sg909

Tonight I used stefans video 'the story of your enslavement' to introduce my brother and sister in law to peaceful parenting and the non aggression principal. They have a 6 month old daughter and im glad to report that it went over with out a hitch, I just want to say thank you and that this is changing the world.

To be honest the majority of media I watched on the case was youtube. I know that it was all over every news station and their websites but it was just pathetic to invest time into. I think this 'mob rule' is something that needs to be examined, for example in a free society I feel the natural repercussions of being thought of as guilty will at least be as stiff as in todays society but possibly even stiffer. I mean what if an insurance company were to cover both party's? If their were enough public outrage directed at someone I could see a company appeasing the masses. Im not saying any of this is bad but it is certainly interesting to consider.

I can accept that, I'm still very new to the application of UPB.

xelent I have been thinking about your statement that following someone is universally preferable behavior. When you follow someone on your way to work do you seek them out and make sure to deliberately follow one person? Ill assume that you do not and what you mean is you unintentionally follow people all the time. What I am talking about is deliberately following someone. If 2 people were to deliberately follow each other to work in a UPB scenario then neither would get anywhere, whereas if they were to move as they wish they may follow each other but it is unintentional in nature.

Magnus you are right, I should have been more clear in explaining affirmative defense. What I believe is that GZ's self defense claim was not plausible in that following a women home at night and getting taser'd for it is not a plausible defense for me to shoot her. She has more of a right to self defense then I do because I am the aggressing party by my deliberate predatory actions. Again no one know for certain how that physical confrontation went down, eye witness testimony is subjective in nature and eyewitnesses have contradicted each other. What we do know is TM was trying to get away and GZ was not letting his intentions be known. If GZ would have found a bunch of stolen belongings or tools to burglarize I dont think we are having this discussion right now. This is what GZ expected when he told the operator "these assholes always get away", when he took the risk to follow TM in a predatory manner after TM ran away from him he should also bear the responsibility of taking such risks. Hindsight is 20/20 and we can all look back at his actions that night and say they were misguided, these misguided actions set forth a chain of events that led to the death of a young man who was innocent of any violation of NAP. Its kind of laughable all the things you can get charged with manslaughter for. From what I understand if you set something in motion that ends with the death of someone els it is manslaughter, even if you never intended to kill anyone.

A wrong is a wrong I agree. The first wrong was GZ getting out of his car to chase TM. What followed was homicide, due to the circumstances it is not murder but certainly manslaughter. His actions go to show that he has an aggressive personality. "Why didnt he call for help?" is not an affirmative defense for homicide, it seems to be furthering speculation. If the argument is going to revolve around speculations then I am not conveying my point properly.

Would you teach your kids to follow others that do not wish to be followed? 2 wrongs do not make a right that is what im trying to get at

Magnus I can see where you are coming from. The thing is everything that GZ said happened that night you are assuming as true. For example if we look at the objective evidence then all we know is that GZ followed TM first in his car then on foot, we know that TM ran from GZ and that is all we know. To say that TM came up and assaulted GZ is to take GZ at his word. Again personally I do think it is reasonable that TM was the first to throw a punch but that could also be justified as self defense. All we know for sure is that what started the whole event was the predatory actions of GZ that night and i believe that the charge should have been manslaughter. Their is also the issue of this being an affirmative defense, that means GZ is admitting that he killed TM but he is saying he can prove he had to do it beyond reasonable doubt. The burden of proof lays on GZ, it would lie on prosecution if he said "i did not kill him". xelent, you see following someone on your way to work as the same thing as following someone slowly in a car as they walk home and then chasing them by foot when they run? lets also remember this is at night and the party being followed was not given any reasoning as to why.

If someone demonstrated they were pursuing someone even after that person consciously ran from them. If that scenario is testable I would love to see it demonstrated. I put together a demonstration in the topic head:If it is OK for a man to follow another man in a room then both men will follow each other there by failing to follow one another. However if it is ok for a man minding his own business to walk away from another man, or interact with them if the interaction is agreeable, then I feel this is universally logical as I understand it. I am also aware that UPB might not be able to test complex events but rather broad human behavior. Either way I think this case still can be boiled down to violation of the non-aggression principal by GZ.

'keeping an eye on someone against their will' If that is testable, I think that most clearly embodies what was going on that night that I have a problem with. or following someone against their will

OJ Simpson was acquitted as well. Even in a free society he would face the same repercussions, if people hate him which they do then doing business with someone like him could affect public image. I was listening to a video Stefan put on youtube yesterday and from what I understand UPB can not be used to justify or vilify force, which is a shame because issues like this are why people call for state intervention. The questions I asked above have still not been addressed and I left a lengthy article on how I saw the GZ case as it related to the non-aggression principal... no responses just a down vote.

I dont find eye witness evidence to be objective, allot of the evidence that Stefan pointed to when making his claims were subjective in nature. Here is what we know objectively, TM was followed by a stranger in a car at night when he was alone, this escalated to him being chased on foot after running away, the last thing GZ said to the operator on the phone call was "have the officer call me". No one objectively knows who initiated aggression when these two men confronted each other, but we can objectively say it turned into a fight. If GZ approached TM and grabbed him by the shirt in an aggressive manner and said something like "come here the police want to talk to you" then I dont blame TM for punching GZ in the face. What this comes down to is who was the first initial aggressor that led to the killing of an innocent man. GZ was the harassing party. I would really like Stefan to reconcile GZ's actions with UPB. Furthermore I want to know if it is justifiable for a man to follow a women, who he does not know, home at night in the rain and then kill this women if she were to defend herself with a taser. We know from the phone call that GZ was not letting his intentions be known at all to TM. I really enjoy all of Stefan's work and appreciate his determination and consistency. I hope he retouches this issue.

http://www.cnn.com/2013/11/18/justice/florida-george-zimmerman-arrest/ In light of this information how will someone who heartedly defended George Zimmerman deal with the cognitive dissonance? A good argument might be to say "George Zimmerman was under such immense public scrutiny that he felt trapped and his brain responded to the environmental stimuli. After all he was at constant threat!" I will continue to ask the question: How was George Zimmerman's actions that night not a violation of the non-aggression principal and UPB? After all the only objective evidence we have from the actions that night is that he followed Martin in a menacing manor. I don't pretend to understand completely UPB but ill take a shot. If it is OK for a man to follow another man in a room then both men will follow each other there by failing to follow one another. However if it is ok for a man minding his own business to walk away from another man, or interact with them if the interaction is agreeable, then I feel this is universally logical as I understand it. George Zimmerman did what United State Police do all the time. George Zimmerman had lots of interaction with local police. To say what George Zimmerman did is ok is to ignore the non-aggression principal. Im asking all of you to be empathetic and try to put yourselves in Martins place that night. If you can do that, then apply the objective evidence, which is the phone conversation, how can you not come the conclusion that his actions were predatory and mimic'd state action both practically and philosophically?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozy52bZ6JTw 34:30 "building roads is a scientific concept, the free market is an interference" I beg anyone to listen to his voice and delivery and tell me that is not agent smith!

I would like to update my definition of Presumption of Innocents so as to better express my intended message: Ones right to be treated in a non-aggressive manner until they say or do something that is an act of aggression against someone else's property, person, or state of mind.

Firstly I will be using the term, presumption of innocents I would like to define this as: ones right to be treated as innocent until they say or do something that is an act of aggression against someone else's property, person, or state of mind. Recent events have forced me to explore the importance of the non-aggression principal as it relates to our presumption of innocents. Statism owes its growth in large part to the collective call for preemptive aggression, this can be seen clearly when examining public sentiment in regards to our border security. In order for preemptive aggression to become politically expedient the statist must capitalize (I use that word loosely) on the fears of its subjects. In my opinion it goes to reason that more societal fears, will stimulate more statist "solutions". Although we know fear is a reality of nature I have always believed that the philosophy of non-aggression is the only solution. Without statism people will voluntarily give up there own presumption of innocents, if by doing so they feel more secure. For example it seems reasonable to believe that without the TSA, airline companies would implement there own screening methods in order to provide security and peace of mind to their customers. Another example of this is a landlord who hires a private security guard to protect his properties, in this case people have a choice to move into such a neighborhood if they are ok with such security measures and free to live somewhere els if they deem these measures to be over-reaching. Although all preemptive security measures are borne of good intentions, I believe only those that are voluntary in nature produce outcomes that are consistent with their intended goals. Forced preemptive security procedures, such as governmental droning of the sky's, breeds vitriol by individuals who are acting peacefully yet having their presumption of innocents violated. Often you hear the argument made that if you don't have anything to hide then you have nothing to fret from such measures. I would respond by saying that once someone or some group of people have granted a person or group of people the ability to forcefully and legally presume guilt by violating a persons expectation of privacy, searching ones belongings, or kidnaping them directly, then corruption and/or sociopathic behavior take root. (a case study is the Stanford prison experiment) If however everyone voluntarily participates in the security measures through a contract or through choice of service (by this I mean walking into a store even though you know it has security cameras) then these sociopathic tendencies are mitigated by the market. If our goal is to be morally consistent, then I don't see how we can say a person, either a government employee or a private citizen, has the right to carry out aggression against another persons state of mind based only on a presumptuous suspicion. However, if one person feels threatened from another because that person is walking behind them on a sidewalk in broad daylight and they chose to turn around and hit that person out of fear, it seems reasonable that society will see that this person is overly paranoid and they will face consequences for their actions. I think Stefan has a principle called the YAD principle that, to me, covers situations such as this. To summarize, I think we as libertarians must expect presumption of innocents not only from government but from each other as well. Thats not to say we can not profile or presume, that is human nature, but when we let our fears lead us to unwarrantedly aggress against another person we should recognize this as a violation of the non-aggression principle.