Accuracy and Fact Checking Among Journalists and Judges

Stephen Rose writes in Paradise Post (California) HERE 

Rose quotes Catherine Crier, “the youngest elected state judge in Texas history” and it is not clear whether Rose or Crier is responsible for which part of the post.  Two statements caught my attention:

 ‘Crier concludes, “Those who believe the Founders wanted absolute economic freedom must understand that these men never contemplated tackling the likes of British Petroleum (BP) or Goldman Sachs, but Adam Smith did when he designed his market economy and insisted that only government could truly counter such power.”'

 Comment

Adam Smith did not “design” any part of what became capitalism, nor for that matter did he “design” anything else.  He was a moral philosopher and was not so inclined to believe that any person “designed” any part of human societies since Homo Sapiens emerged as a new species from several other proto- and pre-humans in central east Africa about 200,000 years ago.  Morality and behavioural norms emerge from local society circumstances where society is a 'mirror' for people learning how to behave - what Smith called "the great school of self-command" located in the school-yard in his youth.

Catherine Crier as an officer of a court of law, and presumably with legal training, might be interested in Adam Smith’s “Lectures On Jurisprudence” (1762-3 session,  which he had delivered since 1752), for which he received his LL.D from Glasgow University, and in which he details the history of the evolution of legal norms – without any pre-design.

 ‘The American Revolution, I agree was about more than “taxation without representation” and liberation from King Charles III. Britain was also going through great changes.’

Comment

It was indeed about more than ‘no taxation without representation’ and Adam Smith agreed with that assertion in principle and said so in Wealth Of Nations.  He also suggested that if the British colonies would not contribute to their defence, then Britain should withdraw.  There was no need for spending British taxation on another war in North America (the seven years war had cost Britain £100 million).

 It is also sign of Stephen Rose’s accuracy that he says the War Of Independence was against “King Charles III”, when every American child learns the name of the British Monarch as King George III.  There has been only two King Charles’s, both a century earlier than 1783 – it may be that we might have a ‘King Charles III’ later in this century.