Blog description.

Accentuating the Liberal in Classical Liberal: Advocating Ascendency of the Individual & a Politick & Literature to Fight the Rise & Rise of the Tax Surveillance State. 'Illigitum non carborundum'.

Liberty and freedom are two proud words that have been executed from the political lexicon: they were frog marched and stood before a wall of blank minds, then forcibly blindfolded, and shot, with the whimpering staccato of ‘equality’ and ‘fairness’ resounding over and over. And not only did this atrocity go unreported by journalists in the mainstream media, they were in the firing squad.

The premise of this blog is simple: the Soviets thought they had equality, and welfare from cradle to grave, until the illusory free lunch of redistribution took its inevitable course, and cost them everything they had. First to go was their privacy, after that their freedom, then on being ground down to an equality of poverty only, for many of them their lives as they tried to escape a life behind the Iron Curtain. In the state-enforced common good, was found only slavery to the prison of each other's mind; instead of the caring state, they had imposed the surveillance state to keep them in line. So why are we accumulating a national debt to build the slave state again in the West? Where is the contrarian, uncomfortable literature to put the state experiment finally to rest?

Comments Policy: I'm not moderating comments, so keep it sane and go away with the spam. Government officials please read disclaimer at bottom of page.


Wednesday, February 12, 2014

Of Pies, Plonkers, Wowsers and Tossers.


We libertarian types believe in something very simple: freedom. That an individual human being can do whatever they damn well like, so long as they do no harm, and bear the consequences of their actions.
 

Statists of the nanny left and authoritarian right, with as little grasp of philosophy as of language, call this selfish.
 

No.

 
As Oscar Wilde noted, selfishness is not living your life as you would want, it’s making others live their lives as you would want: the very modus operandi of wowsers and why I’ve had a gutsful of them, both in the voting booth, and the Fortress of Legislation. Wowsers are always statists, because they believe the role of state is to modify your behaviour in the state’s favour. And wowsers are always hypocrites, either incapable, or too dogmatic, to admit the generality of a principle. Case in point.

 



 



 



 



 



 



 



 



 

 

So, you can’t have your ciggie, but Duncan will have his pie and eat it too, all the while wagging his authoritarian finger at you. My pie tweet, though half in jest, committed the sin of forgetting these plain-packaged wowsers are humourless.
 

To continue how the broadcaster left off: tosser. Over and out to a once great Free West, now gone, utterly, you plonker. You bet this gets personal: what do you expect when you’re telling others how to live their lives?
 

Taxes on food and lifestyle choices are taxes on choice, period: are attaxks on freedom. Hope you enjoy your pies on the road to my serfdom, Duncan, at least, that is, until they are made contraband also. See you in the black market there'll then ludicrously be, in pies.


And while you’re angry, watch this clip from Seven Sharp last night, and ask your MP – no, really, ask your MP – why at the very least in this cruel kindy of a country, the cancer victim interviewed doesn’t have legal access to medicinal cannabis. Denial of it to her is barbaric.

  

Statement of Non-Interest:


I stopped smoking over fifteen years ago, not because of the tax, but because of the facts. Statist wowsers like Duncan, however, make me want to start again simply on the principle of it.

 
Posted by at
Labels: , , , , , ,

12 comments:

  1. Brendan McNeillFebruary 12, 2014 at 8:48 AM

    Hi Mark

    To see you start smoking again in order to publically express your liberty would be... well sad, and a little silly, but I do apprecate the sentiment.

    The Aztecs used to have human sacrifice, and as with many of these religions, the 'victim' would quite possibly have counted it a privilage to be chosen, and willingly submitted to the knife.

    In the Libertarian's world, where both the person being sacrificed and the person with the knife are consenting adults, should the State intervene, or allow the sacrifice to continue?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Mark HubbardFebruary 12, 2014 at 9:04 AM

      I have no designs to start smoking again, Brendan :)

      Re the latter, I learned long ago not to answer silly hypotheticals, however, in theory, no, the state is only there to police the non-initiation of force principle, so where consent is involved it should not involve itself.

      Now, tell me what part of a laissez faire, sense of life ethic would create a human being who wants to be sacrificed in such manner? The Aztecs were mystics, like Christians ( :) ) and as Voltaire was clear on, those who believe in such absurdities as they did, become capable of atrocities, the like of which you mention. I'm a classical liberal humanist, I believe in the supremacy of human reason: to that frame of mind human sacrifice - which under the Aztecs was mainly forced, not voluntary, by the way - is anathema.

      Now you answer me, in your conservative society, am I allowed a civilised euthanasia in the arms of my wife, should future circumstances lead to that, or is she to be criminalised because Christ forbade it? So I've got to die with a bag over my head, alone, while she has to whistle Dixie outside. (And even though the Bible is full of domesticated camels which didn't exist in Israel and surrounds until at least 300 years after the time of Christ, meaning even as an historical artefact, the Bible is a fiction, and Christ the Superman didn't exist).

      Delete
    2. Brendan McNeillFebruary 12, 2014 at 10:15 AM

      Hi Mark

      Thanks for answering the hypothetical question because it seems to me that when libertarianism is pushed to the boundaries, personal choice ranks higer than the value of human life.

      As to your question, when I examine the life and teaching of Christ, I find that he does not demand obedience like some 21st centuary Middle Eastern tyrant, but rather he invites us to follow him. He did not impose his will on anyone, perhaps with the sole exception of driving the money changers out of the Temple, which was more of a symbolic act, than something life threatening.

      Therefore, why would I seek to impose my standards upon you or your wife, even if I disagreed with your choice? Your life is a gift to use as you think best. Do I think assisted suicide is wrong, yes I do on a number of levels, because it's never as simple as it appears, and an element of coercion, or the motivation of guilt can never be ruled out.

      Second, once you agree to assisted suicide for adults, then you open the door to assisted suicide for children, as they are presently debating now in Belgum.

      Then the conversation shifts from the value of a human life to the quality of a human life, and before long you have death panels determining whose life has quality and whose doesn't.

      Impossible? Sure, just like gay marriage appeared to be just fifty years ago.

      If there is no God, everything is permitted.

      As to your wild domesticated camel theory as a basis for debunking the Bible, even a glace at Wikipidea would suggest you have been taken for a ride. :-)

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camel

      Delete
    3. Mark HubbardFebruary 12, 2014 at 10:37 AM

      The value of human life surely is in having choice.

      Without that, you're a slave to another, your life of little value.

      Busy at the moment, but I'll get you a link to that camel issue when I get some time :)

      Delete
    4. Brendan McNeillFebruary 12, 2014 at 11:53 AM

      “The value of human life surely is in having choice”

      The corollary of that statement is “without choice, life has no value” and yet this strikes me as a purely ideological statement rather than one that maps directly into human experience.

      If it were true, the vast majority of prisoners or slaves would take the only choice left to them, that of suicide rather than continuing with a life that had no value. Why endure the endless daily torment if all value is removed from life? Yet except in rare circumstances we don’t see that happening.

      Why? Because even in the most oppressive and abusive of situations people still believe their life has value, they still retain hope for a better future. In short, the human spirit is predisposed towards life rather than death, regardless of how dire the circumstances.

      The ‘choice’ criterion alone for determining the value of life diminishes what it means to be fully human and consequently does not map into actual human experience. If an ideology does not work in reality, it does not work at all.

      Delete
    5. Mark HubbardFebruary 12, 2014 at 12:14 PM

      Put it this way Brendan. I think your immorality in denying myself a euthanasia option is absurd, and with that, appalling. Nothing in your argument gives you the right to meddle in my life like that.

      The value of my life is my life itself, unfettered by either your mystical construct, nor man, nor other tyrant. An integral part of the value of my life, is the ability to have choice, that is volition. Because yes, our lives are rich and complex, albeit the central notions of individuality and the liberty of an individual are surprisingly simple, after you take out any mystical middle men and base life on reason instead. It was reason in the Enlightenment that set men free and broke the shackles of monarchs.

      Delete
    6. Brendan McNeillFebruary 12, 2014 at 1:21 PM

      Hi Mark

      The difficulty you face philosophically arguing about your rights from the standpoint of atheistic humanism, is that the value you place upon your life is a purely arbitrary construct. You are after all just a bunch of atoms drifting through time and space in a meaningless universe.

      Therefore you cannot complain about something being ‘unjust’ because justice is reduced to no more than an expression of personal preference. If there is no God there is no external law to which you may appeal, no external measure of right and wrong.

      You end up logically replacing God with the State which is where we are today in New Zealand and which I sense you don’t agree with either. The only alternative is the cult of individualism where we each become God’s in our own right. That works so long as you choose to cooperate with me. Not so well when you don’t.

      Then all that remains is a will to power, and that my friend is what is being worked out presently all over the planet in places like Syria, Iraq, Pakistan, Somalia, Central Africa, Nigeria, et al, and where we are ultimately headed in the West as the influence of Christianity evaporates from the public square.

      Personally, I’m looking forward to finding out if Rebecca watered Jacob’s servant’s camels, or if they just smoked them. ☺

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebecca

      Delete
    7. Mark HubbardFebruary 12, 2014 at 2:45 PM

      Rubbish, Brendan. The only construct in this debate is Christ. You ultimately abnegate responsibility for actions to God, just as the Muslims you hate do to Allah. The result throughout history, and still today, is atrocity. Those who believe in absurdity (and negate responsibility to an other), become capable of atrocity.

      As a humanist, and Objectivist, I believe in a morality of man qua man, based as that must be on the non-initiation of force principle, given life itself is the highest value. Only from that will we ever see a free, civilised society. I'm afraid you've got over 2,000 years of human history showing your belief to be ultimately a murderous one.

      Finally you've not been reading my blog if you think I have replaced God with the State. That could not be further from everything written here. I am a minarchist.

      PS. I'm not meaning these replies to sound so 'sharp', only I'm really short of time :)

      Delete
    8. Brendan McNeillFebruary 12, 2014 at 4:56 PM

      Hi Mark

      The exchange is fine. You have misunderstood my post if you thought I suggested you consider the State to be God. By ‘you’ I meant ‘we’ and I did say you didn’t agree with it. ☺

      The history of the Church is imperfect and often violent. I accept that criticism totally. Can I also say that the history of Atheistic humanists has not be glorious either, when you take into account between 30 and 40 million killed under Stalin, Chairman Mao and Pol Pot in the last century.

      The difference between the actions of the Church, and say Stalin, is that violent Christians were acting in contradiction to the teaching and example of Christ, whereas Stalin was behaving like any man-god is free to do, with life and death in the power of his hands.

      As a reality check, there is no example of an Atheistic humanist ‘civilized society’ ever having existed. The present human rights record in China and Vietnam attests that none exists today. Furthermore, as the 1000 years of Christian memory disappears from our western culture completely, we will experience the same will to totalitarianism, and human rights abuses will manifest here in our own country, all for the ‘greater good’, or the ‘great leap forward’ or what ever becomes the popular narrative of the day.

      Totalitarian cultures brook no dissent – enjoy it while you can. ☺

      For the record, I don’t hate anyone, Muslims included. I believe that Islam is a totalitarian political system dressed up in religious drag, and needs to be exposed as such. If you think life under a fading Christian construct is restrictive, try a little taste of Sharia.

      As humans we face the following options for collectively governing our lives:

      A pluralistic secular state, informed (but not dominated) by the Christian worldview. Historically the West has attempted this with America the best but fading example.

      Totalitarianism rule in one of several flavours, Atheistic, Islamic, Dictatorship, or the Military.

      You choose.

      Delete
  2. KiwiwitFebruary 12, 2014 at 10:09 AM

    I'm surprised no one else has picked up the obvious flaw in Duncan Garner's argument. Ambulances in this country are providing by private organisations - in Wellington by a charitable trust, in most other cities by the Order of St John.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Mark HubbardFebruary 12, 2014 at 10:35 AM

      Very good point.

      Delete
    2. Nic the NZerFebruary 14, 2014 at 9:36 AM

      Oops, it turns out the 'charitable trust' structure is mostly an Orwellian ruse to bring you a free (secretly govt funded) ambulance service. Damn sneaky socialists really got one over you guys there...

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wellington_Free_Ambulance

      "The cost of running the service in 2006 was $10.8 M. 75% of this cost is met by the Ministry of Health and the Accident Compensation Corporation.[8][9] The remainder comes from donations and bequests from the public, proceeds from first aid training and supplies, and medical alarms."

      Maybe by the same standard the ACC is actually a private corporation?

      Want to take a bet St John is heavily state funded? I'm betting it is, how about you guys?

      Delete

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)