Super Conservatism

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Often, I see my takes as not only conservative, but super conservative. Other conservatives may disagree from time to time, but that seems due to their accepting the compromise of yester year. Let me explain.

There's this article I read long ago: Why True Conservatism Means Anarchy by Alexander William Salter. The article ended with this line: “[T]he state is constitutionally hostile to conservatism. For the sake of preserving ordered liberty and protecting inherited faith and folkways, conservatives should reject the state’s legitimacy. Failure to do so is fighting a war on the enemy’s terms.”

Salter sees conservativeness as more of a preservation-orientation than a creed. This frees him up to sort inherited wheat from chaff. He makes two points regarding the modern state: (1) that it is a relatively new institution and (2) that conservatives, in defending the state, make a concession to the left of yore- something that they should draw from rather than concede. He explains: “The polylegal system of the High Middle Ages, in which the authority of kings, local nobility, trade guilds, free cities, and the Roman Catholic Church competed and often checked the abuses of each other, is an important example and one that should be of obvious interest to conservatives.” How many present-day institutions revered by conservatives (but not by anarchists) are compromises to leftists of long ago?

Well, to Salter, governing institutions need not include the pretended monopoly of legitimate force of the state. He also argues that such a monopoly makes the state particularly useful to anti-conservatives because those of a small exogenous culture might find forced influence of the common folk from on top to be easier than persuasion. And, well, there's more in the article: Why True Conservatism Means Anarchy over at theamericanconservative.com.

Penjammin grew up in a labyrinthine cavern. Later he ran with the wolves and lived every moment marinated in the sweet scent of his game, until pirates landed and… See About for full story, and get his eletter at penjams.com/subscribe.

Free-will & Premortalism

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This is a bit of my episode with Dr. James Spiegel in which we discuss his article on the Premortalist Free-will Defense. Hear the whole episode below. Enjoy. -P

Dr. James Spiegel: . . . The free will defense is the other major response. And it says that a God would want human beings to have genuine relationships with one another and with God himself, and in order for that to even be possible, we must have significant moral freedom. Otherwise, we are automatons or robots or our actions (or potential behaviors) are so restricted that we can't really genuinely have loving relationships with one another. So God granted us a certain moral freedom, and as it happens, we have abused that freedom. And that's where all of these horrible things like murder and genocide and rape have come from. We've abused what was originally a good gift for a good end, and so it's our fault, not God's. That's the free will defense.

Penjammin: How is the premortalist modification to the free will defense- how is it different?

Penjammin grew up in a labyrinthine cavern. Later he ran with the wolves and lived every moment marinated in the sweet scent of his game, until pirates landed and… See About for full story, and get his eletter at penjams.com/subscribe.

Culinary Liberty

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This is my interview with the Culinary Libertarian, and we discuss how liberty and culinary matters go together. Get the full discussion below. -P

Penjammin: So tell me about the culinary libertarian thing. Now, I got an idea. Either it could be just those are two totally different things that are kind of conjoined together, or they could have some sort of inter-dynamic, mutual influence upon each other. I'll let you tell me.

Dann: Well, it's a little bit of both. And sort of the embarrassing answer is way back when I thought it was a good idea to do a podcast because-

Penjammin: Wait wait wait. We're recording one right now. [laughs] But alright go ahead.

Dann: Well, back five or six years ago, they weren't even, I don't know the history of podcasts, but there were a few of them, and it was still kind of a new-ish hip thing to do. I was following a libertarian at the time who said, you should make a podcast. And I said, well, okay, I'll make a podcast. Actually the thing that came first was the website. And he had a deal to get hosting. And you get a deal through hosting if you buy through his link. And I thought, well, if I'm going to buy through a libertarian's link, I probably ought to make a libertarian page because this is how dumb I was. I didn't know that I could [go without] that. So the thing I knew about was food. (And the thing I still know about [is] food.) And I was learning about libertarianism, about politics . . . So I thought, well, let me put the two together…

For more, check out the links and hear the whole episode below.
Our full discussion
Culinarylibertarian.com
Cooking For Comfort: One-pot Meals You Can Make
x.com/culinarliberty

The Episode:

Penjammin grew up in a labyrinthine cavern. Later he ran with the wolves and lived every moment marinated in the sweet scent of his game, until pirates landed and… See About for full story, and get his eletter at penjams.com/subscribe.

Father Alone

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Father alone will know all about it,
Pain that will trade for the joys up there.
Further along, we won't mind a bit,

Shedding old wounds too deep to forget,
Even if born of hate or warfare,
Even if Father alone knows about it.

Old backs still give. Old knees still quit,
Waiting for upgrades to old earthenware.
Further along, we won't mind a bit.

We'll wander in wonders, with banana splits
As, under the bridge, flows the last care
Where Father alone will know all about it.

Hardships enlargen, grow big hearts with grit,
Vessels that may hold the more heavenfare.
Further along, we won't mind a bit.

It is well worth it. The pieces will all fit,
Sometimes no friend can explain the nightmare.
Father alone will know all about it.
Further along, we won't mind a bit.

Penjammin grew up in a labyrinthine cavern. Later he ran with the wolves and lived every moment marinated in the sweet scent of his game, until pirates landed and… See About for full story, and get his eletter at penjams.com/subscribe.

The Need for a NAP

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This is an excerpt from part two of my talk with Dr. Gerard Casey on his book Libertarian Anarchy. Enjoy. -P

Gerard: I would suggest that while somebody can say that they don't accept the non-aggression principle– saying it is one thing, living it out in reality is another. And I doubt if there's anybody who can actually go through life without living that. I mean, you take your average academic in the days when you got paid by check and you went into your mailbox at the end of the month expecting to find a check in there. Right? And there wasn't any. And you said, “Oh where's, where's my month's pay?” And they said, “Oh, well, we just made an arbitrary decision not to pay anybody this month.” Okay, very quickly you would find that person using the language of “You can't do that. That's not right.” . . .

Penjammin: “It's an injustice!”

Gerard: . . . So it's not absolutely impossible that somebody could do this, but I think it's practically incoherent. That's the way [I would] put it.

Penjammin: I think the word you use in your book is self-stultifying.

Gerard: Hey, I told you I could write in those days. Self-stultifying huh?

Penjammin: That's very good. I like that one, too . . . I think most people would agree, almost immediately, that: “I don't want to be aggressed against, so I'm not going to aggress against others.” There's the principle of reciprocity that you talk about in your book as well there. But then they say, “Well, when it comes to the government that's different.” So why think it applies to the government, to government actors? And what difference does it make if it does apply to them?

Gerard: Oh, well. And then the question was, “Well, why should it not?” In other words: “What makes what makes them so special?” That comes down to the basic question, of course, for anarchy, which is “What is it that gives one person or a group of people the right to make laws backed by force or the threat of force- which is aggression of course because if you don't obey the law, in the end they're going to come and either lock you up or take your property. That's aggression, and it only works in one direction from their point of view . . . they have the right to do this to you, but you don't have the right to do it to them. And we say, “Well, why is that? What remarkable quality- is it your superior intellect?” Well, looking at your congress and our in our parliament, I think the answer to that is fairly clear . . .

Penjammin: [laughs]

For more Gerard Casey, check out The Liberty Classroom. Also, hear the episode below.

Penjammin grew up in a labyrinthine cavern. Later he ran with the wolves and lived every moment marinated in the sweet scent of his game, until pirates landed and… See About for full story, and get his eletter at penjams.com/subscribe.