Under what conditions should someone be punished? When would it be justified? When would it not be?
Good question. To be honest, I really wouldn’t mind if we went to an anti-war rally and jailed every single person waving a Socialist Worker sign. On the other hand, we’re never going to accomplish anything if we have that attitude!
Indeed, how many of us are lifelong libertarians? I used to, as I seem to recall was the case with you, Ego, be a Neocon, and I actually believed that the fascist corporatism I was spouting was capitalism. If that is the main thing that is represented as capitalism, is it any wonder that some turn to what is often put out as the only alternative, egalitarian socialism?
In a true libertarian world, there is a distinction between legality and morality. Some believe that a libertarian legal system seeks to bring law and morality into sync, but that is not case. Its statists that are always trying to improve the legal system by regulating morality, from prohibitions to welfare. Libertarian legal system is unique because it acknowledges a difference between law and morality. The law exists only to determine and enforce rights of ownership. What people should, or should not, do with those rights is not addressed by the law.
Some might consider immoral to give away your child, or refuse to care for a parent, but it certainly is not illegal.
When a person breaks the law, infringes upon another person’s property, proportional violence is justified. However, if a person’s behavior is only immorally, you are limited to passive punishment. For example, you could refuse to rent to them.
Wrong.
A mugger says, “Give me your waller” and you oblige, are you responsible for how he spends the money?
The government says, “Give me your money or I’ll hurt you”, so people give the money. The Government does not “Kill your neighbor or I’ll hurt you”.
If you had used conscription, your analogy would have been accurate. And, actually, I don’t forgive drafted murders as easily as you probably do. Of course, they rarelly see themselves as responsible for their own actions. They blame the murder they commit on others and its only because of this that war is possible.
People excusing inexcusable behavior is what makes this world lousy, and you’re part of the problem.
So the people who are against the state murdering people should be jailed?
I say we shoot anyone who advocates using (state) violence against non-violence protesters. Sorry, ego, nothing personal.
And again, statism is only possible because people do not take responsibility for their own actions. If I ask you to kill someone, am I criminal? No, I haven’t infringed on anyone’s ownership. People who advocate more government are not criminals, it is anyone who performs state violence that is a criminal. Ask any police officer, they don’t feel guilty about what they do, because they are just “enforcing the laws”.
If that mugger was Uncle Sam, and you and knew full well that tax money went to the government, and you knew full well what kind of things the government would spend your money on, then the taxpayers are liable according to Mr. Forde’s moral views.
I hate to pull the Nazi card on a fellow libertarian, but think about this:
Many of the Jews in the concentration camps were coerced into slave labor. They knew that everything they were making and doing contributed towards the (clearly evil) Nazi regime. Do you want to hold the Jews responsible?
Or, like me, do you want to blame the real aggressor (the Nazi regime)?
edit: the plural of “Nazi” won’t show up in my post…
No, we don’t round up everyone there, just the socialists holding the Socialist Worker signs! [;)]
Thats not an accurate assessment.
Forde said that people are responsible for their actions. If I sell the you some fertilizer and you use it make a bomb, I am not the bomber. You are.
Even if I know you are going to make the bomb, it is you who killed people. You, as the murder, can not blame your actions on me. Nor can anyone else.
Gun manufactures know that some of the guns they sell will be used for murder, but they are not murders. They bear no responsibility.
No. Nor do I want to hold gun manufactures responsible for gun violence. My position is that a person is responsible for his own actions, so its impossible for me to blame Hitler’s bombing of Russia on Jews.
It is your position that defends transferring moral responsibility. You blame the Jews for making bombs, then “forgive” them because of circumstance.
But since all the jews are guilty of is manufacturing bombs, and since the manufucture of bombs is not a sin, I have no need to forgive them.
You missed the point.
Advocating is not a crime. It doesn’t matter if you advocate good hygene or nuclear war. Talking is peaceful. It is only the people who actually commit nuclear war that are criminal. Socialists aren’t criminals, government agents are.
(You’re transferring moral responsibility)
The manufacture of bombs for what you know to be an evil regime IS a sin.
Then manufacturing guns is a sin.
The act of making a bomb is the same regardless of who is going to buy it. It is only if you accept transfer of guilt that making a bomb for Nazis is any different than making a bomb for…wait, who other than evil regimes own bombs?
If you do so to sell it to the government, yes. If you sell to the populace, no, unless, as the government does, they announce to you beforehand that they will use them to aggress against others, and you sell it to them anyway.
Jon, if I hire a hitman, am I not guilty?
Only if the hitman actually follows through. But that is not analogous to the scenario at hand.
Jews did not cause Hitler to bomb people, they merely enabled him. Completely different.
Thats silly.
Intent is not neccessary for legal responsibility. If I accidently break your window, I am just as legally responsible as if I deliberately broke it.
You can’t say something is criminal only if its done on purpose. Either the action of selling the gun is illegal or it is not.
Jon, just so I know where you are coming from, do you believe that people should be held responsible for their actions while being brutally tortured?
Thats crossed my mind, I don’t know.
If a person was some how drugged and not coherent, I wouldn’t blame them. This is why a person drugged can be raped, even if they give consent at the time.
Though that begs the question, what happens if the raped person willing intoxicated herself. Certainly a person is liable if she willing intoxicates herself and then commits a murder.
The question of torture depends on the mental capacities of the person during the torture.
If she willingly intoxicated herself and then commits a murder, she is liable. Assuming she wasn’t coerced or tricked into getting intoxicated, she knowingly participated in an activity which lowers her ability to reason act rationally.
Let’s say that woman was mentally fit. She was kidnapped and brutally tortured for months into commiting a crime (a crime which she knew all along to be wrong). Do you really think that it’s the right thing to do to punish her after the ordeal? Mr. Forde certainly seems to think so.
In my mind, any rational person would punish the real coercer: the man who kidnapped her and tortured her into commiting his crime.
Silly? I could as well sell a brick to someone and they might kill someone with it. Heck, most things have the potential to be weapons. What’s silly is if you’re really saying that I incur no responsibility in selling a gun to someone who tells me he’s going to use it to kill his wife than for selling to someone who doesn’t say so. In the one case, I willingly provide a tool that I know, based on the man’s stated intent, he will use for murder. In the other, I am not a willing accomplice to murder.
Now, for the Jews manufacturing in the camps, the difference was only in the sorts of incentives involved. In the gun shop, you gained money if you did as you were asked, in the camps you temporarily avoided gruesome penalty if you did as you were asked. In the one case, you could go without the money, in the other, you could suffer the penalty. By agreeing to either, you knowingly and by your free will aid and abet murder, and you deserve all the penalties that incurs… unless you accept duress, the threat of the terrible penalty, as an excuse from such condemnation.