The Treasure Coast Friends of Freedom

I thought it would be nice to have a place for liberty minded folks on and around Florida's Treasure Coast to get together on an informal basis. Sign up to the group, we'll have you over one evening, throw some dead animal on the grill and crack open a few cold ones. It'll be a great opportunity to hang out with people that won't look at you like you're a Martian when you say what you believe.

GM Introduces the car for the 2010 depression -

The all new Chevrolet Descent.

At GM we're learning from our successes as well as our mistakes. Our slightly smaller engineering team started the Descent from a clean slate. They then compiled two lists of design elements and features, both positive and negative and carefully weighed them against such factors as whether or not consumers would value them and could afford them, and such as safety, durability, simplicity and ease of maintenance.

Exotic light weight materials which disintegrate on impact requiring high tech devices like air bags were removed and replaced with strong and inexpensive steel. Components which could not easily and cost effectively be repaired by the average person using a standard Sears 64 Piece tool set, were also ruled out. This eliminated the computer which governed everything from the stereo and door locks to the electronic fuel control and ABS brakes. In fact, all of the automated systems were removed. Our highly skilled team of engineers was even able to find a way to replace the power windows with an ingenious crank handle system conveniently located on the inside of the door just below the window,... and those hard to get to and expensive to replace quartz halogen headlights? On the all new Chevrolet Descent, we've replaced those with sealed beam headlights. Just a few turns of a #2 Phillip's head screwdriver and a quick pull on the three prong plug and you're ready to reinstall and hit the road.

The Descent's engine is a 170 horse power cast iron straight six cylinder engineered with durability and simplicity in mind. We've installed a fuel efficient two barrel carburetor, which can easily be rebuilt in an afternoon while watching the game and downing a few cold ones, (alleviating those headaches caused when the $700 electronic fuel computer leaves you stranded
and calling a tow truck.)

But the best feature of the Chevrolet Descent is the price. By simplifying and standardizing the components and eschewing all of the other superfluous encumbrances
mandated by our fascist government,
(and hiring employees who will actually work for less than
70 bucks an hour),
we are able to bring you the all new
Chevrolet Descent for only

$4995

The 2010 Chevrolet Descent
designed for today's depression era family,...

... rolling back almost fifty years of mistakes.
(Now if we can just get the government to roll back a hundred of them.)

Rights 101

I believe the most important tool for any task is knowledge. Without knowledge, the ability to successfully complete any task is only guesswork, trial and error, and luck. This includes the arduous task of defending rights.

There are two main factors responsible for the constant struggle of defending rights. One is human nature. Mankind has a built in inclination to obtain that which he wants and needs for the least possible amount of personal effort. This attitude is generally negatively referred to as laziness, however the inclination is morally neutral and produces both positive and negative consequences depending on the actions employed as the means to those ends. To some, this means fitting their concept of rights to suit their needs. The second factor is the nebulous and subjective definitions which people have in regard to rights. People will purposely or subconsciously make their definition of rights elastic to suit their desires. Others, without an objective, consistent concept of rights, are simply easily misled.

I have three dictionaries in the house. My favorite is the oldest one. (I would suggest that every home be equipped with a dictionary that is at least thirty years old.) In them, they attribute several meanings to the noun "right" but as it would be used pertaining to the concept of rights, they tend beat around the bush and don't get around to the meat of the word and the attributes which would separate it from "privilege."

Coming to an understanding of a correct and consistent concept of rights took time for most of us. And it's easier to have such an understanding than it is to relate that understanding to others in a concise manner.

That said, I'd like you to consider taking the time and effort to formulate a definition of rights which is correct, objective, consistently applicable and concise.

The question is, "What are rights?" I believe the following questions will assist in formulating the answer.


From whence do rights come?


To whom do rights belong?


What human actions can be applied to rights? (Or what can one human do in regard to rights, such as respect, violate, waive, transfer, defend...)


What human actions cannot be applied to rights?

To what do rights apply?


What is the difference between a right and a privilege?


Why is a concept of rights necessary?



right(s): n,

My own thoughts on these are;

From whence do rights come? I am a Christian, therefore my answer is theistic in nature. God granted mankind individual rights and is also the only one who can take them away. They are part of His gift of grace which sustains our every breath of life. They exist as part of nature and act in harmony with the laws of nature just as surely as the laws of physics. For the non-theist, consider them as part and parcel of the equilibrium of the natural world.

To whom do rights belong? Rights belong to individual human beings. They do not belong to groups of human beings or plants or animals or society or the Earth.

What human actions can be applied to rights? People can own rights, exercise them, defend them, respect them, transfer them, waive them, abdicate them or violate them, just to name a few.

What human actions cannot be applied to rights? This question is, in my opinion, more important than the last. People cannot grant rights or take them away. They are the inherent property of each individual regardless of his ability to exercise them due to natural limitations or the degree to which they are violated. I believe this is essential to rights for if they can be granted or taken away by men then they are not rights at all, rather they are privileges.

To what do rights apply? Rights are applicable to every form of human interaction. They have to do with what individuals may and may not do, not with what they can and cannot. They do not apply to God who, as creator of all, can snuff out the whole lot of us and justly so. They do not apply to nature. plants and animals do not have rights, nor can they violate your rights, neither can gravity, lightening, hurricanes, floods, or any other natural circumstances which deprive us of our ability to exercise our rights. We are at the mercy of God and nature. The loss of ones rights due to thirst, drowning, starvation, cancer, lightening strike, etc., does not constitute a violation thereof. Only human beings can have rights. Only human beings can violate them.

This brings us to the very important distinction between rights and privileges. Privileges can be granted and taken away by human beings. Privilege is a transfer of the exercise of a right from one individual to another and can also be granted to groups of individuals from the individual members of another. However, legitimate privilege can only be granted by the owner of the right associated with that privilege. Illegitimate privilege is when a third party, such as government by granting privileges, thus violating the rights of one individual, or group, for the benefit of others. A second important distinction is that privilege can be conditional. You may give me the privilege of using your pencil, so long as I don't write dirty words with it and I bring it back sharp. You may use the government's parks, schools and roads so long as you don't bring alcohol or glass containers, don't paint your name on the buildings, wear your seat belts, don't exceed the posted limits, pick up your pet waste, don't bring your defensive weapons and be home before curfew. Rights are absolute and never conditional. Conditions placed on the exercise of rights are violations of those rights regardless of their extent or good intentions.

What are rights? They are the fulcrum of equal justice, the balance of each individual's life, liberty and property against violations by all other individuals. I may not steal from you because you may not steal from me. I may not take your life, because you may not take mine. You may not enslave me, because I may not enslave you. You may not defraud me, because I may not defraud you. All the good intentions in the world, regardless of the number of individuals or governments you can get to back these violations of rights will never legitimize them.

See also this article by Robert Higgs:
http://www.fee.org/publications/the-freeman/article.asp?aid=1088

Please send your replies to:

http://bryandmorton.blogspot.com/2008/03/rights-101.html

Peace, freedom, justice and prosperity,

Bryan Morton

Putting God in His Place

If God was all powerful, He could make a stone so big that He Himself couldn't lift it, but if He can't lift it then He can't be all powerful. Gee, that was original. How many times have we heard people try to describe God in our limited little human terms? The logic problem above is a matter of physics, having to do with gravitational forces on mass and the energy required to increase the the altitude of said mass, blah, blah, blah... So, is God lifting this stone from the Earth, the moon, Pluto??? What if the stone's so big that when God flexes, the stone remains stationary and the place where God is standing moves? Does that still count? It's all rather silly if you think about it. Before any human ever even considered the laws of physics, God had created them. Physics and the laws of nature simply did not exist before God called them into being. And yet, we think we can think God out of existence with our applied ignorance.

Our concept of eternity seems pretty limited as well. As human beings, our experience teaches us that everything has a start and an end. Therefore, the concept of eternity can be difficult to comprehend. Here again, we must understand that time, as we know it, was also a creation of God. Eternity isn't an unending continuation of time, but a complete lack of time altogether. We must be able to imagine existing in a state where the progression of time as we know it, simply doesn't exist.

I wouldn't say that using logic is a bad thing, but that trying to bind God and His abilities to the laws of physics, human logic or understanding can lead to an inability to know God.

What started me on this post was this article;

http://www.newwest.net/citjo/article/strange_bedfellows_libertarians_and_conservative_christians/C33/L33/

Putting it in a nutshell with apologies to the author if I mutilate it, his perspective is that libertarian Christian is an oxymoron. His assertion is that to be libertarian one must believe in free will and that to be a Christian one must believe that everything is preordained by God which means we can't have free will. This "either, or" requirement is human logic which simply cannot be used as a yardstick for determining what is or isn't possible for God. Can God know everything that will happen for eternity and/or even be directing those actions while still allowing for those actions to be performed by each individual's conscience choices? Absolutely. I don't understand how, but my lack of understanding doesn't automatically negate the possibility.

My humble advice; Don't limit your understanding of God by limiting Him to your understanding.

Rights have as much to do with what you may not do as what you may.

You may not violate my negative rights, (life, liberty and property), because I may not violate yours. Notice that rights really have nothing to do with what one can do and everything to do with what one may do. The ability to do or obtain something is not synonymous with the right to it, nor does having the right automatically guarantee or entitle you to it. You have the ability to steal, murder, enslave and defraud others, but this does not mean you have that right. You have the right to life but that does not guarantee you protection from drowning or shark attack if you fall into the ocean, nor does it obligate anyone else to jump in or throw you a life preserver. You have the right to liberty but that doesn't mean someone else has to provide you the means of expressing yourself or a rope should you loose your liberty by falling down a well, nor does it mean you may trespass or do whatever you feel like while exercising the privilege of being on someone else's property. You have the right to property. In fact, your life and your liberty are yours and therefor fall under the umbrella of property. Your right to property, like the others, is not a guarantee. Your right to obtain property only extends to that property which you obtained without anyone else's rights being violated in the process. To illustrate that, I'll choose a popular fallacy. Here in the United Socialist States of America you have, "the right to an attorney." Somewhere along the road that mutated into, "you have the right to have the state use coercive force to violate someone else's property rights in order to supply you with an attorney." If we were honest, we'd call a spade a spade and change that to, "The state has granted you the privilege of an attorney by stealing the necessary funds from others." And where did the state get the right to appropriate those funds? They didn't. They granted themselves that privilege through the only means the state has; the fraudulently legalized monopoly on the use of force. Their toolkit for sustaining that monopoly includes only four tools; murder, theft, slavery, and fraud. Without these, the state would literally cease to exist.

Government - Size matters. So does power and selfishness.

I sometimes feel like the faerie tale cobbler and wish that elves would sneak in by night and write my blog. Away from the computer, I can think the most beautifully eloquent thoughts, but upon sitting in front of it those thoughts seem to turn into incomprehensible primitive grunts bearing little resemblance to my original line of thinking. One of the subjects of which I have a great many convictions is government. I express myself so poorly in this area that most people who know me might even say I'm anti-government. Nothing could be further from the truth. I can place some of the blame for this on word usage. Government is a very general term which has become synonymous with "The State." I've read many anti-state articles where the word government is substituted in places where The State would be much more appropriate. Attempting to establish a definition of government can be a daunting task. Dictionary.com renders the definitions listed here;

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/government

and thesaurus.com gives us all of these;

http://thesaurus.reference.com/browse/government

So what is it anyway? Boiled down, it's the act of governing. Oh, thanks Einstein. How 'bout something we don't know. OK, then, what does it mean to govern?

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/govern

http://thesaurus.reference.com/browse/govern

Something in that first definition is very interesting. "to rule over by right of authority." So the first thing to establish might be whether or not the "government" in question even has the right of authority. What is a right? Where do you get one? Rights can be as difficult to explain as gravity. Hard to point to and say, "There it is," but if it's taken away you recognize that it's gone pretty dang quickly. I was trying to explain to someone last week the objectiveness of the existence of rights. He wasn't going to accept my argument until I could tell him where they came from. He didn't acknowledge the existence of a creator nor would he listen long enough for me to explain rights as they exist in nature. It was his contention that rights only exist because some human granted them. Of course, if people give people rights then people can take people's rights away just as quickly and if rights can be given and taken then they are subjective and cease to be rights at all. Rights must be inherent. They must be part of the state of nature or else they do not exist at all. In fact, so called rights which can be granted and taken away by people are actually not rights at all. They are privileges, sometimes referred to as "positive rights" because they require positive action on the part of someone else for their existence. As opposed to actual rights or "negative rights" which require nothing to exist except that no other person violates them. Human beings or groups of human beings cannot give or taken away rights. Humans can exercise, ignore, respect, defend, violate, subjugate, and voluntarily transfer rights but can not call them into or out of existence. So where does that leave us with respect to government? The exercise of the right to govern must only exist in the individual except that he grant someone else the privilege to govern him voluntarily and also retain the right to withdraw that privilege. At times government comes as the result of an exercise of privilege. (You may use my pencil, but you may not write dirty words with it.)

Legitimate governance can be granted through various routes. Self governance is the simplest example. Some governance comes as the result of one family member's dependency on another. If I have the privilege of living under Daddy's roof and consuming the fruit of his labor, then he has the right, within reason, to govern my actions. Some governance is by mutual agreement. An employer/employee has the right to dictate guidelines. I will work for you as long as you pay me an ounce of gold per week. You may work for me as long as you wear a clean shirt and don't spit on the customers. Voluntary association is very important. I remember asking an old friend, "What's the difference between a cult and a religion?" He replied, "The difference lies in the degree of difficulty involved in leaving." Friendship, church, the Moose Lodge, all have aspects of governance, sometimes articulated, sometimes just understood, but when violated, one must retain the right to disassociate.

It becomes obvious that the larger the entity, the more difficult it becomes to simply walk away. Sometimes it's not even an option. As the circle widens the association between the governor and the governed must, by nature become less voluntary and the degree of force used to maintain that association increase, and enter what we call, "The State."

Watch this and I'll continue this later...

http://www.isil.org/resources/introduction.swf

Peace,
Bryan

Veggie Tales teaching Libertarianism

Are Veggie Tales libertarian as well as Christian? I don't think they're supposed to be, but it's got to be pretty hard to make Christian videos that teach kids how God wants us to treat each other without accidentally teaching libertarianism at the same time. Our son, Fletcher, has an abundant Veggie Tales library. Most of them are based on Old Testament stories and a good percentage of the Old Testament was God trying to teach us to depend on Him rather than trying to do things ourselves. Man's desire to replace God with something more to his own liking is as old as Adam and Eve. There are many occasions in the Old Testament where man has wanted Earthly governments. In the book of Samuel, God spells out exactly what will result from their request. " Samuel told all the words of the LORD to the people who were asking him for a king. He said, "This is what the king who will reign over you will do: He will take your sons and make them serve with his chariots and horses, and they will run in front of his chariots. Some he will assign to be commanders of thousands and commanders of fifties, and others to plow his ground and reap his harvest, and still others to make weapons of war and equipment for his chariots. He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers. He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive groves and give them to his attendants. He will take a tenth of your grain and of your vintage and give it to his officials and attendants. Your menservants and maidservants and the best of your cattle ^[b] and donkeys he will take for his own use. He will take a tenth of your flocks, and you yourselves will become his slaves. When that day comes, you will cry out for relief from the king you have chosen, and the LORD will not answer you in that day."

I don't think the writers of Veggie Tales have tackled that one yet but they have made videos from the book of Daniel. One, specifically about Daniel not obeying the government's decrees and God rescuing him and another, about Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, called "Rack, Shack and Benny," who also obeyed God rather than government, although sadly in the Veggie Tales version, Nebuchadnezzar is represented as the owner of a chocolate bunny factory and it's never explained how he gained the ability to exercise the use of force over his employees. Another interesting government scheme is portrayed in the story of Joseph, or as Veggie Tales calls it, "The Ballad of Little Joe." Unfortunately, Veggie Tales skips over one of the most important aspects of the story. Joseph tells the government,( Pharaoh), about the impending famine, so the government confiscates all the grain in the kingdom. When the famine hits, the government's real agenda rears its ugly head. The government doesn't just give the grain back, it sells it back, first for the people's gold, then for the people's livestock, then he takes their land and then, to avoid starvation, they trade for grain the last thing they have, their freedom. And the rest is History until Moses comes along.

My favorite Veggie Tale isn't based on an Old Testament story. It's called "Lyle, the Kindly Viking." We should all know how the political structure of the Vikings went. They had the troops, the boats, weapons and the understanding of how great life could be if they just plundered the fruits of everyone else's labor instead of earning it themselves. Our little Viking hero, Lyle, doesn't think that's the right thing to do, but being a Viking he has an entitlement to his share of the booty. He takes personal responsibility seriously and, instead of resigning himself to his situation, he gets in his little boat and gives his share of the loot back to the people from which it was taken. I'd love to see someone remake Lyle, the Kindly Viking into Ron Paul, the Kindly Politician. They wouldn't have to change much.

It seems that you can't teach Bible stories honestly to children without teaching the lessons of libertarianism at the same time. There are simply too many parallels that can't be ignored. The basic libertarian principles just sound way too much like, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not bear false witness, Put not your faith in rulers, Love thy enemies, and Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Maybe it's time that US Christians, who have put their faith in the men of government, (the Kingdoms of this world), and who idolize the nation-state, started exercising some childlike faith instead. Let's live dangerously, sit too close to the TV and watch some Veggie Tales.