The Nature of Man and His Government

[Capitalist Pig]

From the Mises Institute:

Here is Robert LeFevre's classic argument (1959) for a purely free society, the essay that made him a leading, if controversial, spokesman for the libertarian position on government and society in the 2nd half of the twentieth century. He argues that government is in its essence a violation of rights, one that makes life brutal, poor, and short. He demonstrates that no government anywhere has lived up to its basic promises, and calls on all people to contribute to building a new kind of freedom.

http://www.mises.org/story/1970

I thought his essay might be good grounds for generating discussion of anarcho-capitalism. LeFevre called this autarchy, the absolutist view of self-government. I think a lot of anarcho-capitalist arguments are far too extreme for even minarchist libertarians (such as myself) to accept. However, sometimes I have to wonder if their beliefs have some merit.

What do you guys think? Could there ever be a stateless society, or is the government required to fulfill certain functions?

[Osborn F Enready]

I haven't read the article YET, but I plan on doing it after I type this.

I would say though, government is REQUIRED for some things, as are the States.

I would say, if there were no constitution, we could do without the Fed, but not the States.

As I stand now though, I support the Constitution 100% with exceptions to the 14th, 16th amendments, as well as several supreme court precedent setting cases based on the Constitution that I feel as do many constitutional scholars, are wrong.

[leftcider]

Quote by: Osborn F Enready As I stand now though, I support the Constitution 100% with exceptions to the 14th, 16th amendments

The Fourteenth Amendment contains in it the Equal Protection Clause, which invalidates governmental racial hierarchies (i.e. Jim Crow laws). It also incorporates the Bill of Rights against the State governments. Are you opposed to these things?.

[Capitalist Pig]

Quote by: Osborn F Enready As I stand now though, I support the Constitution 100% with exceptions to the 14th, 16th amendments, as well as several supreme court precedent setting cases based on the Constitution that I feel as do many constitutional scholars, are wrong.

Anarcho-capitalists would charge that natural law is higher than the laws of any institution (even if that institution claims to champion natural law, as we do with our Bill of Rights), and the government's purpose -- as an entity which makes and enforces laws -- does just that. It makes laws, continues to make laws, and never, ever ceases to make laws, because governments are the "law factory". Meaning the state can not be trusted to stick to the Constitution. LeFevre writes,

This is the major point which must be understood eventually. Government which passes and enforces endless rules and codes is not out of character when it does so. It is in character. That is the way any government operates. And the longer a given government endures, the more numerous will be the laws it enacts. It is the business of government to pass laws and to enforce them. These laws are the productive sum of all governmental effort. Therefore it is not to be wondered at when thousands and thousands of new laws come into existence every year. It would rather be a marvel if this did not happen.

[Osborn F Enready]

Ok look Capitalist. I agree with Lefevre on this topic, 100%. There is however, one more thing one must take into account, which is how this subversion in the U.S. took place.

The power consolidation was gradual, so as not to arouse suspicion of its watchdogs. Many of these small power grabs, accumulated over time, granting the rule making body more authority to make laws that "indirectly" affected the citizens. Indirect is the keyword here. It is when laws went from indirect rule, to direct rule, that things changed. Before this, all direct authority by the State or Fed had to be run through the Constitutional checks and balances, before an AMENDMENT could be put in place. The government, using its recently culminated power of several prior incremental power grabs made the argument that in order to "maintain order, and peace" that they should have the right to make laws outside the Constitution, that carried the equal authority of that document.(the right to remove rights, imprison, obtain property from citizens,)

If the only laws we had, were Constitutional laws, this system would still be much the same as it is now in effectiveness, but it would be ENTIRELY constitutional, which is the key factor here, since they stole our constitutional rights, in order to provide MORE effectiveness, and efficiency.

This has obviously failed, as it was never intended to succeed, but the people of the times believed in the false sense of security provided by the government, and its newly taken over media empire.

The growth of corruption is well documented.

The rights of incorporation
The creation of the Federal Reserve
The standing army
The New Deal, and all of its socialist economy programs
The declaration of a new prohibition(the war on drugs)
The creation, and unchecked growth of un-constitutional agencies in government.(FBI, CIA, FDA, etc.)


These are ideas proposed by both the progressives, and the conservatives, and both have led to a crippling of the checks and balances, as well as the overall complete, and finalized corrupt empirical system we see today.

That Constitution is not meant to rule, as much as it is to provide a guideline for the government to follow, and for the people to hold up to its government to make sure the government fits all the descriptions and limitations within it. It is though, just a piece of hemp parchment. It is the people who are the protectors of the system, and is the people who have failed, and have yet figured out how to regain control.

Rest assured, this will come to end one of two ways. Revolt, or enslavement. I am strongly, and adamantly in the first of the two. The system has proven time and again that all attempts at diplomatic fixes are not possible, since both parties control the entire system. This means that eventually, when they attempt to seal the issue of rights once and for all, there will be a rise of non-conformists that will spread. That will be the start of the next American Revolution, and I don't see it being very far off.

[Capitalist Pig]

There is no part of that post that I didn't like. :)

[Osborn F Enready]

Also, the reason I am against the 14th Amendment is probably different than yours, but who knows.

I am against the way the idea of incorporation was used by actual corporations as opposed to be used by the blacks, as it should have been, since that was the reason it was created. The entire 14th amendment is worded so that it can be applied in many different ways, and though it was passed with the idea or common perception that it would be used to help the plight of the minorities, it was used as a tool by corporations to further exclude themselves from Constitutional limitations and application.

The best thing I could do to describe what I am trying to enunciate is to provide a couple links about what I am talking about.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourtee...s_Constitution
(snippet)
While the Court has revived the equal protection clause as it applies to individuals who are members of "suspect classifications", it has continued to hold that the clause does not allow the courts to second-guess the wisdom of legislative decisions in the realm of economic regulation, even those that appear to single out particular businesses for favored or disfavored treatment. The Court's current position parallels its repudiation of cases such as Lochner v. New York, which held that state regulation of the hours that bakery employees could work was a taking of their property without due process.

The Lochner case and cases like it were the ironic effect of the Fourteenth Amendment: fifty years after its passage it provided more substantive protection to corporate interests than it did to African Americans and other members of minority groups. The Court finally overruled these precedents in the 1930s, in the midst of the New Deal, when President Franklin D. Roosevelt threatened to "pack the court" to preserve his programs from being declared unconstitutional by the Court.

(also)
Through the doctrine of Incorporation, the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment has also brought about the application of nearly all of the rights explicitly enumerated in the Bill of Rights to the states. Prior to the adoption of this amendment, the Bill of Rights acted only as a restraint on federal, not state, governments, and a state's relations with its citizens and those of other states was legally restrained only by that state's constitution and laws and those provisions of the United States Constitution that limited the powers of the states. While many states modeled their constitution and laws after the federal government's, those state constitutions did not necessarily include provisions comparable to the Bill of Rights.

The Fourteenth Amendment not only empowered the federal courts to intervene in this area to enforce the guarantee of due process and the equal protection of the laws, but to import the substantive rights of free speech, freedom of religion, protection from unreasonable searches and cruel and unusual punishment and other limitations on governmental power. At the present, the Supreme Court has held that the due process clause incorporates all of the substantive protections of the First, Fourth, Sixth, and Eighth Amendments and all of the Fifth Amendment other than the requirement that any criminal prosecution must follow a grand jury indictment, but none of the provisions of the Seventh Amendment relating to civil trials.

Also check out this link, which is very well resourced.
http://www.constitution.org/col/intent_14th.htm

[Osborn F Enready]

Leftcider said:
The Fourteenth Amendment contains in it the Equal Protection Clause, which invalidates governmental racial hierarchies (i.e. Jim Crow laws). It also incorporates the Bill of Rights against the State governments. Are you opposed to these things?

I say:
I am all for equal rights, of all people of color and all sexes (including gays of both male and female).
I am not against the 14th in the ways it was MEANT to be applied, but I am against the wording as is, without precautionary exclusions to the use by corporations, etc.

The rights of incorporation is a huge subject, but really, it is the way and to whom it is applied that makes all the difference in level of corruption ability.

For instance, this was part of an incremental argument saying that corporations in some cases have the rights of a citizen, which is in no manner true, nor meant to be that way according to the Constitution.