There’s no way of stopping the arsonist except by compelling him to comply with a law he doesn’t agree with. And if you compel him to comply with a law he doesn’t agree with, you’re no longer living in a libertarian system.
Don’t try and weasel around this by claiming that some laws are actually ethical principles and should apply universally. If you’re enforcing your ethical principles on others they’re laws. And if you have a system where people are forced to comply with laws or ethical principles they don’t agree with, you’re running a majoritarian system not a libertarian one.
You aren’t compelling him to comply with a law; you’re compelling him to stop damaging your property. Only a fool would think in terms of, “Hmm… the gentleman is in violation of a proscription, and therefore must be stopped.” The line of thought is, “Hey, this fucker is burning my house down! Stop him!” He hasn’t violated a proscription; he has violated your rights. It is YOU, and not the scribbles on paper, who determines that his action is coercive. You may, if you wish, allow him to burn your house down. For all I know, you hired him to do it. But if he is uninvited, then you are entitled by ethical principle to use whatever force is necessary to stop him whether any law is written down or not.
Nonsense. Libertarianism is all about force. It is even defined on the basis of force — specifically, force in response to other force. If Majoritaria were to enact the NP, it would instantly invalidate most if not all of its other laws. Libertarian government is not about enforcing laws; it is about securing rights. It is your protector. It is not concerned with what laws the arsonist likes or doesn’t like. It is concerned with protecting your property.
Of course, you can reach whatever result you want by simply conveniently defining when a particular act represents “initial force.” Is keeping a pig farm whose noxious odors waft over neighboring property – but which does not cause actual environmental damage – an “initial force”?
What if I play my stereo really, really loud, annoying my neighbors? Does it make any difference if I play my stereo at 8 pm on a Friday night versus 2 am on a Tuesday night? If so, how do you draw such distinctions based solely on your basic “initial force” principal? Or are we doomed in Libertaria to having no loud parties if said parties annoy anyone, anywhere due to noise?
I think 1 and 2 are presumed based on the language and examples chosen – they paint a picture of a monolithic majority and minority, and of decisions with binary choices. That is, I see it as more a point of rhetoric than substance – the rhetoric chosen paints a misleading picture of how majoritarianism works in practice.
Number 3, on the other hand, I think is clearly presumed by Lib’s posts when he says, basically, that it would be insane for a minority to sign on to a majoritarian government. That point appears to contemplate the majority inevitably steamrolling the minority whenever there is a conflict. And that clearly isn’t historically the case.
I take it by your post that you agree Lib’s post presumes point 4.
Give it up, Lib, you’re not going to make people stop responding to your claims about libertarianism by ending every post where you talk about it with a reminder that the rest of us are supposed to. None of us consented to that rule, so we’re not going to be co-erced into obeying it.
So in response to your post, I’ll ask who defined pollution as an “initial force” that justified coercive force. I’ve said that A doesn’t agree to that definition, so you appear to be focring him to submit to a rule he did not consent to. Admit it, Lib, what you’re calling libertariansim is just your own personal version of majoritarianism.
Only one of you, so far as I can see, is refusing to stay on-topic. And frankly, I have no comment to make directly to you about it.
Nonsense. B is ethically justified, based on the NP, in protecting his rights against A or against a thousand million A’s. The notion of a majority is irrelevant. Merely because you cannot voice an ethical justification for mob rule, you apparently believe that you can mitigate your failure by attacking my own inoffensive philosophy. Yours is the weakest conceivable argument.
This is plain goofy. The ethical justification for majoritarianism (and I note that, for someone who’s so sensitive about others calling your system “Libertopia”, you sure like to heap pejoratives like “mob rule” onto systems you dislike) is that it just works better than the alternatives.
It’s been said over and over, but I’ll quote Sir Winston again: “Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.”
No one in here is saying majoritarianism is great in a metaphysical sense. They’re just saying its better than the other options. And to make that argument, you have to compare it to those other options – including your own “inoffensive philosophy,” which becomes less inoffensive with every real-world situation it tries to handle.
Let me try this again. The conflict of wills is already there. If you want a river dammed, to smoke crack on your property, to raise pigs on your farm or dump waste in the river and I want an undammed river, a neighborhood free of hopped up druggies, a clean smelling piece of property and an unpolluted river our wills are in conflict. It does not matter that we live under a majortarian, totalitarian, libertarian or any ‘ian’ government you want to choose they are in conflict. Just becuase each conflict results in the majority imposing their will does not mean that the majority imposing their will causes the conflicts. In fact there are times in which the minority will is imposed on the majority.
Just becuase we only see stars at night does not mean that they are created at night nor do they disappear during the day.
Please if Majoritarianism is mob rule then Libertarianism is rule by the rich minority.
If it is justifiable by the noncoercion principle to stop a farm from emitting a foul odor becuase it damages my property’s value why is it not ethical for me to stop you from smoking crack on your property? Certainly having a bunch of hopped up druggies looking for their next fix next door is much more damaging then some pig smell.
The only thing that your system seems to change is that your entire legal code is 8 words and what is defined as a crime is at the whim of an arbiter. The arbiter isn’t just the judge, jury and executioner he is also the legislature, police and military rolled into one.
Under your system it is perfectly acceptable to send an army half way across the world, kidnap somebody and to sentance him into slavery without any access to legal assistance, protection from torture, or frankly any knowledge of what legal system he is being tried under. There is no standard at all for what level of proof is necessary to convict, what evidence is admissable or for anything at all. Under majoritarianism you have a say in all of the cases above, they are written down so you know exactly what the law is and there are built in protections into the system. Yet somehow you think this system is ethically much better.
You somehow think that all force taken by Libertaria will be responsive force which is simply not the case. Until the accused is proven guilty each and every force that is used against him is coercive. All you say you ask for is to be able to live under a government of your chosing while a tenent of the government you choose is imposing itself on people that don’t choose it. That my friend is the height of hypocracy.
We’ve been over this already. A mere wish is not a will in the philosophical sense. Do you think Nietszche was writing of a wistful daydream about power? People always want different things, but their wills do not conflict until one of them imposes his will on another. Such an imposition implies that there has been an exercise of will. And why the hell should your vision of what the neighborhood should be restrict the will of other men who have a different vision? Majoritarianism holds that you may impose your will so long as you muster sufficient allies who, in all likelihood, will have demands of their own. What comes out of your committee is one hell of a giant lung, but no vaccine for Polio.
Nor can a majority vote make them appear or disappear. So what?
Nonsense. Even the richest citizen may not initiate force or deception against you. Perhaps your definition of “rich” is as odd as your definition of “will”.
You have me confused with someone else. I never said such a thing. Besides, it is a terrible example for you to use, considering that your majoritarian system allows pig farms and toxic waste dumps to go up right beside anyone who lacks the political clout to stop them.
He is your proxy. He does on your behalf what you would do if you had the force at hand.
I told you directly that you may not torture anyone for any reason. And if you think you know the millions of laws, regulations, decrees, directives, and executive orders on the books, you are delusional. Even lawyers don’t know them all. On top of this, your system holds even the least educated among you responsible to know them — ignorance of the law is no excuse. And besides, any one of the millions of laws can change without notice, or be interpreted in some way you hadn’t even conceived. Even obsolete laws are still on the books. That’s why Indiana says you cannot burn a flag despite that the Supreme Court says you can. The mud you are slinging comes from your own house.
Nonsense. Are you saying that you cannot stop the arm of a man in mid-stab just because a jury has not found him guilty of trying to mug you? You are ethically bound to hand over money when he says, “Your money or your life,” just because a third ear has not yet heard his plea? That is ethical insanity.
All of the hypothetical horror stories that you can make up about Libertaria and many more besides are already occurring on a daily basis in America on a mind-boggling scale: homeless people dying in the streets, toxic waste dumps leeching poison onto people’s property, crack addicts taking over neighborhoods, corrupt cops and judges, malnourished children from Appalachian shanties to inner-city hovels — to hold this up as superior to the alternative of peaceful honest people pursuing their own happiness in their own way seems to me to be the height of hypocrisy.
I am afraid you are going to have to define ‘will’ for me. I am sitting here thinking it is ‘desire for a certain course of action’.
Nonsense yourself. You said it yourself Libertaria has no concern for the rights of those not their citizens. Gather your rich buddies together and build the best army in the world and you can go around coercing anyone you want.
Perhaps we have our analogies mixed up.
Sure the arbiter can. What can a non-citizen do? He cannot go to another arbiter and sue me becuase Libertaria does not care about his rights. The only thing he can do is go and complain to his government and if his government isn’t strong enough to invade yours well thems the breaks.
Sure nobody knows them all but if I want to do act A I can go and look up if act A is legal or not. If I am accused of Act A I can go and look up what the definition is and defend myself accordingly. I can look at judicial rulings and laws to see what evidence can be used against me and what rights I have during the proceeding. For example if I want to build a factory I know I can put out X amount of pollution per yer. In Libertaria I can put out as much pollution as an arbiter tells me I can. Except that the amount might vary wildly across arbiters and that is no garuntee another arbiter will come up with a different value.
Sure I might be ignorant of every law but at least there is a law somewhere written down that I can remove my ignorance of. I cannot do that in Libertaria.
I am certain there is notice given of change in laws. If not I can always check my legislatures meeting notes and read the text of the new law. All laws are on public record and I can find any current law I wish. As opposed them to not existing at all.
Indiana’s law is unconstitutional and there is absolutely no way I can be punished for burning a flag.
Yet somehow you think these will all go away by removing all of the safeguards of the government. I notice you are fond of pointing out the problems of our government despite all of the safeguards against them. Yet you also seem to think concentrating the ability to go to war, determine what is in breach of the law, determine what level of proof is required, convict people and sentence them won’t cause any problems cuz heck they can sue them if they get wronged.
Interesting I did not realize you could stab a country or threaten its life.
I frankly thought it was pretty clear I wasn’t referring to defensive actions rather those taken to bring an accused person into custody.
You also failed to justify ethically why you are able to damage my property by actions on yours. If you have a brick and are poised to throw it through my window it is ethically acceptable for me to stop you. If I fail to stop you it is also ethical to force you to pay the hundred dollars it will take to replace. If you fornicate a pig on your front lawn while I am trying to sell my house you could reduce the value by tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars. You are causing a huge amount of damage to me in the form of a reduced property value. Why exactly is it not ethical for me to stop you from fornicating a pig in plainview or for forcing you to pay for the lost value of my house?
Lib, judging by your recent responses, it appears I may have pushed you too far into the corner. Which I regret, because while I find you trying on this one topic, I generally like your posts and have no wish to alienate you. So, once again, I’m bowing out of a libertarian thread. Make of this what you will. I look forward to discussing other topics like the new season of Survivor with you.
Not that it’s important, but if I may just answer - “black Jewish lesbian conservative”? The (charged rhetorical) example refers to multiple minority traits along orthogonal axes and in controversial combinations - exactly realizing that minority is neither binary nor monolithic. Furthermore the example refers to historic instances of oppression - illustrating the risk that majorities can on occasion be venal, not a presumption that they’re always so. I didn’t mention item 4 because I didn’t see that item accusing anybody of presuming anything.
I’ll come out and say I did. The question of what constitutes initial force (pollution? smell? landscape eyesore?) is actually a valid and interesting one but I will respect Lib’s wish to not discuss it in this thread (I think as a historical fact the interpretation is not constant across ages).
Lemme try to continue this discussion, building on what I said earlier. You know how statesmen are often lauded for creating/preserving the “unity of the country”. In this thinking, it is apparently seen as a virtue to force disparate groups (example: Indonesia) into some majoritarian structure to work out the conflicts thus created. (I would say this particular case supports Lib’s assertion that the conflict of wills is indeed “created”). I don’t think majorianism is always incidental to this process. (As when dictators force unity to enhance their own power.) That is, the ethical driver is to let the different groups duke it out and arrive at a union that is greater than the sum of its parts. In other words, majoritarianism reduces the diversity in wills and creates advantages of synergy - when both are seen as virtues.
Okay. Maybe we should have discussed this earlier on. Will, like most words, has many definitions, depending on the context of discussion. I suppose it is no surprise that we fail to communicate if you use the word one way, and I use it another. Let’s see whether we can agree first on a definition, and then see whether that brings us into agreement on the issues.
I am using will in the philosophical sense, since we are discussing ethics. In philosophy, will is generally defined as the quality that produces conscious and intended actions. Keyword: produces. Without any manifestation, there is no will. Descartes said man has free will. Schopenhauer said that reality is will. Nietzsche said that will is power. Mises said that will is praxis, a free and volitional action or inaction. All were using will in the philosphical sense.
There is a conflict of wills when one will is imposed upon another. In other words, when one man acts (or fails to act) deliberately, and with the freedom to choose, then if his will interferes in the will of some other man, the wills have collided. Majoritarianism creates exactly this circumstance by authorizing the majority to act freely and volitionally even against the will of the minority. With majoritarianism, this effectively happens every time a vote is taken. With a dictatorship, it effectively happens every time the dictator makes a decress. They only way this cannot happen is in the event of a statistical miracle; that is, all parties are in complete agreement with the edict or law.
Volunteerism, by its very nature, cannot produce a conflict of will, except in a case where the will is to impose.
History is replete with ragtag armies defeating great and mighty powers. America itself began that way. You have no logical or historical basis upon which to make that assertion.
Perhaps we do.
But that was his free choice. He chose the government that he felt best ensures his safety and happiness. How is it that he should now complain, “Hey, no fair! The government you chose is better!”?
You think you can? One would think that a field swarming with doctorates in jurisprudence might be daunting for the average Joe. I don’t know whether you’re a lawyer or not, but if you’re not, you might find yourself in the unfortunate position of a stockholder in LensCrafters, which is advertising in Sacremento and suddenly finds itself in violation of Business and Professions Code sections 655 and 2556. Or Pearle Vision, in violation of 3040 and 3128. But… Are these companies protected by the California Knox-Keene Health Care Service Plan Act of 1975? Do these statutes conflict? If teams of lawyers from both sides are pouring through code books and case law to determine whether or not they will gain or lose whole fortunes, how is it that you can just go look something up and have the confidence of your convictions?
Nonsense. The law is written down, and it is easy to learn. You’ve already memorized it and have stated it several times.
What are the laws, regulations, executive orders, statutes, and ordinances that were made last week?
Oh? Then you would be treated differently from David Stout, who was arrested in Indiana September 30, 2001, and charged with flag desecration and resisting law enforcement. (Cite.) I suppose that with sufficient legal fees and time, he can get around the flag burning, but he’s still stuck with resisting (which consisted of declaring that he had a right to burn his flag). And as I said already, the laws are to benefit government, not its citizens, and can be applied however government sees fit. That’s why two men were arrested in Ashland, Oregon for burning a flag on April 12, 2003. The formal charges were disorderly conduct, endangering other people, reckless burning and criminal mischief. (Ibid.) Who needs a flag burning statue anway?
You misrepresent my position when you say that I advocate removing all the safeguards of government. I am in fact pleading for the establishment of the very safeguard that presently does not exist, the most important one — namely, the guaranteed security of peoples’ rights and property. You, as an individual, are entitled to zero protection from your government. In the case of Warren v. District of Columbia, 444 A.2d 1 (D.C. Ct. of Ap., 1981), three women were “held captive, raped, robbed, beaten, forced to commit sexual acts upon each other, and made to submit to the sexual demands of their attackers”. Their repeated calls to police went unanswered. The court determined that it is a “fundamental principle of American law that a government and its agents are under no general duty to provide public services, such as police protection, to any individual citizen”. Other cases, like DeShaney v. Winnebago County Department of Social Services, (109 S.Ct. 998 (1989) at 1006), and Zinermon v. Burch (110 S.Ct. 975, 984 1990) gave similar findings. And in some states, you can’t even bring the action to start with, as with California’s Government Code, Sections 821, 845, and 846, which includes this notice: "Neither a public entity or a public employee [may be sued] for failure to provide adequate police protection or service, failure to prevent the commission of crimes and failure to apprehend criminals.’’
If you get to hypostatize entities, then so do I. If you won’t, I won’t.
Retaliatory force is responsive as well. If a man has just robbed you, you are entitled to chase him down and retrieve your property, using whatever force is necessary. If you chase down the wrong man, then that is your problem.
Do you own the view? If you and your neighbors are so concerned about your property values, then it would behoove you to from a cooperative coalition of homeowners. Build fences and plant trees around his property. Deny him access to your roads. Refuse him the conveniences of society until he learns how to behave. Meanwhile, you have skirted the very issue raised in the OP: namely, that in a majoritarian system, your whole neighborhood — including yourself — could be forced to fuck pigs in your yards.
So, ultimately, the only sensible factor for a person choosing a government in a libertarian world is the raw power of that government. Nothing else matters, does it?
LensCrafters, Pearle Vision and others like them should have counsel (either in-house or at a firm) who investigate the local regulations governing any proposed store opening, just as they will have businesspeople who investigate whether a given site will be profitable, or just as a real estate developer will hire engineers to determine if a given site is suitable for whatever building they wish to construct. It’s called due diligence. Obviously, they fucked up in this instance.
The problem is, that brief formulation doesn’t tell us much about how it gets applied to given fact patterns. “Initial force” is in many cases in the eye of the beholder.
Name a jurisdiction. If you want federal stuff, you can simply glance at the federal register.
The state is acting unconstitutionally in this instance (assuming no additional facts). Mr. Stout should sue the state of Indiana in federal court for violating his civil rights.
At any rate, isn’t that functionally exactly the same remedy that Libertaria provides when a person infringes on another’s rights? Arbitration and money damages? I assume that police and prosecutors in a freely-contracted Libertaria will fuck up occassionally, too.
You have no details on this case. The police according to your cite claim that the men were burning the flag at a protest and that the fire had become dangerous to the other protestors. That may or may not be true, but you certainly don’t have enough facts at your fingertips to make that determination. If it is true – if, say, the guys were swinging a large burning flag around in a way that it might hurt nearby fellow protestors – then there’s nothing wrong with that particular arrest at all.
Both of those cases, and others like it, simply recognize the fact that the police cannot be everywhere at once.
I note that this would be no different in Libertaria, because no entity providing police protection would do so without an express waiver of liability in their contract.
Let me tell you, Lib, if you think Libertaria will do away with lawyers, you’re wrong – I’d thrive; I’m not a trial lawyer, but a transactional lawyer. I draft contracts for a living. And you’d better believe that such waivers would quickly become standard issue for libertarian police entities, because they will consult with people like me in drafting their service contracts.
Wow, is this ever a recipe for abuse. Couldn’t this be coercive force itself? What if this was in the rural bible belt, and the reason for cutting the guy off was because he was gay?
For the umpteenth time, no one is arguing for a pure majoritarian state. Everyone recognizes that majoritarian systems need safeguards. Why this continues to escape you is quite puzzling.
I don’t know why you keep on repeating this when it simply is not true. Libertaria will produce a conflict of wills (by your definition) each time it imposes itself on a non citizen.
I don’t? Why exactly were the British in control of the Americas? It is becuase they were the superior military force defeating the indigenous population, France and Spain for supremecy.
History has many more examples of the superior force winning the war. Empires are not made with a weak military.
And I am pretty sure its you.
Becuase might does not make right.
Sure I can. If I were the owner of Pearle Vision or LensCrafters I would have hired better lawyers to research all of the laws.
Like I’ve said a million times those 8 words don’t tell me anything. How would LensCrafters or Pearle Vision have known that their actions were illegal? They have no binding precedent to look at. In fact even if there are 15 rulings supporting what they did there is no garuntee that the 16th won’t sentence them all into slavery for that act.
And as Dewey said when he sues the government he has a slam dunk case. Isn’t this exactly what would happen in Libertaria? Man is wronged and Man sues the government.
From your own little blurb “The men were charged with disorderly conduct, endangering other people, reckless burning and criminal mischief.” Seems about right for burning something in the middle of a rally.
Gee I wonder why you didn’t quote the next line “The duty to provide public services is owed to the public at large, and, absent a special relationship between the police and an individual, no specific legal duty exists.” You will of course by taking 30 seconds and reading as much as I did that the police did in fact respond to the call but a mistake was made in the communication. You will also notice that the statement “Their repeated calls went unanswered” is a falsehood. There were two calls made to 911 both answered and one was investigated with the officer knocking on the door.
You really think that any Libertarian government will take on that responsibility of protecting each individual citizen? That is a recipie for bankrupting your country real quick. It is impossible to protect every individual citizen as you surely know from your careful analysis of the cases you are citing.
What about the situation when you don’t know for certain that the person is guilty? Who is initiating the force when Libertaria knocks down his door and points a gun at his face?
If you are so concerned about your window wouldn’t it behoove you to build a fence around your property?
That issue has been addressed already. Namely that it certainly is a weakness of a majoritarian system that is why every majoritarian system builds in protections for the minority.
I am afraid you are the one skirting the issues. You did not even attempt to ethically justify why it is ok for me to damage your property by actions on mine.
By the way you should really take Dewey off of your ignore list he has made some excellent posts in this thread.
