Who is to determine when there is a threat to life? The aggressor? The victim? The jury? Who composes the jury? I think the correct answer to the first question is, who owns the property?
When you try to add exceptions to the NAP, you introduce inconsistency in principle. Can I defend my property or not?
It feels like you’re answering that question with: yes, but only in circumstances x, y and z. It is those exceptions I object to. Not least of which because those exceptions will eventually grow in length, and the act of becoming familiar with and applying them will become unwieldly.
I have an idea. You can setup a community wherein all residents must abide by a contract of your choosing, and anyone who violates that contract shall be dealt with accordingly. Sound good?
Perhaps I’m missing the point. But the point I’m trying to make is that a lot of things talked about in this thread are the behaviors of lunatics. I’m not so into the natural rights stuff or the NAP so these points actually aren’t so important to me. I like to focus on reality whenever possible; and the reality is that in almost any conceivable society, people who shoot children for walking on their lawn or arbitrarily decide that it would be fun to shoot customers (or perhaps skewer them on pieces of sharpened bamboo/cut off their testicles with a bowie knives) will be dealt with in a like manner by others. If enough people behave this way then who knows what society will devolve into but it won’t be pretty. Long story short, these behaviors will never be considered “normal;” this sort of stuff is pure lunacy.
No, the first thing to ask is not who owns the property, the context is people’s behavior and the circumstances of the given situation. I’m talking in terms of normative ethical principles. The context that you’re totally dropping is the person’s behavior, I.E. if they cooperate or agree to leave and if they actually threaten force. If the guy’s like “okay, sorry for being on your land, I’ll leave”, and you shoot him, you’re simply a murderer.
The funny thing is, I’m not adding exceptions to the NAP, I’m accusing you of having TOO THIN of an interpretation of the NAP. I’m accusing you of justifying initiations of force by removing the context and reducing everything to “who is the owner?”. The fact that someone is an owner doesn’t given them license to arbitrarily kill people without regaurd for context.
Again, I’m not making any exceptions to the NAP, I’m saying that a rights theory in which two different rights-concepts violate eachother is incoherant. In this case, someone’s right to life and another person’s property rights are violating eachother. This shoudn’t be the case, and a fully integrated libertarian theory resolves the problem by properly providing the context for things like self-defense and decision-making power relative to property. Self-defense and decision-making power over property is not 100% arbitrary, it always has a context.
This begs the question to me over how the community is really “set up”.
I respectfully disagree. Do you believe in self-ownership? I do. All rights are derived from property. If you own no property, you have no rights, because rights exist IN property. I have a right to live because I own my body.
Maybe it would help if I explicitly denounce the theory of proportionality. Would that make my stance more clear? Defending one’s property is defending one’s property. I’ll extend this to saying that if someone touches my shoulder without my permission, I am in the right to stab him for violation of my property. I probably wouldn’t, at least not at first, but if I did, I would be in the right.
Before I go further, let me qualify my last paragraph: I understand, as a rational, social human, that if I really chose to stab someone for touching my shoulder, I’d probably be socially ostracized from my community. There are other reasons I, personally, wouldn’t stab someone for that offense, but that is the primary reason. However, if I did, I would have to live my life with the consequences of my decision, but I shouldn’t be persecuted for protecting my property.
I’ll go further: If a friend of mine grabs the controller to my TV from my hand, I’m not going to stab him. I could, but I’m not going to. I seriously wonder if everyone who disagrees with me believes that because a person is in the right to do something means that they will absolutely, without fail, exercise that right at every opportunity; especially when the use of that right brings about permanent and disturbing changes.
To me, the NAP provides justice. It provides justice to those situations in which the timeline of events is quick, adrenaline is pumping, fear mounts and uncertainty pervades your mind: am I in danger? Better to be safe than sorry. If you wish, consider it an “unfortunate side effect” that this principle must also be in play for another, who chooses to take property violations to their extreme conclusion, when you would have handled things differently.
I imagine it would look something like an apartment complex of today. You purchase/homestead a piece of land, build on top of it, advertise, take on customers who are willing to agree by your rules and in return you accept their payment.
Hey bro, when I found out it’s ok for people to get pregnant from casual sex, and then abort the fetus, I thought “gee, that’s murder, that’s pure lunacy” but it isn’t. It’s “reality” and it happens every day.
No one is suggesting one should kill kids. Or Blacks. or Asians. Or women. Or anyone. The question is, what does defense of your property constitute? At what point does the life of another exceed the extremes you can take to defend your property?
Btw, in reality right now, people are dropping bombs on unarmed, non-combatant civilians. There isn’t too much lower this society can devolve. We’re already scraping rock bottom.
How is it cold blood? Do I allow him to squat on my property indefinitely if he refuses to leave?
Besides, I’m an Ancap. My PDA would roll up in their assault vehicle, launch an electrified net over him, shock him into submission, then drag him off my property and dump him outside their jurisdiction.
It would be property defense.
Yes. Exactly like Daniel Waite. Precisely like him. Without distinction. A carbon copy.
I can kill the trespasser, but I can’t drink their blood. Not until I buy the corpse.
No, I am talking to a strawman. Was it no brains or no heart? I can never remember.
We’re off to see the wizard…
Who determines what is the correct proportion in the situation? Do you really think, for even a moment, that I am going to err on the side of concern for my trespasser over myself, if I think there is even the slightest chance that my trespasser is indeed trespassing because he means to do me or my property harm?
I make it up as I go. A MF’ing paperback writer.
This isn’t about left-libertarianism. It’s about people jacking my stuff, and then you crying that I can’t put a cap in their ass, or even something more mellow, because you think it’s ok for people to mess with my stuff, and not have to fear significant reprisal.
Well, maybe you should get familiar with the idea of treble damages. You mess with my lawn, you lose 3 fingers. You touch my roses, you lose 3 toes. You step on my porch, you lose 3 family members. You come in my house, you lose this, the last and your next lifetimes, all hail Buddha, Hoo Rah.
I’m tired of the arbitrary subjectivism. Frankly, this whole discussion seems to me to be a cover for the proletariat to squat at his workplace, and not fear reprisal, as he homesteads his tools away from the dirty bourgeois capitalist pig who owns the factory. Well I got news for you. We got guns. And we gunna use them. You marxist wankers step inside this plant, you’ll be full of lead.
The difference is in 1) trust, 2) invitation, and 3) knowledge.
In your first situation, there would realistically be a lot of unknowns. Realistically speaking, you would not know if they’ve been lost for days and you probably would be under so much stress that even if it were obvious that they were on the verge of dying, it probably wouldn’t even register. Most people would be freaking out. They would be (quite reasonably) scared. They would be feeling hurt because of their home being violated. Anyone who’s ever had someone even try to enter their home uninvited knows it’s a little bit of a blow…this is your “safe zone” and suddenly it’s just not so safe anymore. Yes, if the guy is obviously on the verge of dying, then shooting him would be wrong (unless it would be a piece of mercy due to disease, wounds, whatever). However, usually if a person is at the point of starvation where they are obviously on the verge of dying, then they aren’t even going to be shuffling anymore at that point. The fact of this matter is that suddenly, someone is in your kitchen going through your things. They have violated your safe zone, and made the place you psychologically associate with shelter, warmth, and safety no longer safe. You don’t know why they are there or who they are. For all you know they could be looking for a knife with which to kill you and your family, or they could be looking to bring you tea and biscuits. You just don’t know, and you have to act not on a situation of knowledge, but on the lack of it. You have to act to defend yourself and your family first, and you must act quickly. If the guy complies with you, and you restrain him, clear the rest of the cabin and then learn that he’s just looking for food, then you can feed him and it would definitely be wrong to shoot him. If the guy tries to run away, you let him run and call your security provider to let them sort it out. If the guy doesn’t comply or comes at you, though, then bang. After all, realistically what choice do you have. Hypotheticals like this sound wonderful on paper where you can know everything, see with 20/20 foresight, and play a wonderful armchair judge. But, in real life - where fractions of a second count, your family’s life may be on the line, you are under an extreme amount of stress (probably more than you’ve ever been under in your life unless you’ve been in a high-speed collision), and you don’t know who this person is or why they are there - it is a totally different matter. In that situation you can’t afford a divided mind. You have to be alert, but focused, and you have to act quickly. The only other option is to surrender and place yourself at the mercy of the invader.
In the latter situation, you have first defined the other person as a friend. They are already in a situation of mutual trust. This friend has, by accepting your invitation, essentially placed his life in your hands, trusting you not to violate that trust. Furthermore, you know who the person is and why they are there. You know that this person is your friend, and they’re there because you invited them.
That is the difference. In the former case, although driven by desparation, the person has still violated your safe zone. The indivdiual is someone you do not know, do not trust, and have not invited into your home. You have no clue if they are really there for food, or if they are intent on harming you or youf family. In the other case, it is someone that you know, trust, and have invited into your home. You know why they are there, and you know that they have no intent to harm you or your family. The two situations are - realistically speaking - so radically different that to compare them seems to me to be an inroad for disaster.
Err, the ownership of foodstuffs and single denominations of currency is largely considered “petty”.
Loss of physical property does not mean you can violate the life of another, no matter how precious that property is to you. Unless the agressor has endangered your life, lethal action is illigitimate. The right to life must supercede all other rights for the right of ownership to even be meaningful.
Well given BP’s preponderance to not answer certain questions or actually comment as to whether he’d engage Giles in a one-on-one debate which he has been challenged to on numerous occasions I think the senitment expressed is justifiable.
I would give him the benefit of the doubt and arrest him before I shoot him. If I shoot someone who was there in error, then I myself will become guilty of violating his property rights and that will become a costly mistake.
im somewhat dissapointed by Brainpolices lack of elequence at explaining to me why responding to ‘intiated aggression’ with superior force is wrong.
It would seem a sensible tack that brainpolice has overlooked is simply to explain that standing on a lawn even when uninvited is not necessarily trespass.
as in that case there would be no initiation of aggression to respond to.
perhaps this is an established libertarian position as a recent search on mises.org turned up an article
N. STEPHAN KINSELLA AND PATRICK TINSLEY PRAXEOLOGY AND LEGAL ANALYSIS: ACTION VS. BEHAVIOR For libertarians, the purpose of a legal system is to establish and enforce rules that facilitate and support peaceful, conflict-free interaction between individuals. In short, the law should prohibit aggression. Because aggression is a particular kind of human action—action that intentionally violates or threatens to violate the physical integrity of another person or another person’s property without that person’s consent—it can be successfully
prohibited only if the law is based on a sound understanding of the
nature of human action more generally.
this defines aggression so as to be intentional. hence a trespasser who tresspasses intentionally might warrant one response where as one that doesnt another.
problematically though, this opens up knowledge problems. and also whether that could be such a crime as negligence? for example over liability for keeping the goods in ones care safe.. etc. or being careless and driving ones car through someones house
I’ve explained to you ad nauseum that it is YOU who is initiating force in the scenario, and that the use of force against someone’s body is NOT even remotely proportional to a “use of force” involved in simply being on someone else’s property. Merely being on someone else’s property, even if it does constitute tresspassing, is NOT an “initiation of force”. Tresspassing is NOT equivolent to aggression against YOU as a person, and your aggression against a tresspasser is generally not necessary unless they actually persistantly refuse to leave or present a threat to your life. Without this context of escalation, you’re simply the initiator of force in the scenario. A policy of “shoot first, ask questions later” completely disregaurds context and just assumes the legitimacy of using force as a first option.
I’m not disputing if it’s tresspass or not, I’m disputing if the act of tresspass, by itself, divorced from the context of escalation and a refusal to leave, does not justify arbitrary violence on the part of an owner. Shooting someone for tressassing, when there is no real threat to your life or escalated conditions that have been established, is simply cruel and unusual punishment that is blatantly out of proportion.
i know it must be exhausting for you, but it keeps coming up because you are talking over me. you are ‘asserting’ not explaining.
you assert that when a property owner applies any more aggression than a trespasser has initiated, then the descriptive label ‘Initiator of Aggression’ cross over from the body of the trespasser to sit comfortably on the forehead of the landlord.
you are probably nodding at this point..
if we consider a pickpocket thief who brushing past a gentleman, with quick fingers takes the wallet, and walks on. The gentleman has a momentary doubt, and patting his pockets determines that he has ben fleeced. his 50$ and picture of his wife and kids is heading up the road with that man who had brushed past him on this otherwise empty street mere moments ago. the gentleman turns t follow the thief, he begins to run, the theif hearing the quickining footsteps breaks into a run. yet the gentleman is more athletic than the thief, he tackles him to the ground. overpowers him. takes his wallet. goes home .
financially the debt is squared away. private property has been restituted. but the pickpocket had used minimal ‘force’ and the gentleman brutally knocked the thief to the floor bruising him. whilst neither theif nor gentleman have financially more or less than they started with. the one is injured the other not. clearly the gentleman has initiated aggression. he is the Greater Trespasser.
To be completely honest, proportionality in self-defense or defense of property is what Block would call a “continuum problem”. Its not something that can be specified a priori, as it relies on the context of the situation and the broader social and cultural environment. Its something that would have to be decided, on a case-by-case basis, by a free market court.