Liberty: Neither Tried nor Wanting
Ferrara conflates liberty, properly understood, with the conditions created by the aggressive secular State. He's also taking a shot at Hans-Hermann Hoppe's groundbreaking Democracy: the God that Failed. But if he read Hoppe, he knows Hoppe attacks the same de-civilizing influences Ferrara attacks. Unlike Ferrara, Hoppe recognizes the true source of the West's debilitation and despair: the State, i.e., the Territorial Monopolist of Violence.
Lew Rockwell describes this criminal syndicate magnificently. “What is the state? It is the group within society that claims for itself the exclusive right to rule everyone under a special set of laws that permit it to do to others what everyone else is rightly prohibited from doing, namely, aggressing against person and property.”
It is precisely this double standard--i.e., the right to steal ("tax") and kill (inflict "collateral damage") in the public interest--that makes the State the de-civilizing agent that it is. How can it be otherwise? Stealing and killing are intrinsically disordered acts! Changing the flavor of the stealing and killing from secular to Catholic is hardly a step in the right direction.
Lew Rockwell describes this criminal syndicate magnificently. “What is the state? It is the group within society that claims for itself the exclusive right to rule everyone under a special set of laws that permit it to do to others what everyone else is rightly prohibited from doing, namely, aggressing against person and property.”
It is precisely this double standard--i.e., the right to steal ("tax") and kill (inflict "collateral damage") in the public interest--that makes the State the de-civilizing agent that it is. How can it be otherwise? Stealing and killing are intrinsically disordered acts! Changing the flavor of the stealing and killing from secular to Catholic is hardly a step in the right direction.
posted by Tony at 3:44 AM
4 Comments:
Which Ferrara gem are you referring to? For a second, I thought Tony Flood had resumed his series.
Ferrara has just written, or is about to release, a book in which he impugns the entire classical-liberal project, "from John Locke to Barack Obama." I just learned about it on Fisheaters, the traditional Catholic forum, about a week ago. I'll try to dig up the post for you.
By the way, is there a way I can be notified of replies to posts to my blog? I just this morning noticed yours.
Hi Tony, thanks for the heads up. The way to be notified of replies is to click on subscribe.
Traumerei, the book is titled *Liberty: the God that Failed*, an obvious swipe at Hans-Hermann Hoppe, and is available at Amazon. You can read a review of it here:
http://www.renewamerica.com/columns/abbott/120617
You can also go to the "Secular News, Politics & Social Issues" forum at Fisheaters and read a rather lively exchange on this "Ferrara gem."
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