Ancaps often declare, "All rights are property rights." I was thinking about this the other day, in the context of running into libertarians online who insisted that libertarianism supports "the freedom of movement," and realized that this principle actually entails that people without property have no rights at all, let alone any right to "freedom of movement." Of course, immediately, any ancap readers still left here are going to say, "Wait a second! Everyone owns his own body! And so everyone at least has the right to not have his body interfered with." Well, that is true... except that in ancapistan, one has no right to any place to put that body, except if one owns property, or has the permission of at least one property owner to place that body on her land. So, if one is landless and penniless, one had sure better hope that there are kindly disposed property owners aligned in a corridor from wherever one happens to be to wherever the...
The first one I thought of was from the late Harry Browne: "No one owes you anything."
ReplyDeleteHe makes this seemingly cynical insight surprisingly inspiring and freeing, as he had a knack for doing.
http://www.harrybrowne.org/articles/GiftDaughter.htm
To my great dismay:
ReplyDeleteThe era of "the era of big government is over" is over.
(credit: R. W. Bradford, former publisher of Liberty magazine)
"If dogs don't need to use toilet paper, then neither do I."
ReplyDelete"Down with Wabulon!"
ReplyDeleteI like all of yours so far. I'm no friend of the Olympic Games, but "Citius, altius, fortius" is bitchin'. Or is it "Altius,..."?
ReplyDeleteRunners up: "Qui transtulit sustinet" -- motto of one of the New England states: He Who brought us across will sustain us. "Hinc robur et securitas" -- motto of the Swedish equivalent of the Federal Reserve Bank: Hence strength and security. "Robustness" really, but I can't think of how to say it.
“Does it matter that this waste of time is what makes a life for you?”
ReplyDeleteThis is a quote from Zappa’s “Greggery Peccary.” In the proper context it’s critique of the perceived freedom of many individuals in a consumption driven society. A man can “choose” to build a life around beer and football.
I quoted Mr. Zappa last week in the waiting room at Sloan Kettering in Manhattan. It’s funny; I was with my father who is dying from liver cancer. We were talking about things we liked to do that others might not find so interesting.
One of my father’s favorite mottos, presumable from somewhere in his Catholic background, was “each man finds his own way to paradise.” To me Zappa succinctly combines this sentiment with Shakespeare’s “Out, out, brief candle! Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more: it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."
I don't know what my favorite motto is, but two interesting ones:
ReplyDeleteDo not give in to evil, but proceed ever more boldly against it. --Ludwig von Mises, borrowing from Virgil
Don't take any sh*t from anybody. --Billy Joel
What's a motto with you?
ReplyDeleteBut seriously folks,
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
That last is certainly the one that best fits this blog.
ReplyDelete