Libertarian Kvetchfest continued

[TCO]

(Since the old thread is locked.)

Berz, my comments about the poor knowledge of economics was based on you and David's comments on the lottery issue. I found you both rather uninformed and unthoughtful about competive business. I had to take the more market-savvy/market-oriented tack in our discussions. A libertarian ought to at least understand markets. It's so central (or at least close) to your philosophy. Was really dissapointed in you two. We need a smartie like Agathon over in our econ thread. He's wasting his time in the libertarian kvetchfest (not because I hate libertarianism, I don't, but becasue you all aren't worth it. Sorry. Take some econ classes and bring your game up. than it wil be worth it. you don't need to change your extreme libertariansism, just need to learn something.)

[Agathon]

I'd like to point out that I am not an economist; having said that I'm not completely ignorant of the subject.

I still feel like bashing away for a bit. Especially since David has gone over all quiet.

Berzerker, you did exactly what I thought you would. You ignored my argument and made facile objections to individual sentences taken out of context. I'm afraid that I am forced to respond to individual sentences, because you provide little or no context or argument.

Which makes you a mass murderer. The fact someone else would murder 10 million and 1 won't change that fact.

Yes it does. It also makes me a person who cares more about the number of people who die than my own moral purity. I care more about minimizing the number of murders overall than I do about who commits them.

Now for where you go seriously wrong:

quote:

"Do Libertarians think that rights-violations are bad because they cause loss of liberty; or do they think that loss of liberty is bad because it is caused by rights violations?"


There's a difference? Since liberty and rights are synonymous, both are bad, you can't violate one without violating the other.

quote:

"Do Libertarians think that the correct explanation of the badness of murder is that violating the right to life is bad because it causes death; or because death is caused by violating a right?"

The right to life stems from life itself, they too are synonymous.

BIG MISTAKES here.

(1) to take the second one first: If the right to life stems from life itself then they cannot mean the same thing. If they did mean the same thing then someone who knew what "life" meant would automatically know what "right to life" meant. This excludes everyone who lived prior to the creation of the concept of rights (in the late Middle Ages) from knowing what "life" was. Again worms and trees are alive, but Libertarians don't think that they have rights to life.

But perhaps you mean "refer" to the same thing. In this case someone who knew what "life" meant might not know that "right to life" referred to the same thing; just as someone might not know that "Cassius Clay" referred to the same object as "Muhammad Ali".

But that's even dumber. If, as you say, "the right to life 'stems' from life", what does "stems" mean? Does it mean "is the reason why". Well the reason why something is the case cannot be the same as the thing or there is no explanation. For example, the reason water boils is that heat is applied to it, boiling water "stems" from heating, but boiling water is not identical with heating.

(2) It's true that one cannot violate a right to liberty without affecting liberty; but it is not conversely true that every loss of liberty is caused by a rights violation. I could make this case for liberty rights, but the point is easier to see if I make it about property.

So, if you violate my property rights then presumably I lose some property (say you burn down my garden shed); you can't violate the right without me doing losing property, for failure to violate the right constitutes a failure to do me a wrong.

But, I can lose some property without having my rights violated. Say, for example, a hurricane destroys my garden shed - I lose some property, but the hurricane isn't morally responsible because hurricanes aren't moral agents.

If one can occur without the other then they aren't the same thing. Moreover, what is bad in both cases is me losing the shed. The loss of the shed is what makes what you do bad, it also makes the hurricane a bad thing, but hurricanes aren't moral agents (i.e. they can't violate rights) so no right of mine is violated.

If your view was correct, then one would be in the crazy position of attributing crimes to inanimate entities.

Quod erat demonstrandum.

[Berzerker]

Agathon -

Which is worse, numbnuts?

A bit touchy there, aren't you? Coming from the guy who accused me of being bad-mannered too.

If two are worse than one, and three are worse than two, and generally speaking, x+1 murders are worse than x murders, then, by the power of mathematics, 10 million and one murders are worse than 10 million.

Which is why I made the assumption you'd murder 10 million to prevent the murder of 10 million and 1.

After all, 10 million will die no matter what I do, but if I do the killing, then I've saved someone.

Which makes you a mass murderer. The fact someone else would murder 10 million and 1 won't change that fact.

From the victims' point of view I also make the better choice because, other things being equal, the odds of becoming a victim are slightly less likely to die if I kill 10 million: because 10 000 000 / P is less than 10 000 001 / P (P being the population at risk of death.)

I'd play the lottery instead.

A strange view of morality would be one that preferred a worse outcome to what it admitted was better one: in other words, Libertarianism (or at least on David's view of it, which secretly smuggles a religious doctrine in the back door).

Could you murder 10 million people to prevent someone else from murdering the same 10 million and one more?

"Do Libertarians think that rights-violations are bad because they cause loss of liberty; or do they think that loss of liberty is bad because it is caused by rights violations?"

There's a difference? Since liberty and rights are synonymous, both are bad, you can't violate one without violating the other.

"Do Libertarians think that the correct explantion of the badness of murder is that violating the right to life is bad because it causes death; or because death is caused by violating a right?"

The right to life stems from life itself, they too are synonymous.

And another thing, you seem to be behaving as if I were making some arcane, evil and impractical criticism of Libertarianism when the same criticism goes for any other rights based moral system.

And what about other allegedly moral systems?

For example, Liberals are committed to the value of tolerance.

If we were to understand this according to David's model then I could never ever act intolerantly. But there is a problem which every liberal state has had to face: intolerant people. If we tolerate the intolerant and the intolerant affect the lives of others then we are compromising the value we originally placed on tolerance. In fact, if we understood rights as David understood them and behaved that way, we may well end up with a society ridden with intolerant people whom we have to tolerate to avoid being accused of intolerance. In other words our committment to tolerance, David style, is compatible with the existence of a largely intolerant society.

Which is why I'm always amused by liberals preaching tolerance one minute, then condemning others for being intolerant the next. But we have the right to be intolerant in a libertarian system, you've just shown a contradiction with liberalism, not libertarianism. Liberals can't create their tolerant society without being intolerant - that's an oxy-moron. Of course, your claim is false, liberals don't want to create a tolerant society, they just want others to tolerate them and their desires.

But that's not what Liberals want - they say they want a tolerant society.

What they say and do are two different things.

Similarly, if Libertarians want a free society in which there are a minimum of rights violations, they had better be prepared to violate the rights of a few bad people or face the prospect of a free society going down the tubes - and that's not what they want.

Sheesh! Are you still claiming we have a right under libertarianism to violate the rights of others? You'll have to clarify what you mean by "bad people"...

OK Berzerker. I'm going to give one more explanation of why the prisoner's dilemma is a problem for Libertarians.

*sigh* ~400 posts after you made the assertion.

If you can't provide a decent and thoughtful response then that's your fault and I won't bother further unless someone else wants to reply properly.

Somehow I suspect my reply won't be found to be decent and thoughtful, but we'll see.

Here’s an example of a relevant prisoner’s dilemma.

That's what I've been asking for.

Violent crime has risen slightly in my neighbourhood; this means that I am now at a greater risk of being killed. Like every other sane person I want to minimize the prospect of being killed so I decide to get a gun. I reason in this fashion: if I get a gun I am better able to protect myself and am less likely to be a victim of a violent crime. I am also more likely to kill someone else by mistake if I have a gun than if I don’t – so I will be safer if I have a gun, but others will be slightly unsafer. Now, for the sake of argument let’s agree that this is true (ignoring the evidence that shows that people are more often killed by their own guns than they kill criminals) and watch what happens when everyone in my neighbourhood realises this.

Excuse me, but those stats asserting that more people are killed with their own guns includes suicide. And where is this stat? If no guns existed, hangings et al would increase and liberals would be complaining about people having ropes and knives. Also, your PD ignores that while there might/will be a slightly higher incidence of homicides due to mistakes, there will be less crime overall if criminals fear your armed neighborhood, and they do. That's why they usually try to avoid cops...

From this setup there are four possible outcomes:

1) I buy a gun, no one else does. Result: I am safer; everyone else is slightly less safe.

2) No one buys a gun. Result: the situation stays the same.

3) I don’t buy a gun, everyone else does. Result: I am less safe; everyone else is slightly safer than me.

4) Everyone buys a gun. Result: everyone is less safe.

Your PD assumes criminals behave exactly the same regardless of whether or not their potential victims are armed. They don't...During the LA riots we saw film of armed storeowners standing guard. Guess who's stores got looted?

So if I want to make things better for me, I ought to buy a gun. This is because I have no control over what the others do

You have more control over what criminals do to you and others if you are armed. Remember Luby's Cafeteria? A guy drove his truck through the window and started shooting people, and one lady inside saw her parents murdered. She was a gun owner, but the gun was in her car because it wasn't legal for her to keep her gun in her purse. The media in this country will throw out bogus claims about more people being killed with their own guns, but they don't tell us how often crimes are thwarted by armed citizens.

So how much blind trust can we place in other people – it varies.

I trust my armed neighbor more than a burglar.

And this brings us to my second point. The prisoner’s dilemma explains how markets work (this isn’t my example, but I like it). In other words this shows that people don’t trust each other in the way that you say they do. If your “social sanctions” worked as well as you think, we would have no markets. This is because a market creates a kind of prisoner’s dilemma. Let’s say I want to buy a new coat. There are many other coat-wanters and right now only so many coats. So the following dilemma occurs.

(1) I buy a coat, everyone else waits. Result: I pay full price, everyone else waits for the sale.

(2) Everyone else tries to buy a coat, I wait. Result: no coat for me.

(3) Everyone tries to buy a coat. Result: the coats sell out at full price.

(4) No one buys a coat. Result: the price of coats drops down until the coat store has a sale.

Now, from a consumer’s point of view (4) is the best. It would be better for us consumers if we all waited. But this depends on everyone else behaving altruistically.

Why is that altruistic behavior, people wait for sales out of self-interest after placing values on the worth of waiting in exchange for paying less. Those that can afford to pay more might not wait and those who place more value on what they can afford wait for the sale.

Since no potential coat buyer wants to be out of luck, there is a massive incentive to break ranks and buy. The more you wait the more likely you will get a cheaper coat, but the greater the risk of getting no coat at all. So what happens is that people try to have the best of both by hoping that the price goes down while keeping an eye on the supply – in this way prices are set.

That's how the market works. Hell, that's just about how every economic system works. Why is this a PD and why does it apply only to libertarianism? If there are not enough coats for everyone, not everyone will be able to buy a coat. Your "PD" ensured that some people would be without coats. If half the people get their coats and half wait for a sale, how is everyone worse off? You said a PD was a situation where people act out of self-interest and everyone is worse off as a result.

Market behaviour is the central reality of societies like ours and markets work at setting prices because people can’t trust the behaviour of others when there are incentives involved.

It seems to me incentives are about making behavior more predictable.

I don’t think a clearer illustration could be found that voluntary social sanctions just don’t cut it

Excuse me, but how does buying or not buying a coat involve social sanctions?

There are many other examples than guns and markets. Littering is a good one. It is best for me if I get to litter and no one else does. But then everyone will litter, unless they can trust others, which they generally can’t. So this is why we have the state. What the state does is coerces us into taking the second best options in cases which would otherwise lead to perverse outcomes. The odd thing is that most of us don’t mind being altruistic if we know that everyone else has to do it as well. Thus we avoid the perverse outcome and everyone gets the second best outcome from their point of view instead of the third best.

I already told you "litter" would be illegal in a libertarian system. Why you keep trying to trot this dead horse around is a question I can answer but you wouldn't consider it decent and thoughtful.

What does this have to do with voluntary taxation? Well I said that a voluntary tax system encourages people to not pay unless they can trust others.

Having the service encourages them to pony up even if there are some people trying to free ride. If there are 50 people in my community and 5 don't want to pay for a local sheriff and 45 do, will the 45 just say, "to hell with it, we won't have a sheriff"?

And I think I’ve shown that the most pervasive force in our society, the market, shows that we don’t. So there will good reason not to pay.

Then no one would have funded the American Revolution, much less actually fought the war. You keep ignoring that paradox just as you keep ignoring the implications of your argument - that voters would simply do away with all taxation.

Now your objection is that social sanctions would mean that non-payers would be ostracised. The problem with this is that social sanctions create a prisoner’s dilemma since there is an individual economic benefit to dealing with the people who are the object of the sanctions and sanctions only work if most people enforce them. Look at the case:

(1) I break the sanctions, no one else does. Result: I am better off and the sanctions work.

(2) No one breaks the sanctions. Result: the sanctions work.

(3) Everyone breaks the sanctions: Result the sanctions fail.

(4) I keep to the sanctions, no one else does. Result: I am worse off, the sanctions fail.

Only if I can trust everyone else to apply the sanctions in the first place will (2) happen and the sanctions work. But that won’t happen.

Obviously free riders won't apply the sanctions to themselves, therefore the sanctions don't need everyone to apply them, just a large enough percentage.

Now here’s the killer: you are wrong because you said that sanctions would work and this is tacitly agreeing that people would not pay a voluntary tax.

That isn't what I said, tacitly or not. I never said people would not pay a voluntary tax. I said most would and their disgust with those that don't would translate into discrimination which is an incentive for them to pay too.

Ted -

That's not true, I cited the figure at 2,000,000 ADDICTS, and that's across ALL classes. One article even put that number at 30 million. But I think the 30 mil is an exaggeration.

Two million for what sized population?

Assuming the stat is correct, we would assume that drug usage as a percentage has never changed. Like ever.

Why? The judge who wrote the article gave 3 years - 1914, 1979, and the year of publication. If the stat is right, it doesn't mean drug addiction rates always remain the same, just that it's the same for those 3 years which include years when drugs were legal and when they were illegal.

But where is Ramo's regression analysis with all the "proper" variables.

I explained that already, You don't need that analysis when compiling raw data about the percent of addicts in a population. You do need a more in depth analysis if you want to understand why addiction rates fluctuate within a segment of the drug using population. If the number of morphine addicts was higher in 1865 than 1860, we'd need to examine what happened in the intervening years. In that case, the US Civil War.

Of course, I will still offer the hypothesis that crack-cocaine consumption and violent crime are very much symbiotic.

To a degree, sure. I have to believe 1 million people using crack will commit more crime than if the same people/population wasn't. But because of the drug war, we don't know how much crime is caused by black market forces. Crime increased dramatically under alcohol prohibition, but there was supposedly less alcohol consumption...

Regarding the decrease in violent crime, yes, one part of that is in fact that most of the worst offenders (crack dealers) were either thrown in jail, others were killed off. However I still feel that interdiction efforts to break the backs of some of the dealers has had a huge impact on the situation.

That's a tricky proposition since more than a million people are in jail and roughly half are in for drug violations. It would seem obvious that jailing these people would reduce all crime, but if drugs were legal, drugs would no longer be a crime leaving us to research those actions that are crimes regardless of the legal status of drugs, like homicide. And the relevant question becomes, not if jailing 500,000 drug law violaters reduced homicides, but if the homicide rate is higher with drugs being illegal or when drugs are legal.

http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer...y/graphs/10.htm

From those stats, it's clear homicide rates are much higher when drugs are illegal. Realizing a small decline from an already high rate is not evidence of success when the rate was much lower when drugs were legal.

In LA for example, some of the gangs have made a comeback because the CRASH units aren't out there intimidating them. (That's only one factor but the CRASH guys certainly have a big impact). I'm sure you remember the purpose of CRASH when you were here. Basically they go out and harass gang bangers to keep them off the streets.

I was watching a forum put on by the Clinton Administration on C-SPAN. A sheriff from a small town in Nevada was complaining that violent drug gangs had begun setting up shop in his town. His experience was not unique, all across the country this phenomenon was happening. Why? Because drugs are illegal. Handing over such a large market to criminals will only cause the criminals to expand just as the Mafia used alcohol prohibition to expand their activities.

The violence occured BEFORE any interdiction went specifically after crack.

There never was a period without interdiction since cocaine was already illegal. The violence occured within a black market, we don't hear about shootouts between Miller High Life and Budweiser over marketshare. The interdiction may have lessend crime after a while, but it escalated crime first. Sociologists (I know, link? ) I've heard explain how interdiction can cause even more crime. The cops go in and break up the dominant gang and a vacuum is created for competing gangs try to take over the market. But again, the relevant question is whether or not the homicide rate was higher before the drug laws or after. Btw, it is noteworthy how drug prohibition led to crack - the poor man's cocaine. Interdict cocaine and drive up the price, and the market finds a way to provide the cocaine in another, cheaper form. Pot interdiction under Nixon led to more heroin and cocaine production and smuggling.

GP -

They are pretty juvinile in their econ knowledge. Sometimes they even say stuff that is anti-libertarian without knowing it.

Hmm...looking at your post I see no proof for your assertions, how mature...

(Re-posted from the previous thread for reference)

Btw GP, you could have at least titled this thread accurately, the prior thread was started by someone kvetching about Libertarians just as this thread was started by someone kvetching about Libertarians.

[Berzerker]

GP -

Berz, my comments about the poor knowledge of economics was based on you and David's comments on the lottery issue. I found you both rather uninformed and unthoughtful about competive business. I had to take the more market-savvy/market-oriented tack in our discussions. A libertarian ought to at least understand markets. It's so central (or at least close) to your philosophy. Was really dissapointed in you two. We need a smartie like Agathon over in our econ thread. He's wasting his time in the libertarian kvetchfest (not because I hate libertarianism, I don't, but becasue you all aren't worth it. Sorry. Take some econ classes and bring your game up. than it wil be worth it. you don't need to change your extreme libertariansism, just need to learn something.)

So you respond to my accusation that you didn't support your assertions with a post full of more unsupported assertions, great. Btw, I'm a libertarian because I believe in freedom...

[Berzerker]

Agathon -

IBerzerker, you did exactly what I thought you would. You ignored my argument and made facile objections to individual sentences taken out of context. I'm afraid that I am forced to respond to individual sentences, because you provide little or no context or argument.

Are you going to support that accusation? Btw, accusing me of ignoring your argument is despicable. I refuted your arguments and you ignored the refutations.

Yes it does.

I knew that.

It also makes me a person who cares more about the number of people who die than my own moral purity.

How noble. If I murdered 10 million people to save 1 person, I'd commit suicide... But I should applaud my actions for saving a life according to you.

BIG MISTAKES here.

(1) to take the second one first: If the right to life stems from life itself then they cannot mean the same thing. If they did mean the same thing then someone who knew what "life" meant would automatically know what "right to life" meant.

That person would have to believe in rights first.

This excludes everyone who lived prior to the creation of the concept of rights (in the late Middle Ages) from knowing what "life" was.

Their ignorance or non-belief in rights has nothing to do with the right to life stemming from life itself. Slaveowners didn't believe their slaves had a right to be free, yet Frederick Douglass called slavery, "man-stealing" - in a sense, a violation of their property rights. Who was right? Were the slaveowners right because they refused to believe that slaves had rights?

Again worms and trees are alive, but Libertarians don't think that they have rights to life.

[Agathon takes comment out of context]
Mixing worms/trees with humans. Rights are about human interaction and we were talking about people, not critters.

But perhaps you mean "refer" to the same thing. In this case someone who knew what "life" meant might not know that "right to life" referred to the same thing; just as someone might not know that "Cassius Clay" referred to the same object as "Muhammad Ali".

Again, someone's ignorance about rights doesn't mean anything. The people who devised the nature of rights did know what they mean.

But that's even dumber. If, as you say, "the right to life 'stems' from life", what does "stems" mean?

A right to life merely states that your life is yours, not mine.

(2) It's true that one cannot violate a right to liberty without affecting liberty; but it is not conversely true that every loss of liberty is caused by a rights violation.

Sure it is. how does one violate another's right without the victim's loss of liberty? If you're talking about nature again, that's taking my argument out of context again.

I could make this case for liberty rights, but the point is easier to see if I make it about property.

Then I suggest you make the case for liberty rights and not change the subject.

So, if you violate my property rights then presumably I lose some property (say you burn down my garden shed); you can't violate the right without me doing losing property, for failure to violate the right constitutes a failure to do me a wrong.

Not necessarily, you could violate someone's property rights without the physical destruction/taking of their property. A regulation may say you cannot build a house on your land while leaving the land in your possession.

But, I can lose some property without having my rights violated. Say, for example, a hurricane destroys my garden shed - I lose some property, but the hurricane isn't morally responsible because hurricanes aren't moral agents.

That's why rights involve human interaction, not nature's effects on humans.

If one can occur without the other then they aren't the same thing.

Geez, and you accuse me of taking your arguments out of context? Your entire argument there is based on taking what I said out of context. Rights are moral claims we have to what we own, but they derive/stem from life and liberty, so one cannot take away your right to life without taking your life too nor can one take away your life without taking away your right to life.

The loss of the shed is what makes what you do bad, it also makes the hurricane a bad thing, but hurricanes aren't moral agents (i.e. they can't violate rights) so no right of mine is violated.

Yup, rights involve human beings. Didn't Hobbes mention that or did he reject human rights?

If your view was correct, then one would be in the crazy position of attributing crimes to inanimate entities.

Only if they took my argument out of context. Tell me, Agathon, where in the writings of those people who came up with the concept of rights did you read them claim we had rights immunizing us from nature?[/Agathon is done taking my arguments out of context]

Is that it? You accused me of taking your arguments out of context and virtually your entire post was devoted to taking my comments out of context.

[Agathon]

"(2) It's true that one cannot violate a right to liberty without affecting liberty; but it is not conversely true that every loss of liberty is caused by a rights violation."

Sure it is. how does one violate another's right without the victim's loss of liberty? If you're talking about nature again, that's taking my argument out of context again.

THIS is your response!?!

Man you're even thicker than I thought. I do not say that we have rights protecting us from nature. Rather it would follow from your attempt to avoid answering the question by means of the ridiculous claim that a right to life and life are "synonymous".

I'll spell it out for you again. The following two statements are true.

(1) Every violation of a right to liberty causes a loss of liberty (you seem to agree to this).

and:

(2) Not every loss of liberty is caused by violation of a right to liberty.

That (2) is true is confirmed, with logical certaintly (NB: not every = a quantifier) by the fact that a bear could trap me in a cave.

You appeared to present agreement with (1) as rejection of (2), when it is no such thing. Losses of liberty (liberty being the ability to do as I wish, commensurate with not violating the rights of others) can occur as the result of natural events. Your remarks about context are specious - the context I am talking about is commonly referred to by its inhabitants as "reality".

I'm sorry you are too stupid to see this, but you would suffer an equal loss of personal liberty if you are killed by a tree falling on you as you do if you are shot by a robber. In either case your freedom to do as you wish, commensurate with respecting the rights of others, has been reduced to ZERO.

If you think that being killed by a falling tree somehow has no effect on my personal liberty, then you are a wacko.

Compare the logic of (1) and (2) with

(A) All mortal wounds cause death.

and

(B) Not all deaths are caused by mortal wounds.

Same principle operates.

[The Mad Monk]

Could someone link to the old thread, please?

[David Floyd]

Especially since David has gone over all quiet.

Sorry - been working a lot. I'll get caught up tonight.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by David Floyd


Sorry - been working a lot. I'll get caught up tonight.

Fair enough, at least you are coming back. It will be a welcome break from Berzerker's lunatic misunderstandings of the argument.

Anyway, we could save a lot of time if you thought up a response to the question of whether rights violations are wrong because they cause something else or what they cause is wrong because it is caused by violating rights (I'm guessing you will say the latter). Berzerker wants to say neither, which has caused him to say some pretty silly things. It has to be one of these two on a rights based system or there will be no possibility of explaining what makes something bad by reference to rights.

Anyway, since you posted the Christianity material I think I can see a way of removing the contradiction, but at the price of factual claims I myself wouldn't be willing to endorse.

[David Floyd]

Agathon,

This is a mixture of BS and mere hand waving.

I've heard that before. You seem to like to use that as a rebuttal.

I'm guessing you will say that the one prohibits real harm to others and the other doesn't.

Precisely. No one is hurt by homosexuality, but people are hurt by armed robbery.

For example, Libertarians would permit someone to fly the Nazi flag even though a holocaust survivor would find this more harmful than being punched in the face.

A Holocaust survivor is not harmed by a flag, unless that flag is used to strangle him. He may find it offensive, of course - are you claiming that people have the right not to be offended?

Unless you specify what harms count and provide a meaningful distintion between them and the others, this answer will never get off the ground.

By "harm" I mean either physical harm or loss of property, or loss of liberty.

Harm can also be something that comes about naturally or as a result of your own stupidity - say, a bear mauls you or you stick a quarter into a light socket. But these aren't really relevant as they have nothing to do with rights violations.

Furthermore, I can think of plenty of cases of failing to do things which will result in harm to other people (like failing to give the charity) so perhaps by this criterion we should make doing certain things compulsory (i.e. good samaritan laws).

Wrong again. Inaction does not cause harm. Let's look at this example:

A large man is mugging an old lady on the street. I have the means to prevent the mugging, yet I do not.

In this scenario, EVEN THOUGH I had the means to prevent a mugging, I did not cause harm to the old lady. The mugger caused harm. Again, this is a case of putting responsibility where it belongs, and this example can be extended to pretty much anything you can think of.

How can this act of stealing be said to harm you?

Because if I did come back, and want my property back, I'd be harmed. Your claim to omniscience - saying that I will never want it back - doesn't fly, because you are not omniscient. Let's stick to the real world, not meaningless thought experiments. Unless, of course, you want to make the argument that Libertarianism doesn't work in thought experiments but does work in the real world - I'd be inclined to agree if you made that argument, even though that still isn't completely true.

Libertarians do not support their version of rights because of some harm that failing to do so would cause, they support them because they think that any other system of rights entails coercion and their fundamental belief is that coercion is wrong.

Coercion IS harm. You'll find coercion nicely covered under my definition of harm.

In other words it's not necessary to be a Libertarian to believe this.

I suppose, but if someone believes that coercion is wrong, they are, for all intents and purposes, a Libertarian.

Is violating rights bad because it causes harm; or is harm bad because it is caused by violating rights?

Well, natural death is certainly harmful to one's life, but it isn't necessarily something that can be classified as "bad". The statement that "harm is bad because it is caused by violating rights" makes to presuppositions - first, that all types of harm are bad, and second that all harm is caused by a violation of rights. The second assumption is obviously false - how can a heart attack violate your rights, especially if it's as a result of your own bad habits in taking care of yourself - and the first assumption is arguably false.

However, if you made the statement that "harm caused by a violation of rights" is bad, I would agree with you, so your first statement is more correct than the first. The first statement isn't saying or assuming that all harm is caused by a violation of rights, nor is it saying that I am responsible for the actions of other people. All it is saying, as near as I can tell, is that "because violating rights causes harm, one should not violate rights". That statement is certainly true - all rights violations are certainly harmful - so I would agree.

Of course, if there was no better alternative, wouldn't you? Sure 100 deaths is real bad, but 101 is worse.

I'm gonna have to call bull**** on you again - ignoring the responsibility argument, and all that, you know damn well you wouldn't kill 100 people just like that.

Unless one has the psychology of a killer - or that psychology is brainwashed into them, in the military or elsewhere - one is NOT going to murder 100 people, I don't care what the circumstances are.

orange,

on that same line, some would argue that there is no such thing as personal property. JJ Rousseau, for example...so why have laws to prohibit stealing it?

Then again, I hate JJ Rousseau, so I'm not inclined to agree with anything he says just on the basis that he said it

[Berzerker]

Agathon -

THIS is your response!?!

Man you're even thicker than I thought. I'll spell it out for you again. The following two statements are true.

I see you get progressively nastier as your arguments keep getting refuted - so much for "tolerance". Btw, what happened to the rest of your post, you know, those guns and coats "PD's" that supposedly prove what you've been asserting about this alleged contradictory nature of libertarianism? You dropped that part of your post in a heartbeat.

(1) Every violation of a right to liberty causes a loss of liberty (you seem to agree to this).

and:

(2) Not every loss of liberty is caused by violation of a right to liberty.

That (2) is true is confirmed, with logical certaintly (NB: not every = a quantifier) by the fact that a bear could trap me in a cave.

You're still taking our discussion about rights out of the context in which we made them. Rights involve HUMAN interactions, not hurricanes blowing down sheds or bears trapping us in caves.

You appeared to present agreement with (1) as rejection of (2), when it is no such thing.

I reject your attempt to change the example of one person violating the liberty of another person to a bear or hurricane causing us harm. Here is what I said in response to your questions:

"There's a difference? Since liberty and rights are synonymous, both are bad, you can't violate one without violating the other."

You're trying to change the "you" to a bear or hurricane.
You are mixing natural phenomenon such as hurricane damage with HUMAN interactions. Did you show that one person's violation of another person's liberty can occur without a violation of a their right to liberty? No, you switched the subject from liberty and people to hurricanes and bears.

Losses of liberty (liberty being the ability to do as I wish, commensurate with not violating the rights of others) can occur as the result of natural events.

Nature prevents you from jumping through the sun, is that a violation of your liberty? No, because freedom/liberty are not a grant of immunity from the laws of physics, liberty is about human interactions.

Your remarks about context are specious - the context I am talking about is commonly referred to by its inhabitants as "reality".

You took a discussion about liberty and people and changed it to hurricanes and bears.

I'm sorry you are too stupid to see this, but I would suffer an equal loss of personal liberty if you are killed by a tree falling on you as you do if you are shot by a robber.

I'm not the one claiming that getting hit by a tree is a violation of liberty. Can you quote any of the philosophers who devised the concept of rights and liberty claiming liberty meant an immunity to hurricanes and bears?

In either case my freedom to do as I wish, commensurate with respecting the rights of others, has been reduced to ZERO.

But who reduced it to zero? Another person or a bear? It matters. When Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Decl of Independence that we have inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, was he talking about rights that government and other people should respect, or was he telling bears and hurricanes to respect our rights?

If you think that being killed by a falling tree somehow has no effect on my personal liberty, then you are a wacko.

Excuse me, but an "effect" is irrelevant, we were talking about people and violations of liberty, not dying of old age, or trees falling on you. If you were a slave, you would not be free. If you were freed by the slaveowner, would you then complain to him that you still weren't free because you have to eat to survive?

Mad Monk - the thead is on p2 or maybe p3 by now, it was started by Speer and went over 500 posts. I think it's title is "The Problem With Libertarians"...

[Agathon]

I don't believe the responsibility stuff simply because I believe that it is a general truth the choices that others make restrict the choices we are able to make (which is common sense) and that we are responsible for the foreseeable consequences of our actions rather than just what we immediately effect. But let's leave that for the moment.

Well, natural death is certainly harmful to one's life, but it isn't necessarily something that can be classified as "bad". The statement that "harm is bad because it is caused by violating rights" makes to presuppositions - first, that all types of harm are bad, and second that all harm is caused by a violation of rights. The second assumption is obviously false - how can a heart attack violate your rights, especially if it's as a result of your own bad habits in taking care of yourself - and the first assumption is arguably false.

However, if you made the statement that "harm caused by a violation of rights" is bad, I would agree with you, so your first statement is more correct than the first. The first statement isn't saying or assuming that all harm is caused by a violation of rights, nor is it saying that I am responsible for the actions of other people. All it is saying, as near as I can tell, is that "because violating rights causes harm, one should not violate rights". That statement is certainly true - all rights violations are certainly harmful - so I would agree.

Um when you say my "first statement is more correct than the first" I'm assuming this is a typo.

My statement of the first alternative, don't endorse the inference from "Harm is bad if it is caused by violating rights" to "All harm is bad" because it captures the notion of badness by making rights-violation a necessary condition of somethings being bad (in this case particular harms). Nor does it require that the claim "All harm is caused by violations of rights" since it allows for harm caused by natural disasters etc. I mocked Berzerker for appearing to endorse the heart attack thesis, so I definitely don't hold it. So you endorse the proposition "harm caused by a violation of rights is bad" - and it's the violation that makes it bad, not the harm. I believe this to be your position.

My position is different because I think it is the harm that is bad - and that's what makes generally it bad to violate rights. This means that I can say that it is OK to violate rights to prevent or minimize harm, because I think it is the harm that really matters and not the rights - our notion of rights works most of the time but fails when respecting rights would mean more harm than less. In other words I think that rights are a handy way of reminding us what we shouldn't do most of the time, but they can be overidden if the consequences dictate.

So for me the consequences of violation are what matter - for you it is the violation that matters and not the consequences.

Here's my beef. If the harm concerned is loss of Liberty then you will say that loss of Liberty is only bad when caused by someone violating my rights. You won't agree that it is bad when Liberty is lost because of heart attacks, will you?

I would say that it death is bad either way, but that doesn't mean I have to say that a heart attack is morally responsible for my death. It only means that a person who kills me is, because they are a moral agent. They are responsible if they let me die when they could have saved me because they are responsible for allowing a bad consequence to occur when they could have prevented it.

You don't have to say this because you think that respecting the rule "don't violate others' rights" is what matters irrespective of the consequences - after all you said that harm was bad only if it was "harm caused by a violation of rights".

I've carefully given you my explanation of why violating someone's rights is bad, which is that the consequences make it bad. Now it is your turn. I would like you to answer this simple question:

"Why is violating rights bad?"




Berzerker: You couldn't refute a scarecrow.

I stopped talking about prisoner's dilemmas because you provided no evidence of understanding them. You might say that this is my fault - however, the fact that at least two other posters (Ned and GP) understood the point seems to me to show that the fault is yours.

Nothing I've said entails that Hurricanes violate people's rights. All I claimed is that Hurricanes and other natural phenomena can and occasionally do have consequences which are identical to the consequences of some rights violations.

If a Hurricane destroys my shed or a gang of drunken teenagers destroy my shed, my shed is still destroyed. I'm not assigning any moral responsibility to the Hurricane at all - it is not a moral agent.

But this isn't the point. What's at stake here is trying to work out what role Liberty plays in Libertarian morality.

You say

Nature prevents you from jumping through the sun, is that a violation of your liberty? No, because freedom/liberty are not a grant of immunity from the laws of physics, liberty is about human interactions.

I don't claim that any moral right is being violated by any natural disaster or incapacity. I'm claiming that my liberty is affected by these things.

This is obviously true. If Liberty means "being able to do what I want with myself, commensurate with the rights of others to do so" then physical restrictions count as well. I'd quite like to be able to fly, but I can't. That doesn't mean I have some moral claim against nature - it just means that I think I'd be better off if I could fly. I also think I would be better off if I could endlessly fornicate with Jennifer Lopez. Unfortunately that won't happen (I couldn't say "marry her" because it looks like everyone's going to get a turn at that ).

Does not being able to fly or having a realistic prospect of giving J Lo the time of her life affect my capacity "to do what I want to do with my own life......" - of course it does (though I don't want to jump through the sun). The more things I am free to do the freer I am -= correspondingly, the less things I am free to do the less free I am. If I am put in jail then my ability to live my life as I want to is compromised, same goes if a bear traps me in a cave. My property can be destroyed by a hurricane or by some drunks. In the latter case however, I can claim that the drunks were responsible and should pay - after all they chose to make me worse off - can't do that with Hurricanes I'm afraid.

But Liberty in all these cases is valuable because it means I have the power to do with my own life what I want to - and it is obvious that natural disasters can frustrate my ambitions.

Nowhere do I claim that others are morally required to provide me with Ms Lopez' telephone number and the sexual capacity of a bull elephant, and nowhere do I claim that bears are evil creatures (even though they cause bad things).

[Agathon]

And for the record, I didn't say in that quotation,

Inaction does not cause harm

I said, it results in harm. In other words if you are drowning and I'm your only salvation, and I do nothing, the result is that you die. Omissions have consequences too.

[Imran Siddiqui]

I have a question for far extreme libertarians.

Would you allow incest and beastiality (I believe it would be yes)? Would you also allow sexual acts to be undertaken in public?

[Berzerker]

Agathon -

Berzerker: You couldn't refute a scarecrow.

Then why do you keep dropping your PD's after I've refuted them? You've offered several and they've each been shown to be flawed, but you just ignore the rebuttals and offer another PD claiming the new one proves libertarianism is contradictory.

I stopped talking about prisoner's dilemmas because you provided no evidence of understanding them.

You said your PD's show that self-interest can lead to a worse situation for everyone thereby proving libertarianism is contradictory (btw, since when does libertarianism even require that a worse situation for everyone not evolve from self-interest?). So where's your PD's showing this? Yeah, I understand your PD's, I understand you can't provide one proving your assertion about libertarianism, that's why you keep dropping them once they're refuted and blame me instead.

You might say that this is my fault - however, the fact that at least two other posters (Ned and GP) understood the point seems to me to show that the fault is yours.

GP said your PD's prove your case? Where? I'd like to see his support and his proof, maybe he can succeed where you keep failing. He claimed I don't know economics because of lotteries, he didn't say your PD's prove your assertion that libertarianism is contradictory, and neither did Ned.

Nothing I've said entails that Hurricanes violate people's rights.

No, you just took my statement out of context and accused me of doing the same thing to... but you didn't bother supporting that accusation either.

All I claimed is that Hurricanes and other natural phenomena can and occasionally do have consequences which are identical to the consequences of some rights violations.

Excuse me, but you said a hurricane or a bear violates your liberty and used that to argue not all violations of liberty involve violations of the right to liberty. That equates liberty with an immunity from nature, and that isn't what the philosophers who created and perpetuated the concept of liberty and rights meant.

If a Hurricane destroys my shed or a gang of drunken teenagers destroy my shed, my shed is still destroyed. I'm not assigning any moral responsibility to the Hurricane at all - it is not a moral agent.

That's why the consequences aren't identical, you seek compensation from the drunk teens who destroyed your shed, but not from the hurricane.

But this isn't the point. What's at stake here is trying to work out what role Liberty plays in Libertarian morality.

A new subject? Okay.

I don't claim that any moral right is being violated by any natural disaster or incapacity. I'm claiming that my liberty is affected by these things.

That assumes "liberty" can be used within the context of a hurricane causing property damage or harm, that isn't what was meant by the philosophers who came up with the concept. You know this, so why do you keep taking the word out of it's context?

If Liberty means "being able to do what I want with myself, commensurate with the rights of others to do so" then physical restrictions count as well.

Why do you suppose the definition mentions not violating the rights of others and not the rights of bears, hurricanes, etc? Because liberty and rights are about human interaction.

The more things I am free to do the freer I am -= correspondingly, the less things I am free to do the less free I am.

Freedom is the absence of coercion or constraint on choice or action (within the context of human interaction). Either coercion or constraints are absent or they are not, therefore one is either free or they are not. Being "freer" turns an absolute - the absence of coercion or constraint - into a term of relativity where people are sort of free. But in a world where freedom is rare at best, I guess we have to settle for being "freer" or less free.

If I am put in jail then my ability to live my life as I want to is compromised, same goes if a bear traps me in a cave.

But we don't equate the bear with the jailor because liberty is about human interaction.

My property can be destroyed by a hurricane or by some drunks. In the latter case however, I can claim that the drunks were responsible and should pay - after all they chose to make me worse off - can't do that with Hurricanes I'm afraid.

So the consequences are not identical.

Btw, your sig lacks context too