How has B consented to the process? In fact he has done quite the opposite. He has stated his objection to the search and will defend his property with all force at his command.
I am also interested in hearing this answer with the added twist that the witness is not a member of the state in queston.
I missed this question from you, Martin. A citizen accused of no crime may not be forced to do anything at all. Such force would be definitively coercive.
Regarding another matter, I do understand that it is not necessary that I reiterate for your benefit that if B is a Libertarian citizen, then he has already consented to the process of arbitration. And if he is not, then his rights are no concern of Libertaria. I know that I do not need to reiterate that for you because I know that you will have read and comprehended it the first time.
If all you ask for is to be allowed to live under the government of your choosing why are you imposing that government system on someone else?
Does anyone else care to ask the above question?
Oh this petty bullshit again.
Who did I demonstrate a lack of caring about this time?
Lib, if you have something to say to treis or Dewey, could you please address them either directly or not at all? I have no wish to play the role of middleman in one of those “we’re not speaking to each other” games.
That said, treis’s question is pretty much the one I was going to ask next. As long as A and B are both citizens of the same government, sure, you could simply make consent to arbitration a clause of the “subscription” contract. Although I’m not sure why, in that case, the contract could not just as easily include third-party subpoenas, or jury duty for that matter. But once you force a non-citizen to submit to your arbitration process, aren’t you violating the “libertarianism and volunteerism are synonyms” rule? I understand that Libertaria has no duty to protect the rights of non-citizens. But by searching B’s house without his consent, you are not just refraining from protecting his rights, you are actively violating them, aren’t you?
You may suit yourself, and I will suit myself. Libertarianism in action. 
Treis knew full well that I have no interest in debating him. That’s possibly the very reason he posted. But since you feel obligated to defend him, I’ll consent to wipe the slate clean when he apologizes.
We’ve covered this actually, although not with these exact terms and conditions. But the same principle applies: the government of Libertaria has a contractual obligation with A, and the rights of B are of no concern to it.
Libertarian government is not a dispenser of rights. It is not even a protector of rights without the consent of the person it protects. B has elected to have his rights protected by someone else (or by himself — that hasn’t been made clear.) He must appeal to his own government, or provide for himself.
Regarding what the contract might include, we’ve covered that as well. When I said that there are countless ways to implement a libertarian government, that’s the sort of thing I meant. Recall that I’ve said that a libertarian society may be a communist monarchy, so long as all are volunteers. If subpoenas are important to you, then you should seek out a government that is like minded.
Tell ya what if you promise to go back to the other thread and answer the questions I will apologize for whatever it is you think I need to apologize for.
That isn’t the point (at lest mine) though. You have said numerous times that all you want is to be allowed to live under the government of your choosing. Then one of the tenets of the government you choose is that it has the obligation to impose its self on parties that don’t choose your government. Do you not see the hypocracy in that?
For example if they want to set up a democratic republic with soverignty over its land that would be ok as long as everyone agrees?
If not then why not? If so then how is that any different then what we have now?
I believe I answered all your questions. It’s easy to ask questions. What I want is for you to give thoughtful consideration to the responses. You were rapid-firing questions as fast as you could type them, and then accusing me of evasion. I simply won’t participate in that game. You were so rude and Pittish that a moderator told you to dial it back. I owe you nothing. I don’t have to respond to you at all. This is your last opportunity to apologize and promise to be civil. Failing that, I won’t even read your posts anymore. Your call.
If you didn’t notice you were also warned in that thread. But you are right I was overly hostile and I apologize for that.
You say I ask a lot of questions well I say that you haven’t given me much to go off of. You say the only law will be “Government shall guarantee every citizen freedom from coercon.” Which is fine and dandy but how am I suppose to derive an entire societal, legal and economic system that matches your understanding from 8 words. You say that an arbiter will decide who has been coerced and what is fair which is fine. Where does that arbiter get his definition of fair from? For example if two arbiters render two opposite rulings in similar cases how is it decided which one is fair? But if you can’t link to a site nor do you wan’t to answer each specific question then at least please answer the questions about the economic numbers you gave.
Very well.
Part of what I’ve explained to you is that your understanding doesn’t have to match mine. You may derive your own understanding. Or, if you prefer, you may seek out a government with a set of laws so complex that you will be unable to decode them upon a lifetime of effort.
I’ve never said he decides what’s fair. While we are starting anew, allow me to state that that is something that bothers me about your approach. You don’t listen. You hear what you want to hear, and you regurgitate paraphrases, and ask me to defend them. That simply won’t do. I’ve stated at least twice in this thread alone the exact two things that an arbiter must decide. Here they are again. Please pay attention. (1) Has a coercion occurred? (2) Who did it? There is nothing about fairness.
What economic numbers? From that other thread? I already told you they were guesses. How can any human being on earth possibly know what will be the budget of an entity that does not exist?
Incidentally, I may or may not be available at all the early part of the week. Please do not feel ignored or abandoned.
I thought I understood that point, before I started this thread, but a few recent statements from you have left me rather shocked. I can certainly get along with the notion of a government with which you have to voluntarily contract, and if you choose not to do so then you get neither the benefits nor the duties attached to that contract. I could even get along with the idea that if a citizen initiates force against a non-citizen, then it is not the Libertarian government’s job to protect that non-citizen. But what you’re telling me now is that the government itself can actively initiate force against a non-citizen, and that’s hunky-dory because the non-coercion principle only applies to citizens?
How far does that go? For example, let’s say the government of Libertaria decides that instead of taxing it citizens, it is going to derive its income from enslaving all non-citizens and forcing them to work in the local salt-mines. Would that be OK to you, on the grounds that the rights of non-citizens are of no concern to the government and the non-coercion principle does not apply to them?
What about fraud? You mentioned that an arbited cannot lie during an interrogation, because that would be initiation of fraud. But would it be permitted to use, ah, “creative interrogation techniques” against a non-citizen? After all, he doesn’t have any rights, right?
It seems to me that the “libertarianism is volunteerism” rule is pretty meaningless when you interpret it like that. Sure, I can decide whether or not I want to sign the “subscription” contract. But if I don’t, the government still feels free to initiate force against me, so how is that any different from any other government deriving its authority from the principle of “might makes right”? Whence does the government of Libertaria derive its authority to boss B around when he has no contractual bond with it and has not (provably, at this point) initiated any force or fraud against any of its citizens?
Until now, I had always interpreted the “countless ways to implement” part as saying that libertarianism only offers the absolute minimum of government: enforcing contracts and protecting citizens from attack. And that any other type of society could be implemented on top of that, through citizens voluntarily grouping together and agreeing to obey certain rules among each other. You want socialism, you get together with a bunch of like-minded people and form a socialist collective. You don’t want socialism, you stay away from the socialists. And below that, libertarianism is the “meta-government” which keeps the socialists and the non-socialists from coercing each other.
But now it seems that Libertaria is just another government, and only less coercive than the others in the rather theoretical sense that you’re allowed to not sign the contract, but it doesn’t matter because Libertaria will assume authority over you anyway if it feels like it. And if you don’t want that, your only option is to find a sufficiently strong protector to help you defend yourself against Libertaria. In other words, Libertaria does not have a philosophical justification other than “might makes right”.
So what did you mean in the “majoritarianism” thread, when you claimed that Libertarianism derives its ethical authority from the non-coercion principle? It seems to me that, the way you explained it in this thread, it does no such thing: the NP cannot be its ethical justification for its authority over its citizens, because it apparently only applies to people who are already citizens; in other words, the NP is just another clause in the citizenship contract, rather than the principle from which that contract derives its validity. The claim that if you did not want to be governed by Libertaria, you should not have signed the contract, is not valid because not signing the contract just means that you don’t have any rights at all as far as Libertaria is concerned – not even the right not to be coerced.
Right?
Thats true but unless we want 6 billion governments on Earth at least some people are going to have to come to a mutual understanding.
I am listening. If you notice the first part of my statement was “an arbiter will decide who is coerced” which can mean you, me or no one. The and clause refers to the third step of the process which is the compensation step. That certainly has an element of fairness in it. For example lets say I damage irreparibly your wedding ring by knocking you over trying to catch a bus and Joe does the same to Franks ring. If our arbiter says heck its just a chunk of metal ** treis ** replace it and be done with it and their arbiter says thats a priceless symbol of your wifes love and forces Joe to become Frank’s slave. What happens? Is Joe screwed becuase he ‘got’ the wrong arbiter or is there an appeal process?
Does the arbiter have to follow precident or is each decision up to him?
How does one even become an arbiter? Can I refuse a specific arbiter?
This is what I am getting at “Government shall guarantee every citizen freedom from coercon” is good and all but it doesn’t tell me anything. Where does the arbiter come from? Why not by majority decision, a high council, trial by jury or any of the number of other methods?
How is this process remembered? Is it written down anywhere?
Well you said that $40,000 per year would be dirt poor and that Libertaria’s fee would be $1,359.72.
I realize that it there is no Libertaria to look at but economist do theoretical models for all sorts of things. I can go to my local economist and ask for analysist of the cost of say raising the minimum wage to 1000 dollars an hour. There is no country with a minimum wage of 1000 dollars an hour but I can still get a reasonable prediction. I am only looking for an analysis by someone knowledgable of the behavior of a free-market economy to predict the economy of Libertaria. What would the GDP be and what would the median/average wage be.
If you don’t know the ramifications of something how can you support it? For example if instituting your idea of Libertaria cut the average wage in half and Libertaria’s fee was $30,000 per person would you still support it? What if it cut the average wage by 1/4 and the fee was $100,000? What if it meant near constant war fare between neighboring countries? You can see where I am going with this. Surely you must have some idea in your head of what Libertaria would be like. I am hoping your analysis went beyond government causes an increase in price therefore removing the government will lower the cost. There is also a benefit from that price increase. Companies have their patents, trademarks and copy rights protected. They are able to raise capital by issuing stocks due to limited liability. Removing government does not necessarily mean that prices will go down or the economy will boom. Thats not mentioning the worker safety laws, minimum wage, enviromental protection, the FDA, universal education etc etc. What will removing these mean?
For me I look at Libertaria and I see thousands of little countries with frequent warfare. If the government is obligated to go to war to enforce its arbiters rulings then every petty theft, physical altercation or slight can start a war. For example if a Libertarian from Texas was on vacation in China and had his wallet stolen. If one of his credit cards was used in a store would Libertaria send a police officer to investigate? Would it mean war if China refused entry to the police officer?
I see an economy that is stangant due to extremely limited capital becuase of the abolition of limited liability. The economy won’t spend money on research and development becuase their invention can be used without royalties. The poor will be stuck in a cycle of being poor becuase they will be barely able to afford food and shelter let alone education. Unions will be destroyed and working conditions returned to levels reminscent of the industrial revolution.
Not a problem it seems like you have numerous questions to answer also.
Martin’s post made me think of a few more questions.
I am a memeber Libertaria and I go to an area that is not part of Libertaria and I purchase two slaves. I force them to mate so that I get more slaves. Are the off-spring of this couple considered people by Libertaria? If I father a child through the slave is the child a member of Libertaria? If the government of the slave I bought comes knocking to retrieve thier citizen will Libertaria protect me? If the slave escapes and returns to his country will Libertaria go to war to retrieve him?
Good Lord. I’d hope that your system of government would seize property first and shoot bullets, well, not at all, at least for contractual breaches.
Under the status quo, if I get a judgment against you for breaching a contract, I can get the measure of my damages by having your property seized or your wages garnished (each subject to certain limitations, depending on where you live), but I can’t bust a cap in your ass.
Arbitration without subpoena power will be useless in many cases.
A steals from B, and hides the goods. C witnesses the theft. B wishes to initiate proceedings against A to recover his property and have A suitably punished. C does not wish to testify. How can B prove his case if he cannot compel testimony?
And this isn’t an area where simply having B hire witnesses is appropriate. That creates a clear conflict of interest: C can sell his testimony to the highest bidder. We can see the ugliness that ensues from that sort of thing when it comes to expert testimony in the current court system; I doubt allowing it for fact witnesses would improve matters any.
Lib, in post #18 of this thread, you responded to this question with ‘pretty much, yes.’ I noticed that you avoided the second part of the question as to what the slave can be made to do as part of his/her ‘restitution.’ Am I to assume that sexual slavery, and indeed, any sort of servitude short of death is fair game? And that resistance to being enslaved is ‘coercion’ and grounds for execution?
Can you see how this might be viewed as the antithesis of a civilized society? I can easily imagine a situation in which someone gets into debt, and then is forced into slavery (sexual or otherwise)- that’s the problem with a philosophy that is based on ‘all rights are derived from property rights,’ as you seem to be espousing. Please correct me if i have gotten your position wrong.
I am also a bit alarmed at the prospect that Libertaria is not concerned with the rights of non-citizens of Libertaria. Are we specifically speaking of property rights? And would you include ‘one’s body’ as property?
(bump)
In addition to Liberal, I’d also be interested in the opinion of other libertarians on the board.
In particular, I’d like to know if you agree with Lib’s assessment of the degree to which a libertarian government has to respect the rights of an individual who has not contracted with that government – that is, of course, assuming that you are a member of the “multiple competing governments” school of thought in the first place.
And, getting back to the original topic of the thread: what options does a libertarian government have when it comes to infringing an individual’s rights in the context of investigating a crime?
Only have a skinny minute…
Of course not. How will having sex restore the usurped rights-property? As I’ve explained again and again, the purpose of reactive force is to restore the coerced. Excessive and irrelevant force are coercive.