Why Im no longer an ACist

[adanthar]

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Adanthar,

It is abundantly clear from this objection, that, as usual, you have no idea what you are arguing against.

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No offense, but I've had this argument with people far better equipped to defend their point of view than anyone on this board.

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1 + 2 = 3

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Okay, no problem there, all perfectly logically consistent. The only problem with it is that you're holding it out as the *only* logically consistent 'right' because it happens to arise from self-ownership. So what? Why is self-ownership the only logically consistent hook to hang a right off of?

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I don't consider property rights or self-ownership rights to be "positive" rights - they are simply a result of negative rights. No obligation on the part of anyone else arises from either.

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I'm willing to grant a distinction between positive and negative rights for the purposes of this discussion, but the actual real world difference is minimal. As long as it requires (vast amounts of!) outside enforcement to make it work, it's a positive right.

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Now, contrast that with the positive rights to which you are referring. Right to free health care. Right to food/water. Right to cable TV. Etc. These all result in obligations for other parties, which I reject for the same reason I reject slavery. None of these are logically derived from self-ownership (again, an axiom virtually everyone can agree on). They are not logically derived from anything. They are pure personal value judgments on your part and nothing more.

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First off, the positive/negative right dichotomy tends to break down at the margins. For starters, the right to food and water is easily demonstrable to be inseparable from the right to life (I hope I don't have to prove why.) The right to health care is mostly a positive right, but there are plenty of times where medicine comes into conflict with personal autonomy. Etc.

Second, all you've done is drawn a line between a particular subset of rights that are drawn from self-ownership and ones that (in your opinion) aren't, then arbitrarily decided that one forms a set of logically consistent beliefs and the other doesn't. Your claim is that rights stemming from widely held value judgments are not logically consistent. Why? What separates the widely held value judgment of "children need a minimal amount of skills to have a chance to succeed" from "people own their own labor", and why should I put more weight on one than the other?

[BluffTHIS!]

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For starters, the right to food and water is easily demonstrable to be inseparable from the right to life (I hope I don't have to prove why.)

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So you would maintain it was wrong to disconnect Terry Schiavo from her sources of food and water right? If you want a margin, there's one.

[adanthar]

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For starters, the right to food and water is easily demonstrable to be inseparable from the right to life (I hope I don't have to prove why.)

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So you would maintain it was wrong to disconnect Terry Schiavo from her sources of food and water right? If you want a margin, there's one.

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bills and I have had this argument before. My personal (logically consistent, lol) beliefs are that 'life' is a misnomer and we should be talking about 'intelligence'/'brain waves', instead. Close enough, though.

[ianlippert]

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The same way that a 'right to property' is derived. You say 'right to property', I say (for example) 'right to liberty', or 'right of basic sustenance', or 'right to a ninth grade education'. Why is one automatically more important and encompassing a wider scope than the other?


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Its not that rights are objectively determined, its that rights have to be consistant among all members of society. If I dont have a right to point guns at the government and take their money, they dont have the right to point guns at me and take my money. Property rights arent you get unfettered access to my property but I dont get unfettered access to yours.

The only reason this type of logical inconsistancies are allowed is because the majority of people dont even realise their is an inconsistancy in their beliefs. The irrationality is perpetuated and future generations grow up thinking the status quo is completely legitamate.

[ianlippert]

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Why? What separates the widely held value judgment of "children need a minimal amount of skills to have a chance to succeed" from "people own their own labor", and why should I put more weight on one than the other?


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Whats the point of having this child succeed when they aren't going to own their own labour anyway?

[Kaj]

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Why? What separates the widely held value judgment of "children need a minimal amount of skills to have a chance to succeed" from "people own their own labor", and why should I put more weight on one than the other?


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Whats the point of having this child succeed when they aren't going to own their own labour anyway?

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Okay, Ian. And since you pay taxes and don't truly own your own labor, you should kill yourself. After all, what's the point?

[pvn]

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do u guys think that the move from minarchist to anarchist is an incremental change or a monumental leap in thinking?

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I think it depends if you're a moralist, utilitarian, or both. I'm mostly a utilitarian, and just need to be convinced government < free market for quality of life purposes. I think moralists have a bigger leap from coercion to no coercion.

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Do you mean you need to be convinced government < free market for you personally, or that you need to be convinced that government < free market for everyone in general?

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Everyone in general. Actually defining what that means is pretty hard. I guess a stab at it would be that if I were randomly reborn as someone else, which system has a higher EV for me. Obv there are wealth/happiness disparities that can skew that, but you get the idea. I don't really believe in "rights". In a perfect world, I think limited government > free market. I guess that's why I am a minarchist. In reality, where limited government is kind of a farsical thought, I don't know what to think.

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Why does everyone else need your approval?

[adanthar]

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Its not that rights are objectively determined, its that rights have to be consistant among all members of society.

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Okay. I have a right to sustenance, but I don't have anything to eat, while you do. When I ask you for some food, you laugh in my face. Therefore:

Approach 1: if it's inconsistent, it can't be a right by definition, and therefore "there is no right to sustenance".

Approach 2: the right to property can, and does, conflict with the right to sustenance. Therefore, I have some sort of right to eat some part of your food. I'll probably have to pay you back for it, but you can't hoard it and laugh in my face.

You might prefer approach 1, but at which point is approach 2 logically inconsistent?

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If I dont have a right to point guns at the government and take their money, they dont have the right to point guns at me and take my money.

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Government officials pay taxes, too, so it could well be said that everyone is pointing guns at each other. Seems consistent to me.

[Poofler]

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do u guys think that the move from minarchist to anarchist is an incremental change or a monumental leap in thinking?

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I think it depends if you're a moralist, utilitarian, or both. I'm mostly a utilitarian, and just need to be convinced government < free market for quality of life purposes. I think moralists have a bigger leap from coercion to no coercion.

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Do you mean you need to be convinced government < free market for you personally, or that you need to be convinced that government < free market for everyone in general?

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Everyone in general. Actually defining what that means is pretty hard. I guess a stab at it would be that if I were randomly reborn as someone else, which system has a higher EV for me. Obv there are wealth/happiness disparities that can skew that, but you get the idea. I don't really believe in "rights". In a perfect world, I think limited government > free market. I guess that's why I am a minarchist. In reality, where limited government is kind of a farsical thought, I don't know what to think.

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Why does everyone else need your approval?

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What are you talking about? No one needs anyone's approval to do anything. There are just actions.

[valenzuela]

Nate I did as you told me, I already found a fallcy !!
I said that I thought that some ACists have douchebags attitued on some posts that tend to lack empathy and Tomcollins amplified my position to anybody who disagrees with me is a douchbag and then he mocked a position that he made up.
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Tom, I see a lot of insults to my person but you are still ignoring my counter-critique to the definition of freedom you mocked.