Why Should We Care About Property Rights?

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Ravenfood: Nov 4, 2011

Alhazred posted:

I would seriously be loving impressed if you can point to a single piece of American property that wasn't stolen.

No, no, you see, you can't do that. The indigenous person must affirmatively prove that the land was their direct ancestor's and their direct ancestors alone. And if they can't point to the exact dimensions of the land being claimed, and prove that those exact dimensions are legally correct, and prove that the land was stolen, then they have no claim. JRod is well aware of the practical impossibility of any of this.

Ravenfood fucked around with this message at 17:02 on Oct 10, 2015

# ¿ Oct 10, 2015 16:32

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# ¿ Apr 29, 2024 10:43

Ravenfood: Nov 4, 2011

paragon1 posted:

I'm sure we'd be able to come up with a pretext about how they violated our property rights first, so the hardcore ultra-violence we're committing is cool. Worked for the Romans.

poo poo, just get all the CK2 players to write it up for us.

# ¿ Oct 10, 2015 22:11

Ravenfood: Nov 4, 2011

DarklyDreaming posted:

Which makes me wonder what exactly is stopping your owner from just shooting you in the back when you run but I assume my faith in the Nonaggression principle is just lacking.

If you're his slave, you're his property (that you legally sold yourself to, I guess) so by running, you're stealing (yourself) from him and therefore violating his property rights, so he is well justified in shooting you. He may chose not to to protect his property value, but he could.

# ¿ Oct 11, 2015 00:48

Ravenfood: Nov 4, 2011

Literally The Worst posted:

i've tried college four times, cracked under pressure and dropped out four times, finally managed to move out at 24, and a year later finally realized i'm not emotionally/mentally/financially able to take care of myself and now i'm about to move back in with my mom so i can take advantage of her insurance for a few more months and start working on getting some help and maybe getting into the system

that's why i'm so opposed to lolbert poo poo: i would not have those things. i would be left to the whims of charity, which means i would be crazy and poor and dead

I went to college, cracked the gently caress up, stuck it out when I shouldn't have because I put my lower-ish middle-class parents and myself in a ton of debt that we could (barely) afford, and finally got my poo poo (mostly) together three years later. During that time, I worked at a part-time EMS gig where I realized how loving lucky I was. I could stay in school essentially by eating a good chunk of my parent's savings while I avoided any kind of therapy while my coworkers had to resign themselves to a life of $10/hr for an incredibly stressful, dangerous, literally backbreaking job with poo poo hours and the chance of having to wade through some godawful living situations to carry a 250kg person with bilateral leg amputations down three flights of stairs so he can go to dialysis while hoping he's not in a shotgun-holding mood when we arrive. And that's a planned call. I was working for beer money, book money, and trying to find a sense of purpose, while they were working so they had something to eat.

So those poor fucks, who'd never been raised by teachers who stressed the importance of learning things, who were willing (however incorrectly) to trust me to figure it out, who had busted their loving asses to save money, who didn't necessarily have a stable family to fall back on, who didn't have friends to help bail them out, or who were just unlucky in any myriad of ways that I happened to miss, were sticking it out and need some help, desperately. I ended up in critical care nursing for two reasons: a friend of mine happened to take an anatomy class and tell me it was really cool and one of my mom's friends worked as an ICU director and was able to get me a job as a nursing assistant and saving me from EMS. I am only here, able to post obnoxious poo poo on the internet, because I loving lucked out at being born when I was, where I was, to whom I was, and to meet the people I did. That's a loving poo poo way to run a society. I dodged a ton of bullets and still feel like I am a bad injury away (in an industry where 13% of people who quit cite crippling back pain as the reason) away from being broke and unable to support myself or my rapidly aging parents. My EMS coworkers worked overtime, skipped out on seeing their kids grow up because they were working, all so they could scrape together enough money to hopefully get out of there by going to community colleges while I floated prettily along working part-time so I didn't just completely live on loans. And in the area where I grew up, I was basically one of the "poor" kids. The contrast was huge. Where would I have ended up if I hadn't lost three years of my life because of a perceived lack of access to mental health care? And where would I have ended up if everything hadn't worked out just so?

I need a quicker, pithier way to describe "there but for the grace of god, go I" because its basically one of the most important sentiments of my life. Except I believe that if someone needs that grace, we hosed up. We don't need god, society can drat well do it by itself.

Ravenfood fucked around with this message at 05:37 on Oct 16, 2015

# ¿ Oct 16, 2015 05:35

Ravenfood: Nov 4, 2011

FilthIncarnate posted:

Also Hawaii, for what it's worth; the centuries-old native monarchy there was overthrown by a group of haole plantation owners who then petitioned the US to make them a state and legitimize their revolution.

and that wasn't even too long ago

See? Statist oppression everywhere!

# ¿ Oct 30, 2015 16:32

Ravenfood: Nov 4, 2011

Its definitely one of those "imagine a perfect vacuum inhabited by perfect spheres..." situations. Yeah, libertarianism would probably work under certain conditions, but those conditions are pretty clearly not feasible given our current understanding of humanity. Its like that dude who shat up the RWM thread trying to tell everyone about his great idea to stop racism forever: "what if...nobody was racist??" I mean, that'd be swell, but...

# ¿ Nov 6, 2015 19:44

Ravenfood: Nov 4, 2011

More simply, jrod, is slavery an example of a lack of social or economic freedom?

# ¿ Nov 19, 2015 14:39

Ravenfood: Nov 4, 2011

Literally The Worst posted:

ideally it would be realtime (irc, skype, etc) and we could try to force him to address what people are saying

How would it force him to address anything? Ignoring a point and talking on about whatever you want is the easiest thing in the world. (See every political debate) Yes, sometimes people catch on to what you're doing, but the only people involved in this debate would already know that jrod does that constantly

Jrod: I'm making this slavery thing simple for you, since you're apparently incapable of understanding the most basic arguments or why we're "nitpicking" this.

1. You claim slavery is anathema to libertarianism
2. A list brought forward by you, from a libertarian source, holds slave states in high regard because it has low taxes
3. I am left to conclude that the list cares less about slavery than tax rates wrt economic freedom
4. I am left to conclude that you care less about slavery than taxes because, despite your claims, you will not admit that places built on literal slavery might not be very economically free (because they have low taxes)

You don't get to say "slavery is anathema to libertarians" while holding literal slave states up as an example of a state we should aspire to work towards. "We" are not nitpicking anything, we are contesting your claim that you will not support slavery under the right circumstances (namely, that they come with low taxes on the slave-owners).

e:vvvv I did that because in the same post he said he didn't know about the scenario in Qatar at all so I, in my bountiful charity, decided to take him at his word. And people better than I already brought up that if Qatar isn't slavery, taxes certainly aren't either.

Ravenfood fucked around with this message at 15:50 on Nov 21, 2015

# ¿ Nov 21, 2015 15:41

Ravenfood: Nov 4, 2011

Go gently caress yourself, wow.

# ¿ Jan 17, 2016 23:55

Ravenfood: Nov 4, 2011

If you wanted to argue the merits of left-libertarianism, fine, please do so. But don't argue for vehement an-cap only libertarianism constantly and then try to tell us that left-libertarians are basically libertarians and an-caps are basically libertarians and so left-libertarians are really an-caps too. And from there, using the fact that some of us might have some sympathies with left-libertarians, or agree with some statements they've made, or respectfully disagreed with some arguments, and therefore we should just fall in line with an-cap dogma (because its totally the same, guys, see above), is just silly. You're wrong, foolish, and pathetic, clinging to an ideology that is, at best content to reward you with rotting scraps from the people you pretend are your betters.

# ¿ Jan 19, 2016 20:15

Ravenfood: Nov 4, 2011

Alright you ignorant fucker. I've got two things to say to your dumbass self, and I'll start with the simpler one.

In the last two weeks, I have broken two peoples' ribs, electrocuted another man seven times, assisted while a friend slit someone's throat open, completely chemically paralyzed four people two of them for long-term periods, physically restrained someone against their stated will (but they also thought the bugs were going to eat them, so...) chemically restrained multiple people to prevent them from self-harm, watched four people die while being perfectly capable of helping them (more that I couldn't), and have stabbed a completely unknown amount of people with needles, many of whom were not able to consent and, in fact, never did. Oh, I drilled a bigass needle into a person's shin without their knowledge or consent too. Uh, lets see, there's more. I've shoved tubes into stomachs, down mouths, down noses, up asses, and ditto urethrae. I'm sure there's more crap I've simply forgotten about by this point. And somehow, the police aren't knocking on my door, and its because we decided, a while ago, that some things are okay for some people to do that others cannot.

Second, I had a long, long post typed up about cancer and the treatment thereof, but I deleted it because you won't read it. Let me just say that I think that giving false hope to a dying cancer patient (or the family of a dying patient) is one of the cruelest things I have ever seen someone do to another human being. And the times I've seen it, the person had the best intentions, genuinely wished for them to get bette,r and couldn't face the very clear picture in front of them. Letting someone knowingly give that false hope, for the purpose of profit, would be so far beyond the pale that I frankly have lost any ability to come up with creative invective. Its so utterly reprehensible to me that I do not know how to express it in words. People are not rational when it comes to end of life decisions for themselves and that applies even more strongly when we are discussing end of life decisions for loved ones. And while I started typing this post filled with a vague rage and desire to just yell at you in amusing ways, I'm giving up and sitting quietly, defeated by the blind, banal evil of your idea of an ideal healthcare system.

Less than two weeks ago, I had to tell a family of four that their mother had died. They had just come from their father's funeral. And it was your words, jrod, that left me speechless. I cannot express my contempt and disgust enough.

# ¿ Feb 3, 2016 03:03

Ravenfood: Nov 4, 2011

jrodefeld posted:

Given that you didn't quote any of my posts here, I don't understand what you are referring to. I WILL respond to your post if you explain what you are talking about a bit better.

Also, the "I'm so contemptuous of you" type of replies are tiring. I fully support the free society because I believe it will lead to the best outcomes for all of society, including the poor, the sick, and the elderly. You could call this a consequentialist argument if you like, but I certainly have utilitarian concerns. Simply because a person subscribes to a deontological framework for their concepts of rights and just law does not in any way mean that they don't care at all what the results of those policies will be. The problem is that, to eschew a principled rights-based approach in favor of a pure sort of utilitarianism is extremely dangerous.

Point A: Very simply, you tried to show why libertarianism is correct by citing Kant's universalizability. In a very simple argument to absurdity, I wrote a long post of actions that were, in my opinion, 100% moral and ethical for me to perform. I also couched them in terms that made it clear that for most other people, they would be neither moral or ethical to perform under any circumstances. The simple conclusion is that universalizability is a flawed premise to your own argument in favor of libertarian ethics. There are other potential conclusions as well, but that is the most obvious and pertinent. So gently caress off with Kant.

While I will not address point B directly here, I think it is very clear that for you, medical ethics and the actual functioning of healthcare are just thought experiments. Likewise, medical care and the care of people thereof. You forget that for others, it is a practical reality, and people tend to get mad when someone with zero practical experience and zero appreciation for consequences shows up and begins making assertions that would directly negatively impact the lives of most of the people around them. You've ignored any historical tendencies and statistical trends so far, so people try with personal anecdotes and you ignore those as well. You (supposedly) base your entire philosophical concept on the idea that "humans are rational" and yet refuse to see any evidence of irrationality. If your philosophy is based on unsound premises, it is an unsound philosophy! And then you use your unsound philosophy to argue that people at their most vulnerable and irrational should be stripped of the bare modicum of protection that we currently offer them. And while that may be bad on the face of it, you do that forgetting that it isn't a thought experiment to some people and some people are already caused significant distress watching many of the people around them suffer from the lack of adequate protection.

e: Rothbard was also strongly opposed to disinvestment. I'm not very up on apartheid history, but I thought disinvestment was given a lot of credit in its role for weakening a lot of the practical and political pro-apartheid power centers in SA at the time.

Ravenfood fucked around with this message at 09:15 on Feb 5, 2016

# ¿ Feb 5, 2016 09:09

Ravenfood: Nov 4, 2011

jrodefeld posted:

Given that you didn't quote any of my posts here, I don't understand what you are referring to. I WILL respond to your post if you explain what you are talking about a bit better.

I'm waiting, or are you back to defending your racist-as-gently caress role models?

# ¿ Feb 9, 2016 13:37

Ravenfood: Nov 4, 2011

VitalSigns posted:

No apparently the answer to providing for the hungry and destitute without stealing from property owners via taxes, is for the poor to literally break in and steal from the owners, at which point we'll all sit down and agree that the thief was justified because he was very poor and no one will press charges.

But should we decide, ~~because the thief was black~~ for totally unknown reasons, to prosecute the thief, it would be legal for the owners to do so, so no harm done there! The system works.

# ¿ Feb 12, 2016 05:23

Ravenfood: Nov 4, 2011

Ron Paul Atreides posted:

Lol Hong Kong, New Zealand, Australia, Canada, the UK are all on that list and despite the conservative agitating in the Anglosphere countries All have a far far more robust safety net and social infrastructure than the US and higher taxes and

gently caress how can they be so bad at make their points and yet not realize it

Also, while those states are "more libertarian" and can therefore be used as proof that libertarian systems are superior, we can't look to any failings in the US healthcare market because while it may be "more free" than others, it isn't actually libertarian.

# ¿ Feb 16, 2016 19:26

Ravenfood: Nov 4, 2011

Nolanar posted:

Yeah, the idea of a specific field being "hot," followed by a glut of people joining right as the bubble bursts, is a recurring problem. I'm pretty sure the only reason it hasn't happened with doctors is active supply controls on the part of med schools. No conspiracy required, just the cold unfeeling hand of the market. Conspiracies can help though.

It specifically hasn't happened with nurses because all of the people who do join for the "guaranteed job!" usually leave the field really quickly. Its why there's simultaneously a nationwide shortage and getting into a hospital job as an associate's nurse can be a bitch in a lot of cities. You're not wrong about med schools, either.

# ¿ Feb 18, 2016 17:43

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# ¿ Apr 29, 2024 10:43

Ravenfood: Nov 4, 2011

Goodbye thread, you were too beautiful for this world. May all your NAPs remain unviolated. RIP

# ¿ Feb 21, 2016 18:52

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