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

[Shi Huangdi]

Not at all. Jesus is saying your good cannot be confined to prayers or the private feelings of your heart. In essence, Jesus is affirming that indeed the personal is political.

Jesus didn't come about for political reform. Some of his followers wanted political change, that is the liberation of Judaea from the Roman Empire but Jesus rebuked them. Moreover, using taxation to try to accomplish good means forcefully appropriating the property of others- something Jesus never supported or took actions towards.

You are correct that Christianity can't be confined to prayers or private thought, but Matthew 5:13-16 provides no evidence he is talking about politics, rather he is talking about good works in general.

What both the Christian Right and the Christian Left miss out on is the importance of free will. It is impossible to truly love God unless you have a free choice to do so. God could have just forced forced us to love him, but he did not. We ought not to take away what God has given us. The person who helps the poor through his tax money did not have a free choice in the matter and so no particular love or acceptance of God can be seen in that action alone. Nor does someone honor God by refraining from immoral sexual conduct only because he faces criminal sanctions.

We are given an opporuntity to freely love god through our actions when they are freely done however. So in a way government actions that limit our free will on this Earth can actually work counter to this. The more money is taxes, the less that can be given as alms. When we don't have a choice regarding whether to partke in immoral actions, we don't get to choose the choice to love God.

Now, that's not say the State can never to take actions to defend ourselves or promote order. It's just that we should keep in mind we can't honor God through the forceful actions of the State.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Depending on just how immoral, then said society could be up for some "liberation"

Only if you are 'strong' enough to liberate them. If the most powerful country is 'immoral' and its people like being 'immoral', then there ain't a damned thing you could do about it.

Furthermore, Libertarians aren't into invading other countries .

[David Floyd]

Imran,

I finally see where you are coming from. You are saying that absolutes may indeed exist, but that's irrelevant because they are meaningless without strength.

Is that an accurate summary of your point?

Templar,

Shi answered you fairly well, and I'll do so as well when I get back from the bank. You might also want to address the rest of my post - I posted at length, and you've hardly addressed anything I said.

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by David Floyd
Templar,

Shi answered you fairly well, and I'll do so as well when I get back from the bank. You might also want to address the rest of my post - I posted at length, and you've hardly addressed anything I said.

I thought that he declared victory and left the thread.

[David Floyd]

Speaking of sure signs of losing an argument, that's gotta be the granddaddy of them all

[Imran Siddiqui]

I finally see where you are coming from. You are saying that absolutes may indeed exist, but that's irrelevant because they are meaningless without strength.

Is that an accurate summary of your point?

Kinda. Personally I don't think there is an absolute morality out there. I think it is silly to claim any moral belief system as 'absolute'.

However, there MAY be one, I'm not ruling it out (especially if God exists ). Yet, even if there is one, without strength it doesn't mean jack.

[David Floyd]

OK, fair enough. Then our biggest point of disagreement is that I see moral behavior as something that is good on its own merit, and that one can be the weaker party, yet still hold the moral high ground, and that this is important.

[GePap]

Templer was doing very well, specially when it comes ot the noton of property.

To answer berz notion that territoriality and porperty are the same, lets take the following possibility:

man goes to see a movie, and buys a ticket for a show in a theater without assigned seats. This person goes in, sits down, andecides they want to do something outside, so they leave an item of theirs to mark the seat and leave for a while.
This person returns to find an individual has sat down in the seat they had marked, and moved the item to another seat. Now, I am willing to bet a significant amoutn of money that most people would confront the person sitting tell them that the seat was theirs: a fine example of territoriality. A seat was found and marked. BUt this is were property kickcs in. The man does not own that seat, and neither does the individual now sitting there. The theater owns the seats, and neither indvidual has a claim to any particualr seat. IN buying the ticket, both paid for the ability to have A seat, ANY seat, but not any PARTICULAR seat in the theater. The man to have arrived first had no right whasoever to expect that no other person would take that seat, since they have no legal ownership over the seat. What about their item, which most likely they do own? Well, it is still there in the theater hall, just at a different location. They own the item, not the space, which is what is in dispute.
So, the fact that either individual might feel a territorial claim to the seat means nothing to the idea of who owns it (who's property it is). The only way to be able to claim any seat is to actually inhabit it for that period in time, since while you may not own the seat, you do have a right not to be assaulted, and only by assulting you would someone else be able to claim it if you are occupying it personally.

Now, why does this not happen al;l the time in real life? Not becuase of any notion that people do have a right to the seats they leave thier stuff in, but by social norm meant to minimize possible conflict, gievn the feeling of territoriality.

[Az]

I just wanted to point out that I agree with DF. There is right and wrong.

[GePap]

Originally posted by Azazel
I just wanted to point out that I agree with DF. There is right and wrong.

Yes, the question is which right and which wrong

[Imran Siddiqui]

that one can be the weaker party, yet still hold the moral high ground, and that this is important.

Ain't that important if your moral high ground results in you sitting in a jail cell .

[David Floyd]

Well, admitting that there is an absolute right and wrong is a good first step. Once you admit that we can get into specifics.

[David Floyd]

Ain't that important if your moral high ground results in you sitting in a jail cell

Again, I have to disagree. You might say that if you act morally, and go to jail for it, then you made a mistake or are stupid, but I would say the opposite. Moral behavior should totally ignore the consequences, or the acts of others, and should deal with only your own actions.

Just because someone wants to shoot you for your moral actions doesn't make your actions any less moral. For example, in Tiananmen Square, had the tanks simply run over and crushed the guy standing in front of them, that wouldn't have rendered the guy's actions wrong, it would simply have made the tankers into murderers.

Or, another example. If someone breaks into your house, and you fight tooth and nail to prevent him from killing your family, but he ends up killing you and everyone else anyway, that doesn't mean that you shouldn't have fought. It simply means that the burglar was acting immorally, and yes, was stronger.

[GePap]

Originally posted by David Floyd
Well, admitting that there is an absolute right and wrong is a good first step. Once you admit that we can get into specifics.

You have yet to explain what you base this immense assumption on.

[Berzerker]

Templar -

Communism predated Bolshevism. Bolshevism was socially and fiscally communist. I'm talking about a communal as opposed to private property system. I had hoped the inference was obvious - but why infer when a rhetorical cheap shot is easier?

Voluntary "communism" is based on private property since adherents agreed to share their property and can simply withdraw from the arrangement without fearing for their lives.

Plurality = most popular but less than 50%
Majority = over 50%

Since even the libertarian party believes in taxes to fund defense and police, this leaves anarchists and nutjobs in Montana who categorically disagree with all taxes.

First, the majority doesn't even vote. Second, the argument is not about having taxes, it's about what taxes to have and to cover which expenditures. Are you suggesting libertarians agree with liberals on tax policy? Hell, not even conservatives agree with liberals or libertarians, so it would be quite a stretch to say all three groups agree on tax policy.

While that is an interesting question for archaeology, its not important for the present discussion which is conceptual - not empirical. Property, being a social construct defines and enforced by the state, the firat state to institute a property system had the first type of government to create property as a regulatory tool.

But you just admitted you don't know what political system invented property, that means you don't even know if government invented property or merely adopted the idea from earlier peoples who had no system of taxation.

And Newton told us light was particles. Newton was half right. The enlightenment thinkers thought property was a natural kind and natural right. They were half right, property is a right or entitlement - but a state created one. People tend to get things wrong occasionally.

States cannot create these rights, they can only respect or violate them. If our right to life was a grant from the state, then we have no moral grounds to object to genocide committed by the state.

territory is space, property a bundle of rights. This is a conceptual difference which you tried to elide. I'm separating them out. A dog has no bundle of rights with repect to his/her territory - that territory is maintained by might, not right.

Umm...why do you keep referring to this territory as belonging to the dog if you don't believe in the ownership of territory?

Where did fairness and justice come from?

Sheesh! That was what I asked you a while ago and got no answer.

That is a long philosophical question that exceeds the size of this forum. If you want to start a thread for this topic, fine.

It's relevant because if government did not invent them, government did not invent morality - and rights are moral or just claims, ultimately of ownership.

But assuming fairness is a standard external to legal systems, one can judge whether or not a legal system is de jure or de factor unfair.

Agreed, which is why government didn't invent "fairness".

Racism is unfair, so any property system that operates is a racist manner (say group x can't own property for instance) is unfair to the extent that it is racist.

Agreed again, but that argument requires applying a standard of morality from outside of legal systems. So, where did this morality come from?

Like fairness and justice, this would require its own thread. Suffice it to say that Kant and Hegel, to name two, have their own theories of how rights exists without a basis in property.

When I try to show you that property came before government and from natural rights derived from morality, you keep saying that's a different issue best suited for another thread.

And if you read carefully you would understand my position. My point is, for the third time, war is not a natural state. It is a construct that requires other social constructs like nation, enemy, ally, etc.

But I never brought up war, you did when I asked about murder.

Murder has a moral dimension (leaving aside law for the moment). If you believe killing an enemy soldier in war is not morally murder, then you believe murder has a social component. If you remember correctly, you asked if murder was also like property created by the state. I answered.

Where did you answer? All I see are repeated references to killing soldiers in wartime.

Sure.

Finally, so we have right to life that precludes murder. From where did this right come from?

Many large slaveholders in the south purchased "quadroon" slave solely to rape and torment. I take it being raped does count as labor since it is neither productive nor voluntary.

I'd be surprised if all these slaves did was be raped and nothing else, but rape certainly is productive for the rapist - and that's what matters, true?

You asked a conceptual question about slavery. Conceptual questions often require hypothetical answers. You argued that the nature of slavery precluded slaves owning property. I argued this was not a necessary element of slavery. Whatever property rights actually belonged to slaves are irrelevant to the question of necessity.

You said slaves owned property, so pointing to how slavery was practiced is not "conceptual". If slaves don't even own themselves or their labor, just how can they own property? If the master gave the slave a shack to live in, and the slave refused to come out of the shack, do you think the master would just walk away because the shack was the slave's property?

Once you mine and smelt gold, you own it by virtue of admixing your labor with the material. WHile your not looking, I fashion the gold into a beautiful statue that is worth more than the mere value of the gold. I have also admixed my labor with the material. Who owns the gold and who owns the statue?

First, do you agree that someone owns it as your question implies? The person who mined and smelted the gold owns it, the person who stole it for their own purposes doesn't. But the person who did steal it could morally return the gold after melting it down to it's former condition. Now, can you address my point about the spear?

You are essentially espousing Locke's labor theory of property. My hypothetical shows just one of the many problems it creates. Locke's theory is not sufficient for understanding property.

Hardly, but for someone who doesn't think it's possible to steal unless government exists to define stealing, I can see why you're perplexed. Are you really suggesting archaic peoples without government and systems of taxation had no concept of theft?

Moreover, even if I did by the argument that your labor gave you some moral interest in the property, is that the whole story? Suppose you are the worst hunter in the tribe, but Bob is the best. Unfortunately, Bob can't make a spear to save his life - but you are the master of spear making. As tribal chief, I might decide that Bob has a greater right to the spear than you because he can actually use it. I also decide since Bob needs you spear, he has to share an equal portion of his meat with you. Here we have a centrally planned system of communal property where the tribal chief distributes entitlements. Is it fair? Sure, everyone benefits. Does it involve private property? No. Locke's theory is also not necessary for property.

Once again you're arguing that if someone violates our property rights, then we have no property rights. And what happened to your voluntary communism? You reject involuntary communism - Bolshevism - but immediately jump to examples of "central planning" to make your case. Hmm...

Ergo, the labor theory of property is neither necessary nor sufficient to understand property so it is wrong insofar as Locke employed it.

So a tribal chief, i.e., dictator, stealing property from one person and giving it to another makes your case? What happens if I, the spear maker, and Bob the hunter, says no to the tribal chief?

Once the system was put in place, the Jews acquired property rights.

And the system removed those property rights.

The only question is whether the Nazi system allowed for the wholesale dispossession of the Jews. If it did, then the Jews had no property rights - but the system was neither just nor fair. Again, you are eliding concepts which are separate.

But "just"ice is about morality, so to explain away what happened to the property of the Jews, you're reaching for something - morality/justice - beyond government to say what the Nazis did was wrong. This realm of justice beyond government is where "rights", including property rights, originates.

Possession. If you are big and I am small, you will take my fish. If you are small and I am big, I will take your shoes. If we are approximately equal and don't feel like risking a fight, we might trade possession of fish for shoes. Possession without right is not property, and the right is created by the state even if the possession is not.

After all this time you still don't understand the definition of rights. They are moral claims of ownership, and you've already established that morality exists outside of government. But why do you keep referring to objects as if they are owned? "My" fish, "your" shoes...

Now as fun as libertarian-baiting is, I hereby declare victory and bid you farewell.

Sounds like the knight in Monty Python running away from the Knights of Knee proclaiming victory as his truthful sidekick tells a different story...