I can't believe I'm protecting Traveller Gypsies...

So the big news story in the UK recently is the eviction, by the County Council, of Irish gypsy travellers from Dale Farm in Essex. The whole operation will cost over £17 million (and this is a conservative estimate). Now in my whole life so far, I have never said a positive word about these gypsies. They are widely known as the lowest lowlives in England (sorry for the generalization, but that's just how it is). Some of their hobbies include: beating people up, robbing people, stealing people's cars and blowing them up, and, recently, keeping and selling slaves. The one positive thing I can say is that their children don't go to government schools (on the down side, the children don't go to any school at all and spend their time vandalizing local communities). But here in Dale Farm I have to stand up for the rights of the poor gypsies. And I don't mean any 'human rights' of decency or whatever the lefties have been going on about for the last couple days. I mean their private property rights!
I have always said that government land - land owned by any organ of the government, whether national or local - is illegitimately owned. No homesteading process took place when the state acquired that land. In England it can be argued that some property is owned by the Queen and the Royal Family, but the Shire Councils have no long-standing history of ownership or homesteading in any area (as far as I know). Now these gypsies simply found an empty field and settled there with their families. They didn't harm anyone in the process, nor did they steal anyone's property. No one was living there or using the land. Now, many years later, they are being forced out.
I would like to remind the Her Majesty's Government that this state (the UK) is supposed to be founded on Liberal principles as explained by the likes of John Locke or Lord Blackstone. The travellers may not the be the best of people and the police may have reasons to go after them, but that is to be done on an individual basis. The police have no right to evict the gypsies from legitimately homesteaded property. Homesteading is a principle I have envoked many times on this blog, and I will continue to do so. It is the process upon which all property rights are based. If the Council wants to evict the settlers, they have to present proof that the land was being used and occuped by some of their agents who 'mixed their labour' with the land before the travellers built their homes.

So, as Locke wrote about Man: "The labour of his body, and the work of his hands, we may say, are properly his. Whatsoever then he removes out of the state that nature hath provided, and left it in, he hath mixed his labour with, and joined to it something that is his own, and thereby makes it his property."
Who was the one mixing his labour with the land in this case? I can't be exactly sure, but on the face of it all I see is a settlemend being torn down by aggressors...

Juan de Mariana - The Anarcho-Monarchist Visionary?

The great Jesuit Juan de Mariana is that man who most anarcho-libertarians know for his unprecedented understanding of the economic theory of money and principled stand against tyranny of any kind. But isn't what Mariana describes in some way a proto-Anarcho-Monarchist order? I would suggest so. Coming from the traditional Monarchist tradition of the Catholic Scholastics, Mariana writes about the people freely aiding the King while he performs his duties of protecting them and their property. He also points out, however (in his De Rege), that all people have to consent voluntarily and any authority gained by conquest can never become legitimate - even if the conquered party consents to the ruler (or state legislation) after the fact. Furthermore, if any subject of the King deems that the King is not acting in society's interest, he may freely leave the jurisdiction of the King by secession (Mariana does not explicitly say this, but I infer it from his writings about any party being able to break out of the 'compact' when wronged). And, if the King prevents him or a multitude of others from doing so while acting in a tyrannical way (imposing taxes upon them without consents or not allowing them to voice their opinions), he may justly assassinate the Tyrant. There is the key difference between Kings and Tyrants that Mariana points out and John Locke also mentions. As Locke writes: "[U]surpation is the exercise of power which another hath a right to, so tyranny is the exercise of power beyond right, which nobody can have a right to..." Clearly Tyrants and/or usurpers may be assassinated and this is justified by simple self-defense.
Mariana gives the example of the famous French monk, turned assassin, Jacques Clement. Brother Clement was justified in killing French King Henry III because the latter had become a tyrant and was no longer worthy of ruling the nation. Henry assassinated his Catholic opponents and tried to support his rule (and his successor's rule) with force.
This is, of course, not what Anarcho-Monarchism is in an exact degree (in my opinion, at least). Mariana, though an individualist Scholastic, still held some superstitious beliefs regarding the nation and the state being a single 'body politic' with a will. The breakthrough he reached was actually the limiting of this general will's power to a very large degree - but he never really dismissed it entirely. An Anarcho-Monarchist society would be even more voluntaryist and individualist than Mariana's. This is because Mariana's society relied mostly on personal honour, honesty, and chivalry. Such virtues are always laudable, but it is also always good to prop them up with contracts. Good will is not always enough to win the day.

So, was this rebellious Catholic School-man a predecessor of the Anarcho-Monarchist movement, and can his doctrine help define ours? You decide.

The Best of Locke

John Locke was a great classical liberal theorist. Truly, he was one of my first inspirations in terms of turning me into who I am today. After I first read his Second Treatise on Government at age 16 I turned away from the nationalist and authoritarian ways of my youth and became fully a classical liberal minarchist (with a Burkean quirk, of course!). Modern libertarianism is eternally indebted (I speak figuratively here since everyone knows my position in IP!) to Locke. This is true despite the fact he is largely responsible for the development of social contract theory which the modern monstrous Leviathan - the State - is based on. Chief among his achievements are his assertions that all humans have natural rights (something I believe in as a follower of another great liberal - Jefferson) and, most importantly, his theory of property acquisition through what we now call LOCKEAN HOMESTEADING. To quote Locke directly on this:

"Though the earth and all inferior creatures be common to all men, yet every man has a "property" in his own "person." This nobody has any right to but himself. The "labour" of his body and the "work" of his hands, we may say, are properly his. Whatsoever, then, he removes out of the state that Nature hath provided and left it in, he hath mixed his labour with it, and joined to it something that is his own, and thereby makes it his property."

Beautifully said, if not for the error of 'common ownership' of the earth and inferior creatures by humans... These things are not owned in common by any group - to say so would be a strange assertion.

However important homesteading may be, I think there is one concept from the Second Treatise which I like even more: "A criminal who, having renounced reason ... hath, by the unjust violence and slaughter he hath committed upon one, declared war against all mankind, and therefore may be destroyed as a lion or tyger, one of those wild savage beasts with whom men can have no society nor security. And upon this is grounded the great law of Nature, 'Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed.'" For future generations this principle might prove all the more important. It asserts the right of revolution. The right of a group or an individual to fight back against his oppressor. And let me ask rhetorically: Who is our oppressor today?

Tolerance - The New-Old Definition

What is "tolerance" and being "tolerant"? For ease of understanding I will use the very very simple definition. Tolerance is the ability to accept something while disapproving of it. This is definitely not the way tolerance is being described today by lefties and neo-liberals. Nowadays if you simply disapprove of something you are immediately being labeled a "hater" and intolerant and "backward". Take the example of homosexuality. In today's homo-tolerance debate you either have to be on the tolerant side (approve of homosexuality) or intolerant side (disapprove of homosexuality and want to ban it). Where is the place for people like me, who disapprove of homosexuality but don't want to ban or attack it per se? Where is the good old kind of Leckean tolerance, the kind where "You do what you want at your house, and I'll do what I want at mine." That kind of tolerance is long gone with the wind. The wind of socialism. Statists always want to promote social strife and conflict - and socialists are the more extreme statists. They know that real tolerance would lead to real cooperation without government coercion. There would be no war between, for example, homosexuals and Christians, just like there is no longer a war between Catholics and Protestants. They stay away from each other's Churches, but live in peace. If the government would stop looking into our bedrooms and inciting hatred I'm sure we'd get a lot more understanding in this world. After all, doesn't forcing someone to be tolerant (As the government does for example by banning "discrimination". See my earlier post on this here.) go against the very principle of toleration? I'm not a racist - but I'd like to think that as a tolerant individual I can tolerate racists, not put them in jail or hurt them for their beliefs (however false their beliefs may seem). And to the neo-liberals I say: Read John Locke, don't you yourselves claim him as the founder of your movement?

To quote Locke: If any man err from the right way, it is his own misfortune, no injury to thee; nor therefore art thou to punish him in the things of this life because thou supposest he will be miserable in that which is to come.