Well, then it sucks to be me. I would just hope that my supporters would stab you for revenge, but that’s all I can ask for without dictating unto others.
It’s just doublethink. People generally haven’t thought through these matters far enough to clear up all contradictions. Hence they can believe both halves of a contraction. They are at a less advanced stage in their political evolution. Good vs. evil isn’t a very helpful way of looking at the world.
Revenge is not synonymous with justice. I missed the earlier part of your debate, but that sentence stuck out to me. When we’re dead, the last thing we will be worrying about (whether you believe in an afterlife or not) is whether or not the guy who got you, got his.
There is a BIG difference between that situation and supporting an institution which, except in the case of welfare which could be handled better by private firms, kills for lies, steals to make the world a worse place with the threat of death if you resist, restricts what people can do on threat of death and kidnap, and is Enslaving a generation which hasn’t been conceved of yet!
I just noticed I missed this post.
I care more about the well being of little kids playing on their neighbors tree than homeless people breaking into others houses. Now, maybe the homeless person has a starving family he needs to feed, in which case I can be more lenient. But again, this is just us discussing what is moral and immoral. I don’t think we will actually see people stopping parents from saving their child’s life and homeless people breaking and entering in a free society.
But that has nothing to do with the NAP. It’s important to be clear about that.
Why?
[*-)]
The NAP is really a foundational principle. Removing it changes the entire concept of not just Ancap but Libertarianism if you follow that among other things.
I thought violating a persons property rights was a violation of the NAP? Anyways, I can think of other examples where I wouldn’t find it wrong to actually initiate force on an actual person.
You can be an AnCap while opposing the NAP.
You have every right to demonstrate your conviction of the NAP and other libertarian concepts. If it’s worth not associating with family and friends, then do what you think is best. Just realize that you may be lonely for it - saying your a Libertarian isn’t exactly an icebreaker these days. Or, if you love your family and friends, then you really need to press the point that much harder to convince them where their error lies.
Regardless of what the meaning of good and evil are, both are thrown about too freely in order to obtain an emotional response. If the vast majority of a person’s actions and beliefs are in serious error with the intent to do wrong, then you could call that person ‘evil.’ That doesn’t mean the person is totally worthless and should be wiped off the face of the earth. Only in the most extreme cases would you even begin to consider that (in a free society these types of people tend to wipe themselves off the face of the earth). Most folks are a mix of good and evil - or more appropriately right and wrong. But then, with our own demons, who are we to judge?
Sure, but you decide what is and is not a violation of your rights. If you consent, then there is no violation of the NAP.
Such as?
You can also be an ancap if you are a robot. On the one hand, you’re saying you are compassionate, and then on the other side, you reject a moral standard of compassion.
I don’t think the NAP must be a law necessarily, but it certainly informs us as to how to interact with one another. Not in the matters of trivial border disputes, but rather in how we resolve conflicts in general. Never by throwing the first punch.
While it may be morally justified to violate the NAP, it is not justifiable by reason. Acting on these morals would then change you from a libertarian to something else.
But in my scenario, the owner of the property does not consent to the parents entering his property.
If there is some high school punk kid who makes fun of a little girl every single day because her parents are poor, and the only way to stop him from acting like an asshole is by punching him in the face, then I feel perfectly morally justified to do so. I could come up with even more extreme scenarios.
In real life, I think most people tend to agree with the NAP under most circumstances. I definitely do not think people must adhere to it at all times in order to have a prosperous free society. My examples were to just prove the point that I don’t think it is good to say that violating the NAP is always immoral.
It’s important to hold as a guideline, as are most foundational topics. It’s not a law and you won’t be smited by god for breaking the NAP. I actually have in fact been in the exact situation you outlined above and felt no remorse for beating the crap out of that bully. I even had teachers thank me and I don’t regret doing it. He was beligerant however and he did all the instigating. I even gave him fair warning that I was about to beat him to kingdom come should he continue.
At any rate we can make little stories of such situations all day long it doesn’t make the NAP any less relevant. Coupling the NAP with a clear definition of private property helps us decide who the aggressors are and it helps us decide how to deal with those aggressors based on the situation. Without the guideline we wouldn’t have a clear starting point. Both definition of Private Property and NAP need to be defined. Without a definition of Property the NAP is useless and without a definition of the NAP private property is useless. They are guidelines and foundational ones at that.
As is his right. But the NAP does not prevent you from reacting differently. If you’re not for the NAP, and you’re not for property, then I don’t think you’re an ancap.
So basically, your sense of ethics is only restricted to what you want to do at any given moment. Again, and how are you an ancap then?
So you’re saying that being aggressive is not immoral. Which means you are not an ancap. What pray tell, is immoral in your world?
Sure, the NAP is generally a good principle to abide by. But when the NAP conflicts with some of my other ethical beliefs, then it gets a little more complicated. My whole point was that it is not a good idea to claim that it is always immoral to initiate force. In my opinion, the examples I provided do make the NAP less relevant because it means that I do not think it is always immoral to initiate aggression.
I do believe in the right to property. But I do not think this right is so absolute that it is never moral to violate it.
I am an AnCap because I believe all services currently provided by the government should be provided by the market. It is not like the market requires property rights to be 100% enforced in order to function properly.
So your definition of an AnCap is “one who views aggression as immoral?”
So you don’t believe in the right to property. That’s what you’re saying. I believe in the right (which is an absolute) but not all the time (which undermines the absolute). It would be like saying, I don’t believe in property, except sometimes it is moral to believe in it.
How do you propose to accomplish the latter if you claim to believe the former?
Yes. What is yours?
I do believe you have a right to own private property. If you have a “keep off property” sign on your front lawn, and someone steps on your property, do you think you have a right to shoot him? If not, then aren’t you saying that the right to property is not absolute?
I do not know how to achieve an AnCap society. But my point was that a sucessful AnCap society does not requie the complete enforcement of property rights.
I always considered an AnCap to be someone who wanted all services to be provided by the market.
You don’t have a right to shoot him because killing isn’t a proportionate response. You do have a right to some kind of recompense, though, if you do not consent to this person being on your property—they violate your property rights, so they forfeit a proportionate amount of their own.
It seems like what the “proportionate response” is would depend on the person. Maybe the shooter thought his action was the proportionate response. What do you think is the proportionate punishment for stepping on a persons property should be? 10 dollars? 20 dollars? 17.62?
Why by the market?
Yes. And you also have a right to not shoot him based on your discretion. But you are not precluded from defending your property with force anytime someone transgresses against it. In the circumstance you describe, the notion of ownership is meaningless or relies on some party other than the property owner to determine what they may do with their own property. Who is that party?