To me, being in favor of government crack down on women who perform abortion is almost as bad as the draft. This is something so intimate, something you do with your body. Government intervention in something so personal is simply inexcusable. The fact that many libertarians support such stance is bewildering. You can play some logical games to prove its actually okay, but in the gut level I feel it is extremely anti freedom. What do you think?
For me the question is, do fetuses own themselves?
The keyboard is mightier than the gun.
Non parit potestas ipsius auctoritatem.
Voluntaryism Forum
I think the question is red-herring. It doesn't matter it owns or not itself, it's in woman's body and therefore, can be evicted. Peacefully. :)
(english is not my native language, sorry for grammar.)
Peacefully from the fetus' point of view? Artificial wombs don't exist yet.
I suppose it would be like kicking out a homeless guy.
The problem being that if you can peacefully evict a fetus, why not a baby or a child? This innocent eviction does away with all of parents' obligations to their children. Now, this might be a good thing ultimately, but I have not yet come to that conclusion.
I don't think abortion is ultimate point which determines is one libertarian or not. Anti-heroin minarchists usualy aren't treated as a statists!
Wheylous:I suppose it would be like kicking out a homeless guy. The problem being that if you can peacefully evict a fetus, why not a baby or a child? This innocent eviction does away with all of parents' obligations to their children. Now, this might be a good thing ultimately, but I have not yet come to that conclusion.
One could consider this a "lifeboat situation", except that in this case (typically), helping the other person won't lower one's own chance of survival. I think a better analogy is pushing someone off of one's own boat when the other person can't swim. In that situation, the boat owner intentionally placed the other person in a situation that put his life at substantial (if not severe) risk.
For me the question is this: Is it happening on my land?
Yes? Then, no, you are not going to have an abortion on my land.
No? Then, go ahead and do whatever the hell you want on your own God-foresaken land. You would be wise to be ever vigilant to defend yourself from crazy anti-abortionists who may choose to invade your territory in defense of the unborn.
Haha, nice stance.
Charles Anthony:For me the question is this: Is it happening on my land? Yes? Then, no, you are not going to have an abortion on my land. No? Then, go ahead and do whatever the hell you want on your own God-foresaken land. You would be wise to be ever vigilant to defend yourself from crazy anti-abortionists who may choose to invade your territory in defense of the unborn.
Anti-social much?
Agreed. Plus, it contradicts your stance on loose property rights. If new people can do whatever on your land, how come old people can't have abortions?
Autokylos:Anti-social much?
What type?
Wheylous,
You are making a mistake by assuming that property rights must be the same for old people as it is for the unborn.
Charles Anthony:I proudly call myself an anarchist.
Are you implicitly claiming that anarchists are anti-social?
Autokylos,
I am smugly dismissing the relevence of your question and the assumptions you make.
Cry me a river. And as far as I'm concerned, you have nothing to be smug about.
Do rights suddenly change? Perhaps there is some deeper issue than property rights then which we should be addressing.
Wheylous: Do rights suddenly change? Perhaps there is some deeper issue than property rights then which we should be addressing. Like the right to Life. Like the sanctity of life. Like how life > property. Or like the NAP. No baby every trespassed, invaded, or crawled up into a womb. There is NO property rights violation or aggression of ANY stripe from the baby so no violence due it. The reason the baby is in the womb is solely due to the mother's actions and the subsequent consequences of those actions. Yes, actions do have consequences. Or like responsibility. The prime responsibility for the baby being in the womb is the mother's and secondarily the father's. In one sense, she violated the NAP since that baby was not asked for consent. She should now, along with the father, be responsible for caring that child through to birth. At that point she can continue as mother of the child or since it is now viable outside of her body she can put it up for adoption. (the waiting list for babies in this country is so long that I personally know people that went to Central America and Russia, in spite of the red tape and costs, to adopt babies) (Ignoring the case of rape which is another matter and insignificant contribution to abortion numbers) | Post Points: 20
These are all philosophical musings, but in practice, if someone kidnapped and tortured my girlfriend for undergoing a medical procedure, I wouldn't call that someone a libertarian.
That's a very superficial view on things. So is "if someone killed the baby inside of her he is not very libertarian."
Hey, I just found a justification of everyone being inherently sinful: By being inside a mother, a baby violated the NAP. Hence, it is immoral to begin with. Bad, bad babies...
"Anti-heroin minarchists usualy aren't treated as a statists!"
I would say they are statist, if they want the state to stop heroin. But not if they are like most people and simply don't use heroin.
But this seems like a silly principle to be 'anti-heroin'. Does that mean they will accept meth, but not heroin? I don't see the principle at all.
Minarchists really are statists. Reformed to a point, but statists by definition.
Wheylous:Perhaps there is some deeper issue than property rights then which we should be addressing.
Wheylous:Hey, I just found a justification of everyone being inherently sinful: By being inside a mother, a baby violated the NAP. Hence, it is immoral to begin with. Bad, bad babies...
From what I understand of libertarian literature (have not read, but heard), there is apparently logic (or the authors like to believe there is).
Wheylous, have you read this yet?
In response to the OP, the government has no authority whatsoever and everything they do is de facto illegitimate. Why is it illegitimate? Because it violates property rights, upon which civilization and society rest. It doesn't matter if you're the government or not, if you violate property rights—which abortion retaliators would necessarily do—then yet it is anti-freedom, inexcusable, and as bad as the draft.
Alas, as I mentioned twice elsewhere, no, but I will get to it.
Wheylous: That's a very superficial view on things. So is "if someone killed the baby inside of her he is not very libertarian." Hey, I just found a justification of everyone being inherently sinful: By being inside a mother, a baby violated the NAP. Hence, it is immoral to begin with. Bad, bad babies...
firstly one has to prove that "baby" has basic human rights and that eviction it is an act of kiling it (not just removing unnecessary tissue). Also, if that happened with woman's consent, I don't see big problem (yet again, I am not so sure about later periods of pregnancy).
In my opinion, fetus and woman's relationship is symbiotic, but only woman has a right not to allow to be fetus in her womb.
1) People do stuff to benefit themselves...this is a philosophical fact. Egoism is correct and irrefutable. The second one tries to bogard you into thease non things is the second everyone gets all messed up...often at the expense of the person trying to convert one to some "moral imperative".
2) We are social animals, anyone debating this is a blind fool. Any social action that would "rock the boat" in such an extreme way doesn't exist, aand if it does it is beyond our discussion or calculations. This is why we have division of labor and the inescapable logic of the market process. Being pro or anti abortion has no bearing on this - it has shown itself to be the equivlent of a non issue - or a fun thing for rich people to bitch about and show off their peacock feathers. The more wealthy and open or society economies the more this seems to manifest in obviousness among cultures more actively/ self-admittidly participating in the market process.
3) In fact they are nonsense terms outside of subjective legal laws (not even biological languages can enter here). "Life" is an arbitrary tautology of whatever legal system is in place, as well as "murder", "peace", and "violence". If there was an "obviousness" to wether or not abortion was "good" or "bad" it would be mostly bred out of existence and hence, a non issue...but there isn't.
4) When something is nigh infinitly more powerful and in control of something on a conistent basis, it is a nonsensical comedy to try to make an issue of it. We step on ants all the time. It is "in our nature" - just as it is in the nature of a lion to kill a lamb. To call something like abortion right or wrong is comical...it is a consumer choice. All other talks of this are confused language mixngs of using going out of style/ profit cultures, expectations, biological urges, social signaling devices beig mixed with more modern notions - where there is simply no reason to care about this crap.
5) There is a high correlation of people breeding less, making more money, and showing less traditionally "violent" behavior towards others. We are overall more peaceful, developed, and intellegent as people than we were 300 or even 50 years ago. Once again, major concerns for breeding seems to be for people looking at what is rapidly turning into outmoded expectations within prosperous human society.
6) Any political theory that tells you what you "ought" to do is no theory at all - but a pack of nonsense. At best, liberal liberterianism describes how the individual relates to the social world and shows how the logic of inter-subjective social power functions, how one can act within the structures, and the consequenses of languages outside the structures of socio-economic reality trying to assert themselves into economic reality...and that is it.
In the end there really can't be anything to get too huffy about in political theory, it only affirms the reality you see. If "the heart" of liberalism is to really mean something unique above all the other nonsense politics out there, it is to describe one's politics as the consequence of actions and an affirmation of reality. If you are getting pissy about something it is your inability to assert your aesthetics/ consumer choice as a "thing in itself" without subsidy.
"As in a kaleidoscope, the constellation of forces operating in the system as a whole is ever changing." - Ludwig Lachmann
"When A Man Dies A World Goes Out of Existence" - GLS Shackle
Egoism is correct and irrefutable
Francois seems to disagree:
http://francoistremblay.wordpress.com/2011/05/21/against-psychological-egoism/
While I do agree with egoism, I think it might actually be irrelevant in any discussion. If egoism is not true, we have to look at all the factors that affect a person's brain (social norms, needs, etc) and use those to see how decisions are made. If egoism is true, we still have to look at the same factors because the person takes those same factors into account anyway. So the factors are there regardless of the validity of egoism.
1) That man is a nonsensical asocial nutjob who in a very literal sense speaks gibberish
2) I am not speaking of psychological egoism - but Stirnerite ontological egoism. In the case of psychological egoism, I am very close to calling it a very real fact (and a better option than eliminative materialism and evolutionary psychology) - in the sense that all that can be made are positive statments to affirm oneself and one's comparative advantage at any given moment at any given time...though that is not what I am addressing here. I am stating that "stuff" (material) is manifest by force that by necessity acts as itself and for it's purpose and is always itself. Furthermore this doesn't lead to some type of "left wing" , "cool", and polite type of French nihilism/ post-structuralism/ cosmological nihilism, but a very real consistent logical structure as to what goes on in the real world.
I am also saying that logic is a "non thing that has compelling universal consequence of inter-subjective actions and that is what what is neccesarry for any Darwinian/neo Darwinian narrative to work (and not just on earth, but universally), as well as the laws of Human Action as Menger / von Mises/ and maybe even Lachmann layed them down
3) The factors a person takes into account, are because egoism is true. We are dealing with intersubjective relations and the world of facts.
A note on psychological egoism:
1) Clinical psychology wise - it doesn't matter, whatever "works...works" via what ever method you chose. The end result is still essentially Freudian (who was not a British empiricist, but a German continental methodologist)...to strip the person of all the BS in their head, strip them down to thier own "subjective" basic values (which will still be neo darwinian/ naturalistic by any stertch of the word), and let them realize the realistic consequences and options within extant society.
2) In a more metaphyscial sense: there is no "I" in a Cartesian sense. There are just recycling patterns of patterns of things looping around with mirror capabilities. Another way to state this is millions of chuncks of unique "ego's" competing (just as Dawkins or any neo Darwinst will state about genes, or anything else for that matter) and asserting themselves (often with contradictory motives), and all we can talk about is what manifests on the inter-subjective level (which we can obviously do, or else we wouldn't exist)...the rest is meaningless as everything is unique and all and all unto itself.
So a dude jumps onto a grenade because it was necessary to exist as such, there is no other way to state it. I think anyone taking a real look at the complexities, and realities of the world is going to have to admit this as fact.
Note: I still won't claim psychological egoism, as it may be circular. Still though - behaviourism, evolutionary psychology, and things of that nature are wrong, and why modern psychologists ought not be taken too seriously - they are essentially "british empiricist" science hobbyists rather than deep thinkers who have had their worked subsidized by universities for no good reason. Freud is someone to probably take more seriously in the long run, and I would bet would be more in the "Austrian tradition" when looking at the social sciences.
Murder is immoral.
Eugene:The fact that many libertarians support such stance is bewildering. You can play some logical games to prove its actually okay, but in the gut level I feel it is extremely anti freedom. What do you think?
To declare a party line for libertarianism is un-libertarian. If you wish to have one declared, however, you would find yourself the minority in the Libertarian hierarchy. Recommend you get a second opinion from Dr. Paul.
In a free market, there would be so little demand for abortion it would wither to practically nothing. Planned Parenthood, through which virtually all abortions are conducted, is subsidized heavily by the Federal Government. Without this funding, it would cease to exist because they alone promote the demand.
Abortion used to be allowed or disallowed according to individual state law, as it should be. The free market applies to legal systems too. But since the Supreme Court decided to discover a "right to privacy", the issue has become a Federal mandate, and one more tool used to divide us. This "right to privacy" has yet to repeal the PATRIOT Act or warrantless wiretapping, so it seems that the State only uses it when it is convenient for them.
Murder is illegal as a tautolgy. If by that you mean immoral, sure.
Wheylous:From what I understand of libertarian literature (have not read, but heard), there is apparently logic (or the authors like to believe there is).
"1) That man is a nonsensical asocial nutjob who in a very literal sense speaks gibberish"
I am the eggman,
They are the eggmen.
I am the walrus,
goo goo g'joob
g'goo goo g'joob.
"all that can be made are positive statments to affirm oneself and one's comparative advantage at any given moment at any given time."
Sociopathic much?
For me the question is, who put the fetus in there?
Charles,
What have you read on property rights and such by Hoppe and Kinsella?
I think you are wrong in saying the NAP isn't somehow intrinsic in our nature. We are social animals, and society rests on the NAP. Ineed, civilization itself (and, action per se) rests on the acceptance of the most fundamental libertarian principle: self-ownership.
You may assume things, and point out that to state the NAP would be a positive statement. That doesn't make it not true or unlogical. The logic is fine.
I myself currently assume the NAP, yet I meant people like hashem. And yes, I shall be reading more literature :P