February 17, 2003 is the timestamp on the article. I don’t think he was being sneaky.
EDITED::
Block on evictionism, appalachian school of law 2005,:
From these examples is derived the principle that when one evicts a
trespasser, or deals with any other violator of rights, one is obliged to do so
in a certain way; it must be done in the least invasive manner possible
consistent with upholding property rights. If a trespasser is on your lawn
and you have a bazooka, you are not entitled to blow him away - not as a
first step in any case. That is far too extreme and incompatible with the
doctrine of private property rights. The homeowner has the right to make
sure that the outsider does not trespass further, but he must be evicted in
the gentlest manner possible
February 17, 2003
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.
quite the quandry !
Nice find. I’ll summarize as I understand it.
If you set something in place to prevent trespass, then you are in the right. If you deal with the trespass personally, you must do so in the “least invasive manner possible”.
So, technological feasibility aside, I rig my entire property to send deadly electric shocks through anyone who steps onto my property and doesn’t have my DNA footprint.
Nope. It’s still opinion – if it’s dark in your home and you hear someone rummaging around in your living room and you shoot them, you’re within your right to do so. You have to be. As soon as someone says, “Well you should at least call out and ask them to identify themselves! What if it’s your mother?!” I say, “I’ve been burglarized twice this month and both times I asked them to identify themselves. Each time they bolted through the door with a valuable of mine. Screw asking, I’m shooting.”
Case closed for me. Note, again, I’m not saying I would shoot a child frolicking in my flowers, but if someone did, they were within their right to do so. They may not be socially welcomed in their community, but that was their decision.
And shooting the trespasser is murder. Period.
Agreed. Justified, but I agree, it’s still murder.
You are ignoring that killing trespassers is NOT self-defense.
Out of curiosity…Which asylum do you usually live in ? They let you use their internet connection, no ?
Well, I didn’t mean ‘murder’ then. Shooting trespassers is unjustified. Better now ?
People who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.
Right. So you better not throw any.
No I’m not. Context decides whether it is self-defense. But my argument’s foundation does not rest in it being self-defense. It rests on the foundation that private property is sacred and is the source of all rights. If you do not have the right to defend your property, then what right do you have?
This thread is very inspiring. It made me realize that we libertarians must ally ourselves with grumpy old men who sit on their porch all day drinking whiskey and yelling at neighborhood kids to stay off the grass. Once they learn that you can just shoot the little buggers dead they’ll be libertarians right away.
Our next target audience should be anyone who’s every dreamed of opening up a store and being “justified” in shooting their customers at random for no apparent reason.
I read your post and literally laughed out loud – thank you. That said, you’re clearly missing the point.
“… shooting their customers at random for no apparent reason…”
Random? Perhaps in Bob’s case, but life is a dangerous game anyway. Don’t pretend Bob is the only evil in the world.
No apparent reason? Bob was exercising his right to defend his property from trespass.
That’s too bad, because if you’re going to kill somebody in a libertarian society, it’d better be in self-defense, otherwise you’ll pay (heavily I hope) for it.
But you may have got that backwards. Property is sacred because it’s the extension of the rights to life and liberty.
Nobody is saying that you’ve no right to defend your property, or to use force in self-defense. Yet your examples are not examples of legitimate use of force.
BP, answer this.
How am I functioning as a utilitarian for trying to analyse the way things work? It is not in the slightest bit utilitarian to analyse how society will develop given the abolition of the state, it’s called economics.
Only, I’ve not acted if any attempt to provide a rational theory of libertarian interpersonal ethics is strying to superimpose non-libertarian values onto libertarianism, I’ve claimed that anything that goes beyond the NAP is doing that.
By the way how about that debate? I’ve asked you directly at least 10 times now. Why are you so keen to avoid it?
Who decides what is and is not legitimate? Once the initial property rights violation is triggered by the aggressor, I would say it is reasonable that the onus is now on the aggressor to manage what level of violence happens next, not the defender. The aggressor needs to do everything in his power to mitigate a violent response to a property trespass, whether that means showing empty hands, being submissive, retreat etc.
Some jerk can’t come stand on my lawn, and place the responsbility on me to nudge, push and cajole him off my property. The moment an aggressor trespasses, and is cognizant of that, he must stop trespassing, or he is violating my rights. There is no rationale for how or why he can place a positive right on me to manage his safety.
The minute we take deadly force off the table, the aggressor has the advantage because he’s willing to take a property rights violation all the way (murder) and I can’t retaliate in kind until he has killed me. Which is so crazy, even for this audience.
What about mormans and jehovahs witnesses which always seem to trespass into my property. =]
You guys are conflating self-defense with pre-emptive force. That is the heart of this problem. I find your interpretation of the NAP to be too thin, blurring the lines between self-defense and either ex-post-facto or pre-emptive violence. I’m not a pacifist. I am not denying the right of self-defense, I’m providing it with its proper context: when there is a threat to life and in conditions of escalation. Furthermore, argueing that a tresspasser is an “iniatior of force”, as if the mere act of being on your property is proportional or even qualtatively similar to an initiation of force against someone’s person/body, is nonsensical.
The context for the use of force in self-defense is not the mere fact that someone is on your property, that is rather arbitrary and inherently undermines life and liberty. If you just arbitrarily shoot people upon finding out that they are on your property, without regaurd for any other context, then you’re engaging in pre-emptive force, not self-defense. Walter Block’s thin libertarianism is insufficient, since it lacks a comprehensive definition of the initiation of aggression and treats the NAP as an axoim rather than a very specific principle in a bundle of principles.
So, how do you manage that ? You kill him in cold blood ?
Yes he is. But it doesn’t follow you can use lethal force. I mean, you can, but it wouldn’t be self-defense…
Nice sophism. So, are you saying, just like Daniel Waite, that the moment a person sets foot on your house you can kill her ? But you know, the right to NOT getting killed is NOT a positive right.
Sorry but I previously said that I’m not arguing against self-defense. So you are using a…strawman ? Go figure.
Daniel Waite’s position is not crazy, but proportionality is ? You seem to have lost the plot. I’ m afraid that your crusade against left-libertarianism (whatever that is) sometimes clouds your judgment.