Saturday, January 25, 2003

Abortion Is the Health of the State. Abortion politics is futile because liberal democracy cannot resolve the kinds of questions involved in the dispute. Those questions are pre-political, having to do with what constitutes membership in the human race and with what rights accompany that status in our society. By subjecting the dispute to the "democratic process," both sides concede to the State and to the mass of voters the authority to determine who's human and who isn't. The problem with this should be immediately apparent. Not only can one very easily imagine the State and the masses making objectively wrong decisions, but also, given the fickle and arbitrary nature of bureaucrats, the masses, and judges, a decision that's "right" today can be "wrong" tomorrow. Subjecting these kinds of fundamental questions to the democratic process amounts to denying the existence of truth itself, or at least subordinating truth to power. This happens to be the inverse of what the liberal state was originally supposed to do, to uphold certain pre-existing conventional and metaphysical rights. [LewRockwell.com] A very good article on why the political arguement over abortion is futile. comment () trackback ()  9:10:07 PM     LewRockwell.com has two articles by Lew Rockwell and Joseph Sobran on how they went from conservatives to libertarians. Both are very interesting, and the Rockwell articles has lots of information on the history behind the Ludwig von Mises Institute. comment () trackback ()  12:33:53 AM

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