-Caveat Lector-
Mike Moxley wrote:
Libertarians: The Cult of Liberty
by Mike Moxley
Libertarians claim to be the promoters and defenders of Liberty
in the truest sense of the intentions of the founding fathers
of our nation. Is this so?
To the Libertarian, the ULTIMATE VALUE of Libertarianism is
Liberty, rather than Liberty being the result of a moral
government of, by, and for a moral people.
The morality being based in religious principle. The founders
knew that morality could not exist outside of religious
principle:
"Our Constitution was made only for a moral and
religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the
government of any other."-John Adams
MJ:
morality (me-r�l��-t�, m�-) noun
1. The quality of being in accord with standards of
right or good conduct.
2. A system of ideas of right and wrong conduct: religious
morality; Christian morality.
3. Virtuous conduct.
4. A rule or lesson in moral conduct.
religious (r�-l�j�es) adjective
1. Having or showing belief in and reverence for God
or a deity.
2. Of, concerned with, or teaching religion: a religious
text.
3. Extremely scrupulous or conscientious: religious
devotion to duty.
First you make a Great Leap by labelling the morality 'religious'
and then you posit the Christian ideal on that system of morality.
We could go back and forth with quotes from many of the Founders
and persons of the time, but that would prove quite fruitless in
the pursuit of reality. I will thus limit the scope of my rebuttal
to the Declaration of Independence -- the document which served to
SEVER government and expouse the principle of legitimate government
AND the US Constitution -- which serves to codify this principle.
[If you believe the Bible to be at the core of this nation, kindly
cite the relevant passages which 'translate' to the Constitution.]
Every political system is based upon some code of ethics. The
dominant ethics of mankind's history were variants which subordinated
the individual to some higher authority, either mystical or social.
Consequently, most political systems were variants of the same statist
tyranny, differing only in degree, not in basic principle, limited
only by the accidents of tradition, of chaos, of bloody strife and
periodic collapse. Under all such systems, morality was a code
applicable to the individual, but not to society. Society was placed
'outside' the moral law, as its embodiment or source or exclusive
interpreter -- and the inculcation of self-sacrificial devotion to
social duty was regarded as the main purpose of ethics in man's early
existence [similar to the trends of today's immoral society].
Since there is no such entity as 'society', since 'society' is only
a number of individual men, this meant, in practice, that the rulers
of society were exempt from moral law; subject only to traditional
rituals, they had total power and exacted blind obedience -- on the
implicit principle of: 'the good is that which is good for society
(or for the tribe, the race, the nation), and the ruler's edicts
are its voice on earth.'
This was true of all statist systems. 'The Divine Right of Kings'
summarizes the political theory of the first -- 'Vox populi, vox
dei' of the second. As witness: the theocracy of Egypt, with the
Pharaoh as an embodied god -- the unlimited majority rule or
democracy of Athens -- the welfare state run by the Emperors of
Rome -- the Inquisition of the late Middle Ages -- the absolute
monarchy of France -- the welfare state of Bismarck's Prussia -- the
gas chambers of Nazi Germany -- the slaughterhouse of the Soviet
Union.
All these political systems expressed a common characteristic that
society stood above moral law, as an omnipotent, sovereign, whim
worshiper. Thus, politically, all these systems were variants of
an amoral society.
The most profoundly revolutionary achievement of the United States
of America was the subordination of society to moral law.
The principle of man's individual right's represented the extension
of morality into the social system -- as a limitation on the power
of the state, as man's protection against the brute force of the
collective, as the subordination of 'might to right'. The United
States was the first moral society in history.
All previous sytems had regarded man as a sacrificial means to the
ends of others, and society as an end in itself. The United States
regarded man as an end to himself and society as a means to the
peaceful, orderly, VOLUNTARY coexistence of individuals. All
previous systems had held that man's life belongs to society, that
society can dispose of him in any way that is pleases and that any
freedom he enjoys is his only by favor, by the 'permission' of
society, which may be revoked at any time. The United States held
that man's life is his by RIGHT (which means by moral principle and
by his nature), that a right is the property of the individual, that
society as such has no rights and the only moral purpose of a
government is the protection of individual rights.
A RIGHT is a moral principle defining and sanctioning a man's freedom
of action in a social context. There is only ONE (1) fundamental
right (all others are consequences or corollaries): a man's right to
his own life. Life is a process of self-sustaining and self-generated
action -- which means: the freedom to take all the actions required by
nature of a rational being for the support, the furtherance, the
fulfillment and the enjoyment of his own life. (Such is the
meaning of the right to life, liberty and pursuit of hapiness.)
The concept of a RIGHT pertains only to action -- specifically,
to freedom of action. It means freedom from physical compulsion,
coercion or interference by other men.
Thus, for every individual, a right is the moral sanction of a
positive -- of his freedom to act on his own judgment, for his
own goals, by his own VOLUNTARY, UNCOERCED choice. As to his
neighbors, his rights impose no obligation on them except of a
negative kind: to abstain from violating his rights.
The right to life is the source of all rights -- and the right to
property is their only implementation. Without property rights,
no other rights are possible. Since man has to sustain his life
by his own effort, the man who has no right to the product of his
effort has no means to sustain his life. The man who produces
while others dispose of his product, is a slave.
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 are properly his. -- John Locke, 1690
Bear in mind that the right to property is a right to action, like
all the others: it is not a right to an object, but to the action
and the consequences of producing or earning that object. It is
not a guarantee that a man will earn any property, but only a
guarantee that he will own it if he earns it. It is a right to
gain, to keep, to use and to dispose of material values.
The Declaration of Independence stated that men 'are endowed by
their Creator with certain unalienable rights'. Wether one believes
that man is a product of a Creator or of nature, the issue of man's
origin does not alter the fact that he is an entity of a specific
kind -- a rational being -- that he cannot function successfully
under coercion, and that rights are a necessary condition of his
particular mode of survival.
To violate man's rights means to compel him to act against his own
judgment, or to expropriate his values. Basically, there is only
one way to do it: by the use of physical force. There are two
potential violator's of man's rights: the criminals and the
government. The great achievement of the United States was to draw
a distinction between these two -- by forbidding to the second the
legalized activities of the first.
The Declaration of Independence laid down the principle that 'to
secure these rights, governments are instituted among men'. This
provided the only valid justification of a government and defined
its only proper purpose: to protect man's rights by protecting him
from physical violence.
Thus government's function was changed from the role of ruler to
the role of servant. The government was set to protect man from
criminals and the Constitution was written to protect man from
government. The Bill of Rights was not directed against private
citizens, but against the government -- as an explicit declaration
that individual rights supersede any public or social power.
Note the Constitution and its plainly written language as it spells
out the Powers of the Legislative branch in Article I, Section 8.
ALL of these support the individual RIGHTS ideal identified within
the Declaration of Independence.
As to the purported biblical foundation:
The Declaration of Independence identifies the Law's of Nature,
Nature's God, their Creator ... ALL of which eminate from the
enlightenment ideal of Natural Law. The US Constitution forbids
'religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any
Office or public Trust under the United States' ... and also
assures the free exercise of religion. How would one incorporate
a 'Christian or Biblical Government' without each of the tenets
of the Ten Commandments?
The 'morality' Adams was describing relates to that of Liberty -- an
individual's RIGHT to his own life. The 'religiousity' is the firm
belief in this liberty and an individual's application of his freedom.
Since the 'form' of government was revolutionary in itself, it could
not be 'pulled off' without a religious FAITH in liberty itself.
Regard$,
--MJ
As property, honestly obtained, is best secured by an
equality of rights, so ill-gotten property depends for
protection on a monopoly of rights. He who has robbed
another of his property, will next endeavor to disarm
him of his rights, to secure that property; for when the
robber becomes the legislator he believes himself secure.
- -Thomas Paine, Dissertations on First Principles of Government
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