Why don’t you address the main point in my argument ?
I imagine you were kind of a dumb kid who ran into these situations a lot. Haha.
Your dad could have just put a helmet on you and you would be set to go! I imagine a father that had lots of heroin needles lying around his boxing ring for a house would not have had the sense to buy one, though.
Cultural marxists are the anthropologists who go to African and Indian tribes and idealize those abusive and fucked up childrearing methods. They’ll say things like incest and child live-burial have no bad effects on kids. Or that voodoo occultism is just a rite of passage. And that its just the way it is, man! Against common sense, of course.
I think Giles just had Mike Tyson or Kurt Cobain for a father.
Because I’d prefer to ask you a question about an extention of your point if it were accepted. Personally I think a free-market in adoption will rende 90% of this discussion moot. But the better question is why shouldn’t I? I wasn’t trying to refute you. I honestly thought I might agree with you, I was trying to knock all of my own possible objections out of the way before embracing your position.
Giles: The NAP itself is a qualifier for it. You cannot just place the parent’s authority or the parent’s property title ABOVE the NAP. The rules concerning your property cannot be completely arbitrary, they are still contextual to the NAP and personal sovereignty. This should not be a controversial point, as the implication of acting as if you can set up literally whatever “rules” you want without context devolves into a total subjectivism that will justify violations of the NAP. For example, suppose I set up a “rule” that I can literally beat the shit out of or even murder my son (or my wife for that matter). The mere fact that I may be the owner of my house does not make it legitimate for me to violate the NAP. The NAP comes first, not whatever arbitrary “rules” someone prefers, regaurdless of the content of those rules. This is so glaringly obvious that you and other’s continual dismissal of it is mystifying. Making an analogy to career-boxing to obscure what is a justification for child abuse is completely disingenous.
Well, disingenuous might be unfair; he may truly believe this monstrous nonsense. These people have taken the concept of property from its source in the NAP and then basically dropped the latter. The impression I get is that, like with their ridiculous concept that descendants should have claim to their distant wrongly displaced ancestors’ land after any number of generations, there is either some historical indignation or future ambition involved, and their desires have caused them to mold their ethics to match. Giles clearly wants to be some sort of lord; JonBostwick, I think, is part of a family that was displaced at some distant point in the past. Utter speculation, of course, but I can think of no other reason that they would be so blind to the horrors and inconsistencies inherent in their own positions.
Completely agreed. To clarify: I tend to overuse the word disingenous when I merely mean to say that the argument is misrepresentative (which can still be out of ignorance or honest misunderstanding of one’s opponent’s position rather than a more deliberate dishonesty). Anyways, we’re in complete agreement on this.
I am back, the OP, and here are my observations and questions based on your responses.
I think the best argument that many didn’t respond to was establishing rationality. The reason children have no rights in western society and the fact parents have great control, most of which would violate the NAP, is because children are irrational and dont’ possess the cognative skills to make informed decisions. It would be very easy to get a child to consent to anything, including their own death.
Many of you responded that, other people will intervene on the childs behalf. What people? If in a libertarian society, I get a 2 year olds consent, what standing do outsiders or distant relatives have? Do non-participants have the right to file suits on the behalf of others in libertarian societies, even if they dont’ want you to?
So lets say you have a great and wealthy capitalist, who likes to buy children as sex slaves. He approaches hard up parents, and pays them for the child, in addition he gets the little tikes to consent and sign a contract in the form of an X or what have you. For many of your responses this would be a perfectally acceptable practice. With some interjecting that relatives would take it to court. But again, I don’t see the standing. The offender may go so far as to even release the kids at such time as they self-advocate and insist they be released. I won’t even get into Munich syndrom or other psychological factors that would lead to many if not most kids accepting their lot in life.
Others argued that the ‘market’ would ostrocize the person and harm them financially in some way. This assumes perfect information. I dont’ see why the sickos would advertise their endevours, and they would probably go to great lenghts to hide their actions.
On child rearing techniques. There are a variety of disciplines that don’t involve hitting people. Including imprisonment and denial of needs or freedom.
It looks as if the board broke into three camps.
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Those that insist discipline violates NAP and are willing to accept the horrors. I think this is the most consistant belief without all the loopholes.
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Those that do not believe discipline violates NAP, because there is an ‘unwritten’ contract in which the child receives food, shelter, etc, in exchange for accepting discipline. I think the argument that this leads to States was DEAD on. If you can start making this ‘unwritten’ social contract in the family, it can be extrapolated to the society.
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Those that make the ‘rationality’ argument. Which I find the most convincing, but I think you need better ‘thought’ on how and when rationality occurs. Then you get into problems of who decides. Does some ‘entitity’ have to hold yearly or bi yearly hearings on rationality?
I guess I am most curious about my wealthy child rapist and willing parents scenario. What libertarian mechanisms prevent this, or do you just accept the horror?
Ixtellor
Well, in terms of a child willingly jumping off a cliff, I’d be willing to grant that a parent should restrain them from doing so, if the child has no understanding of the consequences. That if brings up the important problem with your “rationality” objection, though; rationality is not the easiest thing to evaluate. Indeed, most actions even children take will actually achieve what they’re hoping they will. That this is often short-sighted establishes nothing; there are adults who act the same way. What sort of test of rationality will you apply? A mere arbitrary age will inevitably classify some rationals as irrational and/or irrationals as rational. There is no dividing line in rationality, but rather a continuum, and one must always respect a person’s right to take rational actions, so long as they do not violate the NAP themselves. A 2-year-old barrelling towards a cliff has no understanding of the consequences of that action; a teen cutting her wrists knows exactly what she’s doing.
As for the sale to the rich pervert example, the parents have an obligation to safeguard the child to the best of their ability, and certainly have no right to sell a child which is not their property. The obligation is only one way, which is yet another reason why parent’s have no right to demand that the children accept abuse or leave. I have avoided speaking too much about the obligations of parents, here, because it is another contentious little debate, but it is apropros to your question.
I misunderstood – my mistake.
It seems to me the default libertarian (and commonsensical) position is that violence is aggression, except in particular cases such as, say, boxing and self-defense. Everyday interactions between parents and children are, as far as I can tell, not boxing, and children don’t usually try to attack their parents, so parents don’t need to use force in self-defense.
Now, some people take for granted the opposite view – that is, parent’s violence against children is legitimate. Since such position seems to be overriding the basic principle of libertarianism, I think it makes sense to ask for an explicit contract stipulating the terms of this boxing-like relationship.
I’ve noticed also that people who claim that children have entered into an implicit contract with their parents are the very same people who also claim that children are not rational enough to have rights…but if they’re not rational enough, how did they manage to contract spanking or other forms of coercion ?
It’s true that we don’t use explicit contracts for the relationship between a restaurant owner and his customers, mainly I guess, because the transaction is a very simple one and there’s no violence involved.
Such wit.
Why is boxing different?
That’s the whole point, until the child is rational the parent has an obligation (or at least, no obligation to refrain from) using violence when he deems necessary. By the time the child becomes rational a precedent has been as to when the child will be coerced.
Special pleading.
I’m not. Likewise, one who engages in boxing, or in fact any other contact sport, can still be said to be acting according to the NAP. The child, by staying on the property of the parents, agrees to be subjected to violence if they violate certain rules.
It’s not different from an individual contracting with a private court that if they break somebody’s nose they will have theirs broken.
And the child, exercising their “personal sovereignty” chooses to stay on the property of the parent and be subject to these rules.
Yes, you just have an issue with property rights. Figures.I can set whatever rules I wish on my property, and if they differ from them prescribed by custom I should make those entering my property aware.
Yes, then they’d better stay off.
I can set whatever rules I wish to, if they enter and stay on my property aware of the rules then they’ve excercised ownership of their own bodies pointing to the fact that they regard them as just, or at least value staying on my property anyway. They’d contractual agreed to the rules, hence the NAP doesn’t apply because it isn’t aggression.
Just like a boxing match.
Prove it.
Perhaps, between your time spent making silly speculations you could get to addressing my points. That includes those regarding implicit contracts on the other topic.
What about a child that can’t walk yet, or open doors? Are they “agreeing” to anything? I daresay a child is brought into the parents’ home prior to their ability to give consent. Do the parents need to make it clear that the child has the opportunity to leave prior to the implicit contract allowing beatings being put into effect? And, finally, do you deny that parents have an obligation to care for their dependent children?
Whose custom? Covering what area? How long must this custom be established before others can be held to it? What is the minimum requirement for posting information for outsiders?
That child is not rational. They have no say in anything.
Yes, they do. Most here would disagree and it’s a seperate issue. The fact is, good parents occasionally have to use violence against their children. I’m sorry to tell you but if your child were about to stick a fork in a socket, reasoning with them wouldn’t do a thing.
Pulling them back and giving them a smack for it, on the other hand, would.
That would be decided by courts. It cannot be decided a priori.
So they have no rights whatsoever? If I find an abandoned infant, I can stomp its head?
It very much to the point. This thread is about children, and if you have a pre-existing obligation to care for them you have no right to require anything of them to continue that care, such as your “if you live in my house I can beat you at will” rule. You have been arguing for a position you don’t even believe in in this regard, if your thinking is consistent.
I personally know of 3 children, now successful adults, who were never hit as children. Good old fashioned shame was used instead. I won’t say they’re utterly undamaged, but who is? They are all 3 far more successful than usual. And, keep in mind with the fork and socket example that the child owns neither the fork nor the socket, so you may rightfully restrain them from using them in a way you do not approve. Indeed, by the time a child is capable of owning a power socket or a cliff, they’ll likely no longer be children.
Finally, I already acknowledged that you can take an action to directly prevent a child from taking a harmful action they do not understand. However, I deny that this action can include any injury for the purpose of deterrence, no matter how minor.
Well, that’s ghastly. How can you ever know if you do or do not have a right to take an action if its rightness or wrongness can only be decided after the fact? And again, who gets to choose the judge? And, if you can say it is decided by custom, we are back to the original question.
Different from what ? Why is a barbarian ‘sport’ different from normal human affairs ? Why are cows different from frogs ? At any rate, boxing is a form of explicitly contractual savagery. You think that saying “boxing exists” provides moral justification for violence against children ? You’re nuts.
The whole point is that your position is contradictory : if children are not ‘rational’ then the alleged contract they enter with their parents is void and so they’ve not consented by any means to violence and abuse.
It doesn’t even need to be abandoned. No child is rational, so all of them are fair game. It’s called ‘argumentation ethics’.
Why is it acceptable for boxers to hit one another by libertarian standards?
If the children aren’t rational, they don’t have rights.