Intellectual Property - In All Fairness!

[MoonShadow]

Opting out is facilitating the bomb makers.  That's aggression.

Opting out is never aggression, no matter what risks that creates for others.  You have a strange concept of the term.

Sorry if you do something that results in deaths, that is aggression.  

Only if you do something that is intended to result in deaths.  Intent matters.  It may, or may not, be predictable.  But if the person doing the action of opting out does not do it with the intent of causing harm, and does not agree with your opinion that people will be killed as a direct consequence, it's not aggression.

Intent matters - and the intent to live matters a lot.  If you are going to take an action that facilitates the killing of people, those people might well feel that their intent to live matters more than your intent to ignore the consequences of your actions.  

What evidence do you have that my desire to buy a half ton of fertilizer will lead to any other result than a beautiful fall harvest?  Who are you to increase my costs, or restrict my options in my persuit of legitimate uses of my funds.  Why must I prove to you that I'm a gardener and not a terrorist? 

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[Hawker]

Moonshadow you do like long posts  

Even in the hands of terrorists, firearms are essentially just a nuisance.  In the UK, they are banned and the main effect is that people who commit suicide use ropes.  In the US, you have guns and from what I hear, they do less harm than road traffic accidents.  Correct me if I am wrong.

You are not wrong.  I, for one, have never harmed any living thing with thousands of fired rounds, excluding plantlife and the occasional earthworm in my target background.

 In Ireland I had guns; here I don't; its not a big deal for me to be honest as there is almost no access to land to shoot on here unless you are really prepared to spend money.

Bombs are different as a bomber can plant his weapon, drive off and kill 20 or so people at a time.  Often you'll never know who planted it.  Look at the Omagh bombing - no-one has ever been jailed for killing 29 people.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omagh_bombing

They make trips to schools, churches, bars, hospitals and the like all into high risk locations.  So I'd prefer people not have access to bombs.  This applies with even greater force to nukes, biological weapons like smallpox and chemical weapons.

You avoided the question completely.  Where does a civil society draw the line?  Is it arbitrary, or is there some kind of natural principle that defines the differences between a weapon such as a shotgun and a home defense system that involves lethal & automatic traps, such as a miltary grade anti-personnel mine?  If you say that bombs that are made for that purpose are prohibited, such as the above mine; what about materials that hold the potential to make make-shift bombs?   Can such things be reasonablely regulated?  Would doing so actually prevent bombmakers from obtaining said materials?  Has the prohibition on handguns in the UK actually prevented criminals in the UK from obtaining them?  Has it prevented criminals from committing violent crimes, or have those same criminals just switched to other weapons such as blugeons and knives?  Would a prohibition on (nitrogen based) fertilizer in the UK prevent car bombs, or just lead to their construction from other available materials?  Should high school chemistry (where anyone paying enough attention can learn how to make a bomb from many common materials) be prohibited?  Would it help?

Its hard to make general rules.  It will vary by what is practical.  Regulating fertiliser sales means that if you buy over a certain amount of fertiliser, it gets recorded.  Farmers and gardeners suffer no inconvenience - they don't have to prove they intend to use it for legit purposes.  Whereas if you were to buy several tons of ammonium nitrate fertiliser and not have a farm, you'd have the anti-terror police checking you out very quickly.  

The good thing about this is we know it works.  Instead of being daily events, car bombs because once every few years events.

[FredericBastiat]

You don't actually understand the phrases you are adding.

We exist.  Our societies exist. We have the power to decide and we know the consequences of failing to act.  The knowledge is based on experience of real bombing campaigns that were brought to an end. To call acting based on facts "appeal to ignorance" suggests you are trying to change the subject.

Read this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_ignorance

Then stay on topic please.

You continually draw conclusions from very narrowly defined axioms, assuming them, for the most part, to be the only option available, and if I disagree, I must be wrong and you are right. I disagree. It can be proven that there is more than "to regulate" or "not to regulate".

I get the fact that wielding force is convenient for you. However, nobody likes to be on the receiving end of your "big stick". You say it saves lives. It does to some extent, but then so do lobotomies. I hear you become very docile after one of those. I suggest doing neither.

[Hawker]

So if I shoot you in the head without the intent to kill you, it's not aggression.

If I detonate a nuke on my front lawn to make a hole for a koi pond, it doesn't matter that I killed 15 million people, it's not aggression.


What you do idiots don't seem to realize about deontology is that intent is not the ONLY thing that matters.  Drowning your kids because you think it'll make them all go to heaven (true story) is NOT ok just because you had good intentions.  Intent should be considered, but results are ultimately what determines whether the right thing or wrong thing was done.

Both intent and outcome matter. The results are matter of fact. Whether that outcome (the resultant) is right or wrong is what deontology addresses. They are 'is-ought' concerns.

Finally something sensible.  We have the power to decide these things.  We choose to use it to save lives.  That's the "is" and your assertion that we ought not to use the power we have is the "ought."

My puzzle with you has been whether your "ought" is important enough that we can ignore the reality that we don't like being bombed.  So far, is a "no" I'm afraid.  Being bombed is mighty unpleasant and I feel that if we as a society fail to protect ourselves from bombs, life will be nasty, brutish and short.

[fergalish]

The gun is the only personal weapon that puts a 100-pound woman on equal footing with a 220-pound mugger, a 75-year old retiree on equal footing with a 19-year old gang banger, and a single guy on equal footing with a carload of drunk guys with baseball bats. The gun removes the disparity in physical strength, size, or numbers between a potential attacker and a defender.
<snip>

But a gun doesn't put anyone on equal footing with a gang of armed thugs.

So, we'll allow automatic pistols.  An automatic pistol might put you on an equal footing with a gang of armed thugs.

But not with a gang of automatic-pistol-armed thugs.

So we'll allow machine guns.  dot dot dot

As long as the gang can arm itself the same as you, your gun does not put you on an equal footing.

If it's just physical strength, a strong person can only threaten one person at a time, and cannot menace a group.  With weapons, any person can menace many people simultaneously.

You asked where we should stop.  If I had to draw the line, I would permit only human-powered weapons.  Anyone's ability to menace would be only in a small area around them (as wide as the biggest stick they could carry, for example).  Bows-and-arrows and crossbows would be a grey area - they're not close-combat weapons, but they are still human powered.

Why don't you ask b2c or Fred if they will condemn an unqualified person who carries a nuke around with them.  Or - just read back a few pages.  They have already expressed themselves abundantly clearly.  Now - this litigation - where does it take place?  Which court?  Who enforces the verdict?

I assume they would condemn it, but they are not government.

No.  They wouldn't.  I looked for their comments on this, but it was taking too long.  If you don't believe me, search for it or ask them again.

[Hawker]

You don't actually understand the phrases you are adding.

We exist.  Our societies exist. We have the power to decide and we know the consequences of failing to act.  The knowledge is based on experience of real bombing campaigns that were brought to an end. To call acting based on facts "appeal to ignorance" suggests you are trying to change the subject.

Read this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_ignorance

Then stay on topic please.

You continually draw conclusions from very narrowly defined axioms, assuming them, for the most part, to be the only option available, and if I disagree, I must be wrong and you are right. I disagree. It can be proven that there is more than "to regulate" or "not to regulate".

I get the fact that wielding force is convenient for you. However, nobody likes to be on the receiving end of your "big stick". You say it saves lives. It does to some extent, but then so do lobotomies. I hear you become very docile after one of those. I suggest doing neither.

Actually people do like it.  Being bombed isn't fun.  Really, your ideas ignore the fact that having a bomb tear your town apart is really really unpleasant.  Its also unpleasant that you feel that people should not regulate things that are being used to kill them.  Admittedly its not important as no-one will die for your ideas.

Its a logical fallacy to compare regulating the sale of fertiliser with forced lobotomies.  At least you haven't started comparing it to slavery    You already know that so why bother raising a silly distraction.

[MoonShadow]

You avoided the question completely.  Where does a civil society draw the line?  Is it arbitrary, or is there some kind of natural principle that defines the differences between a weapon such as a shotgun and a home defense system that involves lethal & automatic traps, such as a miltary grade anti-personnel mine?  If you say that bombs that are made for that purpose are prohibited, such as the above mine; what about materials that hold the potential to make make-shift bombs?   Can such things be reasonablely regulated?  Would doing so actually prevent bombmakers from obtaining said materials?  Has the prohibition on handguns in the UK actually prevented criminals in the UK from obtaining them?  Has it prevented criminals from committing violent crimes, or have those same criminals just switched to other weapons such as blugeons and knives?  Would a prohibition on (nitrogen based) fertilizer in the UK prevent car bombs, or just lead to their construction from other available materials?  Should high school chemistry (where anyone paying enough attention can learn how to make a bomb from many common materials) be prohibited?  Would it help?

Its hard to make general rules.  It will vary by what is practical.  Regulating fertiliser sales means that if you buy over a certain amount of fertiliser, it gets recorded.  Farmers and gardeners suffer no inconvenience - they don't have to prove they intend to use it for legit purposes.  Whereas if you were to buy several tons of ammonium nitrate fertiliser and not have a farm, you'd have the anti-terror police checking you out very quickly.  

The good thing about this is we know it works.  Instead of being daily events, car bombs because once every few years events.

Then determined bombers will make deals with like-minded farmers, or organize a group of like-minded persons to buy smaller quantites across many vendors and time periods so as to avoid raising the red flags.  It is a fatal conceit to assume that this is the reason that car bombs have reduced in the UK.  It may, or may not, be a contributing factor.  Much more likely is that the effectiveness of UK police in undercover operations has identified those who would pursue such tactics and delt with them already or that the grievences against the UK have either been resolved (in the case of the Irish independence movement) or overshadowed by the grievences against the US and Israel. (as might be the case of Islamic motives)  Or just simply that the population of would be bombers still free and alive to do such things has been reduced.  Most likely a combination of all these factors, but corrolation is not causation.

[Hawker]

You avoided the question completely.  Where does a civil society draw the line?  Is it arbitrary, or is there some kind of natural principle that defines the differences between a weapon such as a shotgun and a home defense system that involves lethal & automatic traps, such as a miltary grade anti-personnel mine?  If you say that bombs that are made for that purpose are prohibited, such as the above mine; what about materials that hold the potential to make make-shift bombs?   Can such things be reasonablely regulated?  Would doing so actually prevent bombmakers from obtaining said materials?  Has the prohibition on handguns in the UK actually prevented criminals in the UK from obtaining them?  Has it prevented criminals from committing violent crimes, or have those same criminals just switched to other weapons such as blugeons and knives?  Would a prohibition on (nitrogen based) fertilizer in the UK prevent car bombs, or just lead to their construction from other available materials?  Should high school chemistry (where anyone paying enough attention can learn how to make a bomb from many common materials) be prohibited?  Would it help?

Its hard to make general rules.  It will vary by what is practical.  Regulating fertiliser sales means that if you buy over a certain amount of fertiliser, it gets recorded.  Farmers and gardeners suffer no inconvenience - they don't have to prove they intend to use it for legit purposes.  Whereas if you were to buy several tons of ammonium nitrate fertiliser and not have a farm, you'd have the anti-terror police checking you out very quickly.  

The good thing about this is we know it works.  Instead of being daily events, car bombs because once every few years events.

Then determined bombers will make deals with like-minded farmers, or organize a group of like-minded persons to buy smaller quantites across many vendors and time periods so as to avoid raising the red flags.  It is a fatal conceit to assume that this is the reason that car bombs have reduced in the UK.  It may, or may not, be a contributing factor.  Much more likely is that the effectiveness of UK police in undercover operations has identified those who would pursue such tactics and delt with them already or that the grievences against the UK have either been resolved or overshadowed by the grievences against the US and Israel.  Or just simply that the population of would be bombers still free and alive to do such things has been reduced.  Most likely a combination of all these factors, but corrolation is not causation.

With respect, this is not something we need to debate.  It worked.  Immediately.  The bombers didn't go away and when Libya sent supplies of Semtex they were a nightmare again.  But fertiliser based bombs were dealt with. 

It demeans your logic when you try to ignore facts.  Just saying....

[fergalish]

He's not being black-and-white.

Yes he was. He was saying we must have government regulation of fertilizer sales and concludes that that saves lives, conversely if he says we don't have government regulation he concludes people will die.

Well, history has clearly shown that pre-emptive regulation of fertiliser sales saves lives.  Is it not logical that the greatest power in the land would be the most effective at regulating the trade?  And if that force is nation-wide, then the regulation will be nation-wide too.

It can be proven that there is more than "to regulate" or "not to regulate".

A regulation cannot admit anything other than complete regulation.  Sure - there are more *options* available, e.g. regulation, partial regulation, non-regulation, deregulation, etc.... but if you choose the first option you cannot permit any of the others, while if you choose one of the others, you may or may not permit others.  So I would say, the options are: "regulated" or "less than fully regulated" and nothing else.

Now, please define "violence", "defend", "imminent", "perceived", "threat", "life", "health", "property", "damage", "honour", "contract", "obligations", starting with the ones in boldface.

Yeah, I've done that one, take a look here:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=18489.msg351447#msg351447

I read this, and it's almost written in legalese -- there are some sentences I don't understand.  But let's start with this:

7.   Force is the means –proportionate to the aggression– to obstruct, inhibit or extirpate the Rights of any man who interferes with or imminently threatens the Rights of other men.

You didn't define "threatens", "defend", "violence".  Please do so.  Also:

4.   Rights Violations are unprovoked physical aggressions (UPAs) initiated by man against another, or Breaches of Contract (BOCs), resulting in an incontrovertible diminishment in one’s Rights.

What about controvertible diminshments?  (as usual, assume that there is no contract addressing the particular circumstances).

Sorry, in short, we had a lot of colonists, by heir own choice, take huge risks to try something new. Many of them died of disease, starvation, and winter. In the end, they learned how to live here, humanity learned about a new continent, and established a new country. Progress.

So, suppose you get your liberty-land.  Because there is no taxation, there would be no standing army.  Now suppose a foreign power invades, eliminates you and yours, uses the experience to learns and establishes a new colony.  Is that progress?

[fergalish]

Regrettably I'm going to have to bow out of this debate for a while - it's taking up too much of my time.  It's great fun and I'd love to continue, but I'm satisfied that, at least as b2c and Fred present it, libertarianism is fundamentally flawed.  For example, in liberty-land:

1. Any person may use mortal violence to defend from any perceived mortal threat, or injurious violence from any perceived injurious threat; and any person may carry mortal weapons at any time.  One person's right gives another the right to kill him.  You might be doing something perfectly legitimate, and yet another can legitimately kill you for doing it.

2. You must make irrational economic decisions based on some arbitrary morality which other people may or may not adhere to.

3. To enjoy a reasonable level of safety in your own property, your only choice is to pay a security tax to some private police force and hope they keep a watch on fertiliser producers all over the world, making sure they do background checks on all their clients (though they are not obliged to do so), then checking all produce and people travelling near your territory to see if anyone has a bomb.  And if they *do* have a bomb, well, whaddyaknow, they are free to do so, so the security team has to follow them day and night and just wait until they stop merely *holding* the bomb and actually start "threatening" with it - whatever that might mean, bearing in mind that the interval between starting to threaten and actually detonating could be far far far far far less than the reaction time of the security company.

4. There is no limit to permissible behaviour - anything arbitrarily dangerous is permitted, as long as there is no intentional menace to others.  Competence, mental stability, physical ability, are of no consequence as long as the buyer can convince the seller that he intends no harm.  You could juggle live grenades in the street as long as the street owner didn't think of prohibiting that and, of course, as long as you don't intend to *deliberately* drop any.  You could randomly shoot your gun while blindfolded in the street with impunity as long as you don't deliberately intend to hit anyone.

5. Any justice, any justice at all, will always be bought.  The enforcement of that justice will be bought as well.  The wealthier (=strongest) members of society will have access to more powerful justice.  Poorer members can only hope that the wealthy do not use abuse their greater power to subjugate them.

6. There will be no stability to one's life; when the terms&conditions of neighbouring property changes in such a way as to become intolerable to you, you must sell and move elsewhere.

7. There is no guaranteed minimum access to healthcare, other than what an individual can fully pay for.  You could join a 'healthcare cooperative' of some kind, and hope that it honours its contract with you.  If not, paid justice will prevail.

8. There is no guaranteed level of safety anywhere, other than what the owner of a property is willing to offer.  Even then, there is no way to be certain that he will follow the code.  Even in cases where he proclaims membership of some paid private-standards group, it is not known if he actually follows the stated code or even if he actually is a member of the standards group at all.

[MoonShadow]

The gun is the only personal weapon that puts a 100-pound woman on equal footing with a 220-pound mugger, a 75-year old retiree on equal footing with a 19-year old gang banger, and a single guy on equal footing with a carload of drunk guys with baseball bats. The gun removes the disparity in physical strength, size, or numbers between a potential attacker and a defender.
<snip>

But a gun doesn't put anyone on equal footing with a gang of armed thugs.

So, we'll allow automatic pistols.  An automatic pistol might put you on an equal footing with a gang of armed thugs.

But not with a gang of automatic-pistol-armed thugs.

So we'll allow machine guns.  dot dot dot

As long as the gang can arm itself the same as you, your gun does not put you on an equal footing.

If it's just physical strength, a strong person can only threaten one person at a time, and cannot menace a group.  With weapons, any person can menace many people simultaneously.

You asked where we should stop.  If I had to draw the line, I would permit only human-powered weapons.  Anyone's ability to menace would be only in a small area around them (as wide as the biggest stick they could carry, for example).  Bows-and-arrows and crossbows would be a grey area - they're not close-combat weapons, but they are still human powered.

Okay, now we are getting somewhere.  So human powered melee weapons are valid, whether they are small enough to hide on one's own person or not?  And human powered projectile weapons are questionable, but what about the pump-type pellet rifles? Is there a limit to the size of a human pumped air rifle?  What is the principle that you make this determination upon, or is it simply an arbitrary decision based upon your own opinons?  I assume that a saber or a foil would be acceptable?  What about a hand cranked taser?

[MoonShadow]

Regrettably I'm going to have to bow out of this debate for a while - it's taking up too much of my time.  It's great fun and I'd love to continue, but I'm satisfied that, at least as b2c and Fred present it, libertarianism is fundamentally flawed. 

This from a completely un-biased view, lacking any preconceptions about what libertarianism is, what it represents or who might best represent it; of course.

[MoonShadow]

Then determined bombers will make deals with like-minded farmers, or organize a group of like-minded persons to buy smaller quantites across many vendors and time periods so as to avoid raising the red flags.  It is a fatal conceit to assume that this is the reason that car bombs have reduced in the UK.  It may, or may not, be a contributing factor.  Much more likely is that the effectiveness of UK police in undercover operations has identified those who would pursue such tactics and delt with them already or that the grievences against the UK have either been resolved or overshadowed by the grievences against the US and Israel.  Or just simply that the population of would be bombers still free and alive to do such things has been reduced.  Most likely a combination of all these factors, but corrolation is not causation.

With respect, this is not something we need to debate.  It worked.  Immediately.  The bombers didn't go away and when Libya sent supplies of Semtex they were a nightmare again.  But fertiliser based bombs were dealt with.  

It demeans your logic when you try to ignore facts.  Just saying....

Present your facts, or they didn't happen.

[FredericBastiat]

Finally something sensible.  We have the power to decide these things.  We choose to use it to save lives.  That's the "is" and your assertion that we ought not to use the power we have is the "ought."

My puzzle with you has been whether your "ought" is important enough that we can ignore the reality that we don't like being bombed.  So far, is a "no" I'm afraid.  Being bombed is mighty unpleasant and I feel that if we as a society fail to protect ourselves from bombs, life will be nasty, brutish and short.

You have the power to decide to do what you're going to do with your person and your property (and with those you've contracted with). You should not decide for others. That is the very definition of aggression. Go right ahead and start a private society and incorporate your version of rules you want to dictate.

Of course, you'd have to own all of the land and resources in that society (or obtain consent for them) to dictate what types of use may be allowed. However, if you don't have the ownership rights to the land and resources, then you can't regulate. Besides, I don't know of many serfs that would be interested in being subjects of yours, but hey, go ahead and try it and see how it goes.

You ought to use the power only upon those things which you rightfully have claim to.
You ought not to use power to subjugate others to your will, sans aggression.

See the diff?

[NghtRppr]

The key thing is that we have to choose.  The ability to make the decision exists and its a question of what appears most sensible.

What seems sensible to you seems absurd to me.

[fergalish]

Okay, now we are getting somewhere.  So human powered melee weapons are valid, whether they are small enough to hide on one's own person or not?  And human powered projectile weapons are questionable, but what about the pump-type pellet rifles? Is there a limit to the size of a human pumped air rifle?  What is the principle that you make this determination upon, or is it simply an arbitrary decision based upon your own opinons?  I assume that a saber or a foil would be acceptable?  What about a hand cranked taser?

It's an arbitrary decision based on my own opinions.  As are ALL other expressions of 'acceptable weapons' in this forum.  The only one that's not arbitrary is the one that follows the law, because everyone knows, or should know, what it is.  Recall - ignorance is not an excuse in the eyes of the law.  The legal definition can be arbitrary too; all that's important is that it is equal for everyone.

This from a completely un-biased view, lacking any preconceptions about what libertarianism is, what it represents or who might best represent it; of course.

I presume you're being sarcastic - it's sometimes hard to tell in ASCII.

I did have preconceptions about libertarianism, and debated here to see if my preconceptions were correct or not.  I understand what libertarianism attempts and, repeating myself, I would happily try it out in a small united isolated society.

I do not have any preconceptions about who would best represent libertarianism but, be very assured, I am of the very firm opinion that FredericBastiat and bitcoin2cash absolutely do NOT best represent it - as they present it, it's inherently contradictory.

Having said that, I don't presume to be more intelligent than the great philosophers of modern or historic times.  I invite any other libertarian to resolve the contradictions that have been presented here  BUT, again, I'm bowing out for a while to see how the debate develops from here.  It's becoming very repetitive.

[Rassah]

The key thing is that we have to choose.  The ability to make the decision exists and its a question of what appears most sensible.

What seems sensible to you seems absurd to me.

My second favorite quote is
"Common sense is just common, not sensible"


Also, sorry if this isn't contributing anything of value to the discussion, but, does anyone else feel that these type of frustrating round and round debates that are happening here are the types that usually end up with fertilizer bombs as debate points?

[MoonShadow]

The key thing is that we have to choose.  The ability to make the decision exists and its a question of what appears most sensible.

What seems sensible to you seems absurd to me.

My second favorite quote is
"Common sense is just common, not sensible"


Also, sorry if this isn't contributing anything of value to the discussion, but, does anyone else feel that these type of frustrating round and round debates that are happening here are the types that usually end up with fertilizer bombs as debate points?

Of course.  Religion an politics are two subjects that are never debated in polite company, because they are unresolvable and invariablely lead to ill feelings among soon-to-be estranged friends.  Trolls love these topics, partly because they are unresolveable.  Never try to engage the trolls into a civil debate, because you are the one who abides by rules of debate and they do not.  A seasoned troll will never acknowledge your valid points, and simply crop them out and ignore them or replace them with strawmen, ad hominim attacks, or simply insults.  While you, with logic and reason on your side, are obliged to acknowledge his valid points, no matter how relevent to the topic.  This is what they live for, it makes them believe that they are "winning".  Any experienced troll will bludgeon you with attacks and burning strawmen, while never admitting their own limited understanding of the topic.  Enlightenment and self-improvement was never the intent.  It's a kind of coping mechanism, I believe.  A deep seeded lack of self-confidence in one's own mental caliber, combined with a primal need to feel superior, leads these kinds of people to engage in online forums where they can get away with such anti-social behavior.  Only the Internet permits it, and they are likely very meek people IRL.  I think it's some kind of, apparently very common, form of sociopathy.  This is AyeYo in a nutshell.  I can count the number of posts that he has made that were relevant to the topic, civil in discource and valuable in content on one hand; and I mean ever.  He is certainly not the only trollish member that is attracted to topics such as this one, but he is my own pet project, that aparently I've been neglecting to check up on for too long.  Ultimately, these trolls are sick in the head, and thus deserve a little patience from the rational adults; which is why they tend to be tolerated far longer on this forum than most.  And much like the guy with turrets syndrome sitting behind you at a football game, it's just best to politely pretend that you can't hear the obcenities.

[FredericBastiat]

I lost my train of thought, but no matter. I have a quote that will come to my rescue.

"Law is Justice.

And let it not be said, as it continually is, that the law, in this sense, would be atheistic, individual, and heartless, and that it would mold mankind in its own image. This is an absurd conclusion, quite worthy of the governmental infatuation which sees mankind in the law. What then? Does it follow that if we are free, we shall cease to act?

Does it follow that if we do not receive an impulse from the law, we shall receive no impulse at all? Does it follow that if the law confines itself to securing to us the free exercise of our faculties, our faculties will be paralyzed? Does it follow, that if the law does not impose upon us forms of religion, modes of association, methods of education, rules for labor, directions for exchange, and plans for charity, we shall plunge headlong into atheism, isolation, ignorance, misery, and greed?"

-Frederic Bastiat

[MoonShadow]

Okay, now we are getting somewhere.  So human powered melee weapons are valid, whether they are small enough to hide on one's own person or not?  And human powered projectile weapons are questionable, but what about the pump-type pellet rifles? Is there a limit to the size of a human pumped air rifle?  What is the principle that you make this determination upon, or is it simply an arbitrary decision based upon your own opinons?  I assume that a saber or a foil would be acceptable?  What about a hand cranked taser?

It's an arbitrary decision based on my own opinions.  As are ALL other expressions of 'acceptable weapons' in this forum.  The only one that's not arbitrary is the one that follows the law, because everyone knows, or should know, what it is.  Recall - ignorance is not an excuse in the eyes of the law.  The legal definition can be arbitrary too; all that's important is that it is equal for everyone.

That's just it, not all such expressions are arbitrary.  There really are differences between a weapon held in the hand, such as a knife or a handgun, and controlled by a single person and the kind of weapon that is not held in the hand, and is automatic.  The distiction is the precision of use.  The rifle and handgun are valid uses of force only under particular circumstances.  Circumstances that an automatic weapon such as a trap or a mine can't reasonablely determine, because they are just machines.  The trap cannot identify if the intruder is a rapist or a firefighter.  The bomb cannot kill only the target while leaving the bystanders unharmed.  The user of the weapon is responsible for it's actions, regardless of his own intent, and this is why a rocket launcher is tightly regulated in the US while the rifle much less so.  Notice that I didn't say that a rocket launcher was prohibited, because they are not.  Nor are machine guns, tanks, silencers or even explosives.  These dangerous items are regulated, but not to the same degree that you seem to believe is neccessary.  Regulation isn't all or nothing, how it's done also matters.  For example, any citizen can buy a silencer, but must apply for a federal 'stamp' first.  In doing so, they submit to the ATF doing background checks on their character.  If any history or mental illness or violent criminal tendencies show up, they get denigned.  But they don't get denied because they don't belong to the right political group, race, religion or class.  They only get denied based on what they have actually done.  Likewise, anyone who could buy the silencer could by a rocket launcher, with the additional cavet that he has to be willing to show that he has a place to store it that, should it detonate unintentionally, there will be no harm to bystanders or neighbors.  If the person lives alone on a farm, that's easy enough.  If he lives in a city or suburb, he has to have a explosion rated arms locker, something that costs much more to own then the rocket launcher.  But these kinds of collectors actually exist, and they love to show off their collections.  There is a gun range, near Fort Knox in Kentucky, that is rated for destructive devices, and twice a year hosts the largest machine gun and explosives show in America.  Anyone can go there and rent a GE minigun to shoot for a few minutes, if you can afford it.  Flamethrowers and TOW missles are available, for the right price.  And ATF agents are walking everywhere.  No one has ever been shot or killed.  After dark, tracer rounds are fired into the dark at the rate of thousands per minute; and barrels of petrol are lit and vault flames into the night sky.  It's a great time.  Is there any compeling reason that these collectors shouldn't be able to engage in their hobby?  Do they honestly constitute a threat, considering the weapons that they possess cost a small fortune to aquire and use?  Do they deserve to be automaticly treated as potential terrorists for the expressed desire to engage in a risky form of entertainment?  Who are you to decide, particularly arbitrarily?  Shouldn't even the government be expected to follow some kind of principle, and not permitted to regulate personal activities and purchases based on someone's arbitrary decisions?  That would be the rule by law, not the rule of law.

This from a completely un-biased view, lacking any preconceptions about what libertarianism is, what it represents or who might best represent it; of course.

I presume you're being sarcastic - it's sometimes hard to tell in ASCII.

ou presuem correctly.

I did have preconceptions about libertarianism, and debated here to see if my preconceptions were correct or not.  I understand what libertarianism attempts and, repeating myself, I would happily try it out in a small united isolated society.

I do not have any preconceptions about who would best represent libertarianism but, be very assured, I am of the very firm opinion that FredericBastiat and bitcoin2cash absolutely do NOT best represent it - as they present it, it's inherently contradictory.

Well, sure.  Of course it's contradictory.  All ideologies are contradictory if they are taken as absolutes, as are yours.  One can agree that libertariansism is ideal without also believeing theat the ideal is achiveable, or even prefered.  It's iedeal compared to the other ideologies.  In the real world, a tempered ideal is always the result.  The inability to accept and process subtities and contradictions, withut rejection of the concepts being presented, is a sign of inmaturity.