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)?
Brainpolice: GilesStratton: Easier question, a guy is climbing through my 5th story reason for whatever reason. Do I have the right to refuse him entry? Once again, your questions are disingenous because they shift the question away of what's atually in contention. Noone is denying the right of exclusivity, what is being denied is the right to arbitrary use violence by merely appealing to a property title, and that one is required to let people fall from buildings in the name of preserving property rights. It isn't necessary, and such a position is psychopathic.
GilesStratton: Easier question, a guy is climbing through my 5th story reason for whatever reason. Do I have the right to refuse him entry?
Easier question, a guy is climbing through my 5th story reason for whatever reason. Do I have the right to refuse him entry?
Once again, your questions are disingenous because they shift the question away of what's atually in contention. Noone is denying the right of exclusivity, what is being denied is the right to arbitrary use violence by merely appealing to a property title, and that one is required to let people fall from buildings in the name of preserving property rights. It isn't necessary, and such a position is psychopathic.
You're missing the point. The point is that whilst he is climbing through my window the only possible way to refuse him entry is by pushing him back outside my window, on to the street for example. Causing his to die. Do I have the right to do this.
"You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows"
Bob Dylan
Brainpolice: GilesStratton: liberty student:They are, kooks and trolls. When we talk about the growth of libertarianism, we're talking about Ron Paul and Lew Rockwell, not BrainPolice and Kevin Carson. Now, now, I think you're forgetting that Kevin Carson wrote a (self published?) book, with a truly insightful cover of a guy sticking his head up his own ass. How profound and scholarly these leftists are. Yes, surely the tongue and cheek picture of a managerial person with their head of up their ass on the cover of his book means that we can just write Carson off entirely without addressing the content of his work. Yea, that's real rational and professional. *eyeroll*
GilesStratton: liberty student:They are, kooks and trolls. When we talk about the growth of libertarianism, we're talking about Ron Paul and Lew Rockwell, not BrainPolice and Kevin Carson. Now, now, I think you're forgetting that Kevin Carson wrote a (self published?) book, with a truly insightful cover of a guy sticking his head up his own ass. How profound and scholarly these leftists are.
liberty student:They are, kooks and trolls. When we talk about the growth of libertarianism, we're talking about Ron Paul and Lew Rockwell, not BrainPolice and Kevin Carson.
Now, now, I think you're forgetting that Kevin Carson wrote a (self published?) book, with a truly insightful cover of a guy sticking his head up his own ass. How profound and scholarly these leftists are.
Yes, surely the tongue and cheek picture of a managerial person with their head of up their ass on the cover of his book means that we can just write Carson off entirely without addressing the content of his work. Yea, that's real rational and professional. *eyeroll*
If Carson wanted to be taken seriously he could have tried harder than that. On one hand we have Roderick Long PhD relying on Dilbert, on the other we have Carson covering his books with a man with his head up his own ass. How can the left even expect to be taken seriously?
GilesStratton:You're missing the point. The point is that whilst he is climbing through my window the only possible way to refuse him entry is by pushing him back outside my window, on to the street for example. Causing his to die. Do I have the right to do this.
Again, careful Giles. The answer to this question basically destroys mutualism because if the workers can't homestead their capital goods by squatting without fear of removal by the original and genuine property holder, then how pray tell will we ever wither away capitalism?
What has been presented here continually, is a positive right to aggressors against property. That right coming at the expense of the property holder.
Liberty Student:Again, careful Giles. The answer to this question basically destroys mutualism because if the workers can't homestead their capital goods by squatting without fear of removal by the original and genuine property holder, then how pray tell will we ever wither away capitalism?
You just don't learn.
GilesStratton: You just don't learn.
I think LS was being sarcastic.
As gauche as it is to quote oneself;
liberty student:What has been presented here continually, is a positive right to aggressors against property. That right coming at the expense of the property holder.
This is important. If you follow through the logical implications of proportionality, one is incapable of sellf defence. And if you follow through the logical implications of no permissible use of physical force in the defense of property you cannot defend your holdings.
Again, the aggressor may come onto your property, and you can only try to remove him, as much as he resists. If he ultimately attacks you, you can only attack back. He is allowed to initiate violence, and to dictate at what level it will occur.
And my earlier question, similar to the 5th storey example, of how one man can repel 50 peaceful squatters from his yard, or garden or home, remained unanswered. Because it is physically impossible, for an individual, under the constraints of proportionality, to adequately defend his individual holdings against a communal attack.
The answers won't be found in this discussion. They will be found in the minds of the readers, who take the consequences of different positions and strategies to their logical ends. Then the wheat and chaff will separate amongst themselves.
liberty student:This is important. If you follow through the logical implications of proportionality, one is incapable of sellf defence. And if you follow through the logical implications of no permissible use of physical force in the defense of property you cannot defend your holdings.
Not necessarily:
Roderick Long:I have argued that the principle most consistent with the spirit of libertarianism endorses defensive coercion, but prohibits not only initiatory but also retaliatory coercion. But how much latitude does this restriction allow us? What does this principle allow us to do to criminals, beyond fighting them off at the moment of the aggression? First of all, remember that we defined coercion as the forcible subjection, actual or threatened. of the person or property of another without that other's consent. If I come runnng. toward you brandishing a sword, you need not wait until I actually cut you before taking defensive measures. By manifesting a murderous intent toward you, I have already placed myself under your authority. Hence it is permissible to imprison or exile criminals, to the extent that they pose a continuing danger to the innocent.
First of all, remember that we defined coercion as the forcible subjection, actual or threatened. of the person or property of another without that other's consent. If I come runnng. toward you brandishing a sword, you need not wait until I actually cut you before taking defensive measures. By manifesting a murderous intent toward you, I have already placed myself under your authority. Hence it is permissible to imprison or exile criminals, to the extent that they pose a continuing danger to the innocent.
(source)
It's not entirely relevant to this debate (he's talking about punishment vs. restitution), but I think that the above illustrates the principle: that the threat of force is also aggression, and that by posing a credible threat to someone else's life, a person can be killed in legitamite self-defense.
Market anarchist, Linux geek, aspiring Perl hacker, and student of the neo-Aristotelians, the classical individualist anarchists, and the Austrian school.
GilesStratton:If Carson wanted to be taken seriously he could have tried harder than that. On one hand we have Roderick Long PhD relying on Dilbert, on the other we have Carson covering his books with a man with his head up his own ass. How can the left even expect to be taken seriously?
I suppose that a lack of a sense of humor is another one of those conservative "virtues"?
nirgrahamUK: Ultima:In that case, why not just kill the person who steals a 5c bubblegum from your store then? Aren't they also "compromising" your ability to live by reducing your income? more details about the shop. inventories have run low and there is only one product containing sugar remaining. a piece of bubblgegum whose market price in nearby stores is 5c. the shopowner has just realised he's moments away from going into diabetic shock and heads towards the shelf where he knows the last piece of bubble gum to be. he spots a thief making for the bubblegum. posing a question the other way, most of us could 'survive' the loss of a finger. does this limit the degree of violence we might use to protect ourselves from a notorious finger slicer?
Ultima:In that case, why not just kill the person who steals a 5c bubblegum from your store then? Aren't they also "compromising" your ability to live by reducing your income?
more details about the shop. inventories have run low and there is only one product containing sugar remaining. a piece of bubblgegum whose market price in nearby stores is 5c. the shopowner has just realised he's moments away from going into diabetic shock and heads towards the shelf where he knows the last piece of bubble gum to be. he spots a thief making for the bubblegum.
posing a question the other way, most of us could 'survive' the loss of a finger. does this limit the degree of violence we might use to protect ourselves from a notorious finger slicer?
About your alteration of my shop example... well, those are a lot of coincidences to be sure, but is not inconsistent with what I said. He will have to prove that he was about to go into diabetic shock to the court, of course, and also that killing the thief was necessary to obtain the bubblegum.
About your second question, again, it comes down to proportionality. If your life is not threatened, you can't kill in retaliation. That would be two wrongs. There's nothing physically preventing you from killing the finger slicer, but as your retribution was out of hand, you would likely suffer some punshiment, too.
Obviously this thread has uncovered a wide ranging diversity of opinion over how actions might be classed as permissible or impermissable. central to the disagreement is a question of proportionality. Somehow we have to square the contradiction that only the bare minimal force is legititmate to counter some minor 'non-life threatening' tresspass/theft/violence (perhaps to counter momentary tresspass on a lawn nothing greater than a verbal request to step off would seem decent) on the other hand, it should be clear that a defender responding to an attack of more serious property damage or violent attack might be expected to have greater freedom to escalate their violent response even above the level of violence that they are offered (as otherwise the defender might always be bound to lose out in a confrontation). As a further example; in the case of a non-life-essential bodypart being threatened, it would seem perhaps more natural for a greater degree of potentially life threatening violence to seem appropriate in response.However,this issue of seemingness, and our 'moral intuitions' is helping me make my point. All these boundary conditions, all these whefts of feelings, the empathy for accidental aggressors, the sympathy for the self-defender; could not possibly be resolved by appeal to a universal ethic. Such a Universal Ethic would have to be clear as day to every rational moral agent, requiring only such an agents performance of rational analysis to determine permissable and impermissable action. This is a fine demonstration that our analysis here has moved beyond ascertaining what the raw ethical rules are for all moral agents Universally; and that we are now playing the losers game of second guessing what set of rules , codes of conduct, and judicial law, various moral agents might find that they have bound themselves to being judged by. Such bodies of law, encoded in a text of law, would provide a solid framework for addressing the aforementioned contingent,temporary,episodic, particular cases which we have here together struggled with.i put it to you that whilst the law that anarcho-capitalist firms would generate must define issues of proportionality, must codify this into their law; this is a definite and substantial step beyond the mere scribbling down of what 'the natural law is' . Re-Emphasis-------------'the natural law' or 'fundamental universal rational law' is different from the Produced Law (whatever flavour, be it explicit, or even the 'implicit law' (*footnote), that agents might bind themseleves to)-------------One might characterise the first as being rawrer, as it does make less fine grained distinctions, and it looks much less like the law we are most familiar and intimate with, that law being the prevailing common law of our societies(which has suffered greatly by being squeezed and distroted by the state).I suggest to all of you that have been following this thread that Proportionality Doctrine, is putting the cart before the horse.It can have no rational place in a rational universal ethics. because the opinions of human-beings (merely a subset of logically possible rational beings) are widely divergent from individual on questions of proportionaly. None of us are non-human rational beings, so none of us are qualified to give the extra-human perspective on matters of preference, though we are well qualified to talk about core rational ethics.
Hence Proportionality is not a universal principle such as the AXIOM of private property and the AXIOM of non-aggression. (these axioms drop out simple and well formed, from analysis on what it is to be a moral agent, and so could be derived by all rational beings be they humans or otherwise; but perhaps more needs to be said of this)Obviously,. charges of 'psycopathy' must fail under this understanding. psycopathy is not a generic failure of a rational being failing to uphold to some universal rational standard of behaviour. it is precisely again, a human condition characterised by idiosyncracies.It is of acting other than the kind, merciful, human empathy and sypmathy standard that we all as humans appreciate (or would appreciate if we werent psycopaths but emotionally rounded).
If the point is not clear by now i should reiterate:a conversation about what law human beings would like to live under is one thing, and the question of universal rational ethics for humans and non-human moral agents alike is definitely another. the two are to be confused at ones peril, such confusion leading to contradiction and absurdity.sincerely, your friendly neighborhood psycopathic-rational-agent NirGrahamUK*e.g. in a boundary case where judge WhatsHisName has a history of ruling in a way to satisfy his consumers both defending and prosecuting despite an explicit law code not existing to cover the dispute; one might bind oneself to accepting the judges ruling in these rare cases , the idea to build a body of precedence where explicit law making heretofore has been insufficient
Where there is no property there is no justice; a proposition as certain as any demonstration in Euclid
Fools! not to see that what they madly desire would be a calamity to them as no hands but their own could bring
wombatron: GilesStratton:If Carson wanted to be taken seriously he could have tried harder than that. On one hand we have Roderick Long PhD relying on Dilbert, on the other we have Carson covering his books with a man with his head up his own ass. How can the left even expect to be taken seriously? I suppose that a lack of a sense of humor is another one of those conservative "virtues"?
No, of course not. I can't stand people who lack a sense of humour. Just, there's times where humour is appropriate and there are times when it isn't, this is one of the latter. More importantly, is there anything slightly amusing about a picture of a guy with his head up his own ass?
GilesStratton:No, of course not. I can't stand people who lack a sense of humour. Just, there's times where humour is appropriate and there are times when it isn't, this is one of the latter. More importantly, is there anything slightly amusing about a picture of a guy with his head up his own ass?
I disagree. Given the topic and content of the book, it is both amusing and relevant.
wombatron: GilesStratton:No, of course not. I can't stand people who lack a sense of humour. Just, there's times where humour is appropriate and there are times when it isn't, this is one of the latter. More importantly, is there anything slightly amusing about a picture of a guy with his head up his own ass? I disagree. Given the topic and content of the book, it is both amusing and relevant.
I disagree, but at the end of the day, it's his book not mine.
liberty student: As gauche as it is to quote oneself; liberty student:What has been presented here continually, is a positive right to aggressors against property. That right coming at the expense of the property holder. This is important. If you follow through the logical implications of proportionality, one is incapable of sellf defence. And if you follow through the logical implications of no permissible use of physical force in the defense of property you cannot defend your holdings. Again, the aggressor may come onto your property, and you can only try to remove him, as much as he resists. If he ultimately attacks you, you can only attack back. He is allowed to initiate violence, and to dictate at what level it will occur. And my earlier question, similar to the 5th storey example, of how one man can repel 50 peaceful squatters from his yard, or garden or home, remained unanswered. Because it is physically impossible, for an individual, under the constraints of proportionality, to adequately defend his individual holdings against a communal attack. The answers won't be found in this discussion. They will be found in the minds of the readers, who take the consequences of different positions and strategies to their logical ends. Then the wheat and chaff will separate amongst themselves.
If we take your argument to its natural conclusion, then basically what you are proposing is basically the law of "what a man can do; what a man can't do", and you're arguing that if they're on YOUR property without your consent, you basically have the right to exterminate them, which is what pushing YOUR strategy to its logical end implies.
The concept of proportionality would not prevent you from removing 50 squatters... indeed, it grants you the right to use sufficient force necessary to remove them from your property, but no more. I don't think you're required to grab an AK 47 and mow down 50 people. Also, this is why we would live in a society where there are still laws and defence agencies capable of coming to your aid in situations such as this. Are you really suggesting to live in a completely anarchic society where there are no hierarchies, no agencies with superior force capable of aiding you in such situations?
If that's what suits you, go find a time travelling machine and travel back about 5000 - 10000 years, before there were states, city-states, or societies to speak of beyond the hunter-gatherer tribe. The "natural property rights" of the time might suit you better than today's world. Alternatively, you could go a couple thousand miles up the Amazon river and live among the tribes, there.
Ultima:If that's what suits you, go find a time travelling machine and travel back about 5000 - 10000 years, before there were states or city-states. The "natural property rights" of the time might suit you better than today's world.
Hahaha! The topic is based on a post in the "you are free to leave" discussion, and now we have come full circle, with you telling me I can take my opinion, and am free to travel back in time with it.
Priceless.
Btw, you haven't made any sort of rational argument. Appeals to emotion won't get you far around here.