Re: a quick thought
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Two questions, I guess:
A.) It is morally acceptable for you to force me off land that you claim to own if I don't believe in ownership?
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Sure. Because all I have to do is say I don't beleive in a right to not be assaulted. If you're not violating anything, then neither am I.[/i]
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I'm stipulating that the land owner is an ACist...in which case I assume he believes in a right to not be assaulted, right? Are you just saying that the ACist has a right to suspend his own morality in order to coerce/assault someone who doesn't agree with that morality?
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Why doesn't he? Are you saying that morality is subjective, but you can't change your mind about it?
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If the ACist changes his morality to something that disgrees with AC, you are changing the premise of the question rather than answering it.
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B.) If the answer to (A) is "yes", isn't the person you are forcing off the land being involuntarily coerced into accepting your view of morality?
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Nope. He doesn't have to accept anything. He's just removed from that piece of land. He can then accept whatever view of morality he wants.
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I guess "accept" is the wrong word. Perhaps I should say "obey". My point is that he is coerced by the ACist in the same was that the ACist is coerced by the state.
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No, the state acknowleges property (to an extent), and imposes its power anyway.
Since your hypothetical person doesn't recognize property, the "coercion" he experiences is effectively nothing different than the "coercion" you would experience if you tried to pitch a tent in a bear's den. The bear doesn't "own" the cave. What are you going to do when he violates your rights and assaults you?
Without property, we devolve to might makes right.
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The bear is not a moral actor. You are. You have the ability to make decisions as to what it moral and what is not. We could all decide that assault is immoral without recognizing property, and simply allow people to go where they wish and do what they want. They would be more "free" under this system than the AC one. In fact, they would be most "free" without any restrictions on assault either.
AC limits freedom and imposes coercion by forcing people to obey property rights and prohibiting assault, whether they agree with these principles or not. (You could say that someone who assaults another person has voluntarily chosen to engage in their social system, but you can't necessarily say the same thing about someone who wanders onto another's property.)
Statism does the same thing, based on different and/or additional underlying principles. But the difference is one of degree and not category.
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