cobra2411

I'm having fun digging though all this because at times the world we live in and the world we should live in are polar opposites and at times they are very closely aligned and when you start to mash all that together it can get difficult to pull it back apart to make sense of it all. You come to me to buy a car and I sell it with the promise that everything is ok and looked after. If it later turns out that I never even lifted the hood am I liable because you took me on my work. In today's world absolutely as you are presenting yourself as an expert or authoritative source. In a stateless society I suspect DRO's would have similar functions otherwise we'd all have to be experts on everything. Ok, forget the state; at what point does your misuse of superior knowledge remove or alter a person's personal responsibility to protect themselves? The answer may be never, I haven't really put much thought to it other than current society does define a point.

Where does it specifically say you have the right to counsel whether you can pay or not? Rights are the power of free action, liberty is freedom from external control. Liberty is another word for freedom and I believe liberty and feedom to be interchangeable with rights. Stef's video specifically addressed rights, so that's what I'm addressing here. I disagree, but we may be disputing semantics here, not sure. I haven't had a chance to watch the video but I will later. Rights cannot initiate force; if they do they're not rights. Since all humans are the same then all humans have the power of free action. The minute you bump up against another persons power of free action you have two choices; Initiate force or not. To initiate force is to violate another person's power of free action, so the only moral choice is voluntary interaction without the initiation of force. I don't see how any of this creates an unchosen positive obligation. You have a right to life and that means I cannot kill you or I've violated your right to life and destroyed your property. On the other hand, if you choose not to live that's a different story as it's your life and you're free to do with it as you wish. Your choice not to live in no way creates any obligation in anyone to take care of you.

Yeah, kind of is. I don't think it's incomplete. It's simply the base foundation that everything is built on. Contractual rights. I own my body and it's output and can voluntarily exchange those actions for something else. So I have a right to contract because for someone else to prevent me from doing so would be an initiation of force on their part. Anything voluntarily agree to in the contract is contractual. Now if someone doesn't pay, then they have stolen my time, i.e. violated my right to work. Right to counsel. You have a right to life and the ability to defend it. When the attacker is a 300lb mad man you turn to Samuel Colt. When it's a crazed bureaucratic you hire a lawyer. Now... Payment for such is a different issue entirely. You have the right to an attorney but not for free. In a stateless society the looser would pay all legal costs. The fact that in today's society it's been perverted doesn't change what is and isn't a right. A right can not initiate force or it's not a right. Yes, I know what they mean and I've addressed that. I have a right to and education really is meant as I want to put a gun to someone's head and force them to provide for me. Remember, any so called right that includes the use of force is not a right.

Damn complexities with real life... If the concept of debt is misrepresented then it's in fact fraud. Most people are ignorant of the fact that the banks simply create the money they loan to you out of thin air and then charge interest on something that never existed. Additionally the interest can never be paid back as it doesn't exist. Simplified: If you and I are the only two on the planet and I create $100 that you want to borrow. I set the terms at 10% interest and say you can borrow the $100 and make low payments of $10 and pay it off over time. If you fail to pay it all back I take your stuff. Now, if you lack the understanding of the contract you are entering into then I have defrauded you and stolen your efforts as you try and pay back what can never be paid back. Wouldn't that be slavery after the fact?

They can't be taken away. Did something fundamentally change to the humans the nazi's marched into the gas chambers that removed their right to life? No, they still had a right to live and Hitler's state violated that right and murdered them. Rights are not guarantees. Someone can violate your right to life and we call that murder. Since you can be murdered does that mean we shouldn't try and protect our lives? It's not hard. That definition took about 30 seconds for me to come up with and I really like it. If you start with the idea of self ownership leading to property rights then you need to identify both property and rights. Your body is your property and the right is the ability to do the things you do without being interfered with. Lets go back to the "I have a right to an education" statement. Yes, you do. I can't go to Stef and say "Hey, you've learned enough - stop!". Now, I have a right to work, or gain the fruits of the labor of my body and mind, so I can say "Hey Stef, I'll teach you but it'll cost a billion trillion dollars." If he forces me to teach him without paying or defrauds me by saying he'll pay later then he's initiated force against me. That is the ultimate litmus test of what a right is and is not. If it involves the initiation of force against someone then it's not a right. Rights can not be taken or given. Period. Now, if I agree to do X, Y and Z and if I don't you can kill me that doesn't remove my right to life as it's my voluntary descision to enter that contract. If you and I entered that contract and Stef comes along and kills me then it's still murder as he's violated my right to life. In my opinion you have self ownership, the concept of property and rights, then contracts. You can not force me to do anything, but you can entice me to. If you offer me a sandwich to sweep your floor and I agree then we've just negotiated and entered into a contract. That works because you own the sandwich and have the right to use it as you wish and I own and have a right to my body and it's efforts and can do as I wish and we can trade those services voluntarily. None of that alters our rights - I don't become a slave temporarily or permanently because I've entered into a contract for work. I disagree wholeheartedly with this. Rights are simply the freedom to do as we wish so long as it doesn't interfere with others. What you describe are based out of contracts which is the next step. Property is a noun and rights is an adjective - if that makes sense. Rights are the freedom to use your property without interference. They're very closely related. And lastly, Stef, if you read this I hope you don't mind that I had fun using you in some of my examples...

Right: The power of free and unencumbered action that is a permanent and essential attribute of all humans. How's that. Dsayers, I apologize, I didn't see the other thread or I would have posted there. What section is it under?

I disagree that there is a right to another - that's a state created idea. A right as an attribute exists whether the state exists or not. I don't believe rights can be taken away and even the state defines them as inherent; implying they cannot be removed. If we build on the idea of self ownership then the results of our efforts are our own. I don't think there is a dispute over that. Any claim from another to our efforts is therefore false. It's no different than me saying the sky is purple and unicorns exist. I can say them all I want and people can want to believe me but it's simply not true. Since you do not have a claim over another's body than any so called "Right" that involves force over another is false and invalid. Claiming rights don't exist because someone tries to create an invalid "right" is illogical. Rights are attributes and they stem from property and the concept of self ownership. Most that parrot the "I have a right to an (free) education" are really just saying "I want to put a gun to someone's hand but not get blood all over me."

Ok, I have to admit I had to stop watching as I simply couldn't get though it as I feel Stef has missed the point. On my way to becoming an anarchist I was a constitutionalist and that is where my understanding of rights comes from. Now, I want to stop the idea right in it's tracks that I think the constitution is a source of rights, it isn't. The constitution is an attempted to get government to recognize and respect the rights that are inherent to man. Since Stef's argument is that the state created rights to "sell" us something lets look at what the state defines a "right" as. Blacks law 4th edition defines a right as "a power, privilege, faculty, or demand inherent in one person and incident upon another ... powers of free action." Now inherent is defined as "existing in something as a permanent, essential, or characteristic attribute." So the state defines a right as a power or privilege that's a permanent and essential attribute of a person. Nowhere does it say it's a gift of the state. Now, onto the notion of "I have a right to education" or "I have a right to contraception." Yes you do. No one can stand in your way and block access to education or contraception or whatever. What you do not have a right to is force someone else to pay for that education or contraception. This is the distortion that has crept into the thinking of late. IMO the constitution was the best attempt at a government structure that would respect the rights of the people and there was a lot of great thinking about rights that came out of that time. At the center of it all you have a right to property. Your right to life is an extension of that because your body is your property. It's commonly accepted under the constitution and common law that your rights extend until they interfere with another's rights. So you have a right to education because no one has a superior right to stop you from learning. However, you do not have a superior right to take someone else's time or effort. I think in the end we're saying the same thing but I feel that Stef has gotten caught up in the distorted thinking that's out there trying to use state power to grant rights. People have rights, they created the state to serve them and granted the state privileges. Since the state has no rights it can not convey any rights. Rights are not things, they are attributes and are permanent and essential. That's why the founding father's stated they were unalienable. You can not take them and you can not give them away, they are always there. You can only respect them or not.

I loath people who are intentionally ignorant, but I don't think that's who you're speaking of here. I think you're speaking of those that lack the capacity to think. Lets take a look at the school system. "Memorize this, you will be tested on it". Straight regurgitation. Now, what exactly would you want as a tax farmer? Someone who can learn and regurgitate the task but not think much beyond that. And we reward that type of behavior. I was fortunate to be blessed with a series of teacher here and there growing up that showed me how to learn. Some where school teachers, some where not, but in the end I learned to think, ask questions and most importantly not think I knew it all.

Sorry, IMO = In my opinion. I use very little txt speak, but there are a few that I do use and that's one of them. I hope that's ok here.

I'm starting to rethink this, I mean, how much rape is ok? If it's only a little rape then is it ok? No, rape is rape. Employment under duress to me is starting to sound like slavery; even if not complete slavery. Student loan debt is inescapable and thus needs to be paid in the current system. Given the amount of over-promising in the area it's likely it's a financial burden for many which makes having a job a necessity. Sure there are hardship forbearance but due to the amount of the debt and the pay some students are working for it leaves little else for saving. Then there is the whole fractional reserve banking system which creates debt out of thin air as nothing more than a ledger entry on a balance sheet. Your signature on one side as the asset and the debt on the other. Since only the debt is created and not debt + interest there is scarcity right from the start and by design some people will loose. We're back to employment under duress in an attempt to satisfy debt. Typing it out I'm concluding that debt is slavery. So I guess I'm back to square one on whether or not you can be a wage slave. Sorry for rambling on but I decided to leave the post so you can see my thought process as I think it out.

http://camaplan.com/ https://www.trustetc.com/ Those are two that I know of and I have money with camaplan, so I can speak directly about them. They follow the IRS guidelines for an IRA with no other restrictions. I have a stock account setup where I can even trade futures and options. I've also used my money to buy real estate and loan hard money. You can also buy gold though them as well. There are many other "self directed" IRA's out there but many have restrictions in their charter with the IRS and thus are limited in how much you can control. So they are self directed in the sense you can buy and sell stocks, but you can't buy physical gold or real estate because they've elected a restriction on their filing with the IRS. I'm not sure on the details of rolling your 401k over, but I don't believe you can do it if it's from your current employer.

You can trust the bureau of lies and scams, they're from the government and here to help... The BLS will regularly use substitutes for items like ground beef for steak if the prices rise too high. Once you start comparing apples to oranges while acting like you're not, you've admitted that it's fraudulent. Additionally since the money is injected at the top, the top banks will use that hot money to chase returns and it frequently results in market distortions - commodity prices anyone? These distortions usually result in bubbles as more and more people chase the return. The early money will rotate out and leave the late comers to be the bag holders when the music stops. IMO the bankers love mild inflation because it spurs the desire to buy now and pay later - after all it will be more expensive later. Also, even if your money never sets foot into a bank they still can rob it by devaluation. Since 1913 the value of the dollar has declined by over 97%. Stolen by the banksters. In growth areas there is likely to be price increases due to supply/demand, however that will balance out and later become deflationary as the market matures and technology improves to reduce costs. Ultimately you reach a utility value where the cost is unlikely to go significantly lower. Computers are a great example as are cell phone contracts. Sure, some carriers aren't giving you "free" phones, but they're also not charging you $1,000 over 2 years in higher service fees to pay for that "free" phone.

Jami, if you are still lurking around I want you to know how immensely sorry I am for the hell you are going though. As someone who is going though my own issues with family and emotional abuse I can only imagine the added complexity of adding sexuality to it, my eyes are tearing up thinking of it. I am a straight man with many friends, both straight and gay. I love and value them all for who they are, not what label society deems we put on them like straight or gay. In fact my friend Matt who is gay gives the best hugs I've ever gotten. I just want to let you know that there are normal people out there who will accept you for who you are and not try and label you or change you or hurt you in any way and I pray that you find those people and can begin to heal from this. This board can be tough and I don't think anyone would think less of you for taking a break - I know I've lurked a lot around here without posting. However, I do agree with dsayers that writing it out can be very helpful. Now, you can post it if you want or simply write it down in a notebook/journal but I feel that writing it down will help get it out of your head so you can start to make sense of it.

When I hear the term wage slave I think of someone who is trapped by the choices they've made and are now too fearful to leave their job to seek out something better. So it's a form of self slavery if that's even such a thing. It's the trap of the rat race where you are compelled to measure your success in visible, measurable terms such as fancy cars and big houses. I've met people who live in shame that they drive a 5 year old car - "oh what does it say about me that I drive an old piece of junk..." So instead they buy a new car every 2-3 years and roll the loss into the next car. At the height of the credit stupidity there were people driving 20k cars with 2,3 and in some cases 4 times their cost in financing on them. Add to this the growth of 60-72 month financing and it's easy to see how it happens. So a person collects all theses "measures of success" and then feels compelled to stay at a job for the security of a pay check when without such burdens they may choose to leave for a more rewarding job. Now, what changes when the giant gun leaves the room? Well for one, I figure that 80% of a persons productivity is stolen by the state at minimum. That includes taxes directly paid and taxes indirectly paid through inflated prices to cover said taxes. Without income taxes I could pay my employees 40% less and thus lower my costs and the final cost of my products. Now, that 80% that's stolen isn't going to go into a workers savings account because ultimately there are things the state does that are desirable. After all, someone needs to build the roads. So you will likely spend some of that 80% on road associations, etc, but since it will all be voluntary there will be no sense of dread about not being able to pay. So if you don't dig yourself into debt, then there is nothing stopping you from switching jobs. Another change will be health insurance. A close friend of mine hates her job but won't leave due to the insurance coverage. It's a choice to a degree, but the state has helped manipulate the insurance / healthcare monopoly to the point that it's at least 5 times more expensive than it should be. In all other businesses it's illegal to collude to fix prices and/or restrain trade yet those rules are specifically exempted from the medical industry. Non emergency heart surgery can be done in India for under $2k but it cost over $100k here. Same procedure, same supplies, same standards - at least where it counts. Don't expect a resort like atmosphere in India. High class hotel rooms are $2-300 a night, why is a hospital room $2-3k a night. I'm not talking about telemetry rooms or ICU either, those are $5k+. I could go on, but my point is that people are forced to make a financial decision based on the market distortions of the state. Remove the state and health care costs will be 20% of what they are today or less and insurance will be true insurance in that it covers unforeseen events and will be inexpensive. Elective procedures will be reasonable as well. Inflation adjusted from known costs in the 60's and 70's before all the changes were made to the industry; a standard birth, with hospital stay, doctor, nurses, etc, should cost between $500 and $1,000. Would you really need insurance to cover that? If you couldn't save $1,000 in 9 months then I would say you probably shouldn't have children. Now as other's have said I believe there will still be employees as well as contractors. They both have their benefits. I suspect that without income taxes the lines between them will blur however and it will simply be the term of the employment, i.e. open ended for employees or pre-defined for contractors.

Yes, and they exist in spite of the state, not because of it. When I was in my constitutionalism phase I used to get irked when people would state "My constitutional rights" as if the constitution itself granted those rights. The correct term is "My constitutionally protected rights". Rights are inherent to being human and thus can not be removed without fundamentally altering humans. Heavy is inherent to lead, if I remove heavy then I no longer have lead. If you remove rights you no longer have human beings.

Signatures only validate that they are your words and not anyone else's. If the contracts void each other or otherwise contradict that's a separate issue. If you signed a contract pre-repudiating future contracts and took out a loan you'd be acting in bad faith. Now, back to the contract and a party dying as I feel you're not understanding my question or are intentionally trying to distort it. Lets setup a scenario: Steve contracts with John to perform a task. Steve completes his obligations under the contract and later dies. John still has obligations to complete under the contract and Steve's death in no way hinders him. Is John morally absolved from his obligation to Steve now that Steve is dead? Answers of who cares, it doesn't matter and who would know are invalid because they are immoral. If I take a piece of candy from a store, answering who cares, it doesn't matter or who would know does not make theft in this case moral. If John is obligated to Steve, then the whole concept of inheritance is valid as contracts survive death. I am not discussing the possible difficulties, just the most basic, fundamental idea of contracts, et. al. surviving death and following on to their completion. As has been discussed the living have property rights and contracts are simply exchanges of property between parties. In most cases that's money for services, which simplified is my time for your time. In the above scenario Steve contracted with John to trade property owned by each - most simply, time. Steve traded his time, most likely in the form of money - a store of past productivity, to John. If Steve was living there would be no moral argument as he has completed his side of the bargain. The $64k question is if Steve dies after he completes his part of the bargain is John morally absolved from his. I say no based on my logical argument and others logical arguments listed above. Property is that which is had by or belongs to/with something, whether as an attribute or a component. That's a clear definition. My body has specific attributes, as do all human bodies. Since no one else has direct control of my body I will say it belongs to me. Therefore, my body is my property. This argument isn't valid only if the state exists, actually it's valid in spite of the state existing. Property rights exists; they are an inherent part of being human and they do not originate from the state. The state can only respect those rights or not. So arguing that the state created property rights is false.

You're being disingenuous with your rebuttals. I have repeatedly made the case that humans and animals are fundamentally different and you still act as if I've agreed that humans and animals are the same except for a slight difference in intelligence. An average four year old has 5 times the vocabulary of even the smartest dog. The average adult has 30 times the vocabulary. Humans can engage in abstract thought and conceptualize things they can't sense. That's just the tip of the iceberg. This goes far past "we're smarter". You continue to base your argument on the idea that humans and animals are the same and you continue to apply the same standards to animals that you make with humans. I continue to show you that we are different. Please refute this and show how humans and animals are the same.

Weeb, hahaha... Yeah they did do her a favor and hopefully woke a few people up in the process.

Well that's a fuzzy line in the sand... Wouldn't it be simple if allowing the animal to do what it wants is ok but training it is automatically abuse. You are once again confusing the difference between animals and humans. Making an argument for one doesn't automatically make the argument for the other. Dogs do not have the level of understanding of abstract concepts like even children do. Now, when I talk about training I'm not talking about the classic compulsion training. That's almost totally been replaced by professional trainers today. The preferred training is positive reward / negative punishment. Rewards are given to increase a target behavior and rewards are taken to reduce undesirable behavior. You are punishing by negating the reward, not slapping the dog around. That's no more manipulative than getting a good or bad rating from a DRO. Ah, but I can hear it now, if the dog keeps being bad I'll keep withholding food till the dog starves. If you keep performing bad at work won't you get fired which will affect your ability to eat? When you do good you get a raise. See, positive reward, negative punishment.

I know a guy who told me a wild story about this thing that would do crazy things and another guy has it... blah blah blah... OP, your post sounds like tin-foil hat fear mongering non-sense. Can you clarify what concept you're trying to expand on? If it's the use of a "secret" language to coordinate an attack on your attackers, I'd be worried that they would get trigger happy the minute they heard you talking in code. As far as "locals" initiating violence, as dsayer's already said, the police initiated, therefor anything else is simply defensive. Of course the state will likely disagree on that point.

You are intentionally trying to make this difficult. We're not talking about trying to figure out something that happened 80k years ago. We're talking 80 years at most, and in most cases wills are less than 10 years old and there are usually people alive with first hand knowledge of the people involved. If I call my friend Steve and say "Hey, can you be the executor of my will and follow the instructions?" and he says yes, that's a verbal contract between me and Steve to handle my affairs. It's further backed up with a written will. The question that I haven't seen you answer is this: If two people enter a contract where each has specific tasks to complete and one of them dies, does that invalidate the contract and morally absolve the living person from their obligation? The answer, if we live in a moral and ethical world has to be no, death does not absolve the moral responsibility of the remaining partner. And if that's the case then inheritance is valid as I can contract with someone to dispose of my stuff after I die. Forget the will/contract issue for a moment because even if a will isn't valid, I can always create a contract with someone to accomplish the same thing. I haven't even touched on the idea of trusts as I've yet to think about how they would function in a stateless society, but in today's society a trust gets all around the issues you raise about loosing the ability to control property after you die. When I create and fill a trust I'm moving my possessions into right then and there. I now have no possessions - the trust has them. It doesn't matter when I die because the trust is setup with trustee's and beneficiaries to manage everything. So answer this question if you can - does the death of one party of a contract morally absolve the remaining party.

Yes. God hates us. He's all loving, but a bit narcissistic. Since we're waning on our adoration for him he's going to wipe us out and start over... Plus he hates the gays... (/sarc) Human's are incapable of doing sufficient harm to the environment to be anything more than a foot note. There has never been, nor will there ever be any proof for a vengeful god or any god for that matter. The closest stretch I'll even remotely accept is the idea that there is a central, connective energy force for a lack of a better term. Science is getting closer to explaining that and once explained I doubt anyone will call it god. One of my favorite quotes basically says it all - there are two types of people. Intelligent people without religion and religious people without intelligence. Do you think it's any coincidence that they want you to take everything on faith and not to question anything?

Well I'm no expert on wills, so I think in terms of contracts. It doesn't matter as I believe it's clear that you have the right to dispose of your property as your last worldly act.

It has similarities. There is usually an executor and typically the executor is asked; that's a verbal contract. There's usually a provision for the executor to be paid a small amount for his service, so there's an exchange of value. And yes, there are common laws about disputes, lack of wills, etc. I simply wanted to make things as simple as I could to answer whether death nullifies all property and contractual rights and obligations. I believe we can make arrangements for what will become of our possessions after death and those arrangements are not nullified by our death. I have not seen any sufficient argument to the contrary - they all rely on twisting logic, straw man arguments and other logical fallacies.