The Issue Again...

[Nielsio]

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And it absolutely is a system of might makes right.

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This is extremely honest and therefore scary at the same time.


People think violence is wrong and so they try to kid themselves (through massive propaganda and hiding of violence) that the state is voluntary.


But when you see through this, and the conclusion is not 'hey this is wrong, violence is wrong, this system is corrupt to the core and we need to look for voluntary alternatives', then this scares the bejesus out of me.

[BCPVP]

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You claim you own your territory (land). But you haven't addressed my repeated point (which you don't dispute) that you are still subject to the jurisdiction of a group of people who do not reside in your territory.

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We haven't "addressed" it (funny, I recall this being addressed several times, but whatever) because we don't accept your premise.

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The fact is -- you don't own it in that sense and neither did any of the previous "owners", and you all seem to admit it.

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What are you talking about? I, for one, did claim that the previous owners did indeed own the land. How could there be a previous owner otherwise? Is it your position that only governments can own land?

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The territory of the US was acquired by the people in some way (Louisiana Purchase one example), and was never relinquished to you.

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This says nothing about the legitimacy of the acquisition, something you keep ignoring whenever the point is raised by ACists.

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you admit you aren't sovereign, yet you invoke sovereignty when you don't want to follow the laws of the territorial corporate board.

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Do you understand the difference between a descriptive argument and a normative one? You don't appear to from your posts.

[Kaj]

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His argument is actually that the government owns all the land and the people just rent from them I think. And he's right.

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Government *controls* land. This is different than *owning* it.

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You are wrong. This should help clear things up...

When Russia sold Alaska to the people of the US acting through their govt for $7.2M in 1867, the people of the US took ownership of the territory. Russia ceded sovereignty of the territory and all jurisdiction of the territory in the transaction and thus had no claim to it remaining. The maps were redrawn accordingly and have remained so to this day. The exact same thing is true of the Louisiana Purchase, the Gadsen Purchase, and all the other concessions to the people of the US through its history. They do indeed own the territory itself.

The US Govt never sold off the territory to anybody since then in the same sense -- they never relinquished sovereignty or jurisdiction. So long as they retained those rights but only sold the rights to use the land to others along the way, the people of the US still have sovereignty and jurisdiction over the Alaskan territory. In other words, they own it. If you want to pretend that you can own something that somebody else holds as part of their sovereign territory and retains jurisdiction over, then you are being obtuse. The essence of ownership is sovereignty. It isn't really yours if it belongs to another nation.

The good news for you is that there's nothing stopping you from making an offer to the people of the US through their govt to purchase Alaska back and sell off the rights to sovereignty yourself. The only thing stopping you is you probably can't afford the price the people would ask for the territory. But as I'm sure you or an ACer would argue, inability to meet the asking price is not a case for entitlement.

[Kaj]

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The fact is -- you don't own it in that sense and neither did any of the previous "owners", and you all seem to admit it.

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What are you talking about? I, for one, did claim that the previous owners did indeed own the land. How could there be a previous owner otherwise? Is it your position that only governments can own land?

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I've addressed this repeatedly. The previous owners only owned it in the sense that the bought the rights at some point to use the land. The territory was never ceded by the people of the US nor did they sell off their sovereignty/jurisdiction. Show me where the US govt (who bought the Louisiana territory from Napoleon) ever sold off this particular territory (and selling off includes sovereignty, not just the right to use the land in accordance with specified guidelines).

And no, govt isn't the only ones to be able to own land. A group of investors or even a single individual could have bought the Louisiana territory from Napoleon if they made a better offer. But Napoleon accepted the offer made by somebody representing the people of the United States. And they never relinquished their claim to the land.

This really is no different than everything else ACists would believe in, you just for some reason believe goverenments cannot act on behalf of people, but corporate boards can act on behalf of shareholders.

The US govt is a corporate board which manages the joint asset of the people of the United States -- namely, the territory of the USA. You are free to attempt to buy a share of their territory and truly own it yourself, just make an offer and we'll have our board take a look at it and if accepted, we'll cede the territory to you and you can call it BCPVNia.

[pvn]

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His argument is actually that the government owns all the land and the people just rent from them I think. And he's right.

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Government *controls* land. This is different than *owning* it.

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You are wrong. This should help clear things up...

When Russia sold Alaska to the people of the US acting through their govt for $7.2M in 1867, the people of the US took ownership of the territory.

(long descriptive "argument" deleted)

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When you counter a normative argument with a descriptive one, you always "win", because the normative argument will be something other than the status quo (unless your normative argument is that the status quo is what should be) while the descriptive argument *is* (by definition) the status quo. "X might be nice, but it's tough because X isn't what we have now." Duh.

If you want to have actual meaningful discussions here, I recommend you figure out the difference.

[Kaj]

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His argument is actually that the government owns all the land and the people just rent from them I think. And he's right.

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Government *controls* land. This is different than *owning* it.

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You are wrong. This should help clear things up...

When Russia sold Alaska to the people of the US acting through their govt for $7.2M in 1867, the people of the US took ownership of the territory.

(long descriptive "argument" deleted)

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When you counter a normative argument with a descriptive one, you always "win", because the normative argument will be something other than the status quo (unless your normative argument is that the status quo is what should be) while the descriptive argument *is* (by definition) the status quo. "X might be nice, but it's tough because X isn't what we have now." Duh.

If you want to have actual meaningful discussions here, I recommend you figure out the difference.

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Just because you ignore the argument, doesn't mean it goes away. Your post is a hand wave and I fail to see its relevance ... except maybe a sign that your arguments and paradigm don't hold water as well as you thought.

You say the govt acting on behalf of a group of people can't own it, I show you when they bought it, who they bought it from, and at what price. Your response is "no fair."

[Nielsio]

[Kaj]

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And it absolutely is a system of might makes right.

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Glad we got that out of the way.

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I'll say again -- if you want to buy sovereignty over a piece of US territory, make the govt an offer -- that isn't might makes right. Just make an offer. If the govt accepts your offer and cedes the territory, you don't need might. If they invade you afterwards, I'll be the first in line to scream on your behalf.

[Kaj]

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Except Calvin didn't own the garage, while the people of the US own the territory. Besides the glaring difference in the analogy of ownership (the whole thrust of this debate), that cartoon is spot on.

You guys are really reaching the bottom of the barrel.

[latefordinner]

pvn will just reply that the US govt couldn't legitimately buy it anyway since it was buying it with stolen money--

boy am I glad to be an anarchist that doesn't believe in either individual or state property rights -

FWIW, I think it's a bit of a useless argument though, as if you are going to be making normative arguments for AC you could just make a utilitarian case for it.