Is it hard for you to be an Economist???

[SilentXtarian]

Reply to Conza88

Governments don’t grant rights. “Rights” only make sense when framed as property rights. The government cannot “increase” them, since it must violate them to exist.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul188.html

"However, contrary to the claims of the supporters of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the sponsors of H.Res. 676, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 did not improve race relations or enhance freedom. Instead, the forced integration dictated by the Civil Rights Act of 1964 increased racial tensions while diminishing individual liberty.

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 gave the federal government unprecedented power over the hiring, employee relations, and customer service practices of every business in the country. The result was a massive violation of the rights of private property and contract, which are the bedrocks of free society. The federal government has no legitimate authority to infringe on the rights of private property owners to use their property as they please and to form (or not form) contracts with terms mutually agreeable to all parties. The rights of all private property owners, even those whose actions decent people find abhorrent, must be respected if we are to maintain a free society."

I’m quite well aware that governments don’t grant rights. My only point was that we can only affirm they exist at least in our present society through common laws. I will agree with you that a lot of these equal rights bills end up having economic consequences that infringe on the rights of business entrepreneurs. But the matter of the fact is that these minorities weren’t granted their rights before- so- we had to acknowledge them because people weren’t doing that before, and used to treat them as sub-human.

Yeah, those who wanted to impose the Constitution on the American people where in the minority. How is the “government” in minarchism to be financed, if not by theft and coercion? I recommend you also read Liberalism to get a grasp of the philosophy behind it - then read Ethics of Liberty or Molinari, or anyone else - who fill in the reasons (technical considerations) Mises held out on.

Well, first of all I’ve read Liberalism and Ludwig Von Mises and I can tell you that Ludwig Von Mises was not advocating for anarchism or a libertarian society. He was actually advocating for a minarchist society which the government provides the essential functions of maintaining law and order and providing equal rights for everyone, and, that’s that. I’ll take a look in the other books.

Second, I’ve thought about your first question pretty hard- and I think that a minarchist government could be easily financed. The government would have to run itself like a business. It would be given more authority than other businesses because well obviously it would be the central authority. But it would provide services for people via the money it gets from its own business adventures. It wouldn’t coerce anyone through taxation. I’ve done some thought inot that- and that’s the idea I’ve come up with.

Did you read the link? To be frank - nothing you mention, makes it seem like you did. It specifically addresses Private Defense, the issue at hand - and touches upon how law in anarchy would work.

I skimmed over it. I’ll look at it again and then when I have time I’ll tell you what I think about it. I’m sorry that I didn’t address the points of the article.

Public-private military (PPP’s) are the worst of both worlds. The founders were against standing armies.

I think the founding fathers wanted a primarily private army. They mainly wanted congress to have authority over them. I’d really recommend you look over the constitution though. I think the kind of military force the founding fathers wanted was actually pretty libertarian. I think it would be relevant to the discussion to quote the section of the constitution that talks about armies and militias

To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years;

To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;

To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;

http://www.usconstitution.net/xconst_A1Sec8.html

That’s good you are against the initiation and threat of physical violence. So you’re conception of “government” wouldn’t “tax” anyone?

That is correct.

[Spideynw]

@scineram

Maybe a government can be instituted to improve things.

That’s like saying slavery would be instituted to improve things. Once people understand that taxation is wrong, just like slavery is wrong, it won’t come back.

[Esuric]

@Spideynw

Anyways, what would be the point of discussing business cycles, if there is no government to affect it? It would be like talking about the fact that everyone is born and everyone dies. No one can do anything about it, so why would there be any discussion about it?

Why do people study quantum mechanics? Why did Galileo study astronomy?

[Conza]

@SilentXtarian

Well, first of all I’ve read Liberalism and Ludwig Von Mises and I can tell you that Ludwig Von Mises was not advocating for anarchism

Yeah, he stopped just short of it due to “technical considerations.”

@SilentXtarian

Second, I’ve thought about your first question pretty hard- and I think that a minarchist government could be easily financed. The government would have to run itself like a business. It would be given more authority than other businesses because well obviously it would be the central authority. But it would provide services for people via the money it gets from its own business adventures. It wouldn’t coerce anyone through taxation. I’ve done some thought inot that- and that’s the idea I’ve come up with.

You can’t be serious. You really need to drop your conception of “government”, because it has nothing to do with the general use of the term and read about PDA’s & DRO’s.

@SilentXtarian

Public-private military (PPP’s) are the worst of both worlds. The founders were against standing armies.

I think the founding fathers wanted a primarily private army. They mainly wanted congress to have authority over them. I’d really recommend you look over the constitution though. I think the kind of military force the founding fathers wanted was actually pretty libertarian. I think it would be relevant to the discussion to quote the section of the constitution that talks about armies and militias

No standing army. Letters of Marquis sea and reprisal are pretty libertarian. And a piece of paper never limited anything.

@SilentXtarian

That’s good you are against the initiation and threat of physical violence. So you’re conception of “government” wouldn’t “tax” anyone?

That is correct.

Why is it you ignored this though?

"So you wouldn’t force me into your “state”? You believe in secession to the individual level then? Legislation has nothing to do with liberty though - legal positivism is the anti-thesis of it.

Legal and political theory have committed much mischief by failing to pinpoint physical invasion as the only human action that should be illegal and that justifies the use of physical violence to combat it. The vague concept of “harm” is substituted for the precise one of physical violence.[13] Consider the following two examples. Jim is courting Susan and is just about to win her hand in marriage, when suddenly Bob appears on the scene and wins her away. Surely Bob has done great “harm” to Jim. Once a nonphysical-invasion sense of harm is adopted, almost any outlaw act might be justified. Should Jim be able to “enjoin” Bob’s very existence?[14]

For more on the “harm” principle - here."

[Spideynw]

@Esuric

Why do people study quantum mechanics?

I don’t know, why do they?

@Esuric

Why did Galileo study astronomy?

I don’t know, why did he?

[SilentXtarian]

Conza88

@SilentXtarian

Well, first of all I’ve read Liberalism and Ludwig Von Mises and I can tell you that Ludwig Von Mises was not advocating for anarchism

Yeah, he stopped just short of it due to “technical considerations.”

I’m fairly certain Mises made it pretty clear throughout his writings that he was against anarchism. He advocated for a night-watchman state. Nothing more than that. You were free to do whatever you wanted. All the state did was maintain law and order.

You can’t be serious. You really need to drop your conception of “government”, because it has nothing to do with the general use of the term and read about PDA’s & DRO’s.

I understand that my conception of government has nothing to do with how government is currently ran. Much of the criticism of governments seem to lie on the basis that it runs like a bureaucracy. I’m saying that in order to truly have a limited government, the government would have to live in on its means, and would act like a for profit agency that would serve the interests of the people. Rather than use the power of coercion- if people of an ideological group wanted to use it (which they no doubtedly would) the government would have to make the funds necessary for whatever services which they want. They couldn’t just simply tax everyone for it. And I’m not asking for a welfare state- I don’t want a society where everyone lives off the state. I’m just saying that if they want these things- they couldn’t take other people’s money right out of their hands, like the government can.

No standing army. Letters of Marquis sea and reprisal are pretty libertarian. And a piece of paper never limited anything.

I still say that having that little thing that you call a piece of paper is better than having nothing at all. The problem with anarchy as I see it is that while we may agree in principle that people are equal and we all have these rights if we have no rights written down than we wouldn’t be able to affirm it in any way.

Why is it you ignored this though?

"So you wouldn’t force me into your “state”? You believe in secession to the individual level then? Legislation has nothing to do with liberty though - legal positivism is the anti-thesis of it.

I didn’t mean to ignore that. I was just making a quick response. That is precisely what I meant when I called the state that I wanted a volunteerist state. No one should be forced to confide themselves in a social contract they don’t want to be in. I find the idea of a social contract to be complete quackery, to be honest with you myself. I’ve never believed in it.

Legal and political theory have committed much mischief by failing to pinpoint physical invasion as the only human action that should be illegal and that justifies the use of physical violence to combat it. The vague concept of “harm” is substituted for the precise one of physical violence.[13] Consider the following two examples. Jim is courting Susan and is just about to win her hand in marriage, when suddenly Bob appears on the scene and wins her away. Surely Bob has done great “harm” to Jim. Once a nonphysical-invasion sense of harm is adopted, almost any outlaw act might be justified. Should Jim be able to “enjoin” Bob’s very existence?[14]

For more on the “harm” principle - here."

I don’t really think that you can measure abstract principles of harm. You can’t read a person’s psyche. I don’t think we have the ability to read other people’s minds and know what they’re feeling- not yet at least. But, I would agree that people should make an effort to try to cause the least suffering to those people around them because mental harm can cause psychological damages on other individuals.

As to your article on no more military socialism- I don’t see what’s stopping these private defense agencies from warring against each other. What would make them so much better than a state army?

[filc]

I am a Misesian not because I appeal to some kind of authority(Mises). I don’t believe in the free market or praxeology simply because Mises says so. I do so because he has presented the arguments to me in such a way that I myself can believe them to be irrefutable. This however does not apply to all of his stances, and Mises’s understanding of Anarchy is not the type we refer to today.

[Conza]

@SilentXtarian

I’m fairly certain Mises made it pretty clear throughout his writings that he was against anarchism. He advocated for a night-watchman state. Nothing more than that. You were free to do whatever you wanted. All the state did was maintain law and order.

He was against the “anarchists” (socialist ones). And so was Rothbard when he wrote this: “Libertarians are not anarchists”, but later chose to re-claim part of the label - once he had pretty much mapped out the entire anarcho-capitalist philosophy.

Hoppe:

Rothbard’s anarchism was not the sort of anarchism that his teacher and mentor Mises had rejected as hopelessly naive, of course. “The anarchists,” Mises had written,

contend that a social order in which nobody enjoys privileges at the expense of his fellow-citizens could exist without any compulsion and coercion for the prevention of action detrimental to society. . . . The anarchists overlook the undeniable fact that some people are either too narrow-minded or too weak to adjust themselves spontaneously to the conditions of social life. . . . An anarchistic society would be exposed to the mercy of every individual. Society cannot exist if the majority is not ready to hinder, by the application or threat of violent action, minorities from destroying the social order.[10]

Indeed, Rothbard wholeheartedly agreed with Mises that without resort to compulsion, the existence of society would be endangered and that behind the rules of conduct whose observance is necessary to assure peaceful human cooperation must stand the threat to force if the whole edifice of society is not to be continually at the mercy of any one of its members. One must be in a position to compel a person who will not respect the lives, health, personal freedom, or private property of others to acquiesce in the rules of life in society.[11]

Inspired in particular by the nineteenth-century American anarchist political theorists Lysander Spooner and Benjamin Tucker and the Belgian economist Gustave de Molinari, from the outset Rothbard’s anarchism took it for granted that there will always be murderers, thieves, thugs, con artists, etc., and that life in society would be impossible if they were not punished by physical force. As a reflection of this fundamental realism—anti-utopianism—of his private-property anarchism, Rothbard, unlike most contemporary political philosophers, accorded central importance to the subject of punishment. For him, private property and the right to physical defense were inseparable. No one can be said to be the owner of something if he is not permitted to defend his property by physical violence against possible invaders and invasions. “Would,” Rothbard asked, “somebody be allowed to ‘take the law into his own hands’? Would the victim, or a friend of the victim, be allowed to exact justice personally on the criminal?” and he answered, “of course, Yes, since all rights of punishment derive from the victim’s right of self-defense” (p. 90). Hence, the question is not whether or not evil and aggression exist, but how to deal with its existence justly and efficiently, and it is only in the answer to this question that Rothbard reaches conclusions which qualify him as an anarchist.

@SilentXtarian

I understand that my conception of government has nothing to do with how government is currently ran. Much of the criticism of governments seem to lie on the basis that it runs like a bureaucracy. I’m saying that in order to truly have a limited government, the government would have to live in on its means, and would act like a for profit agency that would serve the interests of the people. Rather than use the power of coercion- if people of an ideological group wanted to use it (which they no doubtedly would) the government would have to make the funds necessary for whatever services which they want. They couldn’t just simply tax everyone for it. And I’m not asking for a welfare state- I don’t want a society where everyone lives off the state. I’m just saying that if they want these things- they couldn’t take other people’s money right out of their hands, like the government can.

So what exactly is wrong with PDA’s & DRO’s? What is wrong with private charity? You’re taking these roles are trying to smuggle them in under the label of “government” when they have no place being there. Is it just to avoid the word anarchism, or considering yourself one?

@SilentXtarian

I still say that having that little thing that you call a piece of paper is better than having nothing at all. The problem with anarchy as I see it is that while we may agree in principle that people are equal and we all have these rights if we have no rights written down than we wouldn’t be able to affirm it in any way.

Really? Even when that piece of paper centralizes power considerably, and is in large part the reason for the US as an empire. I don’t understand your criticism of anarchy at all. Can you elaborate on that.

@SilentXtarian

I didn’t mean to ignore that. I was just making a quick response. That is precisely what I meant when I called the state that I wanted a volunteerist state. No one should be forced to confide themselves in a social contract they don’t want to be in. I find the idea of a social contract to be complete quackery, to be honest with you myself. I’ve never believed in it.

That’s great - except you should drop the terms, a voluntarist state… how oxymoronic is that?

“Let me say from the beginning that I define the state as that institution which possesses one or both (almost always both) of the following properties: (1) it acquires its income by the physical coercion known as "taxation”; and (2) it asserts and usually obtains a coerced monopoly of the provision of defense service (police and courts) over a given territorial area. An institution not possessing either of these properties is not and cannot be, in accordance with my definition, a state. On the other hand, I define anarchist society as one where there is no legal possibility for coercive aggression against the person or property of an individual. Anarchists oppose the state because it has its very being in such aggression, namely, the expropriation of private property through taxation, the coercive exclusion of other providers of defense service from its territory, and all of the other depredations and coercions that are built upon these twin foci of invasions of individual rights." - Society Without A State

So.. really.. you’re an anarchist - since you don’t support taxation, and you support secession to the individual level. It’s time to come out of the closet, and stop hiding [:p]

@SilentXtarian

As to your article on no more military socialism- I don’t see what’s stopping these private defense agencies from warring against each other.

Self interest? War is extremely expensive? Why would they want to? Part answer.

[SilentXtarian]

By Conza88 in Economics Questions

SilentXtarian:
I’m fairly certain Mises made it pretty clear throughout his writings that he was against anarchism. He advocated for a night-watchman state. Nothing more than that. You were free to do whatever you wanted. All the state did was maintain law and order.

He was against the “anarchists” (socialist ones). And so was Rothbard when he wrote this: “Libertarians are not anarchists”, but later chose to re-claim part of the label - once he had pretty much mapped out the entire anarcho-capitalist philosophy.

I believe Mises took James Madison’s view towards government- that if men were angels there would be no government. He made it pretty clear in his writings that he felt government was necessary.

Hoppe:

Rothbard’s anarchism was not the sort of anarchism that his teacher and mentor Mises had rejected as hopelessly naive, of course. “The anarchists,” Mises had written,

contend that a social order in which nobody enjoys privileges at the expense of his fellow-citizens could exist without any compulsion and coercion for the prevention of action detrimental to society. . . . The anarchists overlook the undeniable fact that some people are either too narrow-minded or too weak to adjust themselves spontaneously to the conditions of social life. . . . An anarchistic society would be exposed to the mercy of every individual. Society cannot exist if the majority is not ready to hinder, by the application or threat of violent action, minorities from destroying the social order.[10]

Indeed, Rothbard wholeheartedly agreed with Mises that without resort to compulsion, the existence of society would be endangered and that behind the rules of conduct whose observance is necessary to assure peaceful human cooperation must stand the threat to force if the whole edifice of society is not to be continually at the mercy of any one of its members. One must be in a position to compel a person who will not respect the lives, health, personal freedom, or private property of others to acquiesce in the rules of life in society.[11]

Inspired in particular by the nineteenth-century American anarchist political theorists Lysander Spooner and Benjamin Tucker and the Belgian economist Gustave de Molinari, from the outset Rothbard’s anarchism took it for granted that there will always be murderers, thieves, thugs, con artists, etc., and that life in society would be impossible if they were not punished by physical force. As a reflection of this fundamental realism—anti-utopianism—of his private-property anarchism, Rothbard, unlike most contemporary political philosophers, accorded central importance to the subject of punishment. For him, private property and the right to physical defense were inseparable. No one can be said to be the owner of something if he is not permitted to defend his property by physical violence against possible invaders and invasions. “Would,” Rothbard asked, “somebody be allowed to ‘take the law into his own hands’? Would the victim, or a friend of the victim, be allowed to exact justice personally on the criminal?” and he answered, “of course, Yes, since all rights of punishment derive from the victim’s right of self-defense” (p. 90). Hence, the question is not whether or not evil and aggression exist, but how to deal with its existence justly and efficiently, and it is only in the answer to this question that Rothbard reaches conclusions which qualify him as an anarchist.

I fundamentally disagree with this interpretation.

So what exactly is wrong with PDA’s & DRO’s? What is wrong with private charity? You’re taking these roles are trying to smuggle them in under the label of “government” when they have no place being there. Is it just to avoid the word anarchism, or considering yourself one?

I don’t really understand what those acronyms mean. I see nothing wrong with private charity. I just think there is a need for an authority of some kind to lay out uniform laws of society. As far as the other stuff- I’m not trying to smuggle those other things under government. That’s not at all what I’m doing. I just don’t believe government should be forced on people who disagree with it, and, for that reason the government should be forced to live within its means and must earn its money by operating like a business- like any other for profit agency. It’s just that I believe in tolerance of other views- so in this sense other ideologies could still exist, but they in this sense wouldn’t be forcing their ideologies on other people who disagree with them.

And as for your second question, I don’t go by labels to describe my beliefs. I am just what I am.

Really? Even when that piece of paper centralizes power considerably, and is in large part the reason for the US as an empire. I don’t understand your criticism of anarchy at all. Can you elaborate on that.

Actually, if congress and the President followed the constitution we wouldn’t be allowed to have an empire. The constitution only allows the use of an army for 2 terms. If we really were to truly follow the constitution we’d be more of a libertarian society to be honest.

What criticisms of anarchy that I have made don’t you not really understand?

That’s great - except you should drop the terms, a voluntarist state… how oxymoronic is that?

“Let me say from the beginning that I define the state as that institution which possesses one or both (almost always both) of the following properties: (1) it acquires its income by the physical coercion known as “taxation”; and (2) it asserts and usually obtains a coerced monopoly of the provision of defense service (police and courts) over a given territorial area. An institution not possessing either of these properties is not and cannot be, in accordance with my definition, a state. On the other hand, I define anarchist society as one where there is no legal possibility for coercive aggression against the person or property of an individual. Anarchists oppose the state because it has its very being in such aggression, namely, the expropriation of private property through taxation, the coercive exclusion of other providers of defense service from its territory, and all of the other depredations and coercions that are built upon these twin foci of invasions of individual rights.” - Society Without A State

It’s not really that oxymoronic when you think about it. I’ve listened to several lectures on www.mises.org and almost all the lecturers that I’ve heard speak on this website have talked about how much less powerful the state use to be, and, they even talked about how the state didn’t force you to be a citizen if you didn’t want to be one. You didn’t have to be a part of the state to live there. They didn’t have this police state. I just don’t really think people would want anarchy in reality- they’d have to be convinced to want anarchy- but the closest possible thing we could have to anarchy in the real world- at least that would be workable, is a volunteerist state.

So.. really.. you’re an anarchist - since you don’t support taxation, and you support secession to the individual level. It’s time to come out of the closet, and stop hiding Stick out tongue

You don’t know what I am. I can be a minarchist, or, an anarchist, or, just whatever. I don’t even know what I am. There’s nothing to come out of the closet too… when I don’t exactly have a hard defined political position myself.

Self interest? War is extremely expensive? Why would they want to? Part answer.

On the contrary- war can also be extremely profitable. Why else do you think that states on the rise almost try to get an empire? They wouldn’t do it if they didn’t get eanything in return from it. I’m not pro-war myself. I’m against war for the matter that the states are profiting off of people’s lives. But… why else do you think they’d do it if they didn’t get anything out of it?

[wilderness]

@SilentXtarian

I believe Mises took James Madison’s view towards government- that if men were angels there would be no government. He made it pretty clear in his writings that he felt government was necessary.

No. He never said it was necessary. He said if had to be done, it would be possible. Your use of Mises as an argument is not a factor. I agree with what filc said recently addressed to you in this thread. I would be cautious in using terms like “necessary” when it comes to opinion because it’s (1) not logically valid as what is necessary in accord to opinion isn’t necessarily true when it comes to logic; (2) if you’re going to keep using Mises as an authority without your own argument it would be at least better to have read all that Mises wrote, but then you would need to understand and have read all the background to what Mises developed his theory out of too. That’s a tall task. And it’s not completely necessary especially once you begin to develop your own arguments instead of relying upon others, ie. Mises.

[scineram]

@wilderness

No. He never said it was necessary. He said if had to be done, it would be possible.

@Mises

Liberalism is not anarchism, nor has it anything whatsoever to do with anarchism.
The liberal understands quite clearly that without resort to compulsion, the existence
of society would be endangered and that behind the rules of conduct whose
observance is necessary to assure peaceful human cooperation must stand the threat
of force if the whole edifice of society is not to be continually at the mercy of any
one of its members. One must be in a position to compel the person who will not
respect the lives, health, personal freedom, or private property of others to acquiesce
in the rules of life in society. This is the function that the liberal doctrine assigns to
the state: the protection of property, liberty, and peace.

The liberal doctrine clearly wouldn’t do that if it didn’t think government was necessary.

[Conza]

@SilentXtarian

I believe Mises took James Madison’s view towards government- that if men were angels there would be no government. He made it pretty clear in his writings that he felt government was necessary.

Except his definition of government was completely different - which Hoppe notes, and you have to ignore - to come to the conclusion you just did. Which makes it a complete error.

@SilentXtarian

@Conza88

So what exactly is wrong with PDA’s & DRO’s? What is wrong with private charity? You’re taking these roles are trying to smuggle them in under the label of “government” when they have no place being there. Is it just to avoid the word anarchism, or considering yourself one?

I don’t really understand what those acronyms mean

Private Defense Agencies, Dispute Resolution Organizations…

@SilentXtarian

You don’t know what I am. I can be a minarchist, or, an anarchist, or, just whatever. I don’t even know what I am. There’s nothing to come out of the closet too… when I don’t exactly have a hard defined political position myself.

You differentiate between “government” and “the state”…

http://www.stephankinsella.com/2010/03/29/machanarchy/

Semantics… I’ve had enough of the airy fairy.

You can’t escape anarchy, stop trying.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIs5r3ujBmw

Do we ever really get out of Anarchy? - Cuzan

[scineram]

If it’s already anarchy why bother?

[Conza]

@scineram

If it’s already anarchy why bother?

It’s a different type. I’d recommend you actually read the paper before commenting further.

[zefreak]

I think the typical definition of the State is very broad. Any legal system would be a monopoly on legitimate force within its area. Without natural rights and a notion of property derived from them, “Statism” cannot be divorced from any system of law and property. (This should not be seen as a +1 for natural rights ethics, as the validity of natural rights is not contingent on its implications for society)

[scineram]

@zefreak

as the validity of natural rights is not contingent on its implications for society

We have to disagree on this.

[zefreak]

@scineram

@zefreak

as the validity of natural rights is not contingent on its implications for society

We have to disagree on this.

Perhaps there was a misunderstanding. My meaning was that any implications of a proposition are irrelevant to its truth value. The effect that Scientology has on people’s lives, good or bad, is irrelevant when considering whether its assertions about the universe are true.

What I did not mean is that the consequences of natural rights or lockean homesteading are irrelevant to the question of whether someone wants to adopt such an ethic.

[scineram]

@zefreak

What I did not mean is that the consequences of natural rights or lockean homesteading are irrelevant to the question of whether someone wants to adopt such an ethic.

But this exactly what makes it relevant to its truth value.

[zefreak]

@scineram

@zefreak

What I did not mean is that the consequences of natural rights or lockean homesteading are irrelevant to the question of whether someone wants to adopt such an ethic.

But this exactly what makes it relevant to its truth value.

If “Lockean Homesteading Rights are true” is taken as “Lockean Homesteading Rights have consequences for society that are pleasing to me” then there isn’t an disagreement, although it is not a recognized use of the words ‘true’ or ‘valid’. Most people use a much stronger version of truth in such instances.