Wednesday, 26 January 2011

Self-Ownership, can it be questioned?

I own my own body. I therefore rule it. I decide how my faculties shall be employed and I make all decisions concerning my person and personal possessions. This sounds pretty self-evident to me. But there are some people (sadly 99% of the population consists of such people) who argue otherwise. They say we are not self-owners because they want control. They want to decide what we put into our bodies. They want to decide how we use our bodies. They are tyrants, pure and simple.
As a libertarian (progressing from the classical conservative-liberal tradition of Blackstone, Spencer, and Acton) I know self-ownership to be the only possible rule applicable to humanity as a whole and to individual people. There are two ways one could tackle the problem of proving self-ownership - either by proving it directly and axiomatically (the Hoppeian way) or by disproving all other possibilities (the Rothbardian way). So here I am going to offer the simple versions of the two arguments:
Rothbard claims there are three ways a person can exist in society:
(1) Everyone owns their own body
(2) Some people own the bodies of the rest of the people.
(3) Everyone owns the bodies of everyone.
He then proves only option (1) is functional and universal. Option (3) is impossible because in order to act a person would need to receive the approval of every one of his owners, i.e. every other person in the world. And every other person would need the permission of other people in order to give permission to the first person. Thus action under such a system is impossible and all people would die. Option (2) on the other case (an oligarchic slave/master dichotomy) is impossible because it is not universal. Every scientific Law has to be universal in order to work. Thus by creating a law which distinguishes between two types of people (remember, our aim was to create a law which applies to ALL people) we have to make arbitrary decisions on who is the master and who is the slave. Thus option (1) is the only Law which is both universal AND functional.
Professor Hoppe's proof, however, is even more decisive:
He says that it is impossible to even argue about self-ownership. After all, if you do not own yourself, you cannot argue! You cannot open your own mouth or think with your own brain! Thus saying "I am not a self-owner" is a contradiction - you are not allowed to speak if you are not a self-owner. By speaking you contradict what you are saying!

Why would I present this basic, yet obscure proof on my blog? After all everyone from the time of John Locke has accepted it as true... But it is crucial to understand it. Everyone who believes in liberty must be able to stand his ground against all kinds of evil people who try to usurp his rights. And as Murray Rothbard eloquently wrote, all our rights come initially from the notion of self-ownership: "If a man has the right to self-ownership, to the control of his life, then in the real world he must also have the right to sustain his life by grappling with and transforming resources; he must be able to own the ground and the resources on which he stands and which he must use. In short, to sustain his human right."

31 comments:

  1. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTACCBJyhVA

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  2. If this guy was right (which he is not) then the statement "I am fully at liberty to type on my computer" would be nonsensical. I don't know where he got all these weird notions about soul-brain duality and he must be the only guy in the world (other than communists) who says that liberty and property are not connected. Also, when he talks about liberty he commits the fallacy of talking about so-called "positive liberty", i.e. self-mastery. Liberty is not self-mastery (even Isaiah Berlin finally admitted this later in his life) liberty is "negative liberty", which means "freedom to use ones faculties". These two (in the late 20th century liberal tradition) get very mixed up. Sometimes negative liberty becomes a form of positive liberty. This is why Berlin confused himself so much and in the end came out against free markets (can you imagine any liberal truly arguing against free markets?). This man Paul McKeever suffers from the same mind disease that modern neo-liberals suffer from. They no longer understand what liberty really is (the proper definition died in the liberal movement with PM Gladstone, I'm afraid). If you do not sort out this problem for yourself, no wonder you're confused!

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  3. I don't know where he got all these weird notions about soul-brain duality

    From thousands of years of metaphysics, ontology, and epistemology, and then later Decartes and then onward.

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  4. No, self-ownership has nothing to do with soul-brain duality. Atheists who don't believe in any soul also agree that self-ownership is legitimate. Also - are you now no longer considering yourself a liberal? It seems in our discussion you were sceptical of anarcho-capitalism so you said you are Misesian. When I explained Mises you became sceptical and said you were a classical liberal. Now you don't even accept classical liberalism?! So I am guessing you are a Monarchist after all! An old Tory perhaps?

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  5. "So I am guessing you are a Monarchist after all! An old Tory perhaps?"

    Wow, you're hysterical. You just like making irrational conclusions. You've now convinced me.

    Atheists don't believe in a soul? Please, spare me your nonsense. Its not like Rothbard or Block specialized in metaphysics, ontology, and epistemology ideas.

    And as for the parent and child relationship, either you are born into a relationship where the parent has to act as a night-watchman over the child, or the child is not the parent's, metaphysically, ontologically, or etymologically, etc. Please, spare me your conclusion. I've given up and hope you study this more thoroughly in later years.

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  6. "Wow, you're hysterical. You just like making irrational conclusions. You've now convinced me."

    I was being ironic and alluding to the fact you keep changing your position as our conversation progresses. If you can't smell the sarcasm, I'm sorry. I just found the way you skip from place to place on the political map histerical.

    "Atheists don't believe in a soul? Please, spare me your nonsense. Its not like Rothbard or Block specialized in metaphysics, ontology, and epistemology ideas."

    You know who does? Ayn Rand. It is sufficient to say that a faultless libertarian epistemology exists already. It was mostly borrowed from the classical liberals. And the problem with you is that you obviously don't believe in advancement over time. You still think theories of Plato and Aristotle as as legitimate as the theories of today. The fact is people have built upon ancient Greek philosophy to create something much more advanced. Is Aristotle's Politics as legitimate as Hobbes's Leviathan or Locke's Treatise on Government?

    You throw around words like ontology, metaphysics, empistemology, without really comprehending what they mean. Do you think everyone must create their own theory of metaphysics? No! If there is already a correct one out there you should just accept it and built other things on top of it. As you said our minds are not infinite. Every man who is born can't start from scratch. Today's engineers are working on jet engines, not starting anew with designing the wheel. That is how knowledge is built up through the centuries. I accept Locke's homesteading, for example, and build on top of that.

    Do you not accept any thery as fact?

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  7. No, I do not accept Locke's homesteading principle. If a man lands on a piece of land that is uninhabited as far as the eye can see (like an island), then he can claim the island for himself the moment he puts the stake down and oil, gas, and coal pop out. Meanwhile, everyone else in the rest of the world is stranded in a desert, and the claimer of the island has the resources of the Earth at his natural monopolistic disposal.

    On a separate and non-original (not my) criticism, I will actually quote Rothbard:
    "Imagine I’m renting a house under a Lockean property system, and get permission to plant a garden on it. I invest a lot of effort in composting and green manuring, and even spend money on granite dust, greensand, rock phosphate and the like to improve the soil. When I get done with it, what was hardpan clay has been transformed into rich, black, friable soil. And when I cease renting, I lose the value of all the improvements I made. That’s the sort of thing that happens all the time under Lockeanism. But I suspect that Reisman would say that I made the improvements with my eyes open, and am entitled to no sympathy because I knew what the rules were. I certainly doubt that he’s shedding any tears over the invested labor that the South Central Farmers are in danger of losing."

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  8. Also, I suppose that if we had privatized NASA in the 1950s, and a company landed on the moon and homesteaded it on its own by building a station there and extracting rock from it, then the company would own the moon as well as any other planet it (the shareholders and the CEO) could claim, build, and live on, and the right to blow one of the planets up (such as the moon) if Earth’s citizens did not want to pay for the service of maintaining the property.

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  9. Wow, what you just wrote is very sad. It means that all the colonialism that ravaged Africa and the "New World" was legitimate. After all the European powers didn't accept Lockeanism and just said "as far as the eye can see, all I claim to be mine". Later of course they discovered people there, but who cares about the 'primitives' right? Why don't I just go to your room, find a spot where you are not currently standing at the moment and claim it as mine... would that be alright with you?

    Lockean homesteading theory is accepted by all liberals and libertarians.

    Please enlighten me how you would prevent conflict in property rights? Can I just take your car and drive away? What is theft?! The whole point of homesteading is to establish boundries between people's legitimate properties. If not homesteading how is this possible?

    Again you are getting into "might makes right"...

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  10. From your above posts I can tell you don't understand how homesteading works... Read Locke's Second Treatise on Government!

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  11. Matt, not even Rothbard agreed with you. Now that is sad.

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  12. "Matt, not even Rothbard agreed with you. Now that is sad."

    1) Rothbard can't agree with me, he is dead. It is I who agree with Rothbard (which I fully do).

    2) Even if I disagreed with Rothbard why would that be sad? Because you feel your need to belong in a mob doesn't mean I have to take the same attitude. People can have INDIVIDUAL opinions.

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  13. "Lockean homesteading theory is accepted by all liberals and libertarians."-you

    "Because you feel your need to belong in a mob doesn't mean I have to take the same attitude."-you

    LOL

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  14. I see you are changing the subject again... Or maybe you forgot already that you were just completely wrong when it comes to Lockean homesteading? This is exactly your problem - the shifty debate style. The point of a discussion is to arrive at a conclusion. So far you have not arrived at any conclusion. So am I right or are you?

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  15. "People can have INDIVIDUAL opinions."

    My conclusion is the same as before. I do not agree with Lockean homesteading.

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  16. Well then what is the theory of property you accept? Why is your shirt yours? Please explain.

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  17. I would but the reason I won't is because we've already established in the last 100 or so comments that I draw a different conclusion of what property entails from your own (even on the minutia body/soul dichotomy scale and self-ownership/private property relationship).

    I hold that the relation between labor and ownership pertains only to property that was both 1) unowned before such labor took place and 2) did not violate my intended natural right to existence (I distinguish between ownership and existence, as my existence is inalienable, i.e. non-transferable while my ownership is not). For example, I could buy a house surrounded by empty, uninhabited land that I do not claim as my own, and then a contractor could come and build a factory on all four sides of land surrounding my house. Well, my natural existence when I intended to buy the house was to have air I could breath on my property, and I am deprived of that which is necessary to survive by another even if he does not violate my property. I couldn't sue, because the agreement between two parties (the factory and the consumer) is solid and there has been no aggression upon my property. Even if I could sue, there is no common (collective) ownership of air and I cannot prove my death (from a cancer) will occur as a direct result, so I would either have to sell my land or abandon my home due to the threat to my existence. Now if I had intended to live in that environment where I knew the consequences, then that would be different because I had willingly chosen to sacrifice my intended natural existence even to the point of possible death. In another instance, if I chose to suddenly start experimenting with detonating nuclear bombs on my own land, and my two neighbors a hundred miles away got cancer, they could not sue my contractual and voluntary defense agreement with my partners without violating the right to do what I want on my property. And they could not prove that their cancer, even if a toxic cloud passed through their house, was a direct result of the nuclear explosion. So my intended right to naturally exist on my land is a matter of consideration in my theory of property, and to dismiss it in a suit would be to dismiss my ability to live on my own property while in existence.

    "People can have INDIVIDUAL opinions."

    Now again, I know you will disagree with me probably vehemently and claim I am some sort of free floating environmentalist, but a corporation (or even a set of persons)or government that builds a free floating space station to live in and claims the moon as their own including building and extracting all of its rock, and says it has the right to destroy its own property by blowing it up, is a threat to everyone's naturally intended existence.

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  18. Your theory is - though you might not realize it- Lockean homesteading. I thought you said that you had rejected that theory, but I guess not. To analyze your comment:

    "For example, I could buy a house surrounded by empty, uninhabited land that I do not claim as my own."

    This is perfectly legitimate and in fact Locke would say you couldn't claim the surrounding area because you weren't using it.

    "a contractor could come and build a factory on all four sides of land surrounding my house"

    Yes, they homestead the land around you. Once again, where is the difference between you and Locke?

    "Well, my natural existence when I intended to buy the house was to have air I could breath on my property"

    By "existence" here I assume you mean "purpose"? Existence means "the state of being". And yes, you have air you can breathe, again where is the problem?

    You then follow with a description of a situation in which the supposed "corporation" pollutes your air or something which has nothing to do with homesteading (this is a simple property damage situation).

    You seem to have written exactly what Locke wrote in his Second Treatise on Government :)

    So we finally do agree on something!

    But, just to clarify, I don't quite understand your claim at the start when you speak about a certain "natural right to existence". Is this what I call the "right to life"?

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  19. No I do not agree with the Lockean homestead theory, which states: the concept that one can gain ownership of a natural thing that currently has no owner by using it or building something out of it.

    So, no, you cannot claim the moon as your own and do what you wish with it. Just like you cannot claim the uninhabited part of the Sahara desert as your own (the desert shifts and changes by nature, so your ownership would change with it).

    "You then follow with a description of a situation in which the supposed "corporation" pollutes your air or something which has nothing to do with homesteading (this is a simple property damage situation)."

    No, you cannot prove the cancer you got was caused by the pollution of another person's property. No scientist can prove it to a level of certainty, as it is both genetic and environmental and could have been developing in days or over a period of years before the inflicted action. You cannot say your own self-ownership was inflicted by this factory and not that one and science would agree with you, thus the suit would fail and both factories would keep polluting in that area where the marginal benefit to do so exceeds the marginal cost. Whether or not we like it, industries calculate through utilitarianism the cost of staying in business (how many lives will be lost) vs. the benefit of it (how many lives will pay to exceed that cost) in the case of profit (Profit is neither good nor evil, it is amoral just like externalities in economics). Companies continued dumping raw sewage into the ocean as opposed to processing it, with dead fish ending up on the shores. Nobody could claim the dead fish was a result of the sewage, and no scientist could conclusively prove it even though they believed it was highly likely. Nobody who lived near the coast was able to level a successful lawsuit against the companies, and the average Joe far from the coast (like in Pennsylvania) did not know that their sewage was being dumped off in the ocean. And the amount of people marginally affected was less than the benefit for the company to keep doing it. People were not perfectly informed of the damage by the companies and did not care because of their distance so they did not take an interest as to where their sewage ended up. So, as opposed to millions of families constantly suing the companies and being paid off as part of the marginal cost, the government asserted that the company must internalize its externality, otherwise the individuals at the marginal cost end would still suffer bad ocean water (something communally shared) even if they were individually paid off. So like the right to claim and blow up the moon, there must be a universal regulation as to prevent those situations from happening, otherwise the consequences to these actions will be too devastating to reverse. You think anarcho-capitalism would force third parties to deal with companies externalities by suing for damaged property, but that would be on a subjective and local basis as to which company pollutes more in one area and not as much in the other.

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  20. "Right to Life"

    Now here is where you and I differ even more. Right to life implies for all. Humans are fundamentally animals (even though they have evolved), so I could claim the right to life for pigs even if their was no exclusionary principle when I say "right to life." So by nature, we take a utilitarian principle to eating some animal's meat over others. And animals have the right to exist on their own, so by definition, we are already de facto utilitarian when we claim humans, a form of animals, have the right to life (the idea that the moral worth of an action is determined solely by its usefulness in maximizing utility and minimizing negative utility),over the rights of other animals. Our very existence depends on this utilitarianism even though we distinguish us as abiding part of natural law, and them as not. I say right to existence, because my existence presupposes I know I am aware I existing and living. However, our human society is built on this utilitarianism, so you cannot disregard it as it is an integral part of our existence to value certain lives of animals over others. And to disregard any form of utilitarianism in our lives is to disregard reality, especially in the cafeteria. Now, you may distinguish between the bad utilitarianism (you think of Mills, an individualistic utilitarian, I think of Stalin, a collectivist utilitarian) and necessary utilitarianism (Darwin), but utilitarianism is still measured in the form of human life that everyday since the beginning of time is eating other animals for one's own marginal benefit health at the marginal suffering of other animal's lives. So that is why I say natural right to existence.

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  21. Your homesteading is Lockean - what is one difference between you and Locke?
    And why can't I claim the moon? Nobody is using it... Does that mean humans can't colonize space? If nobody is using something you should be able to claim it. There is no reason to prevent this.

    "No, you cannot prove the cancer you got was caused by the pollution of another person's property"

    It doesn't matter whether you can prove cancer or health problems. All you need to prove is simple change in air content in parts per million and your property rights have been violated - it's very simple. I am guessing that would would happen if someone bought land next to you is that they would make sure not to effect you or, possibly, ask you to sign some non-liability agreement before they build the factory. The Chicago school have come up with some crazy theory of "externalities" where what matters is "utility" and cost rather than property rights. I do not acknowledge this as moral in any way and the only reason this is valid is because the government enforces it. In international relations such things as externalities and marginal utility are no excuse for pollution or destruction. And what anarcho-capitalism is, is treating properties with full rights, as if they were countries (currently there is anarchy between countries, we want anarchy between voluntary states).

    You are saying that you recognize animals' right to life and yet you think it is right to breed, enslave, and kill them?! That's the most cruel and evil thing I have ever heard if it is true. Utilitarianism of this kind is evil beyond belief. Stalin agreed with this - he thought slavery and killing was fine as long as it involved rise in "overall utility". What if you, John, and I were stuck in a cave with limited food supply and John and I decided to kill you? That is utilitarian like you say, so it's okay right? If your "right to life" doesn't have any absolute porperty about it which cannot be broken then it is not a right at all.

    Please do not compare natural processes such as evolution to utilitarianism because they have nothing in common. Nature has no morality at all except for "might makes right". So once again for the millionth time I come to the conclusiont that "might makes right" is your morality.

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  22. "And why can't I claim the moon? Nobody is using it... Does that mean humans can't colonize space? If nobody is using something you should be able to claim it. There is no reason to prevent this."

    This is still an imported fallacy. Humanity-the world uses the moon consequentially. You claim it. You have the right to nuke it. You destroy what humanity has not claimed but still needs to exist consequentially.

    "The Chicago school have come up with some crazy theory of "externalities" where what matters is "utility" and cost rather than property rights. I do not acknowledge this as moral in any way and the only reason this is valid is because the government enforces it."

    Government does not enforce pollution unless the company is protected by government policy. Every individual company would tell you the first stage of business is not about morality. It is about maximizing profit first and the ethical, moral dimension is part of the cost analysis. Any economics book would acknowledge this. You cannot internalize externalities such as pollution. Your milk is filled with antibiotics and sterilization, yet you are not suing for any potential risk from drinking it.

    "Please do not compare natural processes such as evolution to utilitarianism because they have nothing in common."

    According to Spencer in Social Statics, denying every citizen the right to use of the earth equally was a “crime inferior only in wickedness to the crime of taking away their lives or personal liberties” (Spencer: 1970, 182.) "Private land ownership is incompatible with equal freedom because it denies many citizens equal access to the earth's surface on which faculty exercise and happiness ultimately depended."

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  23. "Nature has no morality at all except for "might makes right. So once again for the millionth time I come to the conclusiont that "might makes right" is your morality."

    In terms of enforcing justice, as in capturing a common set of criminals, you would say right makes might. That would make you, I, Billy, and everyone else implicit and worthy of killing by others. We have all payed taxes (sales tax), we all have authorized the killing through our will to pay taxes in killing others (lets say Afghan jihadists) and these citizens have the right to kill every one of us who support the government implicitly through sales tax. Now you would not have killed as many people had you paid for the mafia's fee (taxes) in Poland then in the U.S., but you chose this mafia state over that mafia state because of your own personal self preservation ahead of the innocent lives of others. You are as implicated as I am. So stop saying this is my morality when I do not endorse this "might makes right", for instance, war, but you and I both financial support it. In the case of right making might, you could argue saving your "own" child's life from death is "right makes might" (the right to exist supersedes the might) but you view it as me justifying "might makes right." If you were on a breathing machine and you could not talk, your right to exist supersedes my might to pull the plug unless you gave prior consent. If you didn't in your world, unless we were all voluntary paying for you forever or unless you had bought insurance, the electrical company would stop supporting you because their marginal benefit exceeding their marginal cost.

    "Nature has no morality at all except for "might makes right"."

    -Locke argued that might makes right in the State of Nature, but a new form of justice takes place when the weaker band together against the stronger and create government, and this justice is enforced by the might of the government (which is always in the State of Nature).

    So yes, it is still possible for 5% of the population to stop paying taxes because of the war, and the government would collapse, but this is still the space where general apathy kicks in, including you, I, and Billy for funding the unjust war and choosing not to care. So stop accusing me of this "might makes right" is your morality garbage the same way you concluded I would endorse brute force against anybody including a child.

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  24. "This is still an imported fallacy. Humanity-the world uses the moon consequentially."

    The United States has already claimed part of the moon where they landed in their little rover and then recovered rocks from. What would you say to your President right now? "Mr. Obama, please return those illegally claimed moonstones sir, the world is using the moon as we cannot claim them." That sounds rather stupid to me. People in Jamaica use the ocean to bathe in and fish in, does that mean I can't do that too? By the way there are already plans to nuke the moon in order to break its surface and study the inside. Is NASA wrong to be thinking about that? After all you're using the moon, aren't you? All this discussion seems plain silly. Of course people have the right to go settle on the moon. Nobody on earth is using its surface area. Indeed there are some people who are dependent on tides, so if someone destroys the moon they would have to pay some massive reparations for destroying their way of life. But that still doesn't mean we can't colonize the moon. What if the USA detonated its whole entire nuclear arsenal on some volitile fault-line within its territory and screwed up the tectonic plate balances. Does it follow from the possibility of that happening that nobody may own property on fault-lines? You are making a truly silly argument.

    "Government does not enforce pollution unless the company is protected by government policy."

    You really don't know much about government do you? The government should be enforcing property rights to prevent pollution. But it doesn't do that. It lets companies pollute all the want as long as it increases overall utility. You should really read up on this stuff:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Problem_of_Social_Cost
    This is where Coase's theorem is explained. This is what the government actually does to people instead of making polluters pay damages. In a private law society this would be impossible because there would be no external Soviet-style apparatus to determine "utility".

    Also, thanks for finally letting me know you really believe in "might makes right". At least now I definitevely know how messed up your morality is. You don't believe in any natural rights at all. You think all rights can be broken as long as it serves some higher purpose, of course. The only reason you, Billy, or I are paying taxes for unjust wars is because we have to. I think you see this, no? If you didn't do it you would go to jail. I am not responsible for things which are done against my will with my money. That is as if you said that if a man robs me and uses the money to buy a gun and shoot someone, I am responsible. This is in no way true. You may support this government and say you "choose" to pay taxes, I don't support any government and openly say I am being forced to pay them.

    If you think Spencer was against land owenership you didn't read much Spencer. A world with no rights is a sad world Rob. Maybe one day you will see it when someone sticks you in prison or abuses you some more. You can have a nice tyrant, but he can change into a bad one any second. And acknowledging his power puts you totally at his mercy.

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  25. By the way, it seems you don't know what a "Right" is. A Right is something that may not be taken from a person under any circumstances whatsoever unless he/she gives them up voluntarily or they are taken in restitution for wrongs done against another agent.

    Just thought I'd clear that up so that you have no doubts that you haven't actually named even one Right you believe in so far.

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  26. Utility is an economic term that is completely distinct from political or social spheres. It is used by private businesses all the time regardless.

    "Maybe one day you will see it when someone sticks you in prison or abuses you some more."

    This borders on a persecution complex, I'm sorry to say.
    1. The individual thinks that harm is occurring, or is going to occur.
    2. The individual thinks that the persecutor has the intention to cause harm.

    "You think all rights can be broken as long as it serves some higher purpose, of course."

    Well then you have chosen to be Glenn Beck.

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  27. "1. The individual thinks that harm is occurring, or is going to occur.
    2. The individual thinks that the persecutor has the intention to cause harm."

    1. I am not "thinking" anything. I see it. It is happening and I can prove it. If I stole your jacket and told you that you have a persecution complex for wanting it back, how would you react?
    2. Intentions don't matter. If I stole your jacket and gave it to a poor man who is cold under a bridge it wouldn't make the theft any less of a theft than if I sold it and bought a gun with which I killed innocent people in Iraq. Theft is theft.

    I think Mr. Glenn Beck is a pompous ass in every regard, but in his current rhetoric he is entirely correct when he speaks about what the government is actually doing. I am sorry if making you aware of your own shortcomings makes me sound like Glenn Beck. If you don't believe in Rights your should just say so and not call me names or compare me to other people. I am me and I can't help if other people happen to agree with me. That's like saying every anti-Semitic person is a Hitler or everyone who admires Malcolm X is a racist.

    And abuse is real Rob. The type of stuff you are ridiculing me for is the kind of thing opponents of Lenin and Robespierre were ridiculed for before the revolutions in those countries.

    I would like to make you aware that everyone who cherishes liberty has to be doubly-suspicious of anything that could be even remotely related to loss of freedom. This view is found in the writing of every famous liberty-lover throughout history.

    If you choose to reject liberty (as you have) then at least have the decency to admit that not everyone has to agree with you and that they have the right to take their property (including land) and seperate themselves from the likes of you.

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  28. Your world is a far worse one then ever imagined due to the consequential nature of it that you and anarcho-capitalists fail to ever see. If it could exist, I would live in it. But it can not especially in the long run, and we will always be equally enslaved, voluntary or otherwise. In a space of absolute freedom with all rights protected, the consequences of this instability would still not be reduced. I, as an American, am afforded more rights then humanity in general, and all I hope for is that this is a trend that continues worldwide towards more freedom than less before jumping to an absolutist principle such as anarcho-capitalism. I believe in the terms of Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Qunincy Adams. Since you consider 99.999% of the world as morally corrupt, then there is nothing else that can be said other then nobody can see what you see.

    "I would like to make you aware that everyone who cherishes liberty has to be doubly-suspicious of anything that could be even remotely related to loss of freedom. This view is found in the writing of every famous liberty-lover throughout history."

    That is what I see more in anarcho-capitalism than even with objectivism.

    If I choose to reject the right to own a nuclear bomb, as people have called for abolishing, then I consider myself taking into account the consequences which derive itself from evil. Collectively bombing another collective.

    Good night.

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  29. However ignorant you may be, I still respect you (in a way an adult respects a child) and therefore I will continue over the next years of college to explain to you how the world works. Maybe that is hopeless, but the quest of education many people is hopeless.

    People like you live in a dream world, some kind of ideal representation which your minds create for you. I can hardly change that by just offering you a red pill like in the Matrix, but I will continue to show you that all you believe in is entirely false and hardly credible by any logical standard.

    I understand this task is kind of like Richard Dawkins telling people that there is no God - most people are hostile to him and attack him or treat him as a psycho. Hardly anyone is converted by his logic or sound argumentation.

    Maybe one day I will have enough people backing me to finally break way from your tyranny and let you and other people like you abuse each other on the other side of some borderline. You don't seem to understand that I would rather take my chances on my own than be subjected to systematic violence and attack by you and your people.

    You, as an American, have been brainwashed throughout your childhood into thinking you live in a country which offers you some kind of special liberties. Many people in the Soviet Union also thought they were the free ones. We'll see how history progresses, but collectivism of the worst compulsory kind always eradicates the free men.

    I wonder why your country supports the secession of Kosovo, did you ever think about that? Or why do Americans in general support the right of Tibet as an independent country? But when it comes to domestic policy they don't even allow people to choose their own insurance or (alas!) their own lightbulbs...

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  30. No, actually, you've had the opposite effect on me. You've converted me to become a modern liberal, like Billy and Eduard.
    Good night =)

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  31. You can justify your views in any way you want, even by hiding behind another big mob of "modern liberals" (i.e. socialist primitives), but that still doesn't change the fact you are wrong. Abusing people's rights in evil whether you are a majority, minority, or a single individual. Denying that people have rights is also evil.
    Combine that with bad Keynesian economics and the end of the world has arrived!

    I see that a normal person's reasoning works backwards. The more wrong you are, the more wrong you become!

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