Do these people never learn?! Frist backs Ban on Gay Marriage.

[Berzerker]

awfully catty tonight, eh?

Hypocrisy leaves a bad taste. Notice how others are copying and pasting but I never see you guys whine about them.

[Berzerker]

Templar -

A communal property system fits in with Jesus's teaching. As I said, a sort of "fiscal communism".

Voluntary communal systems are not communism. The Bolsheviks adopted the word "communism" from voluntary
farming co-ops to disguise what they were really planning.

True, but the community agrees their should be a tax policy, and the vast majority accept that the tax policy will involve actual taxes. It pays for things like education.

The community doesn't agree - some agree, others disagree, and some don't even participate in the process for whatever reason. But at least we settled that matter...I hope...

Now, now. I said kings (William the Conquerer to be precise) invented our property system. Later Kings and parliaments gave non-king people more rights.

Doesn't that mean kings preceded the idea of property? So, when a group of people grew food crops and someone else walked in to take or destroy their crops, the owners didn't react in any way that would leave one with the impression that they "owned" those crops?

Yes, animals. So if a bunny digs a hole in your yard, does this mean you can't remove him/her without violating his/her property rights?

Rights are a human invention involving moral claims of sovereignty between humans.

Animals are another example of taking things by force. The bunny only stays until you force it out. Yes a dog will defend it's territory but are you suggesting that a dog has some sort of right to its putative "property" that extends beyond his/her force to exclude others.

No, I'm saying even dogs instinctively know that property matters. If, as you claim, property isn't natural, then we wouldn't see this kind of behavior from animals.

The whole point of private property is that the community respects some bundle of rights that you have with respect to some things. For instance, if you own a parcel of land you have the right to alienate (or sell), the right to devise (or will), and have the right to exclude others. You may even have the right to develop the land - but your right to develop is constrained by zoning regimes. Get it? The government defines and creates property - but all property is is your bundle of rights with respect to a thing.

The fact government interferes with our property rights means nothing. Would you argue German Jews had no right to their possessions because the Nazis robbed them?

Exactly. If you made a dwelling, and someone else came in and threw you out that dwelling became theirs. No courts/cops/officials mean no one to enforce any right you might have. Pure right of force. It sounds like you're trying to make some sort of Lockean labor theory argument here. Unfortunately, Locke was wrong.

Obviously we don't agree on the definition of the word "rights".
You seem to think you have no right to live if someone murders you. A right is something to which one has a just claim, a moral claim. The fact someone might kill you doesn't mean you don't have a moral or just claim to live, it means they are violating your moral claim. How would you react if you built that dwelling and were forced out? So would the rest of us. Why? Because we all understand who had the moral claim to that dwelling.

This will come as a suprise to you, but yes murder is to some extent a political construction. The most important dimension to murder is the moral dimension. But if you feel that killing enemy soldiers is justified, then the moral and legal dimensions to murder do not exist exclusively.

While "murder" is a legal term, it describes an act that can occur with or without a legal system.

Now we could debate just war doctrine, but if you assume some form of the just war doctrine is true, then murder is to some extent a political construction.

If no government existed and my gang tried to kill your family, it wouldn't be murder if you killed us in self-defense. But if we did kill your family, that would be murder. Some governments only adopted this concept, they didn't invent it.

Don't confuse natual rights with legal definitions. Humans are a natural phenomena, property is a social construction.

Property rights are better preserved by involving others who share an interest in self-defense, but that doesn't mean those others gave me the right - the moral claim - to defend my property.

Moreover, I find it ironic that libertarians always think of slavery as a wrongful taking of one's property in one's self. It seems to me that slavery is best avoided by removing living beings from the relm of property entirely.

Slavery is the forceful acquisition of labor. If I spend years from my life to build a home and you take it away under communism, aren't you taking those years of labor from my life? For slavery to be accepted, one must first agree that the property rights of the victim are to be ignored.

The Nazis biggest crime wasn't a property crime. Nazis didn't steal Jews, they murdered Jews (morally, if not legally). I don't need to reduce people to property to protect their rights.

Before the Nazis began slaughtering Jews, they robbed them. And alot of that property ended up in Switzerland, which is why the Swiss were called to task - sued - for their involvement.

No government = no property. Ergo, no property = no moral claim to property

Millennia of people bartering their possessions before government refutes your assumption. How do you feel about the Brazilian government confiscating the lands of Amazonian Indians? If we were the only people on the planet and no government existed, how would you react if I walked up and took everything you had? Would you say I was behaving immorally?

Where does this moral claim come from?

Individual sovereignty. Your life is yours, not ours. Whatever created you failed to put a leash around your neck and hand us the end.

Justice does not entail property. According to Rawls (the best US political philosopher) Justice means something like fairness. Now once a property system is imposed by the state, we can talk about the justice or fairness of the system. But if their is no property system, there is no question of justice in property terms.

Does this mean government didn't create justice?

I'm still waiting for a verse quoting Jesus telling his followers to "tax" others or confiscate their property for the "community".

[Sikander]

Originally posted by Sava
Nah, he's just pointing out the hypocrisy.

Are you kidding, he's setting new standards for hypocrisy.

[Sikander]

Originally posted by Gatekeeper


**shrug** I'm not about to get into a debate over activist judges vs. activist lawmakers. It seems that, depending on one's viewpoint, they're saints or Satan incarnate. Me? I take it case-by-case and this is a clear instance where Bill Frist is being a pandering politician, not a statesman.

The more I think about, maybe the Libertarians do have a point when it comes to individual rights. But, honestly, that's putting a helluva lot of faith that individuals will always do the right thing. And, as the human condition can easily attest to, that's not always the case a significant part of the time.

Gatekeeper

I'd prefer a more libertarian-minded government for exactly that reason. Once in a while there is someone who will fool most of the people most of the time, and I'd prefer that this person has the least amount of leverage possible to do his mischief. A smaller government means that there is that much less to fall on your head when that time comes.

[GePap]

Millennia of people bartering their possessions before government refutes your assumption. How do you feel about the Brazilian government confiscating the lands of Amazonian Indians? If we were the only people on the planet and no government existed, how would you react if I walked up and took everything you had? Would you say I was behaving immorally?

How do you define government? Man is a social being, and thus has always lived in groups, groups that set up customs and taboos and then enforce them. They may not make LAW, but they make norms and customs. It is only within such a system that bartering can take place, since there is anorm that the objects traded will be of equal value to the ones giving them.

As for morality, it changes. Take slavery: it was viewed as normal and morally correct for millenia. You can not base a system of absolutes on something so variable as morality.

[mrboo123]

Originally posted by Ecthelion
while I can understand the ban on homosexual marriage, that of ethnic minorities is hilarious.

And desevces the idot of the year award!

[David Floyd]

As for morality, it changes. Take slavery: it was viewed as normal and morally correct for millenia. You can not base a system of absolutes on something so variable as morality.

So your argument is that slavery was moral in the 1700s?

[*End Is Forever*]

Well, it was viewed as moral by the majority. In essence, "morality" is utterly subjective.

[David Floyd]

Well, it was viewed as moral by the majority.

That's not what I asked. Was slavery morally OK, just because everyone said it was?

In essence, "morality" is bollocks.

So, then, the Holocaust was OK, too?

[*End Is Forever*]

No, of course slavery wasn't okay because the majority thought it was. The question is, who is right? Whose morality is correct? It's utterly subjective...

[Sava]

Hypocrisy leaves a bad taste. Notice how others are copying and pasting but I never see you guys whine about them.

Geez, take a chill pill... long cut and paste posts are your calling card buddy!

[David Floyd]

No, of course slavery wasn't okay because the majority thought it was. The question is, who is right? Whose morality is correct? It's utterly subjective..

If morality is utterly subjective then how can you make a blanket statement that slavery was wrong? At best, you can say that as far as you are concerned, slavery is wrong, but this wouldn't necessarily be true for everyone.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Was slavery morally OK, just because everyone said it was?

At that time, yes (at least to those that took that view).

So, then, the Holocaust was OK, too?

To German higher-ups, at that time, yes, it was moral.

[David Floyd]

At that time, yes (at least to those that took that view).

So slavery was moral up until the point in time when 50% + 1 decided it was immoral?

To German higher-ups, at that time, yes, it was moral.

So the Holocaust was moral because the Germans didn't think it was wrong. Right?

Those are indeed the logical extensions of your beliefs, and if you want to continue your beliefs to that level, be my guest.

[*End Is Forever*]

It was moral to the Germans.