REASONOIDS OF REASON.COM, AMERICA'S CRYPTO-REPUBLICANS

"Imagine, if you will, a country in which government ... embraces things such as gay marriage, drug legalization, and immigration." ~ Nick Gillespie, Leader of Reason.com Reasonoid "Libertarians"

The marketers behind Reason.com and Reason TV, promote Reason.com as "the libertarian magazine of Free Minds and Free Markets." Well known for his 1970s retro TV Fonzie look, as the editor-in-chief of both, Gillespie stands as the living embodiment of all things Reason.




Gillespie advocates for more laws — for more rights and duties — when he champions legalization of gay marriage, drugs, and illegal aliens. Gillespie advocates the stance of progressive liberals and not authentic libertarians. Thus, Gillespie advocates for less liberty. In short, Gillespie cannot be libertarian by definition nor can his followers.

Someone should tell the Reasonoids of Reason.com truth. They are Liberal Progressives falling somewhere between antiquated Rockefeller Republicans and the more recent Clinton New Democrats.

They are not Libertarians. They have yet to awaken to this truth about themselves.

Reasonoids suffer from the equivalent of Stockholm syndrome and thus they defend their cult leader Gillespie. Gillespie has conned his many followers into a cult of crypto Republican progressivism.

In jurisprudence, which is what we're talking about here, liberty means that realm where the law (politicians) is content to leave you alone. Where politicians make laws, there are duties and rights. Always, there can be no right without a corresponding duty and thus no duty without a corresponding right.

Libertarianism boils down to liberty over duty and right. In short, libertarianism means living by fewer laws and thus fewer rights and duties. Adding ever more rights and duties is how you lessen freedom and expand political control over everyone through legal means!

Libertarianism is not anarchism, however. The absence of law in the presence of government is liberty, not anarchy. Anarchy means no government at all. It means without (a) an overlord (archy). In anarchy, anything goes.

Regardless of the cause, any authentic libertarian opposes reduction of liberty and the expansion of rights and duties as the means to fix so-called societal ills. As the authentic libertarian position is liberty over law, the authentic libertarian stance is to rid marriage licensing as a legal determinant for anything, including welfare and taxation. The authentic libertarian stance is to decriminalize drugs. The authentic libertarian stance is to decriminalize illegal immigration. The authentic libertarian stance is to end welfare and subsidy.

More rights and duties means less liberty. If you are for more rights and duties, you cannot  be a libertarian. By supporting more rights and duties, you advocate for bigger government. Most likely, you are free-markets liberal who doesn't like the Democratic Party.

Being an anti-war, pothead, pro-gay champion fails to make anyone libertarian. All the so-called libertarians who chat up on Reason in favor of legalized gay marriage, and legalized drugs are little more than libertines championing the expansion of the size and scope of government. They do so precisely because they are clueless about jurisprudence and all of the attendant concepts of rights, duty, power, liabilities and disabilities.

Giving X authority to decide duties and rights stands opposed to the non-aggression principle (NAP) and thus libertarianism. Granting rights and imposing duties is the anti-thesis of liberty and thus libertarianism. Expanding duties and rights is the polar opposite of liberty and libertarianism.

Anyone who can reason straight can see the bizarro absurdity of these:

"It became necessary to destroy the town to save it." ~ unnamed U.S. officer on Ben Tre, Vietnam War

"I’ve abandoned free market principles to save the free market system." ~ George W. Bush

and

"It became necessary to abandon principles for liberty by supporting expanding rights and duties enforced by government through X in order to save liberty." ~ Typical Clueless American

where X is Obamacare, Gay Marriage, Permanent Residency to Illegal Aliens, and many other pet causes.

Thus, the straight-reasoner should see the equal absurdity of this:

"It became necessary to abandon principles for liberty by supporting expanding rights and duties enforced by government through Obamacare in order to save liberty." ~ Typical Liberal

and this:

"It became necessary to abandon principles for liberty by supporting expanding rights and duties enforced by government through gay marriage in order to save liberty." ~ Typical Pro Gay Marriage Reasonoid

Legalization of gay marriage, drugs, and illegal aliens is the stance of meddlers who believe in forcing individuals to behave according to their Utopoian visions. In America, those meddlers go by the moniker of progressive liberals.

Federalized gay marriage decreases liberty. Federalized gay marriage increases duty and rights. Federalized gay marriage increases to whom authority is granted and to whom capacity is granted.

Gays now have authority to order people to associate with them in commerce. Gays now have capacity to marry in order to secure welfare from politicians.

Authentic libertarians know better. Every victory against liberty no matter how big or small nonetheless is a victory against liberty. Every authentic libertarian opposes marriage licensing as a determinant in legal relationship. From a taxpayer perspective, this one is a huge victory against liberty.

No one should misconstrue the foregoing as an attack on gays, on drug users or on illegal aliens. It's not.

Facts remain. Marriage licenses, passports and prohibition are legal fictions created politicians who impose duties and rights.

Politician-sanctioning of behavior fails to increase freedom. Politician-sanctioning of behavior increases officialdom and their power.

Rather than walking into Utopia, incessant meddling keeps everyone in perpetual Dystopia. We're living in the 21st Century. The goal should be to have the least governance as needed rather than the relentless pursuit of the most governance tolerable.

Reason.com boosts a progressive Republican agenda. In short, Reasonoids stand with the feel-good progressive liberalism of the Democrats — legal gay marriage, legalized illegal immigrants, legalized drugs — as well as with the pro big business, anti-welfare side of the Republicans.

Gillispe and the Reasonoids ought to join Democrats or Republicans since the latter are all about rights and duties. They love telling people what to do and they love granting privileges masquerading as rights in furthering their efforts to gain a permanent lock-hold on power.

Reason.com has nothing to do with authentic libertarianism, except masquerading with the word libertarianism.

Jurisprudence. Learn it.

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LAW VS LIBERTY AND THE AMERICAN WAY.

Because many fail to understand civil jurisprudence, they don't understand the American Way. Most Americans will live from cradle to grave without understanding the system under which they live. 


Most Americans have heard these words — liberties, rights, duties, disabilities, liabilities, wrongs — but only through TV shows and movies or worse from public educators, you know, unionized school marms.

RIGHTWAY ROGER


Government sponsored marriages?  Meh.  There should be no federal or state government sponsored advantage or disadvantage to marriage.  The less government defines us, the more freedom we have. 

ME

Agreed. Law is about making uniform ruling for judges in sorting out matters of duty and right, or that what gets called civil jurisprudence.

If individuals can be held to duty to members of group, there exists only dictatorship. It is the essence of dictatorship — that some can enrich themselves from the outlay of more merely by having membership. 


LOST LEFTY LARRY

Government should keep their noses out of what is essentially a cultural institution.  The only exception is where civil liberties are being violated.

ME

But only government — politicians and bureaucrats — can violate civil liberties.

Liberties are acts of doing what one pleases, acts one can do without being prevented by law. The sphere of legal liberty is that sphere of activity within which law is content to leave oneself alone.  Liberty is when the law allows to one's will a sphere of unrestrained activity. Liberty is the absence of duty imposed upon oneself. Liberty is what you may do innocently.

Right is when law limits the liberty of others on one's behalf. Right is what others must do on your behalf, that is, their duty.

Power is what you can do effectively. Power is when law assists one actively in making one's will effective. 

One uses one's liberties without protest from the law. One enjoy's one's rights through law by controlling the acts of others over one's behalf. One uses one's powers with active assistance from the law in making itself the instrument of one's will. 

Liberties and rights are not the same. Right and power are not the same. These words are not synonyms under law. 

LOST LEFTY LARRY

No, civil liberties can be violated by both public and private entities.

ME

When an overzealous cop stops you from doing something for which there is no law, your civil liberty has been violated. Yet, if someone trespasses on your land, your right has been violated and the trespasser has failed in performing a duty not to trespass. 

If you live next door to Camp Pendleton and while practicing war games, marines wander on your land and blow up your cabin, those marines violated your civil rights but not your civil liberties. The Marines had duty to not trespass.

Say, you are walking on Venice Beach promenade taking pictures of a cop arresting a druggie and the cop tells you to stop and produce identification for which you refuse. Subsequently, on your refusal, the cop arrests you. Your civil liberties have been violated as there are no laws empowering police in California to make you produce I.D.

You are at liberty to be in California without I.D.

Only agents of government can violate your civil liberties. Liberty means absence of law, that which government otherwise has no concern.  

Private entities can violate civil rights, but not civil liberties. Others can violate your rights by failing to do duty to you. For every right there must be a corresponding duty. If you have the right to X, that means, someone else has the duty to perform X or refrain in their behavior from you getting to do X.


LOST LEFTY LARRY

What about the FLSA? Doesn't that protect civil liberties?

ME

FLSA is law and establishes rights and duties.  Law only ever establishes rights and duties. The absence of law is liberty.

FLSA establishes rights to such thing as overtime pay in particular occupations if such occupations involve interstate commerce. Employers have duty imposed upon then to fulfill rights of those granted and established under law, e.g., employers must pay overtime to those who have worked under overtime rules of the FLSA.

Employers who are obligated by law (have duty) to abide by FLSA and failing to comply open themselves to liability, which gives legal remedy to others. 

LOST LEFTY LARRY

Civil liberty is actually defined as the freedom of a citizen to exercise customary rights, as of speech or assembly, without unwarranted or arbitrary interference by the government which is an important distinction.

ME

Customary rights deals with customary law, which is any rule of action to which men voluntarily conform their action. It involves de facto observance. Customary rights of customary law do not have the nature of civil law since the essence of civil law is recognition of a state in the administration of justice.

Civil law, which is custom of the state, to a big extent finds basis on precedent customary law, which is merely custom of society.

Again, the absence of law defines civil liberty. The sphere of legal liberty is that sphere of activity within which law is content to leave oneself alone. Liberty means absence of law, that which government otherwise has no concern. 

LOST LEFTY LARRY

Just wow. The absence of law is the definition of anarchy not liberty. You're a damn anarchist! 

ME

Wow, just wow. The absence of law in the presence of government is liberty, not anarchy. 

Anarchy means no government at all. It means without (a) an overlord (archy). 

Maybe this will help you sort out your beliefs. 

One with disability lacks power to determine the legal relations of others (authority) or the ability  to determine one's own (capacity). When politicians don't establish law giving themselves authority (power) to do X and then do X against anyone, they have violated that one's civil liberty.

Sometimes politicians voluntarily bind their agency to the law, thus imposing duty upon their agents. If their agents fail to do their duty, they have violated the civil rights of others.

So for example, the U.S. adheres to its own employment law, which gives workers rights and imposes duties upon employers, in this case, the U.S. itself.

Anyone has the duty not to commit murder or not to defraud another. Anyone has liability in debt such that another who holds the right of action can sue for collection of said debt. 

In civil law, liability is right of action. In criminal law, liability is right of prosecution. 

Jurisprudence doesn't change because you want to misinterpret it your way.

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