Topic: What's so special about the NAP? - page 11. (Read 20467 times)

What if I don't want to leave and don't like your rules? That's currently your situation right now.


We waste so much time with silly statements like the one you just made. So what if you can go left or right? Do you think it's a different road if I go left or if I go right? And last time I checked, left takes me one way and right takes me in the opposite direction. What is your point?

Not at all. If you come into my house, and shit on the carpet, is it coercion for me to kick you out? Or even if you simply start swearing worse than a sailor with Tourette's?

I believe left or right remains two separate directions, yes?

Sounds like coercion. I thought you were against coercion. What if you resist?


Untrue. When I go out my door, I am constrained by a certain set of roads before any reasonable choices present themselves.

No, if you do not abide by the rules that you have agreed to, you will be escorted off the road and not allowed back on. If you do not agree to the roads' rules, do not use them. Even now, there's more than one way to get from point A to point B.

This smacks of paranoia. There is no conspiracy here. Your suppositions here are actually pretty hilarious. And more telling, they indicate how imbalanced your view of the world is. The participants in this thread are not the big bad government you despise and fear.

I'm a software consultant.

But what if the question was: should slavery be illegal?


But what if the question was: should murder be illegal?


If that's the question, then I'd say it would not get a 100 percent vote.


What if the question was: should robbery be illegal?


This is one of your greater weaknesses. You still haven't fully grasped the notion of property and property rights. Nor do you fully grasp the implications of property rights as you envision them.

We've all heard this a hundred times and we knew you'd say it.

Consider: in NAP-land, you get the same result. As soon as you walk out your door and off your property, you're under the rules of whatever property you go on, in this case, the roads of other land owners. They have rules. Perhaps those rules are in regard to seat belts. If you don't abide by their rules, they'll fine you. If you don't pay, then you'll have to go to arbitration, as per myrkul's own admission. Tell them to pound sand, and it will escalate.

Ahh, but myrkul will tell us that members won't patronize such roads, and then the road owners will be forced to change their policies. Really? The road owners want to generate revenue. And they may have a monopoly. It may be a big monopoly.

Ahh, but myrkul will say that the people will be annoyed, and someone will come along and build an alternative road as an option where there are no seat belt regulations. Really? Where? You want more roads than is reasonable? You can only have so many roads, and duplicate roads just won't be financially feasible, as it decreases the revenue generated per mile.

Worst of all, there will be no consistency in rules and regulations.

Give me public roads and consistent laws - I'll take that every time.

Care to provide some?  I was not aware there had been any. It's likely any failures are due to the fact that you can't force people to do something they don't want to, under this system, and unfortunately (for the government) that means taxes, too.

I'm sorry, Did you have something productive to add?

Do the historical examples of failure for things that were close to this model mean anything to you?  Or where they "doing it wrong"?

When Libertarians actually start to discuss policy and procedure they get awful fussy and flustered relatively quickly, don't they?

The sunlight of actual truthful discourse (that is, Law and Policy) give them an easy sunburn since they spend so much time in their Ivory Towers they are quite pale and burn easily.

lol

 

(sorry, I have to be my own comedian at times)

 

Ben is unfortunately proving what my hunch was earlier, that he is completely over his head in regard to these arguments and therefore has to avoid the core elements of the discussion in favor of these methods of deflection and word games.  Ben, I could suggest about 4 dozen books you should promptly read which will much greater inform you on the state of world affairs (past, present and future), if you are interested.

I was a total Libertarian dupe but less than a few years ago and finally admitted to myself that I don't know shit and was earlier trying to rationalize and shoehorn everything I encountered into a much more comprehensive understanding than I should have admitted to myself; this was after the 2008 Ron Paul mania died down.  I think people should reconsider what they think they know much more often.  I try to do so every day now.

Not at all. 100% consensus is the only valid way to enact a law.  Let's assume a government were run by 100% consensus.

Would slavery be legal? Surely not, because the proposed slaves would vote against it.

Would murder be legal? Surely not, even murderers would rather not be murdered, and thus would vote against it.

Would drugs be legal? Probably, because some people would like to take drugs legally, and thus would vote against any attempt to make them illegal.

Would robbery be legal? Surely not, because even thieves like to keep their stuff after they have stolen it, and thus, would vote against making it legal.

Would private property be upheld? Surely, for as you said, "we all" agree that it should be so.

I'm an overtaxed IT Administrator as my day job and work for a private company, my dear Benjamin.

Still avoided responding to my longer post, are you?

(You need to turn off the Alex Jones.)   

I won't have the argument go in circles.  Yet here you are, trying to put us back at "square one". 

If you'd like to respond to my larger post where I actually delved down into this NAP-shibboleth then do so, if not then I guess this conversation is over, but not for my willingness to have it continue - I'd very much like for you to attempt to answer my last full rebuttal.

The idea is that Private Property requires Society to defend it via Law.  That's the point, that "Total Ownership" and therefore total "Private Property" in the mythologized sense that exists in Libertarianism, is a fallacy.

And it is impossible to have full consensus in any group, that is the recipe for anarchism, chaos and political gridlock where nothing can happen.  What, are we to relive the nullification crisis of the 1830s?  Or, if you like a resent example, relive the abject failure that was Occupy Wall Street, with their absurd notions of "consensus", which they only changed to 90% consensus after it had largely imploded.  100% consensus and 90% consensus are ridiculous notions for enacting a law.

OK, Since I can hear the apologists'  teeth grinding from here, Let me cut the argument against this off before it gets started:

Yes, the state really is pointing a gun in his face and saying this. The language it uses is nicer, and does its best to hide that fact, but this is exactly what it is doing. Allow me to explain:

The police officer pulls you over, and stands there, and writes you a ticket. What do you suppose he will do if you refuse to accept that slip of paper that says you owe the state some money for breaking its rules? Will he let it slide, and let you be on your merry way? Doubtful.

So let's say you have this piece of paper now, which the state says means you owe them some sum of money. What happens if you refuse? You just toss the paper in the recycling bin, where it rightfully belongs. Does the state let it slide, and let you live your life? Unlikely.

So now you've told them to pound sand. They think you owe them money, you say you do not. What happens to people who don't pay fines? They get arrested, right? What happens if you refuse to come along nicely? Will they just close the door, and let you live your life? Yeah, right.

So now they've busted down the door and are trying to put you in handcuffs. You resist, after all, you didn't do anything wrong, you just told them no. Will they relent, and let you go? No.

Now, admittedly, this is an extreme case, and I know of several people who have been successful in getting traffic tickets tossed out by, essentially, telling the court to pound sand. It's literally not worth it for them to pursue. But you guys have said yourself, that a law that you're not willing to enforce isn't worth the paper it's written on, so where does that leave us?

If you are against NAP you are basically saying: there is a social problem, it must be solved by threatening people with violence. The point is that solving problems with violence is the worst way to do it.

Some people might not put seatbelts on for their kids. Do you:
A. kill them for not doing it. (this is ultimately the threat being made).
B. Solve the problem without using violence.

In a free market, social values are reflected in prices. Resources are allocated according to peoples preferences. If lots of people want kids to wear seatbelts and they think that it's worth the cost to achieve this, then it will happen through economic incentive. If they don't or if it's too expensive, then they don't value it enough to justify any action. Violence is for the intellectually lazy and the bullies.

As soon as you introduce force into the equation, values are no longer reflected in prices. No accurately, anyway; there is the bias of force influencing behavior toward a sub-optimal resource allocation. Instead of the market meeting the values of society, it is now forced to abide by the decree of some arbitrary opinion sanctioned by some politicians. Hence the phrase "an opinion with a gun".

If you see a kid without a seatbelt are you personally willing to point a gun in the fathers face and say "put seatbelts on your children or else I will kill you"? Do you think this solves the problem? This is the NAP-violating, state solution. The only difference is you have some institution doing this on your behalf.

All that talking, and you didn't answer this question... Come on, it's not hard to drop a yes or a no in there.