Brainpolice said:For example, one's ownership over their home, even if it is a just case of ownership, does not give you the right to assault and murder people just because they are in one's home. In other words, property rights do not trump life and liberty.
That strikes me as odd. I thought... well, I remember reading two very poignant scenarios in which consistency in justice must prevail over liberal morality if consistency is to be maintained.
One example was that a man who has been lost in the woods for days and is on the verge of dying comes onto your cabin property and begins shuffling through your kitchen. You shoot him. Are you in the wrong or the right? The article said in the right -- for you were defending your property.
If you invite a friend over for dinner and then shank him as soon as he enters the door, well, that certainly feels different, but why is one okay and not the other (at least according to my understanding of BP's statements)?
Juan:You are ignoring that killing trespassers is NOT self-defense.
You are ignoring that killing trespassers is NOT self-defense.
No I'm not. Context decides whether it is self-defense. But my argument's foundation does not rest in it being self-defense. It rests on the foundation that private property is sacred and is the source of all rights. If you do not have the right to defend your property, then what right do you have?
This thread is very inspiring. It made me realize that we libertarians must ally ourselves with grumpy old men who sit on their porch all day drinking whiskey and yelling at neighborhood kids to stay off the grass. Once they learn that you can just shoot the little buggers dead they'll be libertarians right away.
Our next target audience should be anyone who's every dreamed of opening up a store and being "justified" in shooting their customers at random for no apparent reason.
majevska:This thread is very inspiring. It made me realize that we libertarians must ally ourselves with grumpy old men who sit on their porch all day drinking whiskey and yelling at neighborhood kids to stay off the grass. Once they learn that you can just shoot the little buggers dead they'll be libertarians right away. Our next target audience should be anyone who's every dreamed of opening up a store and being "justified" in shooting their customers at random for no apparent reason.
I read your post and literally laughed out loud -- thank you. That said, you're clearly missing the point.
"... shooting their customers at random for no apparent reason..."
Random? Perhaps in Bob's case, but life is a dangerous game anyway. Don't pretend Bob is the only evil in the world.
No apparent reason? Bob was exercising his right to defend his property from trespass.
Daniel Waite:But my argument's foundation does not rest in it being self-defense.
It rests on the foundation that private property is sacred and is the source of all rights.
If you do not have the right to defend your property, then what right do you have?
February 17 - 1600 - Giordano Bruno is burnt alive by the catholic church. Aquinas : "much more reason is there for heretics, as soon as they are convicted of heresy, to be not only excommunicated but even put to death."
GilesStratton: Brainpolice:As for your question, you'd be justified only if it becomes necessary. But it is not always necessary. Ok, let me change the example. Let's say you're staying a year in a hotel room in downtown Freetown. Your room is on the end of the hallway, and for the past ten days the rooms in that hall have been broken into and the people inside the room killed, yours is the only room left in the corridor. You have a gun under your pillow and you hear somebody breaking into your room. Can you shoot? I have another question but first I'd like to clarify something. You agree the many on the flag pole has the right to break the window, correct? On the grounds that he needs to do that otherwise he would die. Point out the errors if they exist, I really am curious.
Brainpolice:As for your question, you'd be justified only if it becomes necessary. But it is not always necessary.
Ok, let me change the example. Let's say you're staying a year in a hotel room in downtown Freetown. Your room is on the end of the hallway, and for the past ten days the rooms in that hall have been broken into and the people inside the room killed, yours is the only room left in the corridor. You have a gun under your pillow and you hear somebody breaking into your room.
Can you shoot?
I have another question but first I'd like to clarify something. You agree the many on the flag pole has the right to break the window, correct? On the grounds that he needs to do that otherwise he would die.
Point out the errors if they exist, I really am curious.
BP, answer this.
"You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows"
Bob Dylan
Brainpolice:Actually, your repeated attempts to boil everything down to "economic analysis" only bolsters my contention that you are functioning as a utilitarian. Try giving "The Ethics of Liberty" a read again.
How am I functioning as a utilitarian for trying to analyse the way things work? It is not in the slightest bit utilitarian to analyse how society will develop given the abolition of the state, it's called economics.
Brainpolice:I am not "forcing my values on to everybody else" by trying to flesh out a rational libertarian social theory, which is no different than what Rothbard did. Rothbard was a champion of the idea of a comprehensive libertarian theory of justice. Your continual attempts to act as if any attempt to provide a rational theory of libertarian interpersonal ethics is the same thing as trying to superimpose non-libertarian values onto libertarianism is disingenous.
Only, I've not acted if any attempt to provide a rational theory of libertarian interpersonal ethics is strying to superimpose non-libertarian values onto libertarianism, I've claimed that anything that goes beyond the NAP is doing that.
By the way how about that debate? I've asked you directly at least 10 times now. Why are you so keen to avoid it?
Juan:Yet your examples are not examples of legitimate use of force.
Who decides what is and is not legitimate? Once the initial property rights violation is triggered by the aggressor, I would say it is reasonable that the onus is now on the aggressor to manage what level of violence happens next, not the defender. The aggressor needs to do everything in his power to mitigate a violent response to a property trespass, whether that means showing empty hands, being submissive, retreat etc.
Some jerk can't come stand on my lawn, and place the responsbility on me to nudge, push and cajole him off my property. The moment an aggressor trespasses, and is cognizant of that, he must stop trespassing, or he is violating my rights. There is no rationale for how or why he can place a positive right on me to manage his safety.
The minute we take deadly force off the table, the aggressor has the advantage because he's willing to take a property rights violation all the way (murder) and I can't retaliate in kind until he has killed me. Which is so crazy, even for this audience.
liberty student: Juan:Yet your examples are not examples of legitimate use of force. Who decides what is and is not legitimate? Once the initial property rights violation is triggered by the aggressor, I would say it is reasonable that the onus is now on the aggressor to manage what level of violence happens next, not the defender. The aggressor needs to do everything in his power to mitigate a violent response to a property trespass, whether that means showing empty hands, being submissive, retreat etc. Some jerk can't come stand on my lawn, and place the responsbility on me to nudge, push and cajole him off my property. The moment an aggressor trespasses, and is cognizant of that, he must stop trespassing, or he is violating my rights. There is no rationale for how or why he can place a positive right on me to manage his safety. The minute we take deadly force off the table, the aggressor has the advantage because he's willing to take a property rights violation all the way (murder) and I can't retaliate in kind until he has killed me. Which is so crazy, even for this audience.
What about mormans and jehovahs witnesses which always seem to trespass into my property. =]
You guys are conflating self-defense with pre-emptive force. That is the heart of this problem. I find your interpretation of the NAP to be too thin, blurring the lines between self-defense and either ex-post-facto or pre-emptive violence. I'm not a pacifist. I am not denying the right of self-defense, I'm providing it with its proper context: when there is a threat to life and in conditions of escalation. Furthermore, argueing that a tresspasser is an "iniatior of force", as if the mere act of being on your property is proportional or even qualtatively similar to an initiation of force against someone's person/body, is nonsensical.
The context for the use of force in self-defense is not the mere fact that someone is on your property, that is rather arbitrary and inherently undermines life and liberty. If you just arbitrarily shoot people upon finding out that they are on your property, without regaurd for any other context, then you're engaging in pre-emptive force, not self-defense. Walter Block's thin libertarianism is insufficient, since it lacks a comprehensive definition of the initiation of aggression and treats the NAP as an axoim rather than a very specific principle in a bundle of principles.
LS:Some jerk can't come stand on my lawn, and place the responsbility on me to nudge, push and cajole him off my property.
The moment an aggressor trespasses, and is cognizant of that, he must stop trespassing, or he is violating my rights.
There is no rationale for how or why he can place a positive right on me to manage his safety.
The minute we take deadly force off the table, the aggressor has the advantage because he's willing to take a property rights violation all the way (murder) and I can't retaliate in kind until he has killed me.
Which is so crazy, even for this audience.
Who is to determine when there is a threat to life? The aggressor? The victim? The jury? Who composes the jury? I think the correct answer to the first question is, who owns the property?
When you try to add exceptions to the NAP, you introduce inconsistency in principle. Can I defend my property or not?
It feels like you're answering that question with: yes, but only in circumstances x, y and z. It is those exceptions I object to. Not least of which because those exceptions will eventually grow in length, and the act of becoming familiar with and applying them will become unwieldly.
I have an idea. You can setup a community wherein all residents must abide by a contract of your choosing, and anyone who violates that contract shall be dealt with accordingly. Sound good?
Daniel Waite: majevska: This thread is very inspiring. It made me realize that we libertarians must ally ourselves with grumpy old men who sit on their porch all day drinking whiskey and yelling at neighborhood kids to stay off the grass. Once they learn that you can just shoot the little buggers dead they'll be libertarians right away. Our next target audience should be anyone who's every dreamed of opening up a store and being "justified" in shooting their customers at random for no apparent reason. I read your post and literally laughed out loud -- thank you. That said, you're clearly missing the point. "... shooting their customers at random for no apparent reason..." Random? Perhaps in Bob's case, but life is a dangerous game anyway. Don't pretend Bob is the only evil in the world. No apparent reason? Bob was exercising his right to defend his property from trespass.
majevska: This thread is very inspiring. It made me realize that we libertarians must ally ourselves with grumpy old men who sit on their porch all day drinking whiskey and yelling at neighborhood kids to stay off the grass. Once they learn that you can just shoot the little buggers dead they'll be libertarians right away. Our next target audience should be anyone who's every dreamed of opening up a store and being "justified" in shooting their customers at random for no apparent reason.
Perhaps I'm missing the point. But the point I'm trying to make is that a lot of things talked about in this thread are the behaviors of lunatics. I'm not so into the natural rights stuff or the NAP so these points actually aren't so important to me. I like to focus on reality whenever possible; and the reality is that in almost any conceivable society, people who shoot children for walking on their lawn or arbitrarily decide that it would be fun to shoot customers (or perhaps skewer them on pieces of sharpened bamboo/cut off their testicles with a bowie knives) will be dealt with in a like manner by others. If enough people behave this way then who knows what society will devolve into but it won't be pretty. Long story short, these behaviors will never be considered "normal;" this sort of stuff is pure lunacy.
No, the first thing to ask is not who owns the property, the context is people's behavior and the circumstances of the given situation. I'm talking in terms of normative ethical principles. The context that you're totally dropping is the person's behavior, I.E. if they cooperate or agree to leave and if they actually threaten force. If the guy's like "okay, sorry for being on your land, I'll leave", and you shoot him, you're simply a murderer.
The funny thing is, I'm not adding exceptions to the NAP, I'm accusing you of having TOO THIN of an interpretation of the NAP. I'm accusing you of justifying initiations of force by removing the context and reducing everything to "who is the owner?". The fact that someone is an owner doesn't given them license to arbitrarily kill people without regaurd for context.
Again, I'm not making any exceptions to the NAP, I'm saying that a rights theory in which two different rights-concepts violate eachother is incoherant. In this case, someone's right to life and another person's property rights are violating eachother. This shoudn't be the case, and a fully integrated libertarian theory resolves the problem by properly providing the context for things like self-defense and decision-making power relative to property. Self-defense and decision-making power over property is not 100% arbitrary, it always has a context.
This begs the question to me over how the community is really "set up".
Brainpolice:No, the first thing to ask is not who owns the property, the context is people's behavior and the circumstances of the given situation. I'm talking in terms of normative ethical principles.
No, the first thing to ask is not who owns the property, the context is people's behavior and the circumstances of the given situation. I'm talking in terms of normative ethical principles.
I respectfully disagree. Do you believe in self-ownership? I do. All rights are derived from property. If you own no property, you have no rights, because rights exist IN property. I have a right to live because I own my body.
Brainpolice:The context that you're totally dropping is the person's behavior, I.E. if they cooperate or agree to leave and if they actually threaten force. If the guy's like "okay, sorry for being on your land, I'll leave", and you shoot him, you're simply a murderer.
The context that you're totally dropping is the person's behavior, I.E. if they cooperate or agree to leave and if they actually threaten force. If the guy's like "okay, sorry for being on your land, I'll leave", and you shoot him, you're simply a murderer.
Maybe it would help if I explicitly denounce the theory of proportionality. Would that make my stance more clear? Defending one's property is defending one's property. I'll extend this to saying that if someone touches my shoulder without my permission, I am in the right to stab him for violation of my property. I probably wouldn't, at least not at first, but if I did, I would be in the right.
Before I go further, let me qualify my last paragraph: I understand, as a rational, social human, that if I really chose to stab someone for touching my shoulder, I'd probably be socially ostracized from my community. There are other reasons I, personally, wouldn't stab someone for that offense, but that is the primary reason. However, if I did, I would have to live my life with the consequences of my decision, but I shouldn't be persecuted for protecting my property.
I'll go further: If a friend of mine grabs the controller to my TV from my hand, I'm not going to stab him. I could, but I'm not going to. I seriously wonder if everyone who disagrees with me believes that because a person is in the right to do something means that they will absolutely, without fail, exercise that right at every opportunity; especially when the use of that right brings about permanent and disturbing changes.
To me, the NAP provides justice. It provides justice to those situations in which the timeline of events is quick, adrenaline is pumping, fear mounts and uncertainty pervades your mind: am I in danger? Better to be safe than sorry. If you wish, consider it an "unfortunate side effect" that this principle must also be in play for another, who chooses to take property violations to their extreme conclusion, when you would have handled things differently.
Brainpolice:I have an idea. You can setup a community wherein all residents must abide by a contract of your choosing, and anyone who violates that contract shall be dealt with accordingly. Sound good? This begs the question to me over how the community is really "set up".
I imagine it would look something like an apartment complex of today. You purchase/homestead a piece of land, build on top of it, advertise, take on customers who are willing to agree by your rules and in return you accept their payment.
majevska:Long story short, these behaviors will never be considered "normal;" this sort of stuff is pure lunacy.
Hey bro, when I found out it's ok for people to get pregnant from casual sex, and then abort the fetus, I thought "gee, that's murder, that's pure lunacy" but it isn't. It's "reality" and it happens every day.
No one is suggesting one should kill kids. Or Blacks. or Asians. Or women. Or anyone. The question is, what does defense of your property constitute? At what point does the life of another exceed the extremes you can take to defend your property?
Btw, in reality right now, people are dropping bombs on unarmed, non-combatant civilians. There isn't too much lower this society can devolve. We're already scraping rock bottom.