Nick Harkaway Quotes
Executive power in any nation arguably has more in common with executive power in another country than with the citizens it should serve.
Harkaway, Nick. The Blind Giant: Being Human in a Digital World. John Murray, 2012.
To Mises, “interventionism” is any government action that affects business and businessmen and women. In a large complex society, virtually every government action will benefit some more than others while harming some more than others. There are almost always winners and losers as a result of every government action. Most political philosophers see justice and fairness in benefitting the majority of people most of the time. However Mises and others observe that in a large complex society, in an absolute sense, politics and government can never be fair and just to all.
He had no authority to do this. He just took it upon himself. This was one of the incidents which caused later Congresses to pass very strict laws limiting the authority of all Federal Military and other intelligence and police forces so that they have little or no authority within the United States. President Lincoln did not allow the order to stand, although he repudiated it very delicately and as privately as possible. Many in his own party strongly favored this proclamation as it cracked down on the Southern Rebels and emancipated slaves—both objectives of many Republicans. In addition, Fremont was very popular with the people and had strong political connections. (He would later run for President.) See {635739}.
The drafters of the Constitution were well aware of this view of Montesquieu’s which was one of the main bases of separation of powers and checks and balances in America.
This was in effect a “Real Estate Promotional Document. Democracy, self government, and the right to set their own taxes were major selling points. See {611572} and {611571} for other “features.”
Porfirio Diaz - the longtime dictator of Mexico stole the election of 1910 and had his opponent Francisco Madero arrested and imprisoned. Madero got out, crossed the border to San Antonio, and issued this declaration which started the Mexican Revolution. See {613620} for the statement that declared the Revolution.
‘Necessity’ is another word that governments use in such situations. To deal with “National Security” governments tend to extend their power over individuals, encroach upon civil rights” and repress their population. This is true of right and left wing governments, democracies and dictatorships.
The assumption of one supreme authority being necessary for a state, has been the most common assumption in almost all cultures and times before the American Revolution. What is amazing is that the Founding Fathers rejected this notion in favor of our complex system of checks and balances restrained by a Constitution which no society had ever tried before. England in contrast as it became more democratic, simply shifted the supreme, uncontrollable entity from the King to the Parliament which it is even today. Parliament can do virtually anything unrestrained by anything except their judgment and tradition.
Nicholas Cornwell (born 1972), better known by his pen name Nick Harkaway, is a British novelist and commentator. He is the author of the novels The Gone-Away World, Angelmaker, Tigerman, and Gnomon; and a non-fiction study of the digital world, The Blind Giant: Being Human in a Digital World.
