What's so special about the NAP?

[Hawker]

Enslaving someone qualifies as "aggression".  I'm not sure how you have convinced yourselves that "non-aggression" == "slavery".

If you can take a person as a slave and she has no legal way to sue for her freedom, you have legalised slavery.  Its not enough to say that under the NAP is abhorrent if its allowed.

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[Hawker]

Laws do change people's behaviour.  Law sets a standard of behaviour that the majority of people aspire to.  That's why 35% of people wore seat belts before it was a legal requirement and 94% wear them afterwards.

And that's my problem with the NAP.  It sets the standard as low as it can be.

And that's my problem with the NAP.  It sets the standard as low as it can be.

Ah. this is progress. Could you elaborate?

You snipped the elaboration :O

[FirstAscent]

Enslaving someone qualifies as "aggression".  I'm not sure how you have convinced yourselves that "non-aggression" == "slavery".

The NAP is absolutely meaningless. Consider an extreme example of a population of two: Ben and Hector.

Hector enslaves Ben. Ben claims he's been violated and claims he is justified in fighting back. So what?

[myrkul]

Enslaving someone qualifies as "aggression".  I'm not sure how you have convinced yourselves that "non-aggression" == "slavery".

+1. I have no idea how they get from "every interaction should be voluntary on both sides" to "Bang her on the head, chuck her in the back of your car and you have a slave, a pretty girl who will be on her back 7 days a week earning money for you."

You snipped the elaboration :O

No, elaboration does not come before the statement. Give me more details on how you feel the NAP sets a low standard. I feel it sets the bar pretty high.

[FirstAscent]

+1. I have no idea how they get from "every interaction should be voluntary on both sides" to "Bang her on the head, chuck her in the back of your car and you have a slave, a pretty girl who will be on her back 7 days a week earning money for you."

You can get anywhere from NAP, because it's meaningless. NAP can and will evolve in some direction, but it won't stay NAP for long.

Totally meaningless.

[cryptoanarchist]

I'm talking about "true libertarianism" in which even the NAP is rescinded. You are truly free to do whatever you want. Rescinding laws until you're left with only the NAP is arbitrary. Give me a good logical argument why libertarians insist on maintaining a NAP, and yet insist on rescinding lots of other laws.  Or, alternatively, why libertarians insist on creating the NAP, yet refuse to create other laws.

You seem to be confusing laws with a principle

[myrkul]

Enslaving someone qualifies as "aggression".  I'm not sure how you have convinced yourselves that "non-aggression" == "slavery".

If you can take a person as a slave and she has no legal way to sue for her freedom, you have legalised slavery.  Its not enough to say that under the NAP is abhorrent if its allowed.

Anything abhorrent under NAP is by definition not allowed.

[Hawker]

Enslaving someone qualifies as "aggression".  I'm not sure how you have convinced yourselves that "non-aggression" == "slavery".

+1. I have no idea how they get from "every interaction should be voluntary on both sides" to "Bang her on the head, chuck her in the back of your car and you have a slave, a pretty girl who will be on her back 7 days a week earning money for you."

You snipped the elaboration :O

No, elaboration does not come before the statement. Give me more details on how you feel the NAP sets a low standard. I feel it sets the bar pretty high.

Laws do change people's behaviour.  Law sets a standard of behaviour that the majority of people aspire to.  That's why 35% of people wore seat belts before it was a legal requirement and 94% wear them afterwards.

And that's my problem with the NAP.  It sets the standard as low as it can be.  For example, it says you don't have to wear seat belts.  Thats over half the population that will revert to being seatbeltless with all the extra unnecessary deaths and injuries that will entail.

You can argue that you don't care and people only hurt themselves and their children but that does not make for a desirable state of affairs.

The exact same logic applies to racial discrimination.  Here is a libertarian take on it: http://reason.com/archives/2010/06/16/racism-civil-rights-and-libert

In my experience, changing the law to forbid religious discrimination did change things in Ireland and it was for the better.  

In all these cases, there are a hard core of people who disagree and who break the law.  But there is a solid majority who aspire to obey that law and it changes their behaviour.  Take away the law and behaviour will revert to the bad way things were.

[myrkul]

The exact same logic applies to racial discrimination.  Here is a libertarian take on it: http://reason.com/archives/2010/06/16/racism-civil-rights-and-libert

In my experience, changing the law to forbid religious discrimination did change things in Ireland and it was for the better.  

In all these cases, there are a hard core of people who disagree and who break the law.  But there is a solid majority who aspire to obey that law and it changes their behaviour.  Take away the law and behaviour will revert to the bad way things were.

Did you even read that article?

Businesses that refused to discriminate were targeted for officially sanctioned or condoned harassment and intimidation.

It wasn't just "legal", it was officially sanctioned. It was enshrined in law. And I'm not talking about 1964. I'm talking about today. In today's society, do you believe that racial segregation would again achieve dominance without official sanction?

[niemivh]

Please defend NAP

There are two arguments:

1. Violating the NAP has bad consequences.

2. Violating the NAP is immoral.

Since I'm not a consequentialist, I don't find the consequentialist argument convincing one way or the other.

As for the argument from morality, all moral claims are opinions. They are preferences, nothing more. You can't say my opinion is wrong any more than I can say yours is wrong. That's because opinions aren't the kinds of things that can be right or wrong. That being said, I reject any opinion that violating the NAP is moral, outside of immediate life threatening situations when your actions don't threaten the life of another person and you also compensate the victim. If you are literally about to starve to death, steal some bread but be prepared to work it off. I doubt you'll have to steal though because I'll be glad to give you some of my bread. However, if you are dying because of liver failure, don't take my liver.

If you reject my opinion like I reject the opinions of those that wish to violate the NAP, we have irreconcilable differences. We can either try to coexist peacefully or we can go to war. There's nothing more to it than that.

I'm sure that the very wise men of the past who spent most of their adult lives asking these questions and wrestling with morality and law and governance spent a little more time at than the throw-your-hands-up-in-the-air-and-claim-that-morality-is simply-differences-in-opinion method.  Thank all that is good that they spent more time on these questions, or else the systems of governance and popular notions of morality wouldn't exist and neither would we.

[Hawker]

The exact same logic applies to racial discrimination.  Here is a libertarian take on it: http://reason.com/archives/2010/06/16/racism-civil-rights-and-libert

In my experience, changing the law to forbid religious discrimination did change things in Ireland and it was for the better.  

In all these cases, there are a hard core of people who disagree and who break the law.  But there is a solid majority who aspire to obey that law and it changes their behaviour.  Take away the law and behaviour will revert to the bad way things were.

Did you even read that article?

Businesses that refused to discriminate were targeted for officially sanctioned or condoned harassment and intimidation.

It wasn't just "legal", it was officially sanctioned. It was enshrined in law. And I'm not talking about 1964. I'm talking about today. In today's society, do you believe that racial segregation would again achieve dominance without official sanction?

There is more to the world than the state of Alabama.  I grew up in a segregated society in Ireland where there was no legal basis for it.  The same (I think) applies to Barry Goldwater in Arizona.

Read the entire article.  It reinforces the point that laws do change people's behaviour.  Law sets a standard of behaviour that the majority of people aspire to.

[myrkul]

Read the entire article.  It reinforces the point that laws do change people's behaviour.  Law sets a standard of behaviour that the majority of people aspire to.

I did. But I have to ask you this: If the law is "Never force someone to do something they don't want to", how is that a bad thing?

[niemivh]

When I put such questions to other libertarians, one common response is a frantic attempt to reinterpret the problem out of existence.

Lets agree not to do that.  If you are for allowing racial discrimination and you are for allowing people to be killed by mobs without the benefit of a trial, its very clear what type of society you are comfortable with.  

I support property rights and the right of private citizens to defend themselves and others. Make of that what you will. Using inflammatory language doesn't suddenly make my position evil. As I said, I'm done arguing this with you. Continue, and I will cease discussing anything with you.

Your proposal is a return to the good old days of legal racial discrimination and to allowing lynching.  That is evil - no inflammatory language is needed.

Inflammatory language highlighted for your reading pleasure. Good bye, Hawker.

Racial discrimination and lynching are what you want to allow.  That is a simple matter of fact supported by your posting history.

If that is inflammatory to you, perhaps you need to re-think what you stand for?

Nope, that means he needs to put out of his mind the inconveniences of this ideology and simply pretend they don't exist.

All ideology is inconvenient (and ultimately unworkable) because it does not and can never fully mesh with the concrete reality of our existence.  That is, there can be no mechanistic methodology of justice or morality, meaning that every act of morality or justice is not fully inclusive of what those terms mean.  Everyone who hasn't read all the relevant Platonic works out there should read them, it's not like what I'm saying should be seen as radical or outlandish, but somehow it is completely misunderstood.

And that is the problem with all major and prevalent ideologies of our modern times: that they lead you through a string of conclusions and lead the reader (the ideologue) to connect that 'last dot', which is, in fact, the intention of that ideologies creator(s).  The last dot of Libertarianism is a great permissiveness toward evil, social degeneracy, oppression and backwardness; but all those things are just 'around the corner' of the ideology, not explicit in the ideology.  Same with the "Greenies", they want a backward and genocidal energy policy, yet they don't want the blood on their hands for the genocide that they are advocating for.  Once again, the 'last dot to connect' is not explicit in the ideology, it is left for the ideologue to conclude on their own and made to feel as some discovery of the nature of our existence, or something to be put out of their mind and denied as if it doesn't exist or as those aren't the logical conclusions of the base arguments or core-shibboleths of the ideology.

 It seems Myrkul has chosen this latter strategy, even going as far to threaten to "Ignore" you on this forum.

[niemivh]

... or just an immature guy who hasn't thought things true.

Funny. I believe you just made a typo, and yet it works! Because he's never thought things we say are true. He just can't accept all those little and big truths about the world that are inconvenient to his belief system.

The saddest thing of all, though, is his approach. He takes an ideal out of thin air, and then just insists beyond all reason that he can slap it across the world and make it magically work. I much prefer simply looking at all the problems in the world and all its complexity, and individually trying to tailor a solution to those problems that will work, long term.

Well that is the fundamental difference between being an ideologue and being a moral human being.  That the ideologue believes he has all the answers because every problem can be solved from the tenants of his ideology, the moral human being realizes that every situation requires different solutions and methods but knows good from evil and can choose the best solution in any given situation; that is if that moral human being as the humility to learn and the intelligence and wisdom to know the consequences of their actions.

[Hawker]

Read the entire article.  It reinforces the point that laws do change people's behaviour.  Law sets a standard of behaviour that the majority of people aspire to.

I did. But I have to ask you this: If the law is "Never force someone to do something they don't want to", how is that a bad thing?

Over 50% of people switched from not using seat belts to using them when the law changed.  So in the case of seat belts, "Never force someone to do something they don't want to" means a lot of people, especially children, get hurt unnecessarily.  

These people have voted for politicians to enact things like Social Security, the NHS and seat belt laws.  Its how they need society to work.  Any scheme that ignores their need will harm them.

That's a bad thing, isn't it?

[niemivh]

Slavery may be abhorrent under the NAP but its not illegal is it? In your ideal world, the only protection from slavery is a defence agency.  If a someone is too poor or too stupid to have a defence agency, that's it.  Bang her on the head, chuck her in the back of your car and you have a slave, a pretty girl who will be on her back 7 days a week earning money for you.  Its a big business now; legalise it and it gets even bigger.  

So under your my version of the NAP, you have racial discrimination, lynching, segregation and slavery.  

Fixed that for you.

Laws don't stop lawbreakers from doing bad things.  You seem to ignore the fact that one of your "evils" ("lynching") would prevent the other, slavery. Your poor young lady would have, if nothing else, the protection of her community.

Laws do change people's behaviour.  Law sets a standard of behaviour that the majority of people aspire to.  That's why 35% of people wore seat belts before it was a legal requirement and 94% wear them afterwards.

And that's my problem with the NAP.  It sets the standard as low as it can be.

Well that was the point of the oligarchs who created, funded and promoted Libertarianism; for the State to be weakened and destroyed so they could run amok.  

P.S., Unfortunately, it worked.

[niemivh]

I'm talking about "true libertarianism" in which even the NAP is rescinded. You are truly free to do whatever you want. Rescinding laws until you're left with only the NAP is arbitrary. Give me a good logical argument why libertarians insist on maintaining a NAP, and yet insist on rescinding lots of other laws.  Or, alternatively, why libertarians insist on creating the NAP, yet refuse to create other laws.

You seem to be confusing laws with a principle

The Problem with NAP as a principle is that under NAP all laws therefore cannot exist.

[FirstAscent]

I'm talking about "true libertarianism" in which even the NAP is rescinded. You are truly free to do whatever you want. Rescinding laws until you're left with only the NAP is arbitrary. Give me a good logical argument why libertarians insist on maintaining a NAP, and yet insist on rescinding lots of other laws.  Or, alternatively, why libertarians insist on creating the NAP, yet refuse to create other laws.

You seem to be confusing laws with a principle

The Problem with NAP as a principle is that under NAP all laws therefore cannot exist.

I think NAP will allow laws to exist. They will be laws made by land barons, and these will evolve into nation states. Please read this post I made earlier in this thread:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=88184.msg1010817#msg1010817

[myrkul]

Well that is the fundamental difference between being an ideologue and being a moral human being.  That the ideologue believes he has all the answers because every problem can be solved from the tenants of his ideology, the moral human being realizes that every situation requires different solutions and methods but knows good from evil and can choose the best solution in any given situation; that is if that moral human being as the humility to learn and the intelligence and wisdom to know the consequences of their actions.

I understand that every problem has a different solution, I just believe that resorting to coercion is never a good one.

These people have voted for politicians to enact things like Social Security, the NHS and seat belt laws.  Its how they need society to work.  Any scheme that ignores their need will harm them.

That's a bad thing, isn't it?

How, exactly, will not having seat belt laws harm those people who want seat belt laws? And social security, if it is so strongly desired, can be structured as a private, voluntary charity, same as the NHS. there's o need to shove guns in people's  faces to force them to pay.

[FirstAscent]

How, exactly, will not having seat belt laws harm those people who want seat belt laws?

Because said people won't necessarily have their children wear seat belts. That's why.