Okay Kids it's NAP time:) See what I did there?

[regevdl]

No, the argument is that; without the rule of law and the threat of force, NAP is nothing more than wishful suggestions, and that's why NAP is backed by the threat of immediate violence.

 

Governments have existed since man first congregated, there will always be someone or a group of someones assuming a leadership roll, either by force or by consent.

don't confuse governments with rules of laws. NAP is that all laws apply to EVERYONE (even those representatives) equally.  See in gvt.... the entity of gvt which comprises of human individuals are exempt from many of the laws it enforces and it can only do that by way of force, coercion and intimidation.  An individual who represents a mass could never get away with that unless they use force on the masses.  NAP is the segway into eliminating double standards in society which you seem to really depend on.  The loopholes.

 

Human beings self organize.  I have not met an anarchist or libertarian or anyone inbetween who will deny that.  If there is someone out there who disagrees that human beings naturally self organize, please speak up now.  

 

Furthermore, having some social structure does NOT have to be GOVERNMENT....which essentially is centralized power.  There are a million ways to skin a cat.  So the libertarians/anarcho capitalists, etc claim that the centralized form of government is immoral because everything they do 'for the good of the people' is by way of force.  I don't need the Red Cross to stick a gun in my back to convince me that donating blood is a good idea to help people.  I happily volunteer to do so.  Yet the gvt puts a gun in my back to donate guns to questionable rebel groups because somehow it's good for humanity and I have no way to opt out of that peacefully or violently.

 

People can exist without a centralized law maker and enforcer only when people voluntarily use NAP.  NAP, anarchism does NOT mean without law or without order.  it's simply without master.  You mentioned gvts have existed since humans started organizing.  and you think by now it's shown a success?!  lol  the same thing repeats itself!  maybe it's time for a truly new idea.  not a repackaged version of a centralized gvt.  Isn't that the essence of human advancement?  Doing something not done before?

 

I hate to use a youtube illustration as a source but I found this an accurate representation of the dos and don'ts in a civil society that most ppl would subscribe to but we have fallen away from.  why have we fallen away from...because of the use of force, coercion and intimidation.  We can't 'opt out' peacefully without force being used against us.  

 

Of COURSE there can be a 'leader' or a spokesperson or ambassador.  absolutely.  there is no reason force is needed in such a case.  It happens..yet....but that means it should continue?  no.  

 

If you see NAP AS the rule of law....gvt actually disappears but takes nothing with it because centralized governments create nothing.  Land will still exist (Native americans practiced property rights between tribes).  technology and information/knowledge still exists, government creates nothing and once it's gone, we will be able to self organize peacefully.  It's not to say that crazy psychos won't roam from time to time but gvt obviously can't stop that now yet no one demands gvt perfection...too busy poking holes in the forward advancing ideas I guess.

 

[Slashragequit]

It appears that the article pretty much nails it.

 

Think about it: Over 7 billion nations of One, following the premise of NAP, which is based upon the threat of immediate violence, a choice left to each individual nation to determine what constitutes an act of physical aggression.  Yep, that will work.

 

Libertarianism, a totalitarian ideology, negates all notions of society, they cannot exist in a libertarian world.

I own you.I own Dwain Dibley and I am free to do with him as a please. 

If you deny the principle of self ownership what argument can you make against me claiming ownership over you. Unless you deny the very principle of ownership. If that is the case, what argument can you make against me taking all your stuff. After all if you do not own anything how can it be "your" stuff. I guess I am free to come to the house in which you live and take all the stuff inside.And you cannot appeal to consequentialism. For instance, that I will be arrested because what I did was a crime. Without the principle of ownership there is no such thing as the crime of theft. You cannot steal something that is unowned.

[J. D. Stembal]

You use NAP to justify NAP.  And it is backed by the threat of immediate violence.  To say it is not is the same as saying you have no right to life or property.

 

Sure you can because there is no such thing a UPB, it's a made up fiction.  Nice idea, makes you feel all warm, fuzzy and sanctimonious inside, but it's not real.

 

The argument for non-aggression does not solely rely on itself as a premise to prove the conclusion that it is true. Therefore, the argument does not use circular logic. The only reason you cannot argue against it is because you would have to invalidate self-ownership (property rights over yourself and your actions) first. If you argue that there is no self-ownership, nothing that you or I can say has any relevant meaning because we don't have responsibility over our own thoughts and actions. We might as well consult our own leavings for relationship advice at that point. Often times, my feces has better judgement than I in these matters.

 

No one is forcing you to behave strictly under universal preferable behavior. You can either use it, or not, whenever you feel like it. It's a tool to examine moral situations. It's not like you are committing some great evil by not using it. By itself, not using UPB doesn't violate anyone's property rights. You just prefer certain behavior, and if the people around you don't behave in the same manner that you behave, you don't have to associate with them. There is no gun in the room in this scenario like there is with the threat of force from the state.

 

Yeah, it's not real, either. It's an abstract concept, just like society, culture, democracy, and religion.

 

It's funny you say you own him, Slashragequit, because what Dud is doing is continually using a straw man to attack our arguments by refuting things we have never said. He, in essence, is taking ownership of our arguments and arbitrarily changing them to suit his case. I am claiming a grievance! He is thieving my thoughts!

 

1) We haven't used circular logic with regard to the NAP.

 

2) The NAP is not enforced with violence. That cannot possibly be so because it would be an obvious contradiction. People cannot be threatened with NAP. This makes no logical sense.

 

3) Property rights are constantly being conflated in Dud's arguments with the threat of force. The initiation of force is what the state does when they steal from you by levying taxes and inflating the currency though central banking. How can owning something be a trespass against someone else unless you stole it from them?

[labmath2]

Okay little boy. 

 

 

 

At least he is consistent. He only cares about himself and convincing others to act in his self interest is part of that.

[Dwain Dibley]

2) The NAP is not enforced with violence. That cannot possibly be so because it would be an obvious contradiction. People cannot be threatened with NAP. This makes no logical sense.

 

How do you defend your life and property, just walk away from the ones threatening to take them from you?

 

You choose to walk away in defense of NAP, they get the property.

 

You choose to stay and refuse to defend yourself in defense of NAP, they get your life and property.

 

Oh, but they wouldn't threaten my life or property because of NAP.

 

OK, history starts new every morning when we wake up and ends every night when we go to sleep.

[Slashragequit]

How do you defend your life and property...

What do you mean by "your" life and property. What does it mean for something to be yours? What rights do you have when it comes to what is yours?Dwain. Is it wrong to steal? Is it wrong to murder? Is wrong to rape, kidnap, or enslave. If you don't agree with the NAP that's fine. But, what do you believe? Is there such thing as right and wrong. If so, how do you determine this?

[Bradford26]

Dwain Dibley, you seem to have two misunderstandings with the non-aggression principle. I'll try to explain what I think they are and offer an alternative way to look at it that might help clear the air.

 

Misunderstanding #1

 

The non-aggression principle is an action.

You are assuming that the non-aggression principle is an action that people can be violently forced to comply with.

 

The Truth

The non-aggression principle is more like a non-aggression proposal. When two people are interacting, the proposal says, "I won't aggress against you if you don't aggress against me." One or both parties are perfectly able to disagree with the proposal. However, they may not rationally complain about being aggressed against if they themselves are behaving aggressively.

 

Misunderstanding #2

 

Self defense is a violation of the non-aggression principle.

You are assuming that the non-aggression law dictates that anyone who chooses to comply to it may not use force in any way to defend themselves.

 

The Truth

The non-aggression principle is based around the concept of aggression. Self defense is not aggression, it counters aggression. Preventing someone from stealing from you or hurting you does not violate the non-aggression principle, since the person who is being defended against has already broken the non-aggression principle and is therefore no longer protected by it.

 

I hope this helps and I look forward to your feedback.

[Slashragequit]

How can someone seriously not distinguish between aggression and defence. For someone like that the sentence "I didn't aggress against you, I defended myself against you" would be a tautology. The NAP states you can attack someone to defend yourself. What would that even mean, attack and defence are polar opposites.

[Dwain Dibley]

How can someone seriously not distinguish between aggression and defence. For someone like that the sentence "I didn't aggress against you, I defended myself against you" would be a tautology. The NAP states you can attack someone to defend yourself. What would that even mean, attack and defence are polar opposites.

aggression is subject to interpretation and perspective.  Violence is unequivocal, whether it is used in offence or defence.

 

The NAP is ultimately backed by the threat/assurance of violence.

 

But that's OK, because humans have operated at that base level for millennia and I suppose there is little reason why we shouldn't devolve civilization back to that primal level of existence.  

 

Ah the primal state of nature...we're free, we're free...

[J. D. Stembal]

2) The NAP is not enforced with violence. That cannot possibly be so because it would be an obvious contradiction. People cannot be threatened with NAP. This makes no logical sense.

 

How do you defend your life and property, just walk away from the ones threatening to take them from you?

 

You choose to walk away in defense of NAP, they get the property.

 

You choose to stay and refuse to defend yourself in defense of NAP, they get your life and property.

 

Oh, but they wouldn't threaten my life or property because of NAP.

 

OK, history starts new every morning when we wake up and ends every night when we go to sleep.

 

Thanks for responding to one line of my ~400 word post with the furious burning of straw men. I grow tired of responding to moral relativists on this forum. It's great if you want to exercise your fingers, but not your brain.

[Dwain Dibley]

Thanks for responding to one line of my ~400 word post with the furious burning of straw men. I grow tired of responding to moral relativists on this forum. It's great if you want to exercise your fingers, but not your brain.

Oh that's rich!  I'm a "moral relativist" because I don't use UPB to flexibly gauge the morality of any given situation, which I'm free not to use if I choose not to......

 

OK.......you guys are some funny people

[Slashragequit]

aggression is subject to interpretation and perspective. Violence is unequivocal, whether it is used in offence or defence.The NAP is ultimately backed by the threat/assurance of violence.But that's OK, because humans have operated at that base level for millennia and I suppose there is little reason why we shouldn't devolve civilization back to that primal level of existence. Ah the primal state of nature...we're free, we're free...

What if I push a person out of the way of oncoming traffic. Is that unequivocally violent? In order to establish whether something is violent or not you must determine the intention. The same goes for attack and defence. Perhaps you are caught up on the word aggression? The NAP doesn't say that you HAVE to defend yourself, only that defence is permissible if you are being attacked. It doesn't condone aggression, it prohibits aggression. Violence - behaviour involving physical force intended to hurt, damage, or kill someone or something.Self defence - the defence of one's person or interests, especially through the use of physical force, which is permitted in certain cases as an answer to a charge of violent crime.The act of defending one's person when physically attacked, as by countering blows or overcoming an assailant: the art of self-defense.Tell me how these two things are the same? Violence is the use of force to cause harm. Defence is the use of force to prevent harm. Unless you define violence as the use of force. In which case I commit a violent act every time I move a piece of furniture. And a father commits a violent act against his child every time he pushes her on the swing.

Oh that's rich! I'm a "moral relativist" because I don't use UPB to flexibly gauge the morality of any given situation, which I'm free not to use if I choose not to......OK.......you guys are some funny people

By what objective standard do you gauge the morality of any given situation. If the ethical system I ascribe to is flawed as you have stated (although I am yet to hear a cogent argument from you supporting this) I would like to hear a better alternative. I assume you have one. What is it?Violence is not permissible.Therefore, if someone initiates violence against you it is not permissible to use violence in return.I call this the LDATI (Lay Down And Take It) principle. It realise on conflating violence with defence.Or we could go with the NV principle:No violence.'But what if people choose to ignore this principle?'What did I just say?The NAP is merely NV with consequences.I await your ill-throughout three word rely.

[Slashragequit]

The NAP is ultimately backed by the threat/assurance of violence.But that's OK, because humans have operated at that base level for millennia and I suppose there is little reason why we shouldn't devolve civilization back to that primal level of existence. Ah the primal state of nature...we're free, we're free...

My interpretation of the NAP is that it is only permissible to use the level of force necessary to prevent a violation of property. Therefore shooting someone for trespassing would be highly immoral, and itself an initiation of force, if simply asking them to leave would suffice.If someone flicks me do I have the right to shoot them? No. I have the right to prevent them from flicking me again. In which case would simply be to verbally object and walk away. Flicking them back might seen fair, but it isn't preventing the use of force, in fact it is more likely to do the opposite and result in escalation. If they go to flick me do I have a right to grab their hand. Sure. But this is not mandated by the NAP, it is simply permissible.The NAP is not 'an eye for an eye.' It is 'if you try to take my eye, I have a right to stop you.' You have the right to defend yourself with any force necessary. The key word being necessary. If the force is unnecessary then it is impermissible.When it comes to claiming reparations for damages done I would argue that it isn't necessary to use force. If reparations can be enforced through things like economic sanctions and social ostracism then I would argue the use of force is not permissible. The use of force in response to violations of property is only permitted in so far as it is necessary.If someone breaks into my home it is permissible for me to shoot them. Not because they are trespassing, but because I do not know their intentions. It is reasonable for me to assume that the person is either there specifically to harm me, or will likely harm me if they discover I am home. If I catch someone making off with my property, I have the right to do what is necessary to prevent the theft, and if I had a gun this would likely be to tell them to freeze and put down what they stole. If they then run however, I don't think it's okay to shoot them in the back. I really wish Australian could own non-lethal weapons like tazers and pepperspray.

[Marius C.]

I think the use of equal force is permissible; and what fills the gap is responsibility.

 

If someone points a gun at me on the street and gets shot -- whether it's by me or an armed bystander attempting to protect me -- even if he/she claims that they were only planning to threaten me, they acted in an irresponsible manner, and are responsible for what happened to them. If all they wanted to do was to threaten, they could have done it without the gun. The moment they brought the gun and pointed it, the potential for harm increased significantly.