The difference between being coerced and coercing

[pvn]

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Enforcement of anything is non-voluntary, on the enforcee. You asked what makes the state special? If the objection of ACists to the state is that it employs coersion to gain its desired ends, what's the difference between the state and anyone else who "enforces" "laws"?

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The most obvious difference is that the state is coercively, mandatorily funded. Even if you want to employ an enforcement agency of your own choosing, you have to pay for the state-supplied enforcement (and many people DO get their own, because the state, as a monopoly, has no incentive to provide any actually useful service).

[bkholdem]

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That does not seem to be a very effective means of preventing violent maniacs hellbent on murder from plunging knives into people. In fact we currently have that system AND the system of shooting people who are agressing with lethal force. And guess what? It still happens. And your advocating removing the means to defend from being murdered when there is an eminent threat to one's life? It is an interesting concept. Good luck with that.

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I'm advocating eliminating nothing. It's you who wants to get rid of government, not me. You are "advocating" a philosophy of self-ownership and non-coersion whose limitations, so far, you haven't even defined. Even more impressive, some ACists on here are expressing dubiousness that such definition is even possible.

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I realize that your worldview precludes you from imagining an existance without some force overseeing you and those around you. That's a shame. People live, die, and suffer. Terrible things happen all the time. 'Defining limitations' does not change this it mearly provides you with some sort of reassurance it seems. I am not intersted in governing others. That is the difference between you and I. As I said before it is arrogant to presuppose that you or anyone should have any right to oversee others. It is very telling as to the kind of person you are. All I can tell you is that I think that you have control issues and think you should consider entering into some sort of recovery program to rid yourself of the need to control others.


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And the right to swing one's fist has never been allowed up to the end of the point of my nose. There is a legal concept called 'assault'. Maybe you have heard of it. Here is one of a multitude of definitions: the threat of violence caused by an immediate show of force.

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Now you're a fan of the law again? If not, please tell me exactly where my right of self-ownership stops.

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I am not a 'fan' of the law. I am for the sake of convenience borrowing a concept that I find useful. As to your second question, I am not interested overseeing or micro managing you. I realize that you have been conditioned to think it terms of controling others and defining what others can and can't do, etc. It is my opinion that you have some pretty serious control issues. I wish to go about my life and interact with others on a voluntary basis. It is pretty clear you do not want people to have this kind of freedom and want to control others so that they become your slaves to do your bidding by proxy through the government. That seems to be the kind of person you are. YOu want to make and keep others as slaves to do your bidding and you want to hide behind the veil of legitimacy the government provides. When people such as AC'ists challenge that legitimacy it brings you closer to the reality of who you are and what you stand for making it harder for you to surpress that truth, but that is the way it is. Just go ahead and admit it and stop with the rationalizations already.

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As far as where the arbitrary point is, I will use my conscience as my guide NOT YOURS.

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So your conscience will guide you as to when you can and cannot shoot me? Sounds great. Surely you don't mind universalizing this "principle" of your morality? Because my conscience rests quite easy in implementing a government to protect me from the threats it tells me that you pose.

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I am a government of one. I do not rape and murder and steal to get my power and I do not hide behind those who do that and use them to further my ends. I do not turn others into slaves to see that my needs get met. It has been really interesting following your posts here and interacting with you. I am learning quite a bit. It's kind of like getting a close up look at the sinister nature of government and the considerable denial that it hides behind. It's a very interesting experience. Thanks for opening my eyes on this.

[vhawk01]

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Perhaps even sooner. I don't let anyone I don't know wield knives on my property, whether they are charging or not.

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Who said this encounter takes place on your property?

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Perhaps even sooner

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Perhaps it takes place in a shopping mall, or on the golf course.

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Perhaps it does. It wasn't specified.

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In any case, do you really agree with the above? In other words, as soon as "Villain" (who isn't a villain yet) charges toward you holding a knife, you can shoot him merely because you *think* he may be hostile?

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I surely can.

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I hadn't figured you for a supporter of Bush's pre-emptive strike doctrine.


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Ah, I was wondering when you were going to throw in your customary inflamatory logical fallacy.

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At what point may you preemptively shoot someone, according to your moral tenets? In what manner are you determining intent? Naturally I'm quite interested in your position on thoughtcrime, which I had erroniously believed you opposed.

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Shooting someone for imagining charging at you with a knife and stabbing you is a reacation to a 'thought crime.'

Weilding a knife and 'charging' is agression. That is plainly obvious. It is insane to suggest that you have no right to act until the knife plunges into you. Simply insane.

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Why do you have to wait until he wields and/or charges? As I've already asked, at what point does it become okay to violently preempt what you believe will become his attack?

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If a man is weilding a knife and his demeanor is agressive and he is charging at someone and I have a gun I am going to draw it. I am going to yell for him to drop the knife or I will shoot him. If he does not drop the knife I am going to shoot him.

Maybe in your world view it's reasonable to weild knives and charge at people but I somehow doubt it.

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Nope, in my worldview we legislate against threatening behavior. In your worldview as I understand it, "my right to swing your fist stops at the end of your nose" - except, you now apparently believe my "right" to swing my fist stops at some arbitrary point well short of your nose. So I'm wondering: which is it, and where exactly is this arbitrary point? For instance, I might feel that your hoarding guns in your basement was threatening...

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That leads me to believe that you are willfully being disruptive. You are asking questions about which there is somewhat of a grey area but overwhelmingly there is general agreement. It seems like passive agressive behavior to me and I'm growing tired of it.

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Well gosh bro, if you're "growing tired of it", allow me to elaborate: your stated philosophy, assuming the above is a fair representation of it, is inconsistent with your actions. *Exactly* what "rights" does your philosophy assign me?

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As pvn said, this is nothing specific to AC.

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Wrong. See above.

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(tangential stuff deleted)

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It seems like you are making a pretty fundamental mistake, and that is equating laws with the state. The state currently enforces the laws, no doubt about that, but the state is neither necessary nor sufficient for the development of laws. You make some privileged claim to assault laws, as if these are evidence of the superiority of the state. What makes the state so special? Why can't ANYONE develop and enforce assault laws?

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Enforcement of anything is non-voluntary, on the enforcee. You asked what makes the state special? If the objection of ACists to the state is that it employs coersion to gain its desired ends, what's the difference between the state and anyone else who "enforces" "laws"?

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This is going in circles. Enforcement of assault laws are self-defense. Is it coercive of me to shoot you when you are trying to kill me? Maybe, but who cares? I really don't think this is the type of state-sponsored coercion that the ACers here are against, the coercive nature of enforcing laws. I could be wrong, but I think they are against the coercive nature of forced participation.

[pvn]

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This is going in circles. Enforcement of assault laws are self-defense. Is it coercive of me to shoot you when you are trying to kill me? Maybe, but who cares? I really don't think this is the type of state-sponsored coercion that the ACers here are against, the coercive nature of enforcing laws. I could be wrong, but I think they are against the coercive nature of forced participation.

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You're exactly right. Self-defense is coercive, in a trivial sense, but the coercion is focused against someone who *initiated* coercion. When the aggressor initiates a force transaction with his victim, and does so withuot consent, without terms and conditions, without a contract, he by necessity does so without any legitimate expectation of how that transaction will be *closed*.

You can't force someone to interact with you then get indignant when that person shoots back.

Jogger ignores the coercion that opened the interaction. I suspect he knows what he's doing here, which would make him (as we say) intellectually dishonest.

[ShakeZula06]

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It doesn't matter what you see as aggression and what isn't.

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But it does matter what you see as aggression? Because you've been calling my government aggressive since day 1. Why are you running from specifically defining aggression now?

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You know that's not what I mean. The situation in question is one where you must debate when you have a right to self defense, or when exactly you can exercise it. There's no reason to go through thousands of little examples and see.
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Good technique: when you can't address, dismiss.

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?? I'm giving you an answer: arbitration. Not everything is black and white. Just because you'd rather troll and my answer reduced your ability to troll doesn't mean I dismissed it.
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I find your "probably" somehow not comforting.

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Then you must find the status quo uncomfortable, because that's how every realistic scenario works.

[jogger08152]

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So what?

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So what??? It's a big deal that the one universal right upon which the foundations of AC are built (the right to your personhood) is ultimately contingent upon the whims of others. The right to life/"controlling the fruits of one's labor" is a fairly hollow right if it doesn't include the right to exist in any tangible place.

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The state doesn't do anything to solve this scenario. A person could be refused a job everywhere, but it simply doesn't because it's a pathological scenario.

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Arguing that a state (really a specific state, in this case) isn't better than your morality is in no way an argument for your morality.

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It's also no argument for the state. Which really is all we need here.

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You're advocating a right to control one's labor that must eventually conflict with someone else's right to do the same. It doesn't even matter if the chance of a "practical" conflict between my rights and yours is 1/google; you're making a claim for the logical necessity of property ownership on the basis of self-ownership, and I've shown that your logical "necessity", isn't.

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No you haven't. You've asserted it.

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No, I've demonstrated it, contrary to your anti-demonstration assertion. Please see below for a rigorous demonstration:

P1. All humans own themselves.
P2. No human has claim on the person of another, absent the former's consent.
P3. No human can exist outside the physical confines of space (IE, "territory").
P4. All humans own their labor and the products of their labor, including any territory they improve.
P5. No human has claim on the labor or property of another, absent the former's consent.
P6. If humanity does not kill itself first, someday all territory will be improved, and therefore owned.
P7. A human will be born after all territory is owned.

C: The human born after P6 will be unable to occupy space without the consent of another, demonstrating that his self-ownership is not absolute and falsifying P2. He will also be unable to labor without the consent of another, demonstrating that his ownership of his labor is not absolute and falsifying P4.

While P6 and P7 are not demonstrable, they are entirely consistant with and permissable within the bounds set by Premises 1-5, and they are consistent with the fact that humans have, throughout their history, shown the ability and inclination to both improve land and spawn more humans.

[ShakeZula06]

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So what?

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So what??? It's a big deal that the one universal right upon which the foundations of AC are built (the right to your personhood) is ultimately contingent upon the whims of others. The right to life/"controlling the fruits of one's labor" is a fairly hollow right if it doesn't include the right to exist in any tangible place.

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The state doesn't do anything to solve this scenario. A person could be refused a job everywhere, but it simply doesn't because it's a pathological scenario.

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Arguing that a state (really a specific state, in this case) isn't better than your morality is in no way an argument for your morality.

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The poster pointed out a potential problem in a stateless world. It's entirely relevent to point out that not only does the state not solve this problem, but that in practice there is no problem because it doesn't happen!
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You're advocating a right to control one's labor that must eventually conflict with someone else's right to do the same.

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Except in the real world.
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It doesn't even matter if the chance of a "practical" conflict between my rights and yours is 1/google; you're making a claim for the logical necessity of property ownership on the basis of self-ownership, and I've shown that your logical "necessity", isn't.

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O RLY? Where have you shown this? You havn't even shown that rights could conflict with each other.

[ShakeZula06]

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P6. If humanity does not kill itself first, someday all territory will be improved, and therefore owned.

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You must be advocating some odd society, because this is already the case in the status quo.
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C: The human born after P6 will be unable to occupy space without the consent of another, demonstrating that his self-ownership is not absolute and falsifying P2.

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No it's not. Self-ownership doesn't mean freedom to do whatever you want on someone elses property.

[jogger08152]

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This is going in circles. Enforcement of assault laws are self-defense. Is it coercive of me to shoot you when you are trying to kill me? Maybe, but who cares? I really don't think this is the type of state-sponsored coercion that the ACers here are against, the coercive nature of enforcing laws. I could be wrong, but I think they are against the coercive nature of forced participation.

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You're exactly right. Self-defense is coercive, in a trivial sense, but the coercion is focused against someone who *initiated* coercion. When the aggressor initiates a force transaction with his victim, and does so withuot consent, without terms and conditions, without a contract, he by necessity does so without any legitimate expectation of how that transaction will be *closed*.

You can't force someone to interact with you then get indignant when that person shoots back.

Jogger ignores the coercion that opened the interaction. I suspect he knows what he's doing here, which would make him (as we say) intellectually dishonest.

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You're (still) ducking the question. When exactly does this initiation of force (the "initial" one, IE, the knife-wielder's "attack") begin?

[jogger08152]

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It doesn't matter what you see as aggression and what isn't.

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But it does matter what you see as aggression? Because you've been calling my government aggressive since day 1. Why are you running from specifically defining aggression now?

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You know that's not what I mean. The situation in question is one where you must debate when you have a right to self defense, or when exactly you can exercise it. There's no reason to go through thousands of little examples and see.

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You guys are arguing preemption is self-defense. I want to know precisely when I can preempt. Is government a legitimate form of preemption?

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Good technique: when you can't address, dismiss.

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?? I'm giving you an answer: arbitration. Not everything is black and white. Just because you'd rather troll and my answer reduced your ability to troll doesn't mean I dismissed it.

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No, you said that if I did something you found threatening and you shot me over it, it would "probably" go to arbitration. That isn't an answer to my question. I want to know exactly when I may preempt aggression from someone I feel is threatening me.

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I find your "probably" somehow not comforting.

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Then you must find the status quo uncomfortable, because that's how every realistic scenario works.

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Except every realistic scenario (and ACland decidedly isn't one of these, btw) doesn't require me to rely exclusively on the judgment of some ACist yahoo with an uzi.