Topic: Freedom is ... - page 9. (Read 14428 times)

Good, because that's the definition that the dictionary uses, too.

Now, as to the origin, there are several ways to look at it: Rights could come from:
1) An inherent nature of the human condition, such as is often used to justify self-ownership: You have the first, best claim on your body, therefore you own it.
2) An external creator, with a higher authority than all others, such as the founders of the United States used to explain their conception of rights: that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. or
3) An agreement, which must be reciprocal in nature, that both participants in an interaction have a certain right, and thus it should be respected: By not killing someone, you are acknowledging their right to life, and therefore, your right to life is respected as well.

Note that all three of these require that a right, in order to be considered a right, must be universal: Everyone here has the original claim to their body, as we're all human (I assume). Everyone has the same Creator, or they don't. If you deny a right, then you can not claim it for yourself... the murderer can hardly expect to have his right to life respected, after denying the right to life by killing someone.

But this is all just a side-track. You've already agreed that rights need to be universal, regardless of their origin. So, if anyone has the right to aggress, then everyone does. The state, however, disagrees. They pass multiple laws which indicate that people do not have right to aggress: laws against rape, murder, theft, etc. But then they empower agents to do just that: rape, murder, and steal. So, are they violating the criminals' rights, or ours?

Why wouldn't you take up aggression if someone was doing something harmful? It could be as simple as boycotting their products and encouraging others to do so (they even have apps for that now), taking them to court, or outright violence against their person and property. Hit them in their checkbook, even if it means they have to spend a lot more on beefed up security.
And also, what do you do if the laws do NOT asset that right? For instance, what if a law states that only a certain amount of arsenic is allowed to be leached into the surrounding water, but that level is way too high, and is toxic to you and your plants? Or a law says that the fine needed to pay for cleanup of a spill is actually way too little to actually cover the costs of the spill cleanup, or to be punitive enough to make the company try to stop spilling? In both cases the entity doing the harm is well within their legal rights, and you are forced to agree to it. (FYI, the later happened with the BP oil spill, where BP agreed to pay a fine in exchange from being protected from being sued again, but the fine they paid is way less than what it is costing to clean up the gulf)


I think I have just shown that it's actually the other way around. People who want to externalize their impact usually have professional people who help write laws to make their impacts legal, thus binding those who get harmed to just accept it, whereas, without the government being there with tax payer funded police and military, there would be nothing to prevent an angry mob from storming the place and taking it out of commission, laws be damned.

Thank you. I definitely still need that, as I'm still forming my own views on all this.

Well I am talking about Harmful and I reserve the right to initiate aggression to any acting harmfully in a way that is or potentially will affect me or my property.  The only way I would infringe on my right is if we form a government that we are both a part of and those laws will instead assert this right.  

In the end, this is exactly where I see the biggest flaw in NAP & AnCap as an extension.  It all sounds nice on paper but in the end, human nature does not work in this way and with that is just sounds like a system to give cover for people who want to externalize their impact and not give just recourse against them.   Its all about Person Responsibility and most people don't have much.  Until you fix that, AnCap and any all voluntary systems fall flat because of the people who will abuse these rules and others expense.  

Oh im already a free market anarchist. Im just a consequentialist libertarian who doesnt recognize the legitimacy of many of the arguments of denotological libertarians like stefan moleneaux or myrkul. So where it counts we agree! i just find debate with other libertarians to be so much more stimulating than with people like firstassent so i nit pick and look for points of contention.

Uh, it kept my neighbors and myself on friendly terms that involve us respecting our individual yards despite the lack of fences? Just one tiny example.

I'm not a fan of the "aggression" term, either. Just think of it as:
Aggression - fucking with me or my property.

Exactly. What has AnCap done for you lately? Answer: nothing.

Doing something "Harmful" is not the same as being "Aggressive" unless there is some special definition I am unaware of?

That's not initiating aggression, that's responding to someone else's.

Yes.  If you are doing something harmful and all non-aggressive actions have been exhausted then I would reserve the right to take aggressive action to stop your harmful activities. 

None, you're right.


Not sure what you're trying to get at. NAP is a society-based understanding, similar to offering extra rights to a few selected ruling elite being a society-based understanding. It's not an individual preference.
Would you prefer an outcome where you are being hunted down or denied goods and services because earlier you preferred to initiate aggression against someone else?
The bigger issue, though, is that in our current state-run society we have some people who are allowed to initiate aggression, and some who aren't, regardless of whether the people involved prefer it that way. It essentially make some people "more equal" than others, simply because society agreed on it, and at times even when it didn't.

Edit: Holy crap typos!

What does my, birthplace or me being born to my parents, have to do with my contract with a landlord I'd be renting from? And conversely, if I had been born in an apartment, why can't the landlord of that apartment force me into a contract where I owe him $500,000 paid over my lifetime, from the time I was a baby, and without me ever even agreeing to it, simply because I was born in his apartment? That sounds like it would be a great deal for landlords, so why can't they do it?


Why not? I'm sure many would, and there are plenty of state offered services I would choose to forfeit, too.


I was under 18 when I moved, so it wasn't voluntary, and moreso, even if I had moved here voluntarily, I doubt I would have been given a copy of the contract that lists all the agreements and responsibilities that both I and the state agree on. The only pertinent question that immigrants get asked when moving here is "will you join the army and fight for this country if you are called?" Nothing about any other responsibilities or benefits.

Only one I'm aware of is my little, yellow, three-person inflatable boat that I have, whenever I row it out far enough into the ocean. Can't really live on it for too long (great for tanning and relaxing though)

ah now we are getting to the heart of the matter! i do not believe that some people should be allowed to initiate aggressive action without consequences. I believe this because i believe that allowing such behavior leads to outcomes that *i* do not prefer. Notice how this is different from the claim that this leads to outcomes that are universally non-preferable.

"which means simply that no one has the right to agress" what is the functional difference between this statement and "thou ought not aggres"? It seems to me that they are two ways of saying the same thing and that my way is simpler and more direct.

ok sure you can define any word you like any way you like for the sake of this discussion lets define rights in such a manner that they necessarily apply to everyone, no harm in that at all. To me the rights that i believe people have orginate from my own subjective values and beliefs. You seem to claim that the rights that you believe people have originate from somewhere other than your own subjective beliefs and that you are simply an observer not the creator. Do i have this right?

Can you tell me how you're supposed to be able to choose your parents? Can you choose where you were born? There are some things in life in which you simply cannot choose.

Tell me now, can the state choose where you were born? It cannot. But the state does have laws. If you were born in America, as an infant, would one choose to forfeit any services offered by the state? No.

And lastly, you voluntarily chose to come to the U.S. So I think on all counts, your argument is falling flat on its face.

Hey, Rassah, where is the state that will let you grow opium poppies? Where is the state that will not subject you to the TSA? Where is the state that will let you hire who you wish for whatever job you wish, at whatever rate you wish, without all the paperwork and tax forms? For that matter, where is the state that will not steal your money for its own use, and that will prevent the federal government from doing so as well?

'Cause I'll help you move, if you help me.

No, because it is not my house. I am just buying the privilege of living there, and have voluntarily agreed on doing it together with my landlord, along with all the issues you mentioned, when I first moved in.


Aside from it being a Federal issue, are you implying that the house I own is actually owned by the state and not me? Is everything in reality owned by the government, like it was in the Soviet Union? And when did I agree that anything I buy from someone should involve a third party, like a government landlord? I don't think your example works very well.