Makalakumu

What if the dominant majority culture was using the police to force the minority culture to adopt it's social norms? Perhaps race would become a factor if the race in question was not assimilating into the dominant majority culture?

1. The main point I was trying to make is that the police are a protected class of citizens that is allowed to do things that private citizens would not be able to. For example, private security would never be allowed to tackle and choke someone because of the liability issues. The argument is for the privatization of police. 2. Police have different standards for liability and risk because their job is to enforce all of the laws, even the laws against peaceful and non-violent activities. 3. People who summon the State to solve their problems are responsible for the effects of that application of power. 4. Chokes technically use the hands, but these are classified as lethal techniques. If a private citizen responded to non-lethal force initiation with a choking technique, they could be held criminally and civilly liable. 5. My point here is to show that different cultures in America have different methods for expressing racism. Most people think the Deep South style of state enforced caste based racism is only way someone can be racist. This isn't true because there are many ways that a persons views can diminish a group of people. Yankee racism is the racism of low expectations and victimization. This is why Jamie Foxx can get on SnL and say that his role where he kills white people is so good. The moral standard is removed for blacks because they can't handle it. Also, I would be very careful with research that shows genetic disparities in intelligence. The history of this kind of research is fraught with error and bias.

4. The force continuum that you are using is over simplified. There are many restraining techniques that utilize non lethal and less dangerous methods than choking. All strangles fall into a lethal force category and this raises the bar in regards to how they can be employed. 5. I think you are going to have to go and read what I wrote in regards to racism. It certainly does exist, but maybe not how you've been taught to think of it. 1. The point I was trying to make was that police are a protected class of citizens and that this has affected the training because they can get away with employing techniques that private citizens could not get away with. For example, if I was hired as private security, I could not tackle and choke someone unless it was as a response to potentially lethal aggression. It's not just an a argument for better training, it's an argument for privatization. 2. Your second point is part of my first point. 3. People who summon state power to solve problems are responsible for it's effects.

1. The initial point regarding chokes was to point out that the police are a protected class of citizens and this has changed the training they received. They train in ways private security never could because of differences in liability. 2. Your second point regarding the moral responsibility of police is part of my first argument. 3. People who call upon the State to solve problems are responsible for the effects.

Aloha Community Just in case this letter gets lost in the loads of FDR mail, I wanted to post it here for discussion purposes. John Aloha Michael First of all, let me introduce myself. My name is John. I live in Hawaii. I teach at a private international baccalaureate world school, a local private university, and I run my own businesses. One of my businesses included the planning and guiding of international wilderness tours where we travel to far flung locations and visit the natural wonders of those lands. The other is a martial arts dojo, which becomes relevant later in this letter. I also love Freedomainradio! I came to Libertarianism from the Left and was exposed to FDR through Stef's appearances on some of those big platforms. I typically listen to FDR when I'm working out, so I get some philosophy time at the during the time I spend developing a healthy body. I have a very busy life and multitasking is important because I want to make sure that the bulk of my free time is devoted to my wife and two children. My wife and I are peaceful parents. My children, daughter age 13 and son age 10, have not been spanked or intimidated. We committed to the non-aggression principle at home and find that this commitment has enriched our lives. Anyway, I wanted to give you some background on myself and where I'm coming from so that any objections I might raise don't seem to be rising from the unempathetic internet mists where trolls abound. There were some points in the show I noted in the subject line that I wanted to address. I am interested in calling in, however the time difference and family commitments would require some scheduling on my part in order to accomplish. The first point I want to raise is regarding the moral responsibility of the police in the Eric Garner case. Stef stated that the police were not responsible for Mr. Garner's death because they could not know that Mr. Garner was unhealthy and that he could die as a result of this altercation. In the video in question Stef gave some information regarding the effects of different kinds of chokes and what was legal and what wasn't and I think this parses a couple of angles that need more thought. First of all, I am a martial arts expert who has been participating in teaching people self defense skills for the last 15 years. I've practiced martial arts for almost 27 years. I have a 4th degree black belt in Karate, a 1st degree black belt in jujutsu, and many of my teachers have been responsible for training police and military. I want to clear up some misconceptions about chokes. All chokes are potentially lethal. In my dojo, we are very careful about the application of chokes to any person. A good rule of thumb is that if a person is over 40, the choke has the potential to be more dangerous because of the prevalence of unseen health conditions that could arise from complications. If Eric Garner had walked into my dojo in his obvious physical condition, I would not have taught or used that technique without firs observing him for many months so that I could be clear about his condition. This is because, as a private citizen, I need to purchase an insurance policy for my dojo from professionals who have studied the effects of these techniques and the risks involved. Part of my training as a martial arts teacher included understanding these risks so that I could utilize best practices to protect myself and my students from risk. When I teach chokes to students, I make the point that these techniques are potentially lethal and that they should only be used in situations that warrant potentially lethal responses. This trained discretion protects me and my students from criminal and civil judgments...which brings me to my point. Police have different rights than the average citizen. They are protected class who is charged with the initiation of force upon the citizen regardless of the moral nature of the laws. This absolution of risk and responsibility has corrupted police training to a point where many dangerous techniques become commonplace. This is because they will not be held liable for any damage they cause. If a private citizen had initiated force against Mr. Garner in the same way the police would have, they would very likely be held responsible for Mr. Garner's death. At the very least, they would have a heavy civil judgement against them. When security services are privatized, they need to purchase insurance and train in such a way that they protect themselves from risk and protect the people they interact with. That is what would happen when security professionals are treated with equal moral responsibility in a free society, in my opinion. My second point regards the moral nature of the shopkeepers who called the police because Mr. Garner was possibly selling untaxed cigarettes outside of their stores. Stef said that the selling of these untaxed cigarettes victimized the shopkeepers because they were following the rules and Mr. Garner was undercutting their business. Whilst I understand that this belief might be contextually held by the shopkeepers, I do not think it probes the moral nature of what was happening here. Mr. Garner is not committing an immoral act by selling un-taxed cigarettes. He is not committing an immoral act by persuading customers to purchase his tobacco over the shops. If the shopkeepers came out of their stores, tackled and choked Mr. Garner to get him to stop selling tobacco for cheaper prices than what they were offering, they would be held liable for his death in the same way I noted above. Even if the same laws applied and it was illegal to sell untaxed cigarettes, they would still be held to the same standard as any private citizen. So, when the shopkeepers called the police, they were essentially outsourcing the violence that would be needed to support their higher prices on tobacco. By calling the police to remove Mr. Garner, the shopkeepers set in motion the apparatus of State power that would initiate force against Mr. Garner and result in his demise. The shopkeepers are not victims. They are perpetrators of violence and I think this distinction is incredibly important for people to understand. The third point regards the historical and philosophical understanding of racism in America. I believe that Stef has made a number of errors in the formulation of his thoughts. There are a couple of books that I think would shine some light on this matter. 1. American Nations - a history of the eleven rival regional cultures of North America http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0143122029/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_dp_ss_1?pf_rd_p=1944687582&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe-1&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=0380578859&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=1F6AGFWRN935R65B2PQD 2. A Renegade History of the United States http://www.amazon.com/A-Renegade-History-United-States/dp/1416576134 I'll attempt to summarize my point here, because it is rather involved. In order to understand racism in America, one needs to understand that it takes many forms and it is shaped by the culture who is pushing the view. The particular culture that is pushing the view that is racist in regards to many of the cases in which Stef has commented on is the Puritan Yankee culture that dominates the area where I grew up and where Stef has lived for a long time. This culture has no problem forcing it's beliefs about how people should live their lives. There are many examples of laws where it has been decided that one cultures peaceful and non-violent activity is immoral and that the State should initiate force in order to stop and change these groups of people. I think the Drug War falls into this category. Therefore, if we look at cultural groups that fall outside of these cultural norms, we shall see an increase in state sponsored force initiation and criminality that is based on these norms. Right now, Black Culture is at a point where some have assimilated and many others have not. The people who have not assimilated are being actively oppressed by the State. We can take this point further by understanding that the Yankee view of racism is such that any group that does not accept the puritan values of that culture is deemed of lesser quality than those that do. This view is historically recorded in the various treatises on Eugenics and is now known as Scientific Racism. This view paints many people who would not normally consider themselves to be racist as racist. The Welfare State targets minorities who do not assimilate into Yankee culture and removes moral responsibility from them, an act that is deeply racist and easily traceable to thinkers who believed that blacks truly were of lesser quality than whites and needed to be infantalized. I think the Eric Garner case and many other cases fall into this category of racism. Taxes are raised on cigarettes in order to dissuade people from smoking and in order to provide the government with another source of income. Force is not only being used to protect the flow of income, but also to enforce an artificial incentive against behavior that the dominant puritan Yankee culture has decreed as bad. This force is targeted at people who are not assimilating and they happen to be black. This summary is not going to be enough to fully flesh out the idea, but it's all I have time for right now. Thank you for your time. Or has we say in Hawaii Mahalo Nui Loa John

I wanted to bump this thread up for discussion, especially after listening to the last Sunday Show. Stef was talking about human sexual relations and mentioned wanting to do a series on the subject. I think there are some great resources here in the initial post of my thread and I wanted to share them again. That said, I'm fascinated by the whole Paul Walker debate that seems to be happening on Social Media. I wish I had the time to call in and ask a few questions. Here are a couple of points that utilize the sources above and the research that is gathered within them. 1. Stef has repeatedly stated that people do not reach emotional maturity until their mid 20s. I have seen a paper on this that looked at our culture and found that this was the case. However, according to Dr. Epstein, when sociologists study the matter cross culturally, in cultures that do not infantalize their youth through modern/western schooling techniques, children reach emotional maturity far faster. Children are capable of reaching emotional maturity very close to puberty. In my own experience with teens in our society, I am a high school teacher, I have noticed that many children resist the infantalization of society and reach emotional maturity far earlier than 25. 2. Stef has also repeated stated that social mores around which age people start pair bonding have traditionally limited relationships to people close to the same age. This is also contradicted by research collected by Dr. Ryan and Dr. Epstein. They have found that is was actually very common for men who were older to marry women who were younger because they had the ability to support the children and the family they would be raising with this person. Typical age differences were 10 to 15 years in the past. Anyway, there is a lot more and I'm short on time. With Aloha...

http://now.msn.com/sex-makes-people-happiest-per-new-study http://www.dnaindia.com/lifestyle/report-sex-makes-people-happiest-1765764 Thoughts?

This morning, I had a dream that ended up with me waking up at 3:30 am unable to sleep any more. I feel rested this morning, despite this, and I had a good work out, so I feel in good spirits. The dream started with impenetrable darkness. I felt like I didn’t have a body and that all of my senses were disconnected from my consciousness as if someone had plucked the antennae off an ant. Then, the galaxy swirled into view. Except this view of the galaxy wasn’t the typical view of galaxies that people usually have in their minds. In Astronomy, scientists are able to take pictures of celestial objects by collecting ambient radiation. Some of this radiation falls into a spectrum that the human eyes can detect and would be familiar to us as sensations of light and color. Other types of radiation falls outside the visible spectrum and the images formed by these patterns of photons need to be translated into the light and color that human brains can process. These images look very different from the familiar images formed by photons in the visible spectrum. They have amazing patterns and swirls, making these normal objects look exotic and beautiful. For example, if you look at a flower under ultraviolet light, a type of radiation that is just beyond the human capability to sense, the petals have strange striations and vivid color patches as if some hippy artist dropped LSD and painted them. Bees can sense this radiation and the theory is that these patterns and colors are meant to attract them, acting as markers for pollination. All of this exists just beyond the human ability to sense and has nothing to do with us and humans would not be able to see it if we didn’t extend our senses artificially in order to notice it. So, when the galaxy came out of the darkness, I immediately recognized that I was seeing it through extended senses. The familiar image before me was only familiar because the information entering my brain was being translated into something my brain had evolved to see. What I saw before me was the galaxy spinning in space. Time had been sped up to a point where the motion of the galaxy was visible. It takes 100,000,000 million years for the pinwheel of the Milky Way galaxy to complete one circuit. In my dream, one circuit of the galaxy took about one minute. I watched the galaxy spin for a while. The spiral arms rotated around a central bulge that seemed to be composed entirely of sparkling firefly lights so densely compacted that it was hard to distinguish as to whether or not it was one single light. The arms of the spiral galaxy were more dynamic. They moved about the center like ocean waves tethered to a spinning buoy. I could tell that there was some energy fluxing through a medium and that when the energy passed, the medium remained. The lights that looked like stars winked on when this wave crested and blinked out in the trough. They would wink on again when a new wave crested, taking the shape of another spiral arm and then wink off as the spiral arm transited that portion of the medium. At times, the spiral arms were lit, but the stars that composed it were constantly changing and dying away. At this point in my dream, I discovered that I could move. Initially, I was drawn toward the center of the galaxy. I was interested in seeing whether or not the lights there were truly separate. I discovered that they were and that they were blinking on and off regularly as the center of the galaxy spun. This was happening far more slowly and the center of the galaxy seemed far more stable. Then, I moved out over one of the spiral arms and examined the lights. Many of them were like bright conflagrations, almost to brilliant to behold. These would spring into existence and then fade away quickly, exploding with incredible violence as they passed from existence. I moved closer to examine one of these lights and some instinct stopped me. I felt like I was close enough to see a bright yawning hole in the blackness with vague and strange images inside of it. I began to feel fear and started to speed down the length of the spiral arm to some place where I felt more comfortable. When I got there, I was near the end of the arm and I was really close. I discovered that the lights were holes in the blackness, but the holes were honey combed like insect eyes. Each individual cell was yawning and collapsing into nothing only to be reformed and opened again. I could see that each cell was distinctly different and that no cell ever formed the same again. For some reason, this filled me with a great sadness and I took a moment to reflect on that emotion. There was some part of me that wanted to be close to a particular honey combed cell again and I knew that this would never ever again be possible. The cells would appear and would be gone forever. Then, something strange happened. I noticed that as I had moved closer to the arms, it seemed as if time had stopped, but I could still feel the movement galaxy like the gentle rocking of a ship deck in light swells. The rocking stopped and seemed to reverse. Cells that had closed began to open up again and cells that had opened, shrunk and disappeared. One in particular came into view. I flew into it and met my grandfather. I was a child, back in my body, and we were hugging each other as a storm swirled around us. I could feel his fear as the waves slashed his glasses off and the boat heaved beneath us. I could feel the love he bore me as he kept an arm around me and asked me to help see in the storm. Together, we steered the boat into the lee of an island and waited for the storm to pass. Tears poured down my cheeks because I knew that I had to go and that the next parting would be forever. I hugged him one final time and then exited the wall of the cell into another one. I found myself in an old man’s body and realized it was me. I was surrounded by two adults, one older man and one older woman, who each held my wrinkled hands and cried. There were a few older children in the room also crying. I realized that my children were holding my hands and that these were their children in the room. I looked for my wife and realized that she had already gone and I felt an immense emptiness because I knew that I would never ever see her again. That unique cell had closed up and nothing like that would ever form in this galaxy again. I could feel my own cell closing like the throat of a deflating balloon. Soon, it too would close forever. As the cell closed, I moved out of my body, out of it, but I knew unmistakably, that this was my future. I could tell now which cells were the lives of my children and grandchildren and I could feel the motion of the galaxy start back up again. Before me, the cells of my children winked out and then my grandchildren, except that new cells were opening around them before they winked out. Then, I pulled back from the honeycomb, back to a view where I could see it as just a light in the darkness, surrounded by other lights. I realized that the radiation that I was detecting from the galaxy was consciousness. I pulled back again until I could see the whole galaxy before me, spinning and blinking masses of consciousness in and out of existence. I realized that the medium that was being stirred was matter itself. At the end of the dream, I recognized that there were no gods. There was no heaven. No hell. Only the blind animating force of nature seemed to be at work in creating the elegant thing before me. Two thoughts entered into my mind as I watched. I realized that life was precious and that I would die. When my eyes opened, I felt strangely peaceful and rested. I went to my children’s rooms and touched their feet. They rolled over in their beds and I smiled, beginning my morning routine. Thoughts?

First of all, let me be clear, I work for an IB World School and I am a Libertarian. What follows below is my view on how these two concepts dovetail. I know some libertarians been critical of the IB in the past, so I’m going to throw out a little different POV here. Here is some history. The IB was started in the 60s when people who lived in other countries and had to travel frequently wanted to create some kind of international standard school that their children could attend and that would be accepted broadly in any country. What needs to be noted here is that this program started as a private initiative that was meant to work with the various societies of the world and navigate the various structures and barriers governments erected. It’s not perfect or idea, but this beginning permeated the history from there. The first program in the IB was their Diploma Program. This was considered to be a college finishing program and was intended to have broad acceptance with all of the various countries of origin that were feeding students into it. This built an attitude of international mindedness into the program and it also created the need to understand cultures on a deeper level. This led to the creation of the Theory of Knowledge class where topics like philosophy, epistemology, and ethics could be explored at a deep level. Springing from this, grew a need to allow students to have the opportunity to explore a topic deeply with independent research in order to really allow some of these philosophical principles to explored. Another need grew within the program which basically allowed the students to express the principles they uncovered through creativity, action and service. This forms the backbone of the DP program today. Here is a graphic that describes the DP program. http://www.ibo.org/diploma/curriculum/ The Primary Years Program was the next program to be added to the IB. This program teaches basic literacy skills through the teaching of school wide or grade wide themes. The idea here is that questions about the theme will guide a student into the various traditional subject areas that are taught. For example, my children had a business theme in the third grade of their school and they learned how to read, write and do math through creating their own class corporation and producing something of value for the school. Here is some more info of the IB PYP. http://www.ibo.org/pyp/ The Middle Years Program was the last to be created and is perhaps the hardest for schools to implement. The MYP starts in 6th grade and goes through 10th grade. There is no required content in the MYP, only various scaffolded skills that students learn through various perspective lenses. The MYP is very interesting because it allows teachers and students to inquire into subjects that interest them and use them to increase their use thinking skills in a systematic way. The MYP is capped by a Personal Project that allows the student to research and develop something independently using all of the skills they developed their traditional subject groups. For more info about the MYP, check here. http://www.ibo.org/myp/ There is so much more I could write about my personal experience with the IB, but I’ll leave off with this. There are all kinds of ways of learning different things. Some of them can be accomplished formally and some more informally. Some require structure and some require very little structure. When the IB program is offered by private and independent schools it really is tremendous because a lot of the negative things that governments want in education systems are stripped away. Here we have a program that guides students through processes that eventually help them learn how to ask questions and think critically. I think the IB program is something that Libertarians might want to consider as an option other than unschooling or home schooling. If your life is such that you need to send your children to a school, check out an IB school.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-24650841 "The more information we have about what governments and corporations are up to the less we seem to trust them. Will conspiracy theories eventually destroy democracy? What if I told you I had conclusive proof that the moon landings were faked, but I had been told to keep it under wraps by my BBC bosses acting under orders from the CIA, NSA and MI6. Most of you would think I had finally lost my mind. But, for some, that scenario - a journalist working for a mainstream media organisation being manipulated by shadowy forces to keep vital information from the public - would seem entirely plausible, or even likely. We live in a golden age for conspiracy theories. There is a growing assumption that everything we are told by the authorities is wrong, or not quite as it seems. That the truth is being manipulated or obscured by powerful vested interests. And, in some cases, it is." Might I suggest that government secrecy, lying, and the ability to spend other people's money are actually destroying democracy? Still, the article is provocative. Perhaps it all really just is the conspiracy theorists fault? LOL

This argument could also apply to plants. A farmer could plant crops and the crops could grow, but nothing about the growing process invalidates the farmers ownership of the crops. Ultimately, I don't think ownership is altered by this argument, I think the philosophic way we describe ownership may be invalid though. Perhaps, I'm not even defining it correctly and this whole argument is invalid. It's interesting to note that if we proceed from the NAP, our relationship towards the products of our labor look very much like ownership. For example, if a farmer grows crops and someone wants some of those crops, he must use reason and evidence to make a case to trade for those crops in order to remain moral. If he takes those crops, he violates the NAP. Similarly, if a parent has a child and someone would wish to compete for that child, they would have to use reason and evidence to make the case that this child should transfer to them. If they took the child, it would invalidate the NAP. Now, when the child is capable of using reason and evidence on it's own, it can make the case for autonomy. If the parent refuses to accept this case and imprisons the child, the parent violates the NAP. This is a very interesting argument with some interesting implications regarding parenting! It means that as soon as the child can make the case for autonomy, the parent must accept it or they violate the NAP. Regardless, it appears in this argument, that ownership as we know it does not exist. Ownership is simply an effect of the NAP, not a principle all by itself.

This is why I subscribe to people who are much smarter and more well read than I am. Apparently the argument that I posited above is one that has been dealt with many times before in discussions of children's rights. The argument I posited is known as the Ownership Model of Children's Rights according to George H. Smith. Here is a video that goes into depth on this subject. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CnxUhkZ_u14&sns=em This question is not as simple as it seems. If children ARE self owners, then parental obligations can be supplanted by competing third parties. This is based on the concept of an implicit contract. Anyway, this issue is not settled and it does affect our view of ownership as a whole, as I suggested. Very interesting! If a person owns themselves and owns the product of their labor, and children are made with labor initiated by individuals, than children are owned by their creators, the parents. This argument is not so easily dismissed, as I stated above. There appears a different kind of relationship to property appearing in this situation. Apparently, we must acknowledge that their is an exception to the idea of property rights in regards to children. I have no idea how this exception would be defined or why it would be an exception. Perhaps the idea of ownership itself is invalidated by this example? Anarcho-syndicalists claim that Property is Theft. I wonder if this exception ties into that idea? I'm not arguing one side or the other, btw. I'm simply exploring idea.s

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/i-work-for-uncle-sam-and-im-proud-of-it/2012/02/14/gIQAVDcdcR_story.html I think Stefan should read this article into a show. It would be...interesting. 'Merica.

Finish your degree. If you are in a STEM field, and it sounds like you because of the calculus, it will pay off. This moment of weakness will pass and you'll find your resolve again!

I heard this story on NPR the other day and I found an audio file and article that supports it so everyone can read about it. Here's the link. http://www.npr.org/blogs/codeswitch/2013/09/20/224152990/this-tiny-town-is-trying-to-stop-neo-nazis-from-taking-over?utm_medium=Email&utm_source=share&utm_campaign= The premise of this situation is fascinating because it basically demonstrates a solution to government corruption that philosophical libertarians have been proposing for years. If you don't want bad people taking over the government and using it to control everyone, destroy the government. Now, I'm sure many of you are like, that sounds like anarchy...and well it kind of is, on a small scale. So, lets dig into the story. A white supremacist has plans to take over a tiny town in North Dakota and turn it into one for whites only. This weekend, members of one of the nation's largest neo-Nazi organizations will descend upon the town in a step toward making that vision a reality — and several residents are trying to stop them. Leith, N.D., which sits 3 miles off the nearest paved road, has been in decline for decades. The railroad, schools and most of the town's businesses and residents are gone. Many buildings are held together by rotting boards and slabs of concrete. At the urging of residents, the county health department has condemned several of the structures. It's part of an effort to stop Craig Cobb, a white supremacist, from easily moving in others like him to take over the town and its small local government. Essentially what is happening here is that a person with some wealth and influence is moving into an area where he can buy up properties and use that wealth and influence to dominate the community. However, he can't really dominate the community unless he takes control of the city government and now has the power to use the force of law to make what he wants a reality. So, the community's possible decision is this... Still, the residents of Leith aren't feeling hopeful. Several say their best chance of saving their town may be to legislate it out of existence. They are considering dissolving the town's council and transferring control to the county. http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2013/08/30/217288793/north-dakota-town-mulls-threat-of-white-supremacist-takeover Here's another take on the matter... The Times says: Ryan Schock, a 38-year-old farmer and the mayor of Leith, told The Associated Press that such although Cobb could still own land in the town, without a city government, he couldn't take over. Forget for a moment that this tiny area in ND will be swallowed up and controlled by another government entity that already exists. The precedence here is interesting. People should rightly be concerned about rich and powerful people controlling their government and using it to get their way. In a free society where limits and money and speech are impossible without violating civil rights, there is nothing the average person can do to control whether or not someone can use their influence to take control of a government. On a large scale, we don't have to worry too much about one single person taking control of governments. But on a large scale, corporations, international banks, and other giant NGO's regularly threaten democratic traditions by subverting them and taking them over. So, what would happen if people suddenly decided to dissolve government and take it over? Think about this tiny town in ND, so far away from any main roads, so far away from even country government that it's presence will hardly even be felt. Who will take care of the roads? Who will provide services? How will any money be collected in order to keep that society running? The people are going to have to figure this out without making any laws that force people to do what other people want. And this Cobb guy, he can buy up the land and invite some people to live there with him, but without the government, he'll never have the ability to control this little society, to shape it to his will by using force. Imagine what the world would look like if you took government away from Kings and Queens, Rockefellars and Rothchilds, Monsantos and Mercks. If the Ring of Power exists, these entities will always have the power to take control of it, but if you throw it into the Crack of Doom, this power disappears.

This was a great call because I think it illustrates the consumer herd mentality that people are going to face when offering alternatives to the current system we have of educating children. When I work with children, I have found that many are very uncomfortable with the idea of having more freedom over their learning and will actually ask to be told what to do more. Of course, these are the after effects of a system that has shaped their minds. I wonder how fast an incremental approach could actually move and be successful?

It seems that you're misconstruing the definition of ownership, and forgetting that morality is the ultimate goal. Under the logic used to make a parent's child property, the same could be made for slavery. The slave hunter put in labor to hunt down slaves and keep them imprisoned. What needs to be remembered is that ownership of a human being is slavery, which we both know is immoral. I believe parents have an inherent responsibility to take care of their children peacefully, that doesn't mean they can treat their children as their property. How am I misunderstanding ownership? Could you provide a definition? Misconstruing in the sense that people cannot be owned and it be considered moral, which I explained further in my post. Why would morality exempt something from being owned? It's not something, someone. Owning someone as a piece of property, slavery, I've brought all of this up already. Yes, but it all seems so arbitrary. Why does morality exclude someone from ownership? What reason makes this possible? If you claim ownership over your offspring, are you saying that then you have the moral justification to do whatever you please with your offspring? I can take a lamp and throw it to the ground, or punch a pillow, because they're my property. Can I do the same with a dog, let alone a child? Afterall, they're your property. The answer is of course not, because claiming ownership means you have complete control and say in that propety, and to excersie your will, let's say violence against your child, would go against the NAP. As soon as your child wanted to move out of your home, you'd stop them from doing so because they're your property, just like you would a cow trying to break out of a farm. The examples go on and on. Ok, that makes sense, but how are property rights themselves derived from the NAP? How can the NAP define property, self ownership, and the mechanism that property is created?

Does property exist then? Not if we are all guests. Perhaps it is impudent on our part to think we are not. Have you noticed the latent violence and fear that lurk behind attitudes of ownership? And isn't personal property the underlying attitude of statism? Maybe ownership is not as necessary as we think it is. Maybe a lighter attitude of "letting go" affords us a more free and happy life-experience than mere exclusive clinging to the things and people of this world. If we are truly interested in freedom, we can experiment to see if existence DOES provide and take care of us in surprising and delightful ways we could never contrive for ourselves through burdensome, propertied relationships which, after all, only tend to keep us at odds with one another. Maybe this earth was meant to be freely shared and celebrated together, not rigidly divided and exclusively possessed. Maybe the concept of personal property is just a fear-based defense mechanism that's no longer working and needs to be left behind. What say you? I'm not sure. I think I'm just wondering about the philosophic basis for property rights. It seems as if the way we define it now would actually include children into the catagory of property contradicts the idea of self ownership and property. This seems to be a huge problem...

It seems that you're misconstruing the definition of ownership, and forgetting that morality is the ultimate goal. Under the logic used to make a parent's child property, the same could be made for slavery. The slave hunter put in labor to hunt down slaves and keep them imprisoned. What needs to be remembered is that ownership of a human being is slavery, which we both know is immoral. I believe parents have an inherent responsibility to take care of their children peacefully, that doesn't mean they can treat their children as their property. How am I misunderstanding ownership? Could you provide a definition? Misconstruing in the sense that people cannot be owned and it be considered moral, which I explained further in my post. Why would morality exempt something from being owned? It's not something, someone. Owning someone as a piece of property, slavery, I've brought all of this up already. Yes, but it all seems so arbitrary. Why does morality exclude someone from ownership? What reason makes this possible?

Does property exist then?

It seems that you're misconstruing the definition of ownership, and forgetting that morality is the ultimate goal. Under the logic used to make a parent's child property, the same could be made for slavery. The slave hunter put in labor to hunt down slaves and keep them imprisoned. What needs to be remembered is that ownership of a human being is slavery, which we both know is immoral. I believe parents have an inherent responsibility to take care of their children peacefully, that doesn't mean they can treat their children as their property. How am I misunderstanding ownership? Could you provide a definition? Misconstruing in the sense that people cannot be owned and it be considered moral, which I explained further in my post. Why would morality exempt something from being owned?

It seems that you're misconstruing the definition of ownership, and forgetting that morality is the ultimate goal. Under the logic used to make a parent's child property, the same could be made for slavery. The slave hunter put in labor to hunt down slaves and keep them imprisoned. What needs to be remembered is that ownership of a human being is slavery, which we both know is immoral. I believe parents have an inherent responsibility to take care of their children peacefully, that doesn't mean they can treat their children as their property. How am I misunderstanding ownership? Could you provide a definition?

perhaps this is the best place to start. Let's define ownership and property and then see if those definitions apply to children.

If consciousness cannot be transferred and cannot be owned and humans can create consciousness with their labor, then something that humans create, something that is a product of an individuals labor, cannot be owned. This means that property is not universal, because there is an exception. If property rights are non-universal, then the idea that we can own anything is negated. The mechanism that transfers property from one individual to another is falsified by the excemption.

If self ownership is derived from control over the self's body, then ownership of other things is derived from control over those things. For example, if a farmer plants a field, they control the plants that are growing there and therefore own the plants. If we universalize this, parents own their children.