“Peak Libertarianism?” No, Thom Hartmann is Just a Sore Winner

“We have now reached peak Libertarianism,” Thom Hartmann informs us at CounterPunch, “and this bizarre experiment that has been promoted by the billionaire class for over 40 years is literally killing us.” That claim is so bizarre on its face that it’s easy to dismiss. On the other hand, even the craziest claims can fool people if nobody takes the time to debunk them.

Falsifying Liberty

I believe liberty to be worthwhile, to say the least. I also believe it is objectively superior to any alternative. This means I should try to falsify this hypothesis to myself. If I can’t think of ways which– if they held up– would prove my belief is based on a falsehood if it is, my belief is worthless.

Hate Speech, Property Destruction, Demonization, & Natural Rights (27m) – Episode 298

Episode 298 has Skyler giving his commentary on the following entries to r/shitstatistssay: zarthrag writes, “Hate, and any of its manifestations is against the NAP. Hate speech isn’t just speech, it’s a form of aggression”; ShambhalaOrangeJuice writes, “People have a right to destroy chain buildings… because that is a part of the establishment which has oppressed them without respite”; CTR555 writes, “As far as I’m concerned, there are two types of people in America: people who vote for the Democratic nominee, and bad people”; and JimJam28 writes, “I don’t believe there is a ‘creator’ who endowed us with rights. There are no rights in nature. We decide as a society what rights should exist and how to properly protect those rights.”

Natural Law, Fictions, Context

In this post, we will examine 3 related areas of discussion.  They are related in that general failures to understand them are the sources of most (if not all) of our problems in the history, and pre-history, of the Sapiens species.  Natural law governs everything in the real world, but we need to create fictions to draw meaning among the events of natural law.  And we need to understand context to have more precise knowledge among the consequences of natural law interacting with human adaptation.

Voltairine de Cleyre II

I spent the whole week-end  being depressed after hearing (at Scribd.com) Voltairine de Cleyre’s essay entitled, Sex Slavery.  One might say that VDC views this particular glass as neither half-empty nor half-full.  She may have felt that as long as there was one abuse, then that was (and still is) a tragedy.  But surely, no empathetic or logical reader doubts that there have been vastly more than one instance.