The NAP
I
Know of beauty
That no one has ever
Known.
How could that be possible
When I may seem
So new in infinite time?
It is because God belongs to only you!
Did you hear that?
Did you hear what Hafiz just said?
God belongs to only you!
It is the only reasonable payment
For a single
Tear.
(The Gift: Poems by Hafiz, translations by Daniel Ladinsky)
From Chuck Muth's News & Views:
Best-selling author and conservative pundette extraordinaire Ann Coulter guest-hosted on CNN's "Crossfire" opposite Clintonite attack dog Paul Begala Monday night. During the course of the discussion, Coulter offered up this suggestion:and:
"How about a new game show called 'Battle Begala?' Contestants would pick any obscure bad thing that happened anywhere in the world, and Paul would have ten seconds to explain why it is President Bush's fault."
Talk about hitting the nail on the head.
Cigarettes are taxed only 2.5 cents per pack in Virginia, but $3 per pack in New York City. It is naive to think that nefarious groups are not going to exploit this difference for easy profits. Organized crime has been deeply involved in interstate cigarette smuggling for decades. However, recent sharp increases in state cigarette taxes have increased its involvement, according to law enforcement officials and numerous press reports. . . . As long as tobacco remains a legal product and as long as sovereign governments tax it at widely different rates, massive smuggling is inevitable and impossible to stop. -- Bruce Bartlett
On the trt-ny mailing list, we had just explained to Andrea the evils of democracy. My response to her question is a pretty good short description of my current political philosohpy:
Andrea asked, "So- if not democracy what alternative do you suggest?"What I forgot to say, because it's so much a part of my consciousness that I don't even notice it any more, is that any moral political philosophy must be based on the Non-Aggression Principle (NAP), my favorite rendition of which is expressed at the Libertarian Enterprise's Who Is a Libertarian? page:
My answer:
A constitutional republic. As Benjamin Franklin said, "We've given you a republic, if you can keep it."
That means that we elect our representatives democratically, and they make decisions democratically, i.e. by majority vote, but the domain in which the government is allowed to act is very small.
As I said on 8/1: "Democratic elections are not an important part of our constitutional republic. Limiting government activity to a very small domain of action is paramount. When you do that it hardly matters who gets elected. They play their power games and we live our lives, mostly ignoring them."
I'm an anarcho-capitalist myself. I think we would be better off with NO government whatsoever. Security, justice, roads, education, absolutely everything provided by the free market. I am willing to settle, however, for our constitutional republic, as long as the constitution is narrowly interpreted and rabidly enforced.
I don't currently believe that it's possible to keep government inside its constitutional cage. That's why I think anarcho-capitalism is a good idea. But anarchy, even capitalist anarchy, is a hard sell, whereas Bill of Rights Enforcement has much more widespread appeal.
"A libertarian is a person who believes that no one has the right, under any circumstances, to initiate force against another human being, or to advocate or delegate its initiation. Those who act consistently with this principle are libertarians, whether they realize it or not. Those who fail to act consistently with it are not libertarians, regardless of what they may claim." -- L. Neil SmithI feel a NAP article percolating up from inside. Maybe I'll write it this weekend...