Conservative Politics and Liberty

The life of Man must be defined as unalienably self-sovereign.

In a recent article in American Thinker, Bruce Walker wrote this piece of politically conservative observation:

"Seventy-five years ago this month, one of the most insidious laws in human history came into effect in Nazi Germany. The innocent sounding name was The Law for the Prevention of Hereditary Diseased Offspring. It was the ghastly pinnacle of an unholy theory of human eugenics. Darwinism -- not the Theory of Evolution, per se, but the sinister notion that natural selection made God superfluous -- liberated man from his obligation to treat fellow men as special creatures in a divinely ordered universe."

While Walker is correct in calling the law "insidious," and "the ghastly pinnacle" of eugenics, he demonstrates what is wrong with conservative epistemology, namely, the inability to see that political and social values and the virtues required to attain them must be values and virtues proper to Man--not to a God who is unattainable in life.

Men are never "liberated" from their "obligation to treat fellow men" as endowed with self-sovereignty. Whether or not God is "superfluous" can never be allowed to be part of the equation. The most avid atheists are often the most avid defenders of human rights, and they see no "divine" order in the universe.

What they see is the equality of creatures born with the unalienable right to life and liberty. The necessity of saying "liberty" ought to be superfluous itself, since the right to life necessitates the liberty necessary to live life as the rational animal. It is entirely superfluous to say "and the pursuit of happiness," for the same rationale.
However, it has come in handy in certain arguments with people who forget that the right to pursue one's happiness necessitates the liberty to achieve it.

It ought to be enough to simply say, "Until a man violates the rights--equal to his own, of other men--he has the right to libertarian life." Libertarian in this sense does not include the right to violate the rights of other men, which are equal in value by virtue of their unalienablity by right of birth.

Libertarian means specifically the ability to act with all the unalienable rights of birth with which Man is endowed by the nature of his metaphysical existence. That existence is defined as "the rational animal."

It can only be when a man has violated the equal rights of others that justice may require forfeiture of his libertarianism for a time, e.g., jail or prison or probation. In some cases of gross violation justice has required he forfeit his very life.

America's Founders were mostly Deists, no matter which denomination they attended. It was politically incorrect for public leaders not to attend a regular denomination such as Baptist or Episcopal, but there were some like Thomas Paine who managed to evade without even that constraint on his freedom. He had to flee America for France, literally for his safety and probably his life, in order to remove that constraint, until President Jefferson invited him back with a guarantee of his safety.

It is important to note America's Deist beginings because those Deists were more dedicated to worshiping God than were most of the commoners who followed established denominations. There is one and only reason for being able to say this: the Deists themselves said their devotion to the virtue of Reason and to the Rule of Law was precisely because they believed it was God himself who had endowed Man with that virtue.

Then He stepped back and allowed the nature he had created to run its course. A form of Darwinism one to two centuries before Darwin was born was part of the metaphysics of Deism. They believed God was superfluous only because He was willing to let the Reason He had provided them rule the affairs of the Men He had created as rational creatures.

Libertarian action translates into the value of being both free of coercion from others, and is non-coercion of others, for the purpose of furthering the pursuit of human life as well as one's own, through the virtue of Reason.

Yet, "when one speaks of a man's right to exist for his own sake, for his own rational self-interest, most people assume automatically that this means his right to sacrifice others." Ayn Rand; The Virtue of Selfishness: The Objectivist Ethics

The Law for the Prevention of Hereditary Diseased Offspring was ghastly because it used the power of government to choose the criteria set by a leader with a criminal mind, criteria for the sacrifice of others. Clearly Hitler's was not "rational" self-interest. Rational self-interest cannot be coercive or it is self-defeating and therefor non-rational.

But conservatives do not see that such men--Mao Tse Tung, Hitler, Mugabe, Stalin, Pol Pot--care nothing about whether or not God is superfluous. The only thing such men have ever cared about is power, and that is the power to control.

If it is insidious to find God superfluous, then America's Deists were insidious. Since that is not a word that can be used to describe them, Mr. Walker uses a "package deal" consisting of tying together the concepts of Hitler's policies with a disregard for God, as if God was anywhere in Hitler's thoughts. Corrupting or ignoring a "divinely ordered universe" was never a consideration for Hitler.

If Hitler had a devout belief in God, he would have continued his policies, believing as do Islamicists that what they do is in the name of God.

Neither Hitler nor the world's current Islamicists believe they are liberated from any obligation to "treat fellow men as special creatures in a divinely ordered universe." As a matter of fact, Islamicists believe that to continue the "divinely ordered universe" of Allah it is moral to martyr one's self in the destruction of those who actually see Allah--but not necessarily the Judeo-Christian God--as superfluous.

A supernatural God is superfluous for anyone who calls him or herself a naturalist, because in the cosmic scheme of the laws of nature, "nature's god" did not create existence.

The only "sinister notion" in natural selection is in the motives of men who refuse to accept individual sovereignty as the right of every human being, the selection by nature's god of the species of Man to be the one to obtain the virtue of rationality.

The Free Assemblage of Metaphysical Naturalists is the SM of
The Free Assemblage of Metaphysical Naturalists LLC.
The Academy of Metaphysical Naturalism TM,
The Academy of Metaphysical Naturalism Blogger TM, and
Academy of Metaphysical Naturalism Blogger Extra TM are the educational arms of the LLC and are:
© 2008-2009 by Curtis Edward Clark and Naturalist Academy Publishing ®

mailto:freeassemblage@gmail.com

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Sci Naturalism's Unintended Link to Xianity

Scientific Naturalism and Christian Theology

Come from the Same Roots of Causality

I

Free will and the will that is not contra-causal are the subject of the metaphysics of naturalism. Metaphysical Naturalism (MN) accepts free will, denying--where scientific naturalism (SN) asserts--that free will needs to be "contra-causal" to be called free.

It is not, nor can it ever be, contra-causal. To wish it so, to want it so, to propose that it must be so before it can be called free is to contradict the very nature of naturalism's epistemic roots.

What is "contra causality"? To have contra-causal will, you would have to have the power to move the wind and the stars; the power to control your genetic pool--before you are conceived; the power to manipulate your environment by supernatural means (since we are obviously able to manipulate it by natural means, yet this isn't good enough for SN, which denies anything supernatural); and to manipulate the behavior and activities of every minute detail of reality that touches your own existence.

Because you do not and cannot have this power, SN says free will is not free because it is always influenced by something; the wind, the stars, your genetic pool, your environment, your prior actions, and the behavior and actions of all other people who have ever lived and who are living now, and whether or not you have a sore toe, a headache, have had too much caffein, alcohol, or milk--or are in need of some, and whether you are depressed, or manic, etc.

Even normality as measured by the strictest determinations of medicine and psychiatry effects us, according to SN, in such manner as to prevent our will from being free will. Normality no matter how it is determined is still the effect of all the previous causes of the being of any human.

In short SN asserts that the butterfly effect prevents what would otherwise be independent and free will, i.e., the freedom to think or not, and what to conclude from thought, and how to conclude it. The phrase "butterfly effect" is a "reference to the [ ] theory that a change in something seemingly innocuous, such as a flap of a butterfly's wings, may have unexpected larger consequences in the future, such as the path a tornado will travel."

We are caused by the flapping of all the butterflys' wings, whether those wings are literal, or metaphorical.

So while you may believe you are exercising free will, SN says the "you" that exists at the moment of exercising your will shows proof that "we are fully caused creatures" by all things that have gone before. "Naturalism holds that everything we are and do is connected to the rest of the world and derived from conditions that precede us and surround us," it says. [see same link as above]

The most notorious concept of our being "fully caused" is called, in Christianity, by the name "Original Sin." Christianity has always believed in "full causation" of the human being through Original Sin, but gives it an "out" through "redemption." For this reason Christianity believes in free will.

SN states its aim as being the obliteration of anything but scientism in its metaphysical description of the state of being human, yet it supports the most illogical of all epistemologic arguments of Christian theology, proving that even SN cannot escape epistemological mistakes that put it on par with the worst logic of supernaturalism. What SN does it takes away the ability to be "redeemed" from our "full causation" by removing the concept of freedom from the concept of will power.

SN does not disprove the Christian epistemology of Original Sin, it upholds it by using the same logic of "full causality"!

But in its defence, it must be explicitly stated that SN denies anything supernatural. It cannot therefor uphold the idea of Original Sin as a religious concept, but by using the very logic of Christian theology it gives Christianity very good reason to support the epistemology of SN while denying its metaphysics, in the very same way SN denies the metaphysics of religion.

Scientific Naturalism is Not Scientifically, But Epistemologically, Wrong

II

While it is entirely true that humans are shaped by such things as their gene pool and their environment, and by all the other things that science is beginning to teach us about our biology, this does not constitute what SN calls "full causation." It is not necessary for the will to be able to change these things for the will to exist as free will. Free will does not mean independence from existence.

Yet it is the independent, libertarian will that SN says is not free because it is not free from the reality of reality. "Naturalism," it say explicitly, "is the understanding that there is a single, natural world as shown by science, and that we are completely included in it."

Of course we are "completely included in it." While religion argues that we are also included in a supernatural world, it does not deny being "included" in the physical world. As a matter of fact, being released from this "complete inclusion" in the natural world is the goal of religion. SN seeks to bind us to it with no power to "fully cause" our own metaphysical existence.

SN does not state that the will is impotent. To the contrary, it states that since we know, or can know, the elements of reality that "fully cause" us to be who we are, that we can somehow control our lives better through of will power that it describes as "not free."

SN is a humanist movement. It supports "compassion" for criminals in their treatment and sentencing: compassion, not justice. Criminals are still human, have the capacity to learn from their wrongs and from their time incarcerated. Most will get out of prison. Ignoring "compassion" for justice does not mean going back to bread and water, chains and leg irons, beds of straw, lack of proper medicine, or anything that is not proper in the treatment of humans who have the free will to become better for the justice of their sentence. Proper treatment is justice, not compassion.

What SN means by "compassion" is stated this way: " Seeing that we are fully caused creatures - not self-caused - we can no longer take or assign ultimate credit or blame for what we do. This leads to an ethics of compassion and understanding, both toward ourselves and others. We see that there but for circumstances go I. We would have been the homeless person in front of us, the convict, or the addict, had we been given their genetic and environmental lot in life." [emphasis added]

This is all true, except for the "credit and blame" part. If the credit and blame are moral attributes of action, it is never true that they do not belong to us. If they are attributes of the chaos of reality over which we have no control, it is metaphysically unthinkable to assign credit or blame.

It is a case of barking up the wrong tree for SN to take note of "being fully included" in reality. No one has ever, to my knowledge, denied this. SN denies that we are included in any sort of super naturalism, and with that idea, metaphysical naturalism is in complete agreement.

If the unstated, implicit, and possibly unconscious goal of SN is some form of humanism be it termed "philosophical", "modern", or "secular", then it is not an honest doctrine, since it states its goal this way: "By understanding consciousness, choice, and even our highest capacities as materially based, naturalism re-enchants the physical world, allowing us to be at home in the universe." SN is a doctrine to "re-enchant" the world!

If its goal is to free us from supernaturalism, it forgot to "fully include" humanity in the reality of the fact that we would be absolutely nothing if not for reality itself. "In order to control nature, one must learn to obey nature."

It is in obeying nature that we find our will is free, and it is that freedom that has taken us out of the "inclusion" of being strictly bound to the earth, and opened the gateways to being "included" in the rest of the universe.

The Free Assemblage of Metaphysical Naturalists is the SM of
The Free Assemblage of Metaphysical Naturalists LLC.
The Academy of Metaphysical Naturalism TM,
The Academy of Metaphysical Naturalism Blogger TM, and
Academy of Metaphysical Naturalism Blogger Extra TM are the educational arms of the LLC and are:
© 2008 by Curtis Edward Clark and Naturalist Academy Publishing ®

mailto:freeassemblage@gmail.com

http://freeassemblage.blogspot.com/

Unusual Headlines; Saturday Musings; Quotes

The Libertarian Case for Obama
Seven potential upsides to a hope-monger presidency
"For those who recognize that "libertarian Democrat" is no more oxymoronic than "libertarian Republican," a solid case can be made for Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) as a Leader of the Free World who won't take that American Exceptionalism conceit as seriously as "Country First" Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.)." Terry Michael September 19, 2008 http://www.reason.com/news/show/128902.html



On the Other Hand....
Obama's 'Plans for Change' Ad is "Translated"
For those who don't speak "Washingonese"
http://reason.tv/roughcut/show/540.html

Ayn Rand Mike Wallace Interview 1959 part 1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ukJiBZ8_4k

Ayn Rand Mike Wallace Interview 1959 part 2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMTDaVpBPR0

Center For Inquiry’s Unique Mission
"The Center for Inquiry is a daring new concept. Although modern world civilization is based upon the achievements of science and technology, until this time there has been no authoritative and credible voice defending the scientific outlook in examining religion, human values, and the borderlands of science. If the naturalistic outlook is to supplant the ancient mythological narratives of the past, it needs a new institution devoted to its articulation and dramatization to the public. The Center for Inquiry is that institution.

"The scientific revolution, which is now four centuries old, has made great progress in expanding the frontiers of knowledge in the natural, biological, behavioral, and social sciences; and this has led to enormous contributions to human welfare. Witness, for example, the strides made in improving nutrition, health, and longevity, in enhanced travel and communication and the many goods and services available for human enjoyment and happiness. Yet along with the advancement of the agenda of scientific inquiry, there persists a culture of mysticism and faith that resists it.

"What would it mean to extend the scientific spirit to our most basic and cherished convictions? It would be to embrace a thoroughly scientific outlook (an outlook referred to in the scholarly literature as scientific naturalism or philosophical naturalism). The naturalistic outlook is at once a method of inquiry, a cosmic world view, and a new form of ethical inquiry."

Council for Secular Humanism [is an affiliate]
"The Council for Secular Humanism (CSH) cultivates rational inquiry, ethical values, and human development through the advancement of secular humanism. To carry out its mission the Council for Secular Humanism sponsors publications, programs, and organizes meetings and other group activities." [abridged from http://centerforinquiry.net/]



The Heritage Foundation Says Chinese-Owned Hong Kong is "Economically Free-est"; U.S. Ranks 5th

"The 2008 Index of Economic Freedom covers 162 countries across 10 specific freedoms such as trade freedom, business freedom, investment freedom, and property rights. View scores and rankings for any country, along with detailed data and background analysis. [Visit the Countries »] or [See Top 10 »] The 2008 Index provides an even clearer picture of economic freedom by using data-driven equations which allows countries to be graded between scores of 0 and 100. We continue the tradition of equally blending "Ten Freedoms" to produce a simple, unbiased overall score for each country.

"For over a decade, The Wall Street Journal and The Heritage Foundation, Washington's preeminent think tank, have tracked the march of economic freedom around the world with the influential Index of Economic Freedom. Since 1995, the Index has brought Smith's theories about liberty, prosperity and economic freedom to life by creating 10 benchmarks that gauge the economic success of 162 countries around the world. With its user-friendly format, readers can see how 18th century theories on prosperity and economic freedom are realities in the 21st century." http://www.heritage.org/research/features/index/countries.cfm

Quotes for Your Weekend
"Men are nicotine soaked, beer besmirched, whiskey greased, red-eyed devils."
Carry Nation
"Four hostile newspapers are more to be feared than a thousand bayonets." Napoleon
"It took me seventeen years to get 3,000 hits in baseball. I did it in one afternoon on the golf course." Hank Aaron
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." Benjamin Franklin