evidence can be brought to determine on objective reflection what DID happen. in a case where something happened. objective proof is possible. . but do you think you can prove, what would happen if someone had refrained from doing something that they did in fact do?
can there be objective knowledge about whether john met george at the store after breakfast and ate toast.? yes, quite possibly
can you prove what they would have eaten had john slept an hour later the night before? no, impossible
Beautiful! Stunning! Brilliant!, except the part I bolded: technically, as I understand Juan and BP’s view, lethal force is legitimate only when they say it is, and if you use any level of force they disapprove of, they will use force against you (proportionally though, right?). Beyond that, you may as well surrender yourself to the state now, because that’s where their train is going.
I dunno who you are nirgrahamUK but I love your brain!
I’m satisfied. There’s no one post I would highlight as answer, so I think I’ll compile one from a variety of posts (with attribution) and mark that as my preferred answer.
To Liberty Student, nirgrahamUK and GilesStratton, you guys are awesome.
To those that disagree with the absolute approach to the ANA (axiom of non-aggression), I’m sorry. I’m sorry that you feel the need to inject your opinions into what others can and cannot do.
I’ll say it one more time so everyone knows my position on it: I reject the idea of requiring the response to an aggression to be proportional to the original aggression.
With that idea out of the way, we are left with the ANA and homesteading. I like it!
As a homework assignment to BP and his ilk, please prepare a list of all possible circumstances in which lethal force is allowed and disallowed. I look forward to your library.
Remind me to send you flowers.
Yeah, nirgrahamUK is brilliant. I think this really highlights how clever he is.
Now, if only he managed to learn to start each sentence with a capital letter…
Shame on you, Juan. Surely you’re above ad hominem attacks. True, NUK’s writing skills aren’t be the best, but most of the time I can understand the content of his message. His grammar and punctuation is off, too, but he has put thoughts into words that I have been unable to.
Regarding the quote you provided, I think NUK is illustrating the circular logic you and BP are using to advance your shitty theories.
Remember this?
He doesn’t have the right… hrm, I wonder why? Oh wait, because that would be an aggression! That’s right. Silly me. So let’s finish it. He doesn’t have the right to break my window. He doesn’t have the right to use my balcony door. And he doesn’t have the right to hang on my MF flag pole.
Moral of the story? Don’t fall from the 25th story of a building unless you own the property you intend to fall on.
I’m not above insulting people who deserve to be insulted. As for the fallacy known as ad-hominem (you know what that is?) I never used it.
And I never said otherwise. Now, get this : You don’t have the right to kill trespassers, because, you know, it would be aggression too.
No, the quote shows your lack of understanding and your circular logic. But get this : from the fact that X doesn’t have the right to trespass it does NOT FOLLOW (non-sequitur) that you have the right to kill X.
Last time, Juan, just for you.
One has the right to defend their property from an aggressor. The moment you become an aggressor, you have given up your rights. This is the only fallacy-free theory from which to base liberty on. Aggress not, be not aggressed on.
See above.
Yes, using proportional force.
In your mind. Let me suggest you try a reductio-ad-absurdum of your ‘shitty’ theory.
Also, judging from some other posts of yours it seems that you’re new to this libertarian thing. And it shows.
When there is a threat to life or in conditions of escalation in the process of defending property. Otherwise, it’s arbitrary force. Defense is always proportional to the offense, unless there are conditions of escalation and a threat to life. Repossession does not require arbitrary force in the process of repossesion. Normally, any overt kind of violence isn’t even required in the process of repossession. It only becomes necessary in escalated conditions.
The right of repossession and restitution should not be conflated with an alleged right to arbitrary use force against someone. The purpose of repossession is to retrieve stolen property back to a victim, not to physically harm the offender. The purpose of restitution is to compensate a victim for losses, not to physically harm the offender. Physical harm is incidental to the nature of the crime and not absolutely necessary in all situations.
Common self-interest makes violence mostly unecessary in the process of repossession and restitution. It is doubtful that most thieves would become too violent or erratic when they encounter an attempt at repossession, especially if they’re clearly outnumbered and their crime is known. Violence largely only becomes necessary for the criminally insane and in rare situations.
I have said this before, and I will say it again: the non-aggression principle is not an axiom. No axiomatic approach, whether Rothbard’s “trilemma”, Hoppe’s version of argumentation ethics, Kinsella’s estoppel, or Molyneux’s “universally preferable behavior”, successfully demonstrates that self-ownership is a self-evidency. What’s more, they can’t. Liberty can’t be seperated from the rest of ethics at a whim.
Which is ridiculous. It only follows from a flawed premise.
And how exactly does that follow from self-ownership? Do you own the people on your property now?
Poor form on my part, my apologies. Your question backs me into a corner and I must admit I made an incorrect statement. Allow me to rephrase: once you become an aggressor, your victim has the right to defend their property.
And defending their property does not require physical violence against the offender unless the offender presents a threat to life or there are conditions of escalation in the process of repossession or restitution. If they just arbitrarily kill them when there is no need to, that is not the same thing as repossession or restitution, it is an arbitrary and clearly disproportionate use of violence that has nothing to do with the nature of the initial crime and is not necessary to remedy it.
Which is a tautology nobody is disputing.
I wouldn’t say it’s a tautology.
Well, if there is an aggressor it means there is a victim. And victim means somebody whose rights are being violated. There’s no new information in there…
lets suppose brainpolice is correct:
lets say a tresspasser does a moral wrong. and trespasses.
lets then say a landowner freaks out, and lacking mercy that day kills the trespasser.
lets call that killing a moral wrong.
are both moral wrongs, equally wrong?
is one more wrong than the other?
what is the correct proportional response to the first wrong?
and what is the correct proportional response to the second?
im trying to explore your world of thought. come play with me
(apologies that not all my posts meet ISO124467 guidelines of spelling and grammar. but it is the internetz)
The fundamental point would be that both are wrongs. Person A commiting a wrong does not give their victim, person B, the right to then escalate things to the point where they do a wrong as well. It gives their victim the right of self-defense if their life is threatened or in conditions of escalatio, and it may very well give them the right of repossession or restitution of some sort. But a right to use arbitrary violence is not granted.
If you steal my guitar, you don’t suddenly lose your right to life. I have a right to repossess the guitar, and if you threaten me physically or if things escalate in the process, then and only then does violence become necessary. The purpose of repossession and restitution is to restore a positive benefit of their property rights that was taken from them, not to arbitrarily inflinct physical harm on the offender. Hence, both the victim’s property rights and the offender’s right to life is consistantly upheld.
i say that your theory of justified violence is arbitrary.
you cant determine that violence is necessary to achieve your defensive aim. (see prior post about child with knife, child with gun, child who fires bullet)
as a defender with a belief that violence is necessary in defending yourself from some bodily violent attack (some steps down the escalation from trespassing) you will by necessity hope to be more violent than the other, so as to defeat him. by being more violent you always become the agressor despite the initial tresspass which had up till then painted you as the defender.
Answer my questions.