This blog is dedicated to memory of the “Old Whig,” Friedrich August von Hayek (1899-1992)
Election 2012 Projections
AS OF MAY 16
Presidential election: Romney takes 314-353 electoral votes (270 needed to win).
The GOP gains 1-5 Senate seats, bringing its total to 48-52. With a tie (50 seats), the GOP controls the Senate if the next VP is a Republican.
The GOP gains 1-5 House seats, increasing its majority from 242-193 to between 243-182 and 247-188.
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I welcome general comments about this blog and comments about individual posts. All comments should be sent to: the German nickname for Friedrich followed by the surname of the Austrian economist and Nobel laureate with the given name Friedrich followed by the last two digits of his birth year, all run together without spaces or punctuation, followed by the usual typographic symbol and "gmail.com" (without the quotation marks).
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In any event, I will not mention a correspondent's name unless he or she expressly authorizes me to do so. Even then, I will treat the name as a pseudonym by placing it in quotation marks, unless I have certain knowledge of the correspondent's real name.
On Liberty
What is liberty? It is peaceful, willing coexistence and its concomitant: beneficially cooperative behavior.
John Stuart Mill opined that "the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others." But who determines whether an act is harmful or harmless? Acts deemed harmless by an individual are not harmless if they subvert the societal bonds of trust and self-restraint upon which liberty itself depends.
Which is not to say that all social regimes are regimes of liberty. Liberty requires voice -- the freedom to dissent -- and exit -- the freedom to choose one's neighbors and associates. Voice and exit depend, in turn, on the rule of law under a minimal state.
Liberty, because it is a social phenomenon and not an innate condition of humanity, must be won and preserved by an unflinching defense of a polity that fosters liberty through its norms, and the swift and certain administration of justice within that polity.
The governments of the United States and most States have long since ceased to foster liberty, but Americans are hostage in their own land and have no choice but to strive for the restoration of liberty, or something closer to it.
Notes about usage
"State" (with a capital "S") refers to one of the United States, and "States" refers to two or more of them. "State" and "States," thus used, are proper nouns because they refer to a unique entity or entities: one or more of the United States, the union of which, under the terms and conditions stated in the Constitution, is the raison d’être for the nation. I reserve the uncapitalized word "state" for a government, or hierarchy of them, which exerts a monopoly of force within its boundaries.
The words "liberal," "progressive," and their variants are in quotation marks because they refer to persons and movements whose statist policies are, in fact, destructive of liberty and progress.
Marriage, in the Western tradition, predates the state and legitimates the union of one man and one woman. As such, it is an institution that is vital to civil society and therefore to the enjoyment of liberty. The recognition of a more-or-less permanent homosexual pairing as a kind of marriage is both ill-advised and illegitimate. Such an arrangement is therefore a "marriage" (in quotation marks) or, more accurately, a homosexual cohabitation contract (HCC).
Recent Posts
- Race and Reason: The Victims of Affirmative Action
- Economic Growth Since World War II
- Bleeding Heart Libertarians = Left-Statists
- Election 2012: Another Good Sign (8th Post)
- Reclaiming Liberty throughout the Land
- Combinatorial Play
- Obama and Obamacare: Twin Disasters
- A Man for No Seasons
- Higher Taxes, Higher Government Spending, Slower Economic Growth
- Election 2012: Trending (7th Post)
- More about Luck and Baseball
- Election 2012: There is Hope for Change (6th Post)
- Mysteries: Sacred and Profane
- The Pool of Liberty and “Me” Libertarianism
- Constitutional Confusion
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About the blogroll
Aside from four other blogs of mine (three of them inactive), the blogroll includes only those blogs and news feeds that I read regularly. The roll will change from time to time, as I discover sites that offer fresh perspectives in clear, engaging prose, and as I prune sites that are no longer of interest to me. I do not exchange links.
The inclusion of a blog does not connote endorsement. Several blogs are on the roll because they are provocatively wrong-headed and spur me to write posts in rebuttal.
Society and the State
October 11, 2010
Updated and revised, here.
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Filed under Cultural Commentary, Political Economy & Civil Society Tagged with diversity, society, state