Yah, but from what I hear it only applies to conscripts.
Huge cringe and simultaneous shudder. The slogan could be something like: “Aggression, it’s wrong except when it’s libertarian!”
Libertarian aggression is only justified in self defense.
In which case you are paying police to defend you.
In a free society, since people are extremely concerned for their safety, from that concern would naturally sprout a volunteer police force, and other for-profit security militias. Plus, there would be no restrictions on the gun market, and so everyone would be able to carry a weapon (you’d have to be fucked out of your mind to try to mug somebody or break into the home of someone who most likely owns an automatic weapon)
Yep.
What the heck happened to the ROTHABRD IS INSANE! thread? By luminar? I dont see it on the list…
It’s in the Deleted Threads zone. Go figure.
@hashem, I really dont understand your point. Are you addressing the content of my post or the verbage/phrasing?
Just the realization I’m coming to that libertarians are manifestly violently aggressive, equally as much as statists. They are perfectly OK with aggression as long as it’s used to enforce libertarian morals instead of some other system of ethics. It’s just a violently enforced system of ethics, which I’m starting to think is mad no matter who’s morals are enforced at the point of a gun.
Why would it be deleted? It was a great discussion.
Who knows. But how do you define discussion? Seemed to me like the OP was venting because libertarianism had pooped in his cereal this morning, or something. I don’t know. He posted aggressively, and people responded aggressively.
well theres a lot of ways we can approach this, but first I have to ask you to distinguish between simple violence, which is inclusive of all acts that both intend to be injurious and actually achieve this end by injuring another person; and aggression, which is confined to the initiation of violence. The nature of your post doesnt appear to distinguish between aggressive violence and defensive violence. Do you agree that defensive violence exists?
well thats true but your dislike for the existence of violence doesnt change the fact that violence exists. I think libertarians are as violently aggro as statists because humans are innately violent, and the task of these realms of philosphy is to teach humans how to manage their violent nature.
It was a violation of forums policy because it was just a baseless attack on rothbard’s character, the topic had no merit. It was a violation of administrative policy, I knew it was going to go.
If the guy would have posed the quotes from Rothbard’s writings as inquries about why he would write such a thing, then I don’t think there would have been such an outburst. But he was practically welcoming a flamewar when he titles his thread ROTHBARD IS INSANE!!!
“Huge cringe and simultaneous shudder. The slogan could be something like: ‘Aggression, it’s wrong except when it’s libertarian!’”
“Just the realization I’m coming to that libertarians are manifestly violently aggressive, equally as much as statists. They are perfectly OK with aggression as long as it’s used to enforce libertarian morals instead of some other system of ethics. It’s just a violently enforced system of ethics, which I’m starting to think is mad no matter who’s morals are enforced at the point of a gun.”
Hashem,
You realize that this is inherent in any system which does not entirely reject the idea of violence right? By definition you accept violence whenever you accept violence, whenever it favors what you believe. I don’t know exactly what you’re expecting.
Sometimes I think pacifism is the way to go.
@ Malachi,
Aggression may be separated into two categories, initial and retaliatory. The term “defensive” is unclear to me, perhaps you can clarify it? Libertarians support aggression, they are NOT non-aggressive. They just want to use aggression to enforce their view of how things should be. But they must confront the fact/value dichotomy, aka the is/ought dichotomy. Even Rothbard recognized this in The Ethics of Liberty, and he didn’t solve it there.
I agree with you that dominance hierarchies are part of the human psyche, but I don’t know what you mean when you say “the task of these realms”.
Pacifism? So if a bunch of guys are beating me up I don’t have the right to fight back?
Pacifism sounds good, but self-defense is always necessary.
@ Neodoxy,
Maybe you made a point and I’m sorry for failing to catch it. I don’t support violence against people who don’t want it.
So if a bunch of guys are beating me up I don’t have the right to fight back?
Fight back if you want to. Fight back BECAUSE you want to. There is no other reason. But don’t invoke mystical “rights”. You don’t have a right to anything except when other people agree to support it.
I assume youre using “aggression” as a synonym for “violence.” thats fine with me. I would like to know how you define “retaliatory.” suppose someone is assaulting me, and so I punch him in the throat and run away while he catches his wind. I consider that a defensive action, it wasnt any sort of retaliation for the assault, it was a direct and effective means of escaping the assault, that is justifiable in court. Thats factual. Now if you told me that I ought not to do that, and instead try to run away, or let myself be beaten, well thats pacifism and we can talk about that. I’m open to the idea.
the stuff we discuss here, philosophy, economics, political economy.