...My questions are: how can we resolve this conflict? Fred insists he has the right to carry a gun around unless otherwise prohibited. I insist he does not, and would be willing to engage in mortal violence if necessary to defend myself. I come from a country where guns are outlawed, but I've been in Texas - all I could do was take a big gulp, keep my head down, and try not to piss anyone off.
Funny how that quote (in bold) sounds awful Libertarian-like. As in, the right to defend oneself. I would carry a gun if necessary, so that at a moments notice, should someone threaten my life, I could defend myself. Taking the right to defend myself from me equates to unprovoked violence or threat thereto. Do you agree that you have a right to self-defense and ownership of a gun (among other things), or am I missing something? Seemingly you have no problem "engaging in mortal violence", so what's the problem?
Oh my goodness - are you being deliberately obtuse? Is it not clear yet that I'm hypothesising a libertarian world? There is already a solution in the current system. The law states what is or is not permitted. This is not stated under libertarianism and, as such, any individual could potentially interpret almost any action as hostile. You yourself have said that a positive or negative interpretation of hostile intent could depend on whether the supposed assiland is SMILING or not. Do you not realise how ridiculous that is?
So if there was nobody around me, or I was the last living human, I would become incapacitated, supposedly because I'm only enabled by those who permit me to have "personal liberty"?
Well if that happens, here's what you could try. Carry your nuke around with you and see if any ghosts object. It's *really* hard not to ridicule statements like this. Political philosophy is a *social* issue. If it's just you, there's no society, no political philosophy, no problem.
It's not like we're giving you complicated problems to solve. If you make any problem complicated enough, then no political philosophy will solve it. But THESE ARE PROBLEMS THAT CONCERN THE VERY FOUNDATION STONES OF LIBERTARIANISM ITSELF. To wit: your liberty and my liberty ARE NOT COMPATIBLE, and I'm using the word 'liberty' in your sense of the word; that is, something I define for me, you for you, Hawker for Hawker, and so on. How can you "build on top" of something that is fundamentally flawed?
I am at liberty to do everything insomuch as it only concerns me and my things (excepting mutual contract), but I am not at liberty to prohibit you from the equal supremacy to act upon you and yours. Liberty is justifiably constrained by the NAP. Nothing particuarly difficult to understand about that.
I agree that, if your actions concern only you and your property, you may do as you please. But when your actions involve me, directly or indirectly, actively or passively, I declare that you may not do as you please. And
you STILL haven't resolved the problems - they are not 'edge cases' - they are simple situations which probably occur thousands of times a day around the world without resort to violence. Go on, you asked me who owns the room and I answered.
Are you free to carry a gun in or not? Answer it, and the other questions, in your next post here, or I declare the discussion over - libertarianism, as proposed by you and b2c, is fundamentally flawed and unworkable in the modern world.
No one. As mentioned below, just personal financial consequences. In extreme cases, perhaps even litigation from neighbors who believe you are negligently endagering them by having flamable property close to theirs without means of securing it if it starts to burn?
EXACTLY. You are negligently endangering them. 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?
Admittedly, that may require the customers/land owners to be a bit more mobile....
So... I'd have to move house every time somebody from Texas happens to move in on my street?
They could. There could also be a secondary overseeing body, like a BBB for security companies, that oversees multiple territories, helps enforce secority company contracts, and which the security company would have to be a member of if it wants to have any hope of doing business. The security BBB is not tied to any specific company or territory, and is not directly responsible for security, and thus will have incentive to keep all of the other companies in check (unless all of them colude, if which case the company exposing that collusion will likely end up with all the contracts)
Who pays for it? Is it obligatory to participate and to obey the rules of this BBB company?
So what if you don't pay for security and to hell with the consequences - not having to pay for security or insurance will also enable you to provide a cheaper product than your competitors. [sarcasm] Ohhhhhh, of course, people will buy the more expensive product because they'll ALL know that you don't have insurance and they'll really disapprove of that even though your factory is thousands of miles from your market. [/sarcasm]
That's true. Though you're still exposing yourself to massive litigation risk, and as mentioned, people paying security companies to keep them safe will very likely expect that company to protect them from outside threats, not just from threats on their own property. If you own a nuke, and are not paying anyone for security, you should probably expect to have random companies to come by to try to extort you mafia-style, or have private contracts placed on obtaining either your nukes or your head, since, technically, neither one is well protected.
Where does the litigation take place, given that your polluting factory is thousands of miles from your house, from your market, and, most importantly, from the security company defending you? And now you are suggesting that, under libertarianism, you can expect to be extorted by the mafia at any moment? That doesn't sound very satisfactory... And, let's be clear, if the Mafia is more powerful than the security company you already employ, well, you can expect them to come knocking anyway. Right?
So MightMakesWinnerMakesRight? I can freely invade and take control of defenceless property and no-one other than the miserable owners will try to stop me?
Yes. Unless the owner is paying someone else to stop you. As far as i understand it, the main source of all might in libertarian society would come from customers handing out money. Voting is essentially done by whoever can get paid the most.
In an unregulated world, money=guns. Damn, even *with* regulation, it's already like that. b2c and Fred propose libertarianism because they abhor the MightMakesRight status currently enjoyed by governments. You have just acknowledged that libertarianism=MightMakesWinnerMakesRight.
By the way, need to point out that current insurance companies work the way my proposed security companies to. What's stopping them from simply running away with the money is that practically all insurance companies are themselves reinsured through other bigger specialized companies. It's easier to just take out a claim from the reinsurer, fix your customers, and continue to make money off them, than run away with whatever you have collected so far.
There's also the law and a small matter of being put in prison, though I concede that in the current system wealthy people seem not to end up in prison.
