I just read it, and my critique stands. If someone breaks into your house, do you choose to assume the best or assume the worst? What makes you think you’ll have enough time or blood flow to the brain to even rationalize the situation? Evidently you and many on here are presuming that when someone breaks into your home that it’s like a game of chess. He moves, you think about it and move, so on and so forth. That’s nuts.
Let me begin by asking this: what are the practical or average reasons why someone would break into the house?
I think that Rothbard’s theory of proportionality concerns itself more with a justice of balance than with the utility of deterrence. I would rather live in a society where I can shoot first and ask questions later in my own home than a society where I have to react proportionately to a crime as it’s being committed or, even worse, after it’s been committed. I see no reason for people to have to become a victim in their own homes before they should have the legal right to defend themselves. If they happen to commit disproportionate aggression in their own homes then so be it. Better that than the alternative. Better that potential criminals understand that once they go in someone else’s house they’re on very precarious ground than have them know that homeowners are heavily restricted in terms of their options for defense.
This is, as usual, a tradeoff. But I see no reason to favor the trade-off proposed by Rothbard.
Walter Block always has interesting viewpoints, but I do disagree with him on this one. I mean, why don’t we take his logic even further than he went and start planting mines all over my yard. And then, if someone even let’s their dog pee on my yard, well, so long Sparky! I understand where he is coming from, but this is one thing that really gets me about Natural Rights theory: Rothbard goes one way, and Block goes another. And of course, it only gets stickier with implicit contracts. This is one of the main reasons I put a huge emphasis on social norms. They can end up morally wrong in my view, but they are far more fluid and are meant to resolve conflicts (as social norms are meant to do). Natural Rights theory, which is really just armchair theorizing, can be very useful (I adore Rothbard), but in the end it doesn’t give us all the answers. And this is especially obvious because Rothbard and Block are disagreeing!!!
I think Walter Block’s point in the conclusion is very important, as it is far too often that people look at only one viewpoint.
So is it okay to shoot the bubble gum thief? Look, there are a number of things that can happen when someone breaks into another’s home. We are talking about a specific case here, where a drunk girl broke into someone else’s home. Oftentimes, when a drunk person has broken into another’s home, it is because they actually think they are in their own, and they are not a threat to the actual homeowner.
The problem I have with your attitude on this matter is that your attitude does not take into account proportionality. From your attitude, it seems like you would be okay with a shopowner shooting the bubblegum thief, because after all, you don’t like it when “[m]ost people on this thread seem to pity the poor vandal that continued to infringe a [shopowner’s] property rights despite [his] request that she stop.” So we should just start shooting shoplifters?
I’m not saying the girl isn’t guilty of trespassing, and especially since the couple called out to her (well they claimed to, but I think I believe them), this couple may very well have done the right thing. But your immediate attitude of siding with whatever amount of force the homeowners felt they should use is just plainly wrong.
I wonder. Why do people commit crimes?
Let me ask you: why should we start shooting shoplifters?
Oh, every so often you like to claim that you don’t study morality, only law. And it would just be darned irresponsible of you to have opinions about morality when you don’t ponder it all day like a good philosopher. I thought you only stuck to citing law and case precedant?
It was merely a rhetorical example, not a strawman. As far as principle goes, I already explained it above. Since you didn’t get it the first time, or since you didn’t actually read what I wrote, I figured I would give you an example.
As for your bubblegum scenario, principally I understand that it is merely bubblegum. But again, this is someone breaking into a home. There is no way to tell their intentions! Dude, don’t you fucking get it? That’s my entire point spelled out for you: Y-O-U D-O N-O-T K-N-O-W T-H-E I-N-T-E-N-T-I-O-N-S O-F T-H-E P-E-R-S-O-N B-R-E-A-K-I-N-G I-N. You, apparently, want to have an in-depth discourse with the gentleman to know his intentions. I would not. That’s fine if it’s for you; I say it’s a stupid decision to try to second guess and give some asshole the benefit of the doubt. Fuck him if he wants gum; he shouldn’t break into people’s homes to get it.
Refute my stance if you will, but that’s as simple as I can make it without resorting to “another strawman” as you put it. Jeez. As for shoplifting example you brought up . . . .
I am truly impressed. I point out your strawman, and you proceed to use the same strawman with different words:
I’ll spell it out for you: It is not my opinion that people should have an in-depth discourse with intruders to know their intentions. Furthermore, I pointed out my problem with your attitude about the situation, and you did not address it. For your own ease:
To spell it out for you: You seem to have complete disregard for the principle of proportionality. Perhaps the homeowners did the right thing, legally/morally/whatever. My problem is not with them. It is with your attitude that proportionality does not matter.
My goodness, more strawmen. Did you even read the link to Murray Rothbard? The bubblegum has nothing to do with breaking into people’s homes. It is a separate scenario entirely.
Well, you did resort to other strawmen. Twice.
Perhaps you would be interested in engaging me in conversation without misrepresenting my viewpoints. It shouldn’t be hard. It’s really easy if you actually just quote what I say, verbatim.
And yes, I’m waiting for more than “…” in regards to the shoplifting.
This is what I was referring to with my above comment:
It wasn’t a straw man . . . you simply brought something else up and I re-referenced what I put. Really man, I can’t make this simpler than I already have.
Let’s start over and have some sort of baseline:
Question 1: When is it appropriate for someone to defend his or her property with weaponry, aiming to kill?
No. You said “most people on this thread”. You cannot cite one person and claim that is most people. Furthermore, you restated this strawman to delibrately include me. Do you know what a straw man is? It is when you misrepresent someone’s argument and then proceed to argue against the misrepresentation. Furthermore, you created another straw man in regards to the gum scenario. The bubble gum thief has to do with shoplifting, not stealing from someone’s house. And you combined the two in order to ridicule my position, and it was most certainly not my position.
Sure, why not.
The only time it is appropriate to aim to kill is when your life is in mortal danger. However, sometimes people create situations where you cannot know their intent. I am not against people defending their property with lethal force during a home invasion. I don’t recall saying otherwise. I also believe that the appropriate response depends upon the circumstances. In the particular article provided for this thread, I do not believe that the homeowners were necessarily wrong. I don’t believe they were necessarily right, either. The problem that I have with you on this matter is that you are taking the position that the homeowner was necessarily right in their actions. Sure, there is nothing wrong with giving them the benefit of the doubt, but that is not what you have been doing.
As I said, my problem here is that you seem to have no respect for the notion of proportionality.
I wasn’t trying to “disprove” your original claim on the gum in a theft scenario in order to “prove” my original scenario. The strawman argument is meant to give the illusion that you have answered or resolved an initial problem by bringing up an entirely different one and resolving it. Again . . . I was referring to an older post. Yes, I tied it in to what you were bringing up, but that is not a strawman. You’re confusing time (specifically order) with content. Just so you can rest assured, my intentions are to have a formal discourse with a baseline for logical, cooperative development.
In response to your answer of the baseline question, I simply disagree. I have been in situations where upon an occurence such as the aforementioned scenario of someone breaking into your house, there is little to no rational thought. Blood drains into vital organs, adrenal glands pump out adrenaline and it’s fight or flight time. That’s my entire point. There is little time and little dimension to responding to a break in. My entire point is this: there is no formal discourse between you and a person breaking in. There is no way to know his or her intentions. There is no conclusive way to know if the person poses a legitimate threat. It comes down to a wager: don’t do anything and risk your family’s and/or your safety, or proactively seek to protect your life and/or property in the case that the person means harm or can cause harm.
Just like LimitGov, you’re arguing a false dilemma. The choices aren’t simply between doing nothing and killing (or at least trying to kill) the trespasser.
cmon guys.. dont pussy out of propertarianism when its ugly side rearrs itself.. if you believe in this, then you got to stick with it, even in the bad times. And agree that it is OK to shoot an intoxicated home invader that does not obey orders to leave the premises.
