dsayers

I was upset to read this, assuming the question was aimed at me. I don't know what UPB says. I feel I've been clear on this point. And I still am not sure as to what you mean by prohibit. Of course the fact that murder is immoral doesn't render somebody incapable of inflicting it. Murder is internally inconsistent because it's the simultaneous acceptance and rejection of property rights. Can you logically explain why the earning of property through investment of your time and labor would go from being righteous to suddenly being a crime against everybody else? Can you clarify where that line is drawn and why? Again, the onus is upon him or in this case, you if you want to argue his position. In what way is land different from a car, a refrigerator, or your body?

If person A knows person B well, surely they can find a way to be playful that isn't mechanically identical to abuse, eh? If we lived in a world where children were parented peacefully, would humans even know what teasing means or how to do it?

Not at all. I saw a lack of philosophical integrity, so I tried to encourage you to be honest/precise. When you refused to, I downvoted your post because of this lack of integrity. It's not because we don't see eye to eye, it's because you don't know why you see what you see and you are unwilling to address that. Resisting self-knowledge on a forum dedicated to philosophy and spreading virtue in the world is counter-intuitive. More baseless accusations. I guess this means you're quadrupling down? The question of how you know was in regards to your claim that Mr. Kokesh has done more to "promote freedom" than EVERYBODY else on this board, save Stef. I stopped reading your post shortly thereafter because you for a third time tried to put words in my mouth.

Morality is gauged by consent. Boxing is mechanically identical to assault, but it is not immoral because consent is present. Just as harming somebody's body without their consent (forcing them to breathe carcinogenic pollutants) would be assault, but the mechanically identical behavior in a cigar lounge would not be since consent is present. Rape is mechanically identical to love making, and so on.

I ask you how you got this from that knowing that the answer will likely never come. Yet you continue to speak as if somebody doing X, Y, and Z means that them doing A cannot possibly be flawed. While not actually explaining how X, Y, or Z accomplishes the goal it claims to have and you think it satisfied. All that text and you still have yet to answer "How do you know?" To which you're now tripling down, including adding aggressive language. The problem here is that you don't seem to understand how important a question that is. If your interest was in being accurate, then such a question would either lead to an answer, or an admission that you were wrong to make such a large scale, generalized, baseless accusation. Using your daily allotment of downvotes as an ideological weapon against me won't change this.

If the poster of the thread's purpose was to determine if air pollution is an act of aggression or not, how can you say that whether it is aggression or not is not the issue? @yagami: If you own your body, it is immoral for others to harm your body without your consent. I think it's of little consequence who owns the vessel by which they harm your body. For this reason, I haven't spent any time considering ownership of air. Though you make a strong argument that mixing your labor into the air makes you responsible for the effects of that labor. Still, this is incidental relative to the harming of the body, whose ownership is uncontested. I think part of the reasons why considerations like this aren't "solved" is because too much time is spent obfuscating with minutia. Assault is immoral (aggression). Harming somebody's body without their consent is assault. I think trying to determine who owns the air adds a layer of unnecessary complexity. Unless somebody who finds that to be important can find fault with that two sentence summary.

This is not an argument at all. It sidesteps argumentation altogether. You can stay at greater than arm's reach, but this doesn't mean that somebody punching you in the face must be okay. Bob's pollution of the air is binding upon Bill, so if it is harmful to Bill and without his consent, it is a violation of his property (his body). @yagami: I would argue that joint ownership is mythical. One of the definitions of ownership is exclusive control over something. Something being owned by more than one person is paradoxical. Perhaps a distinction without a difference? Unwanted denotes lack of consent in the context of inflicted behaviors. Since it can also apply to aesthetics, I would argue that "unwanted" is imprecise relative to "without consent."

I made it clear up front that I'm not touching UPB and why. If it's confusing to you and somebody else's explanation is not so confusing, I'm not sure why you'd continue to pursue the one you find to be problematic. I'm not sure what you mean by "justify prohibitions." By prohibitions, do you mean legislations? Because they're unnecessary. When somebody commits murder, they are demonstrating that they accept property rights, and therefore denoting that their act is immoral. As for justify, you cannot have immorality (or crimes if you'd prefer) without property rights. How could you know that murder was wrong if the life that was snuffed out didn't belong to the person who took it? I apologize for the ambiguity. You said you thought it was aesthetics but couldn't explain why. I was providing for you the explanation. If it is not universal, it cannot be binding. Because it breaks universality, you know that he's saying that he's not comfortable with people having a disproportionate amount of land, not that it's immoral for somebody to do so. Or that if he's trying to say it's immoral, he is incorrect.

I think your continued perception of "I win" is projection. In numerous threads on the forums, I've asked you probative questions. You have yet to answer one of them. Does this mean your claimed goals are lies or that you're not interested in accuracy? YOU made the outrageous claim. The onus is upon you. The question was: How do you know? Your deflection suggests that the answer is "I don't."

I addressed that it wasn't an argument at all. It was a mix of assertion and an appeal to authority. Rather than substantiating your assertion with logic, reason, or evidence, you've doubled down, adding spooky language and an accusation of not responding. The irony being that you didn't respond to any of the questions asked of you, which could've moved your assertion into the argument category if it was valid.

You have the capacity for reason, therefore you own yourself. People are not fundamentally different in this regard, therefore everybody owns themselves. If everybody owns themselves, then theft, assault, rape and murder are immoral because they require exercising ownership over that which is owned by somebody else. Self-ownership is the root of ownership. You own yourself, therefore you own the effects of your actions (the money you earn with your labor, the car you buy with your money, etc). Referencing a "proportionate area of land" breaks universality in two ways. The first being that it's essentially saying that you own the effects of your actions, but only up to a certain point. The second being differentiating land from all other forms of property.

I'm actually troubled by how much deprecation is considered to be entertaining. Teasing seems to me to be a way of recreating past trauma. It's fundamentally win-lose.

In your title, you say effective. Do you keep track of how many fliers you put out and how many people contact you? You're placing things on people's cars based on something that's been placed on people's cars. You don't even know if the person who will receive your flier is the one who put the sticker on there. Can communicating with a car be considered to be an effective way to promote the freedom of people? While trying to encourage people to accept property rights, could violating property rights be described as an effective way to do it? Can you know based on a bumper sticker what conclusions a person holds AND how the arrived at those conclusions? Do you think you can change somebody's mind without these pieces of information?

People do this every day. 99% of people could describe 99% of their lives as peaceful cooperation with others. This doesn't answer my question.

How do you know? Did you know that I've done exactly what you praise Mr. Kokesh for (and I did it when he was a cog in the war machine)? Did you know it was foolhardy for me (and him) to do it? Did you know that in order to "stand up to the State" one only needs to accept their own self-ownership? Did you know that your claim is literally so bold and so generalized that it's almost impossible for it to be accurate? Larken Rose was a big part in my personal path to freedom. I'd like to shake the guy's hand, but it doesn't prevent me from using critical thinking and identifying mistakes he makes. Hero worship is a dangerous thing.

ALL behaviors are either theft or not theft. I reject your claim that consent has more than two possible states. I would argue that it is worse than before precisely because it tricks some people into thinking it's better than before. It's not just the wrong answer, it encourages people to stop looking for the right answer.

One of the reasons I avoid UPB is because it seems to me to be an unnecessarily complex way of stating something that's relatively simple. I accept that this may be intellectual sloth on my part. Theft, assault, rape, and murder are immoral. It's that simple. The proof and explanation requires a few mores words, but not many. Where's the line between aesthetics and morality/ethics? Is it binding? If not, it's aesthetics. If it is, it is morality/ethics. I like ice cream is not binding upon you. I own myself IS binding upon you because it means you cannot steal, assault, rape, or murder me without engaging in the internally contradictory conclusion of simultaneous acceptance and rejection of property rights. Off topic, I'm glad I was led into stating it that way as I think I've finally chosen a position on whether or not noise pollution is a violation of property rights. Back on topic, it is unclear to me as to where avoidability enters into it. Pardon me if this is a result of my lack of exploration of UPB. I can avoid being punched in the face by you by always staying at greater than arm's length. This doesn't make punching me in the face moral.

I seriously dislike this new trend in websites that are exceedingly long just so they can collect data on how far down people actually read. Pet peeve aside, can you explain the connection between that website and promoting freedom?

Inattentive compared to what? Short attention span compared to what? Isn't inattentive another way of saying short attention? Easily distracted compared to what? Isn't short attention another way of saying easily distracted? And so on, though some of the items are actually contradictory, illustrating its intent to act as a catch all. The entire list is subjective, vague, and can apply to everybody depending on the context. Your willingness to accept this as a diagnosis and the subsequent drugging it would entail indicates you're looking for a quick fix to a problem that has no quick fixes. I'm really sorry that you're experiencing that level of anxiety, but to use that to turn to exacerbating the problem is self-destructive.

He already has. By that, I mean he already has done things for you. Presumably, that's WHY you became a gold member. Also, he's already provided you with what you're asking for. I believe his metaphor of choice is pointing out a parking ticket of a mass murderer. I'd rather spend my time helping people to understand that taxation is theft than to teach them about some isolated theft that may or may not have occurred and any related cover up attempts to alter historical records. Legislation are subjective commands backed by threats of violence and there's tons of them attempting to govern nearly our every thought and action. What's so important about a little missing gold? And if it is so important, why be cryptic about it?

Yes he does. From the past: Everything she does to him, she can only do because you chose her to be his mother. From the present: Everything she does to him, you do not stop. You don't get credit for "putting your foot down" on spanking because if it's not with regards to aggression in general, it's an unprincipled conclusion and therefore erroneous. From the future: You make excuses for her based on her culture and lie even to yourself when you say "can't kick the habit" as if it's minor or that makes it okay. How do you know? My parents were only married for the first few years of my life. I had repressed the memories of my father being aggressive towards my mother. Once they were divorced, I saw him so infrequently that he was able to put on his "I'm a cheerful person" face almost always. Meanwhile, my mother, who indeed had been incredibly nurturing those first few years, began treating me as if I was a blemish. My perception was so warped, and to such a contrast, that I became misogynistic. It caused untold levels of destruction in my life as I was unable to develop healthy relationships with women and those I thought I had, I destroyed quite efficiently. Even as I type this today, after extensive reprogramming, I still don't treat females the same way I treat males. The day is coming when your son will realize what an awful person his mother is. The day may come when he understands how that was your fault too. In the meantime, you're telling a story of very high contrast in parental personalities. Even if it is water under the bridge, I find it extremely disconcerting how comfortable, and even self-congratulatory your story comes across as. YOU DON'T HAVE THE RIGHT TO EXPOSE A 9 YEAR OLD TO ANY OF THE THINGS YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT.

Just to be clear, it's not an argument at all. For starters, "came out alright" is vague. Also, his claim is that because he "came out alright," EVERYTHING that happened to and around him MUST be acceptable. This is far too generalized to be accurate. When somebody says, "I was spanked and I turned out okay," they're telling you that they're not ready to face the reality that they were assaulted by somebody they grew up thinking cared about them.

I think focusing on individuals while in the pursuit of truth is far less valuable than the truth itself. If person X says something insightful, I reflect. If that person instead says something foolish, I move on. Unless the person is in a position to be close to me personally, I don't spend any time worrying about who they are as a person. I'm sure Mr. Chomsky has said many intelligent things and many foolish things. All that said, it wouldn't surprise me that if he does claim to be an anarchist but speaks out against capitalism, he may in fact be referring to the coercive markets we have today. Though I wouldn't make excuses for him if he lacks the integrity to differentiate the two or be clear to others as to the distinction.

I don't follow tech too closely. However, the way cellphones have no external antenna, I'm sure any future needs for such a thing would either be self-contained, or significantly more advanced and compact.

So chop his arm off before taking it. If it's not part of his body, then he doesn't own it according to him no matter how much investment he put into it. I know this sounds like a silly retort, but it reveals that his position is unprincipled. This is a common fallacy. One that again is easily disproven when you consider ownership from it's origin: self-ownership. A person who steals is simultaneously accepting their own self-ownership while rejecting the self-ownership of another. In other words, the behavior of him violating property rights is demonstration that he accepts property rights. You/he will need to define terms. There's a LOT of people throughout history that use words like moral and ethical because they understand it is objective and therefore what they claim to be moral/ethical cannot be questioned. If your friend is talking about those things, then he's right. However, to consider that which is truly moral/ethical, he is wrong. As demonstrated by my last paragraph. Theft, assault, rape, and murder are immoral OBJECTIVELY because they are internally inconsistent. They all involved somebody simultaneously accepting and rejecting property rights. Which means that morality/ethics don't even have to be objective because the person engaging in the behaviors are invalidating the behaviors inherently. I would ask him why it's so important for him to be able to rationalize stealing other people's labor.