To my mind, it has been resolved,
Not an argument, Myrkul. I've come to expect much more from you than this. You can argue the finer points of ancap theories and Austrian economic theories, but you can't present something here better than "I believe" or "I feel"?
Of course it's not an argument. The arguments come later. To sum up, the argument is this: You made a life. That life is a self-owner. That life is not capable of taking care of itself. That condition is your fault, just as if you had put an adult into a coma. The responsibility is on you to protect it and ensure that it learns the skills required to remedy that condition. That responsibility does
not empower entitle you to beat or otherwise torture that life.
and all those previous arguments are an attempt at rationalizing away the cognitive dissonance caused by the realization that using force is wrong and the fact that their parents (whom they consider to be quite good) used force upon them. Another form of Stockholm Syndrome.
Perhaps I do have some cognitive dissonance here. So show me, I'll listen.
BTW, it's an irony that I, personally, grew up in a non-corporal-punishment home; but the harshness of "non-violent" forms of punishment are just as bad and more insidious. I can, quite vividly, remember being put into the corner; and left there for hours. Once they forgot that I was there, and I feel asleep in the corner. I awoke in the early morning hours, and then went to bed. My mother drug me out of my bed at 6:30 am and stood me back in the corner for the audacity of
choosing to go to bed without permission. My parents were also anti-gun and anti-military, but when I joined the USMC those drill instructors had nothing on my own parents concerning
psychological methods of abuse. I can, again vividly, remember my older sister
begging to be spanked for some infraction, like her friends might have endured, because the suffering would
end quicker.
No, sorry. But no stockholm sysndrome here. Parental cruelty has little to do with the methods employed.
So, you were caged instead of beaten. Authoritarian behavior, as you point out, comes in many forms.
As to why it is your responsibility to teach them how to operate their body without causing harm to themselves or others, as you pointed out, it's your doing. If you break a window, it's your responsibility to see that the owner of that window is compensated for its loss. If you create a person, it's your responsibility to make sure that person is civilized.
Strange, an AnCap arguing that I have a responsibility to serve someone that I have not harmed nor agreed to serve. If I have zero ownership, I have zero responsibility. I don't
owe them anything, do I? If I do, how did I incur such a debt? If you don't yet see where I'm going with this, it's you that has cognitive dissonance.
Hmm... You didn't have the option of birth control? No condoms? No pills? No snip-snip? No abortion? (Granted, you're the male, you have less choice in the matter - that's been discussed in other threads) Remember, sex doesn't
have to result in a pregnancy. Because you let it, it's your responsibility.
Likewise, the child's care and feeding until such time as it can take care of those operations itself is your responsibility the same as though you had caused a person to become incapable of doing those themselves - because you did. You created a person who is incapable of taking care of themselves. Now, it's possible to delegate that responsibility, for either case. In the case of causing an adult to lose those capacities - say, by putting them into a coma in a car accident - this delegation is called "paying their hospital bills." In the case of a child, it's called "hiring a nanny." the end result is the same.
I committed an action that resulted in a new life. I committed that act for my own reasons, the life that resulted was a secondary event. What harm have I committed against that life? None that I can think of. So therefore, to whom do I owe this debt/obligation of responsibility?
Why, the child, of course. He is only here because of your actions - actions that you admit were taken carelessly. Those actions did not
need to result in that new life. So guess who's responsibility it is that it did?
(hint: Mom and Dad)Tell me, what does spanking a child after they have endangered themselves do, besides instill a fear not of the dangerous situation, but of the parent? The child very much wants you to be happy with him or her, and simply telling him or her that going out into the road like that could get them hurt, and their getting hurt would make you sad will amply drive the point home that running out into the street is not something Mommy and Daddy approve of.
But what if simply telling them does not drive that point home? What then? If you do exactly as you say, and never utilize corporal punishment as behavior modification despite the fact that your child repeatedly ignores your verbal warnings of the potential for great harm, and he finally runs out in front of traffic and is killed. Have you, then, not failed as a parent? How is that not neglect?
Indeed it is, because you have failed to impress upon the child how dangerous walking into the street unescorted can be. Perhaps you should not have just told him. Perhaps you should have been more proactive, and showed him, and demonstrated the correct way to do it. Just because you can't hit him doesn't mean you can't teach him.
You dodged the point, and you know it. You know, intuitively, that not every child will have the capacity at an early age, towards reason or towards recognizing hazards, even after all of your efforts. Yet, you also know, intuitively, that as the parent I have an obligation to
do all that I can to protect this child until he is old enough to reason. To whom, then, do i owe this obligation (debt)? You know that answer intuitively also, you just can't bring yourself to say it. Cognitive dissonance, indeed.
Indeed you do have an obligation to protect the child from harm. Why, then, do you include harming the child in the list of tools to do so? If you don't want your kid to run out into the street, and he's too young to understand why not,
you don't let him. You don't beat him if he does, because, again, it doesn't condition him to fear the situation, but
you. If he does run out, you let him know how scared you were were when he did that. Let him see how much
you fear the situation, and he'll pick up on that. You want to teach him to fear running out in the road, that's the way to do it, not teaching him to fear you.
If you want to raise self-owning adults, you should treat them as self-owning children.
Certainly as soon as that is possible. But what if it's not?
Then what you have is an animal, not a human being.
What is the difference? What if a chimp taught sign language was able to communicate an understanding of individual rights, self-awareness and reason via said sign language. Would that chimp still be a animal, owned by a zoo? Not free to choose to return to the jungles?
I'd say no. If a Chimp can prove an understanding of, and both demand and respect individual rights, he's got 'em. Of course, They can't, so that's the difference. Reason.
