What are Ron Paul’s views on IP? I seem to recall the topic was conspicuously absent from his Liberty Defined. Is he a Kinsellian on this issue?
Ron+Rand’s views on IP:
http://www.reddit.com/r/austrolib_watchdog/wiki/faq#wiki_rand_paul_.26_ron_paul
Thanks. Do you know anywhere that Ron speaks/writes about it?
Daily Paul - Patents and Copyrights: Why they matter.
Technology Voters’ Guide: Ron Paul
Basically he seems to see the unlibertarianness of it in some respects, but not all. He sees how copyright and patent can stifle innovation and be abusive, but he still thinks they have a place. Essentially my personal guess is (a) he just hasn’t looked much into it (b) this is one of those things that even libertarians can have a hard time wrapping their head around and letting go of.
Just look at Tom Woods.
But it’s unfair to ask libertarians to never use the unfair rules in their own favor… after all, we are all victimized by the same unfairness.
[…]
Thus, it is not necessarily unfair to be called to account for breaking unfair rules that everybody else has to abide by.
I don’t agree. Morality is independent of societal rules. Theft is always immoral, be it legal or illegal. If it were legal to murder, it might be “fair” to commit murder, but it would not be moral. Ron Paul is wrong here (assuming that the contact was coercive in nature).
@dude: That’s noble and everything… I sure you hope you don’t live in the US or anywhere in the Western world, which is an empire fueled by fiat money and enriched by global war, the benefits of which infuse the entire economy. If you work at a grocery store, do you know that none of the customers (who ultimately write your paycheck) are employed by Lockheed-Martin, Goldman Sachs or the government itself?
Some people, on the basis of conscience, do move to far off places to escape it all. This is an honorable and noble choice but it is not right for everyone. I have two children to support and raise… I can’t just leave. In fact, this is precisely how a lot of people are nailed down despite their conscience… family entanglements are very conscientiously exploited by the ruling Elites. I do not hold myself to blame for stepping into a trap set by someone with sinister motives, a situation in which many liberty-lovers find themselves.
Clayton -
Luckily, we not morally responsible for the positive eternities that we might enjoy, even if those externalities are the result of immoral acts. As long as we do not cause those immoral acts, we are guiltless.
When we use the state system to our advantage, we are using warfare. This is only legitimate in self defense. Is Ron Paul defending himself or his property? I don’t think so.
I agree; I would like to move (to NH perhaps). And familial entanglements are the major obstacle. But this desire to move is for purely selfish reasons (as all desires are). I want to better protect my property.
But that’s just it… a law which benefits you is just there… that law itself is a positive externality. The very value of the property you own, for example, is intimately connected with the positive externalities created by unfair laws. For example, public transportation and utilities are a boon to downtown businesses. These businesses cause such externalities to be produce by virtue of complying with the tax-and-regulate system. They are not the sole cause, but they are a contributing cause.
And this applies directly to Ron Paul’s situation - it is only by virtue of the very laws that the owners of ronpaul.com are now protesting that they were able to ask for $800+k and now $250k. It is contradictory for them to first appeal to these unfair laws in setting an asking price and then balk when Ron Paul utilizes those very same laws to challenge their very high asking price. If Ron Paul is assuming the legitimacy of IP in challenging the owners of ronpaul.com, they are assuming it no less.
Well, that’s a matter of opinion - libertarians are widely split on the legitimacy of IP, so it’s no open-and-shut case. But to address the issue of using the state system to our advantage, I’m afraid I have to disagree. I think it should be circumscribed by conscience but there is a certain extent to which you have to use your own elbows a little here and there in a crowd of people who are all using their elbows… or spikes or knives or swords or guns. Of course, we don’t elbow the weak and the infirm, the fatherless and widows, we don’t get out the spikes, knives, swords and guns and join the Mafia… but when you’re next door neighbor is elbowing the crap out of you, there’s a point where you have to elbow a bit, too.
For example, I heartily reject IP law as aggressive and immoral. Yet my paycheck is written almost entirely on the basis of IP law. I work as an engineer for one of the largest tech companies in the world. They derive their immense profits almost entirely on the basis of their battalion of IP lawyers making sure nobody can “copy” “their” work - more specifically, anyone who wants to use their interface has to pay them royalties. And so on. I’m a tiny piece of the puzzle, a tiny cog in the giant machine… but there I am, a part of that machine, contributing my part to making it go. And this is how I earn my living. I think it’s absurd and I wish to God there was a way to get out of it but for the time being, I’m trapped in it. So, there’s an element of “it is what it is” in life… a corrupt society makes individual incorruption impossible. Which is why it is so very important that we work to correct the corruption in our societies.
Clayton -
If I were the registrant of ronpaul.com, I would have happily handed it over to him for free. That is, before the whole threaten to use the coercive power of government to extort it from me thing. I think IP is a great litmus test for anyone who claims to be libertarian. Sad to RP on the wrong side of this one.
But that’s just it… a law which benefits you is just there… that law itself is a positive externality.
So what? I am not morally responsible for externalities. Not because the law says so, but because my morality says so. List all the externalities you want, regardless of how fundamental they are, it doesn’t matter. Because they will never be more fundamental than my natural rights.
And this applies directly to Ron Paul’s situation - it is only by virtue of the very laws that the owners of ronpaul.com are now protesting that they were able to ask for $800+k and now $250k.
What? Did your account get hacked? The right to exchange is natural. It is not the result of laws.
But to address the issue of using the state system to our advantage, I’m afraid I have to disagree. I think it should be circumscribed by conscience but there is a certain extent to which you have to use your own elbows a little here and there in a crowd of people who are all using their elbows… or spikes or knives or swords or guns. Of course, we don’t elbow the weak and the infirm, the fatherless and widows, we don’t get out the spikes, knives, swords and guns and join the Mafia… but when you’re next door neighbor is elbowing the crap out of you, there’s a point where you have to elbow a bit, too.
Yes, but only in self defense. We don’t have the right to steal with the aide of the state. We do have the right to have legitimate contracts enforced and to be protected from harm. That is the difference. Your wage is not immoral because you don’t do harm. You contract your labor. The harm is done by others. Your benefit is an externality and you have a right to use the state to enforce your payment. It doesn’t matter if your neighbors are using the state to their benefit or not. It doesn’t matter how your employer choose to fund your wage (so long as you don’t ask it to do harm on your behalf). Using the state in pure self defense is always moral.
Ron Paul’s use of state enforcement (if that is indeed what he is doing) is only legitimate if he is acting in self defense. He must be either enforcing a legitimate contract or preventing harm to his property. It is not legitimate for him to ask the state to enforce a coerced, monopolistic contract on a third party. That itself is harm. He has every right to register RonPaul.com, but he cannot ask that it be stolen. Again, this assumes that ICANN is a coercive, monopoly.
But you’re being glib. Let’s say Alice steals $10,000 from Bob. Bob calls the police. He explains that Alice stole the money and shows them the footage. They believe this is a crime. Now, the police go to Alice’s house. She says it’s a private matter between her and Bob, that she wants Bob to call her and she’ll take care of settling it with Bob. But now it’s too late. The coercive gears of teh State have been set in motion. Alice does not have the option to call Bob up and settle the matter. Unless she complies to the nth degree with the police’s every command to be cuffed & stuffed, her life is in grave danger - and even if she does comply, she’s still in danger. Bob has set in motion an inherently coercive system, in the name of “self-defense” or recovering stolen property.
The fact is that, in a corrupted society, it is impossible to be free of corruption. Bob surely does need his $10,000 back - that’s a lot of money. And he may have no other possible recourse than to call the police to recoup the cash. But in doing so, he may be setting in motion an inevitable series of aggressive actions. The police don’t actually function for the purpose of recovering stolen property - that’s a purely ancillary function in their own view. Rather, they exist to punish and enforce. So, the peaceful citizen is faced with a painful dilemma: he can either eat the losses of theft, or he can unleash the aggressive wolves of the State on his aggressor.
In fact, this is the very danger of much of family law - there is so little room for the victim’s discretion. Consider the now highly politicized domestic violence. Should you be the victim of domestic violence and you believe that your attacker needs to be warned but not go to prison or something, then you might make the mistake of calling the police. But the thing is that the law requires the police to arrest no matter what - if DV has occurred, statutory law eliminates all exercise of human judgment whether on the part of the victim or the police. The net effect is that probably less DV gets reported than ought to be reported as victims make the painful choice of just “eating it” rather than seeing their spouse - who they love and need to not be in jail - jailed and then likely convicted and destroyed by the criminal justice system in perpetuity. One can argue whether police are the proper venue for intervention in these cases, but the point is that even asking third-parties - such as family, friends, church, etc. - for intervention is legally risky… should anyone who becomes aware of the situation choose to report it to the police, the same outcome will occur. So, paradoxically, I believe DV laws can actually increase DV in these situations where what the victim wants to happen is for an outsider to intervene and simply shame and warn the abuser, rather than spring them immediately into the criminal justice system.
The armorer for the abusive and aggressive police department can argue the same, no?
See above … I think it’s virtually impossible to “use the state in pure self defense” and I think it shows a general lack of familiarity with how the police and courts actually operate that you think this is possible.
ICANN is a coercive monopoly and the whole concept of “registering it first” is ridiculous. Since when does ICANN or the US Government have the right to create a universal namespace and then charge people to register names in that space on a paid, first-come-first-serve basis, giving rise to a secondary speculative market in… literally nothing?? Now, I’m not going to say there’s any easy solutions to this problem but what I will say is that Ron Paul’s property claim - as far as you and I can tell from here - is as good as theirs, according to the very rules of ICANN which made ronpaul.com “their property” in the first place! And further, Paul’s filing to have the matter settled is not aggressive action… that’s like saying that suing someone - and turning out to have been wrong - is aggression. What nonsense. He’s asking for the opportunity to tell his side of the story in a forum which has been established for this purpose. Sheesh.
Clayton -
Damn. The web ate my reply.
Bob has set in motion an inherently coercive system, in the name of “self-defense” or recovering stolen property.
So what? Alice has placed herself in danger by committing theft. Bob has every right to use force against Alice in order to repossess his property. Can he torture her in order to learn the location of his money? I don’t see why not. So he can have the police use force on his behalf.
He can take her to civil court. He has the choice not to press criminal charges once his money is recovered. If he chooses to press charges and place her in prison, that might be aggression, but he does not have to do that. Even if the police could convict her without Bob’s consent, that is an externality and it is not Bob’s moral responsibly.
ICANN is a coercive monopoly and the whole concept of “registering it first” is ridiculous. Since when does ICANN or the US Government have the right to create a universal namespace and then charge people to register names in that space on a paid, first-come-first-serve basis, giving rise to a secondary speculative market in… literally nothing?? Now, I’m not going to say there’s any easy solutions to this problem but what I will say is that Ron Paul’s property claim - as far as you and I can tell from here - is as good as theirs, according to the very rules of ICANN which made ronpaul.com “their property” in the first place!
How can Ron Paul’s property claim be good if it is based on rules which ICANN has no right to create and impose? That strikes me as a contradiction.
And further, Paul’s filing to have the matter settled is not aggressive action… that’s like saying that suing someone - and turning out to have been wrong - is aggression. What nonsense. He’s asking for the opportunity to tell his side of the story in a forum which has been established for this purpose. Sheesh.
If Ron Paul wins in this kangaroo court, he will be using the coercive power of the state to recover his property. And that is fine in itself, but not if the property is not justly acquired. You seem to think that Ron Paul has a right to a domain that has already been both homesteaded and purchased by a third party. What gives him that right? His name? His fame? Utter nonsense. Only homesteading and exchange can make legitimate property. It certainly cannot be by stateist rules, essentially fiat and decree. What in libertarianism is more clear than that?
So Ron Paul is a bit confused (uninformed) on this and can not fully grasp he is actually in the wrong here. However what is Lew Rockwell doing supporting him (“cybersquatting”)?
We hold so little in common, I see no point in further discussion. Your view is indistinguishable to me from the views held by, say, Torquemada.
Clayton -
Ron Paul’s a flawless angel. He would never do this.
FTFY
Clayton -
We hold so little in common, I see no point in further discussion.
Yah its like you would never say this:
I think our key remaining disagreement is whether use of deadly force is justified for reasons other than defense of person. I think the correct answer to this is “no” - it’s not justified… I think you have to first exhaust all legal recourse until the individual has placed himself outside the purview of law itself… has become an outcast, an outlaw. At that point, you may be justified in taking direct action… simply killing the offender.
My emphasis.
I guess killing is more legitimate than torture. And deadly force is cool, but only after the criminal evades the cops.
And… cop out. Issues just seem to disappear form your responses as soon as I feel the point is proven. Maybe this is coincidence, or maybe not. I feel my point has been proven here as well, and your latest retort makes me wonder if pride prevents you from acknowledging your errors.
Your view is indistinguishable to me from the views held by, say, Torquemada.
And what a MASSIVE ad hominem! I will not even directly address such a baseless personal attack. My being compared to a Spanish Inquisitor is laughable.
How can
Ron Paul’sronpaul.com’s property claim be good if it is based on rules which ICANN has no right to create and impose?
Duh. It is not based on ICANN rules… Homesteading man…
dude6935,
-
Are you familiar with libertarian thought on proportionality? There are various takes on it, but it’s pretty standard for libertarians to find torture not in proportion to theft.
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Are you familiar with ICANN and with standard libertarian thought on homesteading? Firstly, ICANN was created in order to delegate US government power to ICANN instead. Secondly, you register a domain name with the organization. Apparently ICANN somehow owns all domain names without using them first. There is no homesteading of domain names anywhere in this system. Thirdly, before ICANN somehow owned all these domain names, the US government did.
Now, you might say that ICANN doesn’t actually own the domain names, that they just register them. But that is not how libertarian homesteading works. You don’t register your land in order to own it. You use it first. Registering your property with someone is a formality that helps you with claims and disputes, but it is irrelevant as far as homesteading is concerned.
- I’m sure there is a way to deal with domain names in a decentralized system. Ron Paul is playing by the rules of the centralized system. I disagree with him for doing this, but it’s not my dispute. Both parties are going to fight it out in a centralized court system.
It is a moot point. The people who registered ronpaul.com didn’t just put a placeholder site there and waited for when around RP is going to come around so they can have a payday. They registered it in good faith and used it to build a vibrant pro-RP grassroots site around it. They did real homesteading after registering.
You could as well be saying a settler who built a cabin in Colonial-era West Virginia didn’t really own the land underneath it because he had first purchased it from the Virginia Company which had never owned it.
Registering with ICANN is a hurdle imposed by the state on would-be homesteaders of domains. But people shouldn’t be penalized for having to jump this hurdle and their whole homestead being proclaimed illegitimate, because a state-enabled monopolist shook them down for some money before they could exercise their natural right to homestead vaccant domains.