Showing posts with label Distributism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Distributism. Show all posts
Thursday, March 1, 2012
"Fresh" documentary available free until Saturday, March 3rd.
"Fresh" documentary available free until Saturday, March 3rd. Joel Salatin is featured. I havent seen it yet but it looks to be good. See it here. Also highly recommended is Food, Inc. I think it can be seen full length on You Tube with a little looking.
Friday, February 24, 2012
Location Considerations for a Homestead
Off the top of my head, and in no defined order as of yet, these are some things I thought of as serious considerations for where to look for an area to start a homestead. Not that I am doing any such thing next month, but gathering information is always a good idea. And hey, a guy can dream, right? So if you have any thoughts, whether new items or elaborations of current items, please comment and I will update the list!
1. Proximity to sacraments.
2. Proximity to a Catholic community that is traditional, and therefore less likely to change over time from a new priest, etc. Devin suggests: "Ideally a monastery or convent is close by that is a new evangelization/orthodox/traditional community."
3. Proximity to like minded families.
4. Close to a city large enough to support some selling of domestically produced products. (Salatin recommended within 40 miles of a city of 25,000 or more. So ideally, it would seem an area in the center of a 40 mile radius circle of 2 or more such cities on the perimeter would be perfect.)
5. Far enough away from metropolitan zones (starting at 50,000+ population) to be immune to urban sprawl. No closer than 60 miles from the center of a 0.5 Million+ metro area, perhaps adding ~10 miles for each additional 0.5 Million.
6. State or foreign country with liberal homeschooling laws that is likely to remain such.
7. State or foreign country with liberal agriculture laws that is likely to remain such.
8. Large variety of production types possible from the land.
9. Diversity of landscapes. Pasture, woods, water, hills.
10. Water --preferably rain fall that is over 35 inches annually. (From Devin)
11. A state that has a lower cost of living. Colorado and California are beautiful but everyone wants to live there, so everything is expensive. (From Devin)
1. Proximity to sacraments.
2. Proximity to a Catholic community that is traditional, and therefore less likely to change over time from a new priest, etc. Devin suggests: "Ideally a monastery or convent is close by that is a new evangelization/orthodox/traditional community."
3. Proximity to like minded families.
4. Close to a city large enough to support some selling of domestically produced products. (Salatin recommended within 40 miles of a city of 25,000 or more. So ideally, it would seem an area in the center of a 40 mile radius circle of 2 or more such cities on the perimeter would be perfect.)
5. Far enough away from metropolitan zones (starting at 50,000+ population) to be immune to urban sprawl. No closer than 60 miles from the center of a 0.5 Million+ metro area, perhaps adding ~10 miles for each additional 0.5 Million.
6. State or foreign country with liberal homeschooling laws that is likely to remain such.
7. State or foreign country with liberal agriculture laws that is likely to remain such.
8. Large variety of production types possible from the land.
9. Diversity of landscapes. Pasture, woods, water, hills.
10. Water --preferably rain fall that is over 35 inches annually. (From Devin)
11. A state that has a lower cost of living. Colorado and California are beautiful but everyone wants to live there, so everything is expensive. (From Devin)
Sunday, February 19, 2012
Joel Salatin: Herald of the New Christendom
This is what the New Christendom looks like folks. Families living and working together in community with each other as stewards of creation. This is Distributism in action. I am fully convinced that if we are truly to return to a Christian culture, the majority of people need to be owners of productive property, and land is about as productive as property gets.
I particularly love what he says about getting to big: A large "factory" farm could not do what he does. Period. No amount of machines can do what he does. It takes bodies with brains. And bodies can only do so much, which means things can only get so big and still maintain the system as far as quality, and even viability. Sounds like a perfect way for a for a family to make a living.
Watch the short video below, and there will be more to come.
I particularly love what he says about getting to big: A large "factory" farm could not do what he does. Period. No amount of machines can do what he does. It takes bodies with brains. And bodies can only do so much, which means things can only get so big and still maintain the system as far as quality, and even viability. Sounds like a perfect way for a for a family to make a living.
Watch the short video below, and there will be more to come.
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Capitalists don't like Distributism
The following is a response by Bob to an audio clip about Distributism located here. I will intersperse my not-so brief [comments in red]. Also I read a great article by Ryan Grant titled Distributism in Popular Christmas Films that examines the 2 classic Christmas movies by Dickens and Capra A Christmas Carol and It's a Wonderful Life. I always knew there was something I loved about the way economics is presented in those movies. They manage to avoid the "phoney right-left paradigm" as Grant puts it.
Here is Bob:
...I'd also encourage you to re-listen to what he says, and read my comments at the same time. Of course, learning about Austrian economics might do you good too. [What makes you think I am not familiar with them?] To be honest, everything in this talk was easy to deflect / refute. [I am glad they made it easy for you.]
My comments on Donald Goodman III
Backyard RadTrad Interview
around the 8 minute mark talks about unions protecting the middle class. This is an un-founded assertion, and incorrect under an Austrian mindset. Of course, people should be free to join / create unions, but unions do not inherently protect anyone, and are (in fact) a coercive force themselves. [Yes, a coercive force meant to counteract the coercive force of capitalists]
11:30 - talks about 'paying what the worker is worth'. The idea is to pay a worker enough to keep a family. The idea is nice, but at some point the wage is not worth the employee... the correct thing to do is to lay-off the employee. There is no 'correct' wage, as minimum wage laws prove. [the wage is not "worth the employee"? this is the capitalist mindset... to treat people as tools or machines -as means to an end. People are not tools. And a system that encourages us to think of them as such (capitalism) is flawed.]
I agree with what they are saying at the 17 min mark about the banks and bail-outs from government. Libertarianism also "doesn't want" this. The root cause (in my opinion) is the federal reserve system (or euro system for our idiot friends overseas) [from a Distributist mindset, the size of these massive institutions makes them de-facto goverments in themselves. They are big enough to make the rules, and they do. Federal Reserve or not, when corporations get massive, they get what they want. ] - a return to hard currency would help out a lot. [Agreed, but that would not be good for capitalism, which thrives on greed]
I disagree with his remark at 19:50 about the difference between capitalism and socialism. His view on socialism might be correct, but his view on capitalism is jaded by Corporatism (which is what we have in America). This is a common mistake that turns capitalism into a boogy man, even though most people wouldn't recognize true capitalism if it hit them in the face. Socialism = bad, Corporatism = bad, Capitalism = good. He is doing the listener a disservice by not identifying them correctly. [The problem with capitalism is it will naturally concentrate the means of production in the hands of a very, very few people. When this continues to happen, then you get what i think you are calling corporatism, which I take you to mean a sort of 'rule by corporations'. (You must be using a more modern incarnation of that word, because I dont think you can be meaning what the main meaning is)]
at 23:30, he again identifies capitalism incorrectly, calling it "the system where very few own productive property". [Yeah, that's what it is. It may not be the description you would like, but it does fit what happens under capitalism. And yes, even under "unbridled" capitalism. In fact it might be even more concentrated in some situations] Capitalism doesn't care who owns how much, or what. Slapping the straw man! Capitalism is about the unfettered marketplace (something that hasn't been seen in several generations). The invisible hand of the market knows where to best invest capital - weather that is human action, money, property - any kind of capital. Again, who owns what doesn't matter. [But it does matter who owns what. One man or a small group of men "owning" Wall mart stores matters. The fact that they treat their employees like tools matters. The fact that that few men are that powerful matters. Once such a small group is so powerfull that matters to me. It is a unacceptable concentration of the means of production.] At the very least, you own your labor, and can trade that labor for other goods. [If that is the way we view our labor, then that is slavery. What you say here is the capitalist idea though. Instead of viewing our labor as being productive, we view our labor as a commodity to make another man productive. One way is the way of freedom, the other of slavery.]
at 25 min, he talks about tax subsidies for the big stores. He is correct - that is a problem. It isn't a problem with Capitalism, but a problem with Corporatism (where corporations own / influence government). [Which is the natural result of capitalism.] The playing field isn't level. Buying in bulk, however, is not an unfair advantage. Subsidies are.
28 min - your ability to grow (and expand) is limited by 'what does the guild say'!!! Guild, meet invisible hand of the market. Invisible hand, slap guild in face. [The invisible hand you mention is not all that invisible. It is a very few men controlling a very lot of the world. A guild just gives people a share of that power proportional to what one man can properly control. One man cannot properly control Monsanto, nor should he]. This guy just loves bureaucracy and additional layers of authority (I guess that is expected of Catholics). [Cheap shot] Lets say your an innovative tailor - do you have to pass your innovation to other tailors so they can become more productive too? He then advocates the state control the 'important' industries? I could spend hours on the danger of that, and how it kills innovation, destroys jobs, and is an all round horrible idea. [So who controls the roads and airwaves in your ideal then? Somebody is going to control them. And with large enough and important enough things, the ones who control them ARE the government! See it in action in our current 'corporatism' right? I agree if that is what you mean by corporatism. Once they have that much control, whether they are a corporation or a government doesnt matter. They are the one in charge. Distributism just levels out that control.]
at 34 min mark, he uses the anti-competitive practice of binding iphone to AT&T. I agree - morally wrong (done for money). However, that isn't a problem with capitalism. That is a problem with collusion. All phones should be able to be used on all networks (its my phone and my contract = property rights / contract issue). This is not a capitalism issue.
39 min mark - wage and price controls - excellent. This guy is doing a horrible job selling distributism to anyone who has studied Austrian economics. I'm guessing his market is the discontented masses who haven't studied economics at all. [imagine if every beef farmer in the counry was part of a beef guild Bob. Lets ay they vote to set the price of a # of ground beef for the next week/month/whatever. What happens next? Instead of beef being about price, it is about quality. So obviously there are immediately no more growth hormones being used, no more corn being shoved down half dead cows throats, and no more feed lots. Huge factory farms are no longer even desired because there are no more huge profit margins selling shitty meat to people. Instead quality is what becomes the reason I go to store A rather than B. Makes sense to me. The capitalist ideal is lower price=good. The Distributist ideal is Higher quality=good. You can see this in action when you buy your grass fed beef. You are getting a taste of Distributism: supporting a craftsman who is getting paid what his product is truly worth (grass fed beef farmers) rather than supporting a destructive capitalist system at wal-mart where wage slaves are used all the way from the farm to the cash register. ]
--thought--
distributism (as described in this podcast) doesn't have room for innovation. Take farming - larger tractors mean less people needed.[You are assuming that is inovative. It is not. Why is this a good idea? focus is off of quality and on profits and seeing people as tools] That frees up people to do other things - like inventing. Innovation happens because it isn't all 'at the local level'. Distributism also implies that there are certain percentages of people (determined by the guilds) who do certain things. If you want to do something else - go get permission. The invisible hand dictates that there is no 'right number' - rather the right number is the number that the market will bear. Permission isn't needed, just the will to change.
--end thought
44 min - distributism can't deal with the internet at all. It fails in the global economy too. Even basic questions of jurisdiction are avoided.
52 min - he just got done bashing on Tom Woods, then talks about commission being taken away. That's theft (breach of contract). [A mortgage is a contract too. Theft by contract. Why does a contract make treating people like animals ok?] He then complains that there weren't unions to back him up. I don't get it, the cure is worse than the problem. The solution is to stop stealing from your workers, not to hamper the work place with a union. Go to small claims and get your contract enforced! [The solution is not to think of peoe as "your" or "my" workers to be doled out goddies if they behave.]
Again just to clarify, Distributism is not Catholic dogma. There are many Catholic economic and social principals which it puts to the forefront however. Which is why I like it. The focus on the family being the highest unit in society and having the means to production in the hands of the family rather than the family BEING the means of production is what I like.
Here is Bob:
...I'd also encourage you to re-listen to what he says, and read my comments at the same time. Of course, learning about Austrian economics might do you good too. [What makes you think I am not familiar with them?] To be honest, everything in this talk was easy to deflect / refute. [I am glad they made it easy for you.]
My comments on Donald Goodman III
Backyard RadTrad Interview
around the 8 minute mark talks about unions protecting the middle class. This is an un-founded assertion, and incorrect under an Austrian mindset. Of course, people should be free to join / create unions, but unions do not inherently protect anyone, and are (in fact) a coercive force themselves. [Yes, a coercive force meant to counteract the coercive force of capitalists]
11:30 - talks about 'paying what the worker is worth'. The idea is to pay a worker enough to keep a family. The idea is nice, but at some point the wage is not worth the employee... the correct thing to do is to lay-off the employee. There is no 'correct' wage, as minimum wage laws prove. [the wage is not "worth the employee"? this is the capitalist mindset... to treat people as tools or machines -as means to an end. People are not tools. And a system that encourages us to think of them as such (capitalism) is flawed.]
I agree with what they are saying at the 17 min mark about the banks and bail-outs from government. Libertarianism also "doesn't want" this. The root cause (in my opinion) is the federal reserve system (or euro system for our idiot friends overseas) [from a Distributist mindset, the size of these massive institutions makes them de-facto goverments in themselves. They are big enough to make the rules, and they do. Federal Reserve or not, when corporations get massive, they get what they want. ] - a return to hard currency would help out a lot. [Agreed, but that would not be good for capitalism, which thrives on greed]
I disagree with his remark at 19:50 about the difference between capitalism and socialism. His view on socialism might be correct, but his view on capitalism is jaded by Corporatism (which is what we have in America). This is a common mistake that turns capitalism into a boogy man, even though most people wouldn't recognize true capitalism if it hit them in the face. Socialism = bad, Corporatism = bad, Capitalism = good. He is doing the listener a disservice by not identifying them correctly. [The problem with capitalism is it will naturally concentrate the means of production in the hands of a very, very few people. When this continues to happen, then you get what i think you are calling corporatism, which I take you to mean a sort of 'rule by corporations'. (You must be using a more modern incarnation of that word, because I dont think you can be meaning what the main meaning is)]
at 23:30, he again identifies capitalism incorrectly, calling it "the system where very few own productive property". [Yeah, that's what it is. It may not be the description you would like, but it does fit what happens under capitalism. And yes, even under "unbridled" capitalism. In fact it might be even more concentrated in some situations] Capitalism doesn't care who owns how much, or what. Slapping the straw man! Capitalism is about the unfettered marketplace (something that hasn't been seen in several generations). The invisible hand of the market knows where to best invest capital - weather that is human action, money, property - any kind of capital. Again, who owns what doesn't matter. [But it does matter who owns what. One man or a small group of men "owning" Wall mart stores matters. The fact that they treat their employees like tools matters. The fact that that few men are that powerful matters. Once such a small group is so powerfull that matters to me. It is a unacceptable concentration of the means of production.] At the very least, you own your labor, and can trade that labor for other goods. [If that is the way we view our labor, then that is slavery. What you say here is the capitalist idea though. Instead of viewing our labor as being productive, we view our labor as a commodity to make another man productive. One way is the way of freedom, the other of slavery.]
at 25 min, he talks about tax subsidies for the big stores. He is correct - that is a problem. It isn't a problem with Capitalism, but a problem with Corporatism (where corporations own / influence government). [Which is the natural result of capitalism.] The playing field isn't level. Buying in bulk, however, is not an unfair advantage. Subsidies are.
28 min - your ability to grow (and expand) is limited by 'what does the guild say'!!! Guild, meet invisible hand of the market. Invisible hand, slap guild in face. [The invisible hand you mention is not all that invisible. It is a very few men controlling a very lot of the world. A guild just gives people a share of that power proportional to what one man can properly control. One man cannot properly control Monsanto, nor should he]. This guy just loves bureaucracy and additional layers of authority (I guess that is expected of Catholics). [Cheap shot] Lets say your an innovative tailor - do you have to pass your innovation to other tailors so they can become more productive too? He then advocates the state control the 'important' industries? I could spend hours on the danger of that, and how it kills innovation, destroys jobs, and is an all round horrible idea. [So who controls the roads and airwaves in your ideal then? Somebody is going to control them. And with large enough and important enough things, the ones who control them ARE the government! See it in action in our current 'corporatism' right? I agree if that is what you mean by corporatism. Once they have that much control, whether they are a corporation or a government doesnt matter. They are the one in charge. Distributism just levels out that control.]
at 34 min mark, he uses the anti-competitive practice of binding iphone to AT&T. I agree - morally wrong (done for money). However, that isn't a problem with capitalism. That is a problem with collusion. All phones should be able to be used on all networks (its my phone and my contract = property rights / contract issue). This is not a capitalism issue.
39 min mark - wage and price controls - excellent. This guy is doing a horrible job selling distributism to anyone who has studied Austrian economics. I'm guessing his market is the discontented masses who haven't studied economics at all. [imagine if every beef farmer in the counry was part of a beef guild Bob. Lets ay they vote to set the price of a # of ground beef for the next week/month/whatever. What happens next? Instead of beef being about price, it is about quality. So obviously there are immediately no more growth hormones being used, no more corn being shoved down half dead cows throats, and no more feed lots. Huge factory farms are no longer even desired because there are no more huge profit margins selling shitty meat to people. Instead quality is what becomes the reason I go to store A rather than B. Makes sense to me. The capitalist ideal is lower price=good. The Distributist ideal is Higher quality=good. You can see this in action when you buy your grass fed beef. You are getting a taste of Distributism: supporting a craftsman who is getting paid what his product is truly worth (grass fed beef farmers) rather than supporting a destructive capitalist system at wal-mart where wage slaves are used all the way from the farm to the cash register. ]
--thought--
distributism (as described in this podcast) doesn't have room for innovation. Take farming - larger tractors mean less people needed.[You are assuming that is inovative. It is not. Why is this a good idea? focus is off of quality and on profits and seeing people as tools] That frees up people to do other things - like inventing. Innovation happens because it isn't all 'at the local level'. Distributism also implies that there are certain percentages of people (determined by the guilds) who do certain things. If you want to do something else - go get permission. The invisible hand dictates that there is no 'right number' - rather the right number is the number that the market will bear. Permission isn't needed, just the will to change.
--end thought
44 min - distributism can't deal with the internet at all. It fails in the global economy too. Even basic questions of jurisdiction are avoided.
52 min - he just got done bashing on Tom Woods, then talks about commission being taken away. That's theft (breach of contract). [A mortgage is a contract too. Theft by contract. Why does a contract make treating people like animals ok?] He then complains that there weren't unions to back him up. I don't get it, the cure is worse than the problem. The solution is to stop stealing from your workers, not to hamper the work place with a union. Go to small claims and get your contract enforced! [The solution is not to think of peoe as "your" or "my" workers to be doled out goddies if they behave.]
Again just to clarify, Distributism is not Catholic dogma. There are many Catholic economic and social principals which it puts to the forefront however. Which is why I like it. The focus on the family being the highest unit in society and having the means to production in the hands of the family rather than the family BEING the means of production is what I like.
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
I don't like Libertarianism
The following is my comments on an article forwarded to me. It is by a Libertarian who is explaining why he like Libertarianism.
By starting with this obviously false principle, Libertarians allow falseness to permeate the rest of their destructive philosophy. Of course we are not free to do evil, even to ourselves. And of course we all have the duty to obey the natural law and to honor and obey God. This is self evident.
Having said that, I would much, much, much rather have a Libertarian in office than many other alternative options, including our campainer in chiefOsama Obama. I would group libertarianism in the "more of the same" category as all the post French Revolution government styles that talk big about the "rights" of man. Yawn.
They pick and choose from the natural law what they like and what they don't. They talk big about rights, but then choose who gets them. They claim that everyone should be free from coercion of any sort. But their worldview is what the coercion is based on. And yes, my worldview is what my brand of coercion is based on. Mine happens to be correct though.
To them, my family growing up in a godless and wicked Sodom is something that I should not care about because it is other people doing the sodomizing and baby killing. Wrong. No one has the right to do evil. When your neighbor does evil, it affects the community. If possible, he should be prevented from doing the evil. What could be more obvious than that fact?
Libertarians like the guy in the article agree that evil should be coercively stopped in the case of certain crimes (car theft) but not others (sodomy, child-murder). They do this because they define evil differently.
It is not that they do not look to religion to define evil, they just look to their false religion, where man is the highest being, to define evil. So when they point the finger at judgy old Archbishop Dolan, they are pointing at themselves too. Both them and Dolan have a set of rules they wish to coersively conform society to. From my perspective, the difference between them is that Dolan's rules are easy to look up (in Scripture and Tradition), they are consistent, and they conform to the natural law. The guy who wrote this article is just making up his rules as he goes it seems. He states all his opinions as if they are the gospel truth, yet where does he get his opinions from and what authority does he have to impose them on my family? Who knows. But he certainly would love to impose his ideas on my family, that is clear enough.
In his criticism of Dolan he said:
The moral law tells all humans regardless of religion that things like sterilization and murder are wrong. So there can be no "right" or "liberty" to do these things. That would not be liberty but license.
I repeat: That would not be liberty but license.
We have libery to do good. But there can be no liberty to do evil. It is not up to man to decide to grant license to do evil anymore than it is up to him to make the sky green. This is a universal law that does not need to be defended. It just is what it is. Yet this Libertarian is defending people who wish to use abortifacient means of contraception which kill children who are clearly protected by the constitution. So here we have the same old Orwelian situation of equality. "All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others". "All people have equal rights, but some people (women of childbearing age) have more rights than other (unborn) peopl"e. One person is murdering another person with different heart, DNA, fingerprints, brain, and blood type, but somehow in the Libertarian world this is not pissing on another human beings rights to murder them.
He also judgingly criticizes Dolan for judging ...*gasp*... something as immoral. But like I said, it is not Dolan who can declare anything to be moral or immoral. Dolan is simply stating the fact that murder is wrong. "Restricting the availability" of abortifacient contraceptives is akin to a society "restricting the availability" of child porn. Both things are gave evils that have no good use. Unlike an evil like adultery, where the sex is not an evil in itself but the context is evil, pornography and abortifacient contraceptives are evil every time they are used. Unlike something like a gun, which can be used for good or evil, they have no good purpose. Murder is always wrong. Lust is always wrong. Government should protect people from evil regardless of how weak (unborn human life) or strong (wealthy businessman) they are. Instead, what I see from Libertarians is just more of the same "some animals are more equal than others" mentality.
Worst of all, they wrap themselves in the flag of "liberty" and pretend they are not forcing their will upon others. Nothing could be more wrong. Having a society where unborn humans are murdered affects me! Having a society where evil is an allowable option affects me! Even in situations where evil is done seemingly by and to only myself or other willing participants, it is still evil. Allowing it affects the rest of society. Also, in almost every case, Libertarians overlook the unwilling participants. In the case of divorce, they overlook the children and the spouses themselves who are damaged by the divorce. In the case of abortion, they overlook the murdering of innocent children.
A moral society based on the natural law and Distributism is the way to go. Then we can all be, not free to do evil, but truly free.
"We hold that all individuals have the right to exercise sole dominion over their own lives"
By starting with this obviously false principle, Libertarians allow falseness to permeate the rest of their destructive philosophy. Of course we are not free to do evil, even to ourselves. And of course we all have the duty to obey the natural law and to honor and obey God. This is self evident.
Having said that, I would much, much, much rather have a Libertarian in office than many other alternative options, including our campainer in chief
They pick and choose from the natural law what they like and what they don't. They talk big about rights, but then choose who gets them. They claim that everyone should be free from coercion of any sort. But their worldview is what the coercion is based on. And yes, my worldview is what my brand of coercion is based on. Mine happens to be correct though.
To them, my family growing up in a godless and wicked Sodom is something that I should not care about because it is other people doing the sodomizing and baby killing. Wrong. No one has the right to do evil. When your neighbor does evil, it affects the community. If possible, he should be prevented from doing the evil. What could be more obvious than that fact?
Libertarians like the guy in the article agree that evil should be coercively stopped in the case of certain crimes (car theft) but not others (sodomy, child-murder). They do this because they define evil differently.
It is not that they do not look to religion to define evil, they just look to their false religion, where man is the highest being, to define evil. So when they point the finger at judgy old Archbishop Dolan, they are pointing at themselves too. Both them and Dolan have a set of rules they wish to coersively conform society to. From my perspective, the difference between them is that Dolan's rules are easy to look up (in Scripture and Tradition), they are consistent, and they conform to the natural law. The guy who wrote this article is just making up his rules as he goes it seems. He states all his opinions as if they are the gospel truth, yet where does he get his opinions from and what authority does he have to impose them on my family? Who knows. But he certainly would love to impose his ideas on my family, that is clear enough.
In his criticism of Dolan he said:
...but rather he is interested in restricting your liberty by attempting to declare various forms of family planning "immoral" and restricting their availability.
The moral law tells all humans regardless of religion that things like sterilization and murder are wrong. So there can be no "right" or "liberty" to do these things. That would not be liberty but license.
I repeat: That would not be liberty but license.
We have libery to do good. But there can be no liberty to do evil. It is not up to man to decide to grant license to do evil anymore than it is up to him to make the sky green. This is a universal law that does not need to be defended. It just is what it is. Yet this Libertarian is defending people who wish to use abortifacient means of contraception which kill children who are clearly protected by the constitution. So here we have the same old Orwelian situation of equality. "All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others". "All people have equal rights, but some people (women of childbearing age) have more rights than other (unborn) peopl"e. One person is murdering another person with different heart, DNA, fingerprints, brain, and blood type, but somehow in the Libertarian world this is not pissing on another human beings rights to murder them.
He also judgingly criticizes Dolan for judging ...*gasp*... something as immoral. But like I said, it is not Dolan who can declare anything to be moral or immoral. Dolan is simply stating the fact that murder is wrong. "Restricting the availability" of abortifacient contraceptives is akin to a society "restricting the availability" of child porn. Both things are gave evils that have no good use. Unlike an evil like adultery, where the sex is not an evil in itself but the context is evil, pornography and abortifacient contraceptives are evil every time they are used. Unlike something like a gun, which can be used for good or evil, they have no good purpose. Murder is always wrong. Lust is always wrong. Government should protect people from evil regardless of how weak (unborn human life) or strong (wealthy businessman) they are. Instead, what I see from Libertarians is just more of the same "some animals are more equal than others" mentality.
Worst of all, they wrap themselves in the flag of "liberty" and pretend they are not forcing their will upon others. Nothing could be more wrong. Having a society where unborn humans are murdered affects me! Having a society where evil is an allowable option affects me! Even in situations where evil is done seemingly by and to only myself or other willing participants, it is still evil. Allowing it affects the rest of society. Also, in almost every case, Libertarians overlook the unwilling participants. In the case of divorce, they overlook the children and the spouses themselves who are damaged by the divorce. In the case of abortion, they overlook the murdering of innocent children.
A moral society based on the natural law and Distributism is the way to go. Then we can all be, not free to do evil, but truly free.
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
Christmas and Contraception
I just read a great article by Dale Ahlquist at the Distributist Review titled Christmas and Contraception. Lots of great quotes from Chesterton about contraception back in the day.
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