[extropy-chat] Extropy and libertarianism - a search fo rmeaning...

[Mike Lorrey]

I would suggest folks go over ICA's Common Economic Protocol that I
linked to previously. Based on the concept that Neal Stephenson used in
his novel The Diamond Age, it is a consensual international legal code
of personal and property rights for a world of individualists,
distributed polities, corporate states, sovereign individuals, and
consensual phyles.

--- Jack Parkinson <isthatyoujack at icqmail.com> wrote:

> Brett Paatsch wrote >Are you suggesting a tranhumanist bill of
> rights?  I think there is some
> >merit in such a suggestion. If someone makes a reasonable first
> draft
> >of it, I'd be interested in checking it out and maybe giving
> feedback.
> 
> What I really had in mind was not actually a transhuman bill of
> rights - but a sort of rubric if you will - couched in
> philosophic/moral rather than procedural terms. I have an inherent
> distrust of codified 'law' - we have way too much of it and I have
> seen estimates that statute law has burgeoned in some western nations
> by 200% or more in the last two generations or so. 
> 
> At present we employ vast numbers of people to formulate written
> legislation and then yet greater numbers to pick holes in the laws,
> circumvent them, evade them or otherwise invalidate them. If all that
> vast repository of law was abolished overnight - I wonder - would it
> really matter? Probably not IF you could still go to court, plead
> your case, and be judged by good people in your society on the basis
> of what is right and wrong... 
> 
> This in essence is the argument for common law. It is flexible and
> reflects current mores and attitudes, England got by for centuries on
> it. Codification and statutes are well-meaning but too often fail in
> delivering genuine justice: In the beginning was the word, then the
> word was twisted...
> 
> The letter of the law is not the same as it's spirit (which allows no
> loopholes and technical acquittals of wrongdoers). 
> 
> Perhaps it should also be said that legislation is used at least as
> much to oppress as it is to protect....
> 
> >> A good first step might be to make politicians personally 
> >> accountable for their errors...
> 
> >That's not a bad idea. But you can't have a first step that is not
> >operationalisable.  Holding all politicians as a class accountable
> for
> >their collective errors isn't operationalisable for you or me or
> indeed 
> >any one person. Because they don't operate as a class. They take
> >individual oaths of office and to the extent that they can
> individually
> >avoid being held to account for breaking their oath, then of course
> >they will (on average) try to do just that.
> 
> It should not be too difficult - one simple practice would do it:
> every executive decision/promise has an executive sponsor who signs
> off on the order/pledge and takes full responsibility for it. No
> sponsor = no order/pledge, no matter how strong the wording it -
> becomes just a suggestion/hope... A committee need not be jointly
> responsible - but they must have one member who is prepared to 'carry
> the can' for the rest. Where multiple members DO sign, retribution is
> not mitigated by membership of the group - they are jointly and
> severally liable. The same system would work as well for corporations
> as for politicians. 
> No more limited liability! no more decoupling of action from adverse
> consequence! We might expect a lot less frivolity, self-serving
> decision-making and empty promises if such a system were in place...
> Jack
> > _______________________________________________
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> 


Mike Lorrey
Vice-Chair, 2nd District, Libertarian Party of NH
Founder, Constitution Park Foundation:
http://constitutionpark.blogspot.com
Personal/political blog: http://intlib.blogspot.com


	
		
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