How is that an arbitrary limit? If you can prove that my light damaged your door, you certainly have a case against me.
I make a habit of not sharing my telephone number online. Seeing some of the discussions on mises.org have made me vow I never will!
Who in your opinion is not a crank?
Ludwig von Mises, Edmund Burke, Jeffrey Friedman, Anthony de Jasay; the egoist influenced branch of libertarian-leanings (James L. Walker, LA Rollins). Some more liberal writers who would qualify as broadly libertarian. The ‘libertarians’ who engage mainly in real research, rather than dreaming up the Ten Commandments, are pretty interesting. This is especially true of 18-19th century authors, who forged the liberal movement - libertarians have inhereted the conclusions but seperated it from the chain of reasoning that led there. Property is ‘a priori’. Property IS liberty? Why? Because Herbert Spencer said so!
And most libertarians have never read Herbert Spencer. Their views are just unjustified, far too strong in proportion to what they actually could justify. Which is a serious problem with ethics in general - very few people can offer a coherent justification, yet they are demanding not only belief but positive action from other people on the basis of moral beliefs. Most people can’t even define what a moral judgement is supposed to constitute!
Then your crank label is meaningless. Many ______ are cranks. I could fill in the blank a thousand times.
You think Libertarianism is a false doctrine. But You think Bob Barr is a libertarian, so I might agree with you.
[|-)] What’s for dinner?
Then your crank label is meaningless. Many ______ are cranks. I could fill in the blank a thousand times.
Many people are cranks. What makes them cranks are that they have far-out doctrines which they can’t coherently justify, and their refusal to even understand criticism.
I partly agree, except I don’t think a far-out doctrine has to be involved. Take Modern Democracy for example. I wouldn’t call it a far-out doctrine, yet most of its adocates refuse to understand any criticism at all.
That’s not cranky, that’s pig-headed. Cranks are specifically obscurantist or outside the norm, quacks in other words. A crackpot is an extreme crank.
So, a democratist who literally believed in ‘the general will’ would be a crank, but somone who believed in the democratic process would just be ignorant.
What you’re saying is that you’re just trying to cause trouble. And honestly: you got boring really fast. So how about you desist with the bull, ok?
I’ll buy that, although I suspect you might also suffer from this malady, and thus be susceptible to confirmation crank bias.
Does Vichy like anything? Or is everything wrong? 
While I hate quibbiling over minor points, crank and quack are not the same. That being said is “crank” the not so secret word of the day? Here a crank, there a crank, everywhere a crank.
I’m proud to be a crank. Hell, I love John C Dvorak’s articles, so I have to be one. >_>
Here’s my thoughts on ethics that I copied and pasted from another thread. It’s basically my attempt to explain libertarian ethics in 3 minutes. Mind taking a look and seeing if there’s any problems in my reasoning? (I’m actually asking for your honest opinion, not trying to sound snotty):
As Ludwig von Mises pointed out, every action is undertaken to substitute a more satisfactory state of affairs for a less satisfactory state of affairs. And, as Henry Hazlitt extrapolated, this implies that the singular, ultimate desired end of all acting humans is the long-run maximization of personal satisfaction.
Ethics is a system of recommendations for action (oughts) that apply to all acting humans. However, oughts merely connect desired ends with the means most appropriate to achieve them. I.e. “If you desire to bake a cake (desired end), you ought to buy some flour (means most appropriate)”
Thus, in order for there to be “oughts” that apply to all acting humans, all acting humans must share one universal desired end in common, which they do: long-run maximization of personal satisfaction.
However, as Hazlitt also pointed out, actors cannot judge all the infinite and unforseeable effects of any given action considered in isolation, and thus cannot know whether any particular action will actually lend itself to a net maximization of long-run personal satisfaction or not. But, we can follow the logic of human action and recognize correct general rules for action.
The first ethical issue one must resolve is, how ought individuals act in regard to selves? A general rule needs to be recognized regarding selves A). because your self is scarce and thus conflict is possible between you and another person over it, and B). because if, as a general rule, you ought not be allowed ultimate jurisdiction over your self (i.e. ownership over your self), then you have no basis to undertake any further action using your self.
As Rothbard pointed out, there are only three possible options. Either:
A). You own your self.
B). Some other person or group of people other than you, owns you.
C). Everyone has an equal share of co-ownership in everyone else.
Option B fails straightaway, simply because it is not a general rule applicable to all acting humans, but is rather a specific rule, arbitrarily applicable in one way to some humans, and in another way to other hunmans.
Option C would necessitate that in order for you to undertake any action with your self, you would have to obtain the consent of all other co-owners of your self. But the action of seeking their consent would itself need their consent. Thus Option C would ethically paralyze all further action. Option C is not a functional ethic.
Only Option A (you are your own property) is a functional ethic. The Principle of Self-Ownership is the most appropriate general rule/ethic (means) to employ to obtain long-run maximization of individual satisfaction (desired end).
If you own your self, you necessarily own your actions. If you own your actions, you necessarily own your labor (the fusing of your active efforts with untapped natural resources). And if you own your labor, you necessarily own the fruit of your labor (the property you come to acquire).
The fact that the system of private property is the most appropriate ethic to employ in regards to scarce resources in this world can be proved by examining all the alternatives. Here, again, there’s only 3 options:
A). The first person to appropriate and use a resource is its rightful owner.
B). One person or group of people owns all resources, and others don’t.
C). All users of a resource (which would mean users past, present, and future) equally co-own all resources.
As before, Option B fails straightaway as it is not actually a general rule.
Option C fails because you would somehow have to get the consent of future users of the resource (late-comers) before you could use any given resource. It would basically ethically paralyze all action with any resource other than your self. Option C is not a functional ethic. It is a grossly inappropriate general rule to employ as a means in the pursuit of the ultimate desired end.
Only Option A (that the first person to appropriate and use a scarce resource becomes its owner) is a functional/appropriate ethic.
If you are the owner of some thing, it may be said that you have a just claim to that thing. A metaphorical concept to describe a “just claim” to something, is a “title.” Using the word “title” simply makes it easier to conceptualize ownership.
If you have an ownership title in something, then you may, of course, dispose of it or transfer it as you will, so long as you do not violate the physical integrity of anyone else’s property. There is certain property, however, that you cannot possibly dispose of or transfer, such as your self or your will. You may pretend to transfer the title to your self to someone else, but in actuality, you necessarily always remain in [both physical and ethical] ultimate jurisdiction (ownership) over it. Thus, for example, libertarians generally see slavery as an illegitimate and ethically unenforceable faux contract.
The Non-Aggression Axiom is basically a nice, neat name to describe the fact that no one may violate (i.e. aggress against) any one else’s property. Person A may not act toward Person B’s property in a physical way in which Person A implicitly presumes a higher authority over Person B’s property than Person B has himself. If you own something, then what happens to that something ought to be subject to your ultimate decision-making, overriding the decision of everyone else concerning that something. If anyone acts in violation of this ethic, they are committing “aggression.” “Illegitimate” merely means that something goes against what is “ethical,” and of course what is “ethical” merely means action that is line with the general rules that are the most appropriate means to employ in pursuit of long-run maximization of personal satisfaction, given the fact that scarcity exists and thus interpersonal conflict is possible.
Vichy,
Regarding amoral egoism and natural property rights…
Let us say you witness a little girl being brutalized in a dark alley. Something within you would cry out that that is wrong. You wouldn’t deduce from premises that it is wrong. You would just feel it. An urge would well up inside you to do something about it, even if such action would considerably risk your life and limb. For example, you might feel a powerful urge to call for help, even though this might raise a small chance that the brutalizer would hear you and try to violently silence you. That urge is not rationally egoistic. Helping the little girl would not “serve you”; it would endanger you. Yet the urge to do so would be there, nonetheless. That is morality. What aspect of the brutalizer’s assault would engender such a potentially self-sacrificing urge? It is not that in a society in which such violence is done with impunity, you yourself or someone who benefits you might end up being harmed. It is a primary urge that cries out, without any argumentative grounding, “it is wrong for him to do that to her body.” That natural, internal moral imperative is what I call a property right: the inherent “ought” that lies with all of us regarding what, for example, a little girl can do with her body, and what other people can’t.
Of course, like you’ve said, property rights don’t exist as ghostly connections between a human and an object. They are not “natural” in the sense that they are a material body or force. They are natural in that they are not artificial or customary. The same basic principle goes for property outside of one’s body.
Were you to watch a sculptor, who saved up and bought his own materials, painstaking make a beautiful bust of an Olympian god over the course of several days, and then see another man come up, shove the sculptor aside, and run off with the bust, something inside you would say, “that was FUCKED up.” You would feel a strong desire to see the bust returned to the sculptor. In that urge is implied the notion that the sculptor was the bust’s rightful owner. Again, the property right resides within your psyche, as it would within most anyone who witnessed such an act.
SIDE NOTE: Now obviously these moral urges would not be as strong, if existent at all, within the brutalizer and the thief. They either ignore or sufficiently quiet those moral urges (in which case they are immoral, compared to the general tendency of mankind), are overwhelmed by countervailing passions (in which case they are disturbed, compared to the general tendency of mankind), or are pathologically devoid of empathy (in which case they are amoral and psychotic, compared to the general tendency of mankind).
All such instances (and any honest reflection on what one’s own feelings would be in such situations) offer a surfeit of evidence of a moral code written in our nature. And like I’ve written elsewhere…
This natural moral code is only shoved aside when we enter conditions of extremity (aka "lifeboat situations), in which circumstances have forced the human community to devolve into a war of all against all. In those cases, we instinctively cast aside our communal moral feelings for the sake of extreme short-term selfishness. We morally allow ourselves “necessary evils”.
The state has deceived the bulk of humanity into believing that society is inherently in perpetual extremity (an ever-present “lifeboat situation”), and that its own acts of murder, plunder, and enslavement are necessary evils. This is a lie. Society does not require for its survival, or even for its flowering, that certain men be above natural morality. Far from it; the murderers, plunderers, enslavers, and liars who comprise the state are simply parasites who cripple society and threaten to destroy it
A man doesn’t need to understand the politics of war to know that murder is wrong; neither need he understand how markets work to know that stealing is wrong. If it weren’t for state propaganda, there would be no need for libertarian intellectualism. Unfortunately the state, through its false economics and false political philosophy, has convinced mankind that the world is in a constant state of extremity, such that, without some men being given the power to murder, steal, and enslave with impunity, civilization will descend into chaos. False theory can only be fought effectively with true theory. The role of a libertarian intellectual therefore is not to weave intricate theories to justify justice itself (there is no need for that); rather it is to UNWEAVE the tangled fabric of state lies. That is why we need economics and political philosophy: to show exactly how the state’s purported necessary evils are simply evils, and thereby reveal to people their inner libertarian.
Let us say you witness a little girl being brutalized in a dark alley. Something within you would cry out that that is wrong. You wouldn’t deduce from premises that it is wrong. You would just feel it. An urge would well up inside you to do something about it, even if such action would considerably risk your life and limb.
I can tell you this is descriptively false. It may be true in your case - in most cases. But not in my case. And even if it were, it would prove nothing but that people have a psychological tendency to moralize and have ideas about social norms. I never denied this. I just denied that such norms were objectively ‘true’ or ‘binding’. I do not feel idigntation, and I do not feel the need to pass ‘moral’ judgement on - anything.
I do not know how much you know about Aspberger’s syndrome, but one of the key features is a lack of effective empathy. So this - basically an appeal to emotions - is looking for a target that doesn’t exist.
Read Danny Shahar’s blogpost to get a summary of his views.
The reason you are trolling, sorry, gracing us with your amazing cleverness is because you are interested in talking to other people. You are emotionally engaged. You keep pushing your stirnerite trash and you are not happy if somebody points out that it is trash. So, your “I lack effective affective empathy” line is a lie. Otherwise you should present your views to the wall.
So we came to the conclusion that Vichy is either autist or psychopathic?
No. Apparently she says she is autistic, but that’s not an argument, that’s psychologizing, something she has objected to…
My humble impression is that she is trying to go all Nieztsche on us with all this ammorality, but even Nietzsche had a clear notion of something being lame or stupid (like nationalism). Oh well, Nieztsche himself was quite a cranky [:P]