Very well. Then, following from that, why do the children have rights once they gain the ability to think critically?
EDIT: I was conflating two of his own positions, not his position with that of others.
Which is actually the same as what I wrote, since you cannot violate that which doesn’t exist, right?
I can go along with that. i think my way of stating it is more clear, as it give more information, but your way is not untrue.
It was 1) an admission that I probably don’t know the answer 2) On the off chance #1 is wrong, it was a request to rephrase the question, as I clearly don’t understand it, and 3) an attempt to answer even though I probably am misunderstanding what you’re asking.
I’m certainly interested in an honest discussion, and I’m sorry you misunderstood me misunderstanding you.
I’m just wondering why you believe this. I’m not asking to be argumentative at all nor trying to make any judgment. I just want to know the reasons that led you to believe this. How did you come to realize that parents own their children? Is it because that legal system would have the best consequences, or is it because of some objective ethical belief you have? Or none of the above?
He can either retract that claim or be guilty of special pleading. One or the other.
If you believe that positive law dictates human rights your delusional. The courts have ruled that smoking pot is illegal. You have not the right to smoke pot eh? How nice for you that your judicial system to dictate what our rights are. Such nonsense does not belong on an Austrian Economics forum.
Your trying to guilt people into this ‘honest discussion’ nonesense when it has been you and stranger who have been evasive. We have been brutally honest. The truth of the matter is the entire construct of principles from which your fabricating your beliefs are nothing more then mear opinions. You cannot prove deductively that children have no rights. There is no logical way of doing this short of re-defining key terms and methods which you have done.
Your entire argument is a strawhouse of opinions. That is all. Fortunately I don’t have to agree to opinions.
Prove what? That raping a child is rape? Well lets see do we use the webster dictionary or the Spidey dictionary which excempts people with alhzeimers and innocents children? Anyone can make up a nonsensical platform of beliefs which would be entirely consistent in and of itself, simply be changing terms and key definitions which best suits their desires. You have done as much and have fooled a few with you.
What scares me the most is your motivation for wanting to enslave your children. I see no economic reason to do this unless the incentive was a subjective incentive that most men would not want to share with the public. Why do you want to enslave your children Spidey?
“Another common charge is that natural-law theorists differ among themselves, and that therefore all natural-law theories must be discarded. This charge comes with peculiar ill grace when it comes, as it often does, from utilitarian economists. For economics has been a notoriously contentious science — and yet few people advocate tossing all economics therefore into the discard. Furthermore, difference of opinion is no excuse for discarding all sides to a dispute; the responsible person is the one who uses his reason to examine the various contentions and make up his own mind.[22] He does not simply say a priori, “a plague on all your houses!” The fact of man’s reason does not mean that error is impossible. Even such “hard” sciences as physics and chemistry have had their errors and their fervent disputes.[23] No man is omniscient or infallible — a law, by the way, of man’s nature.”
Now how about you stop trying to make the case that the natural law, objective ethics approach fails because some people use it to draw erroneous and fallacious conclusions. As you have tried elsewhere. Doesn’t work, sorry.
It seems you lack massive credibility with your children, and as such - you need to beat compliance into them?
862: Parents using Children using Parents - Listener Conversation
777: Children in Crisis
772: Parenting: Time Outs and Universally Preferable Behavior for Children
729: Your Children Do NOT Love You… but they will hate you if you think they do
562: Universally Preferable Behavior for Children
509: Assaulting Children
473: Children: Selfish and Evil? (Part 2)
472 Children: Selfish and Evil? (Part 1)
422: Maternal Passive Aggression
370: Slaves, Statists and Children - Compliance (Part 2)
369: Slaves, Statists and Children - Compliance (Part 1)
198: Parenting Part 3: Communication
197: Parenting Part 2: Authority
196: Parenting Part 1: Credibility
130: Betraying Children: Dr Phil Punks Out
Spidey, let me attempt to answer your question. I believe that children are self owners and so, yes, it is a violation of their rights to do things such as bathe them, feed them, clothe them, etc. without their consent. Now consider…
It is a beautiful summer day, and my neighbor is in his pool. I see him climb up on the diving board over and over, jump off, and land in his pool. But then something goes wrong. He slips, hits his head on the board, and sinks to the bottom of the pool. There is a red cloud floating in the water and he’s not coming up. I run over, jump in, and haul him out. I give him mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and bandage his bleeding head.
I have just violated this man’s rights! I entered his property, physically removed him from his pool, shoved my hands into his chest, breathed into his mouth, and wrapped things around his head, all without his consent. He has every right to take me to court for violating him. The likelihood, however, is that he will THANK me for violating his rights.
It was not legal to save his life. It was moral, however. So we can argue that there are occasions where it is moral to violate someone’s rights if we think it is in their best interest. They are free to disagree, and sue. That’s the risk you take in performing illegal actions.
Now, if we apply this to a child, who is self owned… every act we take to care for the child is illegal, but it is moral. The children may sue as soon as they are able, but the likelihood is that they won’t. Further, if we are violating the child’s rights, someone else may free the child, but to do so they commit exactly the same crime.
With rape and murder, however, you cannot argue that you are acting on the child’s behalf. Here, the action isn’t for the good of the child, it is simply for the sick pleasure of the parent. Thus, it is both illegal AND immoral.
As for Stranger… why are you an anarchist? After all, if the government has the power to force you to do something, they are justified in it, right?
I think my corrections better reflect the situation…but actually that’s not the argument I was going to make. For now, I am just genuinely curious how he arrived at his philosophy.
AJ. That’s collectivists thinking to label “many”. slippery slope to communism you protray..hmm.
Conza’s approach is standard logic. For it’s not ‘none’ and it’s not ‘universal’, but it’s some. But you are trying to provide a not standard account of “many”, therefore it is collectivist thinking on your part AJ.
Oh, and thanks for proving AE, but as some know here, you are simply going to be evasive, continue to put on a charade, and definitely continue to be disingenious. You’ve definitely been in the habit recently of giving falsities in your posts. I suggest stop the red herrings and actually focus on liberty for once.
Oh, thank God… I had accidentally left the “email me replies” box on one of my posts, and just checked my email. Hundreds of messages in my inbox… it was a nightmare… luckily I just found how to make them stop.
[:$]
Y’know, for a first post I think I made a pretty active thread.[:)]
Hehe. Gmail 4tw! Bundles all the emails into one single conversation. 
I think you are at least being intellectually honest. But as I said a few pages back, given that anything I do to my child is a violation of the child’s rights, legally, I am obligated to let my child die. To get around this, you argue that a child will not sue the parent for taking care of her, as such you might as well care for the child. Is this not a slippery slope though? Does that not mean that as long as I think something is moral, that it is OK to violate the rights of someone else? As such, if I wanted to break someone of the habit of smoking, could I not justify imprisoning the person against the other person’s will?
Also, it is not about moral vs. immoral. It is about whether or not you think your neighbor will sue you and whether or not you are willing to deal with the consequences if he does. If you thought your neighbor would sue you for rescuing him and if you thought you would have to pay a million dollars if you did, do you still think you would try to rescue him regardless of how “moral” you feel your action is?
Really? You do not think I can argue it is on the child’s behalf? Do you want to bet on that?
Also, what is the difference between me actively killing my child or letting the child starve to death?
You can, but it will just be riddled with nonsense.
Certainly, you could. And likely, when they were freed and actually able to take you to court, you would be royally screwed.
Actually, yes. I would. That said, if he developed a reputation for suing people who saved his life, I might well be the only one who would.
Bet on your actions? Not a chance. I’m sure you could pose some retarded argument that it was in the best interests of the child. In the case of rape, the child taking you to court when it became able to would disabuse you of that notion. In the case of murder… I think in that case, I’d argue that you effectively abandoned the child (since what is in your care is no longer a child). As such, anyone has the right to homestead the child, and as their new legal guardians they have the right to prosecute you for your actions against the child.
I personally don’t see a difference between letting your child starve to death and actively killing it, but that’s only because after this thread I finally realized I can’t hold the NAP as my highest moral value. (Congratz, Spidey, you were instrumental in firmyl rooting me in minarchy, where before I was on the fence.) You’d have to ask someone else here about that.
Because a non-reasoning being cannot have rights to oppose to a reasoning being. That would be absurd. If you ask a dog where it would like to reside or whether its rights have been violated, you are only demonstrating that you are a complete idiot. As concerns the court, a dispute over a dog does not involve the dog’s opinion. The same is true for a zygote, or a fetus, or a baby, or a child. A child, even with the faculty of speech, will not understand the terms of the justice system. If you ask a child with whom he wishes to go, he will always choose his parents, simply because any other choice is unimaginable. If it comes to be that the child leaves home of his own will, then we can assume that he has become a reasoning being and has reasoned that his rights are not being respected in that household.
So, having established that non-reasoning beings cannot participate in a justice system, it becomes a matter who has the right to dispose of this non-reasoning being. Here there are only two ethically justifiable alternatives: either the mother owns the child (the parents if the terms of a marriage contract split ownership), or the child is owned in common by everyone. If anyone could take a child from his mother’s home and do with it as they please, it is easy to see that children would all be exploited and destroyed within days, as would any other form of common property. This means that the state would have to step in and claim ownership of all children. (Something that it already does to an extent.)
In a world without a state, we are back to common ownership of children, and the destruction of all children as common property. The only valid alternative is parental ownership of children.
Now at this point a lot of indignant nonsense will be replied that will go on and on about how children have “natural rights” that cannot be violated based on some convoluted philosophical principle. They can be safely ignored, as they are irrelevant to any system of justice and exist only on paper.
Yeah, all the logical, philosophical objections mean nothing to Might Makes Right!
Indeed, that kind of thing sounds pretty absurd.
Agreed.
A reasonable assumption.
Ownership implies absolute control over your property even to the point of ending its life (if it is alive) for any arbitrary reason, right?
If so, why are the only two alternatives that the mother has absolute control OR everyone has absolute control? How did the option that no one has absolute control over the child - no one has the right to end the child’s life for an arbitrary reason - get ruled out?
Let’s note here that if the above dichotomy proves false, then this would be a strawman of anyone who advocates a third option.
Your position seems to hinge on the fact that only the two options you present can be ethically justified. Can I ask 1) How you came to realize that those two options could be ethically justified, and 2) How you came to realize that no other positions could be ethically justified? Particularly, by what ethical starting principles did you reach those conclusions?