Guest post by Butler Shaffer. Originally published in The Voluntaryist, June 1987. I recently returned from a conference at which a participant took frenzied issue with me over the question of whether the Constitution is capable of protecting human liberty. I took the position that no Constitution can guarantee our freedoms, because it is impossible…
Tag: rights
The Inflation of Rights
Guest post by Sir Alfred Sherman. Originally published in The Voluntaryist, April 1987. In this essay I wish to argue that the inflation of rights, in the sense of hypertrophy of claims on society that the state is responsible for levying, is inherently self-defeating. It is bound to generate conflicts of rights that will end…
Re: They Win, We Lose
Writes Free Your Kids: No matter who wins, the people will lose. Our natural-born rights will continue to be denied, the Fed will continue to inflate the currency, taxation will continue to crush us, the police state will continue growing, and the slaughter of men, women, and children abroad will continue. The politicians win. The…
Freedom: A Truly Unknown Ideal
What is truly new is economic freedom. As Molinari pointed out in the 19th century, this can really only be traced back two hundred years. Governments have always existed in one form or another. Let’s get rid of “the political means” once and for all if you want to achieve something new.
The Fundamentals of Nonvoting
Our rulers know they are illegitimate. Voluntaryists know they are illegitimate for a myriad of other reasons, but what I wanted to examine here is the voluntaryist’s position to abstain from electoral politics. The following arguments are the fundamentals of the nonvoting position.
What Virtues Do People Need in Order to Be Free?
Guest post by Ben Speers. When attempting to form a free society, the absence of the state is only one piece of the puzzle. People must possess certain attributes if they are to take advantage of the potential benefits of voluntaryism. I have outlined six principles below that I believe to be necessary to the…
Re: Our Moral High Ground
Writes Skyler J. Collins: In response to my claims on the immorality of voting (of granting immoral power to someone however they intend to use it), some have said that voting is a violation of a lower law in obedience to a higher one. Well and good, my point remains, voting is immoral, irrelevant is…
Larken Rose
“Toward Freedom” is an Everything-Voluntary.com series sharing personal stories about the journey toward freedom. Archived stories can be found here. Submit your story to the editor. Originally published in The Voluntaryist, 1st Quarter 2012. I was raised in a conservative home, in a conservative town, with some libertarian leanings. I grew up thinking the good…
Is Voting an Act of Violence?
Guest post by Carl Watner. Originally published in The Voluntaryist, April 2000. Hans Sherrer, a subscriber to The Voluntaryist, sent me an essay entitled “Voting Is An Act of Violence,” which began with the statement “Voting is the most violent act someone can commit in his lifetime.” How true is this? First, let us define our…
The “Rights” of Animals
Guest post by Murray N. Rothbard. It has lately become a growing fashion to extend the concept of rights from human beings to animals, and to assert that since animals have the full rights of humans, it is therefore impermissible—i.e., that no man has the right—to kill or eat them. There are, of course, many…