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“Constitutional Rights”? Not Really

By on July 25, 2012 in Constitution, Delegated Powers, Federalism, Founding Principles, Law, Liberty, Uncategorized 1

I frequently hear people talk about how many “constitutional rights” we have lost under (fill in whichever President’s name). This brings up a very interesting misunderstanding about the origin of our rights… For one thing, our rights don’t come from the Constitution; the Constitution merely recognizes that our rights preexist it.

For instance, in the 2nd Amendment it goes like this:

“A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”

It says “the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed” ..not “the people shall have the right to keep and bear arms” – this is a very important difference in syntax! This is true throughout the document, and the document even recognizes in the 9th Amendment that we have all the rights not specifically mentioned.

“The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.”

If the Constitution gave rights, then the syntax of the 9th would say something like “that the people shall enjoy” or “that the people shall have” instead of “retained by the people.”

The meaning of the subtle difference here is profound, and has vast implications! Continue Reading →

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The Non-Coercion Principle

By on September 17, 2010 in Big Government, Liberty 8

The world is run by rules that determine how we interact with other people. A baseball team has rules on how it interacts with its players, a husband and wife have rules on how they interact with each other, and freedom has its own rule.

The non-coercion principle is the one rule of freedom because it is, as its name implies, when a person does not force or coerce in any way how another person acts. This allows each person to exist in a state of freedom since they are free to engage in any behavior they want without any other person having any say otherwise. This principle does not limit a person’s own choice over themselves but completely inhibits their choice over what other people do. The only right that is denied by this principle is the right to dictate what other people should do. Continue Reading →

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What category do you fall into?

By on August 1, 2010 in Liberty 5

I think the problem is that most of the people in the tea party movement are not true believers in liberty. They are neo-con statist Republicans.

They are also ignorant of the meanings of the words and quotes they use.Remember, I say all this as a founding member of the Orlando Tea Party and someone who has spent the past year and a half of his life fighting in this movement.

This is how I see it: there are two different kinds of tea partiers. There are the younger, more libertarian, Ron Paul tea partiers. We were having tea parties in December 2007.

This is something that Tom Tillison argued with me about. He didn’t believe that Ron Paul supporters were having tea party rallies more than one year before the rest of the country. We were doing it before Obama was elected-during the Bush years. If you don’t believe me, use Google and find the articles for yourself. Continue Reading →

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The Equality of Reason

By on June 18, 2010 in History, Liberty 1

In medieval society the king was much more than a supreme magistrate but was seen as a divine being sent from heaven to establish its laws within the kingdom. When the king was not present the divine law established by the king’s will was gone so the people lost all sense of restraint from which anarchy would occur until a new king was crowned.

The people living in this society accepted the king’s judgment in all affairs because they believed that he was a kind of deity who possessed special knowledge and wisdom that could best guide the people. The king then used that special wisdom to choose advisors, magistrates, and other government officials who knew what was best for the people. The people did not question the government because they believe the king was more endowed to make decisions over their lives than they were. This created a class of thinking elites who decided how other people were going to live and a subservient peasant class who did not believe they had the same right to reason as the king’s government had.

It may seem strange as to why anyone would accept this degraded status for themselves but since we were cavemen we always sought out a source of divine knowledge that can guide us in this world. This enlightened knowledge completely removes the possibility of human error which gives us a feeling of security in this world and the belief in this enlightened knowledge can be thought of as faith.

The idea that a leader who possesses special knowledge sent from heaven might give us great courage to overcome impossible odds such as Moses leading his people out of Egypt simply because God told him where the land of milk and honey was. A society’s faith in divine leadership might give it courage to overcome impossible odds but it is not reason nor is it freedom.

In order to illustrate this point think of a dog owner who teaches the dog how to fetch. The dog has no ability to think beyond its instinctive impulses so it can’t comprehend why it is chasing after the ball. This has allowed the dog owner to manipulate the dog’s very existence because the dog owner has the ability to reason which is something the dog can’t do.

This is why every domesticated animal will be subservient to human will. Our ability to reason has allowed us to manipulate their instinctive desires for food, water, and shelter to the point where we control every aspect of their existence. These animals will never wonder why it is complying with our demands simply because they are incapable of knowing anything beyond their primitive and instinctive impulses.

The only thing we have in common with animals is that we both receive information through our senses but what separates us from them is our ability to process that information and create new information from that process. What animals and man knew about the earth from their senses alone was that it is flat but what separated us was the fact that man was able to realize the world was round by our intellect. That intellect allowed us to analyze the information we receive through our senses and come to different conclusions that our senses alone could not tell us. The concept of our existence is shaped by our ability to reason which separates us from animals because their existence is shaped by their senses.

We may speculate from where mankind gets this ability but the mere fact that we are using that ability to debate where it comes from proves that it exist for each of us. A creationist may believe man was created in seven days so it was God who given him the ability to reason while an atheist may believe that that same ability was the byproduct of man’s evolution. No matter what you believe is responsible for your existence it is impossible to believe that any member of the same species would not have the same ability that every other member of that species has.

Individualism is the byproduct of our ability to reason because the beliefs people have about what is the truth are developed by their ability to reason but because every person reasons independently of the other they will establish diffrent conclusions about what is correct. Those conclusions might change but only because of their own internal reasoning process and not because of any force or coercion on the part of another.

This establishes a state of equality of rank among all being capable of reasoning since no force or coercion can by used to alter what one reasonable being thinks is correct or about what they should do with their own lives. This makes it impossible for any reasonable being to be subservient to another reasonable being wishes without any internal comprehension as to why those wishes are correct.

From our ability to reason we establish an equality of rank with all other people and since each person was born with this ability then each person was born with an equal authority over their own lives. This means that no person has a natural birthright to determine the actions of another which means that each person was born in a natural state of freedom since no person has any natural authority over any other.

A person that possesses twice the intelligence of the average human would still have the same equality as any other member of the same species simply because the degree to which we can reason only changes the pace at which we will discover truth and not if we will discover the same truth. Even a reasonable mind capable of infinite intelligence would be equal in rank with all other reasonable lesser minds simply because all reasonable minds will discover the same truth.

This mind capable of infinite intelligence can be thought of as God by some philosophers and religions but regardless of what we believe a mind capable of infinite intelligence is that being is incapable of having any authority over us simply because any degree of reason makes us all equal in authority with one another. The state of equality and freedom does not end at our species but extends to all beings capable of reason which would include the mind capable of infinite intelligence.

This does not say that man is equal in abilities to this infinite intelligence (ROFLMAO) but only equal in authority which means man can not tell this infinite intelligence how it is to use its powers and it can’t tell man how to use his infinitely weaker abilities. The time it takes for the infinite intelligence to discover what the truth is is instant which makes truth and the infinite intelligence identical. The ability of unequal minds to use reason to discover the same identical truth makes all things equal in authority with each other since all things will eventually know the same reality.

Truth is like the anchor for our reasoning and without it their would only be insantiy. Reason can’t exist without truth and without reason their would be no equlity from witch we would have no basis to derive our freedom from.

All intellects capable of the power to reason will always be subject to truth because they will never be able to discover anything but truth itself. This makes truth the great equalizer among all beings capable of reason because no matter how great or small the intellect is it will always reach the same conclusion because truth is like a tree in a forest and reason is the path to that tree of which there could be many but every single one of them will always lead to the same tree.

It may seem this is a contradiction of what we know of examples of the infinite mind because most religions teaches us that it punishes us for doing certain actions that are known as evil but those actions could not manifest themselves without the thought to do them first. It would make more sense to believe that if the infinite mind wanted people not to do those actions it would deny us the ability to think them thus eliminating the ability to perform the evil action. God values freedom and equality as much as he values morality because he never denies people the freedom of thought which is the basis of our equality and freedom.

The ability to reason will lead us to the same truth that the infinite mind has already discovered and this makes truth the great equalizer among beings capable of reason but possessing the ability to reason does not mean we possess the default right to truth. That is discovered by our inherent ability to reason that was given to us by whatever was responsible for our creation. The ability to reason allows us to discover truth and all reasoning minds, of any degree, are subject to its authority.

This is why all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights…

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Tenther Homework

By on February 27, 2010 in Liberty, Tenthers 0

Professor Krey has an assignment for you tenthers out there. Please check out this video from the Federalist Society regarding “trying suspected terrorists in federal court” and summarize their arguments for me. The Federalist Society, much like the rest of the Beltway Right, is far too cozy with unconstitutional, warmongering neocons for me to ever listen to without a skeptical ear. But let’s not forget, there are numerous serious constitutionalists among their numbers (myself included). Perhaps they’ll surprise us with this webcast.

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The True Nature of Natural Rights

By on January 23, 2010 in Law, Liberty 13

ne1dThe concept of natural rights is perhaps the most basic in the entire structure of the governments of the people of the United States. This concept formed that foundation upon which the nation grew and flourished into the most prosperous and powerful in the entire history of the world, and it happened in a relatively short period of time. So what is a right truly?

A common stone provides a lucid example of rights. So what do stones do? They take up space in a very robust and heavy way. If we then ask the question: Does a stone have rights to take up space, to be hard and to be heavy? Then if we answer in the negative, how shall we stop this blatant usurpation? It is clearly impossible to do so unless we crush it. But then, it isn’t a stone anymore. So we see that the rights of the stone are inherent and inalienable.

Before we leave the stone let us ask if it is possible to give it more rights. We might decide that one particular stone shall never be crushed, or moved or defaced or painted. None of this creates new rights. It does act to protect rights, and we could choose to call this a right by fiat, but natural rights are inherent and uncreated.

So then what of a tree? Does a tree have a right to push the stone aside to make its living?’ Does it have the right to draw up water and absorb heat and soil to realize its potential? If again if we answer in the negative, how shall we separate these rights from the tree? There is no avenue available that does not somehow reduce its vitality and prevent the tree from being all that it could be.

There is a concept we call the supremacy of rights, wherein one thing’s rights are superior to another’s. We have seen this in the tree’s infringement upon the rights of the stone. Is this an evil or unwanted thing? It certainly is something that should give us pause and here we see the entrance of the concepts of stewardship and responsibility. We notice, that if we should seek to enforce the protection of the rights of the stone we must simultaneously infringe the rights of the tree. There is no other way. There is an inherent and immutable linkage. Laws designed to protect a class of things always infringe the rights of other things.

Then let us consider the beaver. Does the beaver have the right to cut down the tree in order to protect and provide for his family? He builds a pond and then his house from the tree and its branches, and other branches he stores for food in the mud of his dooryard. Does he have rights to kill the tree and alter the stream? Again we are met with the simple fact that we cannot separate the rights from the beaver without doing violence to the very essence of his being. His rights are inherent and cannot be surrendered without giving up part or all of what he is.

The natural supremacy of the rights of the beaver become apparent here. That is the natural order of things. Likewise the natural rights of man supersede the rights of all other things in his world. Man stands upon the shoulders of all of nature and derives his living from his dominion over it. Man’s will and agency spring immediately to mind, and lead to the concepts of accountability and stewardship. But that is a discussion for another time.

Before we leave the beaver, we need to ask again the question whether we can somehow grant this creature additional rights. In anticipation of that we ask, What right could we give him that would extend or enlarge the essence of his being? Here we see that we have asked an improper question. To give the beaver more rights we would first have to give him more talents, skills or capacities. Nay, his natural rights are inextricably intertwined with what he is. Laws cannot themselves elevate any creature, only infringe or protect its rights. It is useful to note here that laws cannot protect a right without infringing another right. Thus more law is always less freedom.

So then let us consider the natural rights of man. It is clear that he has the ability to think, to invent, to create and destroy, and to respect or trample the natural rights of other men and things. Because these abilities are part of his very being, he must have the commensurate rights to exercise those powers. To whatever extent we trammel those rights, to that extent we deny him the freedom to be all that he can be.

One of man’s great challenges is the ability to imagine oneself as king and ruler and in control of the property and rights of all things, including other men. Does this ability grant him the right to do so? Will it infringe his rights if we somehow prevent him from fulfilling his ambitious plans? There is no simple answer for if we answer yes, we agree to the infringement of the rights of all those he dominates while if we say no we restrict his ability to be all that he could be. In our culture we have decided that it is best if we consider all men as equals and respect their equal rights. It seems not only fair, but also safe. But more importantly, it rejects the idea that one man has more rights than another. We call this the equal rights of man.

One of man’s skills is his ability to create organizational entities and endow them with political powers. We do this for the common good, so that we may sleep well at night and trust that the fruits of today’s labors will remain tomorrow. What we are actually doing is recognizing our equal rights and acting for their protection. These endeavors must be extremely well planned and maintained lest we either upset equality of rights or lose part or all of the rights we seek thus to secure. This one concept forms the foundation of our unique governments: both state and federal while their successes witness the wisdom behind their formation and their failures reveal our shoddy maintenance thereof.

There are those who embody their arrogance in supposing their rights are superior, that they should be allowed to be all that they can be even at the expense of the rights of their fellow man. They often suppose that they are wiser and have therefore a natural right to impose their favorite scheme upon their fellows. However, truly wise men will ever be on the alert and move quickly and responsibly to protect themselves from this arrogance.

Wise men will also be good stewards lest they irresponsibly abuse the rights of the stone, the tree and the beaver. It is precisely that abuse which now lends support to those who proclaim that natural rights are antithetical to the future of man. However, there is no historical precedent we can toll to justify abandonment of our natural rights. We have no acceptable choice but to protect and use them with prudence.

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