Natural Law – Granite Grok

Liberty behind a fence - Free Image antonio ferreira

Notable Quote – Limiting Restrictions on Liberty is always a “Public Good”

The restrictions on ‘natural liberty’ surely constitute ‘public bads’, from which it follows that their removal would be equivalent to the production of ‘public goods’. And surely these ‘public goods’ would increase the utility of persons in the community more than the sometimes piddling adjustments that are suggested for correcting minor market distortions. Smith would … Read more

God-Given Rights vs The Evolving Technocratic Surveillance State

by Op-Ed

Our country is at a crossroads, and two main perspectives, Natural Law and Evidence-Based Law, are competing. Natural Law is created by God or nature, and therefore it is inherent, universally true, and independent of any particular society.

No, the NH Log Cabin Republicans Don’t want to Get Government out of Marriage

by Stephen Scaer

How does taking marriage off the NH GOP platform get the government out of marriage? In his January CNN interview, Jim Morgan, Chairman of the NH Log Cabin Republicans, outlined his strategy to remove the marriage plank from the NH GOP platform:

So, Obama’s Dept of Homeland Security wants our Police Departments to be without ammo?

by Skip

“We cannot continue to rely only on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives we’ve set. We’ve got to have a civilian national security force that’s just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded.”

– President Obama, Colorado, July 2, 2008

When he first uttered those words, it seemed that only a few of us on the Right read those words and went “WHAT?”. After all, we were starting to learn about his connections to the New Left and other people holding Progressive to Marxist philosophies (what, like there’s much of a difference?). At the time, many on the Left, trying to be Obama apologists, went on and on about the intent was to increase programs like Vista and Americorps….and then it went dead. Then Gabby Gifford, Aurora, and Sandy Hook hit.

For quite some time, civilian shooters were finding ammo and guns hard to get – first, thinking that an incipient gun ban was going to be pushed through during Obama’s first term and then again near and right after November’s election, with people truly believing that NOW he would start his ban. After all, Progressives have this visceral hatred of both guns – and people who believe they have the right to defend themselves. After all, their reasoning goes, we all give up certain Rights to Government to have a government and they believe that one of them is our fundamental Right to defend ourselves, families, and property. As debra Saunders at Real Clear Politics puts it:

No. Collectivism of the Obama brand cannot preserve Individual Liberty

by Skip

Over at Townhall was a piece on a phrase from Obama’s 2nd Inaugural Address (a paeon to Progressivism – once again “repurposing language” to sound as if he agree with the Founding Fathers but absolutely up ending the original intent):

“Preserving our individual liberties,” the President said, “ultimately requires collective action.”

A phrase worthy of the Hobbesian philosophy that Rights are determined solely by Government; that is to say, by the Collective and allocated solely by politics and power. The piece goes through the speech and comments on how “collectivism on steroids” Obama spoke on a number of points in his speech. I did not listen to the speech live nor have I yet read the speech in its entirety but from what I have gathered in reading other commentary, the Founders are not rolling over in their graves but were exhumed by Obama and handled as dissenters in the finest tyrannical fashion (“see that wall?”).

I had my own thoughts on this phrase and how it violated our native political philosophy and instead, is trying to “fundamentally transform” what has been our heritage into something more Marxist / Socialistic. While it is true that the Founders agreed on the notion of “we must all hang together or we will all hang separately”, they were fighting to standalone and apart from a tyrannical Government that made decisions for all apart from their input. After all, that is the history of Mankind – evil people wishing to either hang on to or gather power into themselves. For politicians, in most cases (and certainly almost all on the Left) crave power and control far more than the “capitalists” they disdain and castigate for being greedy for mere money.

My thoughts (such as they are):

No, my Individual Freedom does not depend on collective action. It does, however, require a belief in something bigger than self, and bigger than mere govt. It requires that our Rights come from God, and proceeding with that premise in all that is done politically. It requires that there is an accountability that goes beyond the Laws of the land, and the regulations they promulgate. It requires an internally based governor that says “Thou shalt not cross this line”; something that Progressives fail to observe.

O’SULLIVAN’S FIRST LAW

by Susan Olsen

I had the great pleasure of meeting John O’Sullivan at St. Anselm’s earlier this year when he gave a talk about women in politics. His years serving as Margaret Thatcher’s senior aide give him some authority with which to speak on the matter of women and politics but I had no idea that he was also the father of “O’Sullivan[i]’s First Law” (a fact I probably would not have learned but for perusing National Review Online early this morning).O’ Sullivan’s First Law postulates that “All organizations that are not actually right-wing will over time become left-wing” and Mr. O’Sullivan defends this hypothesis saying:

“I cite as supporting evidence the ACLU, the Ford Foundation, and the Episcopal Church. The reason is, of course, that people who staff such bodies tend to be the sort who don’t like private profit, business, making money, the current organization of society, and, by extension, the Western world.”