Liberalism as a non-authority theory of authority

Liberalism treats the question of what authoritative discriminations in particular are just, as if it were a question of whether authoritative discrimination in general is just.

Freedom means putting the right kind of people in prison

To say that Bob has the freedom to do X is to say that Bob has the authority to do X.

To say that Bob has the authority to do X is to say that anyone who acts in a way contrary to Bob doing X may be punished or face consequences for that interference.

To say that anyone who acts in a way contrary to X may be punished or face consequences is to constrain people through authoritative discrimination: to classify people along some attribute or behavior and discriminate against them based on that attribute or behavior.

So freedom means constraining classes of people through authoritative discrimination.

The dawning of opposite day

The phrase “equality before the law” sociopathically frames the question of how the law should authoritatively discriminate as if it were a question of whether the law should authoritatively discriminate.

Why all the negativity?

The negative precepts of the natural law are universally valid. They oblige each and every individual, always and in every circumstance. It is a matter of prohibitions which forbid a given action semper et pro semper, without exception, because the choice of this kind of behaviour is in no case compatible with the goodness of the will of the acting person, with his vocation to life with God and to communion with his neighbour. It is prohibited — to everyone and in every case — to violate these precepts. – Veritatis Splendour

Abstractly speaking an authority can take either a “whitelist” approach to property exchanges (only approved transactions are endorsed and enforced) or a “blacklist” approach (transactions are presumptively endorsed and enforced, but exceptions apply).

As a practical matter though the latter is the only real possibility for actual finite human authorities. Any attempt at the former proposes to actualize a potential infinite, and thus in practice would become a perverse and sociopathic version of the latter.

So blacklists it is. There is good reason why categorical commandments take the form “thou shalt not.”

(Originally a comment here).