Antistatism Series
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This is the tenth entry in my Antistatism Series. Objectivism has nothing substantive to say about the private ownership of firearms, and nothing at all to say about the revolutionary and radical implications of the Second Amendment. Objectivists, in the aggregate, tend to follow Ayn Rand and Leonard Peikoff in thinking of the right to…
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A recent comment on “It’s Ours To Lose†has inspired me to write up a brief progress report on my Antistatism Series. I’ve been considering posting a progress report for … years … now, but I’ve had other things on my mind. First, since this may not have been clear, the series is not complete.…
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This is the ninth entry in my Antistatism Series. The Second Amendment is a historical relic of an attempt to "put teeth" in the right of revolution, to put a general and pervasive fear of violent uprisings into Federal officials, and, in the final analysis, make an honest woman out of "popular sovereignty." It failed…
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This is the eighth entry in my Antistatism Series. The Second Amendment to the United States’ Constitution was meant to strengthen a check on the power of any Federal army: the state militias. The Founding Fathers were prudently wary of standing armies, especially large ones kept in time of peace. Such armies were the concrete…
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Government is force. What Really Limits Government? Force limits government. First, government is limited by the force it has at its disposal. A government whose agents are armed only with truncheons is far more limited than a government whose agents are armed with machine guns, tear gas, and the hydrogen bomb. Second, government is limited…
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This is the sixth entry in my Antistatism Series. The last two posts in this series, “Practicability,” and “Heaven, Hell, or Hades?,” showed that Ayn Rand’s politics is incomplete because it provides no sufficiently realized account of limited government’s practicability. Objectivism states that a government of delegated and enumerated powers, limited to the purpose of…
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This is the fifth entry in my Antistatism Series. The more I study the Enlightenment, the more astounded I am at the depth and breadth of its contours, and at boldness of its heroes as they sought to shape the West to their new vision. One contour that I think Objectivists admire too distantly was…
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This is the fourth entry in my Antistatism Series. Here my argument begins in earnest. We shall see that Ayn Rand tacitly admits that an account of the practicability of government is a necessary component of any political philosophy — and then proceeds to not provide one. Objectivism has disturbingly little to say about what…
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This is the third entry in my Antistatism Series. Before I can make my own case for antistatism, I must pause to redress a famously misaddressed letter on a related subject. In 1969 Roy Childs began an Open Letter to Ayn Rand with these words: The purpose of this letter is to convert you to…
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Some time ago I promised a series of posts that would outline my argument “against limited government.” The first of these posts was “More Eggs,” which should be considered to be a kind of extended epigraph. The present post shall serve as a general introduction. When I said I would provide a series of posts…