What's so special about the NAP?

[niemivh]

The NAP only prohibits initiation of the use of force...

How so?

The NAP-sters want to have their cake and eat it too.  They don't understand that what seems morally evident to them is not self-enforcing.  They disregard all history including present history.  But it's even worse than that, for if everyone within a NAP-utopia agreed that the NAP was the “universal law” it still wouldn't solve anything; there still would be a need for government and there still would be a need for a system of law as the complexity of modern society is beyond anything the NAP could ever possibly account for.  There is a sort of implicit fallacy in the NAP that echoes the fallacy of democracy.

Such ideologies could only gain popularity and traction in a declining democratic society, a democracy that Hamilton warned us about.  In a democracy the people are but supple clay in the hands of various demagogues and are abused as such to our collective detriment.

Like I said earlier, the NAP is caveman-level philosophy.  I mean that with only the slightest degree of embellishment.  That statement isn't meant as some type of empty pithy insult; I say that because I've known (and know) some very rough people, that is multi-felons for drugs and violent crime; that said, they are some of the most generous and well-meaning people that I've ever met.  They live by a simple, solitary, rule: "Don't Fuck With Me" (that differs from the NAP only in language but not at all in spirit).  If you do that you'll have a great time with them and they'll give you the shirt off their back if you need it if you are a 'brother'.  But by the same token, they simply don't get along with modern civilization, they don't see the need for so many laws (whether they are legitimate laws or not is irrelevant and they refuse or simply don't have the inclination or ability to consider these questions sufficiently), and besides the complexity of laws the deeper problem is that they can't ever agree to consign themselves having someone else being 'above' them.  Having power over them is something that they are terrified of and can't see the legitimacy for and, perhaps more importantly, its emasculating to be under someone’s dominion.  The "Clan" mentality among these populations is so evident that if you can't see it you have no skills of sociological analysis and should take up other pursuits.  The lesson here is that people that basically already subscribe to the NAP already exist and they aren't enlightened higher-beings, they are criminals and don't have a non-existent utopian social order they have factions and tribes and clans and gangs.  I've seen it personally, up close, I've lived with it, I've mingled among it and that's what's going on in those circles.  Modern society is too complex for these people, and strikes at the heart of the fallacy of democracy; that being that if left to “the people” as a universal mass, will best govern themselves.  These people have no interest in these civil matters and I would say that it would naive and silly for us to expect them to. 

The same meme exists with the Libertarian doctrine.  You have people that have little to no patience, inclination, humility or intelligence (or any lack of a combination thereof) that are trying to gumption social issues with the information they already have - which isn't much (not to say anything toward the vast amount of 'unlearning' false ideologies that we are all begin our lives buried under in our present degenerate culture).  It's all too complicated and they don't like any power above their own authority.  I think part of the power and authority has to do with old-fashioned irrationalism, but one cannot ignore the prevalence of these doctrines among men of a certain age range.  That all these doctrines play to the male energy of self-sufficiency, responsibility, power, authority and respect cannot be ignored.  These doctrines cynically exploit traditional male virtues by transforming them into crude caricatures; then play on these societally induced virtues but attempt to cleave them from any subsequent responsibility to the society that instilled them as morals in the individual to begin with.  The modern emasculated male, lacking any male interactions that haven’t been destroyed and/or commercialized and sold back to him as a product, wants these male virtues and the Libertarian doctrine pretends to provide it by selling that archetype of John Galt or otherwise the Ubermensch that inhabits the pages of these doctrines.  They don't teach you how real strength comes from unity, combination of action and inter-relational support and how every real hero that actually existed had the support to be heroic equally because of their strength but also of the strength that they got from their wives or friends or family and the culture and people they loved and sought to protect, defend and lead.


The NAP’s bedfellows might seem strange at first, if you aren't aware of the cynical reasons that Libertarianism (and classical Liberalism) were created for.  Let's see how the "Don't Fuck with Me Principle" and the NAP are related specifically.  The DFWMP is a clannish, tribal version of it for primitives that have 2 problems with that system (the bewildering complexity of the system and the fact that there is power over them) while the NAP is basically the same thing wrapped in Brahmin language but serving the existing oligarchy and power establishment.  Both these groups share this one principle thing: they are terrified of government power in the abstract.  The elite see the potential for it to remove their undue privileged (and rightfully so) and the primitives see it as a way that it restricts their personal freedom (which may or may not be happening, saying nothing of the public good).  In this NAP-induced mindset, the public good is never considered, the survival of the society is never considered, the future projection of the society is never considered, the greater potential that can exist is never considered, the level of individual equality of the system is never considered, the external threats to the system cannot be addressed; and why when these ideologies have seized power they system collapses and destroys itself in short order.  And, unfortunately, we are well on our way in this collapse for this very reason.

But all the while, the oligarchy and the primitives who both profess this style of doctrine are doing it for radically different reasons.  In fact, these doctrines were created by oligarchs to rally the primitives to their side, to fight against ‘government power’, not specific policies not this issue or that, not power outside the limits of the Constitution but the power in the abstract sense.  That any equalizing force in government that could subdue the universal, historical constant that is oligarchy is something that oligarchy has universally been against.  The ruling class (oligarchy) always seeks to do two things with regard to the State: control it and/or destroy it.  If it can’t be controlled destroy it.  If it can be controlled then you must destroy the will for power in the universal population; and the NAP does just that.

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[myrkul]

Throw as many words at it as you want, but you can't change the fact that those "rough people" (they sound like bikers, but you don't specify) are, as you admit, great people as long as you don't aggress against them.

You say that we are "terrified of government power in the abstract". No, we know specifically what we despise (not fear) about government power. It is based on aggression, even when it claims to protect rights, it is violating them.

Perhaps it is you who are afraid, not of government power, but of the power of the people. Or maybe it's more simple than that. Perhaps you're simply afraid of the responsibility that comes with freedom.

[niemivh]

I'll address each of these points individually.

First the individual.  If you exist in society you 'belong' to many different relationships and many 'belong' to you.  You are your mother's son - see the ownership?  You are your child’s father - again do you see the ownership?  As a minor you are under their authority both legally and for all practical purposes - at what point are you fully 'your own'?  While none of these people own you in a literal sense, as such, you are not a slave; but your life, personality, and existence are largely (if not principally) influenced by these relationships.  You define who you are by the these relations.  So in the sense that the individual is 'free' from societal 'ownership' doesn't appear to be at all true.  That is to say nothing of the fact that language, culture, opportunity and many other things come the society you live in which belong to everyone (they are public) and simultaneously nobody 'owns' them in the individual sense.  So, in what sense do you fully have "self-ownership" in this context?

What is owned in the relationship between two people is not the person, but the relationship itself. I am my mother's son, to be sure, but that does not define me, only my relationship with my mother. Likewise, I do not own her, simply be cause she is "my" mother. Also, while this relationship has influenced my personality, probably to a greater degree than I am aware of, it is not the sole influence, nor probably even the greatest. I have self ownership because I can choose which relationships I allow to influence me, and indeed, which I allow to even exist.

First of all you can't choose all your relationships, you can't choose where you were born, who your parents were, what your class and social standing was, you can't choose much of anything as a child or as a minor.  But you do see increasing levels of choice as a person gets older and more mature.  If what you mean by "self ownership" is being able to choose the relationships that you have the power to choose then that's fine, it's been called "autonomy" in the past, why make up new terms for it?  Also, how does one determine how much they have been influenced by their surroundings?  As I like to say: "The eye cannot see itself without some assistance", meaning that you are perhaps the worst qualified person to determine how much your environment effects you as well as I am with mine.  You can determine these things by exploring your own mind and by altered states of consciousness.  We do know that certain behaviors that people are exposed to, especially children, lead them to have certain dispositions; and that people likewise create and terminate relationships with others because of their beneficial or detrimental affects on their persona.  The truth is that we are constantly absorbing everything around us and that only the most vigilant of minds is hyper aware of this process.

Then the mental.  Indeed, I am trying to convince you that your Libertarian ideology is flawed and that it is a menace to yourself and our society and you are trying to do the inverse because it clearly does matter what people other than yourself think.  And if I can change your mind (or vice versa) or even put an idea there that wasn’t there before, then there is an interplay of ideas in which nothing can be said to be fully 'yours' or fully someone else's (putting aside actual creativity for this argument).  I mean this in the following sense: take Plato's Forms; if we both imagine a circle, who does it belong to?  If ideas are not owned, then that aspect of your mind cannot be 'owned', as such, and therefore the main context of your subjective experience in this existence isn't something that you 'own'.  But, it is also something that you do not not own; it's just that the idea of 'ownership' in this sphere (which encompasses all others) is silly.  To what sense could you have "self-ownership" in this context?

If I write a computer program, and sell or give it to you, and you run that program on your computer, do I own your computer while you run that program? or the section of the hard drive where you have it installed? Since you are now reading my words, do I now own a small section of your visual cortex? If you remember them, do I now own that part of your memory? No, of course not. You own the hardware, no matter the software you choose to run on it. I have self ownership because I can decide whether or not your arguments are persuasive enough to convince me, and if they are, it is I who changes my mind, not you.

How reductionist.  There is a little lost in the translation here, I'm not talking about "brain" as much as I'm talking about "mind".  Also I'm not talking about who changed who's mind as much as who 'owns thoughts' or what "self ownership" could possibly mean in the realm of the mind and then not seeing any useful application of that slogan.  I'm talking Platonic noosphere, the realm of ideas, and the fact that Self Ownership has no basis for existence in this realm.  You choose what you want to believe, that's fine to the extent that it is true, but I'm talking about the thoughts themselves.  Also, there are many things that people believe on presumptions that are false and are instilled there at a very early age.  Were those instilled there by choice?  Whose choice?  If what you mean by Self Ownership is that you make up your own mind or you choose what to believe then that is really the beginning of another conversation regarding Choice.

Sociologically, if you mean that you are free as a slave is not free then that is something that doesn't rely on you, solely and personally as much as it does to do with the society and your ability to influence it.  Meaning that if you were a slave and slavery was socially acceptable then would you have "self-ownership"?  If slavery was illegal and shunned in the society you were in then you could be relatively certain of you not being a slave. Whether you own yourself in this literal sense depends not on you, but on the society you live in and your ability to influence it.  Your 'societal opportunity' is a combination of your willingness fulfill do and the societies ability to provide in which a distinctive line between to the two is near impossible to establish, yet is the interplay between these factors.  So do what sense do you fully have "self-ownership" in this context?

To answer this one, I refer you to a quote by Robert A. Heinlein:
"I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do."
I have self ownership because I control my actions, and no one else does. Even those things I do because I am forced to I, do, and not someone else. Duress does not remove choice, it merely makes one choice (or all others aside from one) extremely unpalatable.

How very "rugged" of you but what a hot load of garbage.  If you were a slave in ancient times you would not only have the freedom in the first sense but you wouldn't even know how to read, reason or barely think as you were crushed and plowed under a slave's workload.  If you didn't find it "tolerable" then you could get whipped, tortured, raped and/or murdered.  Would you have found all this fair because you were told "I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do"?  This type of rhetoric less than worthless, it's toxic.  Also, at what point do become fully liable for your actions?  From birth?  How do grievances between individuals get resolved if neither of them will resolve it, and their conflict is disruptive and destructive to the rest of the society?  

Morally if you were the last person alive on the planet the idea of ownership becomes worthless.  It would be a term no longer with any meaning.  Therefore ownership implies that there is another 'non-you', and in this sense the term 'self-ownership' means what exactly?  That which expresses ownership as a self-identifying moral property is fairly bizarre in this context.  I'm not even sure how to process it as both morality and ownership are broad inter-human interactions while the context of 'self-ownership' as it morality goes internal to the individual where ownership (something between individuals) and self (something that is defined by numerous things external to itself, as I illustrated above) cease to mean anything.  In this sense, "self-ownership" is a sophistical paradox.  So, as a moral argument, "self-ownership" doesn't actually seem to convey any meaning.

Absent any other people on the planet, indeed self ownership does lose meaning. But since I am not the only person on the planet, and neither are you, then self ownership remains a valid concept. I own me, and by extension, you (and not I) own you. I have self ownership because I am not you, and you are not me. We are separate individuals.

Wow.  It's back to the spirit of the Aristotle Identity Principle.  Simply by stating that you are indeed a separate organism than myself biologically, doesn't prove anything whatsoever.  It doesn't illustrate how S.O. is a moral concept, because once again, not only is ownership a social phenomena but so is morality.

Again, you didn't illustrate how this term carries any useful or meaningful or politically worthwhile connotation.  It was synonymous with "autonomy" in the individual sense, it was deferred to another mystification of Choice in the mental, it was ignored and responded to with a steaming pile of rhetorical nonsense in the social sense, and morally was simply reiterated for effect.

Looks like it's a 0:4 knockout against the NAP S.O. {typo, correction}.  A K.O. against the S.O., if you will.  Maybe there is some potential for it in the realm of Choice, but I guess we'll see.  Stay tuned.

[myrkul]

NAP <> Self Ownership.

The concepts are closely related, but they are not useable interchangeably, as you have attempted to do here. However, "Autonomy" is a good synonym for self ownership.

Maybe if I can understand your position, I can explain it better to you.

What exactly do you have against the Non-Aggression Principle and Self ownership?

[niemivh]

Throw as many words at it as you want, but you can't change the fact that those "rough people" (they sound like bikers, but you don't specify) are, as you admit, great people as long as you don't aggress against them.

You say that we are "terrified of government power in the abstract". No, we know specifically what we despise (not fear) about government power. It is based on aggression, even when it claims to protect rights, it is violating them.

Perhaps it is you who are afraid, not of government power, but of the power of the people. Or maybe it's more simple than that. Perhaps you're simply afraid of the responsibility that comes with freedom.

It looks like all the philosophers that I have mentioned and their wrestling of the question of the validity, structure and accordance of the State with the ideals of Justice have met their match.  That being you, and your N.A.P. and S.O..  It is sad that Libertarianism breeds such arrogant indolence.

It doesn't matter how much I read or how much history proves this farcical ideology intellectually bankrupt and bereft of morality; nothing can prove such faith-based ideologies false if you are unwilling to see them.  I guess this means "you win".  Congratulations.  Feel better?  Did you solve any problems?  Are we no longer in a global economic meltdown of unparalleled proportions?  No, you say?  All that is still there and your talking-points didn't solve anything?  Well I can't say that I'm surprised.

What I have to remember is that when dealing with victims of demagogy one must remain sympathetic.  The people are too lazy to do the required work in reading to actually have a modicum of historical understanding, and too proud to admit when they have been duped.  With Libertarianism, it's just a never ending series of "doubling down".

I guess I am not afraid, but emphatically concerned, with "the power of the people".  Because I see the people avidly doing everything to destroy themselves; and even cheering their own destruction with sadistic glee.  I'm concerned about the people's stupidity.  I'm concerned about their gullibility.  I'm concerned about the psychopaths that they elect.  I'm concerned about their lack of morality.  I'm concerned with their apathy about their own future and their children's future.  I'm concerned when I read history and have insights into how far and degenerated our republic has become; I'm concerned with the fact we're nearing WWIII and the population is too stupid and cattle-like to mobilize anything to stop it.  I'm concerned because all these things affect me and affect the continuation and well being of my species on this planet, among other reasons.

Yes, these things all concern me.  This populace is incredibly ripe for totalitarianism, and it is coming and will arrive if all the population has to offer in their defense is the bloated jargon and hollow rhetoric of these Libertarian doctrines of the N.A.P. and S.O..  It's time to grow up.  It's time to become intellectual and learn for the sake of learning.  This society is in desperate need of wisdom, not rhetoric and empty-headed ideological kamikaze-lemming-dupes that are willing to destroy themselves and their society to  please the patron saints of the Austrian School or whatever other demagogue they worship.

There is nothing to fear from the "responsibility that comes with freedom" in your limited Libertarian sense.  It is total detachment.  Cold and uncaring.  It is the deadness of apathy toward your future and the future of humanity.  No dear sir, my actions are guided by a love for my fellow humans, such is my want to save them from their own stupidity and free them from the clutches of demonic demagogues who have destroyed their ability to think and made them ideological slaves and will soon make them slaves in the very real and literal sense if nothing is done to stop it.

[niemivh]

NAP <> Self Ownership.

The concepts are closely related, but they are not useable interchangeably, as you have attempted to do here. However, "Autonomy" is a good synonym for self ownership.

Maybe if I can understand your position, I can explain it better to you.

What exactly do you have against the Non-Aggression Principle and Self ownership?

Where did I use them interchangeably?

My position is that both the NAP and the SO are sophistical ideology and have no concrete or fixed meaning and are therefore worthless in this or any discussion.  They mean something to you and something else to someone else and neither of them is right or wrong because it is undefinable jargon.  They are a poor substitution for understanding anything, nor are they true axioms by which a moral, social, economic or otherwise human conversation is actually conducted upon.

[myrkul]

Where did I use them interchangeably?

Looks like it's a 0:4 knockout against the NAP.  Maybe there is some potential for it in the realm of Choice, but I guess we'll see.  Stay tuned.

Right there.

There is nothing to fear from the "responsibility that comes with freedom" in your limited Libertarian sense.  It is total detachment.  Cold and uncaring.  It is the deadness of apathy toward your future and the future of humanity.  No dear sir, my actions are guided by a love for my fellow humans, such is my want to save them from their own stupidity and free them from the clutches of demonic demagogues who have destroyed their ability to think and made them ideological slaves and will soon make them slaves in the very real and literal sense if nothing is done to stop it.

Now that... That does scare me.

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.

My position is that both the NAP and the SO are sophistical ideology and have no concrete or fixed meaning and are therefore worthless in this or any discussion.  They mean something to you and something else to someone else and neither of them is right or wrong because it is undefinable jargon.  They are a poor substitution for understanding anything, nor are they true axioms by which a moral, social, economic or otherwise human conversation is actually conducted upon.

So, according to Dictionary.com, sophistry means a "a subtle, tricky, superficially plausible, but generally fallacious method of reasoning." Overall this sounds more like your arguments, since mine are quite simple, not subtle or tricky at all:

No person has the right to initiate force or fraud on another person. Don't hit, don't bully, don't steal, don't lie. Sounds like what Mom told me growing up.

I own me, you own you, I do not own you, and you do not own me. Doesn't get simpler than that. In fact, that is the basis of all other property rights.

[FirstAscent]

Yes, this things all concern me.  This populace is incredibly ripe for totalitarianism, and it is coming and will arrive if all the population has to offer in their defense is the bloated jargon and hollow rhetoric of these Libertarian doctrines of the N.A.P. and S.O..  It's time to grow up.  It's time to become intellectual and learn for the sake of learning.  This society is in desperate need of wisdom, not rhetoric and empty-headed ideological kamikaze-lemming-dupes that are willing to destroy themselves and their society to  please the patron saints of the Austrian School or whatever other demagogue they worship.

So well spoken. There's nothing worse than a vacuous mind filled with one liners, overly eager to preach a solution without even having the desire to understand the world and the problems that exist. The libertarians here are rebels all fired up but they don't actually have a workable plan, nor a sense of what's important, other than their own narrow minded self interests.

[FirstAscent]

No person has the right to initiate force or fraud on another person. Don't hit, don't bully, don't steal, don't lie. Sounds like what Mom told me growing up.

You forgot one: Don't let harm come to others due to one's own self interest, negligence and ignorance.

Unfortunately, self interest, negligence and ignorance are key features of NAP.

[benjamindees]

In this NAP-induced mindset, the public good is never considered, the survival of the society is never considered, the future projection of the society is never considered, the greater potential that can exist is never considered, the level of individual equality of the system is never considered, the external threats to the system cannot be addressed; and why when these ideologies have seized power they system collapses and destroys itself in short order.  And, unfortunately, we are well on our way in this collapse for this very reason.

I've read your posts a few times by now.  And, while I get that you are dissatisfied with the NAP, I still can't seem to determine the 'basis' of your complaint.

You don't like the NAP.  That's clear.  But why?  What does it matter to you?  You don't like being restricted to non-aggression?  You feel there are instances in which you should initiate force against others who have not caused you harm?  You think NAP adherents should not be able to defend themselves?  You think they should join you in aggressing against others?  You think the NAP is inadequately equipped to protect individual freedoms, and you have a better method?  Fine.  Name some examples.

While you're at it, go ahead and give us an historical example of this ideology (NAP) "seizing power".  Gandhi?  And what system is "on it's way to collapse?"  Bitcoin?  In that vein, please define "public good" and "society" while you're at it, and expound upon the threats faced by each.  What imminent emergency do we face?  Economic stagnation?  Peak oil?  Moral decay?  Overpopulation?  Governmental insolvency?  Environmental degradation?  Islamo-fascism?  Global warming?

You obviously don't understand the NAP, based on your comments here and your other threads.  I'm not sure how to rectify that.  It's a single axiom.  Maybe you should think about it some more.  I'm not sure why you continually claim NAP has "no fixed meaning".  The meaning is extremely simple.  And its application is straightforward and highly consistent.

You have a poor understanding of information theory.  You believe that, since "modern society is complex," it therefore should be governed by a "complex" philosophy.  This is naive stupidity.  And, again, getting beyond it requires some abstract reasoning ability and the will to employ it.  Complexity breeds inconsistency.  Somehow you have convinced yourself otherwise.  And for some reason you think a forum full of programmers is going to agree with you.

So, do this then.  Make the NAP more complex, and we'll discuss the results.  What would you prefer?  The Golden Rule?  Direct Democracy?  Hammurabi's Code?

[FirstAscent]

It's a single axiom.

Exactly. That's its problem.

[niemivh]

Where did I use them interchangeably?

Looks like it's a 0:4 knockout against the NAP.  Maybe there is some potential for it in the realm of Choice, but I guess we'll see.  Stay tuned.

Right there.

There is nothing to fear from the "responsibility that comes with freedom" in your limited Libertarian sense.  It is total detachment.  Cold and uncaring.  It is the deadness of apathy toward your future and the future of humanity.  No dear sir, my actions are guided by a love for my fellow humans, such is my want to save them from their own stupidity and free them from the clutches of demonic demagogues who have destroyed their ability to think and made them ideological slaves and will soon make them slaves in the very real and literal sense if nothing is done to stop it.

Now that... That does scare me.

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.

My position is that both the NAP and the SO are sophistical ideology and have no concrete or fixed meaning and are therefore worthless in this or any discussion.  They mean something to you and something else to someone else and neither of them is right or wrong because it is undefinable jargon.  They are a poor substitution for understanding anything, nor are they true axioms by which a moral, social, economic or otherwise human conversation is actually conducted upon.

So, according to Dictionary.com, sophistry means a "a subtle, tricky, superficially plausible, but generally fallacious method of reasoning." Overall this sounds more like your arguments, since mine are quite simple, not subtle or tricky at all:

No person has the right to initiate force or fraud on another person. Don't hit, don't bully, don't steal, don't lie. Sounds like what Mom told me growing up.

I own me, you own you, I do not own you, and you do not own me. Doesn't get simpler than that. In fact, that is the basis of all other property rights.

You are correct in that that above-most line is a type, it was supposed to say "SO" rather than "NAP".  Thanks for catching that.

But quoting the Dictionary is basically an ad-hominem against my arguments, you didn't actually address any aspect of them.  Then simply repeating the NAP/SO is just doing more 'hail marys' by repeating this stuff to yourself over and over again.  Could I make a reading suggestion list for you that would be outside your Libertarian bubble?  Would you read any thing outside of what you already avidly agree with?  I'm seriously curious.

[myrkul]

So, according to Dictionary.com, sophistry means a "a subtle, tricky, superficially plausible, but generally fallacious method of reasoning." Overall this sounds more like your arguments, since mine are quite simple, not subtle or tricky at all:

No person has the right to initiate force or fraud on another person. Don't hit, don't bully, don't steal, don't lie. Sounds like what Mom told me growing up.

I own me, you own you, I do not own you, and you do not own me. Doesn't get simpler than that. In fact, that is the basis of all other property rights.

But quoting the Dictionary is basically an ad-hominem against my arguments, you didn't actually address any aspect of them.  Then simply repeating the NAP/SO is just doing more 'hail marys' by repeating this stuff to yourself over and over again.  Could I make a reading suggestion list for you that would be outside your Libertarian bubble?  Would you read any thing outside of what you already avidly agree with?  I'm seriously curious.

I think we need to clear something up first: Ad hominem is, essentially, "you're ugly, so therefor your arguments are false," not, as you seem to indicate "Your arguments are specious, therefore they are false." The former is an ad hominem fallacy, (you can certainly be ugly and right at the same time), whereas the latter is simply defeating your arguments. Repeating the NAP and the concept of Self Ownership is demonstrating how simple and not tricky my arguments are.

And feel free to offer up any reading material you like. I have one restriction: We trade. I read one book or article, you read one book or article. I'll try to keep my reading suggestions short, or, at least, on-par with yours. In any event, I won't force you to read Atlas Shrugged. I barely slogged through that thing. I wouldn't put it on any recommended list, unless you were up for some self-inflicted torture.

[nybble41]

You don't like the NAP.  That's clear.  But why?  What does it matter to you?  You don't like being restricted to non-aggression?  You feel there are instances in which you should initiate force against others who have not caused you harm?  You think NAP adherents should not be able to defend themselves?

Forget everything else; these are the questions anyone who opposes the NAP needs to answer.

The alternative to the NAP is the principle that some (or all) people should be able to initiate or escalate the use of force against non-aggressors while simultaneously being able to claim that a reprisal in kind by the victim would be unjustified.

If you oppose the NAP, please explain the rational basis by which you distinguish between those permitted to act aggressively and those prohibited from doing so.

[Hawker]

You don't like the NAP.  That's clear.  But why?  What does it matter to you?  You don't like being restricted to non-aggression?  You feel there are instances in which you should initiate force against others who have not caused you harm?  You think NAP adherents should not be able to defend themselves?

Forget everything else; these are the questions anyone who opposes the NAP needs to answer.

The alternative to the NAP is the principle that some (or all) people should be able to initiate or escalate the use of force against non-aggressors while simultaneously being able to claim that a reprisal in kind by the victim would be unjustified.

If you oppose the NAP, please explain the rational basis by which you distinguish between those permitted to act aggressively and those prohibited from doing so.

The alternative to the NAP is a state where you have separation of powers, laws are made by people you voted for and you get a fair trial before being punished.  In NAP-land, you don't have these basic protections so you suffer the abuse that they were designed to prevent.

[myrkul]

The alternative to the NAP is a state where you have separation of powers, laws are made by people you voted for and you get a fair trial before being punished.  In NAP-land, you don't have these basic protections so you suffer the abuse that they were designed to prevent.

1. You ignored completely this:

If you oppose the NAP, please explain the rational basis by which you distinguish between those permitted to act aggressively and those prohibited from doing so.

2. How, exactly, is one monopoly organization, whose paychecks are all signed by the same guy, a "separation of powers"?

3. If laws were made only by people I voted for, all laws would be made by Ron Paul. I've voted for no-one else in over a decade.

[myrkul]

If you haven't yet, you must watch :
The Machinery Of Freedom by David Friedman (Illustrated summary) http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=jTYkdEU_B4o#

This is getting cross-posted in the other threads. If you doubt the fairness of NAP and market anarchy, This will be a good use of 23 of your minutes.

[punningclan]

Sorry, you are not Robinson Crusoe or John Galt, those were both and always will be fictional characters.  You did not spring from the mud fully formed, but were once a helpless infant and had the culture, language, and social norms of this (or whatever) society instilled into you to some degree or another.  

I have to reject this statement there have been and there will again be individuals born in to highly unorganized and stateless civilizations. Just because you can't see them doesn't mean they aren't or haven't existed.

http://www.smashinglists.com/10-feral-human-children-raised-by-animals/

It's interesting to me how much controversy a simple axiom like "Do no harm." can cause. It makes me wonder what people are protecting on both sides of this argument.  

[niemivh]

In this NAP-induced mindset, the public good is never considered, the survival of the society is never considered, the future projection of the society is never considered, the greater potential that can exist is never considered, the level of individual equality of the system is never considered, the external threats to the system cannot be addressed; and why when these ideologies have seized power they system collapses and destroys itself in short order.  And, unfortunately, we are well on our way in this collapse for this very reason.

I've read your posts a few times by now.  And, while I get that you are dissatisfied with the NAP, I still can't seem to determine the 'basis' of your complaint.
You don't like the NAP.  That's clear.  But why?  What does it matter to you?  You don't like being restricted to non-aggression?  You feel there are instances in which you should initiate force against others who have not caused you harm?  You think NAP adherents should not be able to defend themselves?  You think they should join you in aggressing against others?  You think the NAP is inadequately equipped to protect individual freedoms, and you have a better method?  Fine.  Name some examples.

Why do I 'not like' the NAP, you ask?  Because the NAP is used to preach some type of Libertarian utopia that has never been seen on land or sea or in the fossil record and upon cursory and deeper analysis to the society governed by NAP one (who is literate in civics) realizes how deranged and ridiculous it is as a sole governing and moral philosophy.  That is why.

Let me explain.  Power relations exist.  And they exist without the proverbial "gun to your head" scenario that every Libertarian canard seems to invoke.  Power relations exist by virtue of almost every facet of difference in ability between individuals in an aggregation of individuals.  Where there is a difference in ability, wealth, intelligence, knowledge, age, sex, basically anything there is a difference in power.  (Are you with me so far?)

So let's take debt for example.  How does the creditor know that he's relatively secure in loaning the money?  How does the debtor know he's protected from dishonest lending and/or usurious methods of loaning?  How do bankruptcy proceedings exist for individuals?  If the creditor couldn’t be reasonably assured of repayment, then why would he loan to anyone?  If we returned to debtors prisons and/or he was guaranteed repayment then why would he not simply lend to anyone and everyone (the infirm, the deranged, children, deadbeats, etc.)?  And how do you have modern debt relationships without, yes, a monopoly of power that enforces the same rules and promotes a reasonably fair '3rd-party' that is relatively indifferent to the proceedings but is acting in the universally established methods and rules for governing said situation?  Rigorously define to me how that process works without a something that clearly is governmental in spirit, regardless of whatever pedantic titles you may want to assign to things. 

This is just one aspect to which the NAPtopia has no answers, and there are literally hundreds we could go through.  It is whenever the ‘rubber meets the road’ so to speak that all this beautiful rhetoric and literary masterwork of Libertarianism completely implodes, that’s why they can’t talk about specific policy or specific anything just arbitrary nonsense.

While you're at it, go ahead and give us an historical example of this ideology (NAP) "seizing power".  Gandhi?  And what system is "on it's way to collapse?"  Bitcoin?  In that vein, please define "public good" and "society" while you're at it, and expound upon the threats faced by each.  What imminent emergency do we face?  Economic stagnation?  Peak oil?  Moral decay?  Overpopulation?  Governmental insolvency?  Environmental degradation?  Islamo-fascism?  Global warming?

Let us define, albeit perhaps crudely, some basic terms.  “Society” is a lot of things, but let’s simply define it as the emergent behavior of the actions of people.  The “public good” is what helps the general population both in the present and in the future for people that have yet to be born. 

The world, actually the universe, exists in a constant state of flux.  Things change and will forever always change as far as we know.  Humanity can either react to the change (your seemingly preferred method), let’s call this the reactive approach.  Or humanity can be proactive and governed by wisdom, that is by the people that have the foresight to see these things coming and can steer the civilization away from said catastrophes and toward higher states of existence.  Those are I guess the options boiled down to their most basic levels, you can either be governed by ignorance, fear, and ideology (our backward past that you’d like to return to) or wisdom, justice, and foresight (republicanism, a ‘just king’ or other models).  This is the conversation that needs to actually happen; that is, how to determine the best means of a system for determining and establishing and enforcing justice, even the arch-reactionary Libertarian Fredric Bastiat admits this much .  The Libertarians say that this pursuit of State Justice can’t work or doesn’t work, wholly ignoring that their very lives and their very culture are testament to the fact that it did work and has worked.   Is it perfect?  Absolutely not!  But it gets closer to that, perhaps, unattainable perfection by the involvement and concern and action of those of intellect and goodwill, and the more they shy from this process the more it is corrupted by the unscrupulous and the further it moves from virtue the closer it moves towards ruin.

In terms of existential threats: presently we are seeing an economic meltdown that has the potential to be more disastrous than the Great Depression.  We see an incredible escalation of NATO aggression against Russia that is rapidly heating up in the thermonuclear armament sphere.  We have a worldwide decaying UK/US (‘special relationship’) empire that is frantically trying to maintain their oligarchical privilege (which all you are unknowingly defending with your crackpot ideology) and threatening a thermonuclear WWIII of mass extinction on the planet.  And these are just some of our problems. 

And let me just follow that up with a response to what is likely to be this ‘ideology in a can’s response.

“Yes!”, a Libertarian or otherwise someone of your Liberal Tradition would say, let’s let the degraded masses of people as a whole solve these problems!  Yes, just like the “Borg-Blob” model of the direct Democracy of “Occupy Wall St.” worked so well…?  All these attempts to say that “the people” should solve these problems, as you present them are not only a way to ‘pass the buck’ of any responsibility of action from yourself to the space between individuals but a way to collectively blame the emergent behavior that is society; to as it were, to blame a process that doesn’t have the human characteristics of ‘choice’ or can in turn by ‘blamed’ by such notions that are only applicable to individuals.  This strikes at the heart of the fallacy of Libertarianism, they invert and turn inside out Society.  You want to say that Society has all the properties it doesn’t have and has all the properties that it doesn’t.  By saying that these problems should be left to “the people”, as such, is saying the emergent behavior of the people is to take action and if the society (“the people”) do not take action then they (“the people”) are to blame for their problems; this is the doctrine of “Collective Guilt” – and I must admit, it’s a brilliant way to try and shirk your responsibility.  It is a modality of learned helplessness.  The fact of the matter is that society cannot be blamed in this manner and it cannot be the cause of anything in the manner that is being described.  I know that’s a rather abstract point, but it is permeated throughout the Libertarian doctrines, one simply has to be observant enough to see it.

Although Society as presented by the Libertarian (& their father the Liberal Tradition) doctrine cannot make Choices, as such, it is left quite obviously to individuals.  That is, the people of goodwill, intelligence and morals in the society have greater power over their fellow men, they have greater power over the future of men, they have historically governed the process by which we all owe our present lives.  In the past they have acted in accordance with virtue, not shying away from the grave responsibility that they possessed.  They used their influence and power to lead and guide the society away from crisis and toward progress.  Such is why we exist, and it is a great legacy to let down.  It is spit in the eye of every one of your ancestors who took up this responsibility and acted in their best possible accordance with what they knew was right.  If they choose not to take up this burden then others will, and they will not act within the accords of justice and will drive the civilization into the ground.  The problem, dear sirs, is that the stakes have never been higher.  We don’t live on a blank chalkboard by which you can devise, from scratch, every rudimentary axiom by which you want your utopia to be defined by.  We must work with that which we presently have and be aware and knowledgeable of its past, its present and its future trajectory; if we are to be able to change that future then we must learn all these things.  We live in a world with thermonuclear weapons, with the technology to destroy us all, return to a new Dark Age or to usher in a new Renaissance all within our lifetimes.  The choice is all yours; the defeat has the potential to be absolute, but so does the victory.

You obviously don't understand the NAP, based on your comments here and your other threads.  I'm not sure how to rectify that.  It's a single axiom.  Maybe you should think about it some more.  I'm not sure why you continually claim NAP has "no fixed meaning".  The meaning is extremely simple.  And its application is straightforward and highly consistent.

No sir, the problem is I fully understand it and I don't believe it.  You are seeing someone outside your ideological Libertarian bubble peaking in at you and informing you are an ideological captive and a slave.  That's why it must seem so alien to you.  The words of the NAP remain the same everywhere, this is true, but the NAP is anything but consistent in its meaning and it's not made to be, it was made to confuse ignorant well-meaning people that don't read hundreds of history books and would rather feel like some type of wizened sage by virtue not of wisdom but of a single line of rhetoric.  It looks like it's working quite well.  The problem is that no society, beyond the most primitive of tribal societies cannot even come close to living by the NAP.  The first paragraph I wrote above has what I find wrong with the NAP.

 

You have a poor understanding of information theory.  You believe that, since "modern society is complex," it therefore should be governed by a "complex" philosophy.  This is naive stupidity.  And, again, getting beyond it requires some abstract reasoning ability and the will to employ it.  Complexity breeds inconsistency.  Somehow you have convinced yourself otherwise.  And for some reason you think a forum full of programmers is going to agree with you.

I 'have a poor understanding of information theory'... because I don't agree with the NAP or SO?  I work in the IT field as well (as most here do) yet I realize that human interaction is not governed by the type of rigorous determinism that your Java script is operating on.  In fact, I've noticed that programmers think very well in this logical flow type of format but for that very reason are nearly retarded in contemplating open systems. They cannot see the simultaneity of cause and the simultaneity of effect and the interplay in which cause becomes effect and effect because cause, they want simple A causes B causes C logical flows.  We need less Rain Man, more Socrates.

Because I say that modern society is complex (which it is) you claim that I claim that it has to be governed by "complex" philosophy.  I’m not necessarily disagreeing or agreeing with that, but I never actually said that, what I'm trying to illustrate is that the system of law must be necessarily complex in dealing with various facets of human interaction.  That's quite different than just wishing or saying that law should be intentionally complex for the sake of being complex or for the sole purpose of being complex because society is so.  In addition, your allusion to Occam is misguided, simply because something is complex doesn’t imply inconsistency.  What I've explained and continue to explain is that everything cannot be boiled down to NAP or SO and that different scenarios must be defined with regard to those circumstances if we are to be concerned with justice, which I am.  I gave an example above of debt relationships, yet for any possible facet we can think of there will be different actions and structures and guidelines (presumed laws) by which justice in that situation would be the greatest fostered and supported.

The axiom I seek to act in accordance with is justice itself, the thing about justice and all the virtues is that they are not of this physical world, the pure form of it resides in the realm of thought and cannot be rigorously defined by deterministic procedural ideology.  Justice isn't some type of fixed procedure by which you can apply the same medicine (NAP or SO) to every scenario, justice requires action, it requires involvement, it requires you to quit being an 'arm chair' observer and take part in your own future and create your own destiny and be a part of history rather than simply being a passenger in someone else's.  And yes, it requires force of action.

While justice is not a fixed procedure or a process it is the principle involved in whatever action or decision is morally being made.  To be a moral human being you must look at every situation and determine what justice is and then seek to carry it out.  This is the grave responsibility of being a human being, knowing the difference between good and evil and acting in accordance with it.  This is something that every human has the obligation and responsibility to do for themselves and their brethren and why people shy away from it so much.  It is why many have the wish to be servants, that the desire to be a slave is alive and well and apparently most alive with those that claim the 'greatest freedom and liberty'.  In becoming an ideological slave to this doctrine, you pretend to absolve yourself of these moral, innate obligations.  Those that take up these doctrines do not want that responsibility, what if they choose incorrectly and hurt people?  These are the types of fears inherent in the NAPtopians, that by somehow atomizing the society, which is the logical result of the NAP, then they will arrive at a place where moral decisions are no longer relevant and no longer required simply by virtue of their existence.  The great burden of being human will be lifted from their shoulders.  This is another allure of the NAP.

So, do this then.  Make the NAP more complex, and we'll discuss the results.  What would you prefer?  The Golden Rule?  Direct Democracy?  Hammurabi's Code?

The Golden Rule is better since it promotes positive action which anything beyond the society of the most basest of animals requires - that is group collaborative action for the survival, improvement, safety and upward progress of that group.  This does not come from morality being strictly negatively defined.

Direct Democracy is perhaps the stupidest idea ever invented.  You need to open your eyes and see that the difference between the doctrines of NAPtopia, Anarchism and Pure Democracy are, in fact, only very slightly different from each other.  They share a numerous amount of the same inherent fallacies.  This is something I can clarify if you desire.

Was the mention of Hammurabi's Code some type of attempt at intellectual name dropping?  Do you mean that in anything other than 'an eye for an eye' should be the law of the land?  Why are your "solutions" to the problems of morality and law nearly pre-historic barbaric relics?  "Eye for an Eye" is probably more barbaric and backward as a ruling, prevailing ideological tenant than the NAP.  So your answer for your backward, reactionary morality is to be even more backward and even more reactionary?  Why not even go more barbaric and just enact the Law of the Jungle?

Like I said above.  Justice and the law should be as nearly identical as we can possibly make them.  We haven't even begun that discussion because it's always a policy discussion.  That is, one must assess the situation and do gargantuan amounts of research to fairly conclude anything regarding actual concrete, real, physical world problems - and Libertarians don't have time for that.  They are too busy in their ivory towers, stroking and polishing their otherworldly rhetoric.

[niemivh]

So, according to Dictionary.com, sophistry means a "a subtle, tricky, superficially plausible, but generally fallacious method of reasoning." Overall this sounds more like your arguments, since mine are quite simple, not subtle or tricky at all:

No person has the right to initiate force or fraud on another person. Don't hit, don't bully, don't steal, don't lie. Sounds like what Mom told me growing up.

I own me, you own you, I do not own you, and you do not own me. Doesn't get simpler than that. In fact, that is the basis of all other property rights.

But quoting the Dictionary is basically an ad-hominem against my arguments, you didn't actually address any aspect of them.  Then simply repeating the NAP/SO is just doing more 'hail marys' by repeating this stuff to yourself over and over again.  Could I make a reading suggestion list for you that would be outside your Libertarian bubble?  Would you read any thing outside of what you already avidly agree with?  I'm seriously curious.

I think we need to clear something up first: Ad hominem is, essentially, "you're ugly, so therefor your arguments are false," not, as you seem to indicate "Your arguments are specious, therefore they are false." The former is an ad hominem fallacy, (you can certainly be ugly and right at the same time), whereas the latter is simply defeating your arguments. Repeating the NAP and the concept of Self Ownership is demonstrating how simple and not tricky my arguments are.

And feel free to offer up any reading material you like. I have one restriction: We trade. I read one book or article, you read one book or article. I'll try to keep my reading suggestions short, or, at least, on-par with yours. In any event, I won't force you to read Atlas Shrugged. I barely slogged through that thing. I wouldn't put it on any recommended list, unless you were up for some self-inflicted torture.

I may have been extending the definition of  Ad hominem a bit there, but I meant it as such, that you were saying my arguments were sophistry but didn't seek to explain how that wasn't met with a reasonable response.  It was an 'ad hominem' against my argument, I was anthropomorphizing my argument.  Sorry, sometimes my hyperbole gets carried away.

I'm glad to hear that you are willing to read something I'd suggest.  But I must inform you I've already read the massive turd that is Atlas Shrugged.  =]

What do you have for me?

By first book will be Principles of Political Economy by Friedrich List.  You can get it online for free as a PDF.