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Musings on the Progressive Mind

By: pweldon (Diary)  |  April 21st, 2012 at 09:41 PM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

Questions come to my mind when I read, watch, and listen to people like Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, and Debbie Wasserman Schultz.

What motivates their insistence on telling the rest of us what to believe and how to behave?

Why do they insist that government promise people free stuff? Is it because they believe that by doing so they can impose “equality” on all of us and that is supposed to be a good thing? Or, is it because promising people free stuff generates votes which satisfies their need for power?

If their intent is purely charitable why don’t they run a charity? Is it because they can use the force of law to compel people to finance their intent as politicians? Wouldn’t that be the same thing as satisfying a need for power?

If they believe that our rights as individuals come from our humanity and not from government, why do they insist on having government control our rights?

If they believe our rights come from government what then do they become?

Regards, Pete Weldon
americanstance.org

COMMENTS

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  • funwithknives

    Since no one is giving you any feedback yet,allow me to ‘whip these out’ :
    1) They’re simply bored and shiny objects have lost their allure.

    2)They want all they see and will never be satisfied. No perception of inequity can be discussed without a cure invented by them.Trouble is, most of their perceptions are not worth bothering with ,which is why the topic was never brought up before they got “OutRaged!!” about it.
    They are ‘motivated’ to be Society’s Curatives, by simply being.
    It’s never going to be enough and will not stop. {What would they DO with themselves?}Leave me alone avoids them like a plague.

    3) Over time The Dialectic (thesis, antrithesis, synthesis) works for a while, then people wise up. We are in a turnaround stage where citizens are popping up like gophers and saying “What the Hel……..?
    The Tea Party was just a beginning.
    So Progressivism detects ‘the threat’ and goes to where it is comfortable: Appealing to those it favors, to the exclusion of any others.They’ve got all the weak minded, and the recievers, and are out of potential members. Witness OWS. New Blood, Useful Idiots, or Cannon Fodder, take your pick.They did it the peaceful way and got this far. A New Normal is the answer.

    Now, they put their toes in the water to see if this gambit will work. Combine this with what they see as leadership from Captain Zero{Lead From Behind!} and anticipate the next moves;
    **Today in Detroit, G E is having a shareholders meeting. Sites and blogs are full of planned disruption. Wait for it.
    ** The G-8 meeting in Chicago is coming up fast. Remember 1968?
    **Both red and blue conventions are not going to be pretty. Especially …,Tampa.
    ** GOP rallies are going to get real interesting, real fast.
    Scott Walker was in town last week and 1000+/- “protestors’ showed up, but Denise Ilitch [Little Caesars scion] and hubby Jim Scalise had a $40,000/plate tribute to Barry and no protests occurred, at all.{Who’s the 1%?}

    Thanks for the missive, Peter.GoodOnYa

    • WmCraig

      Avoid the red herring. Progressives lie about everything. The are simply a group trying to establish a ruling elite. To create an Oligarchy that benefits the ruling classes at the expense of the 99% of us that are not part of that group.

      It worked real well when the opponent was a Monarchy or a dictator. It all sounds great, shared sacrifice, wealth redistribution, etc. But the only wealth redistribution that occurs happens between those producing profits and those in control of the government. What progressives offer to anyone outside the circle is little better than feudalism. Peasants with little or no choice, but with an expectation of being fed, sheltered, defended, and for modern times provided access to education and health care. Not for advancement but for the benefit of “the people”,

      And yes, there is a vassalage component. You see it in the “crony capitalism” with those that declare their loyalty who prove their value as profiteers, being offered license to operate business, to trade, or to manufacture. This is not a new idea, it has been around for 1000 years.

      No, the progressive mind is not a modern mind, it is a throw back to the days of vassals and peasants, and the manor house. A slightly more gentle version of antebellum Democrats. The have hung up the cat-o-nine tails because they have found other more effective means to beat people into submission. But otherwise their goals have not changed much, only the terminology.

    • demsaresatanic

      they hate traditional American values, and they hate everything that you stand for. If you don’t believe that yet you will find out the hard way.

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  • CrabCakes

    I won’t speak for Obama, Pelosi, etc., but here are my foundational premises:

    People should be allowed to do whatever they like in so far as it doesn’t cause harm to others. I agree not to hurt other people so long as they agree not to hurt me. Governments exist to make sure that we abide by that agreement.

    Economics is problematic for one simple reason, though: Property. I am not allowed to go out, work a patch of land, and support myself on it unless I first buy that patch of land for someone else. That is, I do not have an absolute right to support myself as I would in a pure state of nature. Property does have the benefit of keeping us from fighting over who has a right to use and consume what, so we put up with it.

    Thus property is not about “right” but about a combination of convenience and fairness. Some (wrongly, in my opinion) think that the fairest and most convenient arrangement would be for the government to let everyone keep what he already possesses and any profit he makes from what he already possesses. Others (also wrongly, in my opinion) think that the government should possess everything and hand it out to everyone “evenly.” Finally, still others (like myself) think that on the whole people should be able to keep what they already possess and most of what they manage to acquire either by labor or profit, but that there should be a limited degree of redistribution of property so that no one is denied a basic standard of living.

    TL;DR version: Property is a social construct born out of convenience, not a natural right. Therefore, it isn’t subject to the same level of protection as true natural rights (i.e, Locke was wrong and the Declaration of Independence is right).

  • JSobieski

    In my opinion, property is a logical extension of the right to the fruit of one’s labor—which is definitely a natural right under Locke, the intellectual father of the country.

    We already have more redistribution than what is required for a “basic standard of living” so in practice, I might call you a conservative even if you are not one in principle.

  • CrabCakes

    And regarding Locke, Jefferson didn’t change “property” to “pursuit of Happiness” for no reason. The founders recognized that, contra Locke, property is not a right like life and liberty are.

    In any case, the debate as to what constitutes a “basic standard of living,” and even whether the fairest and most convenient way of dividing stuff up is for the government to ensure one is a practical question. In essence, it’s about what works best. It isn’t about “right” in the same way as personal liberty is, though, at least not in my opinion. Of course, honest people can and do disagree about what “works best,” which is why we have more than one political party.

  • JSobieski

    The reason “property” was replaced with “pursuit of happiness” is that the Founders wanted to avoid an interpretation that guaranteed people that property would be obtained (ie even then they were concerned with equality of outcomes being used to subvert liberty).

    I disagree it is about what “works best”.

    The key word is “basic”. A safety net should not be a hammock. If one starts from that primary presumption, what works best is a secondary concern—but not a primary principle.

    The primary principle/consideration is “basic”.Republicans disagree as to what should be included as “basic” but Democrats by and large don’t care about that limitation.

    Republicans believe in “basic” and Democrats don’t. In fact, Democrats like the fact that entitlement programs make everyone (even the middle class and wealthy) net takers in the context of SS and Medicare.

  • aesthete

    Property is the natural extension of people having a right to their own bodies and the fruits of their labor. “Personal liberty” means very little if it dos not apply to the real world — an abstract freedom of religion, for example, loses its meaning if government can prevent me from tithing or going to a church service. In any case, I see property rights as much more defensible than that of any communalist model of ownership — both on pragmatic grounds and moral ones. Certainly, I see little that government is doing on any level which justifies them taking a fifth of my income on a regular basis.

    Perhaps the document that best exemplifies what I don’t like about modern liberalism is the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It starts out great, with several rights — like freedom of thought, religion, privacy, etc — and then ruins that by throwing in a number of “rights” which contradict what preceded.

  • JSobieski

    In a world where most people can’t survive in the wild, property rights are a necessary extension of meaningful liberty.

  • CrabCakes

    For example, there is no “right” to an education, although I would argue that it’s in a society’s best interest to provide one. Once again, practicality is the issue, not right.

  • CrabCakes

    With regard to life and liberty: These rights exist prior to the very existence of government. Upon the creation of a government, they cannot be abridged without either my consent or my refusal respect the life and liberty of others.

    Everyone agrees, though, that the government treats property differently. Even the Fifth Amendment allows private property to be taken by the government, but requires “just compensation” for it. The same cannot be said about life and liberty. The government cannot away my life or liberty and then give me “just compensation” for either. Both are inalienable.

    In any case, if property is a right in the same sense as life or liberty, then all taxes should be voluntary. If I don’t think that I need the government to protect my stuff, then I should be allowed to refuse to pay for it. No sensible person argues that taxes should be voluntary, though, because everyone implicitly recognizes that property isn’t a right, but a practicality.

  • JSobieski

    Do you deny the legality of the draft? That can relieve you of your liberty and life without your consent.

    I would suggest that you like at life/liberty/property as a hierachy and/or a continuum, not as distinctly separate.

    At some point, lack of respect for property rights will make liberty meaningless…and can actually kill you.

    Similarly, lack of respect for liberty can result in your death.

    Government restricts liberty ALL THE TIME. Government reconciles competing claims between Person A’s liberty vs. Person B’s liberty as well as between Person A’s liberty and Person B’s property (not to mention Person A’s property and Person B’s property).

  • JSobieski

    You deny that liberty is in fact infringed each and every day, and that property infringement is a totally different universe of rights.

    If I work for weeks to build a house, the ability to enjoy that house has a liberty component as well as a property component to it.

  • CrabCakes

    Similarly, I don’t dispute that liberty is infringed upon every day. What I’m saying is that the government doesn’t have a *right* to infringe upon liberty. That is, the government is *wrong* to outlaw marijuana, for example, just as it is *wrong* to impose a draft. It has the force available to it to enforce its illegitimate claims, but that doesn’t make its actions right.

    As a liberal, I believe that the government has no right whatsoever to infringe upon my life or liberty unless I consent (e.g., if I join the military) or unless I infringe on the life or liberty of someone else (e.g., if I punch someone in the head). Otherwise, I don’t believe that the government has any right whatsoever to infringe on my life or liberty in the smallest degree. There is no acceptable “minimal necessary” level of infringement.

    Property, on the other hand, is simply a social construct. If it is going to exist (and I think that, practically speaking, it should), it should be distributed in such a way as to maximize life and liberty. The method of distribution that best accomplishes this goal is the primary political debate that has raged over the last 150 years or so. Treating property as a “right” in and of itself, rather than a social construct that serves to promote life and liberty, only muddies that debate.

  • http://impudent.edublogs.org/ kyle8

    I do think that a conscription is constitutional, and may sometimes be necessary. Since the most legitimate function of government is protection of it’s citizens, and a conscription might at times be necessary for that.

    On the other hand, I not only think that government has no right or legitimacy in regulating what you do with your body, I think it is both immoral AND unconstitutional. Because you have the right to liberty.

    Telling people what they can eat, drink or smoke violates the right to liberty over your own self and amounts to slavery.

  • JSobieski

    How is liberty not a “social construct”?

    Both liberty and property are very much contextual social constructions used to balance the competing rights of two or more parties.

    Life is the only right that is close to being absolutist, but even life is not subject ot absolute protection. Someone can lose their life due to the actions of another without that other being guilty of a crime. I can think of a certain circus Florida that is a great example of this possibility.

  • westcoastpatriette

    here and spew your leftist nonsense, but that is what it is — nonsense.

    You must have to twist yourself into a pretzel to separate private property rights from the concept of life and liberty thinking that the government should be in charge of distributing wealth in order to “promote” natural rights. Only a deluded leftist could think like that.

  • JSobieski

    http://www.virginiainstitute.org/viewpoint/2005_04_2.html

    http://www.archipelago.org/vol10-34/matsuura.htm

    http://truenorthreports.com/the-ethan-allen-institute-presents-mr-jeffersons-economics

  • http://impudent.edublogs.org/ kyle8

    A right can never be something like education or health care because a right is something that by using it, you do not diminish another.

    In other words, my exercising of a right to religion, does not lessen your rights in any way.

    However if I say I have a right to food, for instance, then someone has to pay for that food, if I cannot pay then that necessarily diminishes the rights or property of others.

    That might be a privilege, and entitlement, or a charity, but it can never be a right.

  • http://impudent.edublogs.org/ kyle8

    and the whole point is property rights, you see I own myself, the ultimate right of property. Infringement of property rights without due process is necessarily a form of slavery.

  • westcoastpatriette

    Specifically, you might want to read the site rules for posters. There you will find the following specific admonition:

    13. The dissemination of talking points from the Democrat Party, or its politicians and allies, is not allowed.

  • CrabCakes

    I’d advise:

    1) Looking at the original post, which asked how “progressives” think. I’m offering a firsthand description.

    2) Looking up the definition of “talking point.”

    Finally, if you don’t want to read what liberals think, then don’t read comment threads attached to posts about how liberals think.

  • http://americanstance.org pweldon

    My thanks for the thoughts engendered by my original post here.

    The key, I think, is to understand who they are and what they want so we can be better prepared to beat them to a pulp at the polls.

    The most powerful and useful point is that there is moral unpinning for smaller government, lower debt, more freedom, more responsibility, and more opportunity. Each of us need to fund and elect candidates for federal office that get it and will do something about it.

    I refer you to http://www.clubforgrowth.org/ as the best in that business.

    Regards, Pete Weldon
    americanstance.org

  • westcoastpatriette

    between a conservative posting a diary about how progressives think and what you are doing in this thread — and if you were honest you would admit the difference.

    You are openly describing yourself as a liberal and defending what most Democrats believe in which to you, includes the abrogation of property rights and redistribution of wealth through the state. And that is what the Democratic party believes in now whether they admit it or not. So, you are blatantly breaking site rules — which is also a common trait of liberals — lawlessness.

  • CrabCakes

    Food has been around for a lot longer than the idea of property has. Heck, it’s been around a lot longer than people have! Food occurs naturally. All you need is a forest. Don’t I have a right to the food that supports my life, which we both agree is an inalienable right? Why should I have to pay someone else for what nature produces?

    Oh, because now every square inch of forest is someone’s property. That is, the state has determined that I’m not allowed to have the berries that grow in that forest because they belong to someone else. That’s all property is: the state enforced mandate that everyone except one person is not allowed to have the stuff that a certain area of land produces. How can that ever be justified?

    It *can* be justified because in a system in which only one person is allowed to improve a certain chunk of land, all chunks of land produce more stuff. Everyone is better off than they would be if everything were open to everyone’s use (tragedy of the commons, etc.). Thus via the state we grant individuals exclusive use of material goods, restricting the rights of others to use those goods, for entirely practical reasons. If another system of production proved to be even *more* productive than laissez faire free enterprise and left people even *better* off as a whole, then we’d have every reason to adopt that system instead. I think that a limited welfare state combined with an essentially free market system is that better system. I think that state ownership of the means of production (i.e. Communism), on the other hand, is a significantly *worse* system, which is why I reject it.

    This is entirely different from the case of life and liberty, which are fundamental rights. Property “rights” exist only insofar as they promote life and liberty, the two real rights in the proper sense of the term.

  • CrabCakes

    But if you really want to review them:

    4. It is forbidden to single out a user for abuse or harassment for any reason, including being new to the site, being suspected of breaking site rules, or for supporting a particular candidate for office. If you suspect that a user is breaking site rules, contact the site or a moderator directly.

    Feel free to contact the mods if you think I’m breaking them.

    Until then:

    5. Offtopic commenting for the purpose of disruption is not allowed.

    JSobieski, kyle8, and I were having a perfectly civil conversation until you decided to break two rules in one fell swoop and contribute absolutely nothing to the conversation at hand.

    Redstate has never had a problem with liberals commenting as long as we’re honest and respectful. I’m a bit embarrassed for you that you think that the mods share your intolerance for opinions that diverge from your own.

  • westcoastpatriette

    Poor thing. Didn’t realize I was abusing you. As usual, you seem to have difficulty understanding and following rules.

    But your post did make me laugh.

  • jakeofalltrades

    Those rights exist for another purpose – to provide for the best attainable use of all land. Without real property and taxes thereon, land-grabbing and waste occur.

    Intellectual property is similar – it does not exist because of a natural right, but rather because of the utilitarian need to promote the arts and sciences. Without IP, specialization of labor in the arts and sciences is severely curtailed.

    However, your body, what it produces, and what you receive in exchange for them are yours by natural/divine right.

  • http://impudent.edublogs.org/ kyle8

    the food in my hand, whether I grew it or bought it or was given to me is my property. If the state takes it then that is theft, pure and simple. I have a right to eat my food, but I do not have a right to demand the food of others or organize the state to steal it.

  • jakeofalltrades

    1. In Israel, all real property returned to its original owner (or their heirs) every half-century, to preserve the tribal holdings.
    2. Farm-owners were required to allow travelers through their fields to gather what produce fell to the ground.

    (Even today, most land in Israel is leased from the government – you get leases rather than deeds there).

    So the right to exclude from land (one of the rights in the bundle that we call “property”) has not ever been absolute.

    At common law, you can be privileged to trespass if it is necessary (famous example: mooring a ship without permission in a storm).

    Common law also forbids you setting up a perpetual arrangement whereby your family will forever own a piece of land (as well as other restrictions on alienation).

    Trespasses against movable property, by contrast, have generally not been permitted at all. Stealing a horse has for much of human history been a capital offense, and stealing anything gets your hand amputated even today in much of the world. Even acquiring property on a loan and failing to pay entitles the owner to peaceably recover it – even if trespass to real property is required – under the Uniform Commerical Code (sorry, Louisiana).

  • CrabCakes

    Your body isn’t your property. It is your self. It is protected from infringement under one’s right to life and liberty. No need to invoke hypothetical property rights here.

    What do you mean “what it produces”? I can think of a few things that a body produces on its own, but I can’t imagine anyone wanting them. Anything of value that a body produces requires raw material, and the use of raw material is restricted by real property laws.

    To me the distinction between real property and chattels seems illusory. You can say that I have a right to any logs I produce by cutting down trees, but that isn’t worth much if I’m not allowed to cut down any trees because somebody else “owns” them all. Indeed, if I were to go out and produce a bunch of logs from trees that were someone else’s real property, then the fact that my body produced the logs would mean precisely nothing. I would be required to give the logs that I produced to the owner of the real property, who produced nothing.

    In short, the distinction between real property and chattel property is a distinction without difference. Both are arbitrary social constructs (as the cross-cultural variation of property laws that you note in your second comment demonstrates).

  • ennaneko

    No one is 100% free. We don’t wants anarchy but no one wants to like like a hamster in a cold dark cage in the corner.

    If you submit to the decisions of leaders and governments, you aren’t totally free.

    The big argument between current conservatives and liberals is how much government is required and what sort of ideas it should support and espouse.

    Conservatives still want people to live with some sort of order, a traditional order… a proven one.

    Liberals want something more artificial, unproven but which they can think can reduce risk for the lives of people. Cages are safe and the environment is more predictable.

    Conservatives want a nature preserve, a place where a wolf can still act like wolf and run around in the grass but still offers less dangers than wild plains or forests.

  • http://impudent.edublogs.org/ kyle8

    That is the crux of the matter, you are not getting it. And that is sad because so far your arguments are just silly.

    Go ahead and explain to me why those societies who are grounded in natural law and property rights are so much better run than those who treat property rights as nothing more than a mere social construct.

    It is fundamental. If our rights are just laws that can be amended any way the political wind blows, then ultimately we have no intellectual cover from a rapacious government.

    The fact that you do not see that is what is sad. I suggest that you read some John Locke, John Stuart Mill, and Thomas Sowell.

  • CrabCakes

    No society anywhere has treated property rights as inviolable. In any place that a government has existed, the right of that government to confiscate private property has been acknowledged. That is not the case with regard to life and liberty. The great leap that modern Western liberalism made was the idea that life and liberty are absolutely sacred. No one anywhere, not even a government, has the right to deprive me of them unless I forfeit them. No society anywhere treats property with the same regard. Such a society would have to fund its government via voluntary contributions.

    And I’ve read Locke, Mill, and Sowell. (I do think it’s a bit funny that you think that Sowell belongs in their company, as if anyone will still be reading him in 200 years.) As I said, I think Locke is wrong. This is one of the very, very few cases in which Rousseau got it right rather than Locke. Mill shifted his position toward socialism in his later years (although I wouldn’t consider him a “socialist” even then), but even in his early years he didn’t treat property as equal to life and liberty.

  • JSobieski

    I can be killed by someone who is not guilty of a crime.

    Natural law is not written on a tree.
    Natural rights are constructs for person A that can and do negatively impact person B.

    You are correct that property rights are implemented differently from jurisdiction to jurisdiction.

    However, the same is true of the right of liberty and the right to life.

    Your right to liberty in the US is significantly different than your right to liberty in France.

    Criminal laws on manslaughter and murder vary widely even among the states of the US.

  • http://impudent.edublogs.org/ kyle8

    Except maybe that madman Rousseau. Your argument here is incredibly dense. To the point of stupidity. No one of course equates property rights to what you are hear saying. No rights are absolute, so you are setting up a strawman.

    There is a big difference in those societies, France comes to mind, who claim they love the rights of man, but do not have the same importance on property. And those nations Primarily in the Angloshpere who did.

    Now, of course we are in trouble because we have eroded those ideals. partly because of sophistic argument like yours.

  • JSobieski

    No rights are absolute.

    Even the right to life has holes in it. For example, my life could be taken from me by someone mistakenly thinking that I was a deadly threat to them.

    There are no absolute rights in this world.

    Even freedom of speech is subject to reasonable time/place/manner restrictions.

    The right to life is protected by a criminal justice standard of beyond reasonable doubt, and self-defense can be successfully invoked even if the person turns out to have been wrong (self-defense is based on the reasonabilty of the perception, NOT whether there was an actual threat).

  • CrabCakes

    A natural right exists even if no one acknowledges it. For example, even if no state existed, I would still have the right to live and do with my body as I please. Of course, someone could come along and kill me, but they would be *wrong* to do so. Likewise, the state could have me imprisoned for criticizing it, but once again the state would be *wrong* if it did.

    If the “rights” to life and liberty were social constructs, then an established government could never be wrong in infringing upon them. There would be no higher authority to which an individual could appeal. When we say that life and liberty are natural rights, we mean that they exist prior to the creation of government and that any government that deprives its citizens of them is wrong. Liberalism(1) is built upon the idea that these inviolable rights do in fact exists. A person can contest that claim, but in doing so they reveal themselves not to be a liberal.

    Property, properly speaking, doesn’t exist prior to the creation of a government (so Rousseau; contra Locke). Thus, while a government can be *stupid* in the way it allocates materials to its citizens (cf. Communism), it can never be *wrong* in the same way it would be if it were to infringe upon their lives and liberty. (Of course, Communism infringed on life and liberty in addition to property, and in that they were wrong in an absolute sense, not merely a practical one.)

    (1) I use the term “liberalism” in its original sense, encompassing both classical liberalism and new liberalism.

  • CrabCakes

    Otherwise, our society is in more trouble than I could have imagined.

  • CrabCakes

    For example, I have the right to say whatever I please, but I do not have the right to force others to listen to me. Likewise, I don’t have the right to endanger other peoples lives with my speech (e.g. yelling “fire!” in a crowded theater).

    Just as only a diamond can cut a diamond, only rights can limit (true) rights.

  • JSobieski

    My life can be improperly taken without criminal penalty. In your view, the right to life is still “absolute”

    My liberty can and is restricted at airports, at election booths, and the public square (TPM restrictions on speech for example). In your view, freedom of speech (one of the most important liberties) is still “absolute”.

    My property rights are subject to certain exceptions, and as a result, property rights are a mere “social construct”? Even though the source of those exceptions are the rights of others!!!!!!!

    Your logic is inconsistent. All rights are contextual. No rights are absolute. While property rights are a lower tier of rights, property rights are not altogether different from rights such as life and liberty.

  • JSobieski

    Someone hooks you up to a bomb (without your knowledge) that I know is going to go off in 60 seconds. If you keep following me around, I could shoot you in self-defense to get away from the bomb. It would be self-defense even though you are innocent.

    Property rights are infringed for similar reasons. They can be trumped by other rights, just as liberty rights can be trumped by other liberty rights or the right to life.

    Heck, the right to life can be trumped by liberty rights. I can use deadly force to prevent my own kidnapping.

    These are all ways of saying you can’t yell fire in a crowded theater.

    There is nothing I am saying here that Scalia, Thomas, et al. would argue against.

  • CrabCakes

    I think that life and liberty are rights in and of themselves, and are therefore absolute. If a person violates the rights of another person, either in life or liberty, that person forfeits their rights to the extent necessary to right the wrong. Life doesn’t necessarily trump liberty. They are coequal rights. For example, a slave in the antebellum South had every right to kill his master if that’s what it took to regain his liberty.

    Property, on the other hand, is a mechanism for promoting life and liberty, not a right in and of itself. It is a means to an end, not an end in itself. If the distribution of property ever conflicts with life and liberty, then that distribution itself is unjust. For example, if one person managed to own everything and refused to let anyone else have enough food to keep himself alive, then his property claims are unjust, even if he acquired his property in an entirely legal fashion.

    In short, you talk about a “lower tier of rights,” I prefer not to use the term “rights” at all to refer to “rights” that are means to an end rather than ends in themselves.

  • CrabCakes

    I think life and liberty are coequal rights. So long as you respect the rights of others, it is wrong to infringe upon either. If you refuse to respect them, though, then you forfeit your rights to the extent that is necessary to compel you to respect the rights of others. Thus, if I have a bomb strapped to me, even through no fault of my own, it is an infringement upon your rights for me to follow you around.

    Property “rights,” however, are not absolute and thus not true rights. They only exist as a means of promoting life and liberty. The only reason that a person can have his liberty taken away for violating property rights (i.e. imprisonment for theft) is that respect for property is necessary for ensuring life and liberty. If a system of property began to infringe on life and liberty, though, then that system itself would be unjust.

  • aesthete

    “Property, properly speaking, doesn

  • Viet71

    Mere physical possession does not imply the existence of property rights or, therefore, the existence of property.

    I may possess contraband. It is not property. It is a mere thing.

    I download illegally a song. It is not property insofar as I’m concerned. It’s someone else’s property, however.

    CrabCakes is correct from a legal standpoint.

  • http://impudent.edublogs.org/ kyle8

    arbitrary confiscation, or the tyranny of the public.

    That is why we have the eminent domain clause in the constitution and why it was so worrisome when the Supreme Court abused it.

  • aesthete

    before you can have property rights.

    You have to have an abstract concept of property rights before you have a government that can protect these rights.

    CrabCakes is correct from a legal standpoint — but from a legal standpoint, the same can be said for one’s right to life or liberty. Since he is attempting to describe a *moral*, rather than *legal*, framework for his philosophy, I’m trying to hold him to it.

  • http://impudent.edublogs.org/ kyle8

    diatribe was meaningless. since you just contradicted yourself. you admit that Life and liberty are rights that can be sometimes abrogated, then you admit that property rights important but can similarly be abrogated, but you just don’t like calling the rights.

  • Viet71

    n/t

  • CrabCakes

    They can be *forfeited* either voluntarily or by infringing on the rights of others, but the government can’t simply abrogate my right to liberty because it feels it’s best for society as a whole.

    The same cannot be said for property “rights,” which are abrogated every time the government collects taxes (not to mention eminent domain).

    You have to pick one horn of the bull or the other if you want to call property a natural right: Either a) natural rights are absolute and compulsory taxation of any kind is unjust or b) natural rights aren’t so inalienable after all and the government has the right to abrogate our right to life and liberty if it sees fit, just as it does with property.

    The way to dodge both horns is to acknowledge that property isn’t a natural right but a societal convention that generally serves to promote life and liberty, but is only a “right” insofar as it serves to promote these ends.

    The large number of blue bars on the left side of my screen both tells me that we’ve probably run this debate into the ground and is giving me a bit of a headache, so I’ll let you have the last word if you want it.

    Thanks for the exchange.