Monday, September 21, 2020

My Canned Response

Occasionally I receive comments like this:

“To claim that freedom derives from Christianity is nonsense.”

From now on, I will simply offer a link to this post: my canned response.

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I occasionally receive comments such as yours.  I believe the topic is much more involved than can be achieved via a simple response in the comments section.  Therefore, I offer the following as a gesture of goodwill: I truly want to address your comment; I can only do so via the following posts. 

I thank you in advance for entering into what I am certain will be your honest exploration of this topic.  After all, why would you have commented if you didn’t want a thorough discussion?

Start here: Antonio Gramsci Libertarians; and here: Libertarian Communists

Then this post, based on this talk given by Jeff Deist – read them both

Further foundation: A Libertarian Grand Narrative.  Also read the two embedded links within this post:

·         The Libertarian Quest for a Grand Historical Narrative, by Hans-Hermann Hoppe

·         The Cost of the Enlightenment, by Daniel Ajamian

Then go to the Bibliography tab, and from there read the following:

·         Gerard Casey, Freedom's Progress?: A History of Political Thought

o   Christianity

o   Christians and Government

o   Augustine

o   Finding Freedom in an Unfree World

o   Thomas Aquinas and Law

·         Fritz Kern, Kingship and Law in the Middle Ages

o   The (Not So) Dark Ages

o   The Road from Serfdom

o   Every Individual Vested with Veto Power

o   The Law (No, Not THAT One)

o   A Written Constitution: Protecting the State from the People

 Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn, Liberty or Equality: The Challenge of Our Time

o   The Words of the Prophets

o   The Fatherland of Philosophy

 Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn, Leftism: From de Sade and Marx to Hitler and Marcuse

o   Leftism: A Perfect Track Record of Failure

o   Living Right

o   The Left’s War on Religion…

o   Vive la Révolution

o   The Road to International Socialism

o   The “Good” Liberal

o   The “Bad” Liberal

o   More Alike Than Unlike

·         C.S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man

o   This is Sublime

o   Finding the Trunk

o   Nature Conquers Man

o   It’s Natural

o   The Natural Law of C.S. Lewis

·         Robert Nisbet, The Quest for Community: A Study in the Ethics of Order and Freedom

o   One Hand Washing the Other

o   Community Lost

o   Community Found

o   No Turning Back

o   Name Your Poison

o   The Revolutionary Essence of the State

o   The Road to Sovereignty

o   Far Cry

o   Procuring Petty and Paltry Pleasures

o   The Missing Link

·         Heinrich A. Rommen,   The Natural Law: A Study in Legal and Social History and Philosophy

o   The Natural Law

o   The Scholastics

o   New Wine, Old Wineskins

o   Wine Fraud

o   Man in a State of Nature?

o   Where Natural Law was Lost

o   Why Positive Law Dies….

o   Is-Ought and Hume’s Guillotine

o   The Foundations for Liberty

·         James C. Russell, The Germanization of Early Medieval Christianity: A Sociohistorical Approach to Religious Transformation

o   Germanic Christianity

o   What Kind of Christian Are You?

o   Shake the Dust off Your Feet

o   Germanic Social Structure

o   Conversion

·         Richard Storey, The Uniqueness of Western Law: A Reactionary Manifesto

o   The Not-So-Universal Libertarianism

o   Libertarianism and Natural Law

o   Asking for Trouble

o   Political Life

·         Frank van Dun, Various

o   What Happened to the Promise?

o   Give Me Liberty or Give Me Property Rights!

o   Heresy

o   Medieval Libertarianism

o   Frank van Dun’s Natural Law

o   Natural Law and Anarcho-Capitalism

Then read this on natural rights, based on work by Murray Rothbard: What of Natural Rights?

Finally, read this book: The Search for Liberty

o   Preface / Introduction

o   Chapter One: Metaphysics and the Four Causes

o   Chapter One.one: Aristotle’s God

o   Chapter Two: The Form of the Good

o   Chapter Three: An Overview of Natural Law

o   Chapter Four: Philosophy and Theology

o   Chapter Five: Thomistic Metaphysics

o   Chapter Six: Thomas and Natural Law

o   Chapter Seven: Four Laws

o   Chapter Eight: The Catholic View

o   Chapter Nine: Compare and Contrast

o   Chapter Ten: The Natural Law of C.S. Lewis

o   Chapter Eleven: On Ethical Absolutism

o   Chapter Twelve: Libertarian Natural Law  

o   Chapter Thirteen: Libertarian Natural Rights  

o   Chapter Fourteen: Natural Law: The Complication

o   Chapter Fifteen: Crime and Punishment

o   Chapter Sixteen: The Continuum

o   Chapter Seventeen: Ergo Summatim

o   Appendix: The Form of the Good Made Manifest

 

After you read these, I believe we can have a proper discussion.

Kind regards,

bionic mosquito

15 comments:

  1. Thank you for your truly monumental search for truth. You've helped me more than I can explain, and for the words to express my thanks to you for all your efforts.

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  2. this is a great source of links. thanks, and God bless you.

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    Replies
    1. Troy, thank you for these words.

      I don't often make a point of it, but take a look at the top of the page - there are tabs that cover various topics (that include some of the items in this post and many others). These might also be helpful.

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  3. TL;DR

    =)

    Are you offering a print version of your book? Perhaps you can self publish or get the Mises Institute to offer it in a nice case-wrapped hardback? I'd buy it. It's the least I could do for enjoying your website all these years.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Being boxed into writing something that can be called a book was already more constraining that I like. I don't have an appetite for more.

      It is sufficient for me that you read and comment. Thank you for this.

      Delete
    2. I can understand that. It is sufficient for me that you keep writing, anything, in any format. Otherwise, I will complain to your Manager. =)

      Thanks for sharing your thoughts and intellectual adventures with us. I've grown a lot here at The Mosquito. I actually have no clue how old you are, but I hope you live to 150.

      By the way, I love these one-stop-shop resource pages you put together. It is very impressive. Are you going to make this one a new tab at the top?

      Delete
    3. ATL the journey doesn't work without feedback from you and others here - both now and in the past.

      I may make a new tab, and consolidate one or two of the current ones.

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    4. I concur with all that ATL says in his 12:09PM comment. I have also hoped that you will continue writing for a long time to come.

      I don't often comment, but I read with alacrity all that you write, and I’m very grateful for this thought-provoking resource. It is unmatched, and I thank you. How you find the time to write so prodigiously, when I find it daunting simply finding the time to read what you say, is astonishing to me.

      Thank you once again, Mr. Bionic. Peg

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    5. Thank you, Peg.

      God has blessed me with the time and desire to continue this work. I have chosen to focus my life on a handful of things that are both valuable to me and allow me to eat!

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  4. Freeman’s Perspective, Paul Rosenburg, has extensively explored/explained Christianity and freedom in past subscription newsletters. A great resource. You can navigate to those (or his shorter daily articles for free) via the following link:

    (today’s daily was so good I linked it)

    https://freemansperspective.com/live-dangerously-and-you-live-right/

    ReplyDelete
  5. Wow; I love it! Thank you for putting all these great writings in one place! Now I have enough reading for a year ;-)

    Btw, it's nice to be back and read your thoughts again. Sorry, I went on an RSS feed hiatus for two years due to information overload but I realized that other news/sources are causing me serious mental decline so now I am back solely reading blogs.

    Thank you for your continuous deep explorations of the truth! You have given me a lot of clarity, thoughts, energy, and inspiration. May God bless you!

    Norbert

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    Replies
    1. Thank you, Norbert.

      Your comments are interesting. A few years ago I decided to try and focus on the positive: what is necessary to move toward a civil and reasonably free society. I didn't like what I was becoming by focusing on the negative.

      I still do it once in a while (primarily, I think, only to offer the contrast), but I am much more comfortable with the mix.

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