I've read this, and I just listened to the podcast episode where you talk about leaving libertarianism. I'm on a similar journey myself.
You talk above about rights being "always identified in the context of something, and are balanced against other restraints that prevent the society from disintegrating into chaos" and in the podcast I believe it was mentioned that the sovereign or whomever has power is to wield it essentially for the "greater good." Application question: how would you respond to the various covid mandate situations from a few years ago within this frame? Its easy to construct a logical argument based on individual rights, but once you invoke the "greater good" and societal restraints, I'm not sure how you could say the mandates were a violation? Since, in our current context where we don't have power, and society was mostly on-board with the mandates, does that mean they weren't rights violations? Or maybe thinking of it in terms of rights is a bad framing of the issue. Is it just a moral evil? Though I wonder how it can be cast as immoral without appealing to bodily autonomy, which rests upon a rights-based argument.
Thanks for the comment. I plan to write more about that side of things; but had to get this post up first!
The first answer has to do with power: who decides what the common good is? This is why it is important to have good people in power. Power does matter. The law (or natural rights) cannot interpret or apply themselves. It doesn't matter whether your understanding of your rights is correct, what matters is whether those in power are good or bad for you.
Secondly, as I touched on in my main essay just this morning, and will be elaborated in much more detail in the final installment in a week or so, the key to everything is being able to source our definitions of common good in our own heritage. An innovative series of government initiatives (medical totalitarianism) is not rooted, they are the repudiation of our historical rights; and we should be able to lean on that as the legitimization of our arguments.
Your reply makes me wonder how old something needs to be to qualify as heritage? Coming out of the libertarian world the biggest challenge for me is that so much of the alternative just seems somewhat arbitrary, for lack of a better term.
I don’t think age is the only factor. Though as the historicists mentioned in my essay today which stress, the longer something has been around, the more it has proved itself over the Sands of Time.
But I do think the entire 20th century has been an aberration and repudiation of our heritage.
Thank you for sharing your journey. I was there in social media groups with you when you first went down this journey. At the time I couldn’t believe it at all. For a time I feel as if I became an even stauncher libertarian. However, I am not as well read as you or educated but I did start reading Burke and his thoughts on the subject of where rights came from truly started to pry me away from libertarianism.
Excellent essay and well articulated. My path away from libertarianism went down a similar path.
I've read this, and I just listened to the podcast episode where you talk about leaving libertarianism. I'm on a similar journey myself.
You talk above about rights being "always identified in the context of something, and are balanced against other restraints that prevent the society from disintegrating into chaos" and in the podcast I believe it was mentioned that the sovereign or whomever has power is to wield it essentially for the "greater good." Application question: how would you respond to the various covid mandate situations from a few years ago within this frame? Its easy to construct a logical argument based on individual rights, but once you invoke the "greater good" and societal restraints, I'm not sure how you could say the mandates were a violation? Since, in our current context where we don't have power, and society was mostly on-board with the mandates, does that mean they weren't rights violations? Or maybe thinking of it in terms of rights is a bad framing of the issue. Is it just a moral evil? Though I wonder how it can be cast as immoral without appealing to bodily autonomy, which rests upon a rights-based argument.
Thanks for the comment. I plan to write more about that side of things; but had to get this post up first!
The first answer has to do with power: who decides what the common good is? This is why it is important to have good people in power. Power does matter. The law (or natural rights) cannot interpret or apply themselves. It doesn't matter whether your understanding of your rights is correct, what matters is whether those in power are good or bad for you.
Secondly, as I touched on in my main essay just this morning, and will be elaborated in much more detail in the final installment in a week or so, the key to everything is being able to source our definitions of common good in our own heritage. An innovative series of government initiatives (medical totalitarianism) is not rooted, they are the repudiation of our historical rights; and we should be able to lean on that as the legitimization of our arguments.
Thanks! I'm looking forward to the coming essays.
Your reply makes me wonder how old something needs to be to qualify as heritage? Coming out of the libertarian world the biggest challenge for me is that so much of the alternative just seems somewhat arbitrary, for lack of a better term.
I don’t think age is the only factor. Though as the historicists mentioned in my essay today which stress, the longer something has been around, the more it has proved itself over the Sands of Time.
But I do think the entire 20th century has been an aberration and repudiation of our heritage.
Thank you for sharing your journey. I was there in social media groups with you when you first went down this journey. At the time I couldn’t believe it at all. For a time I feel as if I became an even stauncher libertarian. However, I am not as well read as you or educated but I did start reading Burke and his thoughts on the subject of where rights came from truly started to pry me away from libertarianism.
With enough time and reflection, one always recovers from an -ism!
Good essay. Any thoughts on Karl Ludwig von Haller and patrimonialism?
Thank you for sharing this! Very interesting