Libertarianism

[Coito ergo sum]

Anarcho-communism is one of those stateless nonsensical regimes, where there wouldn't be any "state" to take away property after a reasonable time. The idea of private property is supposed to be abolished, along with money.

It's nonsense, of course, since money isn't something that can be abolished. If you do away with federal reserve notes, for example, people will just go back to privately minted coins, or gold pieces made into little handy sized chunks. As long as money is useful, it can't be abolished.

And, private property, likewise, can't be abolished because people like to own stuff.

The anarcho-communist idea of abolishing wage-labor is downright silly. It can't be done, because people will always give something of value to someone else to help them do stuff. That's the heart of wage-labor --- you come to my house and help me build my fence, and I'll come to your house to help you farm your field. Add to that a medium of exchange (pieces of gold or silver, or whatever), and you now have wage labor.

In short, it's nonsense.

[Seth]

The point about "rights" is that they are meaningless unless they protected by some power/force/whatever.

Correct. Rights are freedoms of action that can be defended against infringement or intrusion by others. But that doesn't mean that government grants them. The basic defense of rights is always within the individual. I need no government to defend myself against you attacking me. I need only sufficient strength or defensive armament which I can use to enforce and protect that pre-existing right.

Government is merely a complex method of adjudicating and enforcing societal decisions about the hierarchy of rights in a society. It's a tool created by individuals who wish express their rights and adjudicate disputes in an organized manner without resorting to Law of the Jungle violence. Government does not grant the rights, it merely enforces them.

So you might feel legitimate in claiming that you have a natural right to life, and Jonno and I might claim that no such right exists; but without the state (or some other substitute) to protect your "right", we all end up in the same reality - that is, we don't really have a right to life.

The most fundamental protection of my right to life is my ability to defend it against your attempts to take it. That might include paying someone bigger and stronger than I am to assist me in defending that right. That is essentially what government is: the biggest, baddest security guard a society can hire to do the dirty work of defending the hierarchy of rights. But the rights continue to pre-exist and be independent of the security guard or government. They exist as a function of the individual's nature and are enforced by that individual against intrusions or infringements using a variety of methods, none of which "grant" the right in the first place. Cart follows horse.

That's the idea behind a constitution or bill of rights or whatever.

No, it's not. You have it exactly backwards. The Founders of the US Constitution viewed rights as natural, inherent, unalienable and preexisting any government and, according to their religious beliefs, granted by God, not man. They say "That to secure these rights governments are instituted among men" which clearly expresses the idea that government serves the rights, the rights do not serve government.

Now I know that this is going to set Jonno off on some bollocks (as we've been there and done this with him for years ), so we'll just have to deal with that when it comes. Essentially, the only right you can bank on in the world is "Might is right". It sucks, I know, but that doesn't change the reality. And you're far better off dealing with reality, as shitty as it might be, than living in a fantasy. And if you deconverted from Christianity at some point, then you have already had to deal with a similar issue.

Yup. Might makes right is the Law of the Jungle and is the most basic expression of rights that exists in nature and is NOT created by government. Everything else derives from that first principle as a way to mediate and adjudicate an increasingly complex set of asserted rights. Horse leads cart.

[MrJonno]

No, it's not. You have it exactly backwards. The Founders of the US Constitution viewed rights as natural, inherent, unalienable and preexisting any government and, according to their religious beliefs, granted by God, not man. They say "That to secure these rights governments are instituted among men" which clearly expresses the idea that government serves the rights, the rights do not serve government.

Spelling founder with a capital F doesn't make those 18th century savages any less wrong,

[pErvinalia]

That's the idea behind a constitution or bill of rights or whatever.

No, it's not. You have it exactly backwards. The Founders of the US Constitution viewed rights as natural, inherent, unalienable and preexisting any government and, according to their religious beliefs, granted by God, not man. They say "That to secure these rights governments are instituted among men" which clearly expresses the idea that government serves the rights, the rights do not serve government.

Constitutions and bill of rights predate the US. There are other countries in the world, you know? Anyway, the point was to support the notion of a constitution that is there to define boundaries of the state. But it's funny, I expected Jonno to go off about my reference to the constitution, not you.

Now I know that this is going to set Jonno off on some bollocks (as we've been there and done this with him for years ), so we'll just have to deal with that when it comes. Essentially, the only right you can bank on in the world is "Might is right". It sucks, I know, but that doesn't change the reality. And you're far better off dealing with reality, as shitty as it might be, than living in a fantasy. And if you deconverted from Christianity at some point, then you have already had to deal with a similar issue.

Yup. Might makes right is the Law of the Jungle and is the most basic expression of rights that exists in nature and is NOT created by government. Everything else derives from that first principle as a way to mediate and adjudicate an increasingly complex set of asserted rights. Horse leads cart.

The point is that rights are meaningless unless there is something to enforce them. As a thought experiment, let's say you believed you had a right to free beer. To translate across from your descriptions of rights, you would say that you hold this right as you can personally defend that right. But you live in a state which has decided by popular vote that no one has the right to free beer. Your personal defence of that right is meaningless as you could never match the will of the rest of the community in the defence of that right. And to be clear, I'm using this as a thought experiment, not a literal analogy that is suggesting the state could take away your right to life. Ultimately the state could through force, but with a constitution there is a legal boundary the state would have to cross, and when they did the legalities of resistance change.

[pErvinalia]

By the way, I know I said I would post some psychology experiments. But i'm away for a couple of days, so will have to put that off.

[MrJonno]

There is a psychology experiment when person 1 is given £100 and is told they can give as much as it as they want to person 2 (but only one offer). If person 2 doesn't accept what they are given neither person gets to keep any money (both people know this)

The economically rational thing to do is for person 2 to take whatever he is offered as its free money but in reality if person 2 isn't given half or near half his sense of 'fairness' will say that they would rather both people get nothing that an unfair deal

[Coito ergo sum]

No, it's not. You have it exactly backwards. The Founders of the US Constitution viewed rights as natural, inherent, unalienable and preexisting any government and, according to their religious beliefs, granted by God, not man. They say "That to secure these rights governments are instituted among men" which clearly expresses the idea that government serves the rights, the rights do not serve government.

Spelling founder with a capital F doesn't make those 18th century savages any less wrong,

A pretty good case can be made for the proposition that humanity has become more, not less, savage in the last 250 years. The Enlightenment and Age of Reason was arguably a high point in civilization.

[MrJonno]

They were an improvement of what came before and hopefully what follows us will be an improvement on us. As for the age of reason lots of bullshit obviously still around but religion is dying in the the 1st world (a lot more slowly in the US), no one seriously thinks women and those of a different colour should be treated differently today.

It's possible that in some parts of the world people have gone backwards (both Islamic fundamentalism and literal christianity are 20th century inventions)

[Seth]

No, it's not. You have it exactly backwards. The Founders of the US Constitution viewed rights as natural, inherent, unalienable and preexisting any government and, according to their religious beliefs, granted by God, not man. They say "That to secure these rights governments are instituted among men" which clearly expresses the idea that government serves the rights, the rights do not serve government.

Spelling founder with a capital F doesn't make those 18th century savages any less wrong,

It's a proper noun identifying a specific group of people instrumental in the formation of the United States, so its use is appropriate, notwithstanding your objections.

[Seth]

That's the idea behind a constitution or bill of rights or whatever.

No, it's not. You have it exactly backwards. The Founders of the US Constitution viewed rights as natural, inherent, unalienable and preexisting any government and, according to their religious beliefs, granted by God, not man. They say "That to secure these rights governments are instituted among men" which clearly expresses the idea that government serves the rights, the rights do not serve government.

Constitutions and bill of rights predate the US.

Indeed, but that's not what we're discussing.

There are other countries in the world, you know?

Who cares? The United States is the best nation that has ever existed on this planet, and so all those other cuntries may be ignored.

Anyway, the point was to support the notion of a constitution that is there to define boundaries of the state.

Indeed. Precisely. A constitution is a document that defines the boundaries and powers to be exercised by the state, which power must necessarily derive from something other than itself. Such powers do not appear from nothing merely as a consequent of being written down, they are an expression of the will of the people who choose to be ruled by that constitution, and therefore the power derives from the consent of the governed. Those powers, which are in part the organization, regulation and enforcement of rights, are acting upon a preexisting condition; the existence of individual rights and individual power to enforce those rights which is the basis for a collective decision to cede some of that individual power to a central authority in the interests of the community.

Once again you prove that the rights preexist the government because the constitution preexists the formation of the government and the constitution defines the parameters within which the government may regulate the preexisting rights of the people.

But it's funny, I expected Jonno to go off about my reference to the constitution, not you.

Why? You're wrong. I'm pointing out exactly how it is that your reasoning is faulty. Rights are inherent and unalienable and exist as a natural function of our existence as living beings. They preexist any and all forms of government, and government exists for the sole purpose of adjudicating conflicts between individual expressions of natural rights.

Now I know that this is going to set Jonno off on some bollocks (as we've been there and done this with him for years ), so we'll just have to deal with that when it comes. Essentially, the only right you can bank on in the world is "Might is right". It sucks, I know, but that doesn't change the reality. And you're far better off dealing with reality, as shitty as it might be, than living in a fantasy. And if you deconverted from Christianity at some point, then you have already had to deal with a similar issue.

Yup. Might makes right is the Law of the Jungle and is the most basic expression of rights that exists in nature and is NOT created by government. Everything else derives from that first principle as a way to mediate and adjudicate an increasingly complex set of asserted rights. Horse leads cart.

The point is that rights are meaningless unless there is something to enforce them. As a thought experiment, let's say you believed you had a right to free beer. To translate across from your descriptions of rights, you would say that you hold this right as you can personally defend that right. But you live in a state which has decided by popular vote that no one has the right to free beer. Your personal defence of that right is meaningless as you could never match the will of the rest of the community in the defence of that right. And to be clear, I'm using this as a thought experiment, not a literal analogy that is suggesting the state could take away your right to life. Ultimately the state could through force, but with a constitution there is a legal boundary the state would have to cross, and when they did the legalities of resistance change.

Wrong. You are merely expressing the notion that to SUCCESSFULLY vindicate one's individual rights, one may, from time to time, require the assistance of others to create enough force to defeat an attempt at infringement. But that's just a matter of degree. The basic philosophy does not change. I have a right to life, and a right to defend my life against those who might try to take it from me. Whether I can successfully do so is irrelevant to the fundamental argument. Government is nothing more than an adjudicator and enforcer in the competition between individual rights. That's it. It creates nothing insofar as rights are concerned, it only regulates that which the people of the society authorize it to regulate (in any democratic government) and nothing else. All the powers government executes flow directly from the people themselves, who grant to the government authority to exercise power THEY hold in an organized fashion.

Governments are not some alien creature, they are made up of individuals of the society who have been granted certain limited authority to act on behalf of and in defense of the individuals of the community in a carefully specified and codified manner (again in a democratic society...totalitarian regimes are something different, more akin to "Law of the Jungle" might-makes-right control structures) and only with the consent of the governed. One individual working as a paid agent for another cannot exercise more authority than his employer already has. That is a fundamental axiom of law that controls every democratic form of government. The Attorney General of the United States cannot exercise more authority than the President has, even if the President orders him to do so, because the President himself does not have that authority.

Thus, no government agent can exercise more authority than any citizen has, because the power to act flows from the consent of the governed and exercises of that power may not exceed the natural power inherent in the individual.

Rights come first, regulation and adjudication come after. Rights are therefore supreme, natural and inherent.

[Seth]

There is a psychology experiment when person 1 is given £100 and is told they can give as much as it as they want to person 2 (but only one offer). If person 2 doesn't accept what they are given neither person gets to keep any money (both people know this)

The economically rational thing to do is for person 2 to take whatever he is offered as its free money but in reality if person 2 isn't given half or near half his sense of 'fairness' will say that they would rather both people get nothing that an unfair deal

The fallacy inherent in this "experiment" is that the source of the money is assumed to be "free," which is to say that the participants in the experiment need not be concerned where the money came from or who might have to labor in order to provide the money.

If the participants are told that the money was derives from slave labor using young children who were brutally whipped as they assembled products for sale, the rational thing to do is for both persons to refuse the money so as not to sanction the abuse of children.

This is exactly the problem with the socialist dependent class, they don't give a flying fuck who has to labor (or be abused) in order to provide them with their government largess. They view the government as some sort of alien sugar-daddy that creates all that wealth they want out of thin air. They never consider for a moment that the welfare check that they get, or the food stamps or any other form of "social justice" largess is, has always been, and will always be the product of SOMEONE ELSE'S LABOR. What the dependent class takes as an entitlement is the fruit of someone else's hard work (as members of the productive class) that the productive class worker does not get to enjoy, but must instead pay over to the dependent class.

[MrJonno]

If the participants are told that the money was derives from slave labor using young children who were brutally whipped as they assembled products for sale, the rational thing to do is for both persons to refuse the money so as not to sanction the abuse of children.

Sorry rational and ethical are completely different concepts. That is an experiment that would obviously be illegal but I can speculate on the results.
For small amounts only a small number of people would accept the money but as it increases in value those accepting would eventually reach close to 100%. For a million pounds you can do a lot of good for people local to you while those children are a long way away

Rational in economic terms means maximizing the acquisition of wealth or reduce in cost nothing to with morality

[Seth]

If the participants are told that the money was derives from slave labor using young children who were brutally whipped as they assembled products for sale, the rational thing to do is for both persons to refuse the money so as not to sanction the abuse of children.

Sorry rational and ethical are completely different concepts. That is an experiment that would obviously be illegal but I can speculate on the results.
For small amounts only a small number of people would accept the money but as it increases in value those accepting would eventually reach close to 100%. For a million pounds you can do a lot of good for people local to you while those children are a long way away

Rational in economic terms means maximizing the acquisition of wealth or reduce in cost nothing to with morality

And therefore "rational in economic terms" is meaningless twaddle because economics can never be divorced from ethics and morality in the rational mind. You present what amounts to a strawman argument that has absolutely no meaning whatsoever. Yes, if someone finds a hundred dollar bill lying on the ground with no one about they are being rational if they keep it, but they are being immoral and unethical if they do not at least make an attempt to identify the owner.

[MrJonno]

Economics is completely divorced from ethics and morality in the same way physics is. Who really gives a toss where and how something was made?, who even has the ability to even tell

[Coito ergo sum]

No, it's not. You have it exactly backwards. The Founders of the US Constitution viewed rights as natural, inherent, unalienable and preexisting any government and, according to their religious beliefs, granted by God, not man. They say "That to secure these rights governments are instituted among men" which clearly expresses the idea that government serves the rights, the rights do not serve government.

Spelling founder with a capital F doesn't make those 18th century savages any less wrong,

It's a proper noun identifying a specific group of people instrumental in the formation of the United States, so its use is appropriate, notwithstanding your objections.

It's really rather annoying. It's a way to homogenize a heterogeneous group of people, in order to make it easy to say "the founders" wanted this or "the founders" wanted that, when in reality they almost all had fundamental disagreements with each other.