Libertarians and the Noncoercion Principle

Great Debates
81

TECHCHICK – These are not my definitions; they are yours (or, rather, Libertarianism’s). If we define “coercion” as “the initial use of force,” then no infringement upon the right of another without force can be considered a “coercion” under that definition. If we consider “the only right” to be “the right to be free of coercion,” then no infringement on property not involving force could be considered a violation of your right – because the only right you have is the right to be coerced and no one has coerced you to do anything.

My point is that I think these definitions are over-simplistic, to the point that they are really not defensible. So let’s chuck them and go back to my earlier question: If we can agree that infringement upon another’s property right is actionable (meaning you have the right to make the squatters leave), who decides what degree of force is acceptable in any given situation? If someone shoves me, can I shove them back? Can I punch them? Can I shoot them? Regardless of whether your answer is “yes” or “no,” who decides?

Jodi

Fiat Justitia

82

TECHCHICK – Your anecdote about the system failing the guy doesn’t really advance your cause. If the dispatcher gave the police the wrong address, for example, the police could have had all the “probable cause” in the world and they still would have gone to the wrong house. That’s not a system failure; that’s a tragic mistake. It would seem to me self-evident that the solution would be to institute safeguards to make sure such mistakes do not happen, not use the incident as an excuse to disband the police. Would it make a difference to you if they were hunting a multiple child murderer, but they went to the wrong house, saw a guy brandishing a gun, and he was killed?

Jodi

Fiat Justitia

83

meara you said “On a more personal note:…”

Exactly, you are saying pretty dang much what the Libertarians believe.

Each person will have their responsiblities to protect and be a community, this I believe is a part of the human spirit. The Libertarians see that this “community” has been taken from the people and forced by the government. People will come to the aid of their neighbors rather than shun them.

I ask each of you that continue to pick apart piece by piece and look at the system as it exists today.

We are not a community but merely members of a city or town when the government forces us into forced “charity.” Charity can work but personally I don’t want my money going towards things I disagree with. If I had more cash in my pocket I would donate to those causes I feel are most along the lines of my beliefs, not someone elses.

When I have money and those that are closest to me are in need I am not one to hold back my cash, I have given over $2,000 to a friend of mine with no strings attached (she was pretty destitute and refused public assistance.) When I am as broke as the welfare chick on the south side of town, I buck it up and cut back on my lifestyle. I have never recieved a hand-out, except when I was 15 and my mother died (actually only started close to the end of my 16th year) I recieved a $70.00 check from the social security admin. till I was 18.

84

Jodih, let’s throw morals out the window for a moment.

If the average person would rather go to Disneyland than pay for a poor person’s medical care, why force him to do otherwise? If the majority of people would not freely give to a cause on their own, why are we forcing the issue collectively? If what you say is true, democracy is being thwarted to serve somebody’s moral agenda.

In other words, if the average person doesn’t give a damn about the poor, why does the government “of the people” care so much?

Is your point that the average person cares, but thinks he can get away with not giving because all his neighbors do? If he really does care, wouldn’t that reasoning break down the first time he saw one of those charities go underfunded. If he really doesn’t care, then why force him?

85

Or maybe the “average person” really doesn’t have to be so average. Maybe we can all live our lives according to our own moral standards.

86

You know, I started thinking about a lot of the comments on this thread and your comments are disturbing.

Essentially, from what I can see, many of you have little or no faith in your neighbors or even your friends.

Also, personal responsiblity is a very large part of what Libertarianism is all about. You don’t have to be a God-fearing Christian, in fact you can be an atheist. But the average person is good and doesn’t commit violent acts.

Barring certain circumstances, can you mention at least three of your neighbors in your area? Do you hole yourself up in your houses fearing them? No, not because the government “protects” you but because they are essentially nice and responsible people. The government didn’t make them that way, their parents and their good sense makes them that way.

If you have no faith and no understanding that most people are good even if they have problems, then NO Libertarianism is not for you.

If you value your freedom, understand that there are a few people that will act irresponsibly in which there are Constitutional laws that protect you, and act responsibly on your own, realize that most people make some mistakes and are mostly responsible then I suggest you look into something other than Republicans or Democrats. It may not be Libertarianism that strikes a cord for you.

It’s not a matter that you agree or disagree with me, it’s what you feel in your hearts and what you want to see change for the greater good. I happen to believe that Libertarianism is the way to go.

I hate to sit back and have Lib go through through the same arguement over and over and over. I realize his beliefs are closer to mine than most of you, but he will defend his beliefs and several threads in here are geared towards Libertarianism…I see little if any debate over what is wrong with the government as it is being run now. Just a focus on the philosophy behind Libertarianism.

So here I ask of you all, maybe I will start a thread of my own, “What changes in the current system of government would YOU like to see happen?”

87

Goddammit this is frustrating!

I’ve wasted my whole day trying to figure out one point.

I will state it as clearly as I can without any examples and if anybody answers it, fine. If nobody cares too, fine.

Just no hedging, spit it out.

There is an inherent contradiction in Libertarianism. It seems like a worthy a philosophy for an individual to follow, but breaks down immediately when applied to a group, or society.

That contradiction is this.

You can’t have a society without laws, and you can’t have laws without restricting freedom, since compliance must be enforced for the laws to have weight.

If your restricting freedom your engaging in coercive activity, which is fundamentally against the Libertarian principle.

I cannot envision a society founded on such an inherent contradiction.

Coercian is a fact of life. Everybody who has any interactions with others coerces and is coerced.

If it’s a question of degree (which nobody has suggested,) then where do you draw the Goddamn line.

Where do one person’s valid personal freedoms become overruled by the greater good or convenience of the rest of society? Or do they?

Heres that example I promised I wouldn’t use:

In my tresspasser situation I’m just trying to get that line drawn. Nobody wants to admit it’s there.

If I am my own keeper, can I enforce my right to protect self and property as I see fit, against those that violate it?

If I can, we have arbitrary nations around each person’s personal property, a kind of modern feudalism where nobody dares intereact with another for fear of a fatal misstep. That’s not society.

If I can’t, and must follow a protocol with the force of law, than society has coerced me and reduced my personal freedom for the greater good. If we’re going to do that than eminent domain, taxation, commerce laws, and all the rest are implied.

In a libertarian society, does individual freedom supercede the welfare of society or vice-versa?

If it’s the former, it might as well be anarchy. If it’s the latter, than what makes it even minutely different form our current form of Government?

Poor Bricker, look what we wrought with his thread. I don’t think his question was answered either.

88

jodih:

That statement suggests anarchy. It’s that simple. Libertarians would view this as wrong. If a man raped me, I am therefore coerced, if a cop (or my SO) came across the scene then he has every right to take it upon himself to end the rape with whatever means necessary. In no uncertain terms do Libertarians think that violent acts such as this are considered something that force can not be initiated.

The freedom works within the confines of natural law. I am free to express, pursue happiness, etc. provided I don’t infringe upon the rights of another to do the same. We aren’t talking my taking your right away from having the closest parking space at the grocery store, I am talking the ability to live a life that runs under the confines of The Constitution.

I have no duty to you, nor does the government to ensure you live in a house, have a car etc…You have that responsibility to yourself. I have responsibility to ensure that I don’t park my car in your driveway. If you get pissed at me and ask me to move my car and I refuse I have then committed trespass. You therefore have the right to contact me directly or contact the proper authorities to either contact me or have my car removed.

Sidenote:

If there is a dead horse around here, please let me know so I can gather up Lib and beat the hell out of it.

89

Scylla, I, for one, never said there couldn’t be any laws or the coercion necessary to enforce them. I believe in prohibitions against at least the following:

  1. Murder
  2. Assault
  3. Theft
  4. Tresspass

I also believe in a police force with the power to enforce them. I wouldn’t even mind so much if I was told that I had to pay an amount of money relative to the amount of property I own in order to support that police force, though I would prefer that it be privately run.

In your trespass case, I would see things work exactly as they’d work today. You would not be free to use deadly force to defend property, but you would be free to use deadly force to prevent an intruder from harming yourself or your family. You have the right to evict or have evicted the intruders, as well as the right to prosecute or not prosecute them as you see fit.

How is this different from today’s system?

Well… it’s a lot smaller. Notice I wasn’t drafting laws up there against drugs, prostitution, suicide, or any of the other “victimless crimes” that tax our current judicial system. We can also throw out the social programs that eat up most of the budget and replace them with private charities (social security, welfare, free education, medicaid, etc.).

The constitutional spirit of a Libertarian government wouldn’t be so different from today. All of the same rights would apply. Just take out all of the micro-managing and moral soapboxing and concentrate on protecting those basic rights.

90

Scylla:

Thomas Jefferson

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with inherent and inalienable rights; that among these, are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness." --Declaration of Independence as originally written by Thomas Jefferson.

What is true of every member of the society, individually, is true of them all collectively; since the rights of the whole can be no more than the sum of the rights of the individuals.

91

I was having some problems with getting back in here…anyhow I wanted to edit a statement I made:

[QUOTE]
Sidenote:

If there is a dead horse around here, please let me know so I can gather up Lib and beat the hell out of it.[/QUOTE}

Should have read:

If there is a dead horse around here, please let me know so I can gather up Lib and beat the hell out of it for most of you people.

92

Is it any wonder I average the most posts per day?

Scylla first, because he seems sincere.

Number one, no one, least of all me, has said that a libertarian society will have no laws. It must have at least one law, namely, that all its citizens are guaranteed freedom from coercion and economic fraud.

Number two, this law does not restrict freedom, but in fact secures it, at least with respect to freedom as libertarianism defines it. For us, freedom means freedom from coercion and economic fraud. It does not mean freedom to rape and pillage. That kind of “freedom” means that only the strongest and most clever are “free”. In libertarianism, those people are tyrants from which the rest of us ought to be free.

I simply, as a personal preference, would select for myself a government that enforces and arbitrates the one law because I like simplicity. I like Ockham. That one law would cover the entire matter of libertarian ethics.

Gaudere second, because she’s the goddess of Great Debates.

What do you mean by that, and what is a dust-up?

Spiritus next, because he is a friend.

I directly answered your donut question, which originally was phrased this way:

And I answered:

Need I spell out to a man of your intellect that the phrase “no rights whatsoever” includes no right to interfere with your peaceful honest purchase of property?

Now with respect to your new broader question about “the question of restrictive control of any necessary resource by an unprincipled subset of the population”, why is it that government, which itself might be (and usually is) an unprincipled subset of the population can be trusted to handle what the rest of the principled population can’t?

What exactly is it that all these principled people do while some sociopath is going about the business of buying land and terrorizing people? If he deals dishonestly or coercively, then government (good government, that is) will stop him. Otherwise, if his neighbors are that inept, then it is folly to believe that they are ept enough to elect someone to help them.

Hell, they weren’t even ept enough to select a neighbor. God help them if they start selecting their leaders.

Who else, oh yeah, jab1.

I could tie you up with a hundred questions about your Marxist views, but I won’t because you hold them honestly, and I am intelligent enough to read the Manifesto of the Communist Party for myself. So I won’t bother you.

And, of course, jodih.

[Lessee… bang my head against a wall?.. or respond to jodih?..]

Did I miss anyone?

93

Oh. Erratum.

I assume you mean this:

Where did “the common” come from?

There is no “public property” in Libertaria, so why are you asking me to apply a libertarian principle to a communist scenario? This is like asking me how libertarianism might work in the People’s Republic of China.

I guess what I would say is that the first thing that would happen is that the common would be privatized. Then, the owner(s) of the pasture will decided whose sheep may graze and how many.

If there is more than one owner, then their ownership contract ought to spell out the rules that they, as owners, all find acceptable.

94

::Gnashing Teeth::

In Libertaria, do I get to deal with the tresspassers as I see fit, by mudering them for their invasion of my property, or am I tried and forced to justify my actions?

95

Conceding that Libertarianism is the perfect form of government, I have one small question.
Does anyone have knowledge of a perfect species out there that we can sell this idea to? As far as I can tell, the system works if everyone has exactly the same ethical and legal standards, everyone is willing to observe the rights of others, and everyone can agree what those rights are. snort

96

Scylla:

Part I.

As I have explained, not here perhaps, but many times elsewhere, libertarianism is not a form of government, but merely a context in which any form of government that suits its people may be applied. So long as a government secures its citizens from coercion and economic fraud, no matter whether it is a democracy or a monarchy, it is libertarian.

Part II.

Now, you have changed your question again. You now say, “In Libertaria, do I get to deal with the trespasssers as I see fit…” Before, you had said that you opted out of the Libertarian government. (What you called police protection is merely the protection of the government — its sole function.)

In Libertaria, you may, as I said before, use whatever force you find necessary to evict them from your property. You need not “justify” your actions unless charges of coercion are brought against you.

Part III.

You may gnash your teeth if you like, but I am making a sincere effort to unload, parse, and respond to your questions.

If I were you, and I thought a man were being disingenuous with me, I would never ask him anything. Why do you think I have stopped wasting time with jodih?

97

Thank you. I did not feel that you were deliberately dodging my question. I now understand.

98

God go with you in your search for truth.

Because you have been respectful and considerate of me and my views, I will always give your questions top priority for answers.

In the meantime, if you would like to study libertarianism, I recommend the antilibertarian link provided already by Trip Fall as well as the counter arguments (literally thousands of them) that you will find at the Internet’s Portal for Libertarianism.

(That site will also link you to arguments against us. We do not fear genuine intellectual debate.)

99

Scylla:

Somehow, I messed up the link. I’ll try again.

The Internet’s Portal to Libertarianism

Note to goddess Gaudere:

If you will implement a preview feature, then verily I shall fall to my knees and believe! :slight_smile:

100

Lib - a ‘dust-up’ is roughly equivalent to a scuffle, a fight that’s lively enough to be interesting to watch, but not so heavy-duty that anyone’s likely to get seriously hurt.

With respect to the common, Erratum clearly had the military in mind. I believe that you’ve clarified this elsewhere; people who wanted a military would get together and hire one, right? Ditto police and courts?

The donut, revisited: if someone buys up all the land surrounding me, I have no right of egress across his land, correct? So if I wasn’t self-sufficient, I’d starve to death, unless he voluntarily let me through, or unless someone helicoptered me out, right? (Which brings up the question of air rights: how far up do I control the airspace over my land, in Libertaria?)