The Questionable Label of 'Libertarian'

The Questionable Label of 'Libertarian'

Part 2 of 22, from Exiting the Wizard's Circle of Economics
Previewed at CORRESPONDENCE THEORY (updated here)

Now sure, I can see how a couple of my tweets could lead someone to think I sound "Libertarian", as with noting that von Mises & Hayek were correct in what they had to say about many technical aspects of an economy - especially as regards inflation. But as I'd quickly replied to not only deny that I was, but also followed it up by noting that where those two strayed from the narrower technicalities of their economic fields - as with Mises philosophical trainwreck of 'On Human Action' - their ideas become muddled and even harmful to liberty, and that their fellow traveler, Murray Rothbard, was, IMHO, an absolute crank and an overt threat to liberty (what any criticism rests upon is what 'liberty' is defined as, which should involve a lot of questions, which, IMHO, libertarians too often assume, rather than ask, and are usually inadequately answered. We'll touch on those questions down below).

xTwitter'rs tell me:
"...You advocate for a limited government that refrains, entirely, from intervening in the economy. The state is primarily concerned with "protecting individual rights", limited to ensuring personal and property security etc. This aligns with libertarianism..."

At that point, if they were looking to identify what I was thinking, rather than trying to contain it, you'd think they might question the appropriateness of their labels, but nope.

Their intentions became doubly questionable for anyone who looks just a bit further into the reasons for my positions - which my xTweeter's claimed to have done - which will reveal numerous passages from posts that I've blogged over the last 15 years (such as this series of posts), to the effect that:

• the futility of treating liberty as utility,
• that treating 'choice' as a principled decision is juvenile,
• that voting libertarian in a general election is generally unprincipled,
• that Intellectual Property is the root of all Property and Copyright Law strengthens individual rights and property rights and results in a boon to inventor and society alike (in principle, if not always in practice),

Those are just some of many problems I have with 'Libertarianism', and trying to label me as a Libertarian is not only something that just won't stick, but any libertarian who bothered looking past their label's positions, and into the reasons for them that've led me to not trust our Liberty with 'Libertarians', would leave most of them looking my way and saying 'Nope, he's not with us!'.

It doesn't take many questions to find that the answers given are too shallow to support what they claim to explain. Take the aggressively casual truism that libertarian's state as an unquestionably self-evident presumption, that 'taxation is theft!' (what's your reaction to that statement? Hold that thought), and if you do question it, you're typically labeled as a statist. And as that sounds a lot like an answer that's intended to kill off our questions... let's ask a few:

• Q: What is Theft? A: Taking what you have no permission or right to.
• Q: What is Taxation? A: The usual means of funding govt.
• Q: What defines theft, protects against it, and provides the means of punishing those who steal? A: Govt is the public's means of defining the laws that apply to all, the means of enforcing and adjudicating them, as well as the means of defending the nation's borders, etc.,

And so given the very real values that good government (with 'good' being a rare and essential qualifier) provides - without which a Free Market could not exist - it would seem that there's at least a case to be made against the statement that taxation as such, is theft. And isn't there a question about what label best fits those who'd seek to partake of the benefits that good govt enables, while evading or refusing to fund the means of sustaining them?

I'm not arguing for either an answer or against 'Libertarianism' here, but only to point out that there are questions that should be considered before asserting that the 'science is settled!' on what has been labeled as the answer.

Yes, there are unjust forms of taxation (income tax comes to mind, property tax too), and yes you could easily have a govt staffed with thieves - but that problem has more to do with the form of govt, the people who formed it, and those they staffed it with, than with the means of funding what it cannot exist without. Taxes aren't the problem, what they're used for, is. Taxation is a means (what other means there may or may not be, is a question worth pursuing) to an end, but it's the nature of that end, that warrants more of your attention, than does the standard means of getting there.

Those questions, and what becomes understood through pursuing them, is what will be developed as we go in this post, but what I want to point out at this point, is that whether muttered in stompy-footed exasperation, or stated as an actual position, the least important aspect of the libertarian truism that 'taxation is theft!', is whether or not the statement itself is true or false. Not only does focusing on such positions minimize the very real evil that is likely to have prompted the sentiment in the first place, but by diverting our attention from the greater issues facing us, such answers effectively abort a number of questions that libertarians, and other political and economic labels and labelers, are exceedingly uncomfortable with raising.

I think that's worth noticing.

Almost the last person of consequence to take notice and identify what those greater issues facing us are, was Calvin Coolidge, who did so up through the early 1920s. By beginning from the perspective of what the purpose of Government is - to preserve and defend the liberty of its people - he wasn't diverted by the less consequential aspects of how government obtains its funding, and so was focused instead upon what government was doing with its citizen's money, and why. And with that perspective in mind, it follows that the only actions that government can legitimately use its citizens tax dollars for, is to serve its central purpose, and that any other actions it takes, would necessarily be working against that purpose, and its citizens.

What that perspective also readily reveals, is that when the citizenry feel that taxation has become a burden to them, it's most likely because their government has betrayed its purpose by doing what it should not do, which means that, as Coolidge clarified in his speech back in 1924, your government is transforming itself into an instrument of tyranny:

"...A government which lays taxes on the people not required by urgent public necessity and sound public policy is not a protector of liberty, but an instrument of tyranny. It condemns the citizen to servitude. One of the first signs of the breaking down of free government is a disregard by the taxing power of the right of the people to their own property. It makes little difference whether such a condition is brought about through the will of a dictator, through the power of a military force, or through the pressure of an organized minority. The result is the same. Unless the people can enjoy that reasonable security in the possession of their property, which is guaranteed by the Constitution, against unreasonable taxation, freedom is at an end. The common man is restrained and hampered in his ability to secure food and clothing and shelter. His wages are decreased; his hours of labor are lengthened...."

, which is a far more consequential issue than theft.

Now you tell me, when I asked you to check your reaction to the 'taxation is theft!' statement above, was that the kind of issue that entered your mind... or was your attention focused on the lesser issue of theft?

See what I mean?

There are similar issues with most other political/economic labels as well, such as the other Big Two Political labels, Liberal and Conservative, beginning with the labels themselves:

• If what was actually meant by 'Liberal' still meant those who value individual rights/property rights, the Rule of Law, and upholding liberty for the individual within society, I'd label myself as that myself. But as those are no longer thought of or practiced as being anything fundamental to the positions that a modern 'Liberal' holds (advocating for 'hate speech' laws as our current leftists do, torpedo's that notion), their label doesn't even begin to identify with what I understand my positions to be. At. All. SoOooo... nope there as well.


• Similarly with 'Conservative' - while I very much value conserving those principles that the West in general, and America in particular, are founded upon, as the 'Conservative' label today embraces other positions that are antithetical to those foundational principles (*saving* Social Security, *reforming* education, *improving* the economy), leaves me as a big nope on that label too.

Yes, politics often requires us to agree on positions while differing on each other's reasons for them. Fact. But behaving as if those various positions are in meaningful agreement, is the practice of tossing a Ptolemaic epicycle onto the discussion, which inevitably serves to produce a slew of question killing answers.

Whether or not anyone agrees with my thinking is not the issue here, the point is to notice that when a person's thinking does not agree with the labels being applied to them - we should ask ourselves why those labels are being applied. And if the labeler shifts into affixing another label, based upon another position that's been taken, while pointedly looking no further into the reasons given for those positions... that's a case of using an 'answer' to abort your questions. And that problem goes far deeper than any particular label itself, and reveals much about us that most people today would rather leave unexamined.

Although I picked on Libertarians here, each of our popular political & economic labels today have their own easy and often trite answers that are on a par with 'taxation is theft', all of which serve to abort the far more important questions that we should all be asking, asking often, and pursuing deeply - which is what we'll be getting into in this post.

On the bright side, if you can manage to not let their answers kill your questions, their misapplied labels will fall away of their own dead weight. The most effective way to get to that point, the Western way of getting to that point, is by reviving the underlying questions that the labeler's easy answers most want to kill:

• What is meant by the label (Metaphysics)?
• How well does it apply (an epistemology of Causality and Logic)?
• Is it appropriate (Ethics)?

, and turn them back on the label, the labeler, and the systemic thinking that both serve.

Labeling - applying answers to abort your questions

Part 1 of 22, from Exiting the Wizard's Circle of Economics
Previewed at CORRESPONDENCE THEORY

Labeling - applying answers to abort your questions
Earlier in the year I began re-engaging on xTwitter again, and it quickly brought back to mind a couple of the frustrations I had with xTwitter from the start. Of course a big frustration for me being a blogger in the xTwitterverse, is limiting my comments and replies to 264 characters, or even a thread, or two, or three of them. I initially had some sympathy for those I was commenting back & forth with - honest, anonymous, and troll - who were trying to find a label to fit what I was saying, into a political & economic framework they'd recognize (I've had the same problem for decades). But then it became apparent that the issue had less to do with my squeezing an accurate description into a limited number of characters, than with something more fundamental to the economic positions that most people see their world through.

Thankfully my own labeling issue was recently resolved with the help of an online friend (read on and you'll see how), but my problem had always been with finding a label that adequately accommodated the essentials of the philosophy that underlies our political and judicial systems, which are what an economy is able to develop from, without getting entangled in positions operating just under the surface, that are ultimately incompatible with those essentials (Hi GOP!).

But their problem, is only with who or what can take the shiny surface objects that command their attention (GDP, Inflation, Interest Rates... etc.,), and juggle them as needed to make their economic numbers add up. In their minds, those are just givens that require no depth or visible means of support to be explained, or consequences to be concerned with - so long as what or who they support can make them 'add up', they're satisfied that the 'common good' is being served.

Part of what makes this situation possible, is that the standard labels we have, of Liberal, Leftist, Conservative, Neo-Liberal, Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Progressive, have all lost whatever meaning they may once have had, and serve mostly as a convenient means of associating an assortment of hot-button positions, under the handy heading of a recognized label (or two).

The problem isn't just that the standard labels simply don't fit - though they don't - but that because they revolve around positions, rather than the reasons for having them, these labels that people accept, serve less to inform, than to subtract from what others are able to know about each other, and their world. So when someone adopts one of these labels which communicate little more than a list of positions associated with them, it's like taping a 'kick me' note to their back, and then they're surprised as people begin kicking them for wearing that label, even as everyone else, is kicking everyone else, as we all make our way kicking & screaming down the halls of social media.

Many of these label people know extensive details about how the pieces and parts of these economic systems fit together. But what I find with just a little questioning, is that it seems that what it is that they know of their systems, is known to them in the way that a student knows the info they've spent the weekend cramming to pass a test on - they know the answers to the questions they expect, and neither know nor care about any deeper implications that actions taken on what 'they know' might have - and it's irrelevant to them. If pressed on such concerns, they'll sidestep and reference other positions and labels, which they ultimately expect the artful use of force and power will fix, in ways that a thought for those depths they ignore, would have taught them that force and power cannot accomplish.

One tell-tale sign that you're dealing with a label person in a discussion over what they associate with labels like 'Leftist', 'Libertarian', or 'Conservative', is that they become frustrated if the discussion leads to your pointing out how their position involves what they associate with other labels, and then they blame you for being 'inconsistent' and confusing how they expect their labels to fit together. And rather than reconsidering their premises to resolve that inconsistency, they typically resort to appealing to authorities & their lofty ends, to nudge their numbers and answers back into place, by explaining away what cause it is that they presume to be orbiting around which effects.

Sorry, but when you've adopted labels which have the reasons you give for them, orbiting around the positions that leads to them, inconsistency is what you'll experience, and when that's the case, getting your numbers to agree, isn't going to make anything meaningfully add up.

xTwitter'rs tell me:
"...Even Adam Smith advocated for taxing rentier privilege..."

What the labelers are involved in doing, though far less innocently, is what the old astronomer Ptolemy found the need to resort to from time to time, which was to fabricate an epicycle (a fudge factor) to toss into his calculations, so as to explain Mars' path through the night sky as it orbited around the earth (or so he thought). Of course you can do that if you'd like, but you should understand that your pointing out how 'accurately' your numbers track your favorite shiny objects (GDP, Inflation, etc.,), isn't something that's going to persuade me to believe that your positions are correct, any more than the 'accuracy' of Ptolemy's numbers could persuade me into believing that Mars, let alone the Sun, are revolving around the earth. It's not me who's being inconsistent here, it's you.

At some point we all reach a point where our prized positions don't actually fit with the reality they attempt to explain - that's a normal part of learning. The real lesson to be learned, is whether you're going to be the kind of person who then pauses to reconsider and ask other questions, or who doubles down on asserting still more answers to kill off any questions that threaten your positions.

Consistency requires acknowledging both that John Locke & Adam Smith were admirable pioneers in the understanding of liberty, and not hesitating to acknowledge that both also had flaws & errors in their theories. John Locke expressed truly revolutionary ideas on individual rights in a polity, and yet his sometimes nominalist notions of human understanding and education, helped set the stage for disastrous 'advances' in skepticism and idealism. Adam Smith was a true pioneer in political economy (he didn't use the term 'Economics' as is done today, or 'Capitalism'), and while I very much appreciate his idea of 'Natural Liberty' as being the true 'Wealth of Nations', whose fruits increase as the state refrains from interfering in their people's efforts to earn a living, that shouldn't keep anyone from pointing out what he got wrong, not least of which was his advising Lord North that the best way to fix Britain's finances, would be to impose taxes on the colonies (Whoops!).

When they turn their labelmaker on you, the question you should ask is do you really want to engage in a manner of thinking that gets triggered by daring to notice that it's possible to have the right answers for the wrong reasons, and vice versa? Giving credit where credit is due, and pointing out where it isn't, is what advances our understanding of the world and our place in it; doing so is admirable; chiding & rebuking what has been misidentified, made misleading and/or corrupting to our ability to gain that understanding, is warranted, and failing to do either, fails your discussion, and who and what is being discussed.

The larger issue to be developed in this post - which I'm making into a single extended post, instead of a series of separate posts - is that this narrative habit of putting positions over reasons, and adopting labels in place of actual understanding, isn't simply a flaw, it's the visible feature, of a deliberate strategy, for using an answer to kill off uncomfortable questions.

When it becomes difficult for someone to admit that someone else got something wrong, there's a good chance that they're more involved in contriving new epicycles of their own to throw upon your discussion, and not to increase its accuracy and value, but to further whatever narrative it is that they've associated with that particular label. Worse still, failing to pay equal attention to both the good and bad deeds of notable figures, too easily leads us into the fallacies of arguing either from authority, or ad hominem, or both, and leads us progressively away from an objectively valuable understanding of the issues at hand.

Difficult questions get you further than easy answers
Seeking after easy answers, rather than giving due consideration to difficult questions, is a strategy that's has been made into a habit of thinking (for instance, by such means as training students for 12+ years to anxiously scan textbooks & worksheets for answers to be memorized for getting 'good grades'), which routinely results in our reducing what meaning another person's comment might have, to a static, inert, material 'answer' that, just as an epicycle, is sure to suppress worthwhile questions, and raise distracting reactions that help divert our conversations into the thoughtless flowcharted paths of ideological thinking (AKA: 'Critical Thinking', but that'll have to wait for my next series of posts).

What I hope to do here, is help people to kick the habit of looking no further than the labels that've been assigned to issues or persons - or you - which I think is best begun by peeling up the edges of those positions they favor, with a few well placed questions. Of course, as doing so begins revealing those reasons that underlie the positions they're promoting, that's when the 'people of the label' begin cranking up their label-makers, as did my x-Twitterer friends, as they began verbally taping their 'not humble', 'passive aggressive', 'ignorant', 'arrogant', labels to my back. The labels themselves aren't the issue - they tend to fall off fairly quickly - it's the habit of labeling itself, whether in accepting or assigning them, which encourages a pattern of thinking that reflects something other than reality, it misleads people into ideas that jeopardize themselves and the world we inhabit together, which is a habit that's worth breaking.

It's important to see that having answers without questioning your way to them, is useless.

It takes a few well-placed questions - the kinds that a zinger of a label is meant to kill - to get someone to look further than the ready answers they have at hand. Calling me arrogant back when I definitely was arrogant, isn't what got me to recognize that I was arrogant (and oh, yes indeedy I was). What worked on me, was when the questions a friend asked me about the statements of knowledgeable authorities that I'd been repeating & defending as if they were unquestionably true, led me to recognize that... they just weren't so. And worse for those labels that I'd taken pride in wearing, once I began following those questions that he'd raised, it didn't take long to realize that those authorities I was turning to next, for help in defending the first ones with, weren't any better.

xTwitter'rs tell me:
"...You're not humble- based on a previous conversation my understanding of the nature of reality exceeds your own....",
"... You describe your opinion as humble and display passive-aggressive behaviour...."

That unpleasant experience of discovering that it was possible that 'what I know just isn't so', was acutely embarrassing, and yes humbling too. But discovering that an uncomfortably well-placed question can lead you into gaining a better understanding of what is real and true - and what isn't - which no amount of memorizing the most authoritative 'answers' ever could, was incredibly valuable to me, and is what led me, decades ago now, to become a 'Blogodidact'. That experience prodded me to go back to Homer and begin reading my way forward in time through the original sources myself, pointedly questioning (not doubting, mind you, questioning) what had been said and done by those who had actually said and done it, and then asking the same questions of my own conclusions and reasons for thinking them, so that 'I' wouldn't again become the biggest barrier to my gaining a better understanding of what is real and true.

I don't claim that experience made me humble, but it absolutely seared an unpleasant awareness into me of the dangers of arrogantly assuming that any position of mine is unquestionable - and that answers that go unquestioned are more likely to be meaningless, than meaningful - and since that unpleasant moment I've welcomed any questions that I may not have considered - that, IMHO, is 'The Way'.

Granted, when I state 'In My Humble Opinion' (IMHO), I'm keenly aware that it's not exactly a sign of humility to offer someone a conflicting assessment of what they think is real & true. But it is a continuation of that process of actively questioning answers - theirs and mine - which is what I committed myself to way back when, in hopes of being shown a perspective I hadn't considered a matter from, and raising questions I might not have thought to ask. That's gold.

That's also why I don't enter into 'comment battles' with either label guns blazing, or by being either passive aggressive (or aggressively passive), but by asking questions. It's only after the other person demonstrates that they're being deliberately obtuse, evasive, and/or deceptive in their answers, that my slow boil (mistake that for passivity if you like) will give way to whatever cheerfully aggressive barbs or dismissals seems to me to be warranted within the context of the discussion [see the message above my blog's comment box]. I don't do so because I believe I have the 'right answer!', but because they've shown me that their answers have little or no connection with the questions that we should both be asking.

Since for the labeler, the point of 'the label' is to be 'an answer that kills the question' in you, when you realize that you're being given an answer that you're not meant to understand, you need to remember to ask those questions that lead to understanding:

1. What is it (Metaphysics),
2. How do you know it (an epistemology of Causality and Logic),
3. Is it appropriate (Ethics)

, which are the very things that such 'answers' are typically asserted to distract you from considering.

What I hope you'll come to see from peeling back these labels, is that they serve more to obscure, than to clarify your life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. The issues we'll find with such labels, both the narrow personal ones my xTweeting friends were taping to my back, and with the larger and 'more inclusive' labels such as 'neo-liberal' and 'libertarian' (egads!), is not just that they don't apply to me, but that the reasoning for them are so wide of the mark, that they pass beyond honest ignorance, and into the contrived pretenses & pretexts for positions which no legitimate reasoning can support.

Once you see that, I think you'll agree that the political and economic labeling process not only shouldn't be applied to you, me, or anyone else, but that its real purpose has less to do with simply winning arguments, than with capturing minds on both sides of the supposed argument, and that's something that's worth seeing and being able to recognize.

For Our Veterans on Veterans Day - Thank You For Persisting 'The Harder Right', Across Time

William Ernest Henley. 1849–1903
Invictus
OUT of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1837)
The Concord Hymn
By the rude bridge that arched the flood,
Their flag to April's breeze unfurled;
Here once the embattled farmers stood;
And fired the shot heard round the world.

The foe long since in silence slept;
Alike the conqueror silent sleeps,
And Time the ruined bridge has swept
Down the dark stream that seaward creeps.

On this green bank, by this soft stream,
We place with joy a votive stone,
That memory may their deeds redeem,
When, like our sires, our sons are gone.

O Thou who made those heroes dare
To die, and leave their children free, --
Bid Time and Nature gently spare
The shaft we raised to them and Thee.

John McCrae. 1872–1918
In Flanders Fields
IN Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

Commemorating Veterans Day once again, on the “11th hour, of the 11th day, of the 11th month”, with two earlier memories (and a bonus of soul food in the sidebar); one from eight years ago now, which was itself remembering this day from 5 years before that, and doing so recalls what persists across time on this day, our fellows who choose 'the harder right' by volunteering to serve in our military. No matter where they may end up being stationed, when they volunteer to serve, they are volunteering to put their lives on the line, period. There is no assurance that they won't at some point be sent to physically put their lives at risk, be injured, or be killed. None. Whether their service ends up being given entirely stateside in administrative duties, or repeatedly at hazard in war zones, the worst case is risked by all at that moment when they sign their lives on the dotted line. In pledging their lives to support and defend our Constitution, they serve to secure to us the ability to live lives worth living (should we choose to).

To all of our Veterans - Thank You.

[And now, back to 2015:]
For Veterans Day this year, I'm going with a re-post from four years ago, which isn't - for me or others - the typical Veterans Day post, but for me it really goes to the heart of the occasion. This post came back into mind a couple days ago when a 'Memories' app popped up some pictures from the 2011 Veterans Day parade in St. Louis that I took part in with Chris & Dana Loesch, "Patch" Po/ed Patriot and our kids [Patch just confirmed my sketchy pictureless memory, Stacy Washington was with us too). The memories were a nice tug - I mostly only see Patch online now, and the Loesch's have since moved to Dallas (catch "Dana" on the BlazeTV), but more than the sentimental value, was the point of this post, well-illustrated in the movie clip, of the importance of choosing the Harder Right - not only in the sense of putting your life on the line for it, but the importance of choosing the harder right to a life worth living, and that is what I associate most with our Veterans.

Our Veterans volunteer their lives onto the line, and in pledging their lives to support and defend our Constitution, they serve to secure to us the ability to live a life worth living, should we also take the harder right, and choose to.

To our Veterans - Thank You.

[And now, back to 2011:]
For Veterans Day, a clip that doesn't at first appear to have anything to do with Veterans or Veterans Day. It's the climactic scene of a movie that's really grown on me over the years, The Emperor's Club. In this, the point of not only an Education, but of a life well lived - or squandered - is conveyed in just a few moments.

The now aging Mr. Hundert, a Classics Professor, is found in the restroom after a debate competition, by his former student, Sedgewick Bell, who is now grown and launching a campaign for the Senate. Bell was a student he'd tried far more than he should have to help, and Hundert has realized that Sedgewick has yet again cheated in the "Mr. Julius Caesar" debate, which Mr. Hundert was moderating.

He lets his former student know that he knows he tried to cheat, again...

Mr. Hundert:"I'm a teacher Sedgwick, and I failed you. But I'll give you one last lecture, if I may. All of us, at some point, are forced to look at ourselves in the mirror, and see who we really are, and when that day comes for Sedgewick, you'll be confronted with a life lived without virtue, without principle - for that I pity you. End of lesson."

Sedgewick Bell:"What can I say Mr. Hundert? Who gives a shit. Honestly, who out there gives a shit about your principles and your virtues. I mean, look at you, what do you have to show for yourself? I live in the real world, where people do what they need to do to get what they want, and if that means lying, and cheating... then so be it.
So I am going to go out there, and I am going to win that election Mr. Hundert, and you will see me EVERYwhere! And I'll worry about my 'contribution' later.
(Sound of a toilet flushing, stall opens, Sedgewick's little boy comes out, stares at his dad in disgust)
Sedgewick Bell:"Robert? Robert...."
(Robert turns and leaves)
Sedgewick stares after him, stares down, glances at Mr. Hundert, and leaves.

What Mr. Hundert has, he has without need of power, position or wealth... what Cedric threw away, he can't replace through any amount of power, position or wealth.

The best things in life are free... but you've got to earn them, and sometimes fight for them; and some worthy few even choose to risk their lives for your chance to enjoy them.

Thank you to all those who chose the harder right, and especially the Veterans who agreed to risk their lives for it, if need be.

UPDATE - Pictures from the St. Louis Veterans Day Parade
Special thanks to Dana Loesh for inviting us to march with her crew in the parade, my daughter & I were honored to show our support.

Dana Loesh (in a strep throat burqa), Me, Patch Adams and Chris Loesch , ready to roll	... coming around the corner... (pic swiped from Patch Adams)
Parading past Soldiers Memorial	The best message of all!

Patch posted a video that should be an alarming shame in contrasts to all. For those who did turn out for the parade yesterday, thank you, your quality isn't questioned, but for the quantities of others who couldn't be bothered, shame on you.

Economic Labeling kills off meaningful Questions - Step out of the Wizard's Circle of 'Common Good'

MAAA (Make Americans American Again)

For those unafflicted by the dreaded TLDR-syndrome 😎, the full 22 part post can be found in my tabs 'Exiting the Wizard's Circle of Economics', or you can go to a particular section within it, from the table below - and hello to those arriving here from Correspondence Theory!

For everyone else who prefers more bite sized chunks of Blogodidact, I'll be posting the 22 individual chapters as posts on the main page here, on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.

I'm thankful that Americans have chosen to buy America some additional time & breathing room with their votes in the 2024 elections... what's the best way for us to use this temporary reprieve? Count on our politicians to fix America? I'm... leaning towards a NO on that. Call me crazy. But no,  IMHO, the only way we are going to make America great again, is by Americans making themselves American, again.

How Americans lost hold of their understanding of America and Common Sense, was through their subjecting themselves for over a century to what passes for 'Education', 'Economics', and 'Law', today, which pragmatically separated us from our understanding of What is (Metaphysics), how we you know it (through an epistemology of Causality and Logic), and our concern for what is appropriate (Ethics), without which Common Sense cannot be exercised.

With that in mind, I think that understanding the concepts and history covered in this post, will provide a necessary, if not fully sufficient, step towards restoring an understanding of America, and Common Sense, to Americans (and their friends).

Economic Labels kill off meaningful Questions - Step out of the Wizard's Circle of 'Common Good'

Contents: A pathway towards identifying Classic American Liberalism
The false fronts Seen:	Labeling - applying answers to abort your questions The Questionable Label of 'Libertarian' The Wastefulness of *Economics* requires labels The wishful thinking of the 'Classical Liberal' label One Classical Liberal that took liberties with Life, Liberty, and Happiness - J.S. Mill Political Economy is not just an old label for 'Economics' The Common Good, Property, Liberty - united they stand, divided we fall Using the 'Common Good' to harm the good of all
The Unseen Depths:	Dazzling us with what's partly seen while abandoning the full reality of what's left unseen Slow down bro - thinking about rights, government, justice, law, politics, can't start with rights, government, justice, law, politics IS that so - It all depends upon what the meaning of 'Is', is Mystifying what the meaning of the word 'IS', is, is the means of making you dissappear from your life The reality is that a common good must be common to all. Summing up by returning to the Questions that should precede Hazlitt's 'Economics in One Lesson' "Letgo of that Republic!' Gimme that...!"
Breaking The Wizard's Spell:	What 'Economics' buys you is Tyranny on a budget The TURD's Pro-Regressive retreat from the West A.D. to the B.C. past through the Wizard's Circle The Wizarding World's Tools of Economic Magic: 'Value', 'Growth', and 'Law', reconceived as Semantic Deceptions Totalitarian Opposition to individual decisions: Breaking the Say's Law Transforming the Rule of Law into Rules for Ruling with Exiting 'Economic Thinking' and re-entering into the Reality of what is real and true Understand Classic American Liberalism and decline to be mislabeled

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