosophy by label; I either agree with individual arguments or I reject them. All that counts with me is good logic and argumentation from self-evident (to me) premises.
DavidM: Your train of thought here is basically that all rights come from government, and we have no rights except that which government allows for us.
No it isn’t. My train of thought is that all rights are granted by and protected by society. Society is not “government,” it is other people. Before anything like government existed tribes had unwritten laws, and the laws demanded punishments for crimes. Although it is true that people naturally gravitate toward leaders, a leader is not necessary in a tribe, and many hunter-gatherer tribes have been studied that had no specific leader, just an informal “council of elders” that acted like a Jury to decide specific cases, and their judgment was accepted and enforced by the adults of the tribe. (Sometimes tribes are patriarchal but not always, in some tribes women are equals in councils. Historically enforcement that requires force and risk is performed by males.)
Government (often merged with the Church) is a formalization of such arrangements. Principles of laws become standardized, to be enforced by a formal body (first an Army, later a Police force, etc), with judgment passed by a formal body (a Chief or King or standard Council).
But ideally, in a non-dictatorial regime, Government does not grant rights to subjects owned by the Government, it is the people themselves that grant rights, and people that are obligated to honor rights and punish the violations thereof, and it is people that delegate those responsibilities to a Servant Government.
Ideally, the rights granted by people to people are equitable. People (and other animals) have an inherent emotional sense of what is fair and unfair treatment; and although it isn’t always rational in any given human there does seem to be a shared set most people agree upon. That shared set contains such concepts we have tried to codify as a right to life, liberty, freedom from assault and coercion, and so on. Our codification is flawed: For example we do not really have any absolute right to be free from coercion, otherwise it would be impossible to punish crime and criminals. All of our rights are conditional upon us meeting our responsibilities to society and not violating the rights of others.
The spirit of the codification is to rationally convert that inherent emotional sense of “fair” and “unfair” into a set of rules that get close to defining what society will allow and what it will punish. I agree with the essence of one of Gene’s language points here; in order to be rational that conversion must consider “equity” and “inequity” as a proxy for our emotional sense of “fair and unfair.” I think Gene is right, “Equity” implies objectivity.
(Without a formalization or written law, “fair” and “unfair” were just considered directly by councils of elders; and I think our Jury system is a continuance of our emotional endorsement of greater fairness achieved by vesting power in such councils instead of single individuals.)
Ideally, government is roughly analogous to the bodyguard of a celebrity actor: They do not get to veto roles, or decide how the actor spends their money, or where they go, or what they eat, or how drunk or high they get. A bodyguard does not impair the liberty of the actor in any way, their job is to protect them, and for that they are entitled to both a salary and the resources they need to protect their employer.
DavidM says: If this were true, there would have been no legitimacy to our Revolution in rebelling against the government under which our founding fathers were born under.
On the contrary. Society determines whether their government is serving them or not. The Colonists, by virtue of isolation, felt unfairly treated by their society, and were objectively being oppressed by them.
A “Right” not honored by your society is meaningless. The colonists had no “Right” to secede or rebel, if they did they would not have had to fight. In my mind justifying rebellion as a Right is just silly word play. In my mind, the Revolution was an act of self-defense, a firing of an employee (the King) that had overstepped his bounds and become an oppressor instead of a servant.
Rights and Privileges are acts for which Society shall not punish you. Your right to free speech, even if it excludes certain specific types of speech (like not inciting a riot or using fighting words or making death threats), means
(A) Society will not punish you for speech within the codified constraints, and
(B) Society will punish anybody that violates your right to free speech, and
(C) As a member of society, in return for your Right to free speech, you are obligated to help with (B) when able (and equitably).
The people have the choice to rebel against coercion. That is not a “Right” or privilege since it was not recognized or protected by the rest of British Society, or the King. They chose to rebel and their choice was justified (synonymous with equitable, in this case) by the fact that they were being treated both unfairly (an emotional assessment) and inequitably (an objective assessment). They fired the King for abusing the power he had been delegated by Society, and the King tried to oppress them further, and they justifiably fought back.
DavidM: It is the concept of property that gave justification for the American Revolution.
Not with any coherent logic, it isn’t. The Colonies were the property of the Crown; long before the revolution the people that ended up fighting it were in agreement on that point. On that point, the Revolution stole the property of the Crown in a violent act, because the Crown never signed away its property rights.
What justified the American Revolution is better described (IMO) as inequitably applied forceful treatment of a large group within a society (American colonists were British citizens within the British society) that chose to escape their oppression by divorcing themselves from the society they were in and forming their own society.
They subsequently formed their own more equitable (in their view) set of rules, and eventually a government delegated to enforce those rules. They were fortunate to have geography on their side, so their rules could apply to a physical area with borders and be more clearly delineated (unlike many religions, whose rules may apply to some in a given geographic area but not to others; an ambiguity often eliminated by forming a theocracy).
In my view Rebellion or Revolution against a society is never a Right, because a Right requires the assent of society to protect it, and no society ever endorses the breaking of its own rules. (It may repeal rules, but that is different than endorsing the breaking of them.) However, Rebellion or Revolution or Divorce from a society can be justified on the grounds of inequity.
I know that is a subtle difference to comprehend. Inequity has nothing to do with “property,” it can be inequitable for one person (like a King) to own all the property! Or to consider people his property. If one person owns the world and everything in it, their “property rights” are violated the instant somebody claims they own property, or themselves. Do you see the conundrum that presents?
Inequity is about non-equal treatment or application of rules and responsibility, it is about valuing individuals differently. Our current government is inequitable. Effectively about five different systems of law and different levels of coercion, liberty, and “Rights” apply to politicians, celebrities, the wealthy, the middle class and the poor. Politicians allow themselves the liberty to break laws with impunity that apply to the rest of us (e.g. politicians are legally allowed to engage in precisely the kind of insider trading that put Martha Stewart in jail). A celebrity gets rehab or a few months of weekend Community Service for a drug crime, while for the same crime a poor kid is put in prison for years and his life is ruined. Criminals that can spend millions on defense spend a few months in Club Fed while middle class defendants get ground up like hamburger and go to prison. Deep pockets that can afford to hire lawyers and sue for damages gain restitution while the poor that cannot afford to sue against deep pockets suffer catastrophic financial losses that ruin their lives.
DavidM says: Madison was not just making an assertion. He was encapsulating a way of thought which has a wealth of rational thinking behind it.
No, it doesn’t. Something isn’t rational just because somebody says it is. There are rules for the rational system, and an argument must follow those rules, or it isn’t rational. One of those rules is that premises have to be valid, and I have already discussed why they aren’t.
I won’t rehash that here, but the premises are flawed, and anything based upon them is suspect. Not necessarily wrong, but not necessarily rational either. I do not subscribe to philosophies or conclusions that are based on unjustified premises, or on premises that I completely reject on rational grounds.
DavidM: A good philosophy must deal with liberty and the justification for government in the first place.
The justification for liberty, to the extent we have it, is derived from the rational sense of equitable treatment which is based upon our inherent sense of unfair and unequal treatment constituting a harm. If I restrict your liberty more than I allow you to restrict my liberty, than I am treating you unequally, and unfairly harming you.
That said, we can agree to a set of rules that will necessarily restrict our liberty, as long as those restrictions are equitable.
There are two justifications for “government.” One is that codified rules and Rights are superior (more equitable) than ad-hoc council meetings, because the rules of behavior can be parsed beforehand, and a course acceptable to society can be plotted and executed without fear of retribution.
The second justification is in the size of a society; in large societies we gain leverage in the form of expertise and skill when we specialize; it frees us to delegate law enforcement, defense, and so on, they specialize so we can specialize. There is a net gain in specialization as opposed to homogenization of duties, particularly when people have the freedom to choose their specialization as something for which they feel naturally suited. If Jack and Jill want to specialize in hunting and baking because they feel affinity for those professions, respectively, they will ultimately produce better hunting and baked goods than if both were required to do both. Jack’s baking would blow and his hunting skill and production would suffer from less practice and less time spent hunting. Vice versa for Jill. So more than half our baking is sub-par, and more than half of our hunting is sub-par. Specialization makes all of our hunting good and all of our baking good.
The same can apply (in principle) to government. People that spend their lives being cops and understanding the nuances of the law can do a better job than vigilante citizens doing it on occasion, without training, without experience, and relying upon an emotional sense of fairness on the spot instead of objectively and rationally determined equitable treatment.
DavidM says: Why object to slavery at all, if government is as you describe it to be?
I object to slavery on the grounds described above. I regard all humans as equal, and I think slavery denies that equality and engages in oppression. It isn’t about stealing somebody’s life or labor, it is about demanding they sacrifice their labor without an equitable sacrifice from the other side.
DavidM says: Are we not all just slaves if the only rights we have is that which government allows us to have?
Again, it isn’t government, it is other people in a society. You are not a slave if the society grants and defends the same rights for you as they do for themselves and everybody else.
But, to a large extent, the only practical way to determine what a society agrees upon is by some sort of consensus on what is equitable and what is not, and in large societies that cannot require a unanimous vote of all members. (In small ones it can if there is a default path for non-unanimity, for example we can require a jury verdict to be unanimous, or a small group of like-minded friends may only schedule outings when they can all agree and are free.)
There are numerous economies of scale in large societies, but large societies cannot operate with unanimity. There will always be sociopaths and psychopaths and criminals that will never agree to curtail their own activity, and prefer anarchic rule by force because force is something they are very good at. They are a small percentage of humanity, but in large groups they will always be present and destroy any attempt to govern by unanimity. The unanimous agreement of a few million people would be the null set; no rules at all and complete anarchy. There are too many mentally ill and mentally deficient people for it to be anything else.
Speaking of which, I reject all arguments from a “State of Nature.” I know a lot about nature, the only rule is coercion. It is not an agreement, or compact, or contract, or anything else. Anything goes, the state of nature is anarchy and there are no Rights. A Right is meaningless without agreement and protection and punishment, and Nature will not honor or provide that; only other people are capable of the understanding and abstraction to do that. Nature doesn’t recognize your right to life, if a Lion takes your life it is not punished, it is rewarded by food and ultimately replication. If the Lion is killed by a rival, the rival is rewarded with the Lion’s territory and mating rights, it is not punished. If a bacterium kills the rival, the bacterium is rewarded by trillion-fold replication, it is also not punished.
In a true state of Nature you are subject to force and often have the power to exert force to get your way. That is not a “Right,” it is just the anarchy of how shit works when there are no rules or agreements.
But there is a governor in the minds of most normally developed people (and several other large-brain animals) which is an emotional sense of fairness, that when violated the consequences are feelings of guilt or shame in a perpetrator, or sympathy and empathy for the victims of other perpetrators, and anger toward such other perpetrators.
It is that sense of fairness which when rationalized and codified by a society produces a common ground for rules that become Rights.
In my view it isn’t about property, it is about equality. Property is important, but trying to crowbar everything into “property rights” is both pointless and damaging, it demands too many exceptions for things (like human life or mental distress) that are not really “property like”, to the point that we are better off sticking with equitable treatment.
Ultimately, when people wish to constrain property rights their appeal is to equitable treatment. Which logically implies “property rights” are subordinate to equitable treatment. That makes sense and fits well with what we know about our psychology, and it better fits the empirical facts of how people actually act when faced with moral dilemmas.
Note that equitable treatment does not imply equal outcomes or communism or socialism. People believe it is equitable for harder work or greater inherent talent to receive greater reward to a large extent, as do I.
But I think equitable treatment by society (or its servant, government) is the true coin of the mental realm.
Tony, it is difficult to see logical consistency over many issues in your perspective. Seeing that you separate society from government, how much of society is sufficient to have a revolution and fire a bad government? There were about 30% that favored the American Revolution. So if the entire Republican party decided to take up arms and fire Obama and the federal government, do you think that is justified because that is what “society” wants to do to protect their rights? What about State secession from the federal government? Do you support that as the right of a society to fire their oppressive government? What if a group of people go buy land in the heartland and claim their own government separate from the United States? Is that valid because it is that society’s choice? I doubt you support these things, but it seems logically consistent with the way you have framed your philosophy of rights.
@David… Natural rights is a cliché – There is no provincial or ordained or constituted governance. We must agree on a set of rules. Many Libertarians have excepted the concept of inalienable rights. Statist accept that the majority rules is more important than individual rights. Two choses. that’s it and we have seen the results of majority rule. When are we gong to stand up for our rights?
Bron says: Everyone has choices, most take the easy way.
Takes the easy way to what? Everybody takes the easy way to something, that doesn’t prove anything. It seldom makes sense to take the hardest way; why pay more in effort than you have to, to get what you need? You took the easy way to get what you want. The fact that the easiest way for you was still difficult is a function of what you want, and the same is true for everybody else.
The measure to use is not income per se, although income is a highly correlated proxy at levels of income below about the 75th percentile. As you yourself allude to, the better measure to use is life satisfaction, because some people achieve what they want with quite low levels of income, and others require much higher levels of income. It depends on what produced satisfaction in the individual; where one wants to live, what one wants to do with their life, the division one can tolerate between work and free time or family time, and how one measures “success.”
The people that are both poor and satisfied with their life are rare. They may include a small number of people devoted to the arts, to personal education, to charity or aid. For such people their goal isn’t money, luxury, or extreme comfort; their goals are different.
However, the vast majority of those in poverty are NOT satisfied with their life. If effort could alleviate that pain, they would expend the effort. But it won’t, because they were screwed from the outset, and manual labor won’t do it. The majority of the poor ARE laborers, and their efforts do not let them escape poverty, and it isn’t saving their kids from following the same path.
Bron says: Just because it came easy for you doesn’t mean you have to feel sorry for the rest of us who have to work for it,
This isn’t about my feeling sorry for anybody, this is about correcting an inequity because it is wrong. I believe people are important and valuable, that lives and happiness are inherently valuable, and misery and poverty are the enemies of life and happiness and achieving potential.
This isn’t about you or anybody in particular, this is about what is best for all the billions of us; including me as one part in the billions. We would all face less tragedy, less crime, and less misery and grief if we reduced inequity, poverty, and the lost potential of people born into circumstances that minimize their chances of achieving their potential.
If you had to struggle and I did not, why is that equitable? I did not earn my talent, as far as I can tell I was born with it, inherited from my parents that had similar talents. But inequity and poverty caused my parents, who should have been highly paid professionals and would have been happier for that, into high-school dropouts and lifelong low wage employees. They could not pursue education and earn a living at the same time. The “easy path” my father chose was working 80 hours a week, the easy path my mother chose was waitressing full time, because hey, that was “easier” for them than starving on the street with kids.
Lives and potential should not be wasted. That is what this is about. Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. Those are not about money, except for a few greedy souls like you that think everything is about money and everything has a price, including human life, misery, grief, and despair.
If you are satisfied with your life, I don’t feel sorry for you. But if you had to struggle to get there, I feel sorry for humanity for being deprived of the potential you might have achieved had you NOT had to struggle, and I think the root cause of that struggle was the greed that causes the exploitation of people for profit; and thereby steals their lives and futures.
Tony C:
I just disagree; the majority of people get out of poverty. What is keeping them there is the government cradle and pacifier.
There are some as you say but I dont believe there are 10’s of millions of people unable to make 30 or 40k per year.
Everyone has choices, most take the easy way. That path leads them to where they are.
There are many children with natural ability who never make it beyond a certain level either.
I just met a guy in Mensa who is doing Ok but not setting the world on fire. He makes a decent living but he isnt rich.
I was raised in near poverty, lower middle class, without a father and some other strikes against me, I made it out. It was fuking hard too and it took a long time. I havent set the world on fire either but I make a decent living.
So some people are born lucky, the rest of us have to work really hard. Just because it came easy for you doesnt mean you have to feel sorry for the rest of us who have to work for it, that is pretty arrogant and patronizing.
I dont have a private jet, am any less happy or satisfied with my life than the guy with a private jet? You are like the guy in the private jet feeling sorry for us poor rubes while you sip champagne and eat caviar on your way to Gstaad for some skiing. Enjoy your life and dont feel sorry for me. You are a classic limousine liberal. Get over yourself, the world doesnt need your help to survive.
Bron: As I said, it makes no sense. If all citizens get free public housing when they need it, no citizen rents free public housing, it makes no sense.
You are right, people aren’t stupid, and the same thing applies to the people on the other side of the law. They close the holes in the system to minimize the fraud and exploitation when that is their job.
You are wrong, the vast majority of those in poverty were born there, their bad luck in life was thrust upon them, it was not a choice to be born in poverty, the lack of resources, school, money, nutrition, health care and physical safety that prevented their normal development and achievement were not a result of any choices they made, and by the time they could make their own choices the damage was already done.
For most of us born below the middle class, it is not the choices we make that lead to our fate, is the lack of choices to make that leads us to our fate.
There are a few, lucky enough to be born with some rare talent society deems valuable, that escape. But they are, by definition, rare. Not common. And rare talents are not a matter of choice, or a matter of practice, or a matter of dedication or willpower. Thousands of kids practice thousands of hours to be sports stars and don’t make it, the kid with the natural talent that practices a few hundred hours gets the gig. Nobody can practice or study their way into doing what I do, and I’ve been doing it since the sixth grade, I have original proofs framed on my wall to prove it.
The vast majority of people living in poverty were born and raised in poverty, and the vast majority of people not living in poverty were NOT born and raised in poverty. Beginnings matter, choice only matters if choice is actually present.
The problem is very few of us have such bad luck as to end up destitute. For most of us it is the choices we make in life which lead us to our fate.
Tony C:
I will try and get statistics but I can believe something like that happening very easily. People arent stupid, they know how to work the system so that they maximize their benefit.
Bron: Influence meaning they have goodies to dispense to the assorted members of the society, be they private citizens or corporations. The corruption is in the dispensing.
“Goodies?”
Keeping people from starving, homelessness, and unnecessary death due to curable illness are not “goodies.” Keeping people from being exploited is not a “goodie,” providing a universal retirement program funded by taxation is not a “goodie.”
If you want to work with Madison’s terms, a man’s life and health and happiness are esoteric forms of “property,” because he attaches value to them and has a Right to them. So protecting that property is the government’s job, and providing food, health care and retirement funding all DO protect that life. They keep it from being lost by exploitation, deception, or even bad luck. Just as fire insurance protects the value of your home in the event of bad luck (like a lightning strike burning it to the ground), government retirement services and disability services keep you from being destitute due to bad luck in your financial life. Or life in general.
I am not saying there cannot be any corruption, but I see no evidence to suggest or reason to believe that the pain of the corruption is anything but a minor irritation when compared to the increased general well-being that is the result of a strong social safety net.
Oops. Hit enter too early, and messed up the bolding. Oh well, the comment ends with “sand.” you’ll figure it out.
Bron: I disagree with Madison for the same reason I disagreed with Adams.
Madison: In its larger and juster meaning, it embraces every thing to which a man may attach a value and have a right; and which leaves to every one else the like advantage.
No, it doesn’t. This is just an assertion, and as I said before, philosopher’s of this era are prone to absolutism, extremism, and hyperbolic reasoning.
EVERY thing? I disagree.
He says “every thing to which a man may attach a value and have a right,, emphasis mine. Well, what is a Right? As I explained before, logic alone demands that a Right requires the obligation of a society to not punish one for exercising it and to punish others for violating it. Your Rights are conferred upon you by mutual obligation to society; it is “all for one and one for all” when it comes to Rights.
So Madison’s hyperbolic argument falls apart in the premises, because you do not have the Right to income without taxes unless society agrees you do. You do not have the Right to keep your land if all that society has deemed a Right is Due Process and Just Compensation should they seize your land.
What is Just and Equitable is encoded in the enumerated Rights, and otherwise is determined by laws, judges and juries.
Need I go on? You fail to see the raw assertions in all this stuff with a critical eye. You have the same problem with Rand, you don’t know how to read “on the attack.” If you submissively swallow these hyperbolic, extremist assertions whole, then the end argument sounds good to you because you think it follows from the assertions; but it is built on sand.
In the former sense, a man’s land, or merchandize,
or money is called his property.
In the latter sense, a man has a property in his
opinions and the free communication of them.
Tony C wrote: “I disagree with Madison for the same reason I disagreed with Adams. … This is just an assertion… you do not have the Right to income without taxes unless society agrees you do… What is Just and Equitable is encoded in the enumerated Rights, and otherwise is determined by laws, judges and juries. Need I go on? You fail to see the raw assertions in all this stuff with a critical eye.”
What you expose here, Tony, is the same thing Gene H has exposed about himself in past discourse. Ignorance of the concept of Natural Law. You are arguing from the perspective of Positivism and thereby seem unable to comprehend someone who offers dialogue from the premise of Natural Law. Your train of thought here is basically that all rights come from government, and we have no rights except that which government allows for us. If this were true, there would have been no legitimacy to our Revolution in rebelling against the government under which our founding fathers were born under. It is the concept of property that gave justification for the American Revolution. Madison was not just making an assertion. He was encapsulating a way of thought which has a wealth of rational thinking behind it. The foundation for it lies in the writings of philosophers like John Locke and was developed further in law by other men, such as William Blackstone (although Justice Blackstone lived in England as a contemporary of the Revolution and was against the American Revolution). A good philosophy must deal with liberty and the justification for government in the first place. Why object to slavery at all, if government is as you describe it to be? Are we not all just slaves if the only rights we have is that which government allows us to have?
Locke started with concept that men are born free, and he speaks of the natural laws under which he exists in that free state. In much more than just a few words, he develops how it is that men follow their natural inclination to unite into a commonwealth. Locke says, “The great and chief end, therefore, of men’s uniting into commonwealths, and putting themselves under government, is the preservation of their property, To which in the state of nature there are many things wanting.” Such is not hyperbole or extremism. You only say such things because you obviously have not read the body of writing which develops the thought in the first place. Once a person works through the thought that was at work in the minds of our Founding Fathers, a balance of understanding is achieved in the goal of liberty that they were after. Clearly they were not after the pet philosophies that many in our culture and in this forum embrace of equal rights for all races, and for all sexes, and for homosexuals, because the concept of liberty had to do with Natural Law, the state in which men are born when they come into this world, and the rights which affect them and shape them. When they come of age and develop to have a rational mind, then at that point enters the realm of uniting under government. The basis for measuring liberty and for speaking about liberty is all about property, that which he has under his power, and that which government is designed to protect, and it is for that which men give up some measure of liberty for a greater freedom through societal protection of his property. When Madison said “everything” it was not hyperbole. We must understand this concept of property in order to understand liberty, and from that we can understand the type of government which yields liberty rather than oppression under tyranny.
Bron: a family receives free housing, the man and wife “divorce” and so get another apartment, which they then rent out.
Anecdotes do not sway me; show me some statistics. I read an article where FOX had on a series of people “harmed” by “ObamaCare” and upon investigation it was shown not ONE of them was harmed, but would be saved money and better covered by ObamaCare. Those were anecdotal, too.
In your example, if a man and wife get free housing, and by divorcing get two free housings, then why in the world would anybody RENT what they could ALSO get for free?
If that happens, I would need to be shown that
A) It is impossible to formulate a rule to prevent it or punish it,
B) It is costing more than 1% of the free-housing budget.
I would rather live in a one-room apartment than divorce my wife, no amount of money would suffice to end my marriage, I am just not that greedy.
Sure, systems can be abused. That is the nature of systems. Judges can be bribed, sociopaths find a way to con people, clerks make mistakes and overlook shit. Politicians and lawyers aren’t world-class water-tight logicians, their rules and analysis and understanding of human nature can all be flawed.
I would rather have the achievable country with nobody involuntarily homeless than try to eliminate 100% of free-riding and end up creating rampant homelessness in the process. The creation of widespread suffering is a cost that far outweighs the alternative cost of occasional pique at ill-gotten gains. Which could be easily punished, by the simple regulation of prohibiting somebody from renting their free housing, or selling any benefit or gaining income from a public benefit in any way not intended by the State.
In fact I don’t have time to look it up, but that seems so simple I’d be surprised if that wasn’t a law in Norway already, and this “teacher” is either not really from Norway and just making something up that sounds plausible to the stupid, or is just stupid and has misunderstood something.
“Property”
March 29, 1792 in the National Gazette
James Madison
This term in its particular application means “that
dominion which one man claims and exercises over the
external things of the world, in exclusion of every other
individual.”
In its larger and juster meaning, it embraces every
thing to which a man may attach a value and have a
right; and which leaves to every one else the like advantage.
In the former sense, a man’s land, or merchandize,
or money is called his property.
In the latter sense, a man has a property in his
opinions and the free communication of them.
He has a property of peculiar value in his religious
opinions, and in the profession and practice dictated by
them.
He has a property very dear to him in the safety
and liberty of his person.
He has an equal property in the free use of his
faculties and free choice of the objects on which to
employ them.
In a word, as a man is said to have a right to his
property, he may be equally said to have a property in
his rights.
Where an excess of power prevails, property of no
sort is duly respected. No man is safe in his opinions, his
person, his faculties, or his possessions.
Where there is an excess of liberty, the effect is the
same, tho’ from an opposite cause.
Government is instituted to protect property of
every sort; as well that which lies in the various rights of
individuals, as that which the term particularly
expresses. This being the end of government, that alone
is a just government, which impartially secures to every
man, whatever is his own.
According to this standard of merit, the praise of
affording a just securing to property, should be sparingly
bestowed on a government which, however scrupulously
guarding the possessions of individuals, does not protect
them in the enjoyment and communication of their
opinions, in which they have an equal, and in the
estimation of some, a more valuable property.
More sparingly should this praise be allowed to a
government, where a man’s religious rights are violated
by penalties, or fettered by tests, or taxed by a hierarchy.
Conscience is the most sacred of all property; other
property depending in part on positive law, the exercise
of that, being a natural and unalienable right. To guard a
man’s house as his castle, to pay public and enforce
private debts with the most exact faith, can give no title
to invade a man’s conscience which is more sacred than
his castle, or to withhold from it that debt of protection,
for which the public faith is pledged, by the very nature
and original conditions of the social pact.
That is not a just government, nor is property
secure under it, where the property which a man has in
his personal safety and personal liberty, is violated by
arbitrary seizures of one class of citizens for the service of
the rest. A magistrate issuing his warrants to a press
gang, would be in his proper functions in Turkey or Indostan, under appellations proverbial of the most
compleat despotism.
That is not a just government, nor is property
secure under it, where arbitrary restrictions, exemptions,
and monopolies deny to part of its citizens that free use
of their faculties, and free choice of their occupations,
which not only constitute their property in the general
sense of the word; but are the means of acquiring
property strictly so called. What must be the spirit of
legislation where a manufacturer of linen cloth is
forbidden to bury his own child in a linen shroud, in
order to favour his neighbour who manufactures woolen
cloth; where the manufacturer and wearer of woolen
cloth are again forbidden the economical use of buttons
of that material, in favor of the manufacturer of buttons
of other materials!
A just security to property is not afforded by that
government, under which unequal taxes oppress one
species of property and reward another species: where
arbitrary taxes invade the domestic sanctuaries of the
rich, and excessive taxes grind the faces of the poor;
where the keenness and competitions of want are
deemed an insufficient spur to labor, and taxes are again
applied, by an unfeeling policy, as another spur; in
violation of that sacred property, which Heaven, in
decreeing man to earn his bread by the sweat of his
brow, kindly reserved to him, in the small repose that
could be spared from the supply of his necessities.
If there be a government then which prides itself
in maintaining the inviolability of property; which
provides that none shall be taken directly even for public
use without indemnification to the owner, and yet
directly violates the property which individuals have in
their opinions, their religion, their persons, and their
faculties; nay more, which indirectly violates their
property, in their actual possessions, in the labor that
acquires their daily subsistence, and in the hallowed
remnant of time which ought to relieve their fatigues and
soothe their cares, the influence [inference?] will have
been anticipated, that such a government is not a pattern
for the United States.
If the United States mean to obtain or deserve the
full praise due to wise and just governments, they will
equally respect the rights of property, and the property
in rights: they will rival the government that most
sacredly guards the former; and by repelling its example
in violating the latter, will make themselves a pattern to
that and all other governments.
Tony C:
I just read something by a teacher in Norway from what he/she said I figure all governments are the same when they reach a certain level of influence within a society.
Influence meaning they have goodies to dispense to the assorted members of the society, be they private citizens or corporations. The corruption is in the dispensing.
In Norway, this teacher was saying, a family receives free housing, the man and wife “divorce” and so get another apartment, which they then rent out.
The corruption is systemic in a system of government which dispenses goodies. Apparently there is no fix due to the greed of the recipients.
Bron: I don’t know why you mistake me for a fan of OUR government. I don’t know how many times I have to tell you I think they are corrupt, self-serving, and increasingly brutal and freedom-denying. I don’t know how many times I have to tell you I think they are denying us fundamental rights, that I think they are both criminals and war criminals, that I think we elect and reward sociopaths, that I think they are bought and paid for by corporations.
The Fed serves Exxon and other multi-national companies. So does our CIA, FBI and military. So does Congress and the Affordable Care Act, so does the patent office, so does the EPA in many instances.
If you want to use an existing government to bludgeon me with, find fault with Norway, or Sweden, or Germany. Find Fault with a modern socialist government that actually has a strong safety net in practice. Those faults certainly exist, I have read of some myself, and I’d love to hear of their weak spots and failures (because it might help us devise solutions to prevent them).
But do NOT think the USA is anywhere near MY ideal, it sucks. It is some pathetic mixture of plutocracy, kleptocracy, and fascism. You might as well say, “Tony, are you aware the Nazis were exterminating Jews? And they were a government? How about that, Tony? Doesn’t that give you pause in your philosophy?”
To answer myself: No, it does not give me pause, because the Nazis are not an example of modern socialism. And neither is the USA.
Tony C:
are you aware that the policies of the FED for the last 6-10 years have increased the wealth of rich people and destroyed the wealth of the middle class?
RTC/gbk:
Please, you guys are on the same side. Shake hands and make up.
DavidM: There is also the issue, in government, of how one should deal with large windfalls. An example of that would be North Sea oil reserves for Norway, or the Louisiana Purchase for America — Something of great value that should benefit all citizens equitably.
Although I do not like governments being in any for-profit business, it is difficult to escape that in administering the disposition of a windfall, especially large ones and if one wishes to do it prudently (i.e. sustainably without creating a dependence on a finite resource like oil or land that will someday be exhausted).
I suppose Norway’s approach is the best compromise I know, convert the resource to cash at market rates (without favoring any particular private operations with profits in excess of the market), then invest the cash and don’t touch the principle, and use some portion of the earnings to offset taxation.
Personally I would reserve earnings to principle to account for inflation plus 0.25% (i.e. if inflation is computed as 3% increase capital by 3.25%), and use the remainder for the creation, replacement and repair of public infrastructure free for all, which I see as an investment in the productivity of everybody. High speed rail, fiber-optic networks, sustainable alternative energy, academic and industrial research, etc. If there was any excess besides that (probably not, but if), then distribute it as cash payments to adult citizens, equally.
I don’t like government being involved in for-profit operations, there is an inherent conflict of interest between increasing profit and protecting citizens; protection is always an expense. A policy of only investing in for-profit operations regulated by foreign sovereign governments, and only when the investment does not carry voting rights (e.g. preferred stocks, bonds, loans, etc.), can circumvent that issue to some extent; the government’s policies do not affect foreigners. But there may still be moral responsibility to consider, such as human rights violations or oppression, so even then, I would prefer citizens have some mechanism to prohibit their government from investing in some countries or corporations as a matter of principle; the government should not have the final (or secret) say.
And the Klein reference? I’m the one who brought up Klein on this thread, A-hole, by recommending it to David in the first place! What I wrote resembles anything you’ve written. So now, you don’t want me to weigh in on anything you comment on, even a topics I bring up?
Ain’t nobody confusing you for me. Maybe your the one who’s confused.