libertarianism

[Dewey_Cheatem_Undhow]

@Liberal

Has there ever been a tyrant who did not rationalize his coercion by some appeal to the common good? Elimination of disease is hardly the only thing that would free up resources that would otherwise benefit society. If the problem indeed is the disease, then it becomes at some point difficult to argue why the elimination of diseased people would not benefit society. Or disabled people. Or retarded people. Or people who are somehow otherwise undesirable in the eyes of the central planner. You may say that a line should be drawn such that the elimination of people per se is off-limits, but then you have to amend your argument. It is no longer about the disease or the disability or the retardation, or even about the good of society as a whole; rather, it is about your personal ethical limits. You may well find yourself having to take up an argument of noncoercion, to which your detractors might well reply, “Why may we take a man’s liberty, but not his life? If we have bent his consent, then his life has been ours anyway.”

A slippery slope argument? I would have hoped that was beneath you.

Anyway, I’m curious as to how intellectual property rights are enforced in Libertaria. I have contracted with Libertarian State A, which has strong IP protections. I write a popular novel. A neighbor a few streets over has contracted with Libertarian State B, which has no IP rules. He sells my novel without giving me a thin red dime. Do I have recourse, and if so, what?

Say it’s 100 years after my death. Libertarian State A’s IP protections are so strong that they grant copyright into perpetuity. Does my estate still have any recourse against the neighbor?

[wevets]

@Liberal

Any society is libertarian by definition so long as all are volunteers.

That’s not what confused me, I was confused by one poster holding Kerala up as a libertarian state, then another mentioning that it was communist. I looked it up, and it’s just communist, not libertarian. Carry on.

[Liberal]

@treis

That means that all it takes is one whacko that wants to return society to the stone age to end industry.

No, it doesn’t. You misunderstand the concept. The government does not declare that there will never be pollution, but that pollution is vandalism. In other words, it is not a prognostication, but a principle. A person must demonstrate harm, since there can be no coercion without harm. If a person is in fact not being harmed, then his suit is frivolous. If he is in fact being harmed, then he is by definition not a whacko. Why you would want a man to suffer another man’s pollution for the sake of industry or anything else is unclear. Usually, it is the libertarian who is accused of sacrificing the common good for the sake of industry.

[Liberal]

@Dewey Cheatem Undhow

A slippery slope argument? I would have hoped that was beneath you.

A slippery slope argument, like an argument from authority, may or may not involve a fallacy. My argument did not.

Slippery slope

[Liberal]

@wevets

That’s not what confused me, I was confused by one poster holding Kerala up as a libertarian state, then another mentioning that it was communist. I looked it up, and it’s just communist, not libertarian. Carry on.

Ah, I see. No problem.

[treis]

@Liberal

No, it doesn’t. You misunderstand the concept. The government does not declare that there will never be pollution, but that pollution is vandalism. In other words, it is not a prognostication, but a principle. A person must demonstrate harm, since there can be no coercion without harm. If a person is in fact not being harmed, then his suit is frivolous. If he is in fact being harmed, then he is by definition not a whacko.

Lets back up. You said that “A libertarian government would consider pollution of any amount to be vandalism, and contamination of any amount to be assault.” Vandalism, by definition, is damaging or destroying personal property and as such is a harm in of itself. Assault, by definition, is a harm to a person. By your own statement Libertaria views any pollution or contamination as a harm. As such if a person brings a suit Libertaria will take the appropiate action to stop and rectify the harm.

@Liberal

Why you would want a man to suffer another man’s pollution for the sake of industry or anything else is unclear. Usually, it is the libertarian who is accused of sacrificing the common good for the sake of industry.

How could it possibly be unclear that I enjoy the benefit of industry more than the concern of some nutjob worried about a .1 PPM increase of CO2? The harm caused by such a slight increase in pollution to the one person out of a million that cares is negligble compared to the harm the loss of industry would cause the other 999,999 reasonable people.

[Dewey_Cheatem_Undhow]

@Liberal

A slippery slope argument, like an argument from authority, may or may not involve a fallacy. My argument did not.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slippery_slope

I did not say your argument presented a formal logic fallacy. I said it was lame and beneath you. A slippery slope argument, even when validly used in the formal logic sense, is the last arrow in the quiver of a man defending a weak position.

Now, I asked you a pair of questions about IP rights. Care to answer?

[Liberal]

@Dewey Cheatem Undhow

I did not say your argument presented a formal logic fallacy. I said it was lame and beneath you.

I really don’t believe you, since you would first have to hold me in some esteem in order to hold that something is lame and beneath me.

A slippery slope argument, even when validly used in the formal logic sense, is the last arrow in the quiver of a man defending a weak position.

Poetic but nonsensical.

Now, I asked you a pair of questions about IP rights. Care to answer?

I really wish I could, but my lameness is too crushing. May I recommend that you Google the keywords “libertarian property rights”, since your motive for asking is mere curiosity?

[Liberal]

@treis

Lets back up. You said that “A libertarian government would consider pollution of any amount to be vandalism, and contamination of any amount to be assault.” Vandalism, by definition, is damaging or destroying personal property and as such is a harm in of itself. Assault, by definition, is a harm to a person. By your own statement Libertaria views any pollution or contamination as a harm. As such if a person brings a suit Libertaria will take the appropiate action to stop and rectify the harm.

Well, sure, but it is not the case that the arbiter goes, “A charge of harm must equal the fact of harm.” Pollution is indeed vandalism. Contamination is indeed assault. But those are mere copulae.

How could it possibly be unclear that I enjoy the benefit of industry more than the concern of some nutjob worried about a .1 PPM increase of CO2? The harm caused by such a slight increase in pollution to the one person out of a million that cares is negligble compared to the harm the loss of industry would cause the other 999,999 reasonable people.

I do understand that you enjoy the benefit; that much is not unclear. My question was why you would want another man to suffer for your benefit. Whites enjoyed the benefits of slavery and segregation. Did that make those ethically acceptable? But you have yet to establish that a nutjob would prevail in his suit. What about the counter-suit? What about the nutjob’s exhalations? You’ll recall that I cited Hayek’s theory of spontaneous order. People will decide for themselves what is and what is not acceptable levels of pollution and contamination. If you paint slogans on my house, it is not vandalism if I invited it.

[treis]

@Liberal

Well, sure, but it is not the case that the arbiter goes, “A charge of harm must equal the fact of harm.” Pollution is indeed vandalism. Contamination is indeed assault. But those are mere copulae.

So what you meant to say was that Libertaria considers pollution or contamination of any amount to be vandalism or assault but they might not care about it?

@Liberal

I do understand that you enjoy the benefit; that much is not unclear. My question was why you would want another man to suffer for your benefit. Whites enjoyed the benefits of slavery and segregation. Did that make those ethically acceptable?

Why should the 999,999 people suffer greatly to accomodate the want of the 1?

@Liberal

But you have yet to establish that a nutjob would prevail in his suit. What about the counter-suit? What about the nutjob’s exhalations?

You are the one that called contamination of any amount assault and I was under the impression that Libertaria frowned upon assault. What is unclear to me is whether you misspoke about “any amount” or Libertaria doesn’t care to stop minor harm.

@Liberal

You’ll recall that I cited Hayek’s theory of spontaneous order. People will decide for themselves what is and what is not acceptable levels of pollution and contamination. If you paint slogans on my house, it is not vandalism if I invited it.

People may decided for themselves what is acceptable levels of pollution which is fine for example in deciding whether they want a slogan painted on their house. It gets more troublesome when you start talking about shared resources like waterways, ground water and the air.

[Dewey_Cheatem_Undhow]

@Liberal

I really don’t believe you, since you would first have to hold me in some esteem in order to hold that something is lame and beneath me.

I do hold you in a measure of esteem, Lib – if I didn’t, I’d simply ignore your posts. If I didn’t think discussing things with you was interesting and productive, I simply wouldn’t bother.

I’ve never been entirely sure why you hold to the position that I dislike you personally in some way. It simply isn’t true. I disagree with you about plenty of things, but that alone doesn’t translate into personal disdain. You tilt at windmills of your own imagining when you say I don’t hold you in some esteem.

@Liberal

Poetic but nonsensical.

I really don’t think so. Your basic argument is that “this argument can also be used to justify some nasty things.” Which is true, but so what? That is true of a great many things. Competing values must constantly be balanced against one another. Such is the way of the world.

So your objection may be valid, but is ultimately unpersuasive. That isn’t nonsensical, it’s a reasonable evaluation of the merits of your position.

@Liberal

I really wish I could, but my lameness is too crushing. May I recommend that you Google the keywords “libertarian property rights”, since your motive for asking is mere curiosity?

Why, you’re right. Indeed, the answers to most questions can be found by Googling, and since the purpose of this website is “fighting ignorance,” largely accomplished by answering questions posed by the curious, I propose that we shut down the SDMB entirely, to be replaced by a blank web page containing only the text “JUST FUCKING GOOGLE IT.”

Or perhaps not. In fact, that’s a pretty lame argument on my part, don’t you think?

Anyway, more seriously, I’ve read several competing theories on the IP question. I’m really more interested in what you think, and how those questions would be resolved in your own vision of Libertarian societies.

[Liberal]

@treis

So what you meant to say was that Libertaria considers pollution or contamination of any amount to be vandalism or assault but they might not care about it?

No, what I meant to say was what I said. I just didn’t mean to say all the stuff you’ve said. Look at it this way: we may define taking someone’s property as theft — that’s true whether it’s a penny or a million dollars. It is not necessarily the case, however, that a man will sue over theft of a penny particularly if he himself steals pennies from his neighbors every day. That’s why I said to consider the counter-suits. If a man’s property is being polluted, then he has an ethical right to put a stop to it. But that doesn’t mean that that is the course he will take. He might accept compensation of some kind, or possibly pause to consider that he himself is also polluting and might just as well leave dead dogs to lie.

Why should the 999,999 people suffer greatly to accomodate the want of the 1?

You have not yet established that they would suffer. But even if the 1 were successful in stopping production from the plant, you could make the case that the 999,999 have benefited by not having toxins dumped in their water.

You are the one that called contamination of any amount assault and I was under the impression that Libertaria frowned upon assault. What is unclear to me is whether you misspoke about “any amount” or Libertaria doesn’t care to stop minor harm.

No, no misspeach. What sort of society would tolerate slapping around one little guy to benefit some massive number of others?

People may decided for themselves what is acceptable levels of pollution which is fine for example in deciding whether they want a slogan painted on their house. It gets more troublesome when you start talking about shared resources like waterways, ground water and the air.

The fact is that it gets more clear. People must decide whether they are willing to trade off health for industry, or indeed whether such a trade-off is necessary. It seems to me that such issues give whole armies of entrepreneurs incentive to invent and market cleaner systems of production. The reason why it is better to let people decide these things for themselves is that it might be more tolerable to some people than others. A man with a severe allergy will be able to seek out neighbors who share his own high intolerance, and thereby settle in a neighborhood where no industrial toxin is allowed, while some other man with a high tolerance might buy a home beside a factory, and enjoy the low mortgage. What you have yet to show is why it should be you or some other central planner who decides these things for everyone.

[Liberal]

@Dewey Cheatem Undhow

I’ve never been entirely sure why you hold to the position that I dislike you personally in some way. It simply isn’t true. I disagree with you about plenty of things, but that alone doesn’t translate into personal disdain. You tilt at windmills of your own imagining when you say I don’t hold you in some esteem. I really don’t think so.

On the front page of this thread is a list of selected references to discussions of libertarianism compiled by you, which you have copied and pasted in various threads before. Now, it would seem, others are lifting your work and pasting it around as well. Your last entry is labelled “Lib hijack”. Why you would see fit to claim that you hold someone in esteem whom you have called a hijacker is unclear. Perhaps whether something is or is not a hijack is a matter of subjective interpretation, and perhaps when we hold people in esteem, we tend to give them the benefit of the doubt. I eagerly await your explanation of how you meant that only in the most complementary way.

Anyway, more seriously, I’ve read several competing theories on the IP question. I’m really more interested in what you think, and how those questions would be resolved in your own vision of Libertarian societies.

Is this matter not already discussed in one of your referenced threads? If so, perhaps you can review it. If not, perhaps you will consider joining the topics already under discussion here, such as vaccinations. You wouldn’t want anyone to think you’re taking the discussion off-track, would you?

[slaphead]

@Liberal

But you really haven’t been dwelling on why coercion is justified, but rather why vaccinations are so wonderful. Surely you did not mean to argue that the achievement of something wonderful justifies coercion. Kim Jung Il has achieved a practically crimeless society by the use of coercion. And yet, who will argue that the wonderfulness of never being mugged or robbed is mitigated by the fact that one is a slave to the state?
…
Has there ever been a tyrant who did not rationalize his coercion by some appeal to the common good? Elimination of disease is hardly the only thing that would free up resources that would otherwise benefit society. If the problem indeed is the disease, then it becomes at some point difficult to argue why the elimination of diseased people would not benefit society. Or disabled people. Or retarded people.

As far as I am aware every human society has reserved the right to sacrifice the rights of individual members for the common good, enforcing their consent as necessary. This holds true for North Korea, the Confederacy, Sweden, New Zealand, Switzerland, and I believe for aboriginal groups wherever they occur. Coercion does not always tyranny by any stretch of the imagination, unless you count every society as one.

@Liberal

One then must trust the ethics and benevolence of one’s governers.

Much as I distrust govenment, I’m also wary of relying exclusively on the ethics and benevolence of my fellow citizens, which is also demonstrably lacking. If everything is reduced to the agreement of my fellow property owners and contracts between various parties, then I would feel somewhat exposed if they were to demonstrate nefarious intent or there turned out to be some circumstances which had not been foreseen in the contract. If I choose to fill my property with barrels of toxic waste, and then emigrate to Australia with my payments from Union Carbide, my neighbours could only sue me in Australia for damaging their property or breaching my contracts? There would be no autonomous government agency to prevent me doing this, or anyone to help them clean up the mess?

@Liberal

That was the exact argument of the Confederate states, who in their declarations of secession, reiterated the necessity of conscripting negroes into slavery for the purpose of maintaining the quality of life to which they believed they were entitled.

And this has what relevance? It was also the argument used to free the slaves and guarantee them an improved quality of life, and was also used to draft the manpower necessary to prevent Hitler reducing the quality of life of pretty much everyone. Do you also hold hammers to be instruments of pure evil because of the number of people killed with them?

@Liberal

It seems to me that, for your defense of coercion to secure your quality of life, you would have to place the importance and significance of your life above the lives of men who did not wish to be coerced by you.

In particular cases, yes I do. I would very much appreciate the men who wish to play their car stereos at full volume at two am being coerced into turning them down since I value my sleep. I fully support the men who like buying tiger skins being coerced into not doing so since I do not wish them to be extinct. I am even in favour of people who own land in particular areas being coerced into not deveoping it in certain ways, because I enjoy the lanscape in our Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty and the quaint old-time appearance of the buildings in our Conservation Areas. Will all these things have to be sacrified or is there some other mechanism that will come into action rather than the heavy hand of government?

@Liberal

Briefly, the central planner is the person or persons who devise and implement plans that are applied across the whole population.

Oh good, for a moment I thought we were back in North Korea again. But by context I presume you mean the Secretary of Commerce, Chancellor of the Exchequer or whatever are the central planners of their respective areas of interest, and so on. Fair enough. But then since you originally mentioned them in a rather negative context, I take it that Libertarians don’t approve of people such as these, who set policy under a mandate of some kind. So then how does one decide on an appropriate level of taxation, the suplhur content of vehicle fuel, the content of educational tests and so on? Surely one would have to either revert back to central edicts, or else everything would have to be done by consensus, which would severely limit the size of the society which could function?
[/quote]

@Liberal

One model bases laws on the principle of political expedience, while the other bases them on the principle of noncoercion.

Fair enough

@Liberal

Easy. Wherever men freely and volitionally give or withhold their consent to be governed, there is libertarianism. Everywhere else, there is authoritarianism. If your government has drawn lines on a map, and has declared that those lines, rather than the consent of the people within them, legitimize their governance, then your government is authoritarian and tyrannical.

Ah. So in a Libertarian country, any random person could say ‘I don’t wish to be part of this country’ and they and their property would cease to be included and could instead join any other country which would have them, or indeed form their own? That does sound rather radically different from most current systems (although Norway and Czech/Hungary have actually done something similar). Wouldn’t it prove a rather neat way of ducking out of one’s responsibilities as a citizen?

Oh, and on preview…

@Liberal

A man with a severe allergy will be able to seek out neighbors who share his own high intolerance, and thereby settle in a neighborhood where no industrial toxin is allowed, while some other man with a high tolerance might buy a home beside a factory, and enjoy the low mortgage. What you have yet to show is why it should be you or some other central planner who decides these things for everyone.

This man would presumably be a member of Homo Economicus, famed for his perfect information, rational decision-making and ability to balance the short and the long run, and also able to afford whatever premium is necessary for the neighbourhood that has not been polluted to uninhabitability by this or previous generations? Someone thinks it’s OK for his property to be saturated with Dioxin, since he doesn’t live there anyway but wants some cash, and thats just dandy because he consented, even though the land is now unuseable for generations?

@Liberal

No, no misspeach. What sort of society would tolerate slapping around one little guy to benefit some massive number of others?

Erm, any society made up of humans, frankly. That’s some pair of rose-tinted specs you have there.
You could always try the old ‘shouting FIRE in a crowded theatre’ routine to test this. If you make it really convincing, you will probably find afterwards that your fellow citizens will use exactly that method to convince you it is a really bad idea to cause false alarms. QED.

[slaphead]

@slaphead

[many errors of grammar, composition and editing]

Oh dear. I really shouldn’t do this late at night. Sorry. :smack:

[treis]

@Liberal

No, what I meant to say was what I said. I just didn’t mean to say all the stuff you’ve said. Look at it this way: we may define taking someone’s property as theft — that’s true whether it’s a penny or a million dollars. It is not necessarily the case, however, that a man will sue over theft of a penny particularly if he himself steals pennies from his neighbors every day. That’s why I said to consider the counter-suits. If a man’s property is being polluted, then he has an ethical right to put a stop to it. But that doesn’t mean that that is the course he will take. He might accept compensation of some kind, or possibly pause to consider that he himself is also polluting and might just as well leave dead dogs to lie.

Nontheless all you are doing is raising the bar to the amount of pollution that the least polluting member of society does. If say there is one person that wants to return to the age of hand tools and camp fires he probably won’t sue over his neighbors camp fire or breathing but he will over their car.

@Liberal

You have not yet established that they would suffer. But even if the 1 were successful in stopping production from the plant, you could make the case that the 999,999 have benefited by not having toxins dumped in their water.

I didn’t realize that I needed to establish that industry is beneficial to humanity. I thought it was patently obvious that industry has extended the average life and increased the pleasure of that life.

@Liberal

No, no misspeach. What sort of society would tolerate slapping around one little guy to benefit some massive number of others?

I guess the ones that don’t tolerate slapping around the vast majority to benefit a small minority.

@Liberal

The fact is that it gets more clear. People must decide whether they are willing to trade off health for industry, or indeed whether such a trade-off is necessary.

The problem again is that you can not seperate the choices of different people. If I decide its ok to pollute the air to drive my car and you decide that its not we both cannot have our way. If I drive my car it pollutes my air just as much as it pollutes yours.

@Liberal

It seems to me that such issues give whole armies of entrepreneurs incentive to invent and market cleaner systems of production. The reason why it is better to let people decide these things for themselves is that it might be more tolerable to some people than others. A man with a severe allergy will be able to seek out neighbors who share his own high intolerance, and thereby settle in a neighborhood where no industrial toxin is allowed, while some other man with a high tolerance might buy a home beside a factory, and enjoy the low mortgage. What you have yet to show is why it should be you or some other central planner who decides these things for everyone.

I was unaware that this solution wasn’t a possibility in our current society. Although it runs into the same problem again, you can not seperate the enviroment into individual little parcels. Smog formed in the factories of SE Asia travels across the Pacific and affects California. Pollutants dumped into a small tributary of the Mississippi travels all the way down to New Orleans. According to you if a single citizen of a town down stream of the pollution, no matter how many others find the pollution acceptable, can sue to stop the pollution from happening.

[Liberal]

@slaphead

As far as I am aware every human society has reserved the right to sacrifice the rights of individual members for the common good, enforcing their consent as necessary. This holds true for North Korea, the Confederacy, Sweden, New Zealand, Switzerland, and I believe for aboriginal groups wherever they occur.

For the moment, let us set aside the logical fallacy of well it’s always been that way. And let us also set aside the logical fallacy of society has rights. The questions I’ve been fielding have to do with what a libertarian society would do. Not what North Korea would do. Not what the aboriginal groups would do. And not what Jesus would do.

Much as I distrust govenment, I’m also wary of relying exclusively on the ethics and benevolence of my fellow citizens, which is also demonstrably lacking. If everything is reduced to the agreement of my fellow property owners and contracts between various parties, then I would feel somewhat exposed if they were to demonstrate nefarious intent or there turned out to be some circumstances which had not been foreseen in the contract. If I choose to fill my property with barrels of toxic waste, and then emigrate to Australia with my payments from Union Carbide, my neighbours could only sue me in Australia for damaging their property or breaching my contracts? There would be no autonomous government agency to prevent me doing this, or anyone to help them clean up the mess?

It seems rather strange that after just invoking how countries have always done things in order to counter one argument, you invoke the status quo again in order to bolster another. It seems as though you’re saying that we’ve always X, and so it is inconceivable that it could be done some other way, while also saying that we all do Y, and so libertarianism must do someting other than Y. Unless I’m misinformed, the US does not have jurisdiction in Australia.

And this has what relevance? It was also the argument used to free the slaves and guarantee them an improved quality of life, and was also used to draft the manpower necessary to prevent Hitler reducing the quality of life of pretty much everyone. Do you also hold hammers to be instruments of pure evil because of the number of people killed with them?

No, you’re simply wrong. It is not possible that both argument X and the opposite of argument X imply Y. If you are arguing that the minority should suffer for the majority to have a higher quality of life, then it does not follow that you are also arguing that the suffering of the minority ought to be alleviated for the majority to have a higher quality of life.

In particular cases, yes I do. I would very much appreciate the men who wish to play their car stereos at full volume at two am being coerced into turning them down since I value my sleep. I fully support the men who like buying tiger skins being coerced into not doing so since I do not wish them to be extinct. I am even in favour of people who own land in particular areas being coerced into not deveoping it in certain ways, because I enjoy the lanscape in our Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty and the quaint old-time appearance of the buildings in our Conservation Areas. Will all these things have to be sacrified or is there some other mechanism that will come into action rather than the heavy hand of government?

Perhaps this is why you are using opposites to make the same points: you and I are using coercion to mean two different things. For purposes of discussion of libertarian philosphy, coercion means the initiation of force or deception. Responsive force and deception are not coercive. If a man is doing something to hurt your eardrums, it is not coercive to stop him. Or if a man is killing your tigers, it is not coercive to stop him.

Oh good, for a moment I thought we were back in North Korea again. But by context I presume you mean the Secretary of Commerce, Chancellor of the Exchequer or whatever are the central planners of their respective areas of interest, and so on. Fair enough. But then since you originally mentioned them in a rather negative context, I take it that Libertarians don’t approve of people such as these, who set policy under a mandate of some kind. So then how does one decide on an appropriate level of taxation, the suplhur content of vehicle fuel, the content of educational tests and so on? Surely one would have to either revert back to central edicts, or else everything would have to be done by consensus, which would severely limit the size of the society which could function?

Again, what is being asked of me is to explain libertarianism. Libertarianism does not begin with such considerations as what would make society more efficient, or what would make the most people happy, or what would need to be done to your liberty to increase my own. Libertarianism begins with the principle of noncoercion, and uses that as the means to determine ethical governance. Whatever becomes of the society is merely an end to the means, which are not justified by the end. Thus, a libertarian society would indeed engage in planning with a critical difference — the plans must compete with one another: no one can force another man to adhere to his own prefered plan. That way, a child in rural Wyoming may take courses in agricultural science while a child in South Central Los Angeles does not have to.

Fair enough

Well, is it fair enough or isn’t it? How can it be fair enough that a libertarian society’s laws are based on noncoerion while at the same time it is unfair or unworkable that its laws are based on noncoercion. If the only point of this exercize is to see how much we can type, then doubtless there is more productive things we both could be doing. If all we are going to do is argue with one another no matter what the other says, then neither of us is learning anything or really benefiting in any way. If the point that I made was “fair enough”, then all the other points, which follow from the same principle, ought to be equally “fair enough”. Libertarianism does not ask you to accept any mandate about how you should live your life other than not treading on someone else’s. Why is it fair that I not impose my plan on you, but you may impose your plan on me?

Ah. So in a Libertarian country, any random person could say ‘I don’t wish to be part of this country’ and they and their property would cease to be included and could instead join any other country which would have them, or indeed form their own? That does sound rather radically different from most current systems (although Norway and Czech/Hungary have actually done something similar). Wouldn’t it prove a rather neat way of ducking out of one’s responsibilities as a citizen?

If one has contracted to be governed, then abrogating one’s responsibilities would be breach — a coercion. However, if one has not given his consent to be governed, then how may a government legitimately claim authority over him? According to America’s founders, “…to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed.” [Emphais mine]

This man would presumably be a member of Homo Economicus, famed for his perfect information, rational decision-making and ability to balance the short and the long run, and also able to afford whatever premium is necessary for the neighbourhood that has not been polluted to uninhabitability by this or previous generations? Someone thinks it’s OK for his property to be saturated with Dioxin, since he doesn’t live there anyway but wants some cash, and thats just dandy because he consented, even though the land is now unuseable for generations?

Your a bit too late for condescending humor about Homo Thisorthat. Your own Homo Governers has already buried and stored or authorized the burial and storage of deadly contaminants and radioactive waste with half-lives of tens of thousand of years, creating cancer clusters, destroying property values, and relocating populations. You can Google for more details on these. (I believe Canada has had some problems as well.)

Erm, any society made up of humans, frankly. That’s some pair of rose-tinted specs you have there.

Look, you’re asking the questions, and I’m answering them. I could just as well waste your time by responding to your questions by saying you have a rosy outlook, ignoring what your own governers are doing that violates the very things you protest. But I’m not here to fight you; I’m here to answer your questions about libertarianism.

You could always try the old ‘shouting FIRE in a crowded theatre’ routine to test this. If you make it really convincing, you will probably find afterwards that your fellow citizens will use exactly that method to convince you it is a really bad idea to cause false alarms. QED.

I don’t know what that has to do with anything. I’ve got to be away for some time because of work. All the best to you in your quest for knowledge and understanding.

[Frank]

@Liberal

On the front page of this thread is a list of selected references to discussions of libertarianism compiled by you, which you have copied and pasted in various threads before. Now, it would seem, others are lifting your work and pasting it around as well. Your last entry is labelled “Lib hijack”.

I posted that as a response to John Mace’s informing the OP he should join and search. Although from a Pit thread, it is a handy compendium of Libertarian conversations/debates, and I did not feel that it was appropriate for me to edit it since, as noted, it is not my work.

If it was inappropriate for me to post it, I am certain that either Dewey or a moderator will object. You, of course, may maintain ownership of whatever feelings you have about it.

[Dewey_Cheatem_Undhow]

@Liberal

On the front page of this thread is a list of selected references to discussions of libertarianism compiled by you, which you have copied and pasted in various threads before. Now, it would seem, others are lifting your work and pasting it around as well. Your last entry is labelled “Lib hijack”. Why you would see fit to claim that you hold someone in esteem whom you have called a hijacker is unclear. Perhaps whether something is or is not a hijack is a matter of subjective interpretation, and perhaps when we hold people in esteem, we tend to give them the benefit of the doubt. I eagerly await your explanation of how you meant that only in the most complementary way.

I meant it only in a descriptive way. The thread started as a bitchfest about John Stossel and took a sudden right turn into libertarianism, prompted by your brief statement that there should be a law against fraud and coercion. What is that, if not a hijack? And it’s hardly a sin: every regular poster here has probably, at one time or another, diverted the topic from that proffered by the OP.

At any rate, this is the first I’m hearing from you that you object to the label on that particular entry. I’ll happily modify it to read simply “hijack” if that will soothe your frayed nerves. I’ll also listen to suggestions for alternative labels. Of course, I can’t change what has already been posted, so such changes will of necessity be prospective in nature.

@Liberal

Is this matter not already discussed in one of your referenced threads? If so, perhaps you can review it. If not, perhaps you will consider joining the topics already under discussion here, such as vaccinations. You wouldn’t want anyone to think you’re taking the discussion off-track, would you?

I don’t believe it has been discussed in any of the referenced threads, and I think others are managing the vaccination question quite well. Since this thread is about libertarianism generally, I do not think my question out of bounds. I honestly don’t see why you are so reluctant to discuss a fairly straightforward question about the application of your philosophy.

[Liberal]

@Dewey Cheatem Undhow

I meant it only in a descriptive way.

Well, that’s good to hear. I was concerned that you might have meant it pejoratively. English is such a rich language, and has so many synonyms with nuances both tiny and bold. I suppose that in that sense, I should count my blessings. Certainly, the term “hijack” as a descriptor is at least slightly preferable to say, “thread whore”. I reckon that either term would convey the description of “side discussion”. Of course, so would the term “side discussion”. At any rate, I had expected to be regaled by the rationalization of your choice, and you certainly didn’t disappoint. Let me congratulate you on your brutishness and bullying, by which I merely mean to describe your boldness and perseverance.

The thread started as a bitchfest about John Stossel and took a sudden right turn into libertarianism, prompted by your brief statement that there should be a law against fraud and coercion. What is that, if not a hijack? And it’s hardly a sin: every regular poster here has probably, at one time or another, diverted the topic from that proffered by the OP.

At any rate, this is the first I’m hearing from you that you object to the label on that particular entry. I’ll happily modify it to read simply “hijack” if that will soothe your frayed nerves. I’ll also listen to suggestions for alternative labels. Of course, I can’t change what has already been posted, so such changes will of necessity be prospective in nature.

I don’t believe it has been discussed in any of the referenced threads, and I think others are managing the vaccination question quite well. Since this thread is about libertarianism generally, I do not think my question out of bounds. I honestly don’t see why you are so reluctant to discuss a fairly straightforward question about the application of your philosophy.
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