What if you sell it to the man, but he ends up not killing his wife. Are you still guilty of assisting a murder because you thought he was going to commit murder?
How can a person be liable for something that never happened?
Like I said, silly.
No one said you could not punish both.(Though I don’t like the word punish, the goal of justice is not punishment but restoration)
A person doing something while in an abnormal state of mind is not the same as a person doing something because their life is threatened. If a person commits murder because of a threat, it is not because of a breakdown in reason. In fact, since they are acting out of self-preservation it shows they are acting rationally. Rand would be proud.
Like I said, I’m not yet convinced that a tortured person is not rational.
Sorry, didnt realize this was addressing the socialists and not the jews.
You are responsible for the actions of your agents, paid or unpaid. But I do not believe the State is the agent of the electorate.
The State ultimately is only able to exist because it is supported by the population. But the State does not serve the electorate’s interests, it serves its own.
Of course, if we were to hold people guilty for their political beliefs practically the entire Republican party would be in jail long before any socialists because murder(genocide, really) is a more serious crime than theft.
There’s this funny concept known in the legal system as conspiracy. Look it up sometime. I’m sure you could learn all sorts of things if you tried.
For my part, I do think of justice as punishment, so I don’t have a problem bringing penalties upon people who were too inept to actually harm someone on the first try.
No, but by paying taxes, we become agents of the state. We help operate the economic engine that keeps it moving. Further, we are agents of the state by our informed free will.
But the gun seller wasn’t trying to hurt anyone. You accused him of not attempting to prevent a non-existent murder.
There are lots of funny legal concepts. Like eminent domain, conscription, taxation, prohibition, regulations.
I know lots about them, I just happen to disagree with pretty much all of them.
The state charges people with lots of non-crimes, the problem is: they aren’t crimes.
Thats not the proper use of the word. Agents act on behalf of someone. The customers of a business are not its “agents.”
Of course you can, for some definition of “on purpose”; look up “mens rea”.
So, if i accidently burn down your house, or hit your car, I owe you nothing? What sort of injuries can I inflict on accident where I am not liable?
You are using the statist definition of crime, where crime means doing something the state doesn’t want you to do. I’m using the libertarian definition where crime means infringing upon someone’s property.
I’m falling asleep as I type this, so it may not make any sense. I’ll try to flesh it out tomorrow (assuming I still agree with it!).
If someone threatens me with death unless I kill someone else, I am being forced (yes, coerced) into choosing which life is more valuable. It isn’t a choice that I want to make, but it’s a choice that I’m being forced to make. To me, it seems rational to choose your own life as being more valuable. Choosing the other person’s life – seemingly for the greater good of moral society – seems irrational. Of course, the other person doesn’t deserve to die! The blame for his/her death lies in the person that forced me into that decision.
As to crimes, there are victimizing and victimless crimes. A victimizing crime involves harming another person’s self or property, plain and simple, regardless of intent. Intent should play a part in the severity of the punishment. Self-defense results in no punishment, even though there was a victim. Planned murder should carry the heaviest sentence.
Um, if someone threatened me with death unless I kill someone else, I would only kill the other person if I knew they deserved it.
Like I said at the outset, that is not a libertarian argument. It is anti-libertarian to argue that my needs allow me to violate the Non-Aggression Principle.
You might think that behaving morally is irrational, but makes you an objectivist and not a libertarian.
Punishment must be proportional. That doesn’t allow for giving increased sentences to people we dislike the most. You are liable for your crime, not your mindset.
What’s not libertarian is punishing a victim for actions under coercion; that would make citizens of a state aggressors rather than victims.
When you drive on government roads, accept Social Security, pay taxes, use the court system, use the Internet, call emergency services, or attend a government university, you are acting as an aggressor. You have to be consistent!
You continuously mischaracterize my position.
My position means that only the person who actually collects the taxes to build the road is an aggressor. Using the road is a morally neutral action. Your position means that the person who collects the taxes can transfer their guilt to whoever wants the road to be built.
So, its you who makes the subjects the aggressors!
Thats not an accurate definition of libertarian. Libertarian is defined by the non-aggression principle. Any subversion of that principle is a subversion of libertarianism.
Wait a second… Would it not have been wrong to give funding and weaponry to the Nazi regime?
Would it not be wrong to accept and use goods and servives that you know were stolen from someone else?
How does either of that follow from my post?
It is not illegal to sell guns, or food, to anyone; not even those ever-hateable Nazi. “Giving” might be different, but I can’t think of any reason why.
Its not illegal to buy something stolen, it is illegal to try to keep it if the legitimate owner demands it back. I’ve already explained why this is true. The act of buying itself is not immoral, but denying a person the rights of ownership of their property is.
If you want to say that people shouldn’t sell guns to nazi, or shouldn’t buy stolen goods, thats fine. But neither is a violation of the NAP, so is not a crime.
You are interpreting the NAP in a peculiar way (punishing victims and ignoring deliberate enablers). Are you really saying that I am completely innocent if I give weaponry, money, and intel to an evil state killing and torturing millions of people (like the Nazi regime)? Are the only guilty people (in your mind) the drafted soldiers on the ground?
Like I said, you’re the one that accuses tax payers of being aggressors.