Why Im no longer an ACist

[valenzuela]

You know what nate all ure doing is discussing semantics, you are nitpicking my statements( which may be worded sub-optimally because english isnt my first language and on top of that I have never been a good writer) and you are failing to see the bigger picture, my opinion is basically that a democratic state with a regulated free-market leads to more practical freedom( u know the one that actaully matters not the one rothbard cares about) for it citiznes than AC.
Nate you havent read enough AC threads aparently because whenever a thread like milk for poor kids comes up, libertarians usually come up with statements like:
- goverment should not be subsidizing the stupidty of single mothers.
- Nobody is opposed to somebody giving their money to the kid, but nobody should be forced to give their money to poor children.
- Its not my fault the parents of the kids are irresponsible. etc

usually once their douchebaggery gets pointed out THEN they play the " competing charity companies" card.

[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.

[adanthar]

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somebody else's right to something else

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Like what? How is this derived?

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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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If there's nothing holy about property rights, it's logically consistent to violate them

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This doesn't even make sense to me. They either exist or they don't (once again, not as an objective truth, but in practice). Even if I were to concede that some other positive rights existed (which I never would)

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Well, you're saying it yourself: the right to property is not an objective truth. Then, in the next sentence, you go on to say that according to you, it's the only positive right in the world. Who made you the arbiter?

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who decides the hierarchy of rights?

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Society, ldo?

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What you are describing (positive rights) is a matter of personal values masquerading as objective truth, which Kaj accused me of.

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So the right to property is a positive right that is an objective truth, but every other right is a personal value? That probably doesn't even make any sense to you, because we've already had a long debate about abortion, and an unwanted fetus clearly violates *some* right or other. Based on your own worldview, ergo, there's at least one other positive right, the right to life; you can try to shoehorn it into property, but that's gonna be as tortured on that end as Roe v. Wade was on the other.

Now, what prevents me from having a consistently logical belief that there are X other rights that are equally important, and society's role as arbiter includes coming up with a way to judge their relative importance when they interact with each other?

[owsley]

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Please, someone pay attention to me.

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Seriously, in general I think I do a good job of avoiding namecalling and insulting, I made a long post that I thought had original content and I was kind of disappointed that no one responded to it. Given some of the crap that turns into 100+ post threads I think that's a bit of a disparity. Your post was stupid and argumentative and contributed nothing, but thanks for bumping what I said. [censored] off.

[govman6767]

Malloy: The United States is a non-smoking nation! No smoking, no drugs, no alcohol, no women - unless you're married - no foul language, no red meat!

Snake Plissken: Land of the free.

Malloy: This is your last chance, hotshot.
Snake Plissken: For what?
Malloy: Freedom.
Snake Plissken: In America? That died a long time ago.

[bills217]

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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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Adanthar,

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

Property rights are a logical derivative of an axiom of self-ownership. The progression goes something like this:

1. People own themselves.
2. People own their labor.
3. Mixing this labor with a (previously unowned) parcel of land (or some other asset) implies the right to ownership of this land.

Basically what 3 is saying is, if you build a house (for example) in an unowned area (not really applicable to many present day situations since most all land is already considered to be owned by someone due to social norms), you are logically entitled to ownership of the house. After all, YOU built it utilizing YOUR labor, and you own your labor.

Caveman A fashions a javelin to be used for killing wild animals. Caveman B seizes said javelin. Do Caveman A and Caveman B have equally valid claims on the use of said javelin? Of course not.

Of course, this arrangement still requires self-ownership as an axiomatic first principle. This is something an overwhelming majority of people agree with, so there isn't much difficulty here (it still isn't an "objective truth," just a social norm).

I mean, I guess you and Kaj could start some huge thread decrying self-ownership as axiomatic, but that would be a quite absurd. If self-ownership is not axiomatic, then I have no right to defend myself against forceful, physical aggression.

This also provides an excellent example of why it isn't necessary that both parties agree on legitimate ownership. If someone charges at you with a knife screaming that they don't accept that you own yourself and they want your liver, do you just throw your hands up and say, "Well, my self-ownership claim is not an objective truth! Goodbye, cruel world!" Of course not. The situation with regard to identifying legitimate property ownership claims is considerably murkier, but once these claims are identified (again, using societal norms, not objective truths), it doesn't matter if one person out of 300 million doesn't agree with property rights.

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.

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.

Cliff notes: The only thing I am pulling "out of the blue" in my analysis is self-ownership. That is it. Everything else is a logical deduction. If you or kaj or anyone else wants to start another thread decrying self-ownership as axiomatic, by all means, please do. It would be the most absurd thread in the history of this forum, but I would love to see you try. Meanwhile, you are pulling *all* your imaginary positive rights directly out of the blue, and nowhere near a decisive amount of people agree on them, anyway - dramatically less than the amount of people that agree on self-ownership (again, virtually everyone). Even if they did, the logical conclusion of such a societal structure is slavery (due to the presence of positive obligations), which I reject.

[Copernicus]

"1. People own themselves."

Why? This is an axiom that has is appealing on its surface, but unfortunately is just as subjective as any other supposed natural right. There have been and are societies where a person does NOT "own" themselves. It is just another "right" that is a societal construct.

[TomCollins]

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You know what nate all ure doing is discussing semantics, you are nitpicking my statements( which may be worded sub-optimally because english isnt my first language and on top of that I have never been a good writer) and you are failing to see the bigger picture, my opinion is basically that a democratic state with a regulated free-market leads to more practical freedom( u know the one that actaully matters not the one rothbard cares about) for it citiznes than AC.
Nate you havent read enough AC threads aparently because whenever a thread like milk for poor kids comes up, libertarians usually come up with statements like:
- goverment should not be subsidizing the stupidty of single mothers.
- Nobody is opposed to somebody giving their money to the kid, but nobody should be forced to give their money to poor children.
- Its not my fault the parents of the kids are irresponsible. etc

usually once their douchebaggery gets pointed out THEN they play the " competing charity companies" card.

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So if you disagree with valenzeula- you are committing douchebaggery. Glad to know. Nate is also not nitpicking your statements, he is nitpicking your LOGIC. We all understand you are not a good writer. The problem is you are also an extremely poor debater.

[Misfire]

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"1. People own themselves."

Why? This is an axiom that has is appealing on its surface, but unfortunately is just as subjective as any other supposed natural right. There have been and are societies where a person does NOT "own" themselves. It is just another "right" that is a societal construct.

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How is it any less a societal construct when one does not own himself?

[tame_deuces]

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So if you disagree with valenzeula- you are committing douchebaggery. Glad to know. Nate is also not nitpicking your statements, he is nitpicking your LOGIC. We all understand you are not a good writer. The problem is you are also an extremely poor debater.

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That's not what he said and when it comes to AC debates everybody is generally nitpicking everybody's statements. I've done it and people have done it to my statements also.

As for the earlier poster who said ACists are not very critical of eachother, the same thing often holds true for the other side in these debates. You see a lot of people polarizing politically which is probably a bad thing. That post was my favorite in this thread btw, kudos to the one who wrote it.