Re: Brainpolice's statements in "You are free to leave..."

[nirgrahamUK]

@Brainpolice

To use an extreme example, shooting someone just because they are standing on your lawn clearly violates the non-aggression principle. The only qualifier for the right to use force in such scenarios is when there is escalation in light of a consistant refusal to get off the property. Otherwise, we’re just misusing property rights theory to justify violations of the right to life and liberty. The fact that you have private property by itself is not a sufficient justification for arbitrary force on others.

Also, in normal situations, it simply is not necessary to use force to get someone to get off of your property. People generally aren’t going to arbitrarily tresspass onto people’s homes and whatnot or insist on squatting on your home.

The fact that you have private property by itself is not a sufficient justification for arbitrary force on others.

well, in this sentance you havem issed out a conjunction. as whilst the fact that you have private property by itself if not a sufficient justification for force on others ( though it is necessary)

perhaps the fact that you have private property, and this property is being aggressed upon allows you to summon an arbitrary degree of force against the aggressor

the issue of what is necessary to ‘resolve’ the situation is a diversion from the point at stake, i.e. what actions are to be tolerated, and what actions are disallowed under the context of libertarian law. (when dealing with trespassers, which some would label ‘petty’)

the point that violence wont often be needed to remove tresspassers from lawns, is true regardless of whether landowners have the right to adopt a ‘shoot till they die or leave’ policy, or have no such right. or if the right is to be determined by a coin toss whenever the issue arises.

now, shooting and getting a reputation for shooting can be assumed to bring its own negative consequences that are disincentives from that course of action. but what is it in the action that makes the action incompatible with the non-initiation of aggression ‘axiom’?
it seems to me that all you can say about trespassers is that they trespass till they stop trespassing. and whilst in the ‘trespass’-time-zone, when they are engaged in trespass they have initiated aggression, and anything that is done to them by another agent cant be criticised on the grounds of not-initiating agression. because admittedly the agent is not initiating aggression but meeting an offered aggression with his own.

you have correctly identified good reasons why its against agents best interests to bind themselves and the others in their societies to a code of conduct that positively commits them to violent defence of their property for even the ‘most minor’ offences. And one would hope that a libertarian scoiety of individuals, would by extension of the respect given to each others property, in the shared environment of mutual prosperity would lead to a kindler gentler society, one less likely to go for the gun . Yet this doesnt mean that these individuals do not have the right to violently defend (even if its reasonable to assume they rarely choose to use this right).

---

the other part of this though is the knowledge problem of judging initiation of aggression, judging that trespass has occurred, this problem is assumed away by many of the purported ‘dilemas’ that simply propose that there definitely is some kind of minor trespass going on.

[Brainpolice]

@wombatron

@Daniel Waite

They misunderstand the nature of libertarianism. These arguments implicitly assume that libertarianism is a moral philosophy, a guide to proper behavior, as it were. Should the flagpole hanger let go? Should the hiker go off and die? But libertarianism is a theory concerned with the justified use of aggression, or violence, based on property rights, not morality. Therefore, the only proper questions which can be addressed in this philosophy are of the sort, if the flagpole hanger attempts to come in to the apartment, and the occupant shoots him for trespassing, Would the forces of law and order punish the home owner? Or, if the owner of the cabin in the woods sets up a booby trap, such that when someone forces his way into his property he gets a face full of buckshot, Would he be guilty of a law violation? When put in this way, the answer is clear. The owner in each case is in the right, and the trespasser in the wrong. If force is used to protect property rights, even deadly force, the owner is not guilty of the violation of any licit law.

And that is exactly where Block is in error. He removes the non-aggression principle from its proper context (the derivative of a deeper moral philosophy), and tries to establish it is a stand-alone axiom.

I agree. And it also doesn’t make sense to me how he claims that it’s somehow not related to ethics, as if the non-aggression principle and property rights are not ethical concepts when clearly they are interpersonal ethical norms.

[Brainpolice]

@liberty student

@Daniel Waite

Praytell, what is the deeper moral philosophy?

It’s pretty much the only thing that can be used to justify left-libertarianism, anarcho-libertarianism anarcho-socialism as being even remotely compatible with anarcho-capitalism.

First we create an area of subjectivity. Then we claim it is the base from which rational behavior arises. And so we end up with the perfect doublethink.

Subjectivity is reason. Reason is subjective.

No, this point of contention has nothing directly to do with left-libertarianism and libertarian socialism. It’s actually along the lines of Ayn Rand’s criticism of libertarians. It’s the difference between an integrated social philosophy of libertarianism and a thin approach. You just injected left-libertarianism into the discussion when this is a philosophical question of how libertarian principles relate to eachother and where they come from. My point has more to do with concept formation then a left-libertarian talking point. So please stop politisizing these conversations.

[Brainpolice]

@liberty student

@wombatron

Huh?

I prefer reason to subjectivity. That’s 90% of the arguments with BP and I. He has a vision for the world. I don’t. I don’t feel a particular vision or outcome is compatible with liberty. It’s just trading one idealism of social planning for another.

I find your claim to be value-free as highly disingenous. Noone is value-free. Your arguments are value-laden and you constantly use value-laden terminology. We all do. You’re also viciously misrepresenting me once again, as I have never argued for any kind of central planning, I’ve only argued for the preferability of certain values and questioned the degree to which certain values are compatible with libertarianism. To treat libertarianism as if it has no relationship to other goals is nonsensical.

[Brainpolice]

@GilesStratton

Let’s be honest now: you’re in your cabin in the middle of the woods at night, with a gun under your pillow, and you hear somebody breaking in. How many of you would really hesitate before blowing this individual’s brains out?

I wouldn’t immediately shoot upon merely seeing this person in my house. Perhaps I would threaten to shoot, but by no means does it necessarily mean I will have to. I would only have to shoot if they persistantly threaten my life. You’re just expressing your own hasty preferance to immediately shoot, and the theory that most people would immediately shoot without even threatening or attempting to get a better grasp of the situation is untenable.

[nirgrahamUK]

i do think there is a fair distinction to make between having a vision for the ‘form’ as opposed to the ‘content’.

though these arent precise words, not exactly suiting the purpose. I think there are libertarians who desire not just that society have libertarian form, but that the agents make liberal decisions, or have contracts with particular clauses in them etc. there are other libertarians who have geniunley satisfied themselves that as far as their political advocation goes, they will do no more than promote the libertarian law as a basis and leave the details to the future market.

maybe that is implausable Brain, im not 100% sure eitherway. there could well be some cognitive dissonance, know thyself stuff affecting all of us. but i dont think its implausable to have these two broad classifications. formists and then contentists…

[Brainpolice]

@nirgrahamUK

@Brainpolice

To use an extreme example, shooting someone just because they are standing on your lawn clearly violates the non-aggression principle. The only qualifier for the right to use force in such scenarios is when there is escalation in light of a consistant refusal to get off the property. Otherwise, we’re just misusing property rights theory to justify violations of the right to life and liberty. The fact that you have private property by itself is not a sufficient justification for arbitrary force on others.

Also, in normal situations, it simply is not necessary to use force to get someone to get off of your property. People generally aren’t going to arbitrarily tresspass onto people’s homes and whatnot or insist on squatting on your home.

The fact that you have private property by itself is not a sufficient justification for arbitrary force on others.

well, in this sentance you havem issed out a conjunction. as whilst the fact that you have private property by itself if not a sufficient justification for force on others ( though it is necessary)

perhaps the fact that you have private property, and this property is being aggressed upon allows you to summon an arbitrary degree of force against the aggressor

the issue of what is necessary to ‘resolve’ the situation is a diversion from the point at stake, i.e. what actions are to be tolerated, and what actions are disallowed under the context of libertarian law. (when dealing with trespassers, which some would label ‘petty’)

the point that violence wont often be needed to remove tresspassers from lawns, is true regardless of whether landowners have the right to adopt a ‘shoot till they die or leave’ policy, or have no such right. or if the right is to be determined by a coin toss whenever the issue arises.

now, shooting and getting a reputation for shooting can be assumed to bring its own negative consequences that are disincentives from that course of action. but what is it in the action that makes the action incompatible with the non-initiation of aggression ‘axiom’?
it seems to me that all you can say about trespassers is that they trespass till they stop trespassing. and whilst in the ‘trespass’-time-zone, when they are engaged in trespass they have initiated aggression, and anything that is done to them by another agent cant be criticised on the grounds of not-initiating agression. because admittedly the agent is not initiating aggression but meeting an offered aggression with his own.

you have correctly identified good reasons why its against agents best interests to bind themselves and the others in their societies to a code of conduct that positively commits them to violent defence of their property for even the ‘most minor’ offences. And one would hope that a libertarian scoiety of individuals, would by extension of the respect given to each others property, in the shared environment of mutual prosperity would lead to a kindler gentler society, one less likely to go for the gun . Yet this doesnt mean that these individuals do not have the right to violently defend (even if its reasonable to assume they rarely choose to use this right).

---

the other part of this though is the knowledge problem of judging initiation of aggression, judging that trespass has occurred, this problem is assumed away by many of the purported ‘dilemas’ that simply propose that there definitely is some kind of minor trespass going on.

The problem is that some of these situations are clearly NOT self-defense, you are clearly initiating force and merely using your property as the justification. If you just shoot someone just because they are on your property, you are very clearly still a murderer. So while your tendency to try to frame this as a self-defense issue is understandable, I think you’re completely overlooking the context of the situations. There is a huge difference between genuine self-defense or reasonable force in conditions of escalation and initiations of force onto people in reaction to property disputes or damages and ex-post facto acts of revenge. I also think your tendency to act as if aggression against property is identical or proportional in nature to aggression against a person is nonsensical. An act of tresspass is not equivolent to an initiation of aggression against your person, and killing or physically incapacitating someone is not proportional. The only context in which killing someone makes sense is if they overtly threaten your life and persistantly refuse to get off of your property. Otherwise, you are clearly an initiatior of force.

[liberty_student]

@Brainpolice

I find your claim to be value-free as highly disingenous. Noone is value-free. Your arguments are value-laden and you constantly use value-laden terminology. We all do.

Clever twisting of what I said. I never said I was value free. I said that I don’t feel the need to expect a certain outcome of values from libertarianism. Subtle but important difference.

@Brainpolice

You’re also viciously misrepresenting me once again, as I have never argued for any kind of central planning, I’ve only argued for the preferability of certain values and questioned the degree to which certain values are compatible with libertarianism.

Must be a Freudian slip on your part. I wrote social planning, not central planning. I haven’t mis-represented anything.

@Brainpolice

To treat libertarianism as if it has no relationship to other goals is nonsensical.

Not in the least. What is nonsensical is to apply other goals to libertarianism, setting up the struggle for who is truly libertarian, what libertarianism should attain etc. Libertarianism doesn’t need to be conflated with racial equality any more than it needs to be associated with racial diversity or segregation.

Recently when I asked you about Feminism, you admitted it exists outside libertarianism, and it isn’t necessary to be a feminist if you are a libertarian. And yet Roderick Long wrote to Walter Block and JH Huebert,

Huebert and Block conclude that libertarians “should win with their own ideas, on their own terms, and avoid pandering to statists of any stripe.” I entirely agree. But to Huebert and Block it apparently seems that I am violating this advice by embracing “the ideas and rhetoric of the left.”

Nonsense! These ideas were ours first, when we libertarians were the original left. We pioneered the ideas that today are associated with the left—class conflict, anti-corporatism, and worker empowerment (as well, incidentally, as feminism, antiracism, antimilitarism, and environmentalism). We let the statist left steal these ideas and rhetoric from us during our long and unfortunate alliance with the right; but the statist left never had any legitimate claim to them, since left-statist policies are actually inimical to all these goals. (As Rothbard once put it, left-statism is the confused pursuit of libertarian goals by anti-libertarian means.) Left-libertarianism is not a call to dilute libertarianism by introducing alien elements; it’s a call to recover our own distinctive heritage.

Apparently Long sees feminism as necessary as a part of the Libertarian heritage.

You’ll probably take this the wrong way, but it is honest. Half the time I don’t know if you guys are lying to yourselves or lying to me. These days, I no longer care.

[Brainpolice]

@liberty student

@Brainpolice

I find your claim to be value-free as highly disingenous. Noone is value-free. Your arguments are value-laden and you constantly use value-laden terminology. We all do.

Clever twisting of what I said. I never said I was value free. I said that I don’t feel the need to expect a certain outcome of values from libertarianism. Subtle but important difference.

@Brainpolice

You’re also viciously misrepresenting me once again, as I have never argued for any kind of central planning, I’ve only argued for the preferability of certain values and questioned the degree to which certain values are compatible with libertarianism.

Must be a Freudian slip on your part. I wrote social planning, not central planning. I haven’t mis-represented anything.

@Brainpolice

To treat libertarianism as if it has no relationship to other goals is nonsensical.

Not in the least. What is nonsensical is to apply other goals to libertarianism, setting up the struggle for who is truly libertarian, what libertarianism should attain etc. Libertarianism doesn’t need to be conflated with racial equality any more than it needs to be associated with racial diversity or segregation.

Recently when I asked you about Feminism, you admitted it exists outside libertarianism, and it isn’t necessary to be a feminist if you are a libertarian. And yet Roderick Long wrote to Walter Block and JH Huebert,

Huebert and Block conclude that libertarians “should win with their own ideas, on their own terms, and avoid pandering to statists of any stripe.” I entirely agree. But to Huebert and Block it apparently seems that I am violating this advice by embracing “the ideas and rhetoric of the left.”

Nonsense! These ideas were ours first, when we libertarians were the original left. We pioneered the ideas that today are associated with the left—class conflict, anti-corporatism, and worker empowerment (as well, incidentally, as feminism, antiracism, antimilitarism, and environmentalism). We let the statist left steal these ideas and rhetoric from us during our long and unfortunate alliance with the right; but the statist left never had any legitimate claim to them, since left-statist policies are actually inimical to all these goals. (As Rothbard once put it, left-statism is the confused pursuit of libertarian goals by anti-libertarian means.) Left-libertarianism is not a call to dilute libertarianism by introducing alien elements; it’s a call to recover our own distinctive heritage.

Apparently Long sees feminism as necessary as a part of the Libertarian heritage.

You’ll probably take this the wrong way, but it is honest. Half the time I don’t know if you guys are lying to yourselves or lying to me. These days, I no longer care.

Once again, LS, you are functioning as a troll. This thread is about concept formation in relation to libertarian principles and the extent to which violence is justified in defense of property. You are functioning as a troll by bringing up things like feminism and anti-racism, which has nothing to do with what I’m talking about.

As for your weak arguments about goals, libertarianism has goals. Libertarianism is a social theory of justice. You cannot divorce libertarianism from a concept of justice. So unless you wish to devolve into a purely utilitarian approach to libertarianism, which Rothbard explicitly denounced, you’re going to have to reconcile with the fact that there must be a comprehensive philosophy of liberty in order for it to be coherant.

Also, it wouldn’t make sense for someone to favor libertarianism if they thought that it would lead to negative consequences. Why should it be treated as an end in and of itself, divorced from all other values? That simply makes no sense on a philosophical level. Suppose someone told you they favored “war” as an end in and of itself while simultaneously openly aknowledging that war has horrible consequences. Would that make any sense to you?

As for Long’s views on libertarianism and feminism, yes - that heritage is a matter of history, particularly the history of individualist anarchism, which tended to embrace early feminism from a libertarian perspective. I already clarified this matter to you reapeatedly anyways, and you’ve yet to respond to the argument I made.

In either case, if you wish to misrepresent Long as argueing that you have to be a feminist to be a libertarian, then you’vsimply misunderstood the point completely and have erected a straw man. The point is, first, a historical one that many early libertarians embraced the early feminist movement (this list includes even Herbert Spencer). The other simple and harmless point, which I repeated to you ad neuseum while being trolled, is that feminism can be either compatible or incompatible with libertarianism depending on which approach to feminism you are talking about.

I’m not neither lieing to myself or lieing to you. I’m being repeatedly misunderstood, misrepresented and trolled by you. Stop it.

[nirgrahamUK]

@Brainpolice

If you just shoot someone just because they are on your property, you are very clearly still a murderer

this is question begging, isnt it?

[hayekianxyz]

@nirgrahamUK

@Brainpolice

If you just shoot someone just because they are on your property, you are very clearly still a murderer

this is question begging, isnt it?

Depends on how you define the word murder.

[nirgrahamUK]

@Brainpolice

Also, it wouldn’t make sense for someone to favor libertarianism if they thought that it would lead to negative consequences.

Fiat justitia ruat caelum

is one possibility

[hayekianxyz]

@Brainpolice

I wouldn’t immediately shoot upon merely seeing this person in my house. Perhaps I would threaten to shoot, but by no means does it necessarily mean I will have to. I would only have to shoot if they persistantly threaten my life. You’re just expressing your own hasty preferance to immediately shoot, and the theory that most people would immediately shoot without even threatening or attempting to get a better grasp of the situation is untenable.

Hippie.

But in all seriousness now, let’s imagine you’re in a house in downtown Detroit and you hear somebody breaking into your house, you have a gun under your pillow. Would you be justified in shooting somebody for breaking in?

[hayekianxyz]

@Brainpolice

To treat libertarianism as if it has no relationship to other goals is nonsensical.

Of course treating libertarianism as devoid from reality makes perfect sense to you.

[Brainpolice]

@nirgrahamUK

@Brainpolice

If you just shoot someone just because they are on your property, you are very clearly still a murderer

this is question begging, isnt it?

If I catch you in my yard or in my barn, and I immediately just shoot you without even asking you to leave or trying to understand why you are there, I think it’s pretty clear that I’ve essentially just engaged in murder. The fact that the people might be technical tresspassers doesn’t mean that I can just shoot people for no good reason other than the fact that they’re on my property. Someone has to be threatening your life or at least persistantly refusing to cooperate or leave for a legitimate question of using force on them to arise. Now, if upon discovering these people in your yard or in your barn, they physically threaten you, then that would be genuine self-defense. And if you ask them to leave and they refuse, perhaps force might start to become necessary. But there’s a big difference between that and just shooting people only on the basis that they happen to be on your property.

[liberty_student]

@Brainpolice

This thread is about concept formation in relation to libertarian principles and the extent to which violence is justified in defense of property.

Shouldn’t that be up to the OP, Daniel Waite? Why are you the sole arbiter of what the discussion is about?

@Brainpolice

You are functioning as a troll by bringing up things like feminism and anti-racism, which has nothing to do with what I’m talking about.

But isn’t that exactly what we are talking about when we talk about social values, having social ideals and then conflating them with libertarianism? You can call me a troll if it makes you feel more like a man, but name calling on it’s own is a not a refutation of my arguments.

@Brainpolice

As for your weak arguments about goals, libertarianism has goals.

What part specifically was weak? Or is this just more name calling?

@Brainpolice

Libertarianism is a social theory of justice.

How so? Whose model for justice? What is legal, illegal? What ends are promoted by this justice system? Who designed it? Who judges based on it? Who decides penalties within it? Is there only one social theory (a monopoly on justice) or are there multiple? Who decided that?

@Brainpolice

Also, it wouldn’t make sense for someone to favor libertarianism if they thought that it would lead to negative consequences.

Death can be considered a negative consequence, and yet it is a consequence of life, which I fully endorse. Liberty should not be conflated (IMO) with idealism or utopian ideals. We can say that a just world may be hard, or cruel, or unforgiving. And I don’t see the moral trespass in doing so. Subjectivism and moralism is the role the state tries to assume.

@Brainpolice

Suppose someone told you they favored “war” as an end in and of itself while simultaneously openly aknowledging that war has horrible consequences. Would that make any sense to you?

Are we under an obligation to “make sense” to others? Your opinions and values only matter to me when you interfere with my rights. If you want to worship your rectum by sticking your head up your ass until you suffocate, have at it my good man. I support your self-love and asphyxiation fetish, even if it has negative consequences for you, and I personally don’t find it worthwhile.

@Brainpolice

As for Long’s views on libertarianism and feminism, yes - that heritage is a matter of history, particularly the history of individualist anarchism, which tended to embrace early feminism from a libertarian perspective. I already clarified this matter to you reapeatedly anyways, and you’ve yet to respond to the argument I made.

BIG SURPRISE! More lies!

Hey, I sourced the article and quoted Long directly, you don’t need to spin meister it. It’s pretty clear what Dilbert Long thinks from what he plainly wrote. Save the propaganda for your YouTube videos and blog. No one is buying manure today, the market has dried up.

@Brainpolice

I’m not neither lieing to myself or lieing to you.

Oh, there is lying. I’m still unsure who the target of the deception is though.

[nibbler491]

@GilesStratton

@Brainpolice

I wouldn’t immediately shoot upon merely seeing this person in my house. Perhaps I would threaten to shoot, but by no means does it necessarily mean I will have to. I would only have to shoot if they persistantly threaten my life. You’re just expressing your own hasty preferance to immediately shoot, and the theory that most people would immediately shoot without even threatening or attempting to get a better grasp of the situation is untenable.

Hippie.

But in all seriousness now, let’s imagine you’re in a house in downtown Detroit and you hear somebody breaking into your house, you have a gun under your pillow. Would you be justified in shooting somebody for breaking in?

You guys are arguing past one another again.

You’re clearly referring to a situation where you feel your life is threatened(someone break’s into your house in the middle of the night in downtown Detroit), while BrainPolice is SPECIFICALLY referring to a situation where your life ISN’T being threatened.

[Brainpolice]

@GilesStratton

@Brainpolice

To treat libertarianism as if it has no relationship to other goals is nonsensical.

Of course treating libertarianism as devoid from reality makes perfect sense to you.

Non-sequitor. It does not follow from the premise that libertarianism has a relationship to other goals that it is “devoid from reality”. Try again. You’re not even remotely seriously engaging me here, you realize? I’d be really nice to have an honest conversation or debate about the topic instead of being perpetually trolled.

[Brainpolice]

@GilesStratton

@Brainpolice

I wouldn’t immediately shoot upon merely seeing this person in my house. Perhaps I would threaten to shoot, but by no means does it necessarily mean I will have to. I would only have to shoot if they persistantly threaten my life. You’re just expressing your own hasty preferance to immediately shoot, and the theory that most people would immediately shoot without even threatening or attempting to get a better grasp of the situation is untenable.

Hippie.

But in all seriousness now, let’s imagine you’re in a house in downtown Detroit and you hear somebody breaking into your house, you have a gun under your pillow. Would you be justified in shooting somebody for breaking in?

No, not hippy. There is nothing remotely hippyish about not being 100% gung-ho to bust a cap in someone.

As for your question, you’d be justified only if it becomes necessary. But it is not always necessary.

[Juan]

@nirgrahamUK

@Brainpolice

If you just shoot someone just because they are on your property, you are very clearly still a murderer

this is question begging, isnt it?

I don’t see what question is being begged. Proportionality should be as self evident as the NAP.