From: gmw0622@rigel.tamu.edu (Mr. Grinch)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian
Subject: Re: Labelling laws.
Date: 17 Dec 1992 13:11 CST
Organization: GrinchCo
Distribution: world
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In article <1gnl5rINNlop@armory.centerline.com>, mrh@centerline.com (Mike Huben) writes...
 >In article <1992Dec15.093330.28514@genie.slhs.udel.edu> starr@genie.slhs.udel.edu (Tim Starr) writes:
 >>In article <1gioqmINNhlr@armory.centerline.com> mrh@centerline.com (Mike Huben) writes:
 >>}Your "evidence" is merely an appeal to authority at best.  What else does
 >>}name-dropping of Nobel Prizewinners constitute?
 >>
 >>Direct refutation of the claim that libertarians include nothing more than
 >>century-old cranks and arguments.
 > 
 >I notice you change my claim to make it fit your argument better.  My claim
 >was that "libertarians... have nothing but old, discredited arguments made
 >more than a hundred years ago by cranks and laughed at even then."
 > 
Libertarian arguments have not been discredited,  and the fact that you 
consider some of the people to have held them to be "cranks" does nothing to
discredit them.  The fact that certain nobel prize winning economists advocate 
economic policies similar to that advocated by libertarians does not establish 
them as correct,  but it clearly refutes your claim that these ideas are
"discredited". 

 >>Note the introduction of a qualification on the claim: now for there to be
 >>any libertarian arguments not made by century-old cranks, the arguments
 >>must be "uniquely" libertarian.  This is nonsense, Mike, pure sophistry.
 > 
 >You sound just like a Marxist proclaiming that all science is the product
 >of the proletariat.  I'm sorry, but you simply cannot claim any parts of
 >economic science you want are libertarian, just as creationists can't
 >claim parts of geology are creationist.  If they claim theory of
 >sedimentation under Biblical flood conditions: that's DISTINCTLY creationist.

Libertarianism isn't a religion,  there is no libertarian cannon.  YOU seem
to be making the claim that libertarians are clearly wrong about everything,
and if they seem to be right about anything it doesn't count because there
is at least one non-libertarian who feels that way also.  By your criteria,
any libertarian doctrine that is shown to have any merit instantly ceases
to be libertarian.  No wonder you think they're wrong about everything!  


 > 
 >>What example?  I missed it.
 > 
 >Here is the example Spooner argument I refuted.  (paraphrased) "Why should
 >I be contractually bound by the consititution?  The people who wrote it and
 >signed it are all dead".


But that is not Spooner's argument at all.  A more correct paraphrase would be 
"I neither signed it myself nor gave anyone else the authority to sign it on 
my behalf".  He certainly would have felt no more bound by the Constitution if 
some of the signers were still living!  The fact that the signers were long
dead was only relevant to his argument that NO ONE living had consented to the
Constitution (not strictly true,  there  are people that have explicitly 
consented to be governed by the Constitution,  but most people never do).


 > My response was: "Do all the contracts signed by
 >a corporate officer become unenforceable when that officer dies?  Hardly.
 >The whole purpose of organizations is to allow contracts and other interaction
 >independent of particular individuals."
 >

Which is a fine response to your incorrect paraphrase,  but has nothing to do
with Spooner's actual arguments,  nor any arguments made by modern 
libertarians.  What you seem to want is the equivalent of the English & French
to respect a treaty made by Spain and Portugal.

> 
>Mike Huben
> 
Mr. Grinch
Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian