I say to you in an alleyway, “your money or your life.” You pull out a gun and blast me. I initiated coercion, you coerced my brains out in return. Fine with both the NAP and me.
I say to you at the dinner table, “I have a knife. May I cut the turkey?” You pull out a gun and blast me. When most people are eating, they use knives to cut food. I did not coerce you at all. You initiated coercion, so I can justify coercion upon you in return. Still fine with me and the NAP.
I say to you in an alleyway, “I have a knife. May I have some money?” Now what do you do? I have not directly coerced you. I simply stated in two separate sentences that I own a knife and that I am asking for your generosity. However, I have IMPLIED coercion because, unlike at the dinner table, a knife in an alleyway is most often used to aggress upon others. What does the NAP say about this? Hold that thought for my final example:
I say to you, “I have an active hydrogen bomb.” I have not directly coerced you. However, outside of a joking environment, I have most definitely implied coercion. Why? Because unlike knives, turkeys, and guns, WMDs cannot be used effectively WITHOUT initiating coercion. The only way I could would be to drop one in an area populated only with people who have initiated aggression upon me and to make sure it does not affect anyone else. Good luck getting that to work out.
Ultimately, the NAP fails, because it only protects against direct coercion while dismissing equally valid concerns of the implied type. If I have to trade common sense for the NAP to be a “true” libertarian, then I’d rather not be associated with the label at all.
If you can’t handle the implications of a free society, then maybe you are not a libertarian, which means you may be advocating some form of coercion yourself.
What exactly is the definition of the NAP then? Every freaking website I go to has it worded differently in one way or another. Please enlighten me on what yours is, and why it does not allow for me to protect myself in that case.
Asking for permission to cut the turkey is not aggression. You’re being silly. And reactionary. And it’s become boring.
Why not slow down, stop trying to redefine libertarianism, make up your theoretical ethics and values as you go, and just read. Read, and ask simple questions that can begin to address your concerns. If you do that for a week, without flying off the handle, or getting all worked up, or insisting that hundreds of thousands of hours of development in thought can be re-written by you in a day, then maybe you can become informed enough to then say,
“This libertarian stuff is whack. You guys are nutcases. I want out.”
Right now, you’re making criticisms while admitting you don’t know what you are talking about. See the problem here? And knowing what you are talking about is your problem to address. None of us can help you understand if you’re not willing to put in the effort. No one can make you understand or give you an open mind. That’s your personal challenge.
Don’t you think you should know that before offering a refutation?
This is where you are going wrong. What is YOUR definition? What do YOU understand?
Please read the bolded words and think again. You said in your reply: “Asking for permission to cut the turkey is not aggression.” I have no idea where you got the idea I said otherwise.
In all fairness, I realize that I had edited my post to clairify what I meant in the turkey situation before I saw your post referring to it. Sorry for the confusion.
Here is what it said originally:
I say to you at the dinner table, “I have a knife. May I cut the turkey?” You pull out a gun and blast me. You initiated coercion, so I can justify coercion upon you in return. Still fine with me and the NAP.
It still said that you initiated aggression, so I still fail to see how it was mistaken to mean I agressed.
It is illegitimate to initiate coercion or implied coercion upon another’s life, liberty, or property.
Then I would agree with it completely. Just as people use common sense when determining if coercion was initiated, people can use common sense when determining if coercion was implied.
This is a strawman. How people act or think while dressing it up as an ideal or principle, doesn’t undermine the principle. George Bush is a mass murderer who claims to be a Christian. Does his actions invalidate the word of Christ? There are lots of people in the west who are for freedom, but seem to think government coercion is the means to be free… Does this invalidate the notion of freedom?
These principles are ideas. They are ideals. They are not based upon the capacity of man to execute them perfectly, flawless, at all times.
Are you blind? My original post said coercion. You told me to say what was wrong with it. I did, and then you claim I substituted agression with coercion. I will answer it, but I am getting very suspisious.
You used the word coercion. I assumed you understood the initiation of coercion. You do not. Which is why I asked you to use the proper term, aggression, so that we can stop playing semantic games.
Again you don’t even know what natural property is, so, you can’t refute it. This is basics. Natural property is life and liberty. You argue your own made up phantoms in the dark.
I have libertarian ideals. I just do not base them off any single principle or axiom. Even the one I claimed I support for, “It is illegitimate to initiate coercion or implied coercion upon another’s life, liberty, or property”, I am realizing has problems just as bad as the original.
Am I the only one in the topic that has read this? It was supplied earlier in the topic. It sums up exactly what I think:
If you want to be opposed to nukes, good for you. But wouldn’t a voluntary solution, rather than a might makes right solution, be more: moral, legal, and practical? Plus, wouldn’t you lose a might makes right contest against a possessor of nuclear weapons?
I wouldn’t know. Either way, he doesn’t seem familiar with English common law.
You’re conflating.
I cede that grabbing the rifle is an illegal act, morality exists beyond legality.
The law exists precisely because someone will eventually take the gun, it is there to allow for the rectifying the situation, it can not prevent it.
By taking the gun to kill the murder, the person has transferred the cost of defending himself onto an innocent, an illegal act. The law rectifies this by transferring the cost back onto the person who took the gun through a judgement in favor of the gun’s owner.
If the madman’s victim had commodered another person’s body as a human shield, instead of the use of their gun, he would have created a much larger externality and would face a much larger judgement.