Laws are not magic spells; they need men to enforce them. Naïveté about this can result in two extremes: there are persons who think legal rights will automatically protect them (it won't); but there are others who believe there was something fundamentally flawed about our constitutions in the first place. Both positions put too much emphasis on the written law, and not enough emphasis on who is in charge. Personnel is policy. The founding fathers have not failed us, we have failed the founding fathers.
I think the current obsession with science/ nature as absolute unquestionable grounds for truth and marginalization of worship is an insult to the very freedom we were supposed protect
Michael, your post brought something else to mind. When John Locke came up with those God-given rights, a century before the Declaration, he named them as life, liberty and property. Jefferson did some creative editing, replacing property with the pursuit of happiness, which I take to mean "opportunity." Property, to me, is extraordinarily important because accumulating and protecting property is essential to free enterprise capitalism, which itself requires government to keep its hands off, and let the invisible hand work its magic. The inalienable rights should have been life, liberty, property and opportunity. Why should individuals work had, innovate, invest etc, if the government takes it from them by overtaxing or other means. I'm pretty sure the British came up with limited liability around that time; with that protection the British government encouraged innovation and Invesment. Now that I've thought about it, I'm going to write a piece on private property. The World Economic Forum recently said something to the effect that "soon you will own nothing, and you're going to like it."
I couldn't agree more or have said it as well, Fred. It's a considerable feat to improve on Jefferson but yes, you're right: Opportunity as a right.
It has occurred to me lately that liberty/freedom is a coin with two sides. One is natural individual rights, as Locke said. Libertarians and Mises-Austrians get that.
And the other is a free society, which is the source of economic opportunity. The invisible hand, spontaneous order. If one would be free, it is necessary to make sure that one’s society is free. That is what Libertarians and Mises-Austrians and Ayn-Randians, whose fear collectivism is so great, fail to see. Freedom is a society thing too.
I'll be looking forward to your piece elaborating on your thinking.
I was referring to the people who adhere to the Austrian Economics of Ludwig von Mises over at the Mises Institute. Mises specifically and adamantly denied the existence of any aggregate behavior of the economy. Only the actions of individuals are real. There can be, for example, no such thing as spontaneous order. Hayek, on the other hand, did accept the existence of emergent behavior.
That's a discussion I'd rather avoid. Never heard of Ludwig. However, it seems to me that human behavior drives economic decisions . Every day millions of us tweak our businesses, make adjustments that we hope will work, and that in turn is driven by self-interest. Anyway, I hate getting drawn into discussions that I know little about.😊
"...it seems to me that human behavior drives economic decisions . Every day millions of us tweak our businesses, make adjustments that we hope will work, and that in turn is driven by self-interest."
That's actually an excellent summary of Mises' "praxis" economics, as expressed in his magnum opus, "Human Action" and in opposition to most of Economics which prefers not to take individual human action into account.
I think the current obsession with science/ nature as absolute unquestionable grounds for truth and marginalization of worship is an insult to the very freedom we were supposed protect
Laws are not magic spells; they need men to enforce them. Naïveté about this can result in two extremes: there are persons who think legal rights will automatically protect them (it won't); but there are others who believe there was something fundamentally flawed about our constitutions in the first place. Both positions put too much emphasis on the written law, and not enough emphasis on who is in charge. Personnel is policy. The founding fathers have not failed us, we have failed the founding fathers.
"Freedom from want" is clearly a Trojan horse for socialism, and "freedom from fear" is the goal of a feminine nanny state.
Another great history lesson... If American don't learn from it, they will repeat it over and over again.
I think the current obsession with science/ nature as absolute unquestionable grounds for truth and marginalization of worship is an insult to the very freedom we were supposed protect
Michael, your post brought something else to mind. When John Locke came up with those God-given rights, a century before the Declaration, he named them as life, liberty and property. Jefferson did some creative editing, replacing property with the pursuit of happiness, which I take to mean "opportunity." Property, to me, is extraordinarily important because accumulating and protecting property is essential to free enterprise capitalism, which itself requires government to keep its hands off, and let the invisible hand work its magic. The inalienable rights should have been life, liberty, property and opportunity. Why should individuals work had, innovate, invest etc, if the government takes it from them by overtaxing or other means. I'm pretty sure the British came up with limited liability around that time; with that protection the British government encouraged innovation and Invesment. Now that I've thought about it, I'm going to write a piece on private property. The World Economic Forum recently said something to the effect that "soon you will own nothing, and you're going to like it."
I couldn't agree more or have said it as well, Fred. It's a considerable feat to improve on Jefferson but yes, you're right: Opportunity as a right.
It has occurred to me lately that liberty/freedom is a coin with two sides. One is natural individual rights, as Locke said. Libertarians and Mises-Austrians get that.
And the other is a free society, which is the source of economic opportunity. The invisible hand, spontaneous order. If one would be free, it is necessary to make sure that one’s society is free. That is what Libertarians and Mises-Austrians and Ayn-Randians, whose fear collectivism is so great, fail to see. Freedom is a society thing too.
I'll be looking forward to your piece elaborating on your thinking.
What or who are Mises-Austrians?
I was referring to the people who adhere to the Austrian Economics of Ludwig von Mises over at the Mises Institute. Mises specifically and adamantly denied the existence of any aggregate behavior of the economy. Only the actions of individuals are real. There can be, for example, no such thing as spontaneous order. Hayek, on the other hand, did accept the existence of emergent behavior.
That's a discussion I'd rather avoid. Never heard of Ludwig. However, it seems to me that human behavior drives economic decisions . Every day millions of us tweak our businesses, make adjustments that we hope will work, and that in turn is driven by self-interest. Anyway, I hate getting drawn into discussions that I know little about.😊
"...it seems to me that human behavior drives economic decisions . Every day millions of us tweak our businesses, make adjustments that we hope will work, and that in turn is driven by self-interest."
That's actually an excellent summary of Mises' "praxis" economics, as expressed in his magnum opus, "Human Action" and in opposition to most of Economics which prefers not to take individual human action into account.
I think the current obsession with science/ nature as absolute unquestionable grounds for truth and marginalization of worship is an insult to the very freedom we were supposed protect