The fundamental problem that we face today is the desire by religious fanatics to impose their doctrines on all others. This has come about in two ways. The first by financially empowering the political aspect of the most barbarous version of Islam. The second by importing vast numbers of Islamic immigrants not prepared to assimilate or eschew aspects of Islamic teachings that are clearly Anti Christian. These then accept leadership from the first.
I personally think all this will end soon enough but that is yet unsure and may demand a global conflict to fully de Nazify Islam. Such a conflict can engage tens of million as combatants and likely displace a billion individuals and potentially match WWII in direct casualties through tactical nuclear weapons.. This is the worst approach.
The real problem is that Islam is deliberately producing fear and that fear is been used in a rush to produce what is best understood as an authoritarian response. That it is not necessary is poorly understood. Recall our Drug War that produced a massive police expansion and no relief?
I personally think all this will end soon enough but that is yet unsure and may demand a global conflict to fully de Nazify Islam. Such a conflict can engage tens of million as combatants and likely displace a billion individuals and potentially match WWII in direct casualties through tactical nuclear weapons.. This is the worst approach.
The real problem is that Islam is deliberately producing fear and that fear is been used in a rush to produce what is best understood as an authoritarian response. That it is not necessary is poorly understood. Recall our Drug War that produced a massive police expansion and no relief?
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John Locke Is Needed Now More than Ever
Personal and economic freedom are under attack in the United States
and in many other parts of the world. This is seen most clearly in this
year’s contest for the White House. In all the rhetoric about America’s
political, social, and economic problems that is heard from the lips of
the Democratic and Republican presidential candidates, there is one
phrase that is hardly ever mentioned or considered important: the
liberty of the individual.
Neither Clinton nor Trump Place Any Value on Liberty
Hillary Clinton’s mantra focuses on redistributive entitlements;
racial, social and gender group privileges or burdens; and social
engineering of human relationships based on superimposed collective
identity politics. Deceptions, lies, and an arrogant self-righteous tone
of feigned caring about others as she pursues personal power and
wealth: these are the hallmarks of her disgraceful character.
Amid Donald Trump’s televised outbursts and often-disconnected
streams of consciousness, he drones on about regaining a lost national
collectivist greatness; nativist job entitlements against immigrants
looking for a better future; and bullying businesses to operate their
companies where Trump thinks they should be located. His coarse insults
and threats are directed against anyone who falls into his disfavor, and
are wrapped in a disregard for Constitutional constraints and a
disrespect for civil liberties under the Bill of Rights.
Individual rights precede government; they are not given or bestowed by government.
Regardless of which one ends up sitting in the White House Oval
Office, government intrusion, control, and manipulation of aspects of
everyday personal and economic life will continue to prevail and grow in
dangerous and damaging ways. Individual liberty will diminish and the
potentials for economic growth and human betterment will be reduced.
Dark days are likely ahead, whether it is Hillary Clinton or Donald
Trump who wins in November.
Liberty as the Founding American Principle
What both major political parties and their respective presidential
candidates have clearly done is turn their backs on the principles and
ideals of the American founding as expressed in the Declaration of
Independence and institutionally embodied in the U.S. Constitution.
Neither the Declaration of Independence nor the Constitution refer to
group rights or collective entitlements. The American philosophical
spirit is captured in those memorable and moving words:
“We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among them are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness – That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed.”
Individual rights precede government; they are not given or bestowed
by government. They are unalienable, that is, they belong to each and
every individual as a human being, and no political power or authority
may claim the legitimacy to abridge or abolish them. Governments have no
power or authority other than those assigned to them by the individuals
within a political jurisdiction, and its moral legitimacy is only valid
and justifiable for as long as those who hold political office use
their assigned powers to secure and protect the citizenry’s individual
rights, and not violate them.
It is worth recalling this founding idea and ideal considering how
little it is understood, appreciated or fully practiced in contemporary
America. It is perhaps appropriate, in turn, to remember the person
whose writings served as much of the inspiration and reasoning behind
those words expressed in the Declaration of Independence: the British
philosopher, John Locke.
John Locke and Religious Tolerance
John Locke was born 384 years ago, on August 29, 1632 and he died on
October 28, 1704, at the age of 72. Though he made his living for many
years as a medical doctor, his fame is derived from a series of books
that he wrote, especially his Letters on Tolerance (1689-1692), and his Two Treatises on Government (1689).
Locke’s defense of tolerance and freedom of thought and conscience resonates today as much as in his own time.
Locke defended religious freedom on the following grounds:
First, men, including kings and their ministers, are fallible
creatures who could not say that they know for certainty what God’s word
and will might be for all of mankind;
Second, if they try to impose their interpretation on others through
the force of political power, they merely create anger, resentment, and
resistance on the part of those being made to give public statements of
belief and allegiance to that which they did not really in their hearts
and minds believe to be true;
Third, this will lead – as it had – to wars and conflicts that can tear apart society and being even more destruction and death;
Fourth, there was no workable alternative than to accept tolerance
for all men to find God in their own way, and to use reason, persuasion,
and example to win over others to one’s own beliefs;
Fifth, thus, it is necessary to separate religion from the arena of politics and political control.
Locke’s defense of tolerance and freedom of thought and conscience
resonates today as much as in his own time, given the attempt by
American “progressives” to straightjacket people’s minds within the
confines of an increasingly dogmatic “political correctness.” And the
horrifying acts of terrorism and murder by theocratic fanatics
determined to either convert or kill any refusing to follow their own
narrow definition of the Islamic faith.
Locke’s Criticisms of Monarchs and Majorities
John Locke, however, became most famous for his argument against the
claim of absolute monarchy, and his defense of individual liberty and
limited political power. He made his case in his Two Treatises on Civil Government (1689)
In the first Treatise he challenged the notion of the
“divine right of kings,” and insisted, instead, that political authority
comes from the governed, and is not an independent and “absolute” power
belonging to kings above the people ruled.
In a free market we collaboratively
participate in specialized lines of production with others through
competitive processes of exchange.
But it was in the second Treatise that he presented his
“positive” argument for the origin of the “natural rights” of man and
the basis of limited and free government against monarchs and unlimited
democratic majorities. He asked the reader to follow him in a “mental
experiment” and imagine an original “state of nature” before the
formation of “society” or the creation of government. In this “state of
nature” each man is independent and a “sovereign” over his own life. He
lives as he wants and uses the resources that he finds for his own
purposes.
Individuals Have a Natural Right to Their Life and Liberty
But man is not alone in this “state of nature” because other men
populate the world, as well. While there may be no organized political
authority to promulgate and enforce laws among men, there is, still, a
“law” that men should respect amongst each other. Our “reason” and our
knowledge of God would make each realize that every man, as a creature
of God, has been given life by that Creator and has a “natural right” to
it, which each should respect and not attempt to violently take away.
As John Locke articulated this fundamental principle in his Second Treatise on Government:
“To understand political power aright, and derive it from its original, we must consider what estate [condition] all men are naturally in, and that is, a state of perfect freedom to order their actions, and dispose of their possessions and persons as they think fit, within the bounds of the law of Nature, without asking leave or depending upon the will of any other man . . .
“But though this be a state of liberty, yet it is not a state of license; though man in that state have an uncontrollable liberty to dispose of their own person or possessions . . . The state of Nature has a law of Nature to govern it, which obliges everyone, and reason, which is that law, teaches all mankind who will but consult it, that being equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions; for men being all the workmanship of one omnipotent and infinitely wise Maker; all the servants of one sovereign Master, sent into the world by His order and about His business; they are His property, whose workmanship they are made to last during His, not one another’s pleasure.
“And being furnished with like faculties, sharing all in one community of Nature, there cannot be supposed any such subordination among us that may authorize us to destroy one another, as if we were made for one another’s uses.”
Locke on the Logic and Ethics of Private Property
Locke argued that to sustain and preserve his life, each man has a
right to draw from the “common” resources of the earth those that he
productively extracts and uses by “mixing” with it his mental and
physical labor. This combining of his “labor” with the “land” is the
basis of all legitimate and ethical appropriations and possession of
property. This establishes his “natural right” to property, as an
extension of his “natural right” to his own life.
Locke explained this in fairly clear words:
“Though the earth and all inferior creatures be common to all men, yet every man has a ‘property’ in his own ‘person.’ This nobody has any right to but himself. The ‘labor’ of his body and the ‘work’ of his hands, we may say, are properly his.
“Whatsoever, then, he removes out of the state that Nature hath provided and left it in, he hath mixed his labor with it, and joined to it something that is his own, and thereby makes it his property. It being by him removed from the common state of Nature, it hath by this labor something annexed to it that excludes the common right of other men. For this ‘labor’ being the unquestionable property of the laborer, no man but he can have a right to what that is once joined to . . .”
In the complex social system of division of labor few men
independently produce all the goods they desire or the food needed to
sustain and improve their life. Instead, in a free market we
collaboratively participate in specialized lines of production with
others through competitive processes of exchange. We negotiate and
receive the wages or prices that reflect what others consider our
contributions to be worth in the manufacture of products or services
they desire to acquire. And we, in turn, through this market process
partially determine what those other’s labor and products are worth to
us and other consumers.
Whether in the simple methods of self-sufficient production or in the
complexity of modern market association with its specializations of
work and reward, each individual in a truly free society is viewed and
respected as a self-governing and sovereign human being with that
inherent and “natural right” to his life, liberty, and honestly produced
or acquired property
The Individual’s Right of Proportional Self-Defense Against Aggression
Unfortunately, men do not always respect each other’s lives or
property. They sometimes resort to violence to take what honestly
belongs to another. In such circumstances, each man has the right to a
self-defense of his life and property. However, John Locke reminded his
readers that even when wrapped up in the “passions” of the moment when
defending oneself against the aggression of another, no man may be
arbitrary or disproportionate in the violence or “cruelty” used in
responding to an aggressor.
The primary duty of any government that is
established by the mutual agreement of men is to protect each member’s
“natural right” to his life, liberty, and property.
One should and must impose no more counter-violence than an unbiased
“third party” would use, if he were protecting you, instead of you
having to defend yourself. It may be necessary, in defending oneself,
to take the life of the attacker, but this, too, should only be a
response proportional to the seriousness of the attack and the threat.
It is precisely due to the heated passions and emotions of such
moments that there arises the problem of a man having to take upon
himself the role of policeman, judge and jury. His own interest in the
circumstances often precludes his ability to be an unbiased “reasonable
man” attempting to evaluate and act with an unbiased eye.
It is also the case that in that “state of nature,” a man, by
himself, may not possess the physical strength and the needed resources
to successfully hold off threats and attacks against his person and
property.
Individual Self-Defense and the Reason for a Limited Government
It is these problems and limitations in man’s ability to defend
himself, as well as being a fair judge in meting out justice, than men
see the necessity and benefit from joining together for mutual
protection and enforcement of just law. The primary duty of any
government that is established by the mutual agreement of men is to
protect each member’s “natural right” to his life, liberty, and
property.
In making decisions among themselves to fulfill this task, each
member agrees to abide by the decision of the majority – since any other
alternative either implies the minority deciding for the majority, or
everyone having to unanimously agree (which places heavy burdens on
always reaching mutually beneficial agreement).
Unlimited, Arbitrary Government is Tyranny
But majorities do not have an unlimited right to decide for
individuals; otherwise they might tyrannically impose laws on a minority
with the same potential arbitrariness and disregard as an absolute
king.
In John Locke’s own words, once more:
“The legislature [cannot be] absolutely arbitrary over the lives and fortunes of the people . . . For nobody can transfer to another more power than he has in himself, and nobody has absolute arbitrary power over himself, or over any other, to destroy his own life, or take away the life or property of another . . .
“This power . . . is limited to the public good of the society. It is a power that hath no other end but preservation, and therefore can never have a right to destroy, enslave, or designedly to impoverish the subjects . . .
“The supreme power cannot take from any man any part of his property without his own consent . . . For I have truly no property in that which another can by right take from me when he pleases without my consent. Hence it is a mistake to think that the supreme or legislative power of any commonwealth can do what it will, and dispose of the estates of the subject arbitrarily, or take any part of them at pleasure.”
Hence, even a government reflecting the consent of the governed and
manned by freely elected representatives of the citizenry must be
restricted and restrained by law, custom and constitution to a defense
of each person’s rights and not a violator of them, no matter how large
or vocal the majority might be that wishes to silence, plunder or
enslave a free individual possessing those inherent rights belonging to
each and every human being.
John Locke’s ethical and political
individualism served as a cornerstone for the great American experiment
in self-government, both in the sense of individual freedom and
constitutional restraint.
Though a variety of ancient and more contemporary thinkers and
writers influenced the American Founding Fathers, it remains a fact that
John Locke’s imprint is undeniable in reading through those famous
words in the Declaration of Independence.
The Radical Nature of Individual Rights
John Locke’s political ideas, when taken seriously and put into
practice, implied the end to political and economic collectivism and
tyranny. It declared the rationality of human freedom based on reasoned
reflection on human nature and the human condition.
Which one of us does not desire our own life to be respected and left
peacefully unmolested by others? Which one of us does not want to shape
the direction and destiny of our own life and not be reduced to a tool
in the discretionary political hands of absolute monarchs or
unrestrained majorities? Which one of us does not share a fundamental
common sense that if we have honestly and peacefully produced something
through the enlightenment of our reason and the effort of our labor, it
should be recognized as our rightful property to use in any way not in
violation of the equivalent individual rights of any other in society?
John Locke’s ideas helped to overthrow the notion that governments
could demand the coerced obedience and sacrifice of individuals to a
cause or purpose to which they have not given their voluntary consent.
Governments no more have an ethical right to plunder or redistribute the
private property of innocent citizens than a band of ordinary marauders
and murderers doing so by assaulting people going about their peaceful
and productive everyday affairs.
John Locke’s ethical and political individualism served as a
cornerstone for the great American experiment in self-government, both
in the sense of individual freedom and constitutional restraint. The
principle and ideal of individual rights preceding and transcending
political power and personal plunder was also the irresistible ethical
force that challenged and finally helped to bring about the end to that
crudest and oldest form of tyranny: human slavery.
We owe to John Locke and those other thinkers complementary to his
political philosophy of man, society and government all the freedom and
prosperity that mankind has known and enjoyed over the last 300 years,
beginning in Europe and North America and then spreading imperfectly to
other parts of the world.
This is the philosophy of liberty that is threatened with further
loss in this year’s presidential election in the United States. Neither
Hillary Clinton nor Donald Trump champions or cares about the
individual and his right to live his life as he freely chooses in
peaceful and voluntary association and exchange with others in society
for mutual gain and betterment.
They represent throwbacks to the tribal and political collectivisms
of bygone ages that the ideas of John Locke and the American Founding
Fathers heralded the end to. All friends of freedom, therefore, are
called upon to redouble their intellectual efforts to oppose and defeat
the continuation of this reactionary return to the dark despotisms of
the past
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