User:Jdavidb

From Libertarian Wiki

My name is J. David Blackstone. I edit Wikipedia under the same user ID I use here. I also participate to varying degrees in numerous other online communities.

I made all contributions as User:170.35.224.64 before creation of this account.

I am a non-denominational (perhaps best described as anti-denominational) Christian, a member of the Church of Christ. I am a pacifist as a result of my religious beliefs, but I accept that many rational Christians and religious people do not come to that conclusion from the same Scriptures I read, for reasons which I consider rational but incorrect. (I also openly declare that were I not a Christian, I would not be a pacifist. I believe every person has an inherent right to self defense, and the only reason I do not exercise it is because I believe I am enjoined by Christ not to exercise it.)

I believe in the peaceful promulgation of my religious beliefs through non-coercive means. In other words, I disclaim all attempts to force religion on people through governmental authority or otherwise. (I openly disavow connections with those groups in the past which have done so. For various reasons, including this one, I do not consider them to be Christian.) I believe in peaceful persuasion through dialog. In practice, unless someone wants to debate me, I focus on explaining my beliefs, the reasons why I hold them, and the reasons why I do not hold other beliefs, as well as focusing on gathering information on why people do not agree with me. Mutual exchanges of points of view are productive for society, not only in the religious realm, but also for politics and philosophy.

I have described myself in the past by the following labels (roughly chronologically):

• Independent (while quite young, because the public schools basically brainwashed us to say this)
• Conservative (convinced to adopt this position by Rush Limbaugh, who formed much of my early thinking on minimalist government, though I was already moving toward that position before I ever heard of him)
• Republican (in gratitude to the Republican congress for shutting down the government in 1995, which I considered to be one of the most productive things government ever did)
• Laissez-faire in reference to my belief on economics, which constantly threatened to spill over into my beliefs on social issues
• Libertarian when I finally accepted that my beliefs had gone beyond mainstream conservatism
• Anarcho-capitalist when I wanted to express that I felt that while minarchist libertarianism could be workable, anarchism was the ideal
• Anarchist when I finally accepted that the ethic of "live and let live" was the only universal morality all mankind could accept

I guess I would still take any of these labels.

I would be overjoyed if society made it to minarchism in my lifetime. But I feel the ideal is anarchism. Specifically, I believe that government is that entity which claims a monopoly on the use of force in a region. Government should explicitly disclaim this monopoly and allow additional governments to be formed and compete for citizens. Governments should only have authority over those people who have explicitly delegated their right of self-defense and or other rights to them (this is the process of becoming a citizen). All relationships should be strictly voluntary. Taxation itself, in fact, should be voluntary. Governments should be supported by voluntary donations. The services they provide today should be privatized and supported by voluntary donations (and if you don't believe that would work I want somebody to put a stop to these incessant cancer marathons and other fundraisers). In a competing plurality of governments scenario it could make sense for governments to offer various services; otherwise, governments shouldn't even offer these.

I am a future home schooler. My wife was homeschooled, primarily for libertarian reasons, though her father did not acknowledge them as such at the time. Before we were married we agreed that, all things being equal, that would be the plan for our children. I support the complete privatization of education and encourage homeschooling, but I feel that the public schools in many areas (including my own) are actually of very high quality and I don't feel any animosity to those who avail themselves of this opportunity. There is no compelling public incentive to violate the family and parenthood by asserting public rights over the education of children. Parents should be absolutely sovereign about their children's educational decisions. State homeschool laws should not include any reporting or approval requirements on the part of the state. It is more important to me to repeal compulsory education laws than it is to eliminate government funded schooling, though I believe both should ultimately be done. I believe freely available education is a worthy goal and would voluntarily financially support the schools in my area if the state eliminated taxation for them. This is the way these things should be provided: by mutual consent, not by compulsion.

One minority libertarian viewpoint I hold is that abortion (in a non-anarchy) should be legally prohibited. I DO NOT HOLD THIS VIEWPOINT BECAUSE OF MY RELIGIOUS BELIEFS. As previously stated, I do not believe the government should enforce my religion. For example, I believe it is wrong not to go to church, but I don't believe in passing a law making everyone go to church. I believe abortion should be prohibited if murder is prohibited, and since I believe the purpose of government is to secure rights, it should secure the right to life of the unborn child. These arguments are discussed in much further detail at Libertarians for Life. I am aware of, have thought through, and do not accept, objections to my position on this matter. Even in an anarchy it would be right for someone to step in and defend the defenseless against aggression. No person should be deprived of their life without their consent (yes, I believe in allowing the right to die) or due process of law in consequence of infraction of the law. If a person cannot give their consent, they cannot be deprived of life. If it cannot be determined whether a lifeform is a person, that lifeform absolutely cannot be terminated. If it's got the requisite number of chromosomes and the human genotype, it's a person, or tell me why not.

Another minority libertarian viewpoint I hold is that intellectual property laws a government granted monopoly and as such should be abolished. (This is a generalization. Experts in the field say that intellectual property is a non-technical term which combines several areas of law which should not be combined. For example, trademark law has more to do with fraud than monopoly.) Society will advance farther if allowed to build on top of publicly available knowledge: this goes for both science and art. All great scientific discoveries build on what has come before, and all great works of art and culture are based on previous works. I personally cannot see why my view is the minority, except for the unfortunately and inaccurate application of the term property to this sham of government granted special rights. The Constitution states that the purpose of these limited rights is to "promote the progress of science and the useful arts," which is not an acceptable purpose of government, period. The government ought to be relying on the free market to promote the progress of science and the useful arts. Indeed, the market is already demonstrating in such areas as free software that not exercising one's government granted monopoly results in greater progress and, in fact, in some cases can outcompete those who do exercise this privilege. Legal experts agree that there is no intrinsic right to "intellectual property" (Thomas Jefferson himself, the first head of the U.S. Patent office, agreed!!!) and that the "right" was created to protect a special interest that was seeing the collapse of its business model. I don't believe in government propping up failed business models. Even today we can see that the primary movers behind more forceful enforcement of "intellectual property rights" are those whose business models are threatened by the vanishing cost of content reproduction.