Jack-booted thugs

[Rosey]

[quote Beeeej]Do you see society (not government) as owing any sort of protection to the small child whose parent is not responsible enough to know how to store a handgun and its ammunition, yet owns one anyway?[/quote]
Society owes nothing because society has no free will: society is made up of individuals who have free will.

Individuals should protect the weak, but in this case it's not clear that there's a problem with someone who stores his guns in the open: many people I knew grew up in households in which the gun was readily available but it was simply understood that if he or she touched it without permission, he or she would be in for a world of hurt.  It simply was not an issue in those households, because the children were properly educated.  Storage was not the solution: education was.

In the case of actual child abuse, a man caught abusing his child would not do so for long in a natural order.  His neighbors would take care of it (by whatever means necessary) in the name of protecting the weak, and no one would object.

Cheers,
Kyle

[Rosey]

[quote DeltaOne81]Yada yada yada... crazy hole [/quote]

[Rosey]

[quote KeithK]In many ways government is a necessary evil.[/quote]
Then go read Hoppe's Democracy: The God That Failed and tell me if you feel the same way afterwards.  That is the book that turned me from a libertarian/minarchist into an anarchist.

Cheers,
Kyle

[Ben Rocky '04]

[quote jtwcornell91]Your argument has become tiresome ... Now ve must dance![/quote]

The first logical thing said in a long time in this thread!

[KeithK]

[quote DeltaOne81][quote KeithK]
In many ways government is a necessary evil.[/quote]

And now we get to basically one of the main fundamental differences between those that are/lean liberal and those that are/lean conservative.[/quote]Yep, yep.  It all comes down to fundamental assumptions.  Someone on the left can come to completely logical conclusions that I find inconceivable because he starts from a completely different basis (and vice versa).

Of course, my world view is right! :-D :-P :-D

[Rosey]

[quote KeithK][quote DeltaOne81]And now we get to basically one of the main fundamental differences between those that are/lean liberal and those that are/lean conservative.[/quote]Yep, yep.  It all comes down to fundamental assumptions.  Someone on the left can come to completely logical conclusions that I find inconceivable because he starts from a completely different basis (and vice versa).[/quote]
I certainly do not consider myself "liberal" (i.e., statist/socialist), yet I can no longer call myself "conservative" either because conservatives seem to stand for statism, interventionism, unquestioned police powers, torture, security theater, and the unlimited suspension of civil liberties in the name of fighting terrorism.  I'm simply outside of the normal left/right spectrum at this point: since the Republicans long ago abandoned any pretense at promoting smaller government, no one can even pretend to represent me.

The sad thing IMO is that these ideas would not have been considered at all radical in the early days of this country: people at that time certainly did question the feasability of anarchy, but their idea of large government would still fit within what I would be willing to live with, which is many orders of magnitude smaller and less intrusive than what we are forced to deal with today.

That my ideas are considered somehow whack-o today is a sign of the government's successful indoctrination of the masses to the side of statism.  That you are not even willing to question your assumptions about the necessity of government, or even where those assumptions came from, is further proof of this.  No one (least of all myself) is saying you need to agree with me (or Rothbard, or Hoppe, or Rockwell, or Nock, or von Mises, etc.), but neither should you dismiss me in a casual or condescending way unless you also admit to putting most of the founders in the same "crackpot" category.

Cheers,
Kyle

[DeltaOne81]

I've been thinking about this concept of Natural Rights and trying to make heads or tails of it. Frankly, I'm still having trouble, and issues.

First, I question the concept that any 'rights' can exist naturally. In a state of nature, you have no real rights, only what you can take. You may have the *ability* to do something, but I do not see that as necessary corresponding to a right. There are all sorts of things that you and I could do in a anarchistic state that are exceedingly detrimental to others. Bais and discrimination, abuse and forced labor. When you get to the heart of the 'natural' state, it seems to me to be nothing different than 'might makes right'. Those with the might - be it physical or monetary - get the 'rights'.


But lets say that rather than 'natural' right, we're limiting more to 'fundamental' rights, that are inherent in any human being. Basically, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Any human being is naturally going to strive for these (although in a truly 'natural' state, they may be denied any and all of them). This then still seems problematic to me when you begin to enumerate beyond that, to specific rights of a political nature.

Sure, the right to life includes a measure of self-defense, but need it include firearms? Need it specifically include concealed weapons permits? How goes the 'right to life' extend to the 'right to carry a weapon in my sock', despite the fact that such a situation may endanger others?

We can say, afterall, that your right to defend your life may stop when convicted of a crime punishable by death. I may generally oppose the death penalty on a policy basis, but I do not feel it is violating your right to life. Similarly your right to liberty is revoked when convicted of a crime, etc.

So even these said 'natural', 'inherent' rights have limitations imposed on them. And if they weren't done so by governments, then they would be done by fellow man.


Finally, even the father of 'natural rights', Thomas Hobbes, concluded that "the world of chaos created by unlimited rights was highly undesirable, causing human life to be 'solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.' As such, humans have chosen to give up (some of) their natural rights and created moral obligations in order to establish political and civil society." (source: wiki)

If that's the world you wish to live in, I guess you could find an uninhabited island somewhere. To me it seems no less idealistic and no more practical then communism. And who would you be (no offense ) to judge that the tradeoff made by fellow man is fundamentally wrong and inappropriate? You can disagree, sure, but that certainly doesn't make you 'right', and it doesn't mean you can 'win'. Its just your opinion.

[Robb]

[quote DeltaOne81]
But lets say that rather than 'natural' right, we're limiting more to 'fundamental' rights, that are inherent in any human behind.[/quote]
Hold it right there, slick.  My human behind has all kinds of fundamental rights!  ::moon::

[DeltaOne81]

Damnit, damnit, damnit... oh well ::doh::