Anarcho-capitalistic economist Walter Block said, “In my view, circumcision of males is justified on cleanliness and health grounds. People other than Jews now commonly engage in this practice for those reasons. Female circumcision is a different matter. The reason for this appears one of keeping women subservient, and is thus incompatible with our notions of freedom and liberty.”
Pulling back the foreskin to clean a penis is not that hard. Even if it took minutes, should not this decision be made the individual, not the parents?
The argument female circumcision is wrong due to its intent of female submission continuation does not persuade me. The argument focuses on intent, not results. If parents amputated a child’s limb with the intent it would increase beauty, Block’s argument would seemingly allow it.
My view on this issue was largely influenced by libertarian magicians Penn & Teller’s argument against circumcision.
Cleanliness and health is a pathetic piss poor excuse. There are millions of uncircumcized men who clean their penis just fine without mr. a-hole block’s stupid anti-male opinion.
for a supposed ‘libertarian’ to make genital mutilation an exception only for boys, is disgraceful, what an a-hole. Look how sympathetic he is for the ‘notions of freedom and liberty’ for women and for consideration of not wanting to keep them ‘insubordinate’. And what of men’s penises being subordinate to the brutal whims of their idiotic parents and doctors? What an a-hole!!! Truly USDA approved grade A a-hole this man is.
and for the record, male genital mutilation is one of the most unhealthy, dangerous, and damaging things you can do to a penis. Nature provides the foreskin for a reason, for moisture, for skin protection, and other things. A whole batch of essential nerves, tissues and parts are permanently lost after circumcision. Not to mention the several DEATHS that occur every year.
to view the entire list of what is lost, read here
If he really thinks so fine, he’s just putting religion before liberty (although circumcision is no violation of the NAP). But if this is all a show to please religious bigots, this is getting out of hand.
Libertarians are confused on ‘coercive’ acts not done by the state. Read Artistotle on political justice ( when in Rome, do what the Romans do), or better yet read the entire Nicomachean Ethics. In some communities, not having been circumcised right after birth is more ‘coercive’ because you eventually have to undergo the pain of circumcision. Circumcision is really a trivial issue that should not be subjected to some libertarian legal theory. Some things are simply non-essentials. You’re acting like Randroids who think that somebody is anti-reality for liking Mozart.
I’m afraid an arbiter in an ancap society would not get to pass the case at hand by going ‘Come on fellows, its silly as a case and nonessential.” No case is trivial, especially when you have time on your hands and enjoy discussing libertarian legal theory.
The solution to this is to be found in the fact that there’s no such thing as objective morality. No one has an inherent “right” to be or not to be circumcised. Parents would circumcise or not circumcise their children in a Stateless society based on the incentives or disincentives within the market.
The same can be said of other bodily mutilations or rape.
Indeed it can. Just try to find anyone who’d deal with you after the fact is made public, but strictly speaking I would not hold this to be punishable. Such aberrations will habe to be dealt with by incentives, not beating people up.
Whether it is ethically right to have your child circumcised or not has absolutely nothing to do with libertarianism. I would agree with Dr. Block on his distinction on ethical grounds, but not on libertarian grounds.
A free society would be free to discourage any such behavior as female circumcision and penalize people who engage in such behavior, and it may even do so in a more efficient manner then the State. But that’s probably all we can say about this issue with respect to libertarianism.
Being ancap and believing in child penis mutilation doesn’t make one fundamentally wrong or hypocritical. It just shows ignorance on this topic, in my opinion.
There is no need for circumscision, it doesn’t prevent HIV or whatever disease, it is all pseudo-religious-pseudo-scientific bunk to justify ones cultural bias (not always, but mostly).
I mean, just give a person scientific evidence and 9 times out of 10 he will quit this erroneous notion that “cutting penis is ok”.
Surely against children/babies it is aggression.This argument above doesn’t really work.Could be used to justify just about anything.
Indeed it can, and it should. As long as the other guy cannot disagree, Molineux notwithstanding, the baby is more akin to ‘homesteadable’ property than to a person.
If not, you adult children turned vegetarian could sue you for feeding him fats which turned out to shorten his live by a couple of years (what doesn’t?). Or for smoking in his presence. Or for feeding him meat. Or for feeding him pork, should he later turn Muslim. You see, if the other guy cannot say ‘no’ by his actions (leave the house), than there is no objective standard of what is aggression and what is not.
Thus, I stick with Rothbard: unless the kid flees his house, everything is fair game. Morality and social repercussions are, of course, something else entirely (i.e. I as a liability insurer would not write a guy who beats his children).
