I know full well that you don't respect my opinion, although you might respect my right to express same.  I question even that, but you don't have any power to prevent it, so there it is.

That said, I can accept your concession.

Do I really need to point out that it's the lot of you guys that have been trying to impose your opinions of my parenting methods upon me?


Fine.  Come up with others, I'm willing to engage you on any front.

I bet you consider this to be a rational perspective, perhaps even an argument.

I consider it to be the seed of the tyrannical state.  What you are saying here is, "if I were king, you would be locked up or have your children removed from your home because I disagree with your parenting methods and consider you a bad parent."

Care to grow a bit, and approach this topic from an adult viewpoint?

I can't, that's the point.  Neither can you.  Believe it or not, we share a (general) philosophy; but it's an incomplete one.  Libertarianism (and all of it's variants) are based upon two central principles.

1) Property rights are paramount, are necessary for the functioning of a free society, are the roots of economic success, as well as the roots of all human rights because....

2) I own myself.

But why do I own myself?  Because I'm a rational, thinking adult; and therefore capable of understanding my rights & property, I'm capable of expressing those rights and demanding them from others, and responsible enough to respect those same rights in other people.

But children before a certain age cannot do these things.  So who owns them?  The question is not academic, and it's not one easily solved or ignored.  Literally speaking, it's easy enough to say that they own themselves even before they can assert that, but then who represents them until then?  This rabbit hole is deep.  If they own themselves as infants, and their parents hold their rights in escrow, who owns them before birth?  It's getting dark down here, isn't it?

I wouldn't consider it subjective, but you are free to ignore me all you like.  Still, I've made a claim that I can actually argue, although I haven't really tried yet.  You're the kind of person who makes a statement like it's obvious and anyone who disagrees must be Holocaust Denier material, and then you scutter off with your moral certitude.

If I am really wrong, wouldn't you have a moral obligation to, at a minimum, attempt to correct me?

How 'bout this one, the religious argument....

All children belong to God, and as the parent, I've been appointed by God to care for His property until they are of age.  So, while I cannot deliberately bring them (unjustifiable) harm, I must answer only to their true owner, God.  In His absence, I am the final arbitor of what is in the best interests of my own children.  Neither you guys, as individuals outside of my own family, nor society at large, has any authority over myself or my management of God's children in my care.  You literally have no 'standing' to interfere; not under your own philosophies or any other (except collectivism, but I hope that one is beyond consideration here, because I'd have a field day with anyone who is going to claim that my children belong to "the state" or "society").  This is because, while I don't own my children, I have a (supportable) claim to represent Him in this matter, while you do not.

The end result is exactly the same as if I used the (partial/economic) ownership-of-children theory, as is expressed well enough in The Diamond Age; or if I used the individual-rights-in-escrow theory expressed by a great many Libertarian philosophers in many different ways.  I, not you, gets to decide what is in the best interests of my own children.  Nor would I get to decide what is in the best interests of your children, once you have some.  I've personally seen (quite literally) dozens of young people express these same kind of ideological sentiments, only to toss it all out the window once their first child enters the "terrible twos" (which is really the terrible threes)

What you might consider emotionally terrifying or to be (unjustifiable) physical harm is entirely irrelevant.

I wish they were as articulate as you seem to think that they are.  I've seen the documents that they are regurgitating, and they aren't even doing a partcularly good job of that.

Maybe I am trolling a bit, maybe not.  Find the flaws in my reasoning, and debate or admit that you don't have a rebuttal.

That's a good question, care to expound upon it, or are you going to accept my statements as gospel?

Take it how you like, but I've not deleted anything.

EDIT: Well, I have now.

Well of course having many children does not give me license to choose corporal punishment as a disiplinary option.  It's the fact that they are mine that does so.  And yes, they are mine.  They literally belong to me, in every philsophical sense.  I created them, thus they are mine.  I nurtured them, thus I have "comigiled" my human labor time with developing them into what they are today, thus they are mine.  They are too young to express knowledge of, and therefore claim, human rights of self-ownership; thus they do not have self-ownership, and therefore my own cliams to ownership are superior to any others.

Granted, I can't destroy my children, like I could for something that I really own, but there exists not one self-consistant philisophical definition of "human", "person" etc within any version of libertarian thought that deals with children younger than the age of reason.  For that matter, none even have a cosnsitant way to determine whin a child has arrived at the "age-of-reason".  A child that I can reason with is not a child anymore, but i remain responsible for their public failures until they are 18, so if I'm respnsible for them, in some fashion I still own them under the law.

Let the bitching commence.

Ah, now we are getting into some rarified philosophical air.  I'm going to have to split this thread.

By what logic to you come to such a conclusion?  Are you basing this off of population growth, or something else?

I concur.  Don't waste your time on that guy.

I do realize this, actually, and I act accordingly.  I use corporal punishment rather sparingly, far less than most I imagine; but I take offense to the implication that I'm not morally correct in doing so as a parent.  You don't get to choose what is in the best interests of my children, I do. 

I don't have to do either.  history is already on my side, just not in Graeber's mind.  You made this reference, it's up to you to argue that it's correct.  I don't personally care what you believe, but to just say "Graeber says this" is committing the 'appeal to authority' falacy using someone I do't even view as a an authority on the matter.

Well, I watched about half of it, and that is about all that I'm willing to take.  While I respect Stefan for his philisophical positions, on this one he is just full of shit.  He's presenting it as a failure (of the parent) to prepare.  While this might be true enough in certain (strawman) situations; such as the particualr one that started the video (i.e. How do I get my kid to leave teh playground without resorting to violence), it's quite impossible to predict all of the situations that your toddler might find hismeslf in.  It's also an unfair statement to state taht behavior conditioning in advance of life threatening conditions isn't a mannor of preperation, particularly when your the parent, in public, with five children.  Getting a toddler to leave a public playground due to a time constraint certainly doesn't qualify as conditoning for a life threatining situtation, and ultimately alswasy involves some degree of the use of force by the parent.  Even Stefan will eventually pick up his toddler (agaisnt his own will) and force him to abide, even if there is no physical pain involved.  From Stefan's own philosphical viewpoint, this is violence if it's one adult doing it to another, so it thus must be violence when done to a toddler as well.  Stefan, himself, is a bit of a contradiction in this point.  In the end, the differences between stefan (as a "non-violent" parent) and myself is simply a matter of degree, as he prefers not to use pain as a method of behavior conditioning.  That's his preference, and he is welcome to it.  But give him 5 kids, three in diapers, put him in a public place and make him responsible for their well being, and he might jsut reconsider his options due to the practical non-availability of other options (mostly due to time and attention).  Keep in mind that even though there are two children over the age of reason there to help, he can't really compell them to aid in his parental duties either.  That was, (and largely remains) my world (only two still in diapers, and that only because I've got a 3 year old boy who doesn't care to learn to use the toilet).

That said, we don't spank the two tots.  But this is because 1) they were adopted from an abusinve home (as in real abuse, arbitrary & severe violence) and 2) we have a contract witht he state to not employ corporal punishments; and we (obviously) don't spank the infant either, she can't get into anything anyway. (yet)  But make no mistake, chosing to remove corporal punishments from the toolbox is to deliberately remove an effective parenting tool for which parents do have the right to employ.  There is such a thing as justifiable use of force; and i will certainly use it, as a last resort, to condition my children to associate the memory of pain with dangerous endeavors.  Certainly, it would be preferable to be able to reason with them or otherwise keep them out of harms way without resorting to such conditioning, but that is not always possible

<cough> No sorry.  Money is the most liquid good in a barter economy, and arises naturally.  And it does so, so quickly that there is no recorded example of a stable barter economy; at least not in the sense that some form of commodity didn't function as the monetary "change" in a barter transaction.  There are plenty of examples of societies that evolved money well before any need to raise or mobilize an army, even before the invention of writing in order to record same.

Nonsense.  Should I permit a toddler to stick his hand into the blue light on the top of the stove, so that he remembers not to do it again, or would the much less permanent harm that a spanking causes him help his young (and not very rational) mind to remember to leave the blue light alone?  Sure, I can reason with an eight year old, and teach them a safe way to cross the street, but if a three year old is inclined to run away at any opprotunity, not using the non-permanent pain of a spanking in order to instill a healthy fear of vehicular traffic is the parental failure.

I shouldn't even have to use the "don't pee on the electrical outlet" example.  A toddler can not be reasoned with, as they have no more capacity to understand the risks than a puppy does.  How do I train the puppy to stay in the yard (and thus away from traffic and other harm)?  By using a collection of positive and negative results to it's actions via treats for desirable behaviors and judicious use of pain for undesireable behaviors.  The goal with children is to instil a rudimentary concept of consquences so that the child might just live to the age of reason unmaimed by his own actions, but the methods are similar.  This is not abuse.  To fail to do so, or at least attempt to do so, is neglect.

I really get tired of this kind of bs coming from people who obviously never had children.

I can scan anything with the camera on my Android smartphone, and do it all the time.  Works great for hunting for resalable treasures at yard sales.  Amazon even offers a specialized app that lets you scan any object's code, and check the price on Amazon.  Every once in a while I'll hit a yard sale where some old biddy is selling off her collection of old books, and if her price is less than half of the "buy it used" price on Amazon, I'll buy it with the intent of offering on Amazon.

There is no reason whatever to favor a $10 dedicated scanning device when it won't be much longer before a majority of cell phones can do this anyway.