Re: Argh property rights debate
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Give me your wallet is enough to prove that people who don't think property exists are either saying stuff they don't really believe for their own purposes or batshit insane. The grey area null zone crap we can deal with in the other 1000 threads on the topic but lets say once and for all that "property rights don't exist" is a self detonating argument.
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The fact that someone gets upset when you ask for their wallet has nothing to do with rights. If I steal your wallet, and then you ask for it back, I am not going to willingly give it you, despite the fact that I have no reasonably property claim to it. The reason that I don't give it back is because I feel I am better off with the wallet than without it. It is a utility-based decision and not a rights-based one. And it is the same decision process I go through if you demand something that I have a more legitimate legal claim to.
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Same question to you, but without the big guy stealing "your" wallet first. You just see a sleeping old lady with $100 hanging out of her pocket. Are you taking it?
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Probably not, but not because I believe she has a right to that $100. I wouldn't take it because I would get no pleasure out of taking $100 from an old lady. If it was somebody who I knew to be a total jerk, I might take the money.
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