Its just the underlying logic suggests that in order to possess a weapon you have to justify it ← Departure from traditional libertarian philosophy please address
I don’t know. It was Block’s claim and article that I remember reading some time back. It made sense, but I don’t know how this would actually develop. Block for all I know may have found a reasonable outcome based on the knowledge that if a weapon universally kills in such a geography, then such a weapon being banned from that geography might happen. Block wasn’t giving any principles or axioms. He was following a train of thought that was trying to define what a threat is. It’s not unreasonable to think that certain towns in collaboration by the shop owners may come up with rules upon entry into their town. It has been done in the past. Certain towns or businesses would put signs up stating their rules and some, such in the “Wild West” of the old U.S. stated no guns allowed. Heck Wal-mart will not let me walk in without having shoes and a shirt on, so, it’s not unreasonable that this may occur.
Yeah, it does seem like Rothbard’s logic to this issue is fundamentally against “traditional libertarian philosophy”.
Just because something’s only purpose is to kill people it should be illegal? What if he was a crazy person that just wanted to blow up his private island in the pacific? I know this is a crazy situation, but he doesn’t HAVE to kill people with it…
Who’s property is he violating by owning a nuke?
I’d like to hear more about this too
that’s a good question, but what about fallout? That can travel for hundreds of miles and effect the water. Is it a certainity that none of the effects of a nuke going off will harm people? Do people fish nearby, etc…
Simply owning a nuclear weapon is aggression by itself. Just like if someone point a gun at you, you can rightfully defend yourself; possessing a nuke is like pointing a gun in every direction.
So what about smaller bombs? Are those illegal too?
I’m having a hard time understanding why owning a nuke is an act of threatening someone, what if it is stored in a closet? Is it pointing at a person? Just like a gun, it’s only threatening once you point the weapon at someone, how is simply owning a nuke pointed a weapon at someone?
So are there cases when just owning a weapon can be considered aggression? Like what if everyone used sticks and stones for self defense and I wanted to invent a gun?
Wouldn’t this mean that all invention of weapons could be considered aggression?
So are we saying the only situation that is legitimate is an equilibrium where everyone has equal self defense capabilities?
Snowflake,
Since the ONLY possible use of a nuclear weapon necessarily involves the murder of innocents, owning it is tantamount to evidence of impending murder. That is different from pinpoint-able weapons, the ownership of which is NOT tantamount to such evidence.
I understand this, very much so. But this line of reasoning presupposes that possession of weapons requires justification; that we can use consequentialism to clarify rights…
Nuke has externalities. Radiation and stuff.
No wonder, since that line of reasoning doesn’t make sense. In any more or less advanced industrial society you can buy lots of things which are potentially very dangerous. Even today, manufacturing a couple of tons of poison gas(es) should be rather easy for people motivated enough, despite ‘anti-terrorist’ laws, cops, the military and other useless public employees.
I suppose that libertarians waste time talking about ‘private’ nukes because the topic is the sort of ridiculous non-problem that statist fret about. Such, as, “how will children learn to read in a free society with no ‘public’ schools ???”
Sounds good to me. It is like your neighbour following your movement through a rifle scope from his terrace.
I don`t know. Is the closet going to contain the blast of a nuclear device?
Can a threat be objectively defined? If not, can’t most acts of aggression be arbitrarily justified by subjectively defining threats that they are trying to eliminate?
Z.
Except he doesn’t.
Only the use or threat thereof, not merely owning or possessing. A clear and definitive distinction.
No. It does not.
No, it does not.
Yours & others persistent attempts to water down the NAP is getting old, pretty fast.
Except it’s not.
No, and that is why all these posts contending as such and that Rothbard held the same position are strawmen.
No-ones. [:)]
Thanks for the rebuttal. I really learned a lot.
Yeah, this makes a lot more sense, I found it hard to believe Rothbard would be against someone owning something merely because it possesses great harm. Thanks for the clarification, what is that quote from anyways?
When you’ve erected a strawman, there isn’t exactly much to refute is there?
No worries. [:)]
It was from War, Peace and the State.
Sorry should have linked to it.
So clearly im more interested in discussing the strawman: namely that the whole underlying question of this thread is whether we can allow consequentialist considerations to clarify our conceptions of property rights.
“WMD’s” are ONLY effective against organized, collectivist governments.
To whom would WMD’s be aimed in anarchy? You? or Me? Our enemy would not need WMD’s for that, now would they? A knife or a club or a gun would do fine. That’s all non government criminals need, and a truly free market would offer protection from non government criminals quite reasonably.
Samarami