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Hey Keith !!!!!
In politics, a regime is the form of government: the set of rules,
cultural or social norms, etc.That regulate the operation of
government and its interactions with society. For instance, the United
States has one of the oldest regimes still active in the world, dating
to the ratification of its Constitution in 1789. Although modern usage
often gives the term a negative connotation, like an authoritarian
one, Webster's definition clearly states that the word "regime" refers
simply to a form of government.
Gee, the usage was correct !! <<grin>>
On Apr 22, 10:49 am, Keith In Köln <keithinta...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hey PlainOl';
>
> As you well know, I have no use for the Obama Administration, and oppose the
> broken down Democratic Party's socialist agenda to the core.
>
> Having said that, any publication that would frame our President, and his
> Administration as a, "Regime" is clearly misguided, and doesn't garner my
> respect whatsoever. It takes away from our Nation as a whole, and I can
> speak first hand, when people from around the world see this, it literally
> cheapens our Nation.
>
> No, in this case, the messenger has no credibility, and should be ridiculed
> and made to look like a laughingstock, with no credibility.
>
> On Fri, Apr 22, 2011 at 5:49 PM, plainolamerican
> <plainolameri...@gmail.com>wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> > it's not about the messenger's credibility, it's about Obama and the
> > other "repair the world" socialists in our government giving away our
> > wealth
>
> > it's time to clean house by any means necessary
>
> > On Apr 22, 9:03 am, Keith In Köln <keithinta...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > The, "Obama Regime"??
> > > You can pretty much tell when a publication has credibility or not, just
> > by
> > > its mere phrases and suppositions.
>
> > > On Thu, Apr 21, 2011 at 9:29 PM, plainolamerican
> > > <plainolameri...@gmail.com>wrote:
>
> > > > US officials say the Obama Regime has decided to give the Libyan
> > > > opposition
> > > > $25 million
> > > > ---
> > > > he should fund his own charities
>
> > > > the USA is not a charity organization
>
> > > > On Apr 21, 9:13 am, Travis <baconl...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > > > [[ That's "Muzzieshit-Traitor-in-Chief" ]]
>
> > > > > <http://barenakedislam.wordpress.com/author/barenakedislam/> OH
> > > > LOOK!
> > > > > This is what the Muslim-in-Chief is doing with your tax dollars in
> > > > > Libya<
> > > >http://barenakedislam.wordpress.com/2011/04/20/oh-look-this-is-what-t..
> > .>
> > > > > *barenakedislam <
> > > >http://barenakedislam.wordpress.com/author/barenakedislam/>
> > > > > * | April 20, 2011 at 5:22 PM | Categories: Muslims vs
> > > > > Muslims<http://barenakedislam.wordpress.com/?cat=16058633>| URL:
> > > >http://wp.me/peHnV-sRQ
>
> > > > > US officials say the Obama Regime has decided to give the Libyan
> > > > opposition
> > > > > $25 million in 'non-lethal' assistance after weeks of assessing their
> > > > > capabilities and intentions. Libyan (al-Qaeda trained?) rebels are
> > > > > executing, beheading, hanging, and mutilating Gaddafi Army soldiers
> > who
> > > > have
> > > > > already surrendered. URUKNET (H/T TaterSalad) PART 1 Muslim rebels
> > show
> > > > off
> > > > > the mutliated bodies of [...]
>
> > > > > Read more of this
> > > > > post<
> > > >http://barenakedislam.wordpress.com/2011/04/20/oh-look-this-is-what-t..
> > .>
>
> > > > > Add a comment to this
> > > > > post<
> > > >http://barenakedislam.wordpress.com/2011/04/20/oh-look-this-is-what-t..
> > .>
> > > > > <
> >http://feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/gocomments/barenakedislam.wordpress.co..
> > > > .>
> > > > > <
> >http://feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/godelicious/barenakedislam.wordpress.c..
> > > > .>
> > > > > <
> >http://feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/gofacebook/barenakedislam.wordpress.co..
> > > > .>
> > > > > <
> >http://feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/gotwitter/barenakedislam.wordpress.com..
> > > > .>
> > > > > <
> >http://feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/gostumble/barenakedislam.wordpress.com..
> > > > .>
> > > > > <
> >http://feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/godigg/barenakedislam.wordpress.com/11..
> > > > .>
> > > > > <
> >http://feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/goreddit/barenakedislam.wordpress.com/..
> > > > .>
>
> > > > > [image: WordPress]
>
> > > > > WordPress.com <http://wordpress.com/> | Thanks for flying with
> > > > WordPress!
> > > > > Manage Subscriptions<
> > > >http://subscribe.wordpress.com/?key=5d39acfd19218362d540a3fc3dc3315d&..
> > .>|
> > > > > Unsubscribe<
> > > >http://subscribe.wordpress.com/?key=5d39acfd19218362d540a3fc3dc3315d&..
> > .>|
> > > > > Express
> > > > > yourself. Start a blog. <http://wordpress.com/signup/?ref=email>
>
> > > > > *Trouble clicking? Copy and paste this URL into your browser:*
> > > >http://subscribe.wordpress.com
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> > > > * Read the latest breaking news, and more.- Hide quoted text -
>
> > > - Show quoted text -
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> > --
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http://www.rightmichigan.com/story/2011/4/22/12326/9725
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It Just Ain't So
America's Greatness Requires War and Taxes?
By Aeon J. Skoble • April 2011
Posted April 21, 2011
New York Times columnist David Brooks thinks America is great but in trouble, and he wants to take steps to preserve American preeminence. He's right, though not in the way he thinks. In his November 11, 2010, column Brooks argued that we need some sort of National Greatness Agenda; the problem is that his conception of what makes us great is incoherent.
Brooks does identify some real problems: for instance, that competition between the two major parties has become "fratricidal" and theatrical, and that it is creating massive budget deficits that, left unchecked, will prove catastrophic. But his diagnosis of the problem and his proposed solutions are fraught with fallacies.
He thinks that a revived patriotism will "lift people out of their partisan cliques," yet the current partisan tribalism seems not to be lacking in patriotism. As is often the case, much hangs on how one understands the terms.
What makes a country great? One way to answer this involves claiming that there is something special about the ethnic makeup of the people who comprise it. For Mussolini there was something great, something special, about being Italian; his allies in Germany and Japan had similar theories about their respective nationalities. But that approach won't quite work for America since it comprises people of many ethnicities.
Another way to understand national greatness is in terms of institutions and operating principles. But institutions and principles can change. What would make a country great on this model would be to have great institutions grounded in great principles. The Declaration of Independence is an example of this approach: Begin with a set of principles (moral equality of all persons, the natural right to live and be free, power only justified by consent) and then appeal to it when creating institutions (limited government of enumerated powers, republican structure with a democratic franchise, church-state separation, citizen militia, free trade). On this model America is great inasmuch as its institutions reflect its principles. A nation that claims to be dedicated to the principles outlined in the Declaration fails to be great when it invades foreign lands, abuses its citizens' liberties, or forbids the free movement of people and goods.
Brooks's exhortations reveal a lack of clarity about different senses of greatness, which comes out most clearly in his repeated use of false dichotomies. He asks, for example, "Do you really love your tax deduction more than America's future greatness?" This alternative presupposes that it is only through higher taxes that a nation can become great. This in turn assumes that national greatness is only measured by things done by the government. What might these be? Scholarly, artistic, and technological greatness might well be better fostered by individuals having more money and freedom.
"Are you really unwilling," he asks, "to sacrifice your Social Security cost-of-living adjustment at a time when soldiers and Marines are sacrificing their lives for their country in Afghanistan?" It's not clear that solving other countries' problems is how we measure our own greatness. In any event, this question also reveals a confusion: equating national greatness with government spending. Instead of asking whether Social Security payouts should rise with inflation, we might ask whether we would be better off as a nation of financially independent and responsible people who didn't look to the political system for retirement income. Instead of wondering how high taxes have to be to fund overseas military campaigns, we might ask whether those campaigns need to be undertaken by the government (as opposed to either being undertaken by privateers or not at all). One way to measure American greatness might be the extent to which we exemplify peace and prosperity. The best way to achieve those ends would be to limit (or even better, eliminate) coercive interference with other people's lives.
Lost Preeminence
Brooks laments a lost preeminence, but it isn't clear what he means by that. He might be referring to a late-1940s preeminence, when America, having helped destroy the Nazis and their Japanese allies, led the way in rebuilding those nations and helping them become prosperous liberal democracies. But today's "nation-building" looks very different. Unlike World War II, which actually ended, the current wars of nation-building seem perpetual, which suggests that a different course of action might have better results.
Or perhaps Brooks is referring to a time when American preeminence was measured in contrast to the privations of the old Soviet Union. In that case, let's review the lessons of that contrast: Our former adversaries in the communist world were impoverished because tyranny doesn't work as well as freedom. Besides the soul-crushing dehumanization of a system that doesn't recognize fundamental liberties, the centrally planned socialist economic system turned out to be incapable of generating an abundance of goods and services. So if Brooks wants to see American preeminence regained, he might do better to promote liberalization of the world's economic systems, which, again, is best done by example.
Brooks's general rhetorical approach is to frame the debate between "liberals" and "conservatives" as a stubbornness game in which both sides must yield in order to bring about "a governing philosophy that believes in targeted federal efforts to arouse growth, social mobility and responsibility." As it happens, the free-enterprise system does precisely these things, but most politicians can't understand that this requires not action on their part, but inaction. They must stop interfering with people's lives, not look for new ways to do it; protect liberty not abridge it. Brooks fallaciously conflates subsidies with tax reductions, but this implies that people are not the owners of their property. If the government takes money from Peter and gives it to Paul, that's a subsidy to Paul. But if the government takes less money from Peter, that's not a subsidy to Peter, since it's Peter's property to begin with. Brooks's calls to end subsidies are correct, but the word doesn't mean what he thinks it does.
In a way, then, Brooks is right: America has lost some of its greatness and needs to take steps to regain it.
But the problem isn't people who want to bring the troops home or keep more of their money. Indeed, bringing the troops home would make it easier for people to keep more of their money. So would ending drug prohibition. So would allowing free trade and free human migration. National greatness, American-style, does not consist of the storied pomp of ancient lands, but rather of the opportunities illuminated by the lamp of liberty.
http://www.thefreemanonline.org/departments/it-just-aint-so/america%E2%80%99s-greatness-requires-war-and-taxes/?utm_source=The+Freeman&utm_campaign=849e9a19d0-Freeman_Jan2010_Issue&utm_medium=email
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2011/04/22/from_labor_a_health_care_trojan_horse/
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France Forgets Voltaire
by Wendy McElroy, April 22, 2011
" France's burqa ban: Has Europe forgotten the gas chambers?" The Christian Science Monitor (April 14) headline is followed by the text, "As we've seen with France's burqa ban that went into effect this week, global religious tolerance -- especially in Europe -- is under threat."
France is arresting women who wear a burqa or niqab in public ... and it is doing so in the name of "liberating" those arrested. The burqa (a robe covering women from head to toe) and the niqab (a veil covering the lower face) are illegal because they are deemed to be instruments of the male Islamic oppression of women. Or is it because they are symbols of fundamentalist Islam?
The ban has sparked outrage across the world and within France itself, where 80 women were recently arrested for rallying in Paris; over two dozen of them wore the forbidden niqab.
The self-righteous persecution of women who do not religiously conform can best be understood in the context of xenophobia that has gripped much of Europe; currently, its main expression is Islamophobia.
No wonder British leader David Cameron declared at a February 5 security conference that the "doctrine of multiculturalism" was a failure.
A few months earlier, German Chancellor German Angela Merkel had announced that "the "multikulti" concept "does not work in Germany."
It is difficult for something that has not been tried to fail. For decades, a genuine multiculturalism based on true tolerance has been politically discouraged and demonized in both Europe and North America.
Those who openly seek to purge society of nonconformists and reshape it into a uniform Utopia are clearly enemies of toleration. But today's faux defenders of diversity and multiculturalism can be equally toxic. For decades, political correctness has encouraged the censorship of "improper" speech or thought in the name of "respecting" others. To hold "wrong" opinions about women, minorities, the disabled, or gays has become hate speech and can be punishable by law. The value of "toleration" passed down from the Enlightenment has been under such sustained attack that, today, the word is often used in an Orwellian manner to mean its opposite. To tolerate something now means to silence or remove any criticism or opposition to it.
Both the open antagonists and the faux defenders of tolerance have established a cultural war of all against all in which genuine multiculturalism never stood a chance. True toleration is both their enemy and their victim.
What is True Toleration?
The word "toleration" comes from the Latin tolerare -- to endure -- and it means "the allowance of freedom of action or judgment to other people." It means that beliefs and peaceful behavior should not be prohibited or constrained.
The word "allowance" is key. It does not mean agreement, validation, or respect. It means acknowledging another's right to believe in and pursue his own values even if the beliefs and behavior are repugnant to you. It does not mean silencing or censoring yourself. It does mean minding your own business.
Crucial to this "allowance of freedom and action to others" is the idea of a public and private sphere within society. The private sphere consists of those concerns and activities for which the peaceful individual answers to no one but his own conscience; into this area, the government or any other authority cannot properly intrude. Examples of the private sphere include: religious belief; sexual orientation; freedom of speech; personal preference in food or clothing, for example; and, the education of children.
The specific private sphere that launched the 19th-century Enlightenment was freedom of religion. A Letter Concerning Toleration (1689) by the classical liberal philosopher John Locke was written in response to the popular fear that Catholicism would overwhelm England and replace the Established Church (the Anglican Church). Eventually, the Popery Act of 1699 imposed civil and legal penalties on those who openly practiced Catholicism. (Europe currently fears Islam in much the same manner.)
Amid the cries for suppression that led to the Popery Act, Locke's Letter suggested a different solution: religious liberty and toleration. His advocacy sounds modest to modern ears. For example, he also argued against tolerating atheists. Nevertheless, Locke rejected the then-popular idea that an effective civil society required uniformity of religion. Indeed, Locke believed that enforced uniformity caused the breakdown of civil society because the introduction of force into private matters of conscience engendered only hostility. He believed that toleration -- that is, minding your own business and allowing others to mind theirs -- was far more conducive to civil society. Locke's purpose in the Letter was to argue for a different relationship between government and religion, one that distinguished "exactly the business of civil government from that of religion" and, then, separated the two.
The French Enlightenment philosopher Francois Marie Arouet de Voltaire (1694–1778) later developed this theme in his work on tolerance entitled Letters Concerning the English Nation (1733). Written in England, the book took the form of "letters" penned as though to explain English society to a friend in France. Voltaire was especially taken by the contrast between the English and French attitudes toward religious diversity. France had been almost ripped apart through religious conflicts and wars.
Legally speaking, England was hardly a bastion of toleration: laws against nonconformists and atheists were still actively in force. Yet in England, and not in France, an air of toleration existed on the street level quite apart from what the law said. Voltaire observed, "This is the country of sects. An Englishman, as a freeman, goes to Heaven by whatever road he pleases."
What was the impact of such tolerance and diversity upon English civil society? It flourished. Unlike France with its massive and bare-subsistence peasantry, England had such a thriving middle class that it was known derisively in France as "a nation of shopkeepers."
What was the cause of the street level tolerance and diversity? Voltaire was not blind to the various contributing factors. For example, despite its aristocracy, England did not have the unyielding class structure that prevented social and economic mobility in France. Moreover, English commerce was an ideal of freedom when compared to that of France. But freedom of religion and conscience was Voltaire's focus. He began meticulously to dissect the complex relationship between religious toleration and a harmonious society. The conclusions he reached were revolutionary.
France enforced a uniform system of values not merely to benefit the elite but also in the conviction that homogeneity was necessary to ensure civil society. Common values, particularly religious ones, were seen as the glue that bound the social fabric. Without this cohesion, society would collapse into open violence. Thus, those in authority centrally planned and rigorously enforced the values to be practiced by the average person. After all, if people were allowed to choose their own values, then civil war would result.
Voltaire believed precisely the opposite was true. Imposing homogeneous values led only to conflict and religious wars. Moreover, the resulting society was intellectually stagnant and morally corrupt because diversity and dissent were forbidden. A thriving, peaceful society rested on heterogeneity and freedom. Voltaire ended his most quoted letter, "On the Presbyterians," with the observation: "If there were only one religion in England, there would be danger of tyranny; if there were two, they would cut each other's throats; but there are thirty, and they live happily together in peace."
The true source of civil discord was government interference. When people were left to choose their own values and interact to mutual advantage, then civil accord naturally followed. In "On The Presbyterians," Voltaire ascribed the religious "peace" he saw to a mechanism that was a pure expression of personal choice and exchange with others for mutual advantage: the London stock exchange. Voltaire observed, "Go into the Exchange in London, that place more venerable than many a court, and you will see representatives of all the nations assembled there for the profit of mankind. There the Jew, the Mahometan, and the Christian deal with one another as if they were of the same religion, and reserve the name of infidel for those who go bankrupt."
After the exchange had occurred, the parties returned to their separate lives to observe different religious practices in peace. The toleration was not based on validating, understanding, or even respecting each other's religion; it was based on each man's minding his own business and acting to his own benefit. The less government was involved, the more civil a society became; the more true toleration flourished.
In arresting women for symbolizing a religion, France has forgotten Voltaire. It has wiped the grime of centuries off of the aristocratic view that authority must impose uniform values, down to the clothing women are allowed to wear. It has revived the elitist belief that wrong religious practices must not be permitted, and it has done so with a twist that would have shocked even the urbane Voltaire. The government is now arresting, fining, and stigmatizing religious nonconformists for their own good.
At least, under the likes of Louis XIV, persecution and tolerance were called by their own name.
http://www.fff.org/comment/com1104m.asp
The following is an interesting letter from Ludwig von Mises to Ayn Rand dated January 23, 1956 (shortly after the publication of Atlas Shrugged).
Dear Mrs. Rand:
I am not a professional critic and I feel no call to judge the merits of a novel. So I do not want to detain you with the information that I enjoyed very much reading Atlas Shrugged and that I am full of admiration for your masterful construction of the plot.
But Atlas Shrugged is not merely a novel. It is also (or may I say: first of all) a cogent analysis of the evils that plague our society, a substantiated rejection of the ideology of our self-styled "intellectuals" and a pitiless unmasking of the insincerity of the policies adopted by governments and political parties. It is a devastating exposure of the "moral cannibals," the "gigolos of science" and of the "academic prattle" of the makers of the "anti-industrial revolution." You have the courage to tell the masses what no politician told them: you are inferior and all the improvements in your conditions which you simply take for granted you owe to the efforts of men who are better than you.
If this be arrogance, as some of your critics observed, it still is the truth that had to be said in this age of the Welfare State.
I warmly congratulate you and I looking forward with great expectations to your future work.
Sincerely,
Ludwig von Mises
http://www.isil.org/ayn-rand/von-mises-letter.html
(J. Neil Schulman brought this to my attention.)
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Pacha Mama and her rights herald long before Evo Morales became
President of Bolivia... It is part and parcel of the native religion
there and has been since before recorded history.
President of Bolivia... It is part and parcel of the native religion
there and has been since before recorded history.
On Apr 22, 2:37 pm, MJ <micha...@america.net> wrote:
> If this all sounds a bit mystical, that it because the philosophy of environmentalism is pure mysticism. The essence of the philosophy is that nature has inherent value -- not value to any particular conscious beings, but value in and of itself -- value divorced from any valuer. It rests on the fantasy that there can exist value without a valuer, will without a mind, desires and interests without consciousness, and representation without consent.Happy Mother Earth Day, Citizen!Friday, April 22, 2011
> byBen O'Neill
> I'll bet you forgot to buy a card and gift, didn't you? Boy, is your face red!
> Did you even know it'sInternational Mother Earth Daytoday, citizen? Socialist despot EvoMorales and his buddies at the United Nations sure do. You see, in April 2009, they passed a unanimous resolution to celebrate this important event every year.[1] In the accompanying speech, Morales explained to his colleagues that "Mother Earth was now having her rights recognized" and expressed his hope that the present century will be known as the "century of the rights of Mother Earth." He explained to the UN that its member states "now had the opportunity to begin laying out a Declaration on the Rights of Mother Earth."[2]
> And don't worry -- you'll be pleased to know that they're making great progress toward this goal. This month, Morales and the Bolivian government will table a draft UN treaty recognizing and enunciating the rights of the Earth -- ahem, excuse me, the rights ofMotherEarth.[3] The issue will also be considered in an upcoming UN debate entitled "Nature Has Rights," where environmentalists from various activist groups will lend their support to the treaty and tell us why it's time we all recognize that Mother Earth has rights.The proposed UN treaty will recognize the Earth as a living entity that humans have sought to "dominate and exploit." To prevent this exploitation, the draft treaty will "[grant] the Earth a series of specific rights that include rights to life, water and clear air; the right to repair livelihoods affected by human activities, and the right to be free from pollution."[4] In case it is not clear, let me stress that the treaty will recognize thatthe Earthhas these rights not you or me, citizen, but that big ball of minerals we are standing on.
> The treaty will establish a "Ministry of Mother Earth" to hear the Earth's complaints against those who continue to dominate and exploit it -- um, excuse me, dominate and exploither. But don't worry; the building for the Ministry won't need to be quite as big as you might think. If you're concerned that the Earth will have trouble fitting into the complainant's chair, or the witness box, it's alright. You see, complaints will be voiced, not by the Earth itself, but by its human "representatives," consisting of environmental-activist groups and governments.
> But let's not get too far ahead of ourselves in celebration just yet citizen. Before we break out the Mother Earth Day hooch, party poppers, and giant foam-rubber hands, let me just take a moment to explain a few things about this Earth-rights doctrine that has been steadily working its way through the UN. Let's take a moment to consider the relationship between life and rights, the purpose of the present doctrine, and the role of government as "representative" of Mother Earth.1. Living Entities and the Alleged Rights of "Mother Earth"To understand rights, we need to know not only what theircontentis but also the kinds of entities to which theyaccrue. To know this, we need to know what the concept of rights is for, and how it is derived. Philosopher AynRand explains that the concept of rights is a part of moral philosophy, its purpose being to provide moral guidance on how to treat others.[5] According to Rand, the notion of "rights" is a moral concept:the concept that provides a logical transition from the principles guiding an individual's actions to the principles guiding his relationship with others the concept that preserves and protects individual morality in a social context the link between ethics and politics.[6]The purpose of ethics is to provide us with guidance on how to survive and prosper in our lives. Politics is that subset of ethics that deals with the use of force, and that studies the institutions of society with respect to the moral principles pertaining to the use of force. Rights, therefore, are the moral principles that tell us when the use of force is and is not morally right -- they are the particular subset of objective moral principles that tell us who may use physical violence against whom, and when.
> Since rights are a moral concept, it follows that they can only pertain to things that have some interests and will of their own. In particular, it is clear that moral obligations can only accrue to beings in need of moral guidance and are capable of sufficiently high levels of abstraction to understand and apply moral principles. Such beings must be conscious and must also be capable of sufficiently high levels of abstraction to understand moral principles and obey them in short, they must be rational, conscious beings. If they are not, then they lack the means to understand and apply moral principles, and it is senseless to ascribe such principles to them.
> Though this reasoning applies most clearly to moral obligations, rather than rights, we can actually say more than this. In fact, moral obligations are merely the obverse of rights: if A has a right to do X, and this right is enforceable against B, then it follows that B has a corresponding obligation not to forcibly interfere with A doing X. There can be no rights without corresponding moral obligations, and there can be no such thing as an entity having rights without corresponding moral obligations.[7] Since it is senseless to ascribe moral principles to beings that lack consciousness, it is therefore senseless to ascribe rights to these entities.
> Since life is a necessary condition for consciousness, it is also a necessary condition for rights. But it is not a sufficient condition there are plenty of living things that are either nonconscious, or are conscious but incapable of sufficiently abstract thought to accrue rights and their corresponding moral obligations.
> Since nonconscious living entities like trees and other plants have no awareness of their own existence or anything else around them, they have no need for, or capacity to understand, moral principles. Though a tree is a living thing, it is not conscious.[8] It has no mind, and therefore has no awareness of its own existence -- it has no thoughts, no desires, no fears, no feelings, no pain or pleasure. It acts automatically to preserve its own life and flourish, but it has no awareness of this, and no opinion on any matter associated with it.[9] It imposes itself on other entities automatically, with no awareness of either itself or others. When other entities impose themselves on it, it remains unaware of this fact, and has no opinion about their actions. A tree does not need moral guidance to help it grow, nor would it be aware of any moral instruction it was given. It has no use for rights, and as a nonconscious thing, it has no rights or obligations. If a tree is cut up for timber, or poisoned, or torn out of the ground, it has no awareness of this ever happening. It had no awareness of ever being alive, and no awareness of being killed. Nor can a tree ever be said to have violated the rights of others. If the roots of a tree invade my property, or strangle another tree to death, the tree is not violating rights; it is just being a tree.
> By the same token, we can see that the Earth also has no rights. The Earth has no mind or awareness of its own existence. It has no awareness of the state it is in and no opinion on this state. It feels no pleasure or pain. It has no views, no desires, and no fears. The notion that "Mother Earth" would ever have cause to complain of its treatment at the hands of humans is pure mysticism the ascription of feelings and desires to a nonconscious entity. (In fact, it is highly dubious even to classify the Earth as a livingthing. It is an entity composed mostly of nonliving material, and covered, relatively sparsely, with living plant and animal life.[10] )
> To suppose that such a thing as a big ball of minerals hurtling through space can be capable of holding rights is to completely misconstrue the nature and purpose of rights. Rights are moral prerogatives for conscious beings that are capable of sufficiently abstract thought to require, and comply with, abstract moral principles. Rights cannot be divorced from their corresponding obligations, and hence rights can only apply to beings that are capable of understanding and applying moral principles. Rights allow conscious rational beings to interact with one another in a way that is compatible with their own survival.(The present essay is focused on the alleged rights of nonconscious entities, which is a simple case. Things get a bit trickier once we look at arguments for animal rights. Animals have minds, feel pleasure and pain, have desires and fears, and are capable of a very small amount of simple abstraction. They are incapable of sufficiently abstract thought to grasp moral principles, and hence they are incapable of complying with moral obligations. Their use of force against other living beings is neither moral nor immoral, and cannot be considered a rights violation.[11])2. The Purpose of the Earth-Rights DoctrineThe Earth-rights doctrine has no basis in reason. It is pure mysticism, resting, as it does, on the attempt to ascribe interests and moral prerogatives to a nonconscious entity. Nor is the actual purpose of this doctrine the protection of the environment. Its real purpose is the acquisition of power, not for nature, but for people or rather, for certain people.
> In fact, the Earth-rights doctrine is primarily a doctrine aiming at the total control of man, and the extinguishment of human rights. Its power to accomplish this consists in two simple facts:that the Earth encompasses all resources that humans deal with, and these resources form a part of the "body" of the Earth; andthat the Earth is incapable of expressing any desires pertaining to its own alleged rights (since it doesn't actually have any desires), and hence it requires some human "representatives" to speak "on its behalf."
> Though the Earth-rights doctrine alleges that "Mother Earth" has rights that are the same as, or analogous to, the rights of humans, this cannot actually be the case. Since the Earth is an entity that encompasses all available physical resources as part of its own body this means that humans are always, by necessity, encroaching upon the physical body of the Earth. They encroach upon the body of the Earth merely by being located on some piece of land, and they encroach further in all their actions dealing with things that form part of the body of the Earth. Indeed, every aspect of human survival requires some appropriation of physical resources that are a part of the body of "Mother Earth," and hence the entire process of human survival is an encroachment upon this body.
> It is a standard and well-established part of the theory of rights that the right to exclude others from one's own body precedes the right to acquire a proprietary interest in outside resources, and that it is therefore impossible to acquire a proprietary interest in the body of another. A person's own body is their first and primary piece of property, with any further appropriation of outside material resting on this fundamental right of self-ownership. But since all physical resources available to humans form a part of the body of the Earth, it follows that any attempt by humans to use resources (or even exist on Earth) must necessarily impinge on the right of Earth to exclude others from interference with its own physical body. If the Earth has a right of self-ownership, as does man, then we are dancing all over it, figuratively and sometimes literally. Under this doctrine we are quite literally raping the Earth i.e., intruding into parts of its physical body without its consent.
> If the Earth really is a rights-holding entity, on par with a human being, then this implies that humans may not interfere with the body of the Earth without its permission, just as a person cannot interfere with the body of another person without their permission. Since all physical resources required for human survival come from the Earth, and are a part of this "living system," this implies that humans cannot do anything -- they cannot even exist on Earth -- without the permission of the Earth. And if governments are the representatives of the Earth in exercising its rights, then this logically implies that people cannot do anything without the permission of their government. This is the real purpose of the doctrine. It logically eradicates any possible human rights.
> If you are a bit imaginative, you might wonder whether we could escape this tyranny by one day fleeing to another planet, and leaving the Earth alone and unmolested. But this misses the point. If the Earth-rights doctrine is correct, then there is no reason that this doctrine could not be extended to any entity that is composed of living things -- a domestic garden, a football field, an ocean, the Earth, our solar system, our galaxy, the universe! All are macroscopic entities composed of living things and are "living systems" in the exact same respect as the Earth. Hence, the entire universe could just as easily be regarded as a rights-holding entity, with governments and environmental groups as its proper representatives. Stop raping the universe, citizen! Don't you know it has rights?
> (Incidentally, it is no answer to this objection to say that the present draft treaty does not give the Earth such far-reaching rights against humans as I have stated here, and does not totally eradicate human rights. No evil philosophy can ever be implemented consistently without the complete destruction of its subjects, and this is no exception. Moreover, political power is acquired precisely by the piecemeal application of ideas whose logical consequence is total power and domination -- by implementing oppressive principles, while hiding their true meaning and logical implications. The present draft treaty puts forward only a small number of actual "rights" for the Earth, and this is done primarily for political expedience. The fact remains that the principle of Earth rights leads logically to the conclusion that these rights must expand, and expand, to the point that they eradicate human rights.)3. The State-Representation DoctrineIt is the notion of representation that is the most obvious clue to the real purpose of the Earth-rights doctrine and the nature of the environmentalist view of rights. Governments seek power to dominate those they rule, and to do so, they seek to "represent" all -- to hold out the fiction that acts of government and its officials represent the "will" of the public, the environment, the oceans, the Earth, the universe. The purpose of the Earth-rights doctrine, and the accompanying notion that government may represent the Earth in issues pertaining to its rights, is to acquire power that the government itself denies having of its own accord.
> The Earth-rights doctrine propagating through the UN circumvents the liberal idea that rights vest in individual people, and restores the effects of the feudal notion of the divine right of kings. In feudal times, when religion was a more powerful emotive force in politics than it is now, monarchical rulers would claim that they were God's representatives on Earth, and that all property was vested in the Crown as the proper representative of God. Now that "Gaia" has supplanted God among modern mystics, the environmentalists alter the form of the feudal doctrine to achieve the same effect: government is the representative of Mother Earth, and therefore ownership of all physical property, i.e., all parts of Mother Earth, is vested in government as the representative of the entity from which it came. It is a doctrine of de facto feudalism, analogous in form, and equivalent in consequence to the doctrine of the divine right of kings.
> Just as easily, the Earth-rights doctrine could be extended to the universe as a whole, with government as its representative. Hence, the logical consequence of recognizing rights claims of this kind is universal socialism literally universal, i.e., extending to the entire universe with the government having de facto property ownership of all physical resources in the universe. This much is tangentially admitted by its advocates when they state that their goal is to end capitalism -- i.e., end the prerogative for people to hold private property.[12]
> Some would probably argue that the state-representation doctrine is just a practical means of allowing for the Earth to exercise its rights. Since "Mother Earth" is not a conscious being, and cannot express its will (i.e., the will it does not actually have, since it is not a conscious being), as a practical matter, someone needs to speak for it. And what better entity to take on this job than our own "representative," the state? Well, what the hell? This is probably as "practical" a way as any to try to represent the nonexistent will of a giant nonconscious ball of minerals. Once we are through the looking glass, I suppose it is just as "practical" to say that Morales is the representative for talking walruses as to say that I am. Nevertheless, the point remains that any such representation is a fantasy it is the attempt to represent the interests of an entity that has no interests. And the state-representation doctrine is therefore only "practical" as a means of ensuring that it is our government masters who take on the alleged prerogatives of the Earth, and not someone else.
> Though it is gratuitous to point out the compounding absurdities of this kind of doctrine, let me just quickly note one more. Observe that the assertion of state representation of "Mother Earth" runs counter to the normal social-contract argument for government power. This theory (which is itself hopelessly flawed) holds that the state is the representative of "the people" by virtue of their ability to vote in its elections, and from their choice not to leave its jurisdiction. Clearly both of these are impossible for the Earth, and for the plants that live upon it. In the present case, governments are held to represent not only the people, i.e., the exploiters and destroyers of the Earth, but also the entity that is being destroyed! They are the representatives of the plaintiff and the defendants all at the same time! Government is the judge, the jury, and both sets of legal counsel it is the representative of all.4. Mysticism as the Basis for the Earth-Rights DoctrineIf this all sounds a bit mystical, that it because the philosophy of environmentalism is pure mysticism. The essence of the philosophy is that nature has inherent value -- not value to any particular conscious beings, but value in and of itself -- value divorced from any valuer. It rests on the fantasy that there can exist value without a valuer, will without a mind, desires and interests without consciousness, and representation without consent.
> In his inaugural Mother Earth Day speech to the UN, President Morales noted that environmental destruction is "offensive to the many faiths, wisdom traditions and indigenous cultures for whom Mother Earth is sacred." In doing so he explicitly appealed to faith, not reason, as the standard of moral judgment. Those in the UN did not object to this invocation of mysticism as a basis for their resolutions. Rather, they passed his resolution for Mother Earth Day unanimously, setting the stage for the present UN draft treaty.It is difficult to make satire of something like this, because the supporters of this proposition have already done the job for us. Those who dream up UN treaties to establish a "Ministry for Mother Earth" are the kinds of people who mistakenly thought that Orwell was writing an instruction manual, not a work of dystopianfiction.[13] The notion that governments should "represent" the will and interests of a giant ball of minerals with no mind or desires is the outcome of environmentalist philosophy in action. It is as absurd as a ficus tree running for Congress, or a barrister attempting to take instructions from a blade of grass.
> Happy Mother Earth Day, citizen! Now bow down to the almighty state in celebration!
> Ben O'Neill is a lecturer in statistics at the University of New South Wales (ADFA) in Canberra, Australia. He has formerly practiced as a lawyer and as a political adviser in Canberra. He is a Templeton Fellow at the Independent Institute, where he won first prize in the 2009 Sir John Templeton Fellowship essay contest.Notes[1] United Nations,"General Assembly proclaims 22 April 'International Mother Earth Day,'"April 22, 2009. See the UNhomepagefor Mother Earth Day.[2] Ibid.[3] Steven Edwards,"UN Resolution Looks to Give 'Mother Earth' Same Rights as Humans,"National Post, April 11, 2011.[4] Ibid.[5] Ayn Rand, Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal (New York: Signet, 1967), pp. 320–28.[6] Ibid, p. 320.[7] For discussion on this issue, as applied to the question of animal rights, see Tibor R. Machan,"Why Animal Rights Don't Exist"(Strike the Root, 2004). For a contrary position, discussing the argument from marginal cases, see David Graham,"A Libertarian Replies to Tibor Machan's 'Why Animal Rights Don't Exist'"(Strike the Root, 2004). For a rejoinder to this and other arguments, see Shawn E. Klein,"The Problem of Animal Rights"(The Atlas Society, 2004).The issue of moral obligations to conscious nonrational beings (e.g., animals) and rights accruing to those beings is beyond the scope of the present paper and is more involved than we have space for here. What is relevant here is that nonconscious beings cannot accrue rights or moral obligations.[8] We know this because we know that consciousness is generated by the brain, and we know that trees do not have brains.[9] The concept of "flourishing" does not require consciousness, and so this does not constitute a stolen concept. The concept of flourishing merely requires objective recognition of the fact that there is a natural continuum of states of a living organism that determine whether it is close to or far away from being dead (ignoring external circumstances). A healthy plant is, in this sense, more alive (i.e., further from death) than a wilting plant, and hence we can correctly say that the former is "flourishing."[10] It is certainly true that the Earth is composed of things, some of which are living. A thing is "living" if it is engaged in a process of self-generated, self-sustaining action, and this is true of a great many things existing on Earth. Trees grow and develop through their own action, using nutrients that they collect themselves from the soil and rain, as does other plant life. Since the Earth is composed, in part, of living plant life, as well as a great deal of nonliving matter, it can, in some sense, be thought of as a "living system," so long as it is understood that this refers merely to an entity composed, in part, of living things that interact with one another. Though the Earth orbits around the sun and its parts change, with many powerful chemical reactions occurring inside its core, it is not accurate to say that the planet itself is engaged in self-generated, self-sustaining action. Rather, its parts act, and the Earth as a whole is acted upon. Living things on the planet are engaged in self-generated action, but the planet itself it essentially a big ball of nonliving materials (covered relatively sparsely with living things) being hurled around the solar system by the gravitational pull of the Sun. To say that the Earth itself is a living thing is either false, or it is just an imprecise shorthand way of saying that the Earth is an entity composed, in part, of smaller living things.[11] Whether or not animals have rights rests, in large part, on something called the "argument from marginal cases." This argument grounds animal rights in their alleged analogy to damaged humans (e.g., a severely mentally disabled person who cannot understand abstract ideas). It argues that consistency requires either the acceptance of animal rights or the rejection of rights for certain kinds of "marginal" humans. However, there are good nonarbitrary reasons to distinguish between the two cases. Animals are beings that, even in the normal course of their development, cannot abstract sufficiently to understand moral principles. Disabled humans are beings that, in the normal course of their development would be able to do this, but unfortunately cannot, because they have been damaged in some way. They nonetheless belong to the class of beings that, if they develop normally, can understand moral principles. For discussion seeMachan(2004),Graham(2004), andKlein(2004).[12] At a UN summit in 2008, prior to Evo Morales's successful enactment of Mother Earth Day at the UN, representatives of Morales and the Bolivian government distributed a pamphlet stating their "ten commandments" and setting out the government's plan to save the planet, "beginning with the need 'to end with capitalism.'" SeeEdwards(2011).[13] See George Orwell, 1984 (London: Secker and Warburg, 1949). In this book, the collectivist totalitarian society of Oceania operates through bodies such as the Ministry of Truth (responsible for the propagation of lies), the Ministry of Plenty (responsible for rationing goods), the Ministry of Peace (responsible for war), and the Ministry of Love (responsible for brainwashing and torture).http://mises.org/daily/5217/Happy-Mother-Earth-Day-Citizen
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Everything Is a Public Health Crisis
Posted by Karen De Coster on April 22, 2011 02:11 PM
Moe, Larry, and Curly have teamed up with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the FDA, and your congressional leaders to identify another "public health crisis" that needs a government solution. Here's an article from the Pharmaceutical Daily Journal:
- The Food and Drug Administration said Tuesday that it will require some painkiller manufacturers to produce new educational tools in an effort to quell prescription-drug abuse.
- …"This growing public-health crisis is suffocating our society," U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Assistant Secretary Howard Koh said at a briefing.
- …"This growing public-health crisis is suffocating our society," U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Assistant Secretary Howard Koh said at a briefing.
Big Pharma now has to produce medication guides and tools for physician training which must be approved by the FDA and accredited by professional physician-education providers. The end goal is to make this "education" mandatory for physician licensing. Until it becomes law, the FDA has to "entice physicians to receive the education voluntarily by offering continuing education credits, called CME or CE, required to maintain board certification." In reality, this education hustle redirects resources from value-added services to the production of nonsense for the purpose of making a bunch of special interests richer and keeping federal government officials employed, while throwing a soft, fuzzy slipper at Big Pharma.
Professional education providers will find this to be a lucrative gig, and Big Pharma supports the FDA's efforts. Congress will mandate these educational requirements through the force of law and everyone will feel all warm and fuzzy about solving another public health crisis while the beneficiaries of this scam will be snickering about pulling another fast one. And meanwhile, Big Pharma will pass on the costs to consumers, insurance companies, and government welfare programs -- meaning the consumer will once again bear the burden of additional (hidden) costs to create more government jobs and redistribute wealth to selected industries and recipients who stand to benefit from the con job.
Most everything people do is done on a voluntary basis - no government required.
On 04/22/2011 01:33 PM, Mark wrote:
On 04/22/2011 01:33 PM, Mark wrote:
And it still functions without the lawmakers.... Go figure.
On Fri, Apr 22, 2011 at 1:08 PM, Jonathan Ashley <jonathanashleyii@lavabit.com> wrote:
John,--
"In terms of comparative social spending on welfare-related programs as a percentage of the gross domestic product (GDP), Denmark ranks first, spending more than 29 percent of GDP on its welfare-related programs. Next is Sweden (nearly 29 percent), followed by France, Germany, Belgium, Switzerland, Austria, and Finland. The United Kingdom ranks in the middle of the pack in 13th place (nearly 22 percent of GDP). The United States ranks near the bottom, in 26th place (out of 29), spending less than 15 percent of its GDP on social welfare programs. The United States ranks just ahead of Ireland, Mexico, and South Korea."
http://pagerankstudio.com/Blog/2011/03/what-is-welfare-state/
On 04/22/2011 08:41 AM, NoEinstein wrote:On average, yes they are! Few in Belgium look to government for handouts. In the USA, close to 45% want a government handout. Anything over 5% is excessive. But that's why I've written my New Constitution—to get government out of the hand-out, pull-the-strings business! — John A. Armistead — PatriotOn Apr 21, 9:56 pm, Jonathan Ashley <jonathanashle...@lavabit.com> wrote:So, you're saying the People of Belgium are better People than those in the United States?J. Ashley: Run your experiments in Belgium, then! The USA would be in civil war... � J. A. A. � On Apr 21, 12:04 pm, Jonathan Ashley<jonathanashle...@lavabit.com> wrote:John,It is highly doubtful that we would return to the stone age without government. Belgium has been without a national government for more than 313 days and "Belgians say the absence of a government doesn't make much of a difference in their daily lives."On 04/20/2011 08:42 PM, NoEinstein wrote:Jonathan: You are showing some smarts there! Since I am an untra- conservative capitalist, I don't like being... "left" of anyone, because that would seem to make me... a God-damned liberal. I deliberately avoided using the "L" word, because I am the exact opposite. If your ego considers being an anarchist more conservative than me, consider this: The USA would return to the 'stone ages' within one month of there being no government(s). So, your "ideal" of no taxation and no government won't benefit a soul on Earth. Is having you "get real" too much to ask? � J. A. Armistead � Patriot On Apr 20, 12:50 pm, Jonathan Ashley<jonathanashle...@lavabit.com> wrote:John, Since anarchy is absence of government, how can one be "right" of anarchy? (I don't actually expect an answer, as you NEVER answer questions posed to you.) On 04/20/2011 01:54 AM, NoEinstein wrote:Jonathan: For you, anything 'right' of anarchy is socialist. I suggest you write your one paragraph constitution banning government. Unless you are from the stone ages, you won't survive very long on your own. � J. A. A. � On Apr 18, 11:53 pm, Jonathan Ashley<jonathanashle...@lavabit.com> wrote:But John, you're the one who has written a socialist constitution. On 04/18/2011 08:31 PM, NoEinstein wrote:Jonathan: Mainly he's done that by attacking the capitalist system that made this country great; and by supposing that government should control everything (with him in charge). The fact that you even ask that question confirms my initial gut reaction that you are a socialist-communist, like 95% of Democrats are. The remaining 5% are just stupid. You're in both of those groups. � J. A. Armistead � Patriot On Apr 18, 3:03 pm, Jonathan Ashley<jonathanashle...@lavabit.com> wrote:John, That you own stock in a company that routinely downgrades websites based on "link relevance" over "content relevance" says much about your credibility regarding the understanding of what freedom of expression means. That you believe Obama "has caused more economic and social harm to the USA than any other person who ever lived, including Hitler" seems ludicrous. Just how has he (as an individual) been able to pull off this tremendous task? On 04/17/2011 09:05 AM, NoEinstein wrote:Dear Mark: I own Google stock. It's an American multinational Corporation that's headquartered in Mountain View, California. Google World shows the new complex quite well. In many ways you are very naive. Your obvious desire to protect Barack Obama's neck from the noose is tantamount to looking-the-other-way to those who commit TREASON every day of their existence. Would you put on moderation someone who proposes that Libyan President Kadafi should be killed? Do you suppose it is Google's obligation to protect those who kill their citizens? Hundreds, if not thousands, of Americans have committed suicide because of the bad economy and the lack of jobs resulting from Obama's socialist-capitalist policies. He has caused more economic and social harm to the USA than any other person who ever lived, including Hitler. Treason is a recognized capital offense. Those in our government and in our law enforcement who don't press to have that bastard arrested, tried and hanged are themselves in violation of the Constitution for giving aid and comfort to the enemy. Keith suggested that you, Jonathan and MJ are anxious to read my next "missive". He's viewed you all in a favorable light, before. As for me, I suspect you are so screwed-up in the head that you are both for and against having a better government. That means you have schizophrenia. Get some couch- time, Mark. You need it! � J. A. Armistead � Patriot On Apr 16, 10:28 pm, THE ANNOINTED ONE<markmka...@gmail.com> wrote:Einstein, Again, you mistake me for someone that is liable under the present, or your future, US Constitution. The message you received is the standard message sent to all new or moderated members, get used to it. It originates from outside the US and is also not liable under US law. Isn't the internet grand when the originating country has the responsibility for what is or is not allowed under their law(s). On Apr 16, 7:11 pm, NoEinstein<noeinst...@bellsouth.net> wrote:Dear Keith: I sensed that there was a common thread of "reasoning" in those you name. My last missive, as you say, was explaining why Jews are causing a lot of problems and expense while seeming to be such nice people. Israel should become a training place for successful capitalism. Only the latter can start to heal the deep wounds Muslims feel. Today, when I posted: "Can The Donald 'Fix' the Thin Ice that the USA is skating on?" There was a message (Mark's responsibility?) saying that moderators must approve what I say. Of course that in UNCONSTITUTIONAL by both the present Constitution, and by my New Constitution, which requires that Mark be fired from his job. If you butterfly conservatives are starting to understand what I'm saying, then you should like to know that about 85% of my New Constitution has now been copied and pasted for interested citizens to read. The last 15% relates to problems with government which I have batted heads with, first hand. Once people begin showing appreciation for the 85% of my non-Stalinesk document, the remainder will become available. But NOT on this forum. The full document will be presented as part of a book containing my many essays and detailed rational for why this country needs a New Constitution Now. You guys can help speed things along by talking-up my document on the NET. � John A. Armistead � Patriot On Apr 16, 4:17 pm, Keith In K�ln<keithinta...@gmail.com> wrote:Hey John! I am atwitter with excitement and anticipation! Jonathan, Mark and MJ are already chomping at the bit to sling complimentary praise and one of them maybe even will write a haiku in your honor! Sugarshack Literal Truth might even have an orgasm in anticipation of reading your next missive! On Sat, Apr 16, 2011 at 4:21 AM, NoEinstein<noeinst...@bellsouth.net>wrote:Stay tuned, People! Tomorrow I will write you another essay explaining why the "ritual" of most of our political-governmental processes are either unconstitutional, wasteful of economic resources, or otherwise stupid. � John A. Armistead � Patriot On Apr 14, 10:44 pm, NoEinstein<noeinst...@bellsouth.net> wrote:Like me, the readers must be busy with spring buying and fix-up. The present discussions will affect the fortunes and the liberty (happiness) of your grandchildren. There won't be any more fortunes and little liberty if the US economy goes down-the-tubes. By adapting my New Constitution, the survival of the USA will be assured! � John A. Armistead � Patriot Those interested are invited to read my book: "The Shortest Distance; Harmony Through Prosperity" (Amazon and B.& N.). I'm thrilled that the word 'prosperity' is being mentioned more and more as a cure for our ailing economy (Capitalism over socialism). That book explains the 'build-up' to my writing the New Constitution. Simple things can turn this country around! And none of them involving conducting... business-as-usual in Washington! Trust me, Folks! I know what I am doing. 99.5% of those in Washington are clueless! On Apr 11, 2:36 am, NoEinstein<noeinst...@bellsouth.net> wrote:Mark: If you could, and would, read my document with an open mind, there is nothing injurious to ordinary citizens. Stalin didn't give a damn about ordinary citizens (or soldiers). He killed them by the millions. Are you saying that my New Constitution will harm ordinary citizens? Ha, ha, HA! Then you can't read, for sure! � J. A. A. � On Apr 10, 7:25 pm, Mark<markmka...@gmail.com> wrote:I prefer to call it what it is.... Stalinesque. On Sun, Apr 10, 2011 at 4:30 PM,.. read more »
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Freedom Is Always Illegal.
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If this all sounds a bit mystical, that it because the philosophy of environmentalism is pure mysticism. The essence of the philosophy is that nature has inherent value -- not value to any particular conscious beings, but value in and of itself -- value divorced from any valuer. It rests on the fantasy that there can exist value without a valuer, will without a mind, desires and interests without consciousness, and representation without consent.
Happy Mother Earth Day, Citizen!
Friday, April 22, 2011
by Ben O'Neill
I'll bet you forgot to buy a card and gift, didn't you? Boy, is your face red!
Did you even know it's International Mother Earth Day today, citizen? Socialist despot Evo Morales and his buddies at the United Nations sure do. You see, in April 2009, they passed a unanimous resolution to celebrate this important event every year.[1] In the accompanying speech, Morales explained to his colleagues that "Mother Earth was now having her rights recognized" and expressed his hope that the present century will be known as the "century of the rights of Mother Earth." He explained to the UN that its member states "now had the opportunity to begin laying out a Declaration on the Rights of Mother Earth."[2]
And don't worry -- you'll be pleased to know that they're making great progress toward this goal. This month, Morales and the Bolivian government will table a draft UN treaty recognizing and enunciating the rights of the Earth -- ahem, excuse me, the rights of Mother Earth.[3] The issue will also be considered in an upcoming UN debate entitled "Nature Has Rights," where environmentalists from various activist groups will lend their support to the treaty and tell us why it's time we all recognize that Mother Earth has rights.
The proposed UN treaty will recognize the Earth as a living entity that humans have sought to "dominate and exploit." To prevent this exploitation, the draft treaty will "[grant] the Earth a series of specific rights that include rights to life, water and clear air; the right to repair livelihoods affected by human activities, and the right to be free from pollution."[4] In case it is not clear, let me stress that the treaty will recognize that the Earth has these rights not you or me, citizen, but that big ball of minerals we are standing on.
The treaty will establish a "Ministry of Mother Earth" to hear the Earth's complaints against those who continue to dominate and exploit it -- um, excuse me, dominate and exploit her. But don't worry; the building for the Ministry won't need to be quite as big as you might think. If you're concerned that the Earth will have trouble fitting into the complainant's chair, or the witness box, it's alright. You see, complaints will be voiced, not by the Earth itself, but by its human "representatives," consisting of environmental-activist groups and governments.
But let's not get too far ahead of ourselves in celebration just yet citizen. Before we break out the Mother Earth Day hooch, party poppers, and giant foam-rubber hands, let me just take a moment to explain a few things about this Earth-rights doctrine that has been steadily working its way through the UN. Let's take a moment to consider the relationship between life and rights, the purpose of the present doctrine, and the role of government as "representative" of Mother Earth.
1. Living Entities and the Alleged Rights of "Mother Earth"
To understand rights, we need to know not only what their content is but also the kinds of entities to which they accrue. To know this, we need to know what the concept of rights is for, and how it is derived. Philosopher Ayn Rand explains that the concept of rights is a part of moral philosophy, its purpose being to provide moral guidance on how to treat others.[5] According to Rand, the notion of "rights" is a moral concept:
- the concept that provides a logical transition from the principles guiding an individual's actions to the principles guiding his relationship with others the concept that preserves and protects individual morality in a social context the link between ethics and politics.[6]
Since rights are a moral concept, it follows that they can only pertain to things that have some interests and will of their own. In particular, it is clear that moral obligations can only accrue to beings in need of moral guidance and are capable of sufficiently high levels of abstraction to understand and apply moral principles. Such beings must be conscious and must also be capable of sufficiently high levels of abstraction to understand moral principles and obey them in short, they must be rational, conscious beings. If they are not, then they lack the means to understand and apply moral principles, and it is senseless to ascribe such principles to them.
Though this reasoning applies most clearly to moral obligations, rather than rights, we can actually say more than this. In fact, moral obligations are merely the obverse of rights: if A has a right to do X, and this right is enforceable against B, then it follows that B has a corresponding obligation not to forcibly interfere with A doing X. There can be no rights without corresponding moral obligations, and there can be no such thing as an entity having rights without corresponding moral obligations.[7] Since it is senseless to ascribe moral principles to beings that lack consciousness, it is therefore senseless to ascribe rights to these entities.
Since life is a necessary condition for consciousness, it is also a necessary condition for rights. But it is not a sufficient condition there are plenty of living things that are either nonconscious, or are conscious but incapable of sufficiently abstract thought to accrue rights and their corresponding moral obligations.
Since nonconscious living entities like trees and other plants have no awareness of their own existence or anything else around them, they have no need for, or capacity to understand, moral principles. Though a tree is a living thing, it is not conscious.[8] It has no mind, and therefore has no awareness of its own existence -- it has no thoughts, no desires, no fears, no feelings, no pain or pleasure. It acts automatically to preserve its own life and flourish, but it has no awareness of this, and no opinion on any matter associated with it.[9] It imposes itself on other entities automatically, with no awareness of either itself or others. When other entities impose themselves on it, it remains unaware of this fact, and has no opinion about their actions. A tree does not need moral guidance to help it grow, nor would it be aware of any moral instruction it was given. It has no use for rights, and as a nonconscious thing, it has no rights or obligations. If a tree is cut up for timber, or poisoned, or torn out of the ground, it has no awareness of this ever happening. It had no awareness of ever being alive, and no awareness of being killed. Nor can a tree ever be said to have violated the rights of others. If the roots of a tree invade my property, or strangle another tree to death, the tree is not violating rights; it is just being a tree.
By the same token, we can see that the Earth also has no rights. The Earth has no mind or awareness of its own existence. It has no awareness of the state it is in and no opinion on this state. It feels no pleasure or pain. It has no views, no desires, and no fears. The notion that "Mother Earth" would ever have cause to complain of its treatment at the hands of humans is pure mysticism the ascription of feelings and desires to a nonconscious entity. (In fact, it is highly dubious even to classify the Earth as a living thing. It is an entity composed mostly of nonliving material, and covered, relatively sparsely, with living plant and animal life.[10] )
To suppose that such a thing as a big ball of minerals hurtling through space can be capable of holding rights is to completely misconstrue the nature and purpose of rights. Rights are moral prerogatives for conscious beings that are capable of sufficiently abstract thought to require, and comply with, abstract moral principles. Rights cannot be divorced from their corresponding obligations, and hence rights can only apply to beings that are capable of understanding and applying moral principles. Rights allow conscious rational beings to interact with one another in a way that is compatible with their own survival.
(The present essay is focused on the alleged rights of nonconscious entities, which is a simple case. Things get a bit trickier once we look at arguments for animal rights. Animals have minds, feel pleasure and pain, have desires and fears, and are capable of a very small amount of simple abstraction. They are incapable of sufficiently abstract thought to grasp moral principles, and hence they are incapable of complying with moral obligations. Their use of force against other living beings is neither moral nor immoral, and cannot be considered a rights violation.[11])
2. The Purpose of the Earth-Rights Doctrine
The Earth-rights doctrine has no basis in reason. It is pure mysticism, resting, as it does, on the attempt to ascribe interests and moral prerogatives to a nonconscious entity. Nor is the actual purpose of this doctrine the protection of the environment. Its real purpose is the acquisition of power, not for nature, but for people or rather, for certain people.
In fact, the Earth-rights doctrine is primarily a doctrine aiming at the total control of man, and the extinguishment of human rights. Its power to accomplish this consists in two simple facts:
- that the Earth encompasses all resources that humans deal with, and these resources form a part of the "body" of the Earth; and
- that the Earth is incapable of expressing any desires pertaining to its own alleged rights (since it doesn't actually have any desires), and hence it requires some human "representatives" to speak "on its behalf."
Though the Earth-rights doctrine alleges that "Mother Earth" has rights that are the same as, or analogous to, the rights of humans, this cannot actually be the case. Since the Earth is an entity that encompasses all available physical resources as part of its own body this means that humans are always, by necessity, encroaching upon the physical body of the Earth. They encroach upon the body of the Earth merely by being located on some piece of land, and they encroach further in all their actions dealing with things that form part of the body of the Earth. Indeed, every aspect of human survival requires some appropriation of physical resources that are a part of the body of "Mother Earth," and hence the entire process of human survival is an encroachment upon this body.
It is a standard and well-established part of the theory of rights that the right to exclude others from one's own body precedes the right to acquire a proprietary interest in outside resources, and that it is therefore impossible to acquire a proprietary interest in the body of another. A person's own body is their first and primary piece of property, with any further appropriation of outside material resting on this fundamental right of self-ownership. But since all physical resources available to humans form a part of the body of the Earth, it follows that any attempt by humans to use resources (or even exist on Earth) must necessarily impinge on the right of Earth to exclude others from interference with its own physical body. If the Earth has a right of self-ownership, as does man, then we are dancing all over it, figuratively and sometimes literally. Under this doctrine we are quite literally raping the Earth i.e., intruding into parts of its physical body without its consent.
If the Earth really is a rights-holding entity, on par with a human being, then this implies that humans may not interfere with the body of the Earth without its permission, just as a person cannot interfere with the body of another person without their permission. Since all physical resources required for human survival come from the Earth, and are a part of this "living system," this implies that humans cannot do anything -- they cannot even exist on Earth -- without the permission of the Earth. And if governments are the representatives of the Earth in exercising its rights, then this logically implies that people cannot do anything without the permission of their government. This is the real purpose of the doctrine. It logically eradicates any possible human rights.
If you are a bit imaginative, you might wonder whether we could escape this tyranny by one day fleeing to another planet, and leaving the Earth alone and unmolested. But this misses the point. If the Earth-rights doctrine is correct, then there is no reason that this doctrine could not be extended to any entity that is composed of living things -- a domestic garden, a football field, an ocean, the Earth, our solar system, our galaxy, the universe! All are macroscopic entities composed of living things and are "living systems" in the exact same respect as the Earth. Hence, the entire universe could just as easily be regarded as a rights-holding entity, with governments and environmental groups as its proper representatives. Stop raping the universe, citizen! Don't you know it has rights?
(Incidentally, it is no answer to this objection to say that the present draft treaty does not give the Earth such far-reaching rights against humans as I have stated here, and does not totally eradicate human rights. No evil philosophy can ever be implemented consistently without the complete destruction of its subjects, and this is no exception. Moreover, political power is acquired precisely by the piecemeal application of ideas whose logical consequence is total power and domination -- by implementing oppressive principles, while hiding their true meaning and logical implications. The present draft treaty puts forward only a small number of actual "rights" for the Earth, and this is done primarily for political expedience. The fact remains that the principle of Earth rights leads logically to the conclusion that these rights must expand, and expand, to the point that they eradicate human rights.)
3. The State-Representation Doctrine
It is the notion of representation that is the most obvious clue to the real purpose of the Earth-rights doctrine and the nature of the environmentalist view of rights. Governments seek power to dominate those they rule, and to do so, they seek to "represent" all -- to hold out the fiction that acts of government and its officials represent the "will" of the public, the environment, the oceans, the Earth, the universe. The purpose of the Earth-rights doctrine, and the accompanying notion that government may represent the Earth in issues pertaining to its rights, is to acquire power that the government itself denies having of its own accord.
The Earth-rights doctrine propagating through the UN circumvents the liberal idea that rights vest in individual people, and restores the effects of the feudal notion of the divine right of kings. In feudal times, when religion was a more powerful emotive force in politics than it is now, monarchical rulers would claim that they were God's representatives on Earth, and that all property was vested in the Crown as the proper representative of God. Now that "Gaia" has supplanted God among modern mystics, the environmentalists alter the form of the feudal doctrine to achieve the same effect: government is the representative of Mother Earth, and therefore ownership of all physical property, i.e., all parts of Mother Earth, is vested in government as the representative of the entity from which it came. It is a doctrine of de facto feudalism, analogous in form, and equivalent in consequence to the doctrine of the divine right of kings.
Just as easily, the Earth-rights doctrine could be extended to the universe as a whole, with government as its representative. Hence, the logical consequence of recognizing rights claims of this kind is universal socialism literally universal, i.e., extending to the entire universe with the government having de facto property ownership of all physical resources in the universe. This much is tangentially admitted by its advocates when they state that their goal is to end capitalism -- i.e., end the prerogative for people to hold private property.[12]
Some would probably argue that the state-representation doctrine is just a practical means of allowing for the Earth to exercise its rights. Since "Mother Earth" is not a conscious being, and cannot express its will (i.e., the will it does not actually have, since it is not a conscious being), as a practical matter, someone needs to speak for it. And what better entity to take on this job than our own "representative," the state? Well, what the hell? This is probably as "practical" a way as any to try to represent the nonexistent will of a giant nonconscious ball of minerals. Once we are through the looking glass, I suppose it is just as "practical" to say that Morales is the representative for talking walruses as to say that I am. Nevertheless, the point remains that any such representation is a fantasy it is the attempt to represent the interests of an entity that has no interests. And the state-representation doctrine is therefore only "practical" as a means of ensuring that it is our government masters who take on the alleged prerogatives of the Earth, and not someone else.
Though it is gratuitous to point out the compounding absurdities of this kind of doctrine, let me just quickly note one more. Observe that the assertion of state representation of "Mother Earth" runs counter to the normal social-contract argument for government power. This theory (which is itself hopelessly flawed) holds that the state is the representative of "the people" by virtue of their ability to vote in its elections, and from their choice not to leave its jurisdiction. Clearly both of these are impossible for the Earth, and for the plants that live upon it. In the present case, governments are held to represent not only the people, i.e., the exploiters and destroyers of the Earth, but also the entity that is being destroyed! They are the representatives of the plaintiff and the defendants all at the same time! Government is the judge, the jury, and both sets of legal counsel it is the representative of all.
4. Mysticism as the Basis for the Earth-Rights Doctrine
If this all sounds a bit mystical, that it because the philosophy of environmentalism is pure mysticism. The essence of the philosophy is that nature has inherent value -- not value to any particular conscious beings, but value in and of itself -- value divorced from any valuer. It rests on the fantasy that there can exist value without a valuer, will without a mind, desires and interests without consciousness, and representation without consent.
In his inaugural Mother Earth Day speech to the UN, President Morales noted that environmental destruction is "offensive to the many faiths, wisdom traditions and indigenous cultures for whom Mother Earth is sacred." In doing so he explicitly appealed to faith, not reason, as the standard of moral judgment. Those in the UN did not object to this invocation of mysticism as a basis for their resolutions. Rather, they passed his resolution for Mother Earth Day unanimously, setting the stage for the present UN draft treaty.
It is difficult to make satire of something like this, because the supporters of this proposition have already done the job for us. Those who dream up UN treaties to establish a "Ministry for Mother Earth" are the kinds of people who mistakenly thought that Orwell was writing an instruction manual, not a work of dystopian fiction.[13] The notion that governments should "represent" the will and interests of a giant ball of minerals with no mind or desires is the outcome of environmentalist philosophy in action. It is as absurd as a ficus tree running for Congress, or a barrister attempting to take instructions from a blade of grass.
Happy Mother Earth Day, citizen! Now bow down to the almighty state in celebration!
Ben O'Neill is a lecturer in statistics at the University of New South Wales (ADFA) in Canberra, Australia. He has formerly practiced as a lawyer and as a political adviser in Canberra. He is a Templeton Fellow at the Independent Institute, where he won first prize in the 2009 Sir John Templeton Fellowship essay contest.
Notes
[1] United Nations, "General Assembly proclaims 22 April 'International Mother Earth Day,'" April 22, 2009. See the UN homepage for Mother Earth Day.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Steven Edwards, "UN Resolution Looks to Give 'Mother Earth' Same Rights as Humans," National Post, April 11, 2011.
[4] Ibid.
[5] Ayn Rand, Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal (New York: Signet, 1967), pp. 320–28.
[6] Ibid, p. 320.
[7] For discussion on this issue, as applied to the question of animal rights, see Tibor R. Machan, "Why Animal Rights Don't Exist" (Strike the Root, 2004). For a contrary position, discussing the argument from marginal cases, see David Graham, "A Libertarian Replies to Tibor Machan's 'Why Animal Rights Don't Exist'" (Strike the Root, 2004). For a rejoinder to this and other arguments, see Shawn E. Klein, "The Problem of Animal Rights" (The Atlas Society, 2004).The issue of moral obligations to conscious nonrational beings (e.g., animals) and rights accruing to those beings is beyond the scope of the present paper and is more involved than we have space for here. What is relevant here is that nonconscious beings cannot accrue rights or moral obligations.
[8] We know this because we know that consciousness is generated by the brain, and we know that trees do not have brains.
[9] The concept of "flourishing" does not require consciousness, and so this does not constitute a stolen concept. The concept of flourishing merely requires objective recognition of the fact that there is a natural continuum of states of a living organism that determine whether it is close to or far away from being dead (ignoring external circumstances). A healthy plant is, in this sense, more alive (i.e., further from death) than a wilting plant, and hence we can correctly say that the former is "flourishing."
[10] It is certainly true that the Earth is composed of things, some of which are living. A thing is "living" if it is engaged in a process of self-generated, self-sustaining action, and this is true of a great many things existing on Earth. Trees grow and develop through their own action, using nutrients that they collect themselves from the soil and rain, as does other plant life. Since the Earth is composed, in part, of living plant life, as well as a great deal of nonliving matter, it can, in some sense, be thought of as a "living system," so long as it is understood that this refers merely to an entity composed, in part, of living things that interact with one another. Though the Earth orbits around the sun and its parts change, with many powerful chemical reactions occurring inside its core, it is not accurate to say that the planet itself is engaged in self-generated, self-sustaining action. Rather, its parts act, and the Earth as a whole is acted upon. Living things on the planet are engaged in self-generated action, but the planet itself it essentially a big ball of nonliving materials (covered relatively sparsely with living things) being hurled around the solar system by the gravitational pull of the Sun. To say that the Earth itself is a living thing is either false, or it is just an imprecise shorthand way of saying that the Earth is an entity composed, in part, of smaller living things.
[11] Whether or not animals have rights rests, in large part, on something called the "argument from marginal cases." This argument grounds animal rights in their alleged analogy to damaged humans (e.g., a severely mentally disabled person who cannot understand abstract ideas). It argues that consistency requires either the acceptance of animal rights or the rejection of rights for certain kinds of "marginal" humans. However, there are good nonarbitrary reasons to distinguish between the two cases. Animals are beings that, even in the normal course of their development, cannot abstract sufficiently to understand moral principles. Disabled humans are beings that, in the normal course of their development would be able to do this, but unfortunately cannot, because they have been damaged in some way. They nonetheless belong to the class of beings that, if they develop normally, can understand moral principles. For discussion see Machan (2004), Graham (2004), and Klein (2004).
[12] At a UN summit in 2008, prior to Evo Morales's successful enactment of Mother Earth Day at the UN, representatives of Morales and the Bolivian government distributed a pamphlet stating their "ten commandments" and setting out the government's plan to save the planet, "beginning with the need 'to end with capitalism.'" See Edwards (2011).
[13] See George Orwell, 1984 (London: Secker and Warburg, 1949). In this book, the collectivist totalitarian society of Oceania operates through bodies such as the Ministry of Truth (responsible for the propagation of lies), the Ministry of Plenty (responsible for rationing goods), the Ministry of Peace (responsible for war), and the Ministry of Love (responsible for brainwashing and torture).
http://mises.org/daily/5217/Happy-Mother-Earth-Day-Citizen
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