Replies

annalex: Good legislation follows natural law. Natural law is all about rights.
cornelis: I can walk with the first one. The last one is a hoot.
annalex From Aquinas, (on his feast day): "Law is a rule and measure of acts, whereby man is induced to act or is restrained from acting." Rightfulness is an attribute of acts.
cornelis If A is B and B is C and C is D and D is E and E is F . . . then Eureka! F is A! But what if B follows A?annalex Cool.
from Libertarianism and the Public Square

This post of yours makes very important points. I thought others deserved seeing it in light of the Aristotelian concept political justice elucidated by Voegelin.

I generally view the promotion and preservation of rights and liberties as a foundation for rightful law. My contention with your argument is that I do not agree that you have demonstrated that 1) a reduction in propaganda value of a message constitutes a disruption of free speech rights, and 2) offensive content in a message constitutes an act of force. That is as I understand your thesis and I would dare say, this is in contrast to common libertarian understanding of rights principles. I am not a libertarian and the justifications you seek are foreign to me. Understand that all governments are founded on the relinquishment of personal individual rights to a certain degree. But the power of governments is conferred by those governed, not by rights.
As I’ve explained to you on other threads, proximal and distal effects are treated differently. Libertarians focus only on proximal issues. It’s commonly understood that libertarians oppose all government interference in the areas of voluntary relations between individuals. I admire you for understanding that, in real life, voluntary relations in the public square can lead to chaos without government interference. Public policy, rather than produced ex nihilo are produced in the interest of tranquility in the public square and maximum liberty for the individuals who use it. We need look no further to find a rights violation at the proximal level of interaction between two individuals.
The liberty of one depends on the due restraint on the liberty of others. It’s a straightforward maximization problem.
from: link

Sorry to respond after a 12 days delay, I was on a trip.

I agree that the notion of rights shifted at some point, so that when Jefferson spoke of unalienable rights he did not mean political rights. Thus, natural law, which to Aristotle was an impossibility because the polis could skew the system of (political) rights at will, can reflect the objective reality of natural rights.