alexqr1

That is a good point. However, positive and negative rights are concepts that already exist in philosophy, politics and law. How would you resolve that issue? Thank You Xelent, I appreciate it. It's good to know I'm getting better.

On the contrary, I am happy that you ask. I read something you posted on a separate thread (I can't remember which) where you say you are not worried about being right in a debate but making sure the truth comes out of the debate. Sorry if my paraphrasing changed what you meant, that was my take on what you said. I usually say that I really enjoy "winning" a debate because it means I helped someone clarify his or her ideas, but I enjoy "losing" a debate a lot more. It is that feeling of awe you get when you understand why you were wrong and the way to find the truth is pointed to you. Your questions may only help you understand, but they may also point out to a fallacy I may be committing. Anyway, the first principle I proposed in the video is: 1) A situation where X infringes upon a negative right of Y (or threatens to infringe upon that right) which Y has not willfully waived in X’s favor is unethical It is implied that if it is a rape, then the victim did not willfully waive her (or his) right to not have sex with the rapist, otherwise it would had been consensual sex instead. As a result of a rape, the rapist now has waived some of his (or her) negative rights to the victim who in turn gains a positive right in relation to the rapist. In other words, the rapist is now in "debt" with the victim and must repay the damage done. Assessing the value of the damage might be tricky, but regardless, it is evident that the victim has now a positive right that allows him or her to collect from the rapist. I'm not sure if you are an anarchist, but either way, if you are really interested in this topic I suggest reading Linda and Morris Tannehill's The Market for Liberty (PDF here: http://mises.org/books/marketforliberty.pdf audiobook here: http://freekeene.com/2007/12/26/free-audiobook-the-market-for-liberty/) I believe it is chapter 9, although I'm not sure, that makes reference to how a murderer would acquire debt in relationship to those who benefited from the murdered person. Assessing the value of a life, which can not be really repaid, is a similar situation to rape. I think this book had a lot of influence in my way of thinking now. I believe this is where the issue of DROs would come in handy, to asses value of damages. As far as children and mentally ill. I have to confess I have problems with these topics, but what I do know is that you own yourself according to how you apply reason to your decisions. Animals do not own themselves because they do not act in the praxeological sense. Children and mentally ill are not fully capable of using their reason and for that reason those who take care of them can fill in the void. For example, I don't let my 2-year old cross the street when a car is coming by, no matter how much he would want to, there is no good reasoning behind his action. I hope this helped, I know this last paragraph is not that clear but like I said, if there is one issue where I have trouble understanding ethics and liberty it is with children and mentally ill.

Thank you. I usually script to some extent what I say in my videos. Not being a native English speaker, it is a bit difficult for me without a script or at least some pointers. In this case I just sat down and started typing my ideas. I would not say it was a great effort. I think when we try to transmit ideas and debate, the objectivity of language is key. That is why in the video I make the distinction between right to live and right not to be killed which are different. People tend to say right to live when they mean right not to be killed. It is not just a different way of saying it, one is a positive right, the other is a negative right. That is not a bad idea. I will think about it more and if I come up with something that I believe may have value to others; I will post a video about abortion. I understand what you are saying and it is a shame. Some words just get hijacked and made to mean something else; take for example the words capitalism, liberal and freedom. My opinion is that we need to take back those words because if we just start using others, then they will take those from us too. It is sort of a war of words. Stefan makes reference to that when he says that language is just another government program. Right and ownership have different connotations and I believe we should continue to use them and educate others about such things. The hijack of language is a real problem and if philosophers are to make any progress in the world, then that problem has to be dealt with. This is a result of what you just mentioned, the manipulation of the word. If my right is subject to someone else changing it or taking it away then it is not a right. I guess we could talk in terms of ownership, but then ownership would be manipulated. I think us rational thinkers and seekers of truth should not back away from those attacks on language, but rather set a strong defense and alert others about the malicious misusage of words.

Many choices do not affect others directly, I would argue that the conceptualization of the other is not necessary for reason. However, what I believe is more relevant for the subject is that the conceptualization of the other IS necessary for self-ownership. Not only is my self-ownership irrelevant in the absence of others but it also only has true meaning when the same principle is applied to others, namely, others own themselves too. I would apply that more to children and mentally ill individuals. A healthy serial rapist has waived his negative rights (at least some) when he committed rape, which is unethical. That would be a result of the violation of the 1st principle in the video.

Thanks Carl, will try to edit from youtube. I appreciate the feedback as always!

I just posted a video related to this in this forum, it is called ethics and self-ownership. (http://board.freedomainradio.com/topic/38425-self-ownership-and-ethics//0 Self-ownership is the only possible solution that stands the test of logic. Praxeology is what separates humans from other animals, we use reason in order to assign value to different potential scenarios and act based upon those values. There are 5 possibilities that are all mutually exclusive and together form the whole universe of possibilities. That means that only one can be true an one has to be true. 1) Social ownership: You only own what you are able to directly affect and transform. This situation is impossible because in order for it to be true, all humans would have to agree about what all other humans should do at all times. Individuals have different ideas and this would be impossible, then there is the paradox that is implied, which is that we can not agree with the rest of the individuals without everyone else alive allowing us to agree. 2) Limited ownership: This means that we co-own ourselves along with a limited group of individuals. First there is the inconsistency of arbitrariness: Who decides who owns whom? Then, we would have to overcome the fact that each individual is the only person capable of directing his or her own thoughts and his or her own body without using external stimuli. 3) 3rd Pary ownership: This would mean that one person owns another person. The same logical contradictions of #2 apply. 4 and 5) No ownership and self ownership: A 4th possibility could be that we are not owned by anyone. A void of ownership cannot exist because it would immediately become self-ownership since every individual is capable to control many of the body functions and is able to act in the praxeological sense according to his or her own needs. 1, 2, 3 and 4 are false because they are impossible. It leaves us with self-ownership as the only possible solution. Not only are there not contradictions in self-ownership but it is the only one of the 5 solutions that is possible. Since all 5 are mutually exclusive and they form all the universe of possibilities, then self-ownership is true.

Here is my take on secular ethics.

I thought this was funny, you may also get a laugh or two. http://www.policymic.com/articles/77877/13-problems-only-libertarians-will-understand-in-gifs Here's a preview:

http://board.freedomainradio.com/topic/38182-a-new-dictionary-for-the-world-we-live-in/

Everyone believes in freedom for themselves. Many just have a problem understanding how that simple principle applies to others.

Sounds to me here he is no anarchist at all. Maybe he likes freedom and anarchy until it threatens him or in this case his mom.

Hi Frohicky1, I think the distinction between freedom and ability is an important one, there are distinct differences between the two to understand them as two separate concepts. On your second point, do you think the worker is also responsible for the employer's welfare and also for the happiness or freedom of the employer?

I'm glad you went back and actually watched the video. The reason for the name and form of the 1st video is that since I started my channel a couple of months ago, I think I've been somewhat successful at attracting anarcho-capitalists and libertarians to watch my videos. However, my goal is to also reach people who tend to be on the opposite end of the discussion. I guess if I fooled you into thinking this was just another stupid anti-capitalism video, then maybe it fools the crowd I am trying to attract and hopefully help some of them (a small percentage I'm sure) to understand better what they already think they understand.

Hello all, this is a group of videos I just uploaded. You may not be all that interested in the first 2, since in this forum they are kinda like preaching to the choir, but the 3rd video posts what I think is an important question for already anarchists. Hope you like them! 1. Fuck capitalism, here's why we hate it 2. How the current socio-economic system works 3. The beast, kill it now or let it die later?

Maybe you are more worried about others suffering as a result of misjudging you than you are about being misjudged?

You are mistaking freedom with ability or capacity to do womething, I talk about that in the last few minutes of this video 1: If in fact every action is unfree then what is the relevance of this conversation? 2: If you don’t think we have free will, then what is the relevance of this conversation? I think your information was enough to make a difference between the two scenarios.

Well the two situations are extremely different.In the first case there is no free decision since your decision is being violently influenced by someone threatening your right not to be murdered.In the second case, there is no violent situation, unless starvation is a result of the individual being held against his will. This situation is more comparable to you having to chose between buying a quilt because otherwise you could be vulnerable to hypothermia or buying another pair of shoes because the one's you have are starting to hurt. There is no violence involved here.

I can't believe I was so patient with you and in retrospect I should not had. You have this belief that you can forecast my preferences in a particular situation even better than I can and even further you believe you can forecast the preferences of all individuals. For that reason I have lost patience and I lost interest in the conversation. It is like talking to someone who keeps dancing around the issues to explain why magic really exists. I have nothing to discuss with people who believe they have godly-like abilities like you. Never mind the irrational "economics" behind the resource based economy which we never got to discuss. Seeing things from different perspectives does not mean you have to be open-minded about irrational solutions to a problem. I have no interest in continuing this conversation with you and now I realize why you have such negative reputation.

This is the transcript of a video I am thinking about uploading to Youtube but I need feedback and help. For those who want to read this and criticize either its content, meaning, language or semantics, all criticisms are welcome. Thanks I will start assuming that you understand the fact that you own yourself. If you don’t there are plenty of resources on the internet, also if you don’t then it really makes no difference what I say to you or don’t because what you do with it is not your choice. So first we have to realize that for a theory to be valid it needs to be universal. Morality deals with interactions amongst individuals. One’s actions can only be immoral if they directly impact someone else. So for a theory of morality to be universal, it would have to be applied the same to all individuals but it would also have to be applied the same to all interactions. A true theory of morality cannot pick can chose which interactions it applies to and which it does not the same way it cannot pick and choose to which individuals it applies to and to which others it does not. In order for morality to be universal, it can only judge actions that DIRECTLY affect someone else. There is no morality to be discussed in indirect consequences of an action upon someone else. For example there is no morality to be discussed in a situation where I decide to go through a yellow light and enable the situation where the driver behind me could go through the red light and kill somebody. Obviously, had I stopped at the yellow light, the car behind me would had had to stop and the accident would had not occurred, but I can’t be morally held accountable because I was only indirectly responsible for the death. If judging indirect results were to be universalized, then all of our actions (and non-actions for that matter) would be potentially immoral, and the only way to ensure not committing an immoral act would be not to act at all, which is impossible, since all humans act. Forcing someone to engage in a positive action would immediately constitute a violation of self-ownership, in effect negating the very concept of self-ownership which we already hold as true. If it is morally right for me to force you to feed me, do you really own yourself? From that we know that positive rights are not universally moral because they would negate fact of self-ownership. On the other hand negative rights, which require negative action, can be universalized to all individuals, without contradiction unlike positive rights. Furthermore, a violation of a negative right negates the fact of self-ownership. From that we know that negative rights are not only universal, but a violation of them is an immoral act. I have the right not to be killed, not as a result of my own subjective desires, but because implying that I do not have that right, also implies that I do not own myself. So, if someone uses violence against me, then that is a negation of self-ownership and thus necessarily an immoral act right? Well, not necessarily. If we answered yes, we would very easily encounter how this situation could degenerate into a logical impasse or contradiction. For example, if it is immoral for me to use violence to defend my negative rights from someone who is directly attacking or threatening them, can I really own myself without acting immorally? The only possible way to resolve this impasse is to realize that violence is a morally-neutral. It is neither good, nor bad. But then if it is not immoral to use violence against others, do those others really own themselves? Neither violence nor non-violence can be universalized as moral or immoral without creating contradictions. Here is where the non-aggression principle comes in. The immorality is not in the use of violence, but rather in the initiation of violence, which is the actual use of violence, the threat of violence or any deceitful means to obtain a goal that affect someone else directly like lying or coercing in any way ) We could call this immoral violence. Now this principle can easily be universalized. There are no contradictions with immoral violence. Violence does not necessarily negate self-ownership, but immoral violence does. Violence may very well actually uphold the principle of self-ownership, as would be the case in self-defense. In this way, one can voluntarily waive his or her own negative rights by initiating violence against others. So if I point a gun at someone’s head, I have effectively waived my right to be left alone, because someone can aggress against me without acting immorally. In fact, that action would be morally justified because it would intend to defend a negative right that I have myself have broken, effectively waiving my right not to be aggressed against. So we all have negative rights that we can voluntarily waive by aggressing against someone else’s negative rights. That sounds good so far, but if we truly own ourselves, then surely there must be a way to voluntarily waive our negative rights without acting immorally, if not, then that would also be a contradiction. It would be impossible to universalize self-ownership and morality if we can’t waive our own rights voluntarily and morally. But we cannot for example murder someone and then just claim that that someone had waived his or her right to not be killed. If that were the case, then negative rights would become irrelevant and thus the whole concept of self-ownership non-universal. For that reason, all negative rights that are voluntarily waived must be part of an agreement between individuals. This is a universal concept; all individuals can waive any of their rights voluntarily by entering into agreement with someone else. Here’s an example, no-one has the right to be taught how to play guitar by me, that would be a positive right that would require a positive action on my part which would negate my self-ownership. Unless, I have waived that right in someone’s benefit potentially for something in return, potentially a sum of money that that other person has waived the right not to have it taken from him. So now we have a mutual agreement, I will teach you how to play guitar for say $500. If I teach you how to play guitar and you don’t pay me $500, then I can morally take those $500 from you because you waived the right to retain them from me. And that works both ways, If you pay me $500 and I don’t teach you how to play guitar, you may have a tough time forcing me to teach you, but you can morally take back those $500 from me because I obtained them immorally and thus I have relinquished my right not to have those $500 taken away from me by you. So as a result of self-ownership we have the following: 1) Everyone has negative rights, and those are universal 2) Positive rights are not universal 3) One can only waive his or her own negative rights in a voluntary way 4) The two ways to voluntarily waive our negative rights are by initiating violence against someone else, or by agreeing to waive them in someone else’s favor. 5) By contrast, one can only acquire positive rights over someone else if that someone has voluntarily relinquished those negative rights by any of the ways described in #4 6) Any act of immoral violence is the initiation of violence by A against the negative rights of B that have not been voluntarily waived by B in A’s favor As a result, no action by itself can either be moral or immoral without a context. Punching someone in the face can be immoral or not. Killing someone can be immoral or not, but not because there is relativity of morality but because other parameters are needed in order to judge an action immoral. These principles are all universal, and we can judge the morality of any human interaction in any geographical area in any point in time using those parameters.

Look you continue to dance around the issue and honestly it is getting boring. I will not discuss anything else until this is decided. You keep saying there is no forbidding capitalism or even currency and then I find ifs and buts.Look, all I need is a simple yes or no answer and then we can discuss everything else, but I do not like to discuss with people who believe they can use violence against me because there really is no discussion there.In a TVP society there would be a demand for money and for trade, like I said, millions of us understand the importance of those things. You keep saying they would be no need for it and yet I am telling you that my freedom depends on it and I am certain that is true for millions of people regardless of your beliefs. So if there is no violence, there would be money, there would be trade and there would be markets because people like me understand their importance to our freedom. You may not and that is fine, but this is not about you, it is not about me, it is about all individuals alive.If there is no violence, there would be capitalism, do you think the use of force against that if capitalism arose in a free society would be justified that is all I need to know. Yes or No. If your answer is No, then you have to agree that trade and money would exist because millions of us want them to. No if and buts, this is the last chance I give you.You can try to convince me all you want, but you have to realize there is a chance you will never convince me. Even if you found a way to make everything free for everyone I would still not want that, do you understand that? I value my work and that of others, I value my freedom.If you agree that the only way to eradicate capitalism is through violent means then we can discuss other issues, I saw your other arguments in the post, but arguments are irrelevant if there is a gun pointed at me.If there is no violence, there would be capitalism, do you think the use of force against that if capitalism arose in a free society would be justified that is all I need to know. Yes or No. If your answer is No, then you have to agree that trade and money would exist because millions of us want them to. No if and buts, this is the last chance I give you. (Yes I posted this twice on purpose) YES OR NO?

OK then, so In a free society I would be a capitalist selling and buying stuff and you’ll go on with your TVP, no conflict there then. Wait, wait, did you not just say you meant it when you said capitalism is not forbidden? I know of many people who in a free society would make sure currency exists, I am one of them. So if there is no forbidding in TVP then there would be currency because many of us understand its importance, whether you like it or not. I would make sure there is currency because if there is a vacuum in that area, I myself would create the currency. If you say there is no forbidding in TVP then you can’t say there is no currency and there are no for-profit businesses. That is a contradiction. Again, will you violently make sure there is no currency? because the only way to keep me (and I know there are millions like me) from using currency is using violence against me. I don’t care about a communist society or a free-for-all society or a “sharing” society because I understand it is impossible without coercion. For the sake of argument, even if I were wrong, you can only force me out of my ignorance through violence. I would for sure not use violence to force you out of your ignorance, would you? Good, so then there would be money, even if you believe it to be obsolete. Many of us would NEVER consider it obsolete so we would make sure it exists. There is no talking around this question, either you violently forbid money or money will exist. There is not a non-violent version of TVP without money.

Come one now you’re all over the place, I know you are playing dumb but you are over-doing it. You know what the definition of ownership is and you know that is not axiomatic. The concept of self-ownership is however axiomatic and you had already agreed to that, can I trust you when you agree to something?If you are asking how private property follows from self-ownership all you have to do is go back one or two posts. But I am a lot more interested in the second part of your post because our conversation is coming close to an end and I’ll explain why. Let’s say I WANT to work for products, or let’s say you can’t convince me to do otherwise, pick your reason.If I do not agree with you, are you willing to use force to make me follow the rules of TVP? Please, be specific and non-contradictory with your answer.The reason our conversation is close to an end is that there are only 3 possible answers to that question; either you:1)Admit that you would force me, in which case you are for the initiation of violence2)Say no one would force me to abandon my capitalistic ideas and I would be free to exercise trade in which case I would wish you good luck with your project and I will go on with mine knowing you are not an impediment to my freedom3)You negate my capacity to make decisions for myself and assign that capacity to yourself or someone else or a computer or whatever, in which case your argument would be completely subjective because I could say the same thing and I would have no interest in continuing a conversation with someone who thinks they can remove my ability to decide for myself.Oh, and please don't say there are no rules in TVP because we would not even be having a conversation if that were the case. There is no money in TVP, that is a rule. There is no private property in TVP that is another rule.

Look, you keep using the same straw man, I am not for the current socio-economic system so why is that relevant.Also, I already said I have no interest in subjectivity. Systems do not define self ownership, you don’t do it either and neither do I. It is a concept logically derived from an axiom.Either point me to where that logical construct is wrong or admit you are wrong.Or do you rather claim that ownerhip has been always exactly the same and unchanging principle for all human history? OK so TVP is anarcho-capitalism then. Great!So if there is no stopping of forbidding or taking away, then surely no one in a TVP society would have a problem with me trading the product of my labor with others. Do you agree with that? Or are there asterisks and small font I did not read when you said “There is no "stopping" or "forbidding" or "taking away" in TVP”?

If I own myself, I own the product of my labor. If you don't see that then you don't truly think we own ourselves. If I own the product of my labor, then I can do with it as I please as long as I don't directly harm someone's negative rights.Now, if you want to take that away from me, that is the initiation of violence by your own definition. What you propose is not anarchy, it is the opposite of that, and yet you claim that anarcho capitalism is just a cosmetic difference from the current system?You see, if you think TVP is so great, I won't stop you from achieving it because I'm not your dad, your president or your state police. If I believe in capitalism and being able to trade the product of my labor with others for whatever we agree to trade, will you stop me? If you will, who are you, my dad or my state?If you won't then we agree on basic principles. In a free society you can go live your TVP life with others who think like you and I can live an anarcho-capitalist life with others who think like me.And this is just the ethical part, which you thought we agreed upon. Then there is the economical side, which I think we also disagree, but if we can't get past the ethics of this issue, economics is not even that important. If you think you can give or take rights then economics also becomes subjective so who cares?

So now that the catholic church is losing adepts, they get a pope like this. That is lucky... and convenient.