01
Sep
2014
When the State Fixes Your Mind
Just some history tidbits on the government helping people get better, that’s all. Sure mistakes were made, but they mean well. Gooo ObamaCare!
(Seriously, when you have 15 minutes you need to read about this stuff if you’ve never done so. We get into ice-pick lobotomies and MK-Ultra. Something for everyone. Nudie shots too.)
“Bad apple” example #96,875:
New Jersey Cop: “If Obama doesn’t Follow Constitution, we don’t have to Follow Constitution”
I am not siding with cop in video, but he makes a valid concern.
Government is to lead by example, starting at the top.
So when POTUS behaves badly, it trickles down, all the way to Ferguson looters.
I have often told local government if they do not want to follow State Constitution tax and expenditure limitations, there is a lot of other constitutional stuff us commoners are going to ignore.
Know how we hear so often from the true believers that if we peace advocates don’t like it, we can renounce our citizenship and leave?
Well, if you’re dirt poor, then that is no longer even an option:
http://isaacbrocksociety.ca/2014/08/22/comparison-of-fees-and-procedures-for-renouncing-citizenship-in-various-countries/comment-page-1/
Well the government has managed to increase its efficiency. Now providing ice pick lobotomies for all Americans through the state media apparatus.
Do you know how many such lobotomies were performed in private hospitals and private doctors’ offices in that era?
Silly question; of course you don’t. Well it was a huge number. Most hospitals were private, as were doctors, and lobotomy was for some time in vogue. I forgot how many Freeman, not a government employee, performed but it was thousands. Most of them ice pick style.
Thank you Ken. I love how you know I didn’t do the same detailed research as you because I couldn’t come up with “huge number”. I am further astounded by how you can so deftly correct a point that even I, being so stupid, was unaware I was making. Kudos to you good sir. The next time I am not sure what I am thinking I will be sure to give you a call.
Grane if I were a teacher I would change your seat at this point to prevent class disruptions. I think you will be happier if you stop arguing with certain people in these comments.
Dr. Murphy, I am being polite, showing appreciation and gratitude. If I have given you the impression that I am some angry keyboard masher let me assure you I am delighted by the back and forth with my interlocutor. If you feel that I am not adding anything to the discussion I will understand If you decide to remove me from class.
We all depend upon the insights and courtesy of Ken B.
http://consultingbyrpm.com/blog/2014/02/court-intellectuals-hit-back-at-whistleblowers.html#comment-223985
You assumed it was the state not medical fashion that caused these horrors. You were wrong.
Ken, I appreciate you taking the time out of your busy day to correct me. I am so flighty I didn’t even realize I said the state was the cause of fashionable mid20th century lobotomies.
Nah, not really.
“After the introduction of transorbital lobotomies in 1946, one third of all the lobotomies performed in the United States during the peak years and 56 percent of those done in state hospitals used this procedure.”
The History of Lobotomy: A Cautionary Tale, pp 430.
http://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/mqrarchive/act2080.0027.003/67:7?page=root;rgn=main;size=100;view=image
Of course one could still defend the imprecise claims of it still being a *huge number*, but it all rings a bit hallow now.
Your source is actually a bit confusing. It says 56pc of those done in state hospitals were ice pick but then says 56 pc were done in state hospitals. This seems like they erroneously conflated these very different numbers. However even granting either interpretation it is clear this was a problem with medicine not the state.
Freeman alone performed 2500 ice picks btw.
Ken, could you please refer the page number?
Page number? I read the page KP linked, which I assume is the page number he gave, 430. You suspect him of playing fast and loose with page numbers?
Of course not, I was giving you the benefit of doubt. It says 33% of all lobotomies were of the ice-pick kind and 56% of lobotomies in state hospitals were of the ice-pick variety. I didn’t want to assume there was a problem with your comprehension ability.
Read further down. Wow, I explictly mention that the figure 56 pc is used twice and you still can’t be bothered to read one whole page before posting about what it says.
Ken, I can’t believe you’re not getting this read the whole page again. This time try to comprehend what you’re reading. Your unwillingness to do so is affecting your arguments.
What in Heck are you talking about?
That page, that one page 430, refers to 56% twice. It clearly states, just as I said it did:
1 that 56% is the pc of lobs done in state hospitals ie more than half of lobs done were done in state hospitals
2. That is the % of state hosp lobs that were ice pick. Ie that most lobs done in state hosps were ice pick.
So what page number did you ask for? I think it is clear. You read half the page, did not notice the 56 twice, asked about one of them, and are trying to cover up.
Wrong again Ken, I skimmed the whole page and missed it and I never read the first half, just the part that was quoted by KP. You started this by arguing against an argument I did not make in fact I would be inclined to agree with your argument. If you want to hold me to some higher level of intellectual rigor then by all means lead by example and I will do my best to follow in kind.
“However even granting either interpretation it is clear this was a problem with medicine not the state.”
No, no, no… well, not quite. As it says on 428 the procedure was developed *for* the state. Or is the wrong conjunction here.
“Freeman alone performed 2500 ice picks btw.”
He was an impressive, at the least.
“As it says on 428 the procedure was developed *for* the state.”
It says it was developed as a ‘simpler’ and cheaper alternative method.
“Freeman initially did ten transorbital lobotomies in his office in downtown Washington, operating on private patients on an outpatient basis… Freeman insisted that transorbital lobotomies were generally safer and more effective than the major prefrontal lobotomies”
Did you purposely skip the two sentences that preceded that or what?
No.
Then you have a poor memory or are purposefully omitting.
neither.
I’ll leave that up to the gentle readers to decide for themselves.
“As it says on 428 the procedure was developed *for* the state.”
It says it was developed as a ‘simpler’ and cheaper alternative method.
This raises two questions for me.
1) Why wouldn’t private hospitals use it more if it was cheaper? It’s possible that this reflects the hospitals refusing to use these methods at all rather than them refusing to use the better method. The later statistic (56% of all lobotomies were done in state hospitals despite private hospitals being more common during this time) seems to confirm that.
2) If we’re going to be trusting Freeman’s data (that the ice-pick method was safer – I don’t know, it might have been), would you also agree with this conclusion from his same study?:
“Follow-up studies reveal that following prefrontal lobotomy some 70% of schizophrenics, 80% of affectives, and 90% of psychoneurotics are functioning outside of the hospital in the 5-to 10-year period. This figure is twice as high in private patients as it is in state hospital patients.”
http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/article.aspx?articleID=146403
Never mind on my first part (“It’s possible that this reflects the hospitals refusing to use these methods at all rather than them refusing to use the better method.”) Now that I re-read that sentence. If 33% used this method over all, then yeah, private hospitals seemed to use it less often as a percentage. Still leaves one wondering why that would be the case if it was cheaper/more effective.
KP is wrong. It says Freeman developed it as a simpler cheaper method, and implies he felt the need because state hospitals could not afford to provide all the lobotomies he thought were needed. It also states he considered the ice pick method safer and more effective. It was therefore as Philippe says. It was not developed “for” the state.
Do you not consider state hospitals apart of the state?
I am reading “for” as implying behest. “For use in state hospitals” would not cut it, as you might develop an app to expose malfeasance and corruption. Freeman might have had in mind use in state hospitals, he might, as a private entrepeneur, have sought to overcome the obstacles state hospitals placed in the way of lobotomy as you imply, but that would be an example of for use in, not for, not at he behest of.
KP’s original comment was:
“However even granting either interpretation it is clear this was a problem with medicine not the state.”
“No, no, no… well, not quite. As it says on 428 the procedure was developed *for* the state.”
But reading the text clearly shows that the problem was with medicine at the time…
I’d also say that Freeman sounds a lot like a psychopath, but that’s just conjecture.
“I am reading “for” as implying behest.”
Ah, I see how you could interpret me that way, my apologies for not being clearer. Not at the state’s command, with the state in mind.
Ex. “I bought flowers *for* my wife (to surprise her).
just reading that text made my skin crawl… but is the implication here supposed to be that the other method of lobotomisation was somehow better?
Ok, then you have a reasonable claim: it was developed by a private entrepeneur to overcome roadblocks in state hospitals to doing lobotomies, and absent this private entrepeneur’s intervention there would have been significantly fewer lobotomies, that the state was lagging private enterprise in its zeal to lobotomize. I can live with that.
Philippe
It was very creepy, but much of the problem was “medical ethics” –doctors would not criticize Freeman and his followers.
He was eventually struck off for lobotomizing drunk I think. (?)
“I bought flowers *for* my wife”
Or, I would have lobotomised my wife in one way, but doing it in another way was simpler and cheaper, and more effective.
Philippe, you’ve mixed myself and Ken B up with that quote.
“But reading the text clearly shows that the problem was with medicine at the time…”
It says that and *more*. The “bad medicine” was being wildly distributed by the state.
Is AIDS *the* problem or it Gaëtan Dugas? You don’t have to pick.
“Or, I would have lobotomised my wife in one way, but doing it in another way was simpler and cheaper, and more effective.”
I don’t see “for” anywhere in there, how does that help?!
K.P. the rest of us are alarmed that you don’t see what’s happening here. You are being lobotomized over the World Wide Web. But you don’t have a straitjacket on, you can leave the facility with your mind intact.
“doctors would not criticize Freeman and his followers”
why is that? Was it generally accepted that this was the best way to deal with the psychological problems?
“I don’t see “for” anywhere in there”
“I performed a lobotomy for my wife, to make her better… I could have used a different technique, but the one I chose was simpler, cheaper and more effective”
Now? We just got into to the heart of the matter with “for” and all. It’d be crazy *to quit* now, Bob.
Bob,
“But you don’t have a straitjacket on, you can leave the facility with your mind intact”
“When Howard Dully met the man who was to change his life for ever, he was not sure what to make of him. He was 11 at the time and paid little attention to the mysterious adult world that surrounded him, to the decisions taken without his knowledge or to the profound impact that Dr Walter Freeman would have on his pre-adolescent existence. Instead, with a child’s eye, he noticed the small physical quirks – the round-rimmed glasses, the dapper suit, the well-trimmed goatee. ‘It made him look a little like a beatnik,’ Dully says. ‘He was warm, personable and easy to get along with. Was I fearful? No. I had no idea what he was going to do with me.’
Dully was a withdrawn boy who liked riding his bicycle and playing chess. He occasionally fought with his brother, disobeyed his parents and stole sweets from the kitchen cupboards. He had a weekly paper round and was saving up to buy a record player. According to Dr Freeman’s meticulous records, Dully was 62 inches tall and weighed 6½ stone. He was an average child, perhaps a little unruly but nothing that would strike one as exceptional for a boy of his age.
But Howard Dully would soon become exceptional for all the wrong reasons. Barely two months after this first meeting, his father and stepmother had him admitted to a private hospital in his home town of San Jose, California. At 1.30pm on 16 December 1960, he was wheeled into an operating theatre and given a series of electric shocks to sedate him. That much he remembers. The rest is murky.”
http://www.theguardian.com/science/2008/jan/13/neuroscience.medicalscience
If K.P. is an 11 year old boy then some of you are probably breaking laws by tormenting him so.
“But you don’t have a straitjacket on, you can leave the facility with your mind intact”
lobotomies performed in private hospitals weren’t bad because private = voluntary?
Bob, do I actually appear tormented?
I just do this stuff inbetween Matlab crunches, I genuinely find them pretty amusing.
Ken B, “the state was lagging private enterprise in its zeal to lobotomize”
It doesn’t say this in here. It did say state hospitals couldn’t afford it – good thing they didn’t get more funding, eh?
According to this source:
1) State hospitals did more lobotomies.
2) State hospitals utilized the ice-pick method more
Why didn’t private hospitals use the ice-pick method more to save money? Do you think it’s possible some of them may have had qualms about the effectiveness of it and, since they were a profit-driven institution, had a higher incentive to have good results?
Caveat: I’m not sure if you’re supporting this statement or if you are saying this is what KP is essentially arguing.
Also, yes, private entrepreneurs often develop things for the state, because the state is willing to pay for it. Not sure your point here. No libertarian is a fan of Lockheed Martin, for example, as far as I am aware.
“good thing they didn’t get more funding, eh?”
Good thing they didn’t get more funding, because then they could have afforded the more expensive form of lobotomy.
As we all know, the more expensive form of lobotomy was far superior to the cheaper form of lobotomy.
“higher incentive to have good results?”
A higher incentive to provide good-resulting lobotomies?
“Good thing they didn’t get more funding, because then they could have afforded the more expensive form of lobotomy.”
Nope, reread the passage. Some couldn’t afford the neurosurgeons to do the operation.
“A higher incentive to provide good-resulting lobotomies?”
A higher incentive to provide better results. I’m guessing that’s why they performed less lobotomies over all, according to this place. But, even on lobotomies, yes, it’s possible that they had better results. Freeman’s data certainly suggested they were much better, as quoted above, but I’m not very trusting of him.
“Nope, reread the passage. Some couldn’t afford the neurosurgeons to do the operation”
you mean state mental hospitals were short of funds to pay for the more expensive form of lobotomy, which as we all know was a much better form of lobotomy.
Philippe, if you read the passage here, then you can clearly see they are talking about hiring a neurosurgeon for the operation when there was only one choice. So, yes, for some length of time, if they had more funding there would have been more total lobotomies.
Both numbers seem to make it worse with the state though (it’s possible it’s just a coincidence that these numbers match, but I agree it would be nice to see another source to be sure). If 33% used this procedure, then 56% using this procedure in state hospitals would mean that less than 33% used it in non-state hospitals. The other number would also favor private hospitals if you are correct that most were private. So, yeah, it was probably a problem with medicine in general, but the private hospitals seem to have been better based off these numbers.
Also, a quick Google search finds that Freeman did many at State Hospitals: http://www.cordingleyneurology.com/lobotomies.html, http://www.hurherald.com/cgi-bin/db_scripts/articles?Action=user_view&db=hurheral_articles&id=26491
“Dr. Walter Freeman performed 228 transorbital lobotomies during a two-week period in 1952 in West Virginia, through a state-sponsored lobotomy project ”
“Few chapters in the medical history of Athens County, Ohio, are more notorious or fascinating than that
concerning Walter Freeman, M.D., and the more than 200 frontal lobotomies he performed at the Athens State
Hospital in seven visits between 1953 and 1957.”
I don’t know the percentage at state versus private for him, but a large number were either in state hospitals or sponsored by the state.
Indeed he did. But that was just the locus. Few doctors in that era were state employees. Most just had privileges at the hospital. (My grandfather had operating privileges at the local provincial hospital but was not an employee, and his patients paid him.)
They were private enterprise.
Okay, but if I posted something attacking the government’s handling of the money supply, and you responded that the Federal Reserve was private, I think it’s pretty important to note that these private actors are heavily connected to the government.
“Privileges” at state hospitals and state-sponsored lobotomy projects are at least in a large part the fault of the government. If the number is accurate that a higher percentage were performed at state hospitals, then I think it’s pretty clear that without the government there would have been much less of a problem, especially if there were also state-sponsored lobotomy programs subsidizing the use of them at private hospitals.
Reece, thank you.
There’s no reason why one can’t say both. I’d go further and say there’s very good reason to say just that.
Well if you want to make that argument there are implications. You are in effect the state boosted the supply of hospitals enough to thereby boost the supply of lobotomies. I expect this is right. But it applies to the supply of all operations and in patient care. In other words, the increase was a side effect of the greater provision of useful care.
“In other words, the increase was a side effect of the greater provision of useful care.”
That’s very well put, I would agree with it completely*. One could even go further and praise the state for at least having good intentions, or at least trying, or something, but that’s all dressing.
*I guess we could quibble over “useful” but that’s pretty minor.
No, Ken B.
I’m saying that the rate of the use of these lobotomies was higher in state hospitals than in private hospitals, which I think you would agree with based off this data. My point is that private hospitals are better at “helping people get better” than the government hospitals. And, Grane’s point seems to have been that the government was not very efficient, which is what you responded to. That is what I am defending here, and was since the beginning (“Both numbers seem to make it worse with the state though”).
This point is helped further by the fact that the state seemed to have subsidized the use in private hospitals.
One could argue that people would be worse off without state hospitals still, but that would be a completely separate argument. In this case, hospitals more oriented toward the market did better than state run hospitals. This is one negative with having state run hospitals – whether you think the positives (perhaps people not being able to get care under a market, for instance) outweigh this negative is a completely different topic, and one that I’m not going to be shifted over into arguing here.
Reece, I notice you conveniently overlook the market failure in making clothes too expensive for the patients at the state mental hospitals.
“My point is that private hospitals are better at “helping people get better”
Private hospital lobotomies make people more better than state hospital lobotomies. Obviously.
I think I need a lobotomy now.
“In conclusion, let me point out the big picture here: You absolutely DO NOT want the government–even a “nice” government like in the United States or Canada–getting more control over health care. History shows the things that can happen when people are dependent on the care of socialized medicine. The results can be horrifying.”
Following your strange logic, the people of Germany should be absolutely terrified of their public health insurance system, given what happened in the Nazi concentration camps.
Kind of strange that they’re not, huh.
And we should all be absolutely terrified of Christian religious organizations, given the way they have repeatedly burned people at the stake throughout history.
Phillipe,
Unless the nature of religious organizations is violence, then I don’t see why one should necessarily be absolutely terrified of religious organizations. However, the nature of the State is violence, so……
In English, the word ‘state’ is not capitalized when you are referring to ‘the state’ in the abstract.
Also, ancaps aren’t opposed to violence… you’re supposedly opposed to aggression.
I think its reasonable to be “more terrified” of those who naturally use violence (whether aggression or not) than those who don’t.
Phillipe says, “In English, the word ‘its’ is used to show possession, and the word ‘it’s’ is a contraction of ‘it is’.
Also, did I use ‘who’ correctly? Honestly, I don’t know.
“I think its reasonable to be “more terrified” of those who naturally use violence (whether aggression or not) than those who don’t.”
But ancaps don’t have a problem with violence, only (supposedly) with aggression
Phillippe,
1. Bob Murphy is an anarchocapitalist. Bob Murphy objects to aggression, including aggression by the state.
2. Bob Murphy is a pacifist. Bob Murphy objects to violence of any kind, including violence by the state.
Which one of these statements is a lie?
If Bob is both an anarcho-capitalist and a pacifist, this indicates that being an anarcho-capitalist on its own does not make you a pacifist. Which we know already.
The ancap texts that I’re read by Bob, such as Chaos Theory, do not object to violence or propose a pacifist system.
Bob has already said that he would not just sit back and watch house invaders steal his belongings or murder his family, which is what a “pure” pacifist is ethically obligated to do.
But besides that, ancap ethics are not mutually exclusive to pacifism, because it is possible for pacifism to form ancap social relations.
For example, a pacifist can homestead, and/or trade, and others can respect his property rights such that he is not put into a position of responding to initiations of violence.
What about you Philippe? Is talking about your full ethical worldview permitted in your SOPs?
Yes, I don’t have a problem with violence per se, but I am mindful of those who employ it, regardless of whether they are ‘private’ or ‘public’ actors. That being said, I am more mindful of anyone whose MO is ultimately violence, such as the state. In other words, I think I have a better shot at working out my problems with a gun-wielding an-cap than I do with a gun-wielding statist.
“I am more mindful of anyone whose MO is ultimately violence”
so you are ‘more mindful’ of ‘private armies’?
Philippe:
According to ancap ethics, the only legal justification for violence is to defend against initiations of violence against person or property.
Any army must ultimately be anti-initiations of violence to satisfy ancap ethical criteria.
as I said, you’re opposed to aggression, as you define it, and not violence.
So is everyone who doesn’t support capitulating to rapists and murderers and thieves. It is not in any way an esoteric ethic to believe victims of initiations of violence have a right to use force to stop their attacker.
as I said, you’re opposed to aggression, as you define it, and not violence.
So when Ben B implies that one should be terrified of ‘the state’ because ‘its nature is violence’, we know he is making a non-ancap pacifist philosophical point.
Phillipe,
Being mindful of violence and being opposed to violence are not the same thing. Even statists are more mindful of other statists, but they’re obviously not opposed to violence.
Yes, I would still be mindful of private armies. Someone who considers himself an ‘ancap’ now could still abandon ancap ethics in the future. And, no, as MF pointed out, a private army’s MO is not ultimately violence; it’s the defense of initiations of violence.
Philippe, suppose I dropped a nuclear bomb on a city and killed a hundred thousand people. If Major Freedom said he is against me because my “nature is violence” but supported using violence against me, would you say he is being hypocritical because he supports violence too?
Okay, sure, many states don’t go this far. But almost every state does jail for some pretty petty crimes that people would be horrified at if a regular person did it. At some point we can be against people because of their “violent nature” while still supporting violence in some circumstances.
(If you don’t get this yet, imagine if a police officer stopped a mass murderer by shooting him in the foot. A spokesman then says “We shot him because he was violently attacking others.” Would you stand up and say “Hypocrites! You used violence too!”?)
“a private army’s MO is not ultimately violence”
Really. So how does a ‘private army’ operate if its MO is not ultimately violence?
“would you say he is being hypocritical because he supports violence too?”
MF is not opposed to violence, he is opposed to aggression, as he defines it.
So berating someone on the basis that they support violence would be hypocrisy on his part, yes.
A private army does not fund its operations with revenue obtained by previous initiations of violence (or threats of violence); hence, its “nature is not violence”.
Okay, but in that case I think MF is using a much more common definition of “violence” than you. Most people would not think the police officer was hypocritical if he said he shot the mass murderer in the leg because he was a violent man.
Ben B,
“hence, its “nature is not violence”
You think that ‘the nature of an army’ is not violence?
How exactly do you think an army can operate if it can never use violence?
The ‘nature’ of an army – any sort of army – is to use violence, if it has to, to achieve its goals. This is fact which holds for both private armies and regular armies.
“A private army does not fund its operations with revenue obtained by previous initiations of violence”
So here you are stating that you are opposed to aggression, as you define it, and not violence. Which is what I said in the first place.
Philippe:
“As I said, you’re opposed to aggression, as you define it, and not violence.”
As I said, so is everyone who doesn’t support capitulating to rapists and murderers and thieves. It is not in any way an esoteric ethic to believe victims of initiations of violence have a right to use force to stop their attacker.
“So when Ben B implies that one should be terrified of ‘the state’ because ‘its nature is violence’, we know he is making a non-ancap pacifist philosophical point.”
No he is making an ancap derived point.
The nature of a rape victim is not violence. To say they have a right to use defensive violence does not make any claims about what is necessary for a victim about bring a victim.
With the state on the other hand, its nature is in fact violence, because in order to even exist, some property owners have to initiate violence against other property owners. In other words, violence is necessary for a state to arise. No violence, no state.
Ancap private property institutions do not require violence as a necessity. They can arise without any violence at all, through non-violent homesteading, and non-violent free trade.
Ancap ethical institutions are not by nature violent. But that doesn’t mean violence is never called for, for example against violence initiating individuals.
“a private army’s MO is not ultimately violence”
“Really. So how does a ‘private army’ operate if its MO is not ultimately violence?”
Voluntary financing, amd voluntary customers.
Ultimately, an army acting in accordance with ancap ethics peaceful. But that does not mean its purpose is not to use violence against initiators of violence. If and when violence is initiated, an army that abides by ancap ethics can use defensive force. But, it is also possible for a private army to never have to use violence at all, if the property rights of those who hired that army, are respected by others by choice. Such an army need not threaten anyone if they don’t get paid, because their payments are based on soveteirn consumer consent that can be withdrawn by the customer, without that customer being threatened with violence if they don’t leave the territory after which the army “appropriates” that former customer’s land.
“would you say he is being hypocritical because he supports violence too?”
I never claimed to be against defensive force, so no, no hypocrisy.
“MF is not opposed to violence, he is opposed to aggression, as he defines it.”
I reject the way you define aggression, because you define trespassing and theft as non-aggressive, even though property is the means by which individual health and well being depend. You have no concrete definition of what constitutes “use” versus “non-use”. You latched onto a vague derivative of Bakhuninist/Proudhonist “personal use” notion of property, and your justifications in each scenario are arbitrary, ad hoc, principle-less assertions that must necessarily lead to conflict among people who really want and desire peace and have the rational capacity to do so.
Your definition is not rational and objective, but subjective and groundless. It is why you can only ultimately reach for the last thread of ad populum. You can’t defend your arguments rationally and logically.
Incidentally, and not that this serves as any justification, but I am opposed to aggression the way most civilians define it with respect to inter-civilian behavior. Most citizens oppose citizens trespassing, stealing, and kidnapping each other. But, unfortunately, it is still the case that most citizens do a 180 when it comes to citizen to state relationships. That is where I disagree with you, and most people, and I have no problems with that, because I can defend my position logically and rationally, whereas you cannot. You contradict yourself.
This is not a conflict between you and I. You and I behave ancap towards one another. In fact, everyone on this blog behaves ancap towards each other. That is the only reason I am even debating you. If you actually practised what you preached towards me, you’d likely be in a hospital intensive care ward, or worse.
The conflict is between those you “support” acting aggressively, the way most citizens define aggression from other citizens. You believe citizen aggression turns into peace and non-aggression if they wear government badges.
“So berating someone on the basis that they support violence would be hypocrisy on his part, yes.”
No, I am against initiations of violence. There is a difference between trespassing, and defending against trespassing. There is a difference between stealing, and defending againat stealing. There is a difference between saying what you believe is moral, and practising what you say is moral.
You talk the talk but don’t walk the walk.
I talk the talk and I walk the walk. You are a perfoming contradiction, which is why you can never win intellectually. The form of what you say contradicts the content, because you don’t engage in self-reflective analysis. You only want and demand obedience to your desired rule over other people’s persons and property.
Philippe:
“So here you are stating that you are opposed to aggression, as you define it, and not violence. Which is what I said in the first place.”
No, he is against aggression as most citizens define it with respect to inter-citizen ethical norms.
Phillipe,
I never said that I was opposed to violence; I said I was mindful of those who have a tendency to use it, whether it be offensive or defensive, and especially those who stockpile weapons. As I said before, being opposed to violence and being mindful of violence are not the same thing.
Phillipe, I work in retail; you are starting to remind me of the guy who distracts the manager while his friends are in the laptop aisle expropriating property. No, we don’t have the product that you can only vaguely describe to me! Wait a minute..where is LK and Ken B?!?
Ben B:
“you are starting to remind me of the guy who distracts the manager while his friends are in the laptop aisle expropriating property.”
That is probably more accurate than you realize.
A few weeks ago Philippe let it slip that he is an astroturfer who is paid by taxpayer money.
I personally don’t care, because debates are debates and ideas are ideas.
“A few weeks ago Philippe let it slip that he is an astroturfer who is paid by taxpayer money.”
Huh? I never said anything like that. wtf?
MF’s comment:
Phil: “Really. So how does a ‘private army’ operate if its MO is not ultimately violence?”
MF: “Voluntary financing, amd voluntary customers. Ultimately, an army acting in accordance with ancap ethics peaceful. But that does not mean its purpose is not to use violence.”
So MF agrees that an army’s MO is to use violence, if it has to.
What would be the point of an army which can never use violence?
Philippe:
“So MF agrees that an army’s MO is to use violence, if it has to.”
But that does not imply violence is its NATURE. Violence is not necessary for it to EXIST.
With the state, violence is necessary. Violence is a part of its nature.
Clear yet?
“But that does not imply violence is its NATURE”
What kind of a ‘private army’ would not use violence, if it had to.
A pacifist army sounds a lot like an oxymoron.
“Violence is a part of its nature”
Violence is part of a ‘private army’s’ nature.
That’s the whole point of an army – they can use violence, if needed.
Pretty obvious really.
Philippe:
“But that does not imply violence is its NATURE”
“What kind of a ‘private army’ would not use violence, if it had to.”
There is such a thing as asking the wrong questions and asking the right questions.
The right question to ask is whether a private army can exist at all without ever using violence. The answer is yes.
A state army on the other hand cannot even arise and be maintained without violence.
“Violence is a part of its nature”
“Violence is part of a ‘private army’s’ nature.”
No, it isn’t because violence is not necessary for the private army to arise and be maintained.
“That’s the whole point of an army – they can use violence, if needed.”
Yes, that is true, but that doesn’t mean violence is a part of an army’s nature.
The point of me owning a gun is to protect myself from initiations of violence. I will use it to protect my life against people who might choose to initiate violence against me.
But that does not mean I am violent “by nature.” For me to own a gun, and for me being able and willing to use it to defend myself and my familyz does not require me to initiate violence myself. I do not finance my defense through violating other people’s property rights.
States do. State armies are financed through theft of property.
Philippe:
“Huh? I never said anything like that. wtf?”
Sure you did. I’ll give other readers a hint:
“Yes, we do.” – Philippe
It really doesn’t matter. It is not like you’re actually succeeding. You’re actually helping ancapism.
Lol
“For me to own a gun, and for me being able and willing to use it to defend myself and my familyz does not require me to initiate violence myself. I do not finance my defense through violating other people’s property rights.”
So again, as I said in first comment, ancaps are not opposed to violence, you are opposed to aggression (as you define it).
“Yes, we do.” – Philippe
Can you give a link, because I have no idea what you’re talking about.
Philippe:
Glad you agree private armies are not violent by nature.
“So again, as I said in first comment, ancaps are not opposed to violence, you are opposed to aggression (as you define it).”
So again, as I said twice before in response to your twice repeated statement:
So is everyone who doesn’t support capitulating to rapists and murderers and thieves. It is not in any way an esoteric ethic to believe victims of initiations of violence have a right to use force to stop their attacker.
Philippe:
“Can you give a link, because I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Can’t be bothered to take the time to search. As I said, I don’t really care.
“Glad you agree private armies are not violent by nature.”
Armies are not violent?
“Can’t be bothered to take the time to search. As I said, I don’t really care”
Why are you making accusations if you can’t even be bothered to back them up. You are clearly spouting BS.
MF: “So is everyone”
So you agree that ancaps are not opposed to violence, you are opposed to aggression (as you define it)?
Yea or nay?
Exactly what Ii said in my first comment.
*what I said.
Philippe:
“Armies are not violent?”
Private armies who act according to ancap ethics are not necessarily violent. It is possible for those people to never use violence at all, and they necessarily don’t use or need violence in order to exist as defenders of property rights
“Can’t be bothered to take the time to search. As I said, I don’t really care”
“Why are you making accusations if you can’t even be bothered to back them up.”
Same reason you post anything at all here. I have never seen any links or sources from anything you have claimed about the world.
It is a cost and benefit issue. The costs of digging through so many posts to me exceeds the benefits to me.
Accusation? Aren’t you proud to spew statist propaganda here all the time? You’re helping the ancap ideology.
“So you agree that ancaps are not opposed to violence, you are opposed to aggression”
You do realize that ancap ethics are not pacifist ethics, right?
Ancap ethics condones potential rape, murder and theft victims from using force to stop their attacker.
Ancap ethics concerning just use of violence is almost identical to ethics almost all “citizens” believe in with respect to other “citizens”.
As I personally define it? It is not just my definition. It is almost exactly the definition you yourself use when it comes to unethical activity between you and I. It is the definition of violence almost everyone uses in a context of citizen to citizen definitions of violence.
Ancap is the extension of civilian ethics to the sphere of protection and security, and conflict resolution services that have for some time been under territorial monopolies that form and are maintained by violating the very ethics you claim should be binding on civilians.
If ancap so-called ‘ethics’ and beliefs were the same as most people’s ethics and beliefs, then you wouldn’t spend most of your time railing against the ethics and beliefs of the rest of the world, and trying to get others to adopt your ‘ethics’ and beliefs.
Philippe, my 2nd wife defined feminims as “men and women are exactly the same, except men are scum.” MF is arguing he has the same ethics and values as everyone else, except everyone else is wrong.
MF: “Ancap ethics concerning just use of violence is almost identical to ethics almost all “citizens” believe in with respect to other “citizens”.”
Philippe: “If ancap so-called ‘ethics’ and beliefs were the same as most people’s ethics and beliefs, then you wouldn’t spend most of your time railing against the ethics and beliefs of the rest of the world…”
KenB: “MF is arguing he has the same ethics and values as everyone else, except everyone else is wrong.”
Do neither of you honestly see anything wrong with how you’re treating his arguments?
No, they’re just the usual nonsense that we’ve heard before.
But please explain why you are confused, Reece.
Reece, our contention is that MF consistently misrepresents or ‘spins’. He could be straight forward and say something like this: “we believe in a certain theory or property rights, based on notions some find controversial, and which differ from the normal conception. We would enforce those rights and deem any enforcement of them legitimate. Otherwise we would eschew any coercion and deem such coercion illegitimate. As long as our notion of property was respected we would allow anything. We believe this corresponds to a freer society.” But that is not what MF does. Just read his characterizations. People who disagree want to put him in a box, we support police states, theft and murder. We reject property rights entire rather than just his particular view of them.
He has in the past claimed that his scheme eschews force, coercion and violence entirely We object to inaccurate descriptions like that.
That is what most of these squabbles are about. Recently one commentator here said in ancapistan only those who use force would be “screwed”. I pointed out that he would use force to enforce his notion of property rights.
Recent example. MF castigated me because he claims the comment meant [insert alleged meaning her]. Maybe it did, maybe not. But as I had pointed out already I was objecting to what he actually *said*. What he said was tendentious and inaccurate. it implied his opponents were advocates of arbitrary coercion, also untrue.
Reece, here is an example from a few inches above. MF wrote
“Ancap ethics concerning just use of violence is almost identical to ethics almost all “citizens” believe in with respect to other “citizens”.”
That just isn’t true. MOST citizens do not blieve in the radical form of self-ownership that allows drug use and prostitution. (I wish they did.) Most believe parents have a legal and moral responsibility to feed their babies. Most do not see the right to a fair trial as alienable. Most do not believe it is acceptable to shoot trespassers. Maybe they should, maybe those are better ethics. But when MF says what I quote above, he’s wrong.
Yet when it suits him he also mocks more common notions of ethics and morality.
Cannot really have it both ways.
mf’s argument is that I don’t do what police officers do, etc.
But that’s because I’m not a police officer. That’s not my job.
An obvious and simple fact that mf finds confusing for some reason.
“we believe in a certain theory or property rights, based on notions some find controversial, and which differ from the normal conception. We would enforce those rights and deem any enforcement of them legitimate.”
This is the basic contradiction at the heart of ancapism. Ancaps say law can be created and enforced through ‘the market’, whilst arguing that ‘the market’ must itself be based on system of enforced law.
Philippe: “No, they’re just the usual nonsense that we’ve heard before.”
He isn’t saying what you claimed he said here. So, if this is the same argument you’ve heard before, then wouldn’t that mean he never said that before?
Also, I’m not confused at all. I read both of your arguments. I don’t agree with everything MF said, but this is a clear case where you misrepresented him.
KenB: Perhaps MF has argued those things before; I really don’t know. I can’t read through every thread where the two of you have argued. What I do know is that his argument here, in this thread, was mischaracterized. Anyone can confirm this by reading those three quotes or the full posts.
As for your second part, yes, that’s a more legitimate response, and I wouldn’t have commented had you said that in the first place. But, even here, I don’t think you’re responding directly. Note that MF was not saying that “most citizens… believe in the radical form of self-ownership”; he was saying that they have almost identical beliefs on when it is okay to use violence on others. If someone saw me smoking marijuana, I am almost certain they would not personally attack me, even if they didn’t think I had the right to do it (if he caged me for months, I would guess that most people would end up supporting violence against him rather than me!). So, yes, there is a strong sense in which he is right. Obviously a lot of people would support violence against the parents starving their child or the person shooting a trespasser, so your argument does have some merits (although, MF did leave some room for differences). But, then again, these are contentious issues even within libertarian circles; I’m pretty sure that the majority do not support the “right” to starve kids or shoot trespassers.
Reece
Well I think you are wrong about starving kids, but let me give some less inflammatory examples. MF and crew deny that there is such a thing as public land. Read the Cliven Bundy threads if you doubt this. This is not remotely what most believe. He argues in fact there cannot be joint ownership of anything. Again, idiosyncratic. He rejects any claim of necessity in legal proceedings, and does so on the basis of his notion of property. Again, not even close to what most people think. That is a radically different idea of what force is justified. If I walk on your lawn and you come at me with a knife most people think I can deck you with my backpack. If my child is straving and our ship washes up on your island most people think I can feed him that fallen apple; MF thinks he can shoot me for it. These do not remotely comport with common notions about when violence is justified.
“he was saying that they have almost identical beliefs on when it is okay to use violence on others. If someone saw me smoking marijuana, I am almost certain they would not personally attack me, even if they didn’t think I had the right to do it (if he caged me for months, I would guess that most people would end up supporting violence against him rather than me!).”
As I said, mf’s argument is that people like me don’t do what police officers (etc) do… such as arrest and imprison people for using illegal drugs.
But that’s because I am not a police officer. It’s not my job.
“this is a clear case where you misrepresented him”
Nope.
Reece, we’re not talking Libertarians; we’re talking Rothbardians. Most libertarians accept a state.
As to Philippe’s point. MF has repeatedly argued along these lines: you wouldn’t do X yourself which means you don’t really support X being done. Transparently false, as Philippe notes. I might not arrest you for smoking pot or for burning your neighbor’s car, and I might not rule on your motion to suppress the videotape, and I might not check your blood pressure when you enter prison, but that’s because I am not a cop, a judge, or a prison nurse.
The same argument can be turned around of course. In ancapistan MF might hire specialized enforcers to exert his will rthter than doing it himself.
Yeah, I meant market anarchists, not libertarians. Sorry.
Most market anarchists probably don’t support shooting trespassers in particular. Rothbard didn’t. I’m not as sure on the child rights issues, but I would guess most anarchists would be against that too (I know I am).
The point is the *right* to respond with violence. I think most people would find it unethical if I started caging drug users.
“I think most people would find it unethical if I started caging drug users”
because you are not a law enforcement officer.
If you were a law enforcement officer, most people would not have a problem with it (so long as you were acting within the law of course).
Yes. Government police and citizens are held on a different standard. Interestingly, that is exactly what MF said.
Very droll Reece. Most people say they hope their doctor never sleeps but wish their hospital never does. I guess people don’t want to let doctors sleep after all.
Most people agree to roles and rules.MF conflates this difference. Most of us do not in fact condemn those acting as agents: the cop, juror, judge, or warder who all play a role in caging you. We are more likely to condemn them if they act unilaterally to uncage you.
The technical name for your and MF’s argument is the fallacy of composition.
“Yes. Government police and citizens are held on a different standard.”
To begin with, police officers are citizens. And no they are not held on a different standard. They are employed to do a specific job, which is to enforce the law.
If you were imprisoning people illegally you would acting outside of the law.
“Most people agree to roles and rules… Most of us do not in fact condemn those acting as agents: the cop, juror, judge, or warder who all play a role in caging you.”
Yes. That’s exactly what MF said. He said that most people agree with ancaps on how citizens should treat each other (for the most part) but disagree with ancaps when it comes to certain government agents. Whether this is a good or a bad thing is a separate issue. Whether an ancap society would change this is also a separate issue.
“The technical name for your and MF’s argument is the fallacy of composition.”
Which argument that I specifically made here was a fallacy of composition?
Philippe – No, it being a job doesn’t work. If I hired someone to do what the police did, he would still go to jail.
On the law – yes, that’s how the government decides different standards for regular citizens and police (that citizens tend to think the government has the right to do). You can’t seriously think that the government passing a law allowing me to kill people at random wouldn’t put me at a different standard.
Reece, scroll up to my joke about feminism and the related one about MF. I won’t speak for Philippe but that is what yhe debate on this subthread has been about. MF asserted normal people have virtually the same views on the use of force as ancaps. That has been clearly shown false in this subthread and not just on the grounds the rest of us accept different rules for govt interventions. MF’s assertion is a composition fallacy and if you assert it so then is yours. If you are just switching topics then perhaps you are not.
MF might have said that at some point, but I did not see it while reading this thread. Here is what he did say:
“Ancap ethics concerning just use of violence is almost identical to ethics almost all “citizens” believe in with respect to other “citizens”.”
That’s different than the use of force in general. I really have no idea if he said something different elsewhere, but in the argument here, I don’t think he did.
“If I hired someone to do what the police did, he would still go to jail.”
How exactly does this prove your point?
You seem to be getting confused about the issue here.
1. MF: “Ancap ethics concerning just use of violence is almost identical to ethics almost all “citizens” believe in with respect to other “citizens”.
Completely false.
First of all, law enforcement officers are citizens. And obviously most people do not believe in ancap ideas on how law enforcement should be carried out. So they clearly do not agree with “ancap ethics concerning the just use of violence… with respect to other “citizens””.
Amusingly, you said: “I think most people would find it unethical if I started caging drug users”, which is something you could actually do in theory in ancapistan.
If anyone is interested in the shocking misrepresentation by Philippe, read MF’s original argument:
“Ancap ethics concerning just use of violence is almost identical to ethics almost all “citizens” believe in with respect to other “citizens”… It is not just my definition. It is almost exactly the definition you yourself use when it comes to unethical activity between you and I. It is the definition of violence almost everyone uses in a context of citizen to citizen definitions of violence.
Ancap is the extension of civilian ethics to the sphere of protection and security, and conflict resolution services that have for some time been under territorial monopolies that form and are maintained by violating the very ethics you claim should be binding on civilians.”
And then read the different interpretations Philippe got out of this:
“If ancap so-called ‘ethics’ and beliefs were the same as most people’s ethics and beliefs, then you wouldn’t spend most of your time railing against the ethics and beliefs of the rest of the world, and trying to get others to adopt your ‘ethics’ and beliefs.”
“mf’s argument is that I don’t do what police officers do, etc.
But that’s because I’m not a police officer. That’s not my job.”
“As I said, mf’s argument is that people like me don’t do what police officers (etc) do… such as arrest and imprison people for using illegal drugs.”
“First of all, law enforcement officers are citizens. And obviously most people do not believe in ancap ideas on how law enforcement should be carried out. So they clearly do not agree with “ancap ethics concerning the just use of violence… with respect to other “citizens””.”
“Amusingly, you said: “I think most people would find it unethical if I started caging drug users”, which is something you could actually do in theory in ancapistan.”
Wow. Now that I know people can theoretically cage other people, I am renouncing anarchism.
“Now that I know people can theoretically cage other people, I am renouncing anarchism.”
Have you never heard of ancapistan’s private prisons?
Do most people think that private individuals should be able to judge people and imprison them? No.
Clearly most people do not agree with “ancap ethics”.
Reece, if you have a ‘property’ dispute in ancapistan, say you think MF stole your stereo or raped your sister, are you allowed to act alone and peremptorily to demand satisfaction/obtain redress/ whatever it it is you want done? If not then you must be allowing some delegated agent or set of agents to act against him. Just as we have cops, judges, warders, nurses, bailiffs. So you too would distnguish between sanctioned social action and individual vigilantism in ancapistan.
There are really only two choices. First, anyone may do whatever they want on their own. Second, there are structures and procedures they must follow. Private judges are the latter. So there is delegation.
Ken B, I don’t really want to get into this because it isn’t relevant to the original discussion (I wasn’t arguing against the idea of people having different standards above, I was just saying that MF was right that it existed). To make it short, yeah, if I didn’t make a contract specifying otherwise, and MF stole my stereo, then I would have the right to use force to get it back – the social problems would still likely exist, but I wouldn’t be punished. However, I find it pretty likely that people would contract to say they wouldn’t do this (because their protection agencies would probably not want to cover them if they didn’t). The bigger change would be on the police side; the police would have much less power than they do now. They wouldn’t be able to barge down a door without other people thinking they were right on the matter, and the number of crimes would be significantly limited. So yes, everyone would have to follow procedures/standards, but the standards would be much more egalitarian.
“shocking misrepresentation”
No misrepresentation. You seem to be getting bamboozled by mf’s nonsensical jabbering.
In ancapistan private individuals and companies supposedly take law enforcement and judgement into their own hands. Do most people do that in the real world? No. Do most people think that people should do that? No. So “ancap ethics” are clearly not the ethics of most people.
mf is saying: because in the real world people don’t behave like they would in ancapistan, and because most people do not think they should behave as people would behave in ancapistan, this proves that the way people behave in ancapistan is almost identical to how most people believe people should behave. In other words: because “ancap ethics” are the complete opposite of most people’s ethics, this proves that “ancap ethics” are almost identical to the ethics most people believe in.
Genuinely bizarre.
Reece, thank you for conceding the point. We aren’t discussing if the sytem would be kinder and gentler, but if you have a point re delegated agents like judges. And it’s like being a little pregnant here. You distinguish what a citizen can do solus from what he can do through a process with other agents.
Not sure if I exactly see where you’re coming from on the judges part. Judges would be arbitrators giving their opinion, so they really wouldn’t have any more rights than regular civilians. My concession was on law enforcement; I do think that through contracting most people wouldn’t be able to go as far as police regarding addressing crimes and punishment. That said, because it is a contract, it was consensual (and the person could back out), so human rights would clearly be equal.
Your question did have to do with how an ancap society would deal with property disputes, which is why I went in that direction.
Reece if you have the time you might want to start watching this video around the 4:00 mark where I talk about all of this stuff. My vision of private law is a bit different from Rothbard’s, by the way.
As I said, there’s a basic contradiction at the core of ancapism. On the one hand you say law can be created and enforced through ‘the market’. At the same time you assume the existence of a system of enforced law within which ‘the market’ exists…
it’s all gibberish.
Philippe:
I disn’t say ancap ethics were “the same” as most people’s ethics. I clearly said that ancap ethics are almost the same as most people’s ethics.
And that is true. I see very little difference, if any, when it comes to what most people believe as ethical and unethical, and what ancaps believe as ethical and unethical.
As I have said many times, the difference lies in what is ethical and unethical for men with government badges. You give a pass to unethical activity as defined by civilian to civilian interaction when committed by statesmen, ancaps do not.
I view statists like yourself and Ken B like I view theists during past ages who were intellectually unable to stand up to what most people believed at the time.
Ancapism today is much like scientism during the rule of the churches. Then, just like now, there is a minority.
I am not arguing everyone has the same ethics and values. Not even statists agree, which is why there is and has been war between states.
——————
Reece, you asked:
“Do neither of you honestly see anything wrong with how you’re treating his arguments?”
Indeed they are straw manning me. Their ideology requires them to in order for them to feel right in their minds. It is a psychological afflication. That is what statism does. It encourages wilfull blindness and straw manning.
I say ancap ethics are almost the same as most people’s ethics, and they respond assuming I said it is exactly the same.
This is what we have to deal with.
———-
Philippe, you asked Reece:
“But please explain why you are confused, Reece.”
Reece is not confused at all you untruth worshiper. He was absolutely right in noticing that you totally misread my argument.
—————
Reece, there are claims that I “consistently spin”, but there is of course ZERO proof of this.
There are also claims that I said ancap ethics “eschews force.” I never said this. It is nothing but lies from pathological liars. Ancaps are not pacifists.
The swuabbles almost always derive from a chronic inability of Philippe and Ken B to understand the ancap ethic in particular, and what constitutes violence and non-violence in general.
They have to do this or else they will see for themselves their own contradictions.
I never said statists support “arbitrary violence.”. That is another lie. I said the intellectual grounds for what constitutes controlled and just use of violence is in the statist dogma “arbitrary.” And it is arbitrary.
It is in fact true that ancap ethics concerning just use of violence is almost identical to ethics almost all “citizens” believe in with respect to other “citizens”.
Most citizens do in fact believe in individual rights BETWEEN CIVILIANS, including drug use and prostitution. Most civilians believe it would be unethical for one civilian to initiate force against another civilian to stop them from taking drugs or selling sexual services.
Philippe and Ken B are unable to distinguish between state to civilian ethics, and civilian to civilian ethics. Ken B for example asserts that because most people are against hard drug use and believe people shoild be stopped from doing it, that this somehow refutes my argument that most people belive it is unethical for them to use force to stop their fellow citizens from using hard drugs.
They can’t see the argument beause in their narrow mindset, ethics means state ethics. They can’t even understand civilian to civilian ethics. Again, their ideology BLINDS them. Their ideology is not tenable. They have to purposefully ignore the ancap argument in order to believe they have refuted it.
Philippe, yes I do claim that you regard state actions as unethical if you were to do those actions.
That is the core contradiction of statism. Statesmen do it, ethical. I do it, unethical.
Ancapism does not have this contradiction. The ethic is the same for every living individual.
You claimed that you don’t do what the police do “because it is not your job.” But that is not a rebuttal to the argument. The argument does not concern what you are being paid to do. It concerns what you have a right to do regardless of what you’re being paid to do by others.
In ancap ethics there is no just violations of the ethic if you are paid to violate it.
When you say you can’t do what the police do because it is “not your job”, what you are actually referring to is that the ethics that applies to you is not the same ethics that applies to statesmen.
Their “job” is to gain by violating the very ethics that you are binded by.
“But that’s because I’m not a police officer. That’s not my job.”
Why can’t anyone just declare themselves a “police officer” and do what the police do? It is because of the ethical fascism. Only those the state approves of, can abide by state ethics, while everyone else must abide by “civilian” ethics.
“This is the basic contradiction at the heart of ancapism. Ancaps say law can be created and enforced through ‘the market’, whilst arguing that ‘the market’ must itself be based on system of enforced law.”
That is not what ancap theory claims. You are setting up yet another strawman.
Ancaps do not say that any and all law is permitted. Ancap law is private property rights.
What arises in the market is not whether or not private property rights is enforceable. It would be a contradiction to believe that the market can have anti-market laws.
Ancal law is almost identical to civilian to civilian law today.
I do NOT believe it is ethically justified to shoot someone dead if they steal an apple. I believe in eye for an eye ethics. A stolen apple should be met with defense that stops the theft, not end the life of the thief. But, if the thief includes threats of violence as part of the apple theft, then equal force in response is justified, IMO.
I do not claim that if you “would not” do X that you “don’t really support X”.
I claim that if you believe it would be ethically wrong for you to do X, that you think X is wrong.
Who believes it would be ethically wrong for them to use force to defend against their own murder, but believe it is ethically right for them to support a police officer using force against their potential murderer?
That is what I am getting at.
Statists typically believe that it would be unethical for them to do what those in the state do.
Ancaps on the other hand adhere to no such contradiction. If ancapism X is unethical, then that applies to EVERYONE.
Whether you personally “would” do X is separate from whether you believe it is ethical to do X.
For example, while I “would not” prostitute myself, that does not imply I regard it as unethical.
There is a lot of misunderstanding and straw manning here.
Philippe, you wrote in response to this:
“I think most people would find it unethical if I started caging drug users”
“because you are not a law enforcement officer.”
You are proving my point about your ethics correct. You adhere to a contradiction.
Merely saying “you are not a law enforcement officer” is you ADMITTING that you believe in different ethics for different people.
Consider potential murder, where here you at least view the ethic concerning it as universal. You believe that me using force to stop a serial killer from killing me to be ethically justified. Here state ethics and civilian ethics overlap to you. ANYONE has an ethical right to use force to stop their own murder.
But for drug usage, and other activities, you contradict yourself. Here, you believe it is ethical for a “policeman” to use force to throw a drug user in a cage, but you believe it is unethical if your neighbor did that same action.
Different ethics for different people. You say it is “not your job”. Does that mean it is not your job to defend yourself from any and all violence? Or to decide to have food in your stomach?
Yout worldview is schizophrenic.
You said that if I were a law enforcement officer, most people would not have a problem with it (so long as you were acting within the law of course). That again just proves my point about your contradictory ethics.
To you, ethical obligations of police officers differs from ethical obligations of civilians.
————
Reece, you wrote:
“Yes. Government police and citizens are held on a different standard. Interestingly, that is exactly what MF said.”
Amazing on how such a simple point of exposing the logical flaws in their beliefs is met with such confusion.
————-
Ken B and Philippe confuse the difference between ethics, and actions that earn income.
To them, different ethics apply to different people depending merely on what they are being paid to do. But this collapses upon even the most superficial analysis. If X is unethical, then that does not mean you can say X is ethical if you get dollars for doing it.
That is its own brand of sick and vicious rationalization. It is on another level.
It is not a fallacy of composition to argue for an ethic that applies to all individuals at the same time everywhere on Earth.
The belief it is such a fallacy is actually derived from the very contradictory ethic of Ken B and Philippe, with a special brand of hypostatization! They assert that ethics for statesmen should be different from everyone else’s. So they percieve ethical arguments that should apply to both civilians and statesmen as “fallacies of composition” because they view statesmen ethics as “aggregate” and penetrating everywhere, while civilian ethics is “micro”. Thus, they percieve arguments of “civilian ethics should apply to statesmen” as a fallacy of composition. They believe the ancap argument is that “micro” is what should apply to civilians and “macro” is what should apply to statesmen.
I am committing no fallacy of composition. Ancap ethics starts and stays with what is ethical and unethical FOR ALL INDIVIDUALS.
Police officers are not citizens.
Citizens are being defined as those who are not a member of the state. A crude metric is income source. If taxes, then state, if not, then civilian.
It is arguing over semantics to shift the debate to whether or not we should call policemen civilians or statesmen.
Policemen ARE IN FACT held on a different standard. They are employed to do what is unethical for everyone else to do, for example using force against drug users.
If you used force against non-violent criminals, you would be acting unethically whereas that same action would be ethical behavior if done by the police.
I asserted that normal people have virtually the same views on the use of force as ancaps when it comes to civilian to civilian ethics.
This argument is constantly being distorted by Ken B and Philippe as saying that I believe normal people have the exact same ethics as ancaps period.
I am not asserting any fallacy of composition. I am not saying that what is true for me or another person “must therefore” be true for everyone else. I am asserting an ethic that applies to all individuals.
It is a FACT that ancap ethics concerning just use of violence is almost identical to ethics almost all “citizens” believe in with respect to other “citizens”.
Completely true. It is why ancaps and non-ancap civilians are not shooting at each other, or using force against each other all over the country.
Ancaps and civilians get along, physically speaking, because their ethics vis a vis each other are almosy identical.
Law enforcement officers are NOT citizens according to ancaps. If ancaps claim this or that about civilians, and they don’t include cops in that group, then it is absolutely absurd to believe you are refuting the argument by disagreeing with the definition of civilian.
Most people do in fact believe in ancap ideas on ethical behavior between individuals. They clearly do agree with “ancap ethics concerning the just use of violence… with respect to other “citizens”.
In ancapistan, it would in fact be unethical if I started caging drug users on their own property, since the landowners decide what they can do on their own land in ancapistan.
Most people agree with ancap ethics in the sphere of civilian to civilian interactions.
Cops are not considered civilians in ancap theory. Even if we define them as civilians, then the ancap argument will just become “ancap ethics is accepted by most people in the sphere of ‘civilian minus cops’ to ‘civilian minus cops’ interactions.”
Philippe and Ken B have posted many claims that are clearly false as Reece was able to recognize.
Philippe:
I disn’t say ancap ethics were “the same” as most people’s ethics. I clearly said that ancap ethics are almost the same as most people’s ethics.
And that is true. I see very little difference, if any, when it comes to what most people believe as ethical and unethical, and what ancaps believe as ethical and unethical.
As I have said many times, the difference lies in what is ethical and unethical for men with government badges. You give a pass to unethical activity as defined by civilian to civilian interaction when committed by statesmen, ancaps do not.
I view statists like yourself and Ken B like I view theists during past ages who were intellectually unable to stand up to what most people believed at the time.
Ancapism today is much like scientism during the rule of the churches. Then, just like now, there is a minority.
I am not arguing everyone has the same ethics and values. Not even statists agree, which is why there is and has been war between states.
——————
Reece, you asked:
“Do neither of you honestly see anything wrong with how you’re treating his arguments?”
Indeed they are straw manning me. Their ideology requires them to in order for them to feel right in their minds. It is a psychological afflication. That is what statism does. It encourages wilfull blindness and straw manning.
I say ancap ethics are almost the same as most people’s ethics, and they respond assuming I said it is exactly the same.
This is what we have to deal with.
———-
Philippe, you asked Reece:
“But please explain why you are confused, Reece.”
Reece is not confused at all you untruth worshiper. He was absolutely right in noticing that you totally misread my argument.
—————
Reece, there are claims that I “consistently spin”, but there is of course ZERO proof of this.
There are also claims that I said ancap ethics “eschews force.” I never said this. It is nothing but lies from pathological liars. Ancaps are not pacifists.
The swuabbles almost always derive from a chronic inability of Philippe and Ken B to understand the ancap ethic in particular, and what constitutes violence and non-violence in general.
They have to do this or else they will see for themselves their own contradictions.
I never said statists support “arbitrary violence.”. That is another lie. I said the intellectual grounds for what constitutes controlled and just use of violence is in the statist dogma “arbitrary.” And it is arbitrary.
It is in fact true that ancap ethics concerning just use of violence is almost identical to ethics almost all “citizens” believe in with respect to other “citizens”.
Most citizens do in fact believe in individual rights BETWEEN CIVILIANS, including drug use and prostitution. Most civilians believe it would be unethical for one civilian to initiate force against another civilian to stop them from taking drugs or selling sexual services.
Philippe and Ken B are unable to distinguish between state to civilian ethics, and civilian to civilian ethics. Ken B for example asserts that because most people are against hard drug use and believe people shoild be stopped from doing it, that this somehow refutes my argument that most people belive it is unethical for them to use force to stop their fellow citizens from using hard drugs.
They can’t see the argument beause in their narrow mindset, ethics means state ethics. They can’t even understand civilian to civilian ethics. Again, their ideology BLINDS them. Their ideology is not tenable. They have to purposefully ignore the ancap argument in order to believe they have refuted it.
Philippe, yes I do claim that you regard state actions as unethical if you were to do those actions.
That is the core contradiction of statism. Statesmen do it, ethical. I do it, unethical.
Ancapism does not have this contradiction. The ethic is the same for every living individual.
You claimed that you don’t do what the police do “because it is not your job.” But that is not a rebuttal to the argument. The argument does not concern what you are being paid to do. It concerns what you have a right to do regardless of what you’re being paid to do by others.
In ancap ethics there is no just violations of the ethic if you are paid to violate it.
When you say you can’t do what the police do because it is “not your job”, what you are actually referring to is that the ethics that applies to you is not the same ethics that applies to statesmen.
Their “job” is to gain by violating the very ethics that you are binded by.
“But that’s because I’m not a police officer. That’s not my job.”
Why can’t anyone just declare themselves a “police officer” and do what the police do? It is because of the ethical fascism. Only those the state approves of, can abide by state ethics, while everyone else must abide by “civilian” ethics.
“This is the basic contradiction at the heart of ancapism. Ancaps say law can be created and enforced through ‘the market’, whilst arguing that ‘the market’ must itself be based on system of enforced law.”
That is not what ancap theory claims. You are setting up yet another strawman.
Ancaps do not say that any and all law is permitted. Ancap law is private property rights.
What arises in the market is not whether or not private property rights is enforceable. It would be a contradiction to believe that the market can have anti-market laws.
Ancal law is almost identical to civilian to civilian law today.
I do NOT believe it is ethically justified to shoot someone dead if they steal an apple. I believe in eye for an eye ethics. A stolen apple should be met with defense that stops the theft, not end the life of the thief. But, if the thief includes threats of violence as part of the apple theft, then equal force in response is justified, IMO.
I do not claim that if you “would not” do X that you “don’t really support X”.
I claim that if you believe it would be ethically wrong for you to do X, that you think X is wrong.
Who believes it would be ethically wrong for them to use force to defend against their own murder, but believe it is ethically right for them to support a police officer using force against their potential murderer?
That is what I am getting at.
Statists typically believe that it would be unethical for them to do what those in the state do.
Ancaps on the other hand adhere to no such contradiction. If ancapism X is unethical, then that applies to EVERYONE.
Whether you personally “would” do X is separate from whether you believe it is ethical to do X.
For example, while I “would not” prostitute myself, that does not imply I regard it as unethical.
There is a lot of misunderstanding and straw manning here.
Philippe, you wrote in response to this:
“I think most people would find it unethical if I started caging drug users”
“because you are not a law enforcement officer.”
You are proving my point about your ethics correct. You adhere to a contradiction.
Merely saying “you are not a law enforcement officer” is you ADMITTING that you believe in different ethics for different people.
Consider potential murder, where here you at least view the ethic concerning it as universal. You believe that me using force to stop a serial killer from killing me to be ethically justified. Here state ethics and civilian ethics overlap to you. ANYONE has an ethical right to use force to stop their own murder.
But for drug usage, and other activities, you contradict yourself. Here, you believe it is ethical for a “policeman” to use force to throw a drug user in a cage, but you believe it is unethical if your neighbor did that same action.
Different ethics for different people. You say it is “not your job”. Does that mean it is not your job to defend yourself from any and all violence? Or to decide to have food in your stomach?
Yout worldview is schizophrenic.
You said that if I were a law enforcement officer, most people would not have a problem with it (so long as you were acting within the law of course). That again just proves my point about your contradictory ethics.
To you, ethical obligations of police officers differs from ethical obligations of civilians.
————
Reece, you wrote:
“Yes. Government police and citizens are held on a different standard. Interestingly, that is exactly what MF said.”
Amazing on how such a simple point of exposing the logical flaws in their beliefs is met with such confusion.
————-
Ken B and Philippe confuse the difference between ethics, and actions that earn income.
To them, different ethics apply to different people depending merely on what they are being paid to do. But this collapses upon even the most superficial analysis. If X is unethical, then that does not mean you can say X is ethical if you get dollars for doing it.
That is its own brand of sick and vicious rationalization. It is on another level.
It is not a fallacy of composition to argue for an ethic that applies to all individuals at the same time everywhere on Earth.
The belief it is such a fallacy is actually derived from the very contradictory ethic of Ken B and Philippe, with a special brand of hypostatization! They assert that ethics for statesmen should be different from everyone else’s. So they percieve ethical arguments that should apply to both civilians and statesmen as “fallacies of composition” because they view statesmen ethics as “aggregate” and penetrating everywhere, while civilian ethics is “micro”. Thus, they percieve arguments of “civilian ethics should apply to statesmen” as a fallacy of composition. They believe the ancap argument is that “micro” is what should apply to civilians and “macro” is what should apply to statesmen.
I am committing no fallacy of composition. Ancap ethics starts and stays with what is ethical and unethical FOR ALL INDIVIDUALS.
Police officers are not citizens.
Citizens are being defined as those who are not a member of the state. A crude metric is income source. If taxes, then state, if not, then civilian.
It is arguing over semantics to shift the debate to whether or not we should call policemen civilians or statesmen.
Policemen ARE IN FACT held on a different standard. They are employed to do what is unethical for everyone else to do, for example using force against drug users.
If you used force against non-violent criminals, you would be acting unethically whereas that same action would be ethical behavior if done by the police.
I asserted that normal people have virtually the same views on the use of force as ancaps when it comes to civilian to civilian ethics.
This argument is constantly being distorted by Ken B and Philippe as saying that I believe normal people have the exact same ethics as ancaps period.
I am not asserting any fallacy of composition. I am not saying that what is true for me or another person “must therefore” be true for everyone else. I am asserting an ethic that applies to all individuals.
It is a FACT that ancap ethics concerning just use of violence is almost identical to ethics almost all “citizens” believe in with respect to other “citizens”.
Completely true. It is why ancaps and non-ancap civilians are not shooting at each other, or using force against each other all over the country.
Ancaps and civilians get along, physically speaking, because their ethics vis a vis each other are almosy identical.
Law enforcement officers are NOT citizens according to ancaps. If ancaps claim this or that about civilians, and they don’t include cops in that group, then it is absolutely absurd to believe you are refuting the argument by disagreeing with the definition of civilian.
Most people do in fact believe in ancap ideas on ethical behavior between individuals. They clearly do agree with “ancap ethics concerning the just use of violence… with respect to other “citizens”.
In ancapistan, it would in fact be unethical if I started caging drug users on their own property, since the landowners decide what they can do on their own land in ancapistan.
Most people agree with ancap ethics in the sphere of civilian to civilian interactions.
Cops are not considered civilians in ancap theory. Even if we define them as civilians, then the ancap argument will just become “ancap ethics is accepted by most people in the sphere of ‘civilian minus cops’ to ‘civilian minus cops’ interactions.”
Philippe and Ken B have posted many claims that are clearly false as Reece was able to recognize.
Philippe:
You continue to assert false claims about ancapism.
It is NOT true that ancapism is a market in any and all law. Ancapism cannot logically admit non- or anti-ancap laws.
You are confused about ancapism. The market in ancap law concerns WHO provides the individual with security and protection. The market in law is not a market of anything goes. Anarcho-capitalism is not anarchism without caveats or restrictions.
The “capitalism” component of anarcho-capitalism means private property rights. Anarcho-capitalism cannot logically admit anti-capitalist laws.
The only gibberish is your straw men.
You are in fact misrepresenting my arguments.
Also, it is a fact that almost all of ancap ethics are already accepted by most people in the sphere of civizen to citizen ethical behavior.
Most people believe it is wrong for civilians to throw other civilians into cages for non-violent actions that the state considers crimes. Even if they were paid to do so, most people would agree with ancaps that it would be wrong.
Go down the list. Trespassing, theft, murder, harassment, pretty much everything ancaps regard as unethical, most people already accept as unethical between civilians. This is a fact. If you disagree, you deny facts.
Philippe:
Reece is not getting “bamboozled.”. He is just a superior logical thinker than you, and has superior reading comprehension skills.
You misread what I wrote in many places, and Reece was capable of seeing that. His reading is not a misreading. Yours is. Massively so, as shown above.
You claimed:
“In ancapistan private individuals and companies supposedly take law enforcement and judgement into their own hands.”
What does that mean EXACTLY?
Do those who believe to have or do have the tolerance or support of 51% of the population not still “taking the law into their own hands”? If not, why are homeowners who have the support of their families in the absence of a territorial monopoly?
All you’re really saying with ” talking the law into one’s own hands” is “not violence initiating territorial monopoly laws.”
Ancap laws are not only not “complete opposite” to what most people regard as just and ethical, but it is in fact the laws most people practise in the civilian to civilian interaction sphere.
In other words, in the daily lives of most people, they abide by and believe in ancap ethics.
You yourself abide by and believe in, in your day to day life with civilians, ancap ethics.
“It is in fact true that ancap ethics concerning just use of violence is almost identical to ethics almost all “citizens” believe in with respect to other “citizens”.”
Totally illogical garbage.
In ancapistan private individuals supposedly create, judge and enforce all laws. In the real world this is referred to as vigilantism or criminal behaviour.
Do most people create, judge and enforce their own laws? No. Do most people act like vigilantes or criminals? No. Do most people think that people should act in this way? No.
Do most people believe that law should be created by public government? Yes. Do most people think it should be enforced by law enforcement officers? Yes. Do most people think that public courts, such as the supreme court, should exist? Yes.
Your argument is completely illogical. It consists of saying that because most people do not think that people should behave as they do in ancapistan, and because most people do not support ancapistan ideas, this means that their ethics are almost identical to “ancap ethics”. It’s a ridiculous, pathetic, and obviously illogical argument.
(1) “I do NOT believe it is ethically justified to shoot someone dead if they steal an apple.”
vs
(2) “In ancapistan, it would in fact be unethical if I started caging drug users on their own property, since the landowners decide what they can do on their own land in ancapistan.”
So on the one hand you decide what ‘landowners’ can do on their land (1), and on the other hand you say that only landowners can decide what they can do on their own land (2) ??
Philippe:
“It is in fact true that ancap ethics concerning just use of violence is almost identical to ethics almost all “citizens” believe in with respect to other “citizens”.”
“Totally illogical garbage.”
Hahaha, I didn’t even make a logical syllogism that would even give you the opportunity to assess it as illogical or illoical.
It was in fact just a single statement of fact.
“In ancapistan private individuals supposedly create, judge and enforce all laws.”
You are not being specific enough. In ancap ethics, the only laws any one individual can “create, judge, and enforce” are laws for actions on their own lands.
I would not be permitted to “create, judge, and enforce” my laws on your land. On your land, you set the laws.
“In the real world this is referred to as vigilantism or criminal behaviour.”
Nothing wrong with vigilantism. Me defending my own person and property from hoodlums is “vigilantism”.
Criminal? Criminal according to what standard? Coercive and aggressive state laws that are themselves violations of property rights that ancaps know are unjust?
“Do most people create, judge and enforce their own laws?”
Yes. We call them house rules. My neighbor for example established a law in his own house. No drinking amd no swearing.
“Do most people act like vigilantes or criminals?”
Do most people have a RIGHT to act as a property rights respecting vigilante? Yes.
“Do most people think that people should act in this way?”
Yes. Most people do in fact consider it ETHICAL for them to enforce their house rules.
“Do most people believe that law should be created by public government? Yes.”
Do most people believe there are laws that all governments should enforce regardless of what the majority believe? Yes.
“Do most people think it should be enforced by law enforcement officers?”
Do most people think it is ethically justified for them to defend their persons and property from initiations of violence from other civlians? Yes.
“Do most people think that public courts, such as the supreme court, should exist?”
Do most people think that civilians should be permitted, if they so choose, to settle their disputes with other civilians if that is what both sides want? Yes.
“Your argument is completely illogical.”
No, it isn’t. It is completely logical.
Your beliefs are illogical. Your beliefs are contradictory.
My argument is about civilian to civilian ethics. How civilians directly treat other civilians. I am not talking about how states treat civilians. I am talking about how civilians treat each other.
The way most civilians believe they ought to treat each other, is in fact almost identical with ancap ethics.
You keep misinterpreting this to be an argument about what most people believe a state can and cannot do.
You keep avoiding my argument and you keep attributing to me an argument I never made.
For the millionth time, my argument is that what most people regard as ethical and unethical behavior BETWEEN CIVILIANS, is virtually identical to ancap ethics.
Do you get it now?
Look at how YOU AND I treat each other. You and I agree almost fully with regards to just use force BETWEEN YOU AND I. You and me, how you and I treat each other, we almost fully agree about what constitutes unethical and ethical behavior. There are some minor differences, like how long of a time must pass before you regard stepping foot on my land as trespassing versus peaceful appropriatio, but for the most part, you and I agree as to what is ethical and unethical behavior between you and I, that is, how you and I interact with each other.
“It consists of saying that because most people do not think that people should behave as they do in ancapistan, and because most people do not support ancapistan ideas, this means that their ethics are almost identical to “ancap ethics”. It’s a ridiculous, pathetic, and obviously illogical argument.”
That is not my argument. Again, my argument is not that there is full agreement. For pity’s sake, there is not full agreement between statists. Agreeing that there should be a monopoly is only a tiny part of all that can be agreed with and disagreed with.
Ancap ethics and civilian to civilian ethics are almost identical.
Where there is difference is mainly whether or not civilian ethics should extend to protection of person and property.
Ancaps say yes.
You say there should be different ethics for different people, depending on their “job”, which is a circular argument because ” job” is defined as which ethics apply to which people. Policeman as a “job” is really “the ethics specific to this group of people wearing badges”.
“(1) “I do NOT believe it is ethically justified to shoot someone dead if they steal an apple.”
” vs”
“(2) “In ancapistan, it would in fact be unethical if I started caging drug users on their own property, since the landowners decide what they can do on their own land in ancapistan.”
“So on the one hand you decide what ‘landowners’ can do on their land (1), and on the other hand you say that only landowners can decide what they can do on their own land (2) ”
No, (2) is a statement about what a person cannot do on another person’s land.
Thanks Bob! That was very good.
Also, it was probably shorter than MF’s recent comments.
MF: (2) “the landowners decide what they can do on their own land in ancapistan.”
(1) “I do NOT believe it is ethically justified to shoot someone dead if they steal an apple.”
Given that you say landowners decide what they can do on their land in ancapistan, are they allowed to shoot someone dead, on their land, if they steal an apple?
Philippe:
I regard excessive punishment as a new introduction of aggression.
Land owners setting their own rules in ancapism cannot logically include aggression.
Ancaps disagree on this I think. But most accept eye for an eye principle so as to avpid new aggression.
MF – Nice reply. Yes, the “BETWEEN CIVILIANS” thing was mainly what I was arguing above, but you are correct that their original replies also claimed that you said this was true in all cases while you said nothing of the sort.
“I do NOT believe it is ethically justified to shoot someone dead if they steal an apple. I believe in eye for an eye ethics.” Thanks for this clarification. I didn’t want to argue that on your behalf when there are certain ancaps (*cough* Cantwell *cough*) that actually do hold this belief. This would mean you would not support shooting regular trespassers – another point where ancap ethics and the average person’s beliefs would allign, despite the contention above.
Philippe – “So on the one hand you decide what ‘landowners’ can do on their land (1), and on the other hand you say that only landowners can decide what they can do on their own land (2) ??”
You’re missing the point. You can’t lob a missile onto my property even if you are on your land. Landowners can decide what to do on their own land as long as it doesn’t violate the property rights of other people. And I’m not just sneaking ancap ethics in here – on a civilian to civilian level, the vast majority of people do agree to this. If I go on your property and steal your stuff, most people would be fine with you defending your property with limited force. If I go on your property and smoke marijuana, most people would not be okay with you caging me for years. If you break my house rules, I can kick you out, but I can’t significantly harm you. Where ancaps and others disagree is mainly on government to civilian.
Your other response is much closer to the actual issue, but still off. Just look at your examples:
“Do most people create, judge and enforce their own laws? No. Do most people act like vigilantes or criminals? No. Do most people think that people should act in this way? No.” One of these have to do with government versus private enforcement (which MF conceded regular people differ on), another with vigilantes (your best point, but still weak; most people don’t support jailing the person that walks in and takes his TV back, and vigilantes are unlikely to get much support in ancapism – see Bob’s video), and one with criminals which doesn’t make sense at all (ancaps don’t support criminals).
“Do most people believe that law should be created by public government? Yes. Do most people think it should be enforced by law enforcement officers? Yes. Do most people think that public courts, such as the supreme court, should exist? Yes.” All government items, backing MF’s point.
No, Reece, MF’s argument is complete nonsense.
Do most people think that MF should decide what the law is, and enforce the law in whichever way he sees fit? No.
Does MF think that he should decide what the law is, and enforce it in whichever way he sees fit? Yes.
For some reason, MF believes that these diametrically opposed ethical positions are “almost identical”.
Philippe:
“No, Reece, MF’s argument is complete nonsense.”
You haven’t shown how my argument is nonsense.
All you have done is misinterpret my argument, and besides that you yourself believe in a contradictory, gobbledygook mess.
You have made claims of ancapism that are factually untrue. You have asserted I made arguments I did not in fact make.
“Do most people think that MF should decide what the law is, and enforce the law in whichever way he sees fit?”
I never claimed most people do think that. Again, straw man.
“Does MF think that he should decide what the law is, and enforce it in whichever way he sees fit?”
All laws have to be decided by someone. You believe your decision on which possible laws should and should not apply to me, should overrule my decision on which laws should and should not apply to me. You are merely trying oh so desperately to hide what you want behind a veil of “it is not me!” legitimacy of majority opinion.
I reject your version of ideal laws because they consist in part of initiations of force against innocent people’s persons and property.
But we agree almost fully on what constitutes ethical behavior BETWEEN YOU AND I.
“For some reason, MF believes that these diametrically opposed ethical positions”
The ethical positions are not diametrically opposed at all. I agree with most people and most people, including you, agree with me on almost all ethical norms in CIVILIAN life.
Your position is full fledged contradiction. The very ethics you believe binds your actions towards me, and my actions towards you, I agree with, but you contradict yourself and assert that what is unethical behavior between you and I, is ethical behavior for statesmen.
You tried to overcome this contradiction by presuming that contradictory ethics are permissible if people are paid for doing those actions, i.e. what you said is “their job.”
You have a contradictory worldview. X is unethical but X is ethical.
Philippe:
EVERYONE who believes that some laws should be enforced, do so “as they see fit.”
Do you really think that you are going about it differently by hanging your hat on what the majority wants when it suits you, and to think the laws should change when it doesn’t?
You deny me my own reason. You deny me thinking how laws can be changed for the better.
Attacking me for wanting to change the laws, undercuts everyone else, including you, in doing anything about improving laws, since improving laws means you think existing laws are suboptimal and should change.
You’re contradicting yourself on yet ANOTHER level.
“All laws have to be decided by someone.”
So do you think you should decide what they are?
Tell me who you think should decide.
Philippe:
The right question is not who, but what. What should decide. The what is reason.
You believe the what should be your faith in majority opinion.
Your previous post showed you are havinvg trouble distinguishing between the HOW laws are to be decided, from the CONTENT of laws.
My argument about how most people agree with almost all of what I cnconcerns the CONTENT of just laws, specificslly
Philippe:
The right question is not who, but what. What should decide. The what is reason.
You believe the what should be your faith in majority opinion.
Your previous post showed you are havinvg trouble distinguishing between the HOW laws are to be decided, from the CONTENT of laws.
My argument about how most people agree with almost all of what I consider to be just ethics concerns the CONTENT of just ethics, specifically civilian to civilian ethics.
You responded with saying that most people disagree with me on HOW just ethics are to become known.
Well duh. Of course most people disagree with me on the how, because most people are not philosophers or epistemologists. Most people do not do painstaking self-reflection on how to arrive at just ethics. Most follow what the mainstream philosophers and ethicists think, and/or what the statesmen think on the “how.”
I can disagree with you on HOW just ethics are known, but we csn agree on the CONTENT of just ethics.
You and I agree almost entirely on whatbis just ethics between you and I. You coming over to my house, or me yours, and we’ll agree almost fully on whether or not a specific action of one of us towards the other is ethical or unethical.
You are making a mountain out of a molehill. To you the state represents a very important, meaning of life driving institution. To disagree with you on the state is something you believe to be far more affecting than what is actually the case. If the state were abolished, we would still almost entirely agree on how we should and should not treat each other.
The state is just a large gang. Don’t let it run your life.
“we csn agree on the CONTENT of just ethics”
We do not agree on ‘the content of just ethics’.
“You and I agree almost entirely on whatbis just ethics between you and I.”
We do not agree on what is just ethics ‘between you and I’.
“What should decide. The what is reason.”
Decisions are made by humans.
Who do you think should decide?
Philippe:
“we can agree on the CONTENT of just ethics”
” We do not agree on ‘the content of just ethics’.”
Why did you cut off my sentence at that point? The rest of it said “between you and I.”
We can and do agree almost entirely on the content of just ethics between you and I. How you ought to treat me and how I ought to treat you, yes, we do in fact almost fully agree.
Do you know why that irks you? It is because it largely contradicts what you believe to be just ethics between others not you, and me. Specifically, men with badges and me. It contradicts and you seem to feel obligated to pretend you and I disagree with each other on how we should treat each other.
This is, by the way, another unintended negative side effect of statism. It encourages people who are not really enemies vis a vis each other, to believe they’re hostile antagonists. The state splits people up that way. It makes it seem like there is an inherent conflict of interest among men.
“You and I agree almost entirely on whatbis just ethics between you and I.”
“We do not agree on what is just ethics ‘between you and I’.”
Wow you are really having a difficult time being open and honest with yourself. I said we almost entirely agree on the content of just ethics between you and I.
I can prove it to you. You list all the ethical norms between you and I that you believe are just and unjust, specifically in terms of where you believe your use of force against me is justified, and examples of where it would be unjustified.
Now remember, this is an sk for when you believe you have a RIGHT to use force against me. Not when you actually “would” do so, that is, when you feel the courage, but in terms of the right to use force.
You tell me all the various scenarios of when you believe you have a right to use force against me, and then I’ll make a list. And then after a few more replies, we’ll have a list we agree with and disagree with.
I submit the lists will be almost identical.
“What should decide. The what is reason.”
“Decisions are made by humans.”
Using what means? That is the what I am referring to.
“Who do you think should decide?”
I already said that is the wrong question to ask. The right question is what should be the means. Majority whim? A person’s religion? Or some other means?
“The right question is what should be the means”
Reasoning leads to different conclusions, depending on your assumptions. Different people make different assumptions… they have different beliefs. Reasoning in itself does not resolve all differences of opinion.
So again the question is, who do you think should decide?
As you said: “All laws have to be decided by someone.”
You believe that you should be the one to decide, correct?
Philippe:
“Reasoning leads to different conclusions, depending on your assumptions.”
Not all assumptions are internally consistent.
Assumptions are not immune from discursive reasoning. Analyzing one’s assumptions using discursive reasoning is what you and Robert call “silly ancap word games.”
Robert makes the assertion that private charity “underfunds”. I ask underfunding according to what standard. I asked that to prompt him to explain his assumptions. He responds with “what is needed.” I then say needs are never fully satisfied as long as humans act, hoping that he would engage in self-reflection of his own assumptions.
Nope. We get “Silly word games.”
Ancap “assumptions” are, as far as I can tell, internally consistent, or at least does not suffer from the blatantly obvious internal contradictions of statist assumptions.
I welcome you to show how they are internally inconsistent.
“Different people make different assumptions… they have different beliefs. Reasoning in itself does not resolve all differences of opinion.”
Right, but Rationalism does. There is only one right way with Rationalism. We can be either wrong or right.
“So again the question is, who do you think should decide?”
Again, the right question is not who, but what. The what is reason.
“As you said: “All laws have to be decided by someone.”
Using what means though? That is the what.
“You believe that you should be the one to decide, correct?”
The one? No. You are capable of using self-reflection and Rationalism as well.
“I then say needs are never fully satisfied as long as humans act”
An assumption, on your part. Not an unreasonable one, but an assumption nonetheless.
“There is only one right way with Rationalism. We can be either wrong or right.”
And what you believe is that you are right and everyone who disagrees with you is wrong. Correct?
You believe that you know The Truth and as such you should be the one to decide the law. Correct?
As you said: “All laws have to be decided by someone.”
And you believe that you should be that someone. Correct?
Philippe:
“An assumption, on your part. Not an unreasonable one, but an assumption nonetheless.”
As I said, assumptions are not immune from discursive reasoning. Assumptions can be verified as apodictic.
That action consists of “needs satisfying”, is not merely a hypothetical subject to empirical testing. All empirical testing would themselves be actions, intended to satisfy a need, e.g. to seek truth, to feel good, to insult someone, whatever your psychological reasons.
“There is only one right way with Rationalism. We can be either wrong or right.”
“And what you believe is that you are right and everyone who disagrees with you is wrong. Correct?”
That is what everyone necessarily thinks, because you cannot logically disagree with someone you believed to be right.
I disagree with you, and you believe I am wrong. Do you honestly believe that is a coincidence?
“You believe that you know The Truth and as such you should be the one to decide the law.”
Now you’re just attacking my ability to know truth, and by extension anyone’s ability. That self-contradicts, because that claim about my ability is itself a claim to a truth.
You claim to know the truth of reality such that you assert ancapism is somehow flawed, and that this gives you some insight into the inner workings of the cosmos such that you should be the one to decide the law for me over my own person and property, overruling my convictions and my ideal laws over my person and property.
You believe you’re more intelligent and in a superior intellectual position than me, when it comes to my own body and property. You believe “True” law is coercive territorial monopoly law.
You hide all this behind verbiage of “majority rule”.
You believe a small group of people who acquired land by conquest and war, i.e. theft, to carry out protection against…conquest and war, i.e. theft.
You believe there must be a small group of people, subject to the whims of only 51% of the population, to decide, judge, and enforce laws of the persons and property of the other 49%. You want 51% to decide the way of life for 100%.
“As you said: “All laws have to be decided by someone.”
As I said, USING WHAT MEANS?
Those means are where ancap has something to say.
“And you believe that you should be that someone.”
As I said, reason should be the means by which decisions are made. Not just me. Reason is something you can use too.
Philippe:
Disagreeing with someone IS you believing them to be wrong. That is what disagreeing means.
That doesn’t necessarily mean that you must think you are right, but to disagree with someone is to declare their minds are not in the correct pattern.
OK MF and Philippe, I just had to delete like 3 comments each from you. C’mon.
This is not as bad as some of the stuff in the article but it gives an example of the power the state has.
3 years ago my son (who was 17 years old at the time) told me one day he didn’t want to go to school as he was feeling very stressed.
I took him to the doctor as I felt he might need some therapy and they gave him the option of some immediate medication and seeing a therapists in a week or so’s time (i got my healthcare thru a HMO and this was normal) or going to ER.
I chose to go to ER as I was concerned that my son’s feelings of anxiety had a physical cause or may need more immediate therapy.
After a long wait my son finally saw a psychiatrist. He came back accompanied by an armed guard. They had decided (based apparently on something my son had said) that he was a suicide risk. State law (I live in California) mandates that he be taken into an institution for observation. Both he and I were warned that any resistance to this “diagnosis” would result in us being physically restrained. (This was clearly why an armed-guard was needed).
I’m no doctor but I do not think that this was the best treatment for a 17 year-old suffering form social anxiety. He was kept in a secure institution with people who self-harmed and harmed others for almost a week. In my opinion he came back in a worse state than he went in.
He is mostly recovered now but I feel this episode did him real harm. It definitely caused me real psychic harm as at a time when I wanted to care for my son he was forcibly taken from me.
I am a white middle class male not used to overt state harassment but this brought it home to me how laws presumably passed in good-faith (I think they see this as a way of minimizing suicide risk) can result in very negative outcomes.
That’s terrible. Unfortunately, it’s not surprising, to me. I have an uncle that is schizophrenic, and getting him compassionate treatment when he’s not doing well is nearly an impossibility because of the State.
Not to excuse such stomach turning abuses (good thing I skipped lunch today), but many early attempts at medicine were pretty rough. Do some searching on early surgery and dentistry. Overall medicine has improved.
Many other technology also started out exceptionally dangerous, like the discovery of radiation for example, early chemistry, deep sea diving, jet aircraft, etc. I guess the victims of these discoveries were usually (mostly) volunteers… so it doesn’t seem quite as bad.
I think the much scarier thing is the concept that having the wrong political views makes you certifiably insane. This was common in the Soviet Union, but I can think of one well known economist who makes a regular habit of calling his political opponents insane. This is a most ungentlemanly practice.
Or cockroaches.
The article misses the opbvious point that the treatment of mental patients in the past was awful everywhere. There is no eivdence that they were treated any better in private hospitals. In fact private hospitals were usually religious run and many operated on the belief that mental illness was caused by devil possession. Had all the state hospitals been abolished, there is no reason to believe mental patients would have fared any better.
In fact mental health patients would be much worse off in a libertarian society where you only get what you pay for and those without money are tossed into the gutter.
It is also hysterical nonsense that if we implemtn Obamacare or state healthcare today we will end up with people getting hacked with ice picks. Its as daft as saying that unless we have a secular nation we will end up with the Inquisition and public burnings.
Why in a libertarian society would people who couldn’t pay get tossed in the gutter? On what grounds can you say this? There’s no way besides the giving money to the state to help these kinds of people? Wouldn’t this all depend on the morals and priorities of the free people who lived in this hypothetical society?
It’s funny that people, and not just people who are not an-caps, but simply supporters of the big government welfare, claim that without it everyone would be left to die in the gutter. Of course, they say, we all (or at the least the vast majority of us) agree that we should help these people but the only way (or at least the best way) it could be done is through involuntary taxation and big government welfare. No, no, it couldn’t possibly be done any other way. I mean I believe we should help these people but if the state isn’t involuntarily and automatically deducting money from my paycheck to do it then I just can’t be bothered to help.
The history of private charity is a history of underfunding. Sure people could in theory provide enough funds for mental illness, but this is never the case in reality. Charity gets focused on more glamorous cases than mental illness. Plus if we abolish the state we would reqyuire hundreds more private charities. Do you really believe they will all get as much as they need? That people will exponentially increase their charity giving to fill the gap? Or will they not just get fed up and worn out by the constant demands of charity?
Underfunding relative to what standard?
Utopia?
Underfunded compared to what is needed. To avoid overcrowding and provide a proper quality of life for the patients etc.
Needs? Needs can only be actually satisfied in Utopia. On Earth, where there is human action, needs are not fully satisfied because to fully satisfy needs would constitute an eradication of action.
Proper? Proper relative to what standard?
Is that the best you can do? Play silly word games?
“Play silly word games”
most ancap rhetoric in a nutshell.
It is not a silly word game. It is called critical analysis.
If you don’t know, admit it. It is better than fallaciously asserting that my probing your tacit and unstated premises is “playing word games.”
Philippe:
No, silly word games is statism in a nutshell. Freedom is slavery. War is peace. Ignorance is strength.
[Edited to calm down fighting.–RPM]
I care about each person being able to live their own lives without having to constantly pay for it to whatever begger comes around looking for handouts.
If no increase in charity occurs, I do not say that that is for the best, because that is a passive, capitulative approach that characterizes you statist’s thinking every time you analyze possible solutions to complex social problems. You sit back and wait for others to show you what human life is like.
My concern is about the charity I myself am capable of delivering, to the inevitably limited number of people whose lives I can reach. If I think more people should have more charity at the expense of myself, then I will make the decision for myself how much and to whom I will give.
You’re not benevolent or philanthropic by hiding behind the government’s skirts while they take against people’s will. You are not a charity giver by paying taxes. You have no moral high ground over those of us who while we pay taxes at the point of a gun, money that is claimed by you statists as needed to help the poor, that we still find it in our hearts to give to charity.
You don’t know me Ken B, [edited–RPM] You don’t know how much I volunteer at three separate charity institutions, have two foster children, and am a friendly visitor to a man with cerebral palsy, whom nobody else cares about.
If total charity goes up or if it goes down, don’t you dare tell me I don’t care. I care a lot and it is closely associated with my Aristotelian conviction that one cannot act charitably unless they are able to choose it, in other words, private property is necessary for charity and giving. You can’t give what you don’t own.
[Edited. –RPM]
MF if you think someone should be banned–and I understand your view–then at the very least you can ignore that person. If you and a few others keep responding to various critics, it’s hard for me to swoop in and ban them for disagreeing with you. It looks like there are genuine debates happening, albeit with groin kicks every few minutes. You’re making it ambiguous by continuing to maintain a discussion.
MF is bit highstrung. Like LK. Debate doesn’t have to be rancorous. It’ about error detection/correction, not combat.
You’re right.
But the outright lies and straw men…
States spread because of ignorance, right?
Evil can only spread when good men do nothing, right?
“You don’t know me Ken B,” I don’t. We’ve never met or discussed much.
Why then do you assume you know me? You don’t even know my political opinions, as proven by your inability to stop misrepresenting them.
Private charities have been “underfunded” because they can’t keep up with the rate at which the state creates poverty.
The state protects us from the vicissistudes of the free market except in the case of medical fashion. In these cases, it applies the new techniques with a vengeance. But even when the state momentarily surrenders to evil due to market corruption, reform is always at hand. Therefore, the state is always, ultimately, better than free markets red in tooth and claw.
Are you related to this Lee Wax?
http://img2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20110115222607/castletv/images/7/7b/Castle_s01e08_lee_wax.jpg
Best question of the day.
Unfortunately, not. 🙂
Hoiking out.
Philippe, I said. Medical ethics essentially forbade doctors criticizing each other. The ama would punish doctors who did so. Stating another doctor’s patient was wrongly treated before that patient consulted you was censurable. Appalling notion of proper ethics but most certainly those in force at the time.
yea but they just wanted to preserve slavery so they could maintain their freedom.
oops, wrong thread.
Excellent encapsulation of statism.
“Excellent encapsulation of statism”
so why are you guys so keen on the southern slaveocracy and their valiant fight against the modern world?
We aren’t. We’re “keen” on independence right down to the individual level.
This is not condoning slavery, lol. It is the opposite/
Philippe, there are a couple factors in play.
Austrians deny any sort of interpersonal utility comparison. This makes impossible any sort of proportional response. The harm you do me walking across my field vs beating you to death for, who can say which is worse. This drives their reasoning. Or at least the reasoning of the honest ones like Block.
This leads them to a binary notion of justified violence. If I walk on your field theycannot talk about relative harm etc. so they only have an on off switch. Let me elaborate why.
They see all rights as property rights. All of them. And the only criteria they can apply absent proportionality is infringement. Infringement is infringement is infringement; there are no degrees or severities. Binary.
So I am the aggressor here they say because I infringed. My infringement is no different in kind or severity from any other. And since all rights are property rights that includes rape. I can kill a man raping me or one walking on my lawn.
You can respond in any way at all to my infringement. Your property, no proportion, binary. So you can kill me for walking on your field.
“MF and Philippe, I just had to delete like three comments from each of you.”
Wait, wait. So what remains is edited best-of?