General

Re: Liberty is not the ultimate value

Double Eagle — Fri, 29 Jun 2012 00:24:43 GMT

Re: Liberty is not the ultimate value

Clayton — Thu, 28 Jun 2012 22:26:27 GMT

'Liberty' is having the ability to live one's life as they choose, as long as it doesn't harm or infringe on the right of others to do the same.

But the root problem is that defining what is "merely living one's life" versus "infringing on the right of others to do the same" is extremely complex and discussions of the subject tend to be fraught with special pleading. Such a definition of liberty, then, is next to useless because it doesn't tell us anything about what's wrong with the current order. USG claims that invading Iraq and Afghanistan "to keep America safe" is just living without infringing on others. The Iraqis and Afghanis, naturally, feel quite differently.

I don't have any solutions but I think we can identify some things that are not solutions. Monopolizing law and security is not a solution. Worldwide government is not a solution. (cf Hoppe) This tells us that the solutions must lie in some other direction... perhaps reducing the scale of government and making government more localized so that those who make decisions are closer (socially, economically, geographically) to those affected by the decisions.

I pay five times in Federal taxes what I pay in State taxes. This is backwards. I can drive to my State capitol and protest if I feel that strongly about something. But I live 3,000 miles away from Washington, DC. I can't afford to fly to DC to protest, at least, not unless the Federal government gives me a couple thousand dollars of my money back to do it with. And then there are the well-known problems with "voting" from public-choice theory. Increasing the locality of government will decrease the costs of being politically informed (and rational) and increase the benefits of being politically informed (and rational).

Clayton -

Re: Liberty is not the ultimate value

Double Eagle — Thu, 28 Jun 2012 21:55:56 GMT

Clayton - I agree with many of your points, and disagree with some of them.

I think its extremely important to define one's terms. I have sometimes found myself arguing with someone, only to find out through discussion that we actually agreed. Our definitions for words were different.

To me . . . its basic and simple. 'Liberty' is having the ability to live one's life as they choose, as long as it doesn't harm or infringe on the right of others to do the same. Such Liberty provides the framework for living up to one's full potential - - if they choose to do so.

Human beings get the things they need to survive from nature and combine it with their own labor. We can get physical goods by either producing them, trading what we've produced for the production of others, or by taking it from others.

Criminal gangs such as the mafia use violence and fraud to take what they want. They are nothing compared to the criminals controlling governments. I don't know how many people the mafia has killed - - hundreds maybe ? This is nothing compared to the hundreds of millions killed by governments. The advantage that government has over the mafia is that they are able to employ large scale sophisticated propaganda. Its my personal experience that the vast majority of people would rather work to produce what they need and/or trade with others peacefully. There is a social, perhaps biological, aversion to killing other human beings - - for most people. If their physical survival needs are met and they aren't under direct physical threat - - it takes a lot of mental conditioning to get people to attack & harm others (bootcamp, propaganda of various types, etc). The controllers of government are able to invent righteous causes and 'enemies' to scare and enrage people on a vast scale. The people, many of them now soldiers, may head off to defend word concepts that theyve never really even examined, and harm others who they had never met before.

So my definition of "Liberty" is likely far different from whatever was said to be a justification for Vietnam, Iraq, Libya or any number of wars around the world.

Yes, I view Liberty is an ultimate value - - in the way I define the concept for myself.

Re: Liberty is not the ultimate value

acft — Thu, 28 Jun 2012 19:06:40 GMT

Anome said:

And that is the question of being over-powered. When one overpowers another, they put the overpowered in a state of utter helplessness where that person can do anything to them, up to and including killing them.

Putting someone in an overpowered state gives you life and death power over them. This is why the woman being raped can shoot to kill and the person being attacked with murderous intent can do the same.

But there is not necessarily any overpowering involved in a theft. Usually its done by sleuth without confrontation."

Certainly, in the case where someone steals a piece of gum, according to the standard you have just given, you are correct. However, armed robberies occur every day. SO basically, it is not OK to shoot someone who steals your stuff unless they are armed it would seem.

The other examples I gave, home invasion (armed) and car jacking (armed), and I'll add another one, armed robbery on the street, would all be cases where you can shoot them. A classic stick up job, gun out, give me your wallet deal would be the a street robbery scenario.

We can even take the gun out of the equation and say a purse snatching, or an unarmed car jacking, and an unarmed home invasion. In every case, the person can physically overpower the victim without using a weapon. There are many examples of people simply being beaten down by bigger people and having their stuff taken.

Even without force, or a weapon, I would still think it was OK to shoot someone to stop them from stealing my stuff. A very realistic scenario:

You have just bought a new car with your hard earned money. You pull up to a mail box and get out to mail something. A theif jumps in the drivers seat and tries to take off. In that scenario I have no problem pulling the trigger.

Another scenariothat is realistic:

Many people in america leave their doors open. You have your door open and some stranger walks in, looks around, and not realizing anyone is home, starts looting. You walk in on him and pull your gun. He starts to run with your item, and as he clears your door you manage to shoot him in the back. Even though this introduces the problem of trespassing on property as well, still, I don't see a problem with this at all.

And so going back to the mild infringement, someone comes into your store and takes some item. They are on your property, you don't know their intent or whether or not they are armed, and they are running away with your stuff. In this case I refuse to stand there and watch my hard earned cash walk out the door. At the same time, trying to subdue this guy physically puts be in danger of being shot or stabbed. I'd rather brandish my firearms, have him put it back, or hold him in place until security arrives. If he doesn't give me my property back I have no problem shooting him, if even just to wound him in the leg or something.

I do see the merit of your arguements. Auto said that killing someone takes away all off of their rights, fair enough. Rape does not take away all of someones rights and yet most I have asked people will say its ok to shoot a rapist trying to rape you. Still, I can see where one would say, on the face of it, too much force was used in a given instance.

Anenome said that there must be a case where someone is being overpowerred. OK, it seems like a reasonable standard. People can over power you with or without weaponry, and very rapidly.

My standard, I guess, will be the initiation of aggression. I am just very hard on aggression and I think that the society that tolerates aggression and protects the rights of those who openly initiate aggression against people, helps to grow aggression.

An example of this today: In criminal circles, when you shoot someone and you have a good chance of getting caught, you shoot below the waist so that it is not considerred attempted murder. Criminals are known to exploit these kinds of laws and push what they can get away with rightup to the edge. If a criminal could be killed for any kind of attack, they would certainly think twice IMO.

Re: Liberty is not the ultimate value

Michel — Thu, 28 Jun 2012 16:01:34 GMT

Torsten:
If overpowering a person was involved (by threat or applied violence), then it would be robbery anyway.

The difference between burglarly, theft and robbery. (In this link, please, disconsider the government part. Stick to the definitions).

Torsten:
But what when you are confronting the thief in his act?

Now assume the bestolen person uses force against the thief, would that be a crime he should be prosecuted for.

I picture this situation as the thief grabbing the bubblegum and starting to run away. In that scenario, he used an amount of force (taking others property without asking). Naturally, the shopkeeper can demand the thief to put it back, probably to no avail. In that case the thief is violently retaining the shopkeeper's property without his consent, so he can use a larger amount of force to try to retrieve his property, because just asking was not enough. If the thief pulls a gun, there is no way to know if he'll actually shoot or not. The gun may be unloaded. Heck, it may be even a toy gun. But, in this situation, the thief is obviously forcing the impression on the shopkeeper that the latter's life is in danger. In that case, shooting the thief down would be justifiable. Is this perfect? What is perfection? Does it even exist? How to measure the exact amount of force that is just to defend oneself? Well, you can more or less define situations like I did above, but there's no rocket science here. I don't think these kind of arguments prove or disprove any law theory. Which is the best law theory? If you ask me, naturally, I'll say that is law based on the NAP. It would bring perfect justice? Well, I don't think this concept is possible, but I can argue that it is the most just and logical that I know of.

Re: Liberty is not the ultimate value

Autolykos — Thu, 28 Jun 2012 14:49:50 GMT

Torsten:
1) If they give it (the same) definition, it doesn't make it wrong or invalid either.

There's no such thing as a wrong or invalid definition. But that wasn't my point. My point was that the age of the traditional distinction between murder and manslaughter is irrelevant.

Torsten:
2) Murder and manslaughter are both unlawful (but perhaps not completely unjustified in the case of the second). Just that there are additional elements in the case of murder as mentioned above. So the distinction still stands and is ancient.

As I said before, the distinction is irrelevant in light of the definition that I'm using for "murder", namely "unlawful/unjustified killing". What you seem to be doing is insisting that my definition for "murder" is somehow wrong. It isn't - it's just different from the traditional definition.

Re: Liberty is not the ultimate value

Torsten — Thu, 28 Jun 2012 11:58:37 GMT

But there is not necessarily any overpowering involved in a theft. Usually its done by sleuth without confrontation.

If overpowering a person was involved (by threat or applied violence), then it would be robbery anyway.

But what when you are confronting the thief in his act?
Now assume the bestolen person uses force against the thief, would that be a crime he should be prosecuted for.

Re: Liberty is not the ultimate value

Anenome — Thu, 28 Jun 2012 09:39:42 GMT

acft:
Can you imagine a woman who shot an assailant who was ripping off her clothes being judged as using too much force because she wasn't "raped enough"? Why does this not apply to theft.

The typical answer to your question here is that there is an additional consideration that theft doesn't satify that rape and attempted murder do.

But there is not necessarily any overpowering involved in a theft. Usually its done by sleuth without confrontation.

Re: Liberty is not the ultimate value

Torsten — Thu, 28 Jun 2012 07:43:56 GMT

Even so, 1) the typical modern-day (Western) state makes that same distinction, and 2) it's not the same as the definition for "murder" that I explicitly used in my post. Surely you can see that.

1) If they give it (the same) definition, it doesn't make it wrong or invalid either.

2) Murder and manslaughter are both unlawful (but perhaps not completely unjustified in the case of the second). Just that there are additional elements in the case of murder as mentioned above. So the distinction still stands and is ancient.

All that shows that property and even life aren't really absolutes.

Wouldn't liberty be a condition of society anyway?

Re: Liberty is not the ultimate value

acft — Thu, 28 Jun 2012 05:42:32 GMT

Auto said :

"ACFT, did the thief deprive his victim of all of his rights? If not, then why does the thief nevertheless deserve to be deprived of all of his rights in response (by killing him)?"

Because he initiated aggression. For the sake of looking at the principle of aggression, and whether or not one should tolerate it, let us assume the other two big crimes are taking place.

I would say that the big three crimes are theft, murder and rape. In my experience, these are usually agreed upon as being "real" crimes.

In a rape situation, does it matter if a rapist fully penetrates the victim or only sticks the tip in? At what point, while the victim is pinned, are they allowed to pull a derringer and shoot? Does a rape victim have to wait until their clothes are pulled off to stop an act of aggression? Do they have to wait for the assailant to disrobe?

Assault and murder

In the case of assault, and murder how many times does someone have to be shot to count as a situation where they can shoot the aggressor? Or what if they have a knife instead of a gun? Can I shoot someone with a knife who has tried to stab me outside of his range?

Theft

And so, in the case of theft, what does someone have to steal to enable you to defend your property? A piece of bubble gum? A car jacking at gunpoint? Maybe a home invasion, where they tie your family up and take everything?

I think that when someone initiates theft the principle of self- defense enables that person to defend their property as they see fit. In the case of rape, it means you can do whatever you need to do to stop people from raping you. When someone tries to kill you, you can do whatever you need to do to stop them from killing you, up to and including killing them.

Can you imagine a woman who shot an assailant who was ripping off her clothes being judged as using too much force because she wasn't "raped enough"? Why does this not apply to theft. Is there some arbitrary amount of worth to an item after which it is OK to use lethal force to defend?

I do see your point, yes it may seem asinine to shoot someone over a piece of candy, and I am not endorsing this extreme. However, from a philosophical point of view, once you initiate force or fraud you take the risk of being retaliated against, otherwise, it seems that it is being suggested that someone take a loss because they have to respect the criminal's rights.

Re: Liberty is not the ultimate value

Bogart — Thu, 28 Jun 2012 03:41:16 GMT

Keynes did not need the facts to change at all when he simply ignored the commonly know ideas spelled out in the "Broken Window Fallacy", Say's Law and in the description of the "Socialist Calculation Problem".

Re: Liberty is not the ultimate value

Anenome — Thu, 28 Jun 2012 01:41:39 GMT

Regarding the Heinz Dilemma:

Stealing the medicine would certainly be morally wrong, as that is a gross property violation.

But people find it difficult to blame such a person whom steals something just to live, as life is among the highest of values generally. But it's still morally wrong to steal. Stealing bread or water when dying of hunger or thirst is still an act of aggression under the NAP.

If everyone simply stole every new medicine that came out, there would be greatly reduced or zero incentive to create new medicines and we'd all suffere thereby.

Re: Liberty is not the ultimate value

Michel — Wed, 27 Jun 2012 22:43:14 GMT

blablanine:

Alright. So I think I've established some of your positions here.

1. Killing a thief for stealing property, even possibly a great amount of property up to the point where you deem execution proportionate to the theft, is wrong.

2. The husband with an ill wife is also wrong if he steals to save her life.

So we have the thief alive, and the innocent wife dead.

Law care not about consequences, people do. There is no way to know every possible consequence of an action. What if taxation kills people, for it stops them from buying food that otherwise they could if it weren't more expensive? What if the man in this case could buy the medicine if it weren't taxed?

Was poverty and hunger lower under these initiatives? Not saying that private charity is bad, far from it, but I don't think it's always enough.

I don't have statistics of hunger of that time, but, according to this article on mutual-aid (a kind of private welfare), "By the 1920s, at least one out of every three males was a member of a mutual-aid society.[in the US]".

I assume that by "enough" in mean ZERO hunger and ZERO poverty. Does the state acomplish that?

Re: Liberty is not the ultimate value

blablanine — Wed, 27 Jun 2012 22:04:17 GMT

In which stone is written that the only way to help poor people is throught taxation? There are PLENTY of articles in this site describing how the private iniciative handled welfare before the government put its hands on it.

Was poverty and hunger lower under these initiatives? Not saying that private charity is bad, far from it, but I don't think it's always enough.

Re: Liberty is not the ultimate value

Michel — Wed, 27 Jun 2012 22:02:27 GMT

blablanine:

I see that, I and I know that you think Food Stamps and subsidized school lunches starve children. I disagree, but if you want to read up on these programs effects on fighting child hunger (or Fome Zero and Bolsa Familias in Brazil) that's up to you.

My point is that these proportionate repayment legal systems we're discussing place life as too important to take as a punishment for theft. Life (or whatever other term you want to use for it) is more important than property in this particular instance.

You should probably follow your own advice. You have a pattern of not reading or even attempting to understand the literature that we provide for you. It would probably be for the best if you took the time to "just think about it".

No, I don't think that's necessary if you're saying what I think you are. You're able to consider that the Heinz dilemma "theft" can be legally wrong but morally right. Indeed, individuals can keep stealing and returning property back and forth with no net consequence. I understand your position a bit better now. Still strange to me, but it works.

You know, Fome Zero and Bolsa Familia look a lot more vote-buy programs than anything else. You can say whatever you want, like "they give a little money to people, but it's better than nothing, and it keeps them from dying", but it is very easy to be president and create this program, since you pay for them with tax money, and if tax money is not enough, the central bank prints the difference (that's pretty much it). There is a lot of truth in the saying "don't give the man a fish, teach him how to fish instead". There are parents in Brazil that openly say in public schools, when the teacher tell them that their kids don't know how to read (in 4th grade), "well, they don't have to know how to read, they just have to be in school for me to receive a minimum wage from the government" (I know that because I know a teacher who went throught that; anedoctal, still...). Is that how you think things should be handled?

In which stone is written that the only way to help poor people is throught taxation? There are PLENTY of articles in this site describing how the private iniciative handled welfare before the government put its hands on it.