The Problem with Libertarians...

[Berzerker]

Agathon -

I made two claims - both about Libertarianism when applied to the real world. Hence two posts. I see you had no decent response to the first.

You claimed to have proof that libertarianism is contradictory and you introduced "PD's" as your proof. Where are they? And what was this other proposition? Was it about "laissez faire"? If so, where's the PD showing the free market to be contradictory? If you're talking about a different proposition, cite it. But I won't go back through all your posts to try and identify which of your proposals you think I'm dodging.

No - the reason we have these sanctions is because the social sanctions are simply not sufficient to stop free riding behaviour.

Assertion, not fact.

This is especially true in large urban environments where I don't see the same people every day.

You don't have to see them everyday, they still have to associate with people who will treat them accordingly.

Prove that social sanctions are enough

Prove they aren't. I already gave you evidence of how they work and you didn't even respond.

I suppose you think these fines and rules exist because of the whim of government, when they are clearly designed to bolster your beloved social sanctions.

They don't exist to bolster social sanctions, government has outlawed discrimination in all sorts of areas. And I have no problem with fines to deal with illegal behavior like polluting.

Air pollution (which is what I was really talking about) is notoriously difficult to quantify and is thus a prime candidate for market failure.

You still haven't explained why we have a right to pollute.

Trying to build a compensation model for air pollution so company X pays Y dollars to each person would be too unwieldy. Pollution is thus a "tragedy of the commons" (something which Libertarians are just as vulnerable to as those they criticise). I don't say that pollution is on the LP platform; just that it is a consequence of lassez faire policy.

So, the LP doesn't claim we have a right to pollute, but you argue that pollution shows that the libertarian perspective of rights is contradictory? You aren't making any sense. We don't have a right to pollute under libertarianism, therefore, your first proposition (the contradictory nature of libertarianism) remains unproved. If your second proposition is about "laissez faire", how does a free market call for unrestrained pollution? I believe I asked this before, where's your response?

But how are we going to sort out who's air pollution has affected whom?

How do we do this now? We look for evidence. The fact is we all pollute, and we know this pollution crosses property lines, therefore, pollution is not a right under libertarianism or the marketplace. That makes pollution a matter for government to regulate and it makes your PD's meaningless.

It would be too unwieldy and inefficient not to say pretty much impossible to monitor how much company X has affected my life in order to pay me compensation.

We do this now in the courts.

Excuse me, who owns the air?

Your question is unrelated to my statement (laughing too hard? I am too). The transient nature of air makes it communal with regard to regulation, but no one "owns" it.

Again - can you imagine the logistical nightmare in prosecuting this case against all the polluters?

We prosecute polluters now.

That is, without doubt, the only reasonable suggestion you have made in the whole thread.

Then I'm one up on you.

You are talking about something else.

That's because you are mixing polluters with free riders.

In my discussion "free riders" are those who attempt to take advantage of PD situations. I'm not one of those stupid people who thinks that every expression has one use and one only.

Why did you argue that I want to boycott polluters when I said free riders would be boycotted?

Well we all know what thought thought.

Shall I consult a code-breaker to learn the meaning of that gem?

You really ought to read more carefully. Stealing library books was an example of PD situation - to introduce the notion for interested readers (it happens to be my stock example).

Your PD was to show why selfishness (libertarianism) causes more harm than good, and you asked me to respond or forever hold my "piece". So now your PD was not meant to show anything other than what a PD is? Fine, why didn't you familiarise us readers with a PD that actually showed why libertarianism is contradictory?

Are you disagreeing that it is, or not. It seems plainly a PD situation to me.

I was expecting a PD that supports your proposition, so why did you tell me to respond to a PD that has nothing to do with the issue?

Why would I have bothered talking about private policing next if your interpretation is true.

I don't know, that "PD" is unrelated to the subject too, which is why I asked you to quote me advocating this. You then claimed libertarianism requires this, but you never did quote the LP platform.

The general argument is this: Libertarian theory requires that we substitute voluntary exchange for coerced taxation. My argument is that this creates a prisoner's dilemma situation because it is not in the rational interest of each person to contribute, but to hope that everyone else does. For everyone to agree to pay for, say, an army, we all have to trust each other to pay, since the army will confer benefits onto non-payers as well.

And according to that PD, no one would support the military. How do you explain the American Revolution? People not only voluntarily paid for the war, many fought. Your failure to support the military doesn't translate into my refusal to support the military. Virtually everyone wants a military and will support funding it regardless of some guy off in the woods refusing to help.

You have then said that social sanctions would ensure everyone pays.

No, it would ensure most of those who refuse will pony up too because of the negative consequences. It's entirely possible some guy living off his land will feel no need to help even when faced with the consequences of discrimination. But my system will also ensure that people who are poor won't have to pay for what they cannot afford.

The problem is that they don't seem to be very effective at compelling people to make unselfish choices right this moment

We don't have freedom of association. And everyone is forced now to pay taxes so how can you claim social sanctions aren't very effective when they aren't even being used.

Look at the amount of petty tax avoidance that goes on - it's a reasonable assumption to think that it would get worse if taxation was completely voluntary.

Lol, the reason so many people try to avoid taxes is because taxes are too high. Arguing that people won't support government functions voluntarily when those costs would be much lower because high taxes causes avoidance is illogical.

Why would I pay if I can't be certain that everyone else is going to pay?

Why do you keep asking questions that have been answered?

Even if social sanctions were more effective than they are (and I suggest you look at the amount of litter on any city street to see how effective they really are)

Those aren't social sanctions, they are government sanctions. I don't know why you keep using illegal behaviors as "proof" that libertarianism is contradictory.

the rational thing to do would be to join a clique of other non-payers to trade with.

Why is that rational? You'd only anger everyone else.

The problem is that almost everyone will try do this

Then we wouldn't have any taxation now.

(Of course there will always be some community minded people who will do the decent thing, but unselfish people are a small minority as the fall of the Soviet Union proved).

You think communism there failed because too many people were selfish?

Look here's pretty much why Libertarianism won't work.

Is that an admission your past arguments are bogus or were those just examples unrelated to the issue to familiarise us readers to your intellectual prowess?

In every election campaign I have ever witnessed the voters are all enthusiastic to increase public spending but opposed to tax increases.

Some are, some aren't. Generally speaking, the people who pay more of the taxes are reluctant to have more spending and the people who pay less want more spending. Citing opinion polls that mix these two groups doesn't prove anything.

That's because they are all hoping to free ride (they want someone else to pay the extra tax).

Yes, people generally like getting something for nothing. But if there was no military, people would pay to have a military. Your argument is that people would rather have no military in order to keep their money. But wouldn't that mean they'd just eliminate the military taxes to keep their money now?

You are trying, just as the communists did, to base a whole social and political system, to in effect gamble with civilisation, by hoping that the vast majority of human beings are deep down decent and unselfish people.

On the contrary, it is because many people are selfish that I don't want government having the power of forced taxation. If people are selfish, why does giving them the legal power to steal accomplish anything resembling morality?

So you prove to me that social sanctions will work and not be beset with free riders, despite the evidence of everyday life where such sanctions have proved ineffective.

Are you going to prove that libertarianism is contradictory? Contrary to your claims, libertarianism doesn't require privatising police and voluntarily funded military, those are anarchist ideas. And many, perhaps most libertarians consider taxation for the military and police to be user fees.

And what does a man living alone in the woods have to do with the problems faced by most of us, who by economic necessity, have to live in large communities?

Nothing, that's why he may have the luxury of trying to ride free while the rest of us have to associate with others.

[Dinner]

God DAMN! These are some of the longest posts I've ever seen. Am I the only one that got bored and stopped reading?

[Ted Striker]

Originally posted by Ramo
Not only are half a million non-violent drug users locked up in our prisons,

I agree with this. Locking up non-violent addicts doesn't do much good. Unless they are dealers and then they deserve what they get.

the crime caused by these drug laws gives us a crime-rate unparalleled in the Western world, comparable to the likes of Russia.

Actually, I have read accounts that, one of the factors (among many) attributed to the reduction in crime during the 1990s, was breaking down the crack-cocaine trade.

He was no less than a murderer and a thief on a massive scale who caused unthinkable amounts of suffering. I really don't see why you're arguing the point.

First of all, since you have asked for sources, please supply me with sources with specific accounts of the atrocities committed by the emperor.

Secondly, the reason I am arguing the point is simple. (Actually you are arguing with me -- takes 2 to tango). I mentioned the Chinese situation as an example of a drug situation gone wrong, so Berzerker resorted to character assassination on the Chinese Emperor. (He has still yet to prove it, by the way. He hasn't given me 19th century American drug usage proof either).

Character assassination is pretty sly. If you can discredit someone with a sharp label, then in your mind you don't have to debate anymore because everything that the person in question does is pretty much immoral.

It's alot easier to just label him as a "slavelord" or whatever than to actually debate. The problem with this character assassination is that it ignores the simple fact that slavery was widespread thoughout the globe during this same time period, and our own US government was practicing it at the same time as the Chinese Emperor (assuming the slavery idea is true, which I don't buy).

Opium abuse in China was no different. There's a reason why opium addiction exploded in the early 19th century; that's when poverty exploded...

Sorry, every account I have read does not say that. Please again list your sources.

[Ted Striker]

British force the trade of Opium and its devastating effects

I'm not sure I'm following you... Are you saying that the agreements force the Chinese to buy the opium? If so, I'd appreciate a source.

I never said that. But they forced the import of opium.

And, by the way, many of the sources I have already listed, all have said that the addiction of opium was extremely hard to break.

No the British did not force them to buy it but I mean come on addicts go to desparate lengths to get their drugs, so, how "convenient" for the British to supply them.

THE CHINESE OPIUM WARS:
The Queen of England Pushes Dope

The British seizure of Hongkong was an aspect of one of the most ugly crimes of the British Empire: the takeover and destruction of India, and the use of India to flood China with opium. The British twice sent the Royal Navy to enforce opium addiction on China, in order to open up China for looting.

It was common knowledge before 1921, that the British Empire was the world's leading drug trafficker in the 19th century. Even Ted Koppel, in a recent ``Nightline'' special report on Hongkong, was forced to admit this.

http://members.tripod.com/~american_almanac/opium.htm

Opium addiction grew to epidemic proportions, ravaging Chinese society. The Ching emperor appointed a special commissioner in Canton, with orders to stamp out the opium trade.

A week after his appointment, Lin Ze-xu ordered his troops to surround the international enclave in Canton. He demanded the overseas traders turn over all of their opium stocks. After a six-week stand off, the traders surrendered more than 20,000 chests of the narcotic.

That confrontation brought demands for action from British opium traders, including two of the biggest, William Jardine and James Matheson. It also provoked a belligerent response from the British military, and the start of the First Opium War, of 1840-1842.

http://asia.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/asiapcf/east/06/20/hk.history.01/

Commissioner Lin insisted that the British could not enjoy any of the benefits of legal trade unless they agreed to obey Chinese laws and stopped importing opium. If the British could not honor these terms, they were ordered to leave Chinese waters and never return.

Captain Elliot refused to concede.

http://www.oldnewspublishing.com/opium.htm

The English, despite Lin's eloquent letter, refused to back down from the opium trade. In response, Lin threatened to cut off all trade with England and expel all English from China. Thus began the Opium War.

http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/CHING/OPIUM.HTM

Karl Marx praised the Opium War for throwing China into chaos. He claimed that Britain was advancing civilization in China, by destroying China's old culture, and opening it up to the international economy: ``It would seem as though history had first to make this whole people drunk before it could rouse them out of their hereditary stupidity,'' he said about China.

Come on guys, I have supplied mountains of documentation that have backed up most of my points. You guys have supplied us with nothing but opinion and speculation. And some absurd theory that the Emperor didn't want them smoking because, "they might stop working hard." Fess up. Why do you think they are called, "The Opium Wars?" Duh!

[Ted Striker]

This is some goooood ****. One more for the road!

.

[Berzerker]

Ned -

Berzerker, David said,

I know, I read the quote you used. But he said that after a lengthy discussion involving the murder of 1 innocent to prevent the murders of 5 people. So, he didn't say he would stand by and do nothing if a murder was about to take place, and the quote you are using doesn't say that either, only that he has a moral code to live by (and it doesn't include murdering one person to save 5 people).

Granting your positon for the sake of argument, then I take it that the libertarian can violate the liberty of individuals if only to restrain those very same individuals from violation of the liberty of others.

Freedom is the absence of coercion or constraint on choice or action. Therefore, the act of murder - a constraint on the victim's choice or action - is not an act of freedom/liberty. Restraining the would-be murderer does not violate their liberty since murder does not fall under the definition of freedom. But that aside, yes.

In other words, Libertarians endorse drug laws, for example.

Nope, how you can equate murder with using a drug is beyond me. Drug use doesn't constitute a constraint on others, murder and drug laws do.

People who do drugs become addicts who then harm their families and perhaps others as well.

No, some drug users ( a very small minority btw) become addicts and harm their families. But unless the harm is something more than hurt feelings, they haven't violated anyone's rights and don't deserve punishment.

Because there is a casual connection between drugs and harm, their regulation is moral.

Not in you wildest dreams. The moral regulation would be to punish the drug user who actually violates the rights of others, like assault or theft, not hurt feelings. To punish the millions of people who use drugs without committing assault or theft because of those drug users who do is immoral. There are sober people who commit murder, should all sober people be punished or just those who commit murder?

Libertarians would also, I believe, support laws against individuals exploding nuclear weapons in cities.

Yup.

An absurd example, true. But extendable to a ban on possession of firearms in cities.

Why? A firearm can be used in self-defense without hurting the innocent, nukes can't.

But I believe Libertarians actually believe that drug laws violate liberty even though the use of drugs causes harm.

The use of drugs CAN cause harm to the user (that's their choice), but even if we can tie the drug use to harming others in some cases, that doesn't justify punishing the millions of drug users who don't harm others.

Therefore, I think my original interpretation of David's statement is accurate.

I don't and I explained why.

I want to be very clear on this, what you advocate is highly immoral. Not only are you having government forcibly take what belongs to others (harm?), but you want this money to be used to cage millions of people, not because they use drugs, but because SOME drug users "harm" others. If you were put in a cage because someone else committed a crime, you wouldn't view your imprisonment as an act of justice.

[David Floyd]

Bizarre. You are saying that your moral theory prefers the worse to the better. That to me signals contradiction and incoherence.

With regards to murder, I have two absolute preferences. The first is that nobody is murdered. The second is that I don't commit murder, ever. Both of those are consistent with a position that murder is immoral.

You can try all day long to make exceptions, and you can talk all day long about how it is worse for 5 people to die than for 1 to die, but you can't have a (consistent) view that murder is wrong.

If you believe murder is wrong, then it is you who is being inconsistent. If you believe murder is wrong, then you obviously believe that murder shouldn't happen. However, the only way you can absolutely control the murder rate is by making sure that you don't commit murder - again, responsibility for your own actions. Yet, even though you believe murder is wrong, you are willing to commit murder in certain circumstances.

In that case, you don't have an absolute aversion to murder - you only believe that murder is wrong in some cases. But that's ridiculous - now you are starting to sound like a Republican or a Democrat, who claim to believe in freedom, but in reality only believe in freedom for some people in some cases.

So, then, a question for you: Do you believe that murder is wrong?

If the answer is "yes", then your position is not consistent. If your answer is "no", then your position is ridiculous. Which is it gonna be - inconsistency or absurdity?

If you are given the power to decide whether five people die or one dies YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE no matter what you decide. You may not like it, and it may not be fair, but you have the power; it's your call.

So, then, let's look at a couple more scenarios.

1)A random guy comes up to you on a bridge, and says that unless you hand him a billion dollars, he's going to jump off and kill himself. You can't physically restrain him because he's pointing a gun at you.

You can't give him a billion dollars for obvious reasons, so he jumps off the bridge. Do you bear any responsibility for that?

2)A lady calls you on your cellphone. She says that she will put her baby in a stroller and push it out into traffic in 5 days, unless you cut off your **** and drop it off the top of the Empire State Building. Assuming you don't cut your penis off, are you responsible for the death of her baby?

3)A guy calls you on the phone, says he has five hostages, and that unless you kill 2 specific people, those five will die. Now, that's all well and good - you obviously believe five people are more important than two, so you want to agree. But then he tells you that you have to kill your parents, and, not only that, you can't say anything about "duress" - you have to admit to killing them of your own free will, and take whatever penalty your country hands out for such an action. Do you do it?

They say it is worse to let five die

Actually, Libertarians would say that they aren't responsible for five deaths, because they were not in a position to make a life or death decision, but on the other hand, they are responsible for keeping one person alive.

Once he says, "it's your call, you decide", you cannot avoid choosing.

That's true. You have a choice to make, and so does he. Interestingly enough, you both have the same choice. You get to choose whether or not to kill an innocent person, and so does he.

But you do not get to choose to save five people - if you had that choice, you would simply say, "I choose to save five people" and it would happen. No, only he has the power to do that.

The courageous thing to do is make it instead of trying to weasel out of it.

I'm not weaseling out of anything - I'm making the choice not to commit murder. Likewise, the would-be killer is making the choice to either commit murder or not.

And what about this? Let's say that I kill the one person, and the would-be killer has a good laugh and kills five people anyway. Didn't my actions create more evil? After all, my actions caused six people to die, rather than only five.

And how do I know this won't happen? All I have is the word of someone who is threatening to kill five people - it's sorta like trusting the fox to guard the henhouse, isn't it? I mean, if I know that the guy will go through with his threat if I don't kill one person, then obviously I know that he has the predilection and ability to kill. What reasonably makes me think that he won't kill five people anyway?

It is no different than the fact of someone offering you a drink means that you either accept, refuse or ignore them. There are only 2 consequences, you get the drink or you don't.

Actually there are four separate possibilities. The first is that I kill one person, and the killer doesn't kill five. The second is that I kill one person and the killer kills five. The third is that I don't kill anyone and the killer kills five, and the fourth is that neither of us kill anyone. In any of those scenarios, I only have control over my end of it, hence, the two potential killings are two separate acts (well, if you want to get down to it, six different ones, but I'm not gonna type all that out).

Don't even try to say that we can never be sure what another can do - if you really believed that, life would be impossible.

You're absolutely right. We can usually predict, within reason, the actions of reasonable, rational, and peaceful people. However, we can usually NOT reasonably predict the actions of the unreasonable, irrational, violent and insane people. If someone is unreasonable or irrational, for example, why should I trust anything he says? And I would certainly call kidnapping five people and threatening to kill them both irrational and unreasonable, wouldn't you?

In any case you still haven't told me how it is possible to behave morally while intentionally settling for something your own moral theory tells you is worse.

And you still haven't told me why me behaving morally is worse than someone else behaving immorally. In fact, you haven't even adequately shown that either person can control the behavior of the other.

Again you have the power to make a difference. You cannot escape it.

No, at best I might THINK I have the power to make a difference, but ultimately, the only one with the real power is the person holding the gun to the heads of five people.

It is getting repetitive because you say you are not choosing evil, yet you accept that killing one person is the lesser of two evils.

No, it's repetitive because you don't seem to be able to comprehend the relatively simple notion of personal responsibility.

You are contradicting yourself in the most flagrant manner possible.

If you say so, but then again, you're being fairly contradictory as well, at least if you actually have any moral compunction against murder.

No - you show me where I have assumed anything more than individual rights added together.

Fine. I misunderstood you. This is a side issue anyway.

And so here we have it - what you are saying is that every violation of a moral rule is simply bad

Every violation of a moral rule is bad? What?! What kind of nonsense is THAT!

Come on, that's such an obvious statement that even you should agree with it.

there is no distinguishing between murder and mass murder or even between stealing crisps and mass murder.

Morally speaking, murder and stealing are both absolutely wrong. Murder is comparatively worse than stealing, in light of the fact that it harms an individual more. That's also a self-evident statement - would you rather have someone shoot you, or have someone steal your wallet?

Not to say that one is BETTER than the other, in a moral sense, but in a legal sense, the penalty for murder should be harsher than the penalty for stealing, because of the notion of comparative harm to individual liberty.

I'm sorry but they do. There can be no argument about this, it is a matter of brute fact. If the killer says to you "I will kill five people unless you kill one" and you know he means it (i.e. he's going to do it if you don't), then whether five people die or just one depends on one thing and one thing only, your decision.

Again, absolutely incorrect. My decision is not responsible for anyone's death. How can my decision possibly kill anyone, in this example? Only the action of pulling a trigger kills a person.

How is this possible. Five deaths is less liberty than one.

That's a non-sensical statement. Less liberty for whom? Five murders results in the same exact loss of liberty for each of those five as one murder does for the one. There's no such thing as "net liberty", only liberty as it relates to each individual.

But in life, my excellent friend, the choices that others make often put us into uncomfortable situations.

Possibly, but much more so if you believe anyone but the trigger man is responsible for a murder.

Others can force us into having to make heartbreaking decisions

Actually, your scenario is NOT a heartbreaking decision in the slightest. My choice is simply whether or not to kill someone. My heart will not be a bit broken by the fact that I chose not to commit murder, in fact, the opposite is true - I will feel better about myself for not murdering an innocent person.

I think it would have come later rather than sooner in that case, but come it would have.

As much as you might know about political philosophy, you clearly don't know much about history. Japan wouldn't have attacked the United States if the US was not in a position to threaten the GEACPS. In my scenario, where the US behaved morally in 1846 and 1898, the US is not in that position, therefore, it will not be attacked by Japan.

Japan and the US were expansionist empires. The problem is that you only need one of these to start a war -so if the US had been nice they would have been attacked eventually.

Japan never had plans to expand onto the American mainland.

Remember that Germany was the aggressor in WW1 and in WW2.

WW1 was not entirely Germany's fault. Most power's were equally culpable, with Russia perhaps being the most responsible for the outbreak of war.

The test of a good moral theory is that it is not supposed to contain contradictions.

OK, but you aren't finding contradictions, you are making up ahistorical, outlandish extreme situations and using those situations to prove your argument. That's ridiculous. EVEN IF that proved your argument - which it does not - the best you would be able to say is that in some extreme cases, Libertarianism fails. But you haven't even proved that much, and even if you had, that doesn't get around the fact that the same is just as, or more, true for the system you support, whatever system that may be.

If a case like the one I described came to court the defendant would be judged to have been under duress and would have been let off.

Even if this were true - and I don't really think it is - surely you are saying that the person who randomly knocked off one innocent person would escape punishment, correct?

In courts everywhere people do this sort of thing, so I see no difficulty.

Miss Cleo probably doesn't either - but unfortunately I can't read minds.

Again, he does not transfer responsibility - he creates an additional one by putting you on the spot.

That's true - he creates an additional responsibility by putting me on the spot in terms of the life of one random person.

Nope - I'll keep my secrets for now.

Why? Hell, it's just idle curiosity, I'm not gonna try and use it against you.

[tinyp3nis]

Originally posted by Oerdin
God DAMN! These are some of the longest posts I've ever seen. Am I the only one that got bored and stopped reading?

David attempts to avoid answering to a really easy question are funny, you should read them Well, it's possible that he is stupid enough to not been able to even understand the question, like it seems, he likes to debate the details (which have nothing to do with the actual question). So it's a small possibility that he is not avoiding, but thinks he is giving an answer

[Berzerker]

Orange -

You must make one choice or the other. Push a button, and two people die, or push the other and one person dies.

The rational person chooses the button that kills one person.

The moral person pushes neither.

[Berzerker]

David -

With regards to murder, I have two absolute preferences. The first is that nobody is murdered. The second is that I don't commit murder, ever. Both of those are consistent with a position that murder is immoral.

Sounds moral to me.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Berzerker
Agathon -

You don't have to see them everyday, they still have to associate with people who will treat them accordingly.

Prove they aren't. I already gave you evidence of how they work and you didn't even respond.

Look at the amount of litter on any downtown street.

That makes pollution a matter for government to regulate

Libertarian!?!

You still haven't explained why we have a right to pollute.

I never said we have a right to pollute, I said it that the prisoner's dilemma shows that it is rational to pollute - i.e. in a voluntary system there is incentive to pollute. Only a coercive state system can remove that incentive by forcing massive penalties onto violators.


One more then...

How do we do this now? We look for evidence. The fact is we all pollute, and we know this pollution crosses property lines, therefore, pollution is not a right under libertarianism or the marketplace. That makes pollution a matter for government to regulate and it makes your PD's meaningless. We do this now in the courts.

OK - you tell me exactly how much Mrs S that lives in Chicago has contributed to my ill health by driving her SUV and not only exactly how much air pollution Phillip Morris is responsible for, but exactly how much that one company has cost you? Then take them to court. This is because, unlike beans and other medium size dry goods, the effects of pollution are hard to quantify. And if you want to know how to quantify beans - you count them.

The reason that it works in the courts now is that the fines regarding air pollution are primarily meant to deter and they are coercively and somewhat arbitrarily enforced by the state for that reason. Now any bleeding idiot that knows anything about Libertarianism knows that the violation of individual rights are the only ground for compensation - not deterrence. Deterrence just aims to stop the offending behaviour. The Libertarian system recompenses people for the violation of their rights, the destruction of their property. It is immoral under a Libertarian system to set up sanctions just as deterrents (imagine the massive violations of liberty that would result if people were fined too much for polluting) although any sanction has some deterrent value.

As it stands awards for pollution are fairly arbitrary anyway since it is impossible to sort out whose air pollution has affected whom, one reason being that the results on a persons's health take years to appear. I can see that the cases would drag on for years and be mired down in technicalities.

Oh blah blah blah blah.

I not going to bother with the rest it's just more tired old c*** that misses the point I was making. i suggest you read my original posts again. After all Ned got it, so I can't have been that opaque, but then again he appears to be smarter and better mannered than you.

[tinyp3nis]

Originally posted by Berzerker
Orange -

The moral person pushes neither.

The "moral persons" (by your definiton) must be much better than rest of us, since they get 3 choises, left button, right button and no button. The rest of us only gets 2 options, left and right. We rest suck

[Ned]

Well, I keep my posts short, and David largely ignores them. I think he likes "extended" debates.

[David Floyd]

The "moral persons" (by your definiton) must be much better than rest of us, since they get 3 choises, left button, right button and no button. The rest of us only gets 2 options, left and right. We rest suck

Actually, one always has a choice not to push a button. Just because you can create a ridiculous hypothetical with no bearing on reality doesn't make that hypothetical a valid argument.

[David Floyd]

Ned, give me something worth responding to, and I will.

Agathon, so far, has, therefore my response to him is much longer than my average response to you.