Forcing people (children included…) to do what they don’t want to do seems to be a problem to me. Just the sort of problem that libertarianism deals with it - coercion. Of course, some cases of coercion are worse than others - you can point out the need of preventing a child from putting his fingers in the electrical outlet, blah blah.
But that’s different from the ridiculous idea that children are ‘property’. And in your case it seems the idea can be carried far enough as to somehow ‘justify’ murder, or anything else that parents do with ‘their’ children. It’s beyond silly.
Lets try our best not to derail the point of this thread into one regarding children as property. That may be better suited on another post. Would like to keep this focused on the topic Spideynw originally raised.
How do you enforce or bring justice to criminals. Spideyhas created a very realistic scenario. I’ve posted an answer and so far most folk have either resorted back to coercion to defend their beleifs or ignored my earlier posts. Focus!
Perhaps we have a different definition of pacifism. Both those scenarios are acceptable to both pacifists (people who oppose all violence) and libertarians (people who oppose the initiation of violence). I am in favour of such measures, but I also think that polycentric coercive law is needed and valid. The coercion used here is defensive, so it does not conflict with the NAP.
I did read it and I apologize for not responding, but my post was getting too long. The “angry mob as PDA” question is much broader and I wanted to stay on thread - I’d be happy to participate in a new thread about why I think PDA’s - even “angry mob PDA’s” - have much stronger incentives than governments to not use aggressive violence.
The mob would struggle to get a (reputable) PDA to seize the land, unless that PDA is sure they have a good claim. And even if they did, the landowner will have his own PDA - so he can turn to them for defense or for help getting his property back. It would be a normal property dispute, and would be solved peacefully by the PDA’s coming to an agreement. In the case of land, most courts would probably award the landowner his land back unless the mob has a good case to make that he had abandoned it. In the case of a child’s body, most courts would probably say that by molesting the child, the parent has abandoned it, so they will award the child’s body to the other party in the dispute.
The system we have today is monocentric coercive law. I am advocating polycentric coercive law. You (I think) are advocating voluntary law because you oppose all forms of coercion. To me, and to most libertarians, justice requires violating the property rights of criminals (i.e. using restitutive coercion), subject to the principle of proportionality. As I said, we could start a new thread about the possibility of an “angry mob PDA” starting to initiate force (i.e. becoming a “pseudo-government”).
What happens when government agents do this? They say - oops, sorry.
If a PDA did this, the individual who shot the man (and the organization as a whole) could be sued for murder. The wife would be entitled to restitution. The PDA would go out of business, and all the other PDA’s would make a bigger effort in future to recognize the difference between child molestation and kinky midget sex. Competition impels excellence.
That’s your opinion. Personally I’m uncomfortable with the idea that libertarian law allows a parent to starve a child, and no one is able to stop it. In my opinion, Block and Kinsella have made a powerful case that, actually, a third-party stepping in to prevent such blatant (albeit passive) child abuse is fully consistent with libertarian law.
This was very useful for me. Thanks. My concern with moncentric coersive law is that when you look globally that is in effect what we currently have. From your perspective you appear to have polycentric coersive law but in reality you are free to leave the country. I agree that this is unfair and that in any case coersion will be used to change a situation where true voluntary exchange may have had a different result. In the outline I described above no one’s property rights are violated.
The avenue I tried to describe explained how violating property rights and the use of coersion may not need to exist at all.
Parents who do it also have a tendency to justify their use of force. They feed you, clothe you, and have conceived you; therefore, mom and pop have the pretext to treat you as a serf. The results of such feudalistic delusions are predictable. The person on the receiving end resists such tactics, and the initiator of force is perplexed as to why their target ends up hating them for it.
I call Murray Rothbard to the stand.
“There is considerable evidence linking compulsory attendance laws with the growing problem of juvenile delinquency, particularly in frustrated older children Thus, Stinchcombe found that rebellious and delinquent behavior is “largely a reaction to the school itself”, and the British Crowther Committee found that when in 1947 the minimum school-leaving age was raised by the government from fourteen to fifteen, there was an immediate and sharp increase in the delinquencies committed by the newly incarcerated fourteen-year-olds.”
I am not talking anything about “rights” in this thread.
I am not confused.
None of this is relevant. You can philosophize all day long about how people should treat children. What is relevant, is that regardless of what you or anyone else may think, people will kill and molest their children. What is also relevant, is that without a government, you will have no way of punishing them for it, unless you take action yourself. So again, what are you going to do about it?
The idea that any court or PDA would punish them, is ludicrous, in my opinion. What parent would agree to a court or PDA that may find that how he or she treats his or her child is unacceptable to the court or PDA, and take away the child? What 16 year old girl is going to give a flying fuck what they think anyways, when she is more scared of disappointing her parents than aborting her baby?
Please, that is a straw man. I am not justifying murder in this thread. I am saying no one can do anything about it. That you think there will be anyone to enforce your dictate is just silly.
Well, I’m only saying that the idea behind libertarianism is to not coerce people, whether they are children or adults doesn’t make any difference. And don’t take it too personally - I just wanted to state what I think are the general principles.
“what society says”??? Society cannot speak, think or act.
Like I said, I probably wouldn’t take the child myself, because I wouldn’t want to take the risk. But a professional organisation would be prepared for the possibility of resistance. They would also make damn sure they have a good case against the parent. If they mess up, they will be guilty of theft. If the child is actually being abused, well then it’s no longer “their” child is it (according to the Kinsella definition), so it wouldn’t be theft, it would be a rescue.
Then our two professional organizations will try to resolve the conflict, possibly by using a mutually-acceptable third-party arbitrator.
Obviously. The question is under what system would child molestation be minimized. Monocentric law or polycentric law?
And the parents organization would be just as prepared for aggression from your organization. Which means your organization will not be able to do anything to the parents. Again, what are you going to do about child abuse?
They would have no case. There would be no dispute.
They would be guilty of theft no matter what they decide.
Yes it is. Because you do not get to decide what “abuse” is for other people’s children.
And the arbitrator would rule that there is no dispute, and as such, no claim on the parent’s child.
I have no idea. “Abuse” and “molestation” are completely subjective terms.
Any organization that performs such an action would be anti-libertarian and be breaking the Non-Aggression principle. You cannot protect private property by violating private property. You cannot fight fire with fire. The conclusion that such an organization came to which supposedly justify’s their right to violate private property rights is ultimately decided subjectively.
The only way to deal with this in a libertarian fashion is for individuals to voluntarily choose not to associate with a known criminal. Communities can in this manner get their Justice without violating property rights at all as I stated earlier.
Spidey is correct. Regardless of what crime was originally created it doesn’t change from the fact that such an organization would still be committing their own crime based on a hunch they had.
In a sense that organization would be just as much of a criminal as the man molesting his child from a property rights standpoint. No different.
Your raising another point “Truth and Liberty”. You must be arguing that when someone commits a crime they automatically somehow forfeit their own property rights. This is a false assertion however and cannot be permitted as the whole system would break. Private property rights must be upheld on all counts.
I have answered this question, assuming you mean what would I do if we were living in an anarcho-libertarian world. I’d use the law against them, because child abuse would be illegal.
Have you read Kinsella’s article?
To use an analogy, who decides if a piece of land has been sufficiently homesteaded? If two people have a dispute over who is the rightful owner, they take it to an arbitrator to resolve this dispute. Thus courts decide what it means to sufficiently homestead land.
With childrens bodies, it’s no different. The courts would decide what it means to homestead a child’s body (“bring it into productive use” - i.e. look after it, so retain ownership rights), as opposed to abandoning it (i.e. abusing it, so losing property rights).
In our existing monocentric legal order (government), the courts arbitrarily draw the line wherever they want. In a polycentric legal order (anarchy), the courts are subject to competition, so the choices they make, the definition of ‘child abuse’ they use, will ultimately depend on the choices of consumers.
That an arbitrator is involved implies there is a dispute. That is what an arbitrator is for: resolving disputes.
Thats completely our point. The decision of whats productive is completly subjective. As soon as you relinquish your right to decide individually what is considered “productive use” to someone else you start stearing back again to that planned state we abhor.
No committee or collective body can decide what is productive or not productive. Only the free market can do this. Using coercion does not employ the free market. You don’t need anything beyond the free market to decide whether something is productive or non-productive.
All you have created is a small pseudo-government. Even in a monocentric legal order, especially where coersion is the primary method of compliance, your government will grow like a cancer. Eventually it will have geographical disputes with competitors. Imperialists will love this model and the strongest most abusive group will continue to expand. Such groups are entirely unnecessary as all thats needed is the free market and volunteerism as I have previously posted.
I think I’ve been quite clear on this point - what I am suggesting is not a violation of the NAP, because by abusing a child, the parent has abandoned it. It is not theft to homestead abandoned property.
I’m willing to disagree with you on this point and let it rest. I think restitutive coercion is necessary for order. You think it’s unnecessary. Fine. What I object to is you saying that restitutive coercion is wrong in libertarianism, because it isn’t.
Your decision that this child has been abandonded was made subjectively and ultimately is nothing more then your own personal opinion. Kinsella is not god and his article that your referencing does not change the fact that it is YOUR OPINION that the child is homesteadable.
You must forcefully enter the owners home to eject this supposed homesteadable property which violates his property rights.
Regardless of whether your PDA or arbitrator has a good reputation they would have to employ coersion to enforce themselves. In a free society, as I have demonstrated, people voluntarily decide not to associate themselves with the criminal. My method respects private property, yours violates.
My method maintains the use of a free market decided upon by individuals. Your method only attempts to utilize competition but not direct individual selection. As individuals would be required to give up some of their rights to comply with PDA’s and arbitrators and ultimately the arbitrator they bought into would make decisions for them. Your method employ’s mob rule and the majority vote fallacy, only over a smaller geographical region. It doesn’t make it more correct.
My issue is that your method fosters coersion and the deciding factor of whats right and wrong is not black and white but culturally grey. It forces invidivuduals to adher to a collective cultural view and to abandon their own personal beleifs. MY method respects the individual and allows society to judge him individually.
My method safely utilizes all of the fundamental principles of libertarianism.
True Ancap
Individualism
Volunteerism
Market or Individual Arbitration (Not collective arbitration between cultural and political gangs)
Your method immediately adopts the largest fuundamenntal opposing principle of liberty. Coersion
Your system requires people to give up their basic rights to a coercer by signing a damning contract to submit unto them and sacrificing personal liberties to remain in compliance. It also agrees that the coercer has the consent to violate his/her property rights. Your system does at the service appear to break the broken system of Monocentric Law but in it’s place just put’s a more isolated version of the current global polycentric law. It allows for the existence of coersive micro governments which may have end up taking sovereign control over small geographical regions. What about the fellow who disagrees with their views and chooses not to adopt an arbitrator service at all? If he has no arbitrator to represent him is his property immediately stripped of all rights?
My system allows such men to make their own choice and not be directly punished for not purchasing a politically oriented PDA which will ultimately reflect the views of it’s purchasers. It allows the public to make it’s own judgements at an individual basis, not over a group basis. It employ’s tools created under the free market which do not violate any property rights any where.
PDA’s are a good and a service and cannot be permitted to break property rights simply because they will be used to uphold security. Also please note that the D in PDA’s stands for “DEFENSE” as in defensive agency. Not offensive. Entering a man’s house because of a conflicting religious or moral belief is fundamentally wrong.
Your system provides the tools for society to develop cultural wars on itself. It takes the aggressive stance of whats right and wrong as opposed to an individual selective stance.
Your system right off the bat promotes
Coersion
Inconsistent property rights
Be assured that where there is a consenting power for coersion political party’s will arise. A similar example of the model your presenting is modern lobbying and lobbyists in Washington.
Quit frankly I’m suprised more libertarian’s have not been more outspoken on this viewpoint
Let me depict a realistic scenario for you.
In ShitTown there are 3000 muslims and 2000 christian’s. At this time for whatever reason the christian culture gets in their head that the muslims are satanic and that god has mandated they all must be erradicated. The christian’s already primarily subscribe to a small handful of christian oriented Arbitrators, PDA’s, and Insurence company’s. The Christian cultural view is that the Muslims have lost their homesteadable rights and that their land must be confinscated. The 2000 christian’s pressure their PDA’s to enforce that world view on the muslims. If they do not enforce this view the christian’s will leave their business and adopt a more radical PDA. It then becomes bad for business for the PDA to not uphold the cultural view of the christian’s. What then happens is small scale warfair acros neighborhoods between Muslim or neutral PDA’s and radical christina PDA’s. Only the Christian PDA’s who uphold the cultural world view of the current christian’s will stay in business, the ones who respect proprety rights loose business as they are unwilling to enforce the Christian’s world view.
In my model such a situation would never arrise. Violating private property is violating private property. That part is no longer grey and simply black and white. If you violate the property of a criminal it’s still a crime. Being a criminal does not mean you forfeit your own private property rights. Now it may mean that you must sacrifice property for society to accept you again but that pressure can be pushed on an individual basis without violating the rights of the criminal. IT also protects society from getting carried away initiation of force is done away with all together.
Technically speaking, under your model, if I were a republican than I would be completely within your definition of libertarianism. The US government is my PDA and they are correctly enforcing my worldview in the middle east.
It doesn’t work globally and it won’t work locally either.
No, it would not be. Just like there would be no such thing as animal cruelty.
No. If it is about PDAs, or people being able to enforce their dictates in a stateless society, I really have no interest in reading it. Because that would not be reality.
No, because the baby/toddler would be unable to bring a case to court.
Abusing a child is not the same as abandoning a child. Or are you saying if I “abuse” my land, that I am abandoning it?
In our existing system, the government can punish people for whatever dictates they decide to make. In a stateless society, law will only be used for dispute resolution. Me “abusing” my child has nothing to do with you, so there will be no case, and it will be thrown out. There is no dispute. Just someone filing unwarranted charges, which will cost you a lot of money if you are going to try and file against anyone you consider to be abusing his or her child.
I could file way over here in Utah that your house is mine. An arbitrator would ask what evidence I have that such is the case, I would produce none, and the case would be thrown out. Same with a child custody case. You might claim that my child is yours, the arbitrator would ask what evidence you have, you would not have any, and the case would be thrown out, because in both cases, in reality, there is no dispute.
At whatever age they can work and earn a living and make decisions about what to do with their money, I would guess. But really, that would be up to the market. I don’t know. Do you know at what age children gain the ability to consent to sex?
Regardless, there still would not be a child custody case. Now we are talking about the age of consent, when a child can become independent of the parent. At that point, no one can lay a claim to the child.
Gun owners are potential murderers. Drunks can be violent or drive under the influence and while doing so have a chance of causing an accident. The smoking of marijuana can lead to the use of other drugs which could eventually lead to an individual stealing to support their habit. People with certain mental illnesses are more likely to commit violent crimes. Racists have been known to inflict physical harm on minorities.
Does that mean that gun owners should be treated as murderers, drunks as safety hazards, drug users as thieves, the mentally handicap as violent criminals and charge all racists with assault?
