A Critique of Rothbardian Natural Rights (sorta long)

[AlexM]

[ QUOTE ]
In most cases in democracy the 51 THREATEN to throw the 49 off,

[/ QUOTE ]

No, they do it. And in the "democracy" we have in the U.S., it's not even the 51. It's 33 throwing off 67.

[pvn]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

ZOMGWTFLOLBBQ.

Yes, pointing out your sophistry is itself sophistry. Geez.

[/ QUOTE ] Pointing out with specific examples what the classics of anarchism were all about is not sophistry. Evading the discussion by asking (your words) "rhetorical question, hoping someone would take the bait" is an exercise in sophistry. Also a little trollish.

[/ QUOTE ]

Oh, wow. Yes, I'm the one avoiding the discussion by dragging us down into this tar pit. Please. YOU are the one who wants to derail the discussion into a nitpicky tarpit of nuanced connotations of "anarchy" and "government" and "property". I guess I was actually the one who "took the bait."

Setting an argumentative trap for someone to step into isn't sophistry, it's simply making the inconsitencies of your argument painfully obvious.

[ QUOTE ]
Additionally, it is dishonest to set up imaginary and unrelated tasks to the other party and then accusing it of avoiding them. I'm not supporting the position of the classics of anarchism. I'm trying to present their case, as best as I can. You ask me to prove that "property is theft", while I'm presenting why they claimed this. This is dishonest. It's like I'm presenting the reasons Bush had to invade Iraq and you ask me to prove there were valid reasons to invade Iraq.

[/ QUOTE ]

O
M
G

Are you serious? You're going to accuse me of avoiding discussion and you want to get into THIS? Whether this positoin is "yours" or "some other guys" is immaterial. You are presenting it. I am arguing against IT, not YOU specifically. If YOU are taking the onus of presenting it, then by default, YOU would be the obvious candidate for answering challenges against that which you are presenting. If you want to abandon your presentation, by all means, be my guest. But to suggest that I am being *dishonest*??? Get real.

FWIW, I *would* (and HAVE) issued challenges to those who "present" the case for invading iraq to provide justifications. It's part of the deal. You're under no obligation, of course, so don't act like you're being unjustly burdened here.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Resource Air is a common resource, meaning it belongs to everybody and nobody owns it.

[/ QUOTE ]

Make up your mind. Which is it?

[/ QUOTE ]If everybody owns the Air, then nobody owns it exclusively. A river's water belongs to everybody because no one alone owns it. At least, this is the way things should be, according to the Anarchists.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes, and the logical implications of this are disastrous. Tragedy of the commons 101.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Simple decree doesn't equal ownership.

I OWN YANKEE STADIUM, because I say so.

Have I stolen Yankee Stadium?

[/ QUOTE ] Nope, you haven't.

But if you attempt to take over Yankee Stadium (say on the strength of your armed band of followers), the Yankee Stadium owner is sure to have a few arguments against that.

[/ QUOTE ]

But this is different than what I was replying to.

[ QUOTE ]
But forget Yankee Stadium --and Fenway too. You avoid the plain and basic premise of the classical Anarchists. Start with Air. Saying you "own the Air" would be laughably stupid. It would be an unenforceable decree.

[/ QUOTE ]

Agreed.

[ QUOTE ]
However, if you attempt to truly take over the Air (say by forcing your fellow citizens to pay an Air Tax, on the strength of your armed band of followers), then you are taking over for yourself something that belongs to everybody.

[/ QUOTE ]

So it's their property, then. But property is theft. So now what? Inconsistency.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I think these arguments have been quite roundly refuted, by myself and others, in this forum a number of times. Noting the lack of recognition of scarcity in these arguments is IMO more than enough to show they are useless.

[/ QUOTE ] Fair enough. If you'd then care to point out some links to those posts, I'd be obliged. I am very keen to learn where the line is drawn. As a lifelong capitalist, I have no clue where. I agree with the Anarchists about the Air, but I don't agree with them about T-Bills.

[/ QUOTE ]

Air most certainly CAN be owned.

[ QUOTE ]
http://www.clayhomemedical.com/image...ygen_truck.jpg

[/ QUOTE ]

Do you think the contents of the above tanks are unowned? Or not air?

The fact that air in the atmosphere IS unowned does not imply that it CANNOT be owned.

There IS no line drawn.

[ QUOTE ]
But where is the demarcation? Where are those posts?

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't bookmark them. But a quick search turned up this long thread which basically started from the point of contention - someone pissed off that "fake anarchists" where "stealing" his words.

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showfl...part=1&vc=1

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Oh and you asked one question, something like "who's the owner of all that public property". (Only it was rhetorical - right.)

[/ QUOTE ]

So what's the answer?

[/ QUOTE ]Uh, the public ?

And because I know you're gonna ask "who's the public?", [img]/images/graemlins/smirk.gif[/img] I'm telling you now, that means everybody. (Your favorite design must be the circle.)

[/ QUOTE ]

So if property is theft, then everyone is a thief.

[moorobot]

You know...you Acists remind me so much of Marxists. You just hate the current system (e.g. your view that way have civil war and fascism everywhere, and your refusal to distinguish between degrees of these things) so much you refuse to believe all the evidence that your cure is worse than the disease. Your views are, imo, ultimately based on hope, and having a political discussion with you isn't, even in principle, going to change your mind.

[tomdemaine]

[ QUOTE ]
You know...you Acists remind me so much of Marxists. You just hate the current system (e.g. your view that way have civil war and fascism everywhere, and your refusal to distinguish between degrees of these things) so much you refuse to believe all the evidence that your cure is worse than the disease. Your views are, imo, ultimately based on hope, and having a political discussion with you isn't, even in principle, going to change your mind.

[/ QUOTE ]

But Marxism is proven false both logically and empirically whereas ACism is not. I'm prepared to change my mind if you can prove why I'm wrong to me without nonsense emotional arguments or ridiculous grey area fringe questions.

[moorobot]

[ QUOTE ]
According to them, legitimacy can have no meaning once ONE person rejects their governance as "illegitimate...but I think your argument, keeping in mind their moral universe, fails.

[/ QUOTE ] This is irrelevant, as all political systems will fail by the standards of there moral universe. I realize, however, that I'm not going to persuade them.


[ QUOTE ]
perhaps there is a better trade-off between legitimacy and purely materialistic considerations (being wealthier) because an ideal designer would be willing to make more trade-offs between the former in favor of the latter, from our reactions to theocratic and dictatorial examples around the world.

[/ QUOTE ] I'll try to discuss this later, but basically I agree with this type of reasoning (which is one of the reasons I disagree so strongly with praxelogy, as it turns out).

[moorobot]

Could you reply to my criticism I made of your argument about intentions earlier?

[ QUOTE ]
But Marxism is proven false both logically and empirically whereas ACism is not

[/ QUOTE ] Marxists do not agree with this, just as I think AC is proven false both logically and empirically (not directly, but through empirical observations of human behavior we can predict what would happen if AC was instituted) and you do not. They say that none of those countries follow Marx's theory and/or were not really socialist, for example.

[ QUOTE ]
change my mind if you can prove why I'm wrong to me

[/ QUOTE ] That's just the problem: for you, and for other rationalist utopians, there is no logical or empirical claim that can be said that will lead them to subjectively believe they have been "proven wrong".

[tomdemaine]

[ QUOTE ]
Could you reply to my criticism I made of your argument about intentions earlier?

[ QUOTE ]
But Marxism is proven false both logically and empirically whereas ACism is not

[/ QUOTE ] Marxists do not agree with this, just as I think AC is proven false both logically and empirically and you do not.

[/ QUOTE ]

That's not what the words mean. It's not a matter of opinon. What either of us think doesn't really matter.
[ QUOTE ]

[ QUOTE ]
change my mind if you can prove why I'm wrong to me

[/ QUOTE ] That's just the problem: for you, and for other rationalist utopians, there is nothing that can be said that they believe will "prove them wrong".

[/ QUOTE ]

You can show me why a man who calls himself a government agent is morally different to a man who calls himself a bartender to the extent where one can take money under the threat of force and one cannot.

[moorobot]

[ QUOTE ]



That's not what the words mean. It's not a matter of opinon. What either of us think doesn't really matter.

[/ QUOTE ] In this area it does matter. For we are talking about subjective beliefs, and whether or not something "really is true" will have little effect on what extremist ideologues actually believe. So the opposite of what you claim is true here: what is objectively true actually has little relevance here.

[ QUOTE ]

You can show me why a man who calls himself a government agent is morally different to a man who calls himself a bartender to the extent where one can take money under the threat of force and one cannot.

[/ QUOTE ] Now you are asking for a normative argument...something which itself is unprovable; notice the term "show" here. Nobody can prove this; all normative arguments rest on questionable assumptions/premises that one can refuse to believe without inconsistency or lack of logic. As an example, as long as you continue to believe that intentions trump consequences nothing can be done in this area. As I argued earlier, the view that intentions are more important, politically speaking, than consequences, is disgusting, impractical, and dangerous, although not, strictly speaking, illogical. You are asking me to use logic to combat a view that fundamentally is based in emotion.

[tomdemaine]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]



That's not what the words mean. It's not a matter of opinon. What either of us think doesn't really matter.

[/ QUOTE ] In this area it does matter. For we are talking about subjective beliefs, and whether or not something "really is true" will have little effect on what extremist ideologues actually believe. So the opposite of what you claim is true here: what is objectively true actually has little relevance here.

[ QUOTE ]

You can show me why a man who calls himself a government agent is morally different to a man who calls himself a bartender to the extent where one can take money under the threat of force and one cannot.

[/ QUOTE ] Now you are asking for a normative argument...something which itself is unprovable; notice the term "show" here. Nobody can prove this; all normative arguments rest on questionable assumptions/premises that one can refuse to believe without inconsistency or lack of logic. As an example, as long as you continue to believe that intentions trump consequences nothing can be done in this area. As I argued earlier, the view that intentions are more important, politically speaking, than consequences, is disgusting, impractical, and dangerous. You are asking me to use logic to combat a view that fundemental is about emotion.

[/ QUOTE ]

If I ask you show me why a helium ballon is fundamentally different from a granite rock to the extent that one rises in earths atmosphere and the other falls you can do it. How is my other question any different?

Who said anything about intentions and consequences? Intentions > consequences is how all statists think. "but it's called the help children and small fluffy animals act who cares if it causes huge misery and is completly immoral" My politics is fundamentally about logic and objective truths.

[pvn]

[ QUOTE ]
Your views are, imo, ultimately based on hope,

[/ QUOTE ]

As opposed to the statist utopians who have a great system that would work if only they could get the "right" people in power?

[ QUOTE ]
and having a political discussion with you isn't, even in principle, going to change your mind.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is way off. The group of ACists actually contains more people who are the most likely to change their mind. This should be obvious by simply looking at the numbers. Most ACists were statists not that long ago. Republicans and Democrats yell at each other all day and nobody there ever changes their mind (because really they are already in agreement and they're just bickering over window dressing).