Re: extropians-digest V5 #340

From: Michael S. Lorrey (mlorrey@datamann.com)
Date: Tue Dec 12 2000 - 08:47:35 MST


Jerry Mitchell wrote:
>
> Im only going to hit on the first paragraph here as an in depth breakdown
> would take WAY to long.
>
> >One of the libertarian's favorite slogans is "taxation is theft", but the
> counter is "property is theft". Who's right? Depends on your values,
> actually.
>
> Property is theft? How can anything be "stolen" from anybody when no-one can
> own anything?

You own yourself. Thus, your labor belongs to you, and the products of
it also belong to you. Any material good, resource, etc. that can be
purchased in free trade with the product of your labor therefore
represents an extension of you. Thus property rights go hand in hand
with the abolition of the concept of slavery. If you deny property
rights, then humans are slaves who do not own themselves and have no
natural rights. Thus property rights prove the illogic of the following
statement:

>
> >If you think private property is the basis for hierarchical enslavement of
> the masses, you'd say the latter.
>
> Private property isnt a "system" as your implying... Its the right to life ,
> made concrete. A person needs to make things to stay alive. They need to
> control items in their environment to not starve to death. The limit of
> thier action is the boundary of the other person's rights. The "science" of
> law is the attempt to discover this boundary as clearly as possible.

Uh, no, not quite. Commercial and possibly civil law is as you describe.
Criminal law is not, it deals with actions that the state has deemed to
be crimes against the state. When you murder someone and are tried for
murder, the crime you are tried for is not against the victim, but
against the 'natural order' that the state imposes, an attempt to deny
the monopoly of force which the state dictates as its own. Your use of
force is a violation of their monopoly power.

>
> >By what standard is anything judged? My standards aren't accepted by
> everyone.
>
> You premise here is that standards are not objective. I havent met a person
> yet that doesnt follow the standard of gravity. I can sum up this
> nonsensical line of thinking this way. If you want to say that the universe
> is subjective, then you just tried to make an objective statment about the
> universe. Naturally this is self contridictory.

Of course, but they do insist that man is artificial. At least they are
consistent in this.



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