I gave my definition of coercion in this thread. Check it out.
Okay, but it seems redundant to me. The simple, “I oppose coercion” is a categorical statement. It seems like those who make exceptions ought to have the onus of listing them.
Trade off economic liberties, and you get the left. Trade off civil liberties, and you get the right. Trade off all of them, and you get authoritarians. I wager that most people fall somewhere among all that, rather than at any extreme. But I oppose coercion. Period.
Not period. You also believe that private property is a given. That kinda sneaks up on you, but it’s there. The primacy of private property rights is one of American libertarianism’s fundamental precepts, completely rejected by the European libertarian tradition.
Daniel
That reminds me of a Jay Leno interview where he mentioned that he ran all his jokes by his wife, to double check offensiveness. As a younger man I thought that weak; I have since mellowed that opinion considerably.
Oh sure, I understand that. You’re right. But everyone has an interpretive filter. I agree that I can improve, but I don’t believe that it will ever be the case that I am never misunderstood. Same same for everyone, I think. Take this thread, for instance. I made list of the things I thought I could improve on, and I’m working on them even as I type. I’m hoping that with this post, I am conveying sincerity and not condescension. But who is to say? Ultimately, y’all are. And in this thread, there is everything from people who hate me to people who are defending me. There is no unanimous consensus that I am as beligerent as some people paint me. Still, I can see how that opinion can be formed. The burden to change people’s perceptions is too onerous, and does not, I believe, fall on me. With all this advice, I’m not trying to change your perception of me, but my perception of myself. I want to be nicer because I like nice better than mean.
That is excellent advice, but you know what? We don’t always know when we’re not being nice, and I think that that’s the nuance I’m trying to learn. For example, had you posted only those words, I would have thought you were nice. But there followed two paragraphs telling me how dishonest I am, how vitriolic, how vituperative. In fact, you identified me (perhaps unintentionally) as the meanest person on earth. You said that my level of meanness is “unique” to me. Those are things that you surely know might hurt people’s feelings, but sometimes when we hurt people’s feelings it isn’t because we intended to be mean.
Then why post? The whole point of language is to communicate; if your communication is giving an incorrect impression to a significant portion of the audience, then your communication has failed.
That said, I don’t think that it’s giving an incorrect impression: I think you intend to be mean a lot of the time, and I think that this going back and claiming it was all a misunderstanding is disingenuous. When you say that you meant no offense by calling someone a gnat on a camel’s ass, I don’t believe you (although I can believe you’ve managed on some level to convince yourself that it’s true). You’re not stupid: you know that in our culture, calling someone an insect is very rarely a compliment, and that this isn’t one of the exceptional cases. You know that saying someone resides near camelshit is going to come across as insulting.
If you were stupid, I might buy your, “poor, misunderstood me!” explanation. But you’re not. You know that language works on many levels, and you love playing games with language. Some of those games are nasty, and some are dishonest.
Your original game with the gnat-on-the-ass was nasty. The game you’re playing with it now is dishonest.
So no, you’re not coming across as sincere now; you’re coming across as verifying that you’re not willing to change to be a better person.
Daniel
So, if you oppose coercion, you’re a libertarian. And if you oppose tyrannical dictators with rape rooms, you’re a republican 
Oh, sure, I realized they might hurt your feelings. But let’s go over them a little:
- I called you dishonest. Much as if I’d called you a kidnapper, I believe this is an accusation that is either true or false, and that is either born out by the facts or is not. I do not believe the facts bear out that you are a kidnapper; I believe they do bear out the fact that you’re often dishonest. I’ve discussed elsewhere my reasons for believing this, and will not belabor the point here, since I brought up your dishonesty only to say that, in comparison to your meanness, it wasn’t the most important thing for you to work on.
- I did not identify you as the meanest person on earth, and this is a typical dishonest statement on your part to distract people (or at least yourself) from the issue at hand. I identified you as “one of” the meanest people “I’ve ever met,” and I stand by that. Your uniqueness is the vitriol you spew on these messageboards, which in my experience is unmatched by any others.
- While I’ve had harsh words for other people here, I suspect my harshest have been reserved for you, precisely because I see your level of abuse of other boardmembers to be unique. When a person is so consistently nasty to so many people, I confess I find myself not caring nearly as much about whether my own behavior toward them will hurt their feelings. If this is a failure on my part, well, take it to another thread. There’s a reason I don’t get pitted very often, and it ain’t just my dashing good looks and savoir faire.
Daniel
Period as in, I oppose coercion without any exceptions to the opposition. Not period as in, I oppose coercion but hold no other beliefs. But see, it seems to me that that should have been obvious from the context of the discussion. Max had said that some people oppose coercion generally, but allow for exceptions. I honestly don’t know how that could have been misunderstood.
I don’t think that’s right.
“The program of liberalism, therefore, if condensed into a single word, would have to read: property, that is, private ownership of the means of production… All the other demands of liberalism result from his fundamental demand.” — Ludwig von Mises, Austrian
Keep piling on the excuses. I think you are being pitted because you don’t really want to improve in that department. You seem more worried about fighting and winning.
Well, then it’s silly for you to continue engaging me, and it would not be edifying for me if I continue to engage you.
I don’t think so. I’ve admitted twice in this thread alone to substantive error. I’ve apologized to three people for perceived slights. I’ve started a new clean slate with Cricetus. I’m not even being mean to you right now despite that your entire post was hostile. Let me ask you something — you posted that in response to my saying that I don’t believe that it will ever be the case that I am never misunderstood. Do you believe that it will ever be the case that you are never misunderstood?
No, that would be a Democrat. Republicans oppose tyrannical tax collectors with new budgets. 
(Just kidding.)
Look up “libertarian socialism” and “libertarian communism” to find out how “libertarian” tends to get used in Europe.
And yes, I agree that you’re unlikely to find anything I say edifying.
Daniel
See, it’s astounding that you accuse me of an unwillingness to change when you yourself refuse to admit your error, despite given a direct quote with citation to the whole book, readable online. I’m just going to have to say, Physician, heal thyself. I bear you no ill will. But we’re just not connecting here.
Although, one last request and then I’m out of the thread: take it or leave it, but if you’re going to respond to me in the future, I’d appreciate your calling me by any of the monikers that others do, such as LHOD, or LHD, or Lefty, or Dorkness, or whatever. It just creeps me out a little when you use my first name–it just seems overly familiar.
But that’s just a quirk on my part; if you want to persist in using my first name after knowing that I don’t like it, that’s your business.
Daniel
Wow. You wait five years to tell me this? I’ve always called you Daniel.
No, I won’t use it — despite that you sign off with it. 
God, I should never say, “And then I’m out” when referring to a thread: it’s never true. (See, I can be dishonest too).
I didn’t respond to your quote because it was about liberalism, not libertarianism. The only place the word “libertarian” appeared on your linked page was in another link to the “Journal of Libertarian Studies.”
At first blush, this looks like yet another dishonest debating tactic by you, substituting words in the middle of a discussion about how a word is used. If it indicates intellectual laziness on my part that I didn’t read the entire linked book to discover whether the author ever uses the word “libertarian” to describe the property-rights-uber-alles philosophy, well, so be it.
Regardless, I’ll make a retraction: in googling “European libertarianism,” I discover that the US usage of the word has made its way to Europe, and that my earlier “completely rejected by the European libertarian tradition” was an overstatement, inasmuch as there’s a new European libertarian tradition comprising folks who use the word in the US sense. Mea culpa parva.
Daniel
It’s a small quirk, and it is a quirk, and it never really seemed germane to bring it up. Wasn’t germane here either, but I figured as long as I was telling you off I’d include it :). Thanks for offering not to do it anymore–I appreciate it!
Daniel