If you want to discuss my philosophy, then you must use my definitions of force and coercion, just as if you want to discuss Kant’s philosophy, you must use his definitions of “analytic” and “synthetic” even though they don’t mean what Joe Blow might think they mean.
Why do you single me out for such a criticism, when it is positively the norm to restrict terms to contexts within their specific domains in every serious academic discussion? I’m not “redefining” coercion when I say that it is initiated force or fraud. I am simply defining it — for the purpose of giving you context within the reference frame of my philosophy.
Is means is, but force does not always mean mass times acceleration.
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Now, you and I both know the difference between lay definitions designed to enlighten people answering questions on Street Smarts, and proper definitions that satisfy the context of their academic usage.{/quote]
Frankly, I didn’t find your definition of “civil libertarian” to be be a “proper definition” that would satisfy the “context of academic usage.” To the contrary, my problem with your definition of “civil libertarian” was that it was overly simplistic and facile – precisely the opposite of what you apparently believe it was. To say civil libertarians believe rights are bestowed (given) by documents and come from (originate from) magistrates is so over-simplistic to be flat-out wrong. As I already said, civil libertarians do not generally concern themselves with where rights come from as a philosophical matter – they are more concerned with defending them. But I am certain that many would take great exception to your assertion that they believe these rights exist only because they have been written down. Writing it down doesn’t make give anything legitimacy, and they would not argue that it does.
I did not and do not take issue with your definition of “libertarian.” Though I do not agree with it, I have been down that road often enough with you to know that there is no profit in attempting to argue the matter with you. I do take issue with your definition of “civil libertarian,” because I think it is wrong.
No, it is not, because your definition states that rights “are bestowed by” documents and “come from” magistrates. This is simply wrong. Again, civil libertarians do not usually get into where the rights come from originally, but they would certainly not agree that they come from documents.
Sure, but “guaranteed by law” doesn’t mean the same as “comes from documents.” The fact that law is documented doesn’t mean that law is a document, and nothing but a document. Surely you see that.
Again, I am not a civil libertarian; I have significant philosophical problems with the ACLU that would preclude including me in that category. But just because I don’t agree with some of the work they do, that doesn’t mean I think the philosophical underpinnings of that work should be misrepresented.
Because you are attempting to justify your philosophy within the context of my world (i.e. that shared reality in which us other few billion humans exist). Those terms which you so blithely and “simply” define —differently than any English lexicological source defines them— are terms describing human action; they are not specialized jargon invented by the tiny subset of humanity which self-identifies as “libertarian”.
It would be more accurate to say that the opinions of the ACLU are, for the most part, a subset of liberal thought. The ACLU concerns itself primarily with matters that are related in a clear way to civil rights, but rarely or not at all with such issues as welfare, health care, or taxation. Moreover, they do not agree with the “standard” liberal position on all issues–witness the ACLU’s opposition to campaign finance reform on free-speech grounds.
Of course, my statement was a gross generalization, with the inherent problems that entails, but lets look a little closer:
I think it is safe to say that over 90% of elected Democrats (usually self-styled liberals) support the drug war. That’s pretty pervasive. Sure, I made that statistic up; I doubt it’s far off, though.
Also, the anti-hate speech movement is almost totally comprised of liberals, thus my statement. But to be fair, I suppose the anti-hate speech movement is really a subset of liberals, and many liberals truly do stand for free speech (except when it comes to campaign contributions and political ads, of course, in which case liberals are uniformly against free political speech). The anti-porn movement is comprised of both conservatives and feminist liberals (Camille Paglia aside).
As Ted Nugent once said (paraphrased): “Of course I’m for free speech. We have to know where the idiots are.”
Nah, though it is reasonable to put them on the left of the spectrum the anti porn feminists explicitly reject liberalism. Along with many modern race theorists they tend to view liberalism’s legal equality as window dressing and a denial of reality.
With the de-emphasis of “common law”, the prevailing judicial tradition is (to the best of my knowledge) “if it’s not documented, it doesn’t exist”. If this is true, then rights granted by law only exist to the extent that they’re documented.
If our legislators “accidentally” created a loophole in the Bill of Rights, I think that you’re arguing that the right would only exist outside of the loophole. Mistake or not, the right is what the law says it is.
What I believe is legally accepted (as implied by the 14th Amendment) is that these fundamental rights have their own existence, and the Bill of Rights merely recognizes them.
That depends on what we’re talking about. If we’re talking about crimes, for example, the will of the people as passed by the legislature will be reflected in documents – specifically, in the statutes and codes. But that doesn’t mean that, if the legislature outlaws murder and then every single copy of the law as passed is destroyed, it still isn’t illegal to murder. It is. But codified law (that is, law that has been reduced to statutes and codes) certainly is, definitionally, reflected in a body of documents (the self-same statutes and codes.
Rights are a different thing. The rights that we have and that are guaranteed by the Constitution do not come from the Constitution; they are merely written down there. There is no codified or statutory body of law interpreting the Constitution – it is what you probably would consider “common law” – that is, judicially interpreted, not passed by a legislative body. The judges interpret the scope of the right, but they do not “invent” the right, and LIB’s definition was incorrect to the extent it implied that they do.
Legislators cannot “create” a “loophole” in the Bill of Rights; they can only pass enactments that are subject to challenge on Constitutional grounds. Then judges decide if the law is constitutional or unconstitutional, by interpreting the right as it already exists. At least, that’s what they say they are doing. Now, you may well have some judges who say a law is constitutional and some other judges who say the exact same law is not constitutional (as frequently happens at the Supreme Court), and obviously both sides cannot be right. But neither side would agree that it’s position is an “invention;” rather, both sides will argue that their interpretation of the right (or law) in question is the correct one.
Of course. The Bill of Rights serves not to set forth the rights you have (not “you can do X, you can do Y, you can do Z”) but rather to limit the government’s ability to infringe on pre-existing rights (“the government can’t do X, the government can’t do Y, the government can’t do Z”). Certainly the Bill of Rights does not assert that it creates rights, or that rights exist only because the founders said they did. To the contrary, the founders held that rights came from God (" . . . that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights . . .").
So you’re saying that there is no distinction between Libertarians and civil libertarians with respect to the “origin” of rights? That both groups believe that rights exist independent of their codification into law?
BTW, I’m fully aware that today’s legislators can’t change the BoR (except through an amendment). James Madison, a couple of hundred years ago, could have.
That’s a good point. They are more focused than liberals in general.
I would amend that to “matters that it believes are related to civil rights”. It has a rather expansive idea of what is a civil right, such as affirmative action and voting even if you don’t have an ID.
Actually, a search on both welfare and health care will yield many articles from their site, although they focus mainly on the civil liberties aspects. As for taxes, I don’t think that’s a traditional liberal issue, except for the fact that liberal policies tend to demand more taxes as a side effect.
There are a few cases where they disagree with the majority of liberals, but it is usually on the basis of other liberal princples: for instance, liberals tend to support free speech, so there is a liberal basis for opposing CFR. Also, notice that McCain, a Republican, has been a major proponent of CFR. This is an issue where both sides are split.
I would amend your amendment. In some areas their ideas are expansive, in other ways curiously lacking. To the best of my knowledge, the ACLU defends the following Amendments
[ul]
[li]1st (in sometimes perverse ways, taking the broadest imaginable stance)[/li][li]Part of the 4th (ignoring seizures, though)[/li][li]5th [/li][li]6th[/li][li]plus voting rights[/li][/ul]
Curiously lacking are #2 and #10. When I asked the director of the state chapter about #2, she told me that the ACLU subscribes to the “collective rights” theory, an odd liberal interpretation that flies in the face of the other Amendment’s wording.