Liberty, society; taxes, user fees, social goods

Precisely agree. This should be common sense - it is in fact society. I have seen enough to confirm my recent discovery of Guerilla's anarcho-capitalism (as his profile's interest shows), and this is of course antithetical to his anarchist vision. But now that Guerilla has re-opened the thread, I'd say your views are eminently reasonable, Iul.

 

iul, in a thread that was closed some time back, you indicated that you didn't think people had natural rights, that rights only come to us through society. That in the jungle, there are no rights, so to speak.

Is this correct?

@NPT, you might want to sit this one out. It's going to require maturity, patience and intelligence to participate in the discussion. Maybe you can just read and learn.

 

sort of. I think "natural rights" is strictly a deal between humans. You don't necessarily need soiety for them. If you can kill the lions and whatever other animals can challange you in the jungle I guess you can call it your own

 

Guerilla, are you still reading from the kindergartener's schoolyard handbook again? Rehearsing taunts from Mrs. Beesley's class day and night? I believe she said you can go - 2nd grade looms ahead...

Maturity, intelligence and patience requires more than a knee-jerk reaction to the role of law, government with respect to the individual - so his anarchist's playbook won't serve him well. Guerilla has nailed Hobbes's state of nature, "life nasty, brutish and short, coming at the end of cold steel," but kind of skimmed the "contract" end of social contract theory. But by all means, he should feel free to keep preaching

 

Ok, I think we understand one another then. Just to be clear, I'm using this as my foundation, and I understand that asking you to agree to my definition means you can revise your position later.

So natural rights exist without society, and thus cannot be taken away or granted by society.

We can say they are inalienable.

incapable of being alienated, surrendered, or transferred​

Now are we sure that freedom of movement would fall under this sort of right?

Do you have the right to move across my property? Through where I am standing? To occupy where I stand? If so, how does your freedom of movement override my freedom of movement (or lack of movement)?

Education is another one of these "positive" rights, in that they impose a positive obligation on someone else.

We can't guarantee that someone will learn from education, let alone how much education we will provide. By saying that someone has a "right" to education, that denotes a responsibility upon others to provide that education. This doesn't work in the absence of society, it is not a "natural right".

I think education is important, but I don't think it is a right. I think movement is important, but it is also not a right.

Yes society needs ordering, but from the bottom up, not the top down. That's why the marketplace (in my opinion) is a superior solution. You respect everyone's right to make free choices, without imposing obligations on anyone.

 

There is no "natural" in the social "rights" under discussion - this is the essential point Guerilla has always missed. All things putatively named "natural rights" - from Guerilla's market-anarchy perspective, property rights, for example, something he must call, from his market-anarchist's perspective, a "natural right":

- are really just constructed realities, agreements entered into between human beings - and of a particular time and place, at that. Do not tell an American Indian there is a "natural right" to own property - the concept is wholly bizarre, unnatural, alien to him or her; what should be more obvious, in terms of history, it was the "natural right" to property that in fact robbed the Americas blind.

Once you admit these so-called natural rights are simply a social construct, you admit the notion of society; individuals hammering out terms to obtain the benefits of engagement, and to avoid the darker evils of a raw, lawless state of nature. We in our time and place agree we can carve out a piece of the earth, pay for it, call it "ours," and disallow others from using it, or occupying it. This is a constructed reality, and nothing more. Certainly nothing intrinsically "natural" about it, however useful those of us born after 1740 or so, in the west, may view it. Hence, the notion of some absolutist version of "natural rights" obviating the need for law and the society constructing it is deeply, deeply flawed.

 

iul, please ignore NPT's last post. I think he's confused his personal issues towards me, with the subject matter.

 

FYI lions are nearly extinct. Man is the undisputed ruler of the jungle or what little of it exists.
Society is a deal between humans as well. No human interaction = no society.

 

Private land ownership isn't a new concept. The Romans had ownership (dominium) of property and laws protecty the rights of property.

Yes with no civil there is no civilization.

 

Guerilla, I'd suggest you find another place to attempt play with the cards of a child, and allow others to contribute. I realize you have a serious inconsistency problem, but individuals wishing to consider views, and make their own known, are free to do so, and your "dictatorship of the anarchist" has no place in this forum; in particular, in this thread, begun by me.

Bogart, I completely agree. My point is that it is indeed a concept, and not some kind of immutable "natural" right - hence the fact the notion has not always existed, and not everywhere existed. It is a constructed thing, in the west, precisely entered into once we left the primordial swamp and built society. Much like the notion of the nation-state itself, which didn't exist before a couple of hundred years ago, the same thing obtains when looking at much of the French Revolution's imputing the "natural rights of man" to its aims: something of what Edmund Burke would call "metaphysical abstraction."

The problem, when imputing some kind of transcendant and imminent "natural" reality to it, is that it fulfills a tautology, (such as exists in Guerilla's market-anarchy, which begins with a presumption of "natural rights" and then explains its draconian antipathy for law, and society constructed along that law, by this first presumption) but we haven't gotten anywhere. Once we admit we do enter into agreement - what Lightless rightly calls, a deal between humans - we properly understand this thing we all swirl in and around called "society." This is my opinion.

 

But the question becomes, is a society inherently good? If we had a tyrannical dictatorship, could we not say this was still a society? For example, Iraqi society under Saddam, or Egyptian society under a Pharaoh. The term seems too broad to be meaningful in my opinion.

Of course it isn't. NPT's post was meant to be a personal attack on me, not a serious discussion about property rights.

I don't necessarily believe that. I think civilization is the sum of all human societies, not the result of only one.

So now you want to exercise property rights. Big surprise there. I suppose this means you will respect my wishes for you to stay out of my threads or limit your discussions to staying on topic?

Just let me know if those are the rules of engagement you are proposing, because I will accept and hold you to them.

By the way, "dictatorship of the anarchist" is an oxymoron.

 

I understand this is difficult to grasp, Guerilla. You are free to say whatever you wish. You are even free, though tragically flawed, to tell others to ignore points made. Just as I am free to suggest you drop it, as this has no place on a public forum.

Precisely why I say you have a serious inconsistency problem.

 

Then lose the personal attacks bub. If you can't tell, others are attracted to discussing this topic in good faith.

Your continued harassment is a real turnoff to any kind of serious discussion on this forum. Just let it go.

 

Guerilla, you are also free to continue game playing, or you are free to stop. You bumped this thread over a personal snit, and now that it is re-opened and producing fruit, you want to direct the course of discussion. Now that the discussion continues, you are a market-anarchist, as I have shown, and precisely this notion of "natural rights," law and society is the very heart of this thread. You routinely refer to me as a socialist, though I vehemently deny I am. You consider one an attack, and not the other. Grow up, and deal with all of it. In response, your posting things like:

-etc., is an attack, and childishly silly, at that. Now, if you have something substantive to add, I'll be interested to see it. If not, I look forward to what others have to say - which was my purpose in creating this thread to begin with.

 

I don't want to direct the course of discussion. I'd like you to go make some new friends and stop stalking me on the forum. It seems these days, (what is it now, 5:30 AM PST?) that your entire life revolves around coming online and harassing me.

But you're right. I'll start a new thread so iul and I can have the discussion, and whoever else is interested in discussing philosophy. It would be appreciated if you would not follow me to the new thread.

 

Guerilla, you are aware you bumped a thread of mine that hadn't had any discussion in over 5 months, precisely over a personal snit? It seems to me you had no desire to renew a discussion with Iul. The response was generally a "uh, o.k....sure."

At any rate, in my opinion, you really do have a problem, Guerilla - what you call "stalking" is referred to as "responding" by most people. Beginning, I suppose, with calling me psychotic, etc., and urging my family to get me into counseling, and continuing in like manner for months, you feel free to level all kinds of personal attacks, routinely, to many people - you're recent slams on Rebecca, for example, only one of many - and get really hurt when someone's response to your points is strong. Just one example, but since it's here, I don't know how it can be any plainer - for months, you've named me a socialist, and once I discovered your market-anarchism was at the root of so much of your views, you cry out "attack!"

Yes, I think it's about 5:50 PST. I think it's also 2:50 a.m. in Honolulu. Since I live in the midwest of the U.S., and it's about 7:50 a.m., here now, did you have a point?

Pretty funny, it seems to me, that you believe somehow a duplicate thread on the same subject is a fruitful thing to do, simply because you're really, really mad.

 

You give yourself a lot of credit for making me mad. I save my anger for fighting the New World Order, the Bilderbergers and the Illuminati. Not to mention the Club of Rome and the Freemasons.

Please have your own discussions, with whoever will discuss with you. In the new thread, I won't be bringing you up at all, so there's no reason for you to follow and continue the stalking routine.

 

Guerilla, you have mistaken several things. I'd suggest you simply check your arrogant presumptions, and seek instead to post and create in good faith on the forum. I understand you cannot accept that you bumped a 5-month old, dead thread, in a personal snit with me, and now that the discussion has been revived, your feelings have been apparently really hurt. As always, if I take issue with something, and believe it fruitful to reply, I will. If not, I won't. It's pretty simple, really.

 

Just please, stop stalking and harassing me on the forum. You may have started this thread ages ago, but you never really participated, and iul and I have been having a debate about socialism, democracy and free markets across several threads.

The only connection to you, in bumping up this thread, was that you recently threw iul in my face as an example of all of the popular support your harassment of me enjoys.

And it reminded me, that he's probably the only person on the forum to debate these topics in a mature and honest manner.

So I will resurrect that discussion, in the hopes that someone can benefit from it, hopefully the two of us, and as requested by numerous people now, end the constant bickering between you and I which has poisoned so many threads, and ruined the forum for a great many people. Perhaps you can do your part, and show some self-control, or develop some topics of your own.

 

Guerilla, I'm not stalking you on this forum. Your misperception of such is something you will have to deal with. As you know, but as always, fail to mention, my intent in starting this thread several months ago was to generate a discussion - and didn't participate by design:

Now that you have bumped the thread over a personal snit, and though I owe zero explanation to you, I consider 5 months "for a while" enough. I mentioned Iul, as from his posted views, and from mine, he and I share similar notions respecting law, society, and related notions, the subject of the thread.

Bottom line, Guerilla, surprising as it is for a guy regularly preaching "liberty," "free speech" and so forth, you have zero say as to how this forum is conducted, who may participate, etc. Your arrogant presumptions are again getting the best of you, in my opinion. If you want a discussion along the lines of:

, PMs are your better avenue, it seems to me.