The US government really has been seizing URLs, for an example go here.
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This is a syndicated post, which originally appeared at Mimi and Eunice » IP. View original post.
Mimi & Eunice: Authoritarian Read Post »
I’m hearing reports that nearly $1 billion has already been spent on US House elections alone. Sheila Krumholz of the Center for Responsive Politics predicts “$3.7 billion will be spent on this midterm election.” That’s 30% more than last time. It’s no surprise that the more legal plunder government is able to redistribute, the more people are willing to spend to gain control of the state. Obama is making Bush the Younger look thrifty and the next president will likely do the same for him. The increase in electoral spending will continue apace.
Such a distraction and waste of money political elections, especially national elections, are. As I explained in Voting, Moral Hazard, and Like Buttons: “The very existence of [a] centralized voting system for deciding public matters of moral importance encourages citizens to focus their energies on this formal democratic process, which is to say that it encourages the wasting of time and money on vote getting (or buying), at the expense of getting anything actually productive done in a timely fashion.”
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Distraction and Waste: The Great Electioneering Spending StimulusRead More »
Distraction and Waste: The Great Electioneering Spending Stimulus Read Post »
My article, Rethinking Intellectual Property: History, Theory, and Economics, was published today (Oct, 22, 2010) on Mises Daily. It details the content and purpose of my upcoming Mises Academy course, “Rethinking Intellectual Property: History, Theory, and Economics,” Mises Academy (Nov.-Dec. 2011) (discussed on the Mises Blog in Study with Kinsella Online). Sign up!
Rethinking Intellectual Property: History, Theory, and Economics Read Post »
Instead of raising the victim back up — to balance the scales of Lady Justice, so to speak — it seeks to drag the criminal down to the victim’s diminished level.
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Cross-posted at Is-Ought GAP.
It is particularly prevalent among libertarians and practitioners of Restorative Justice to favor restitution and reject punishment, or to at least reject retribution (private punishment “owed” to the victim / “just deserts” / “getting even”). I find this brief argument, from Getting Even: Revenge as a Form of Justice by Charles K. B. Barton, p. 93, to be persuasive:
1. Humans are innately social beings who can flourish and achieve their full humanity and potential in terms of moral and spiritual maturity, only in society.
2. A human society is a moral community.
3. A moral community is such that its members are mature, morally responsible individuals who hold one another accountable for wrongs to fellow members and to the common good.
4. To hold persons responsible and accountable for wrongs to fellow members and to the common good is to consider them liable for blame and punishment for such wrongs, independently of functionalist and instrumental considerations, such as expressing disapproval or deterrence—though obviously such considerations are not irrelevant to impositions of punishment.
5. To consider persons liable for blame and punishment for wrongs independently of functionalist and instrumental considerations is morally to accept retribution.
Using this explanation as part of an argument, there are two conclusions which follow:
6. Human individuals can flourish and achieve their full humanity, including moral maturity, only if they morally accept retribution and retributive liability for their wrongful actions.
7. Since individual flourishing and the achievement of one’s full humanity, including moral maturity, are good things worthy of being pursued, retributive punishment within the limits set by the principles of justice is also a morally good thing which may be pursued and, unless contra-indicated by countervailing instrumental and functionalist considerations, or by the appropriateness of mercy and forgiveness, ought to be pursued.
I highly recommend Barton’s book Getting Even. And his book Restorative Justice: The Empowerment Model is likewise excellent.
For a more comprehensive discussion about the key role that mediation must play in any legal system that aims to achieve justice, see my working paper A Call for Mediation Casebooks.
A Short Defense of Punishment Read Post »
