A Primer On Liberty
Markos Moulitsas is, according to his Twitter bio, the founder of Daily Kos and the author of American Taliban: How Sex, Sin, and Power Bind Jihadists to the Radical Right. On Super Tuesday, he tweeted something very sad:
Santorum scoffs at notion that gov't creates rights. In other words, he doesn't believe in the US Constitution
I can think of few better examples of how serious a problem we have as a country than what this tweet represents. When people responded by pointing him to, you know, the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, he doubled down:
Dear Cons, show me where in the Constitution is god mentioned. In fact, it states "we the people" as the source of the rights (Preamble)
When you look at the religious liberty battle facing the country right now, you have one side speaking in terms of government intrusion into a natural right. The other side talks about the "right to free birth control" or a "war on women."
The deeper problem, of course, is that one side is talking about negative liberty and the other side doesn't even understand the vocabulary.
I don't want to get too pessimistic here, but this is what decades of horrible public and private education have wrought: a populace that doesn't understand liberty, how rights are derived, and the very basis of civil society.
What to do about it?
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May '10
Re: A Primer On Liberty
As a practical matter, I think it's possible to hold that natural rights are grounded in our nature as persons (I prefer embodied persons to "rational animal" myself) without explicit reference to God.
I don't think its a philosophical coherent or sustainable position, though.
Feb '11
Re: A Primer On Liberty
I get the objection to Moulitsas' statement. But surely he is right that the government creates rights. The Supreme Court, in the late 1960s and 1970s created a host of procedural rights for welfare and public assistance beneficiaries. If you read a case like Arnette v. Kennedy, even future CJ Rehnquist implicitly acknowledges that these rights are government created. But he also thinks that the body which gives can take away. So they are not absolute in the sense of our "Lockean" liberties in the Bill of Rights.
Jun '10
Re: A Primer On Liberty
Mollie Hemingway, Ed.: When people responded by pointing him to, you know, the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, he doubled down:
The first amendment reads: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; . . . ."
When the Constitution speaks of religion, is it not reasonable to conclude that it refers to the worship "of God"?
It's far easier to find God in the Constitution than a "right of privacy." And even if there is a "right of privacy" it takes another huge illogical leap to turn that into "abortion-on-demand."
Feb '11
Re: A Primer On Liberty
katievs
As a practical matter, I think it's possible to hold that natural rights are grounded in our nature as persons (I prefer embodied persons to "rational animal" myself) without explicit reference to God.
I don't think its a philosophical coherent or sustainable position, though. · 12 minutes ago
Could you say more on why?
Feb '11
Re: A Primer On Liberty
katievs
As a practical matter, I think it's possible to hold that natural rights are grounded in our nature as persons (I prefer embodied persons to "rational animal" myself) without explicit reference to God.
I don't think its a philosophical coherent or sustainable position, though.
Kant would also ground rights in our nature as embodied rational beings. Does his imprimatur vouch for your theory's coherence?
May '10
Re: A Primer On Liberty
Jordan Rodriguez
katievs
As a practical matter, I think it's possible to hold that natural rights are grounded in our nature as persons (I prefer embodied persons to "rational animal" myself) without explicit reference to God.
I don't think its a philosophical coherent or sustainable position, though.
Kant would also ground rights in our nature as embodied rational beings. Does his imprimatur vouch for your theory's coherence? · 1 minute ago
Not sure what point you're trying to make here. I, too, think natural human rights are grounded in our nature as persons.
Philosophers don't have imprimaturs.
Jan '11
Re: A Primer On Liberty
Technically, He's acknowleged at the very end before the signatures:
And on that note, just Whom was it that provided the Blessings of Liberty?
Edited on March 8, 2012 at 5:58pmFeb '11
Re: A Primer On Liberty
katievs
Philosophers don't have imprimaturs. · 7 minutes ago
I’m going to kidnap this phrase and make it my own. (Sorry, katievs, if I have to cite you every time I say it, it will lose all of its rhetorical punch.)
May '10
Re: A Primer On Liberty
SMatthewStolte
katievs
Philosophers don't have imprimaturs. · 7 minutes ago
I’m going to kidnap this phrase and make it my own. (Sorry, katievs, if I have to cite you every time I say it, it will lose all of its rhetorical punch.) · 16 minutes ago
As a philosopher friend of mine likes to say, "If it's true, it's ours."
May '10
Re: A Primer On Liberty
Somebody (not me, I hate Twitter) needs to Tweet back:
Declaration mentions God three times. Founders didnt lose faith in 11 yrs between that and Constitution. God is in 30 state constitutions.
Feb '11
Re: A Primer On Liberty
Just saying Kant agrees with you. Not sure what else I said here is wrong; I don't think I misused "imprimatur," loosely, to mean an endorsement of your position.
katievs
Jordan Rodriguez
katievs
As a practical matter, I think it's possible to hold that natural rights are grounded in our nature as persons (I prefer embodied persons to "rational animal" myself) without explicit reference to God.
I don't think its a philosophical coherent or sustainable position, though.
Kant would also ground rights in our nature as embodied rational beings. Does his imprimatur vouch for your theory's coherence? · 1 minute ago
Not sure what point you're trying to make here. I, too, think natural human rights are grounded in our nature as persons.
Philosophers don't have imprimaturs. · 58 minutes ago
Feb '11
Re: A Primer On Liberty
The problem is legion.
Parents need to teach their children well, but what about the other children? The ones whose parents are oblivious, do not care, or do not even understand what is at stake.
Conservative young people and maybe not so young need to purposefully enter education, the church, the media, and the arts. We need to reclaim these institutions, our cultural memory is in the hands of the enemy. We can not go in wielding swords and battle axes, but covert scalpels and stilettos.
You need to join the Unions (in some professions and localities), find the closet conservatives, and the good workers who don't care about leftist ideology, and the common sense practitioners and unite them to fight the little battles and advance reform one tiny step at a time.
I need allies in the public schools. Join me. One student, one class room at a time, we have 120 years of garbage to roll back.
Join your school board, borough councils, town boards, etc. But do so quietly and do things incrementally. Support those who are doing the work in these institutions, buy their books, DVDs, etc. Hold them to the highest standards, and pray.
Edited on March 9, 2012 at 2:15amMay '10
Re: A Primer On Liberty
"What to do about it?"
You know, secession is looking better all the time.
Jul '10
Re: A Primer On Liberty
Mollie Hemingway, Ed.:
It's right next to the parts about abortion and subsidized birth control.
Aug '10
Re: A Primer On Liberty
Ms Hemingway,Ricochet has a "sites we like" list. Why can't there be a " 10 to 40 books we think are essential" list ? I certainly don't understand "liberty, how rights are derived, and the very basis of a civil society."
Oct '10
Re: A Primer On Liberty
"What to do about it?"... "run away, run away, run away".
Oct '10
Re: A Primer On Liberty
EJHill: Somebody (not me, I hate Twitter) needs to Tweet back:
Declaration mentions God three times. Founders didnt lose faith in 11 yrs between that and Constitution. God is in 30 state constitutions.· 8 hours ago
Acutally, God is in the Constitution: "Done in Convention by the Unanimous Consent of the States present the Seventeenth Day of September in the Year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and Eighty seven."
Mar '11
Re: A Primer On Liberty
This talk about horses is horse manure and a slur on many of the Founders who knew that an attempt to abolish slavery, long established and deeply entrenched before independence, at that time, would have prevented ratification and endangered the independence so recently and hardly won.
Feb '11
Re: A Primer On Liberty
John Murdoch: If Markos Moulitsas, the ideological leader of the Left, insists that we ignore the Declaration of Independence and view the Constitution as the only source of our rights, he is arguing that the federal government was wrong in invading southern homes and farms, seizing property (what many would call "black human beings with the inalienable right to liberty") without due process and without just compensation.
Kos has no way around it--it was blatantly unconstitutional.
So if Kos's view of the constitution is correct--doesn't the federal government owe those slaveholders (and their descendants, of course) reparations?
My mother-in-law (whose grandfather was taken prisoner at Appomattox Court House with Robert E. Lee), wife, and daughters would all like to have their reparations checks in time for next Christmas, please. · 23 hours ago
I understand what you're saying, and you're right. But please let's not make this argument. Headline:
"Republicans Demand Reparations For Slaveholders"