STer

But what counts as coercively held land and resources? Is it the property held by the state at the time of dissolution or will it include property given (or sold below market rate) to private individuals in exchange for favors rendered to politicians or officials? And how far back in the series of landholders do we go? Can the descendants of the natives who originally lived on that land, if it was taken by initiation of force and/or broken treaties, claim that everyone after is coercively holding their lands? Do all lands belong to their original indigenous owners' descendants? If not, then why not? If the answer is only because so much time or so many generations have passed, then what is the cutoff? How much time or how many generations must land be held before its original owners or their descendants lose claim to it?

How can we even talk theoretically about extending the NAP when the NAP fails to define what constitutes self-defense and what doesn't? The NAP seems to be one of, if not the, central ideas ancaps and libertarians focus on. Yet I have yet to hear someone explain to me precisely what constitutes self-defense and what doesn't. Until that is codified, the NAP is too vague to even use in debates, much less in actual implementation.

The two ideas are the same. You should have no time. It is always unjustified while occupied. The descendants have to hold on to it, as does the guy who takes absentee land. Neither was an aggressor, only a corrupt beneficiary. I don't understand what you mean by "you should have no time." Are you saying that if someone comes and takes your property, as soon as they occupy it, it now belongs to them? It seems like you're saying there is no such thing as theft because as soon as someone new occupies a piece of property, there is no justification to take it back. Or am I misunderstanding.

I think there are good questions about limitations. It is not force when your body and mind are absent from the property, because what is the measurable objective target of force? A magical soul? Nobody will answer directly, they will dodge that question. I will argue there is compensation owed to all, because there are those we, by force, prevent from using land that we currently do not stand in front of. The market will say how much, because compensation level set too high will become worthless to hold knowing those who did not yet receive it will side with the owner and demand elevated compensation from you for property you hold. Cost of ownership simply becomes a convergent infinite series. No aggression and no magic. It sounds to me like you're commenting on absentee land ownership, which is another worthwhile topic and possibly in many cases even related, but still not exactly what I'm raising. My question has to do with the definition of "self-defense" when it comes to the non-aggression principle in terms of time/generational change between the initial aggression and the defense. In other words, the non-aggression principle must say "You shall not initiate force against another. You may only use force in defense of self and property..." and here is what I'm bringing up is that it must contain an additional clause saying "...where defense is defined as X." Within that definition of defense it has to specify how long you have after an initial aggression to use force and have it still be considered defense rather than a new unjustified initiation of force. Or another way to look at it is, if someone steals from you, for instance, how long do they/their descendants have to successfully evade being brought to account before it becomes rightfully theirs and force can no longer morally be used to take back that property? It seems clear that the answer can't be infinite. It's hard to fathom it being moral to use force against someone because of something done 100,000 years ago. But where is the line? What about 200 years ago? Or is it only 10 years ago?

Funny you bring up this idea because I recently looked up why Oklahoma is known as the "sooner state" and it relates to just something such as this.

I didn't advocate for any particular solution to this problem. I simply pointed out that there is a problem in applying the non-aggression principle because we haven't clarififed how we define what is self-defense and what isn't when there is a cycle of wrongs going back into eternity? I think this problem should be acknowledged and discussed, that's all. Does the long history of robbery impede our ability to not be violent to one another right now? I would say it probably does play some role, yes. People feel aggrieved. They find themselves in positions they don't like and they sense there is some injustice involved in it, even if they can't put a finger on what it is. And they may, in many cases, be correct that there was an injustice involved somewhere. What I asked in the piece is whether there is a statute of limitations. You seem to be saying that yes there is. So what is it? Say someone steals your land. If they manage to keep it and pass it on one generation, is the statute of limitations up? Or do your children have a right to defend that land against their children while still being in line with the non-aggression principle? Or is it two generations? Or three? Exactly where is the line drawn? I think the non-aggression principle has to include an outline on this. Maybe someone has given an answer to this, but I haven't heard it. In any case, I think it's insufficient to say you are for the non-aggression principle without laying out a stance on specific tricky aspects of applying it like this.

DarkSkyAbove, When Stefan did a talk with Niel Kiernan of V-Radio, which is affiliated with Zeitgeist/The Venus Project, I wrote up a response to their dialogue and this is one of the points I brought up too. Look at the section titled "Is There a 'Statute of Limitations' on Defense of Self and Property Rights in a Non-Aggression Principle Paradigm?"

I believe you. I just think your school sounds very very atypical. Not at all representative of most schools in the US. But perhaps I'm wrong.

Maybe your school had history classes split into different periods of history and you only took early US history and not the later class? That would make more sense. I can't imagine a high school that doesn't have any class whatsoever offered to learn about WW1, WW2, etc.

Are you talking about even in high school? If you never learned any history beyond the civil war even through high school then I think you went to some very strange schools.

Yeah, the problem with comedy is that it in general has to be written for the lowest common denominator. The moment my views on politics/philosophy changed I no longer had as positive an outlook on my potential comedy career. When things like public school and statist brainwashing are commonplace, it makes it very difficult to get ideas through to people in wity snippets that only take a couple of seconds. It's FAR easier to write comedy that doesn't have to be explained before they'll get the punchline. This is why liberal comedy is everywhere. It's very easy to get it through to people. To be fair, there are libertarian comedians that are pretty damn good. Bill Hicks, Doug Stanhope, Joe Rogan, to name a few. The problem is that being Libertarian makes you far less marketable in Hollywood, so they will always be less well known. One of Bill Hicks' most famous bits is about how we should stop wasting resources and take care of everyone so nobody on earth goes hungry and we can all enjoy the world together. Does that sound Libertarian? He was definitely libertarian about personal things like drugs. But I think Hicks had a very utopian dream of mankind helping each other out and living in cooperation.

I'm not trying to imply that I couldn't or didn't take anything positive away from public school. I went there for 12 years. It would be absurd to think you don't get something positive out of it. My point is not that I didn't get anything out of it, but rather that it does far more harm than good. I also believe that the basics are a lot easier to learn than people tend to think they are. So the only good that public education does can be done better elsewhere. The rest of public education is entirely indoctrination, by design. To me, real education is what you take away for life. A passion for learning. All of things that stuck with me are things like my passion for philosophy, which had nothing to do with schooling, because I never even had the option to take a philosophy class. Basic skills like reading and writing that could have come from somewhere else are hardly worth all the statist brainwashing. It's curious to me that your public schooling didn't have that kind of thing in common with mine. You are the first person I've come across that doesn't have stories about saluting flags, pledging allegiance and being taught whitewashed versions of history. Where/when did you go to public school? Of course we did pledge of allegiance and the history wasn't full of the total dark side of things. But I'm just saying it sounds like it wasn't as extreme as yours. It's not like we never heard any of the bad stuff. I mean didn't you even learn about Watergate in school? I went to public schools in suburban USA. They were some of the nicer ones though so maybe that's why.

It's been a long time since I took the test, but I know I wasn't a Rational. I think I was an Idealist. When I was a kid I wanted to be a wise man and I really valued Truth and Compassion. I was vehemently pacifist and what turned me away from politics and towards anarchism was my study of secret government policy in the Middle East/South America/Latin America/Africa. I wasn't into libertarianism until I found out that Ron Paul, a Libertarian(whatever that was) was the only guy calling out the government on it's war crimes. I started paying attention to him and his supporters, which is when the rest of my Marxism was shattered into bits. So that being said I fully understand what you're getting at. You have to find the thing that really matters to them and approach it from that perspective if you want to get any progress. For me it was being a peacenik. For some it's fiscal policy. For some it's Corporatism. it's always going to be different. Idealists are also often drawn to ideas like the ones at FDR. Rationals can come to ideas based on logic and reason, Idealists can come at them out of a strong desire for a better world. Guardians and Artisans have different primary values. Guardians value security, often short-term security, most. Artisans value the experience of life - joy, excitement, savoring sensations. So I'm not surprised if FDR and communities like it are overflowing wtih Rationals and Idealists wondering why those darn others don't see it the same way. These personality type differences are part of why that is.

Actually, yes, my education was pretty horrific. I had already taught myself to read and use basic math using Garfiend books before I ever attended school. Most of my education regarding the basics was something I explored on my own without any help/guidance from anyone at school. When the time came to approach these subjects in school, I flew through my classes. I was reading Jurassic Park when I was in elementary school and was considered to have a post high school literacy level. My mother was fascinated by science and I had that instilled in me long before public school could get it's clutches into me. Most likely the only reason I have a brain left at all today. As far as the rest of it, my public school education was the most indoctrinating, white washed version of American history imaginable. It was the one class that I had to take EVERY semester, no matter what. I was taught that Columbus discovered America and with no mentions of his crimes. I was taught that the wars with the Indians were unfortunate, but there was never any mentioning of atrocities that were really commited against them. No talk of burning down their homes while they slept. No talk of their women and children being raped and killed while the men were out hunting, only to return to see their loved one butchered. Most talk of the indians was relegated to talk of Thanksgiving, which is the equivalent of telling people that Hitler gave Jews free showers and then conveniently leaving out the rest of the details and then claiming that you are being honest with them. I was never taught a single thing about anything more recent than the Civil War. The Civil War was the furthest my American history courses ever got to, and even that was shrouded in nonsense about it being fought over slavery. The only exception to this was the civil rights movement of Martin Luther King Jr, in which the government was treated as the cure to the symptom of a backwards populace that needed to be forced to act right(ironic considering that the FBI was most likely involved in his assassination). The only thing I learned about Hitler was that he was a bad man killing Jews and we stepped in and saved the world, my wonderful government. Everything I ever learned in history classes was entirely propagandised. I had to salute the flag, pledge allegiance, sing anthems. I was taught all sorts of nonsense about how wonderful Democracy is and how important it was to vote. I took place in a mock election when Ross Perot was running for office when I was in the 4th grade. 4th grade. How could that possibly be seen as anything other than indoctrination? Every mentioning of the founding fathers and our system of government was laden with polished, worship-esque rhetoric of how noble and awesome it all was. My entire education wasn't about how to think, it was about what to think. Furthermore, there was a growing Marxist sentiment in everything. Even when we were covering works like Animal Farm, Farenheit 451 or Robin Hood, where the bad guy is undeniably the government and the works are clearly intended as criticism of power structures and not money or greed, the emphasis was always on how bad other governments were and on how great and free I was in comparison. The "bad guy" was always greed, and not violence and coercion. My entire education taught me that freedom was something my government gave me. It taught me that "the rich" were the bad guys, not the government. The government were always seen as the protector of the people from the corrupt. This continues all over the national diaologue today. Soldiers "fight for my freedom" and police "protect me from bad guys". Delusional. I cannot remember a single criticism of my government being taught in class. I never learned about Japanese internment, Watergate, playing both sides of various wars, nothing. I would love to say that I'm blowing it out of proportion or maybe exaggerating, but I'm dead serious. I was taught hardcore Marxist rhetoric about using the government to "protect myself" from the evil that is humanity and nothing about using my humanity to protect myself from the evil that is government. Later in life I learned about the Prussian model of education. Here is a link to the Wikipedia article. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prussian_education_system Stated explicitly on the wiki page is the fact that our system of public education was specifically set up to indoctrinate children to be obedient to power and to worship the power structure. This of course is exactly opposite of libertarian thinking and it was the intended goal of the Prussian system and one of the main reasons it was brought to America. I realize that if you're just coming across that information, it sounds like crazy conspiracy theory stuff, but it's important to remember that back then(1818-20ish) propaganda was not seen as a bad thing. "Propaganda" didn't become a dirty word until after the years of Hitler when the American government was doing their best to really tarnish the name of Germany during/after the war. So my criticisms of public education and blaming it for the dismal condition of libertarian philosophy in the mainstream is not just a kooky opinion. It comes from trying to understand how the system functions. I think it's a pretty solid hypothesis. Well if you just happened to be very gifted and learned the basics on your own, that doesn't mean it wasn't being taught in school. It just means you didn't personally need to take advantage of that. Others did. But it also means you could have benefited from some of the advanced or gifted programs some schools offer. I guess there is some diversity among public schools. Yours sounds very extreme compared to mine. I'm not saying I got an accurate view of history at that level of education. But we certainly learned about some of the dark side of things. It wasn't nearly as over the top as yours sounds like.

This ties into what I just posted. Since you have experience with having your mind changed multiple times, it's lost its ability to upset you so much. You've already faced the fearful fact that your perceptions can lead you astray and come to terms with it. For people who haven't yet done that, it's like they're being asked to start a ride on a roller coaster they haven't been on that you've already ridden multiple times. So they resist and try to get out of it whereas you're like "Oh cmon it's not so bad."

Leaving out the particular political stance you're taking, I think you make a really important overall point about how people respond to discussions. No matter how rational your argument, the deeper message of telling someone they're wrong is "You can't trust your own perceptions." Agreeing with you means not just admitting they reasoned things out poorly but recognizing that their very perceptual capacities failed them. That is a very scary thing to admit. So people often defend against it. Perhaps one of the challenges here is to make it more "OK to admit you were wrong." Perhaps a lot of the energy that goes into more statistics and reasoned arguments should instead be spent making people feel safe about admitting they were wrong and changing their minds. Perhaps before even spending so much time promoting a particular philosophy, we should spend time promoting the idea that changing your mind can be cool We can get some beloved endorsers to do commercials about how awesome changing your mind is. Another thing I really think people here should look into more is the Myers-Briggs groups. You'll notice that only one group specializes in and most highly values logic and reason-based truth. And that group, the Rationals, is one of the less populated ones in our society by a significant margin. You're not going to suddenly change Artisans and Idealists and Guardians into Rationals. Maybe a few who are on the border may move a little. But for the most part people are staying in the group they're in. You'll have to speak to them in the language they speak, not the one you speak.

Was your education really that extreme? First of all, did you not even learn to read and write and do basic math in school? Second, I don't know about you, but even in public school I learned a number of things that didn't reflect well on states. Of course there was plenty of bad stuff about non-American states. But even as far as the US, we learned about things like the internment of the Japanese, the corruption involved in Watergate and so on. Surely it wasn't a nonstop lovefest about the government like in North Korea? Just trying to see if your experience was more extreme than mine or if there is a little more nuance here than was stated.

Libertarian values may be optimal for creating a particular kind of society that some people value. But if others don't value that kind of society, they won't find it right. Furthermore, there are plenty of people who genuinely feel that people do have more obligations and responsibilities to others than Libertarians believe they do. And if they were raised in a neglectful environment you can see why they might feel that even more strongly. But many of these people are not as individualistic as you. They don't see the total freedom of the individual as the highest goal. They see people as a blend of individual and connected and with responsibilities to both levels. What you interpret as glorious individual freedom they may interpret as reckless negligence because they have different values. They can be tested to find out which one brings about a particular outcome more effectively. But people disagree on which outcome they want. Libertarians want to maximize individual freedom (with some limits). Many other people do not want to maximize individual freedom. Some want to maximize interdependence and effectiveness of systems as a whole. Others want to find some nice balance point between individual freedom and responsibility. People who grew up neglected, for example, are keenly aware that misery and devastation can come not only from coercion but from abandonment. Some may be more worried about abandonment than coercion. Others may be worried about both.

Sorry wrong link. I meant this post.

I think I can give some insight on this since I consider myself very interested in philosophy, decently versed in libertarian thought along with many other schools, open to seeing the value of some of libertarian thought, yet not actually a libertarian, per se. I think it's important to start with something Stefan brings up all the time. People's views of politics are often projections of their own deepest personal concerns and wounds. Those who felt violated by authorities as children sometimes grow up to be militantly against authority. I am sure that describes many on this site. If authorities hurt you and restricted you in the past, you grow up to disdain authority and value and focus on liberty and freedom which you felt the lack of keenly. But this only describes some people. There are others on the other side, for example. Imagine you grow up neglected. Your parents don't violate you. Instead they basically ignore you and don't take care of you. You have all the liberty you want. In fact, too much liberty. You may not grow up craving liberty. You grow up craving someone to hold you, to care for you, to be in it with you. You crave guidance because you were forced to make your own decisions before you were ready to do that. A person like this just doesn't have the hair trigger about being oppressed and restricted and lacking freedom. So why would the liberty argument impact them? They don't interpret authorities as bullies who are forcing them to do things they don't want. They interpret them as a welcome outside force of guidance that they lacked and craved just as much as you crave freedom. There are, of course, many shades of gray in here. But I think it's hugely misguided to think that everyone will or even should value "liberty" more highly than anything else. Life is full of a balance between liberty and a desire for support. For various reasons, some people wind up craving liberty almost completely. Others grow up desperate for connection and support and not that concerned about being "free." Others fall along the spectrum. Personally, I try to have a balanced approach. I see a lot of value in libertarian arguments to keep us from going too far to one extreme. But I also feel some of that other side too. The problem is this idea that libertarianism is "right" and it's too bad that being right isn't enough to convince people. How can it be "right" when it involves values and people don't all share the same values? It's simply the case that not everyone values freedom and liberty the most. And I haven't even gotten into all the levels of why that is, just some of them. And most of all I'm not sure it would even be healthy if everyone in society valued freedom above all. You have to understand that the libertarian groups draw a certain type of personality - very individualistic, very enthused about making one's own choices. The porcupine symbol describes them. Well not everyone has a porcupine personality. Do you expect that everyone truly has the quills underneath and is just not letting them out? Or do you think maybe the porcupines are just a certain % of society and another large % have a different personality and temperament and set of values?

This is yet another example of why I keep saying it's a distraction to keep using these terms - agnostic and atheist, for instance - that are more confusing than helpful. Whatever their accurate meaning may be, that accurate meaning is so seldom understood that using the terms confuses the debate more than facilitating it. And it's all unnecessary if we just skip the labels and go right to the numbers/probabilities. This was discussed ad nauseum in this thread starting with this post.

I came across this product yesterday on Amazon. I thought it speaks volumes without needing to say another word about it.

Sometimes the "larger issue" is said outright, such as supporting slavery if you buy certain foods of a non-FairTrade brand. As an example, if I ask "What if these 'slaves' who are 'exploited' have their source of income taken away, what will become of them?", I am met with suspicion or a generic response like "let's agree to disagree". Or that they will find better jobs. Or that their children will get an education. Meanwhile, I am left with the impression that I support slavery. The theme is usually "convenience over suffering." I, and others like myself, should feel bad that we would value convenience over someone else's suffering or preserving the planet. Unless I am not understanding a deeper symbolism? (E.g, "exploited slaves" may represent their child-self being taken advantage of by their parents; endless chores, no compensation, only allowed to participate in the adult's activities, forced to play sports, et al.) But I could just be fishing as this point... This is why I'm curious if such views, sometimes outright invoking guilt, can be traced to childhood. It would make more sense in that context. After all, I agree that people around the world shouldn't suffer. I can truly sympathize. I just figure that buying Brand A instead of Brand B doesn't make a difference, and may even be counterproductive. I have come to accept that only through freedom can people experience better living and work conditions. This type of reasoning doesn't phase them. They've dug their boots in the ground. I rarely even get that far with anyone, since it only gets ugly should the conversation get to that point. I would never dare ask them about their childhood, because that is one of the most taboo subjects to bring up. I would suggest that you're right to look for the even deeper, more general theme first. They may focus on a specific issue like human rights or exploitation, but on a more general level it has to do with a concern for the underdog or those who are suffering. And as you say this is a valid concern. Where you differ with them seems to be on your ideas about strategy or that you're even at a point of really thinking strategically. I think some people can't really get to a point of thinking strategically until the related woundings have been addressed. And if they are going to get to a point of strategizing they would probably only want to do that with someone they trust actually does care about the issue. So you probably are better off first assessing "Is this person at a point where they are able or ready to put their emotions into context and start strategizing or not?" If they aren't, you probably won't get anywhere until you show them sincerely that you care about the issue, care about their feelings and their experiences related to it and only slowly, perhaps over time, bring up strategic issues, not in a preaching manner, but in a real dialogue. And you should probably go into it admitting there is an honest debate to be had over strategy. But you really can't have an open discussion of strategy until the emotions are explored first in a lot of cases.

Then we can be sure Saturday delivery will remain. God only took 1 day off, right?

It's important to understand that one of the mind's main languages is symbolism. So while the particular examples may seem trivial, they are symbolic of larger issues. Sometimes the person may not even be conscious of what the particular example is symbolic of. But if there is a large reaction to a small event, it's pretty likely that they perceive it as a microcosm of a larger scale issue. While you seem annoyed that people who focus on left wing issues get caught up in these symbolic examples, it happens with all ideologies I think. For example, on this site, you will see lots of examples pointing out small symbolic examples of government waste or abuse that really aren't very impacting in and of themselves, but that people see as representing a larger pattern. So my advice would be that when you see someone overreacting to a small event, you try to consider what larger issue it is symbolic of and treat it as a proxy for that because that's what is most likely happening in their mind, whether consciously or unconsciously.