vforvoluntary

Hey guys, I have a blog on Wordpress called vforvoluntary which matches my profile name. It covers a wide variety of issues related to politics, economics, philosophy, etc. Check it out if you want and share it with your friends. I would particularly recommend reading The State: The Opiate of the Masses and The Non-Aggression Principle: A Principle So Crazy You Probably Live By It as they capsulize anarcho-capitalist views in general. I am also working on a blog post that will explain how an anarcho-capitalist society could work. Check it out using the link below: https://vforvoluntary.wordpress.com/

Indeed it will be a disaster. Although I don't agree with Scalia on many things at least he attempted to interpret the constitution the way it was originally interpreted which allows for much more liberty than we have now. If Obama is successful we will have a leftist supreme court enacting more tyranny than already present. Forget about ruling certain provisions of Obamacare unconstitutional.

These are great statistics, many of which I frequently use when engaging in gun control debates

Austerity is a myth. The countries that have supposedly enacted "austerity" have only made small and incremental cuts to the GROWTH in their debt. Few have actually seen decrease in spending from previous levels. The ones that have cut the most however have tended to improve the most relative to the other countries that have made fewer cuts. Also, these same countries also enacted massive tax increases in some cases increasing taxes by nearly 50%. This is hardly the "austerity" that the left seems to be up in arms about. Debt will harm the economy eventually. If an individual borrows massive amounts of money, eventually he will have to pay it back. The same is true for governments.

Yeah, I've read that article. What amazes me is that there are many libertarians and anarcho-capitalists who not only disagree with but hate the theory of UPB. Maybe it's because they have alternative theories or beliefs that contradict it or because they don't want it to come into conflict with other libertarian theories.

I wasn't stating that because other philosopher are studying or not studying UPB this makes the theory either valid or invalid. I was just wondering out of curiosity if anyone knew any specific philosophers that were into UPB so I could look into them. I also like to hear different people's approaches to ethical systems. Don't get me wrong I find the essence of the claims made in UPB to be correct. It is however, wise to go over arguments again to make sure you have not made an error when you are first accepting a new theory. Results should be reproducible in any calculation. Just like when you are conducting a scientific experiment, you should test your theory repeatedly in order to be confident that it is correct. The human mind is imperfect. I would love to play devil's advocate in the future if that's what your asking. I definitely agree that it is important to revise a theory when appropriate.

Hey guys, I've been studying UPB recently and am now finally beginning to really understand it. It makes a lot of sense although I still do have some minor reservations. Although the logic is sound I will still do more research to make sure there are no obvious holes in it. Any ethical theory of course has to overcome the mental gymnastics of ethical relativists and subjectivists. I have been a libertarian for a long time but have recently been looking for strong ethical frameworks to explain it. My question is are there other philosophers that have picked up on UPB and subscribe to it? I understand that it is a relatively approach to libertarian ethics but I was wondering if anyone else has come to adopt it.

I agree that there would be a reasonable solution to this since it is unlikely any court would consider a minuscule amount of pollution "aggression." I agree that property owners would have incentives to prevent pollution on their own roads. What I was mainly asking about is what philosophically should constitute aggression in regards to pollution irrespective of how the issue would be handled in practice.

I was listening to a video by Sam Harris in which he argued that fireplaces lead to several deaths per year because of the pollutants they release and are in fact much more dangerous than we think. This got me thinking about when pollution should be classified as aggression. By this type of logic cars would be banned. Clearly there has to be a reasonable standard for what aggression is. Clearly certain acts such as assault, murder or theft are considered aggression but other forms of possible aggression such as pollution are less clear. Clearly damages have to be proved. But what type. Are toxic substances that cause tiny amounts of damage entering a person's body enough? How much damage is necessary if any? A person who touches another without consent for example is not causing damage per se, but just about all of us would consider this wrong. What do y'all think about this?

It is simply inaccurate to suggest that people don't have choices when they are starving. The moral choice may be difficult but nonetheless possible. Slaves have allowed themselves to starve to death because they preferred death to a lifeless life. As dsayers stated it is possible to put the effort put into theft into earning or finding another means of survival. When Ayn Rand spoke of the right to live she meant not only the right to remain alive but to fulfill one's life. Life consists of actions. Therefore taking the right of a person to act away from them is taking away a piece of that person's life. The ability to perform actions freely is what gives a person's life value. There are many who would prefer death over enslavement and being unable to make their own choices. This is their right. It may seem absurd to you but it may not be to others. The subjectivity of value is one of the reasons if not the main reason liberty is important.The reason you want to live is because there is an aspect of your life that you value. Otherwise you would have no problem dying. You do not have the right to take away that which another person values for the sake of pursuing your own values unless you are willing to accept to consequences of your actions.

Hey guys, I'm a libertarian but I'm new to the UPB theory. I am beginning to read Stef's book on it. Can someone give me a brief description of it? Please include the justifications for each of it's claims as it is suppose to be rationally based on objective reality. One thing I don't understand is the justification for why the UPB ethics applies to everyone. I've never heard one given. What stops someone from claiming another class to be inferior beings? What is the justification for the self-ownership of each individual?

I agree that this argument is extremely annoying. Just because I condemn x done by someone does not mean that I accept x when it is done by someone else. One cannot condemn everyone engaging in x in one conversation

Some of Stefan's methods of argumentation are unique amongst libertarians but also come under fire a lot for allegedly being fallacious because of how unconventional they seem to be amongst philosophers. One of the arguments in Stefan Molyneux's video entitled Social Contract: Defined and Destroyed in Under 5 Minutes was that if A is good then anti-A must be evil. I was skimming through the comments and found a number of objections to this line of reasoning. One of the objections used was that not having a social contract is not necessarily anti social contract or opposite to social contract. Another objection denied his premise all together and used an analogy involving triangles in an attempt to reveal the fallacies in his line of reasoning. He said "So if A is x then by definition not-A is not-x >All husbands are males. Therefore, all bachelors are not male. >All triangles are shapes. Therefore, anything that isn't a triangle isn't a shape." ... and he goes on. I'm curious to see your reactions to this type of rebuttal.

I think the reason that the podcasts tend to focus on the left more than the right is because the left dominates the mainstream media and the education system. Both sides of the political spectrum however are immoral and should be criticized.

I live in Corpus Christi

I don't think that we should try to reach a functioning democracy because democracy is not functional. It is subjected to the arbitrary whims of the majority. I do however think that it might be necessary to descale the size and scope of government down to a minarchist level before anarcho-capitalism will be accepted.