Libertarian Kvetchfest continued

[Ramo]

Yes, yes, and yes, provided it's consentual (incest usually involves taking advantage of minors).

[Berzerker]

Imran -

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?

Yes to the first two, and the last depends on getting permission from the owners - the public.

[Imran Siddiqui]

But not always.

Sex in public could be.... well, interesting. I'm not sure I'd want to got that far .

[TCO]

Originally posted by Berzerker
Agathon -



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.

I make no claim as to whether the PD proves any points about libertarianism, because I didn't read that far in the argument. (So you are sorta right in that statement.) I did think the PD was nicely stated...and perhaps this guy needs to wander over to econoweenie thread. (We're not economists over there either. Just people who like thinking about it.) Aga will get a better discussion over in ecoweenie thread than in natural rights thread.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Berzerker
Btw, I'm a libertarian because I believe in freedom...

Okay, lets look at this a bit. Several questions to you Libertarians:

1. What is this freedom? How do you define it? Is this negative (free from) or positive (free to) freedom?

2. What does this freedom entail?

3. What is the basis of it?

4. How can it be gauranteed?

[TCO]

UR,

That is gonna be a real threadkiller. Ditch the too-basic questions.

[Berzerker]

UR -

Okay, lets look at this a bit. Several questions to you Libertarians:

1. What is this freedom? How do you define it? Is this negative (free from) or positive (free to) freedom?

2. What does this freedom entail?

3. What is the basis of it?

4. How can it be gauranteed?

1) Freedom - the absence of coercion or constraint on choice or action (within the context of human interaction)

1a) Both, freedom from coercion and constraint is a freedom to act as long as the action doesn't constitute coercion or constraints on others.

2) Read 1 and 1a.

3) Life and liberty - self ownership - are gifts from whomever or whatever gave us our existence.

4) By respecting the rights of others.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by GP


I make no claim as to whether the PD proves any points about libertarianism, because I didn't read that far in the argument. (So you are sorta right in that statement.) I did think the PD was nicely stated...and perhaps this guy needs to wander over to econoweenie thread. (We're not economists over there either. Just people who like thinking about it.) Aga will get a better discussion over in ecoweenie thread than in natural rights thread.

All I meant is that you understood what it was supposed to do, Berzerker doesn't even know how it is supposed to work - hence his silly objections.

[TCO]

Originally posted by Agathon


All I meant is that you understood what it was supposed to do, Berzerker doesn't even know how it is supposed to work - hence his silly objections.

Cool. Pats self on back while stepping on Berz's bleeding corpse. Now ditch the natural rights crap. It is boring and move to the GDP/EBITDA thread. You can talk about any econ weenie stuff in there. Doesn't need to be part of current discussion. Just post.

[Berzerker]

Agathon -

All I meant is that you understood what it was supposed to do, Berzerker doesn't even know how it is supposed to work - hence his silly objections.

He allegedly knows what PD's are supposed to do, but he didn't say you provided a PD proving your assertions. Yet, you use his alleged understanding of PD's as if it supports your arguments? No wonder you can't support your BS, you're virtually clueless when it comes to logic. Face it, you accused libertarianism of being contradictory and you haven't come close to proving, it but you're too small a person to admit it.

GP -

Now ditch the natural rights crap. It is boring

Urban Ranger asked, he deserves an answer.

[Agathon]

Oh God....... I keep promising myself this is the last time.

Originally posted by Berzerker
Agathon -

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 don't - your attempted refutations consist of a ham fisted understanding of the argument and the first sentence you can think of. I'm not feeling refuted, just bored. Your last example was the American revolution - I fail to see what this has to do with it. Everyone knows that people tend to behave altruistically in moments of community crisis, but that once things return to normal they return to their self interested ways. If you want some proof of this assertion look up news reports of human behaviour when such disasters strike - everyone chips in while the crisis lasts (which led some communists to believe that they could behave this way all the time).

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?

Well there have been several. However, I admitted that one would need to look at the way human beings actually behave to confirm the point. The prisoner's dilemma makes a prima facie case, the rest is showing how it is a good description of what happens.

I gave several instances of behaviour that exhibits a PD like structure, including market behaviour, which is one of the most common. Tax avoidance is another. Your refutations consist of variations on the assertion "no it will work", which just disputes the conclusion rather tha attacking the reasoning behind it. I've said that voluntary altruism only seems to work in these cases when there is corresponding trust - do you care to dispute this.

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.

GP said words to the effect that he understood the econ point of the PD enough to know that you didn't. Ned actually said that he was reassessing his committment to Ayn Rand.

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.

But that's what they say: "Being able to do what I want with my life..." It would be nice if we are immune from nature, but we are aren't, but that doesn't mean that others cannot be culpable for negatively affecting our liberty.

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

Why should something I believe be raised in disagreement with me?

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?

Like who?

This is dumb. Here's why: say I have a right to property. What this means, when cashed out is that I ought to be able to control the things that I have received in vountary exchanges with others. "things I have received in voluntary exchanges with others" describes something real, a natural fact. My "ability to control my life..." also describes a natural fact about the world. All that Libetarianism prohibits is other people violating my rights so as to change the facts so that they are in control of my life.

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.

No, because bears and hurricanes cannot violate rights because they are not moral agents. However, bears and hurricanes can effect consequences which are identical with those of rights violations - but the fact they aren't caused by moral agents means that there can be no blame attached to them and no compensation sought.

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.

Isn't not being able to fly a restriction on my choice or action? Isn't having a bad heart also a restriction on my choice or action? Doesn't the bear force me to stay in the cave on pain of death?

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

You keep saying this without support. Liberty is about having control of my own life. The bear effects the same consequences as the jailor, but the bear is not a moral agent so there is no moral wrong committed when he does it. The moral wrong is not the consequence, it is the violation of rights by the person, which causes harm to me. This just means that not all bad things are caused by human wrongdoing - an easy point to understand.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by GP


Cool. Pats self on back while stepping on Berz's bleeding corpse. Now ditch the natural rights crap. It is boring and move to the GDP/EBITDA thread. You can talk about any econ weenie stuff in there. Doesn't need to be part of current discussion. Just post.

All right - I'll have a look at it, but David deserves an answer about natural rights.

I don't know if I'll have much to contribute to the other thread, but I can try.

[TCO]

Originally posted by Berzerker


GP -

Urban Ranger asked, he deserves an answer.

I already put down those questions. Pay attention, doper.

[TCO]

Originally posted by Agathon


All right - I'll have a look at it, but David deserves an answer about natural rights.

No he doesn't. But if that is what you are into have fun. You will get over it.

[Imran Siddiqui]

1) Freedom - the absence of coercion or constraint on choice or action (within the context of human interaction)

Free Market economics, by its nature, involves constraint on choice or action . If you don't have money, you are constrained from buying things. It is inherant in the theory, you know allocation of scarce resources and all that?