I disagree with that definition. The allocation of property rights is probably the one area where there is least agreement amongst libertarians. By definition, libertarianism is a political philosophy based on the primacy of liberty.

Figured it would be easy, but I’m striking out. Thanks in advance.

T. Kingston

Just annoying:
anyways (local dialect for “anyway”)
alls (local dialect for “all”)

Is that not the main effect of licensing and zoning laws? Especially in times of high unemployment, it makes little sense to me to prevent Joe Sixpack from starting a taxi service or selling meals and baked muffins out of his house.

You did a great job explaining IP to Ian and Mark, but they could use your help on things like limited liability an corporate personhood.

your post is very well written. Although I’m not jewish it happened the same to me. I was scared to death about death (sorry about the joke here) but then something happened to me: I stopped being catholic. I found out that it was religion that was putting that idea about death in my mind, continuously, every day. I think atheism (although I don’t like to call it like this; maybe rationalism is better?) was the cure. And this strikes me everytime, that atheists are less afraid of death than religious people, the ones that are supposed to “know” what’s after.
sincerely

Fabry

Do we really need religion? Do we really need a state? I have my theories but if I believe that my theories are anything more than theories then I fall victim to the same “Fatal Conceit” malaise that dogmatists suffer from.

Humility regarding the scope of our knowledge is essential for tolerance and open-mindedness. Can’t remember who conveyed the idea that the people in the middle ages were so stupid that they didn’t even realize that they were in the middle ages. We’re always in some future society’s middle ages.

As a huge fan of suspenseful fiction…I feel completely gypped that I won’t get to find out what happens in the chapters long after I’m leaves of grass. My guess is that humans and machines will completely converge and we’ll colonize the planets just like our ancestors colonized the different continents. But when we disperse throughout space the great distances will cause some divergence between the disparate populations.

What surprises will be in store for people as they colonize the different planets? Who knows? Maybe next year some aliens will visit our planet and share everything they’ve learned during their exploration of space.

If anybody’s interested…here’s my blog entry where I outline my own transition from belief to doubt…
http://pragmatarianism.blogspot.com/2011/10/is-tax-allocation-disparity-divine-or.html

…and here’s another one where I consider the implications of independent thinking…
http://pragmatarianism.blogspot.com/2011/12/devils-advocate-for-public-goods.html

You wrote: ” It’s not the belief in God itself that is the problem; the problem is all the bad things done by people who believe in God because they believe in God.”

I would agree that certainly many ills, from murder to even stealing another person’s property, was done by people who believed that they did god’s work, but let’s not forget that you don’t need a belief in god to commit the same crimes. A lot of people point out about colonialists and crusaders to point out how religioon can make people commit genocide, ethnic cleansing, etc. yet discussing Mao’s Cultural Revolution or Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge doesn’t fit into that narrative.

I think that Sam Harris is an idiot – his “knowledge” on religion is based on soundbites and even just fabricated crap – but on the other hand, Christopher Hitchens is well informed (but i don’t agree with his conclusions). In case you haven’t, I would suggest that you read Chris Hedges’ book “I don’t believe in Athiests”. Okay, it’s not a great title, but i think that there is some good insight about morality and theism/atheism.

Also, on the point about remaining Jewish despite no longer believing, I couldn’t help but think about David Cross and his bit about still remaining Jewish even though he is an atheist.

Just as I could be killed for an invasion of property that does not belong to me, I see no reason why a woman could not view the fetus as an invader in some cases. In any case, I would never approve of using force to prevent the termination of a pregnancy. I think we must allow it to remain a moral decision for the women affected.

Ask the objector if they would sympathize with the newcomer, and would offer them some assistance in gaining a foothold in the property market. If they themselves refuse, it makes it clear to everyone that they are the heartless ideologue. If they say that they would indeed give aid, then they have satisfied their own objections to the homesteading ethic.

I would even go as far as saying that they could agitate those with property to spare to donate it to the newcomer – but this again strengthens the homesteading ethic; it recognizes that the original property owner has a originally just claim to the land, but it is the agitator’s subjective opinion that it is an injustice for the property owner to keep it.

Man, Economy, and State with Power and market, page 1144.

These days religion has been replaced with democracy. Tocqueville wrote in his book Democracy in America that majority rule allows the “proletariat” to write laws in their favor. This is of course his concept of Tyranny of the Majority.

Rather than one big revolution as Marx dreamed of we now have small contained revolutions each time we vote. The “proletariat” are able to nonviolently “expropriate” some of the wealth that the “bourgeoisie” had originally “expropriated” from them.

Hoppe’s strategy involves “delegitimizing” the democratic process…which is what I’m guessing that Marx would have favored. But how can you have class struggle without “expropriation”? Would anarcho-capitalists struggle if they didn’t believe that taxes were theft?

As a pragmatarian my strategy is to allow voters to determine the functions of government and allow taxpayers to directly determine which functions they fund.

To “expropriate” Marxist’s concept…taxpayers have been alienated from their altruism. Taxpayers contribute to the common good…but all the “warm glow” has been stolen by congress. Once we allow taxpayers to choose how their taxes are allocated then they will be reunited with the feeling that should be associated with contributing to the common good.

1. never follow a leader blinded by ideological dogma
2. never believe a leader that denies the existence of a third solution
3. always doubt your “first principles” because this is a mark of a civilized man – Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr
4. always appreciate that a wise man is capable of admitting ignorance – Socrates
5. always appreciate that we are all just blind men touching different parts of an elephant – Buddha
6. always appreciate that we all have some information but nobody has all the information – Hayek
7. if you have trouble with rules 3-6 then always tolerate other people’s first principles

Too much redundancy? Naw, you can never have too much of a good thing.

Kudos on Calvin and Hobbes. I like the one where he’s pounding nails into the coffee table and his mother screams at him…”What are you doing?!!” He replies…”is this a trick question?” No idea why that is the first one to come to mind.

Maybe I unconsciously believe that I’m pounding nails into your blog. You’re going to scream at me….”What are you doing?!” Then I’ll reply…”is this a trick question?”.

What would the results be of applying the invisible hand to the public sector? What would the results be of forcing taxpayers to consider the opportunity costs of their tax allocation decisions? Here are some additional questions regarding this pragmatarian tax reform… http://pragmatarianism.blogspot.com/2011/11/pragmatarian-questions.html

d’oh. I meant MAKE me feel ill at ease of course.

I don’t see quite how you get here. If Marx was right in certain aspects, but wrong in others, his conclusion does not naturally follow… Communism is not necessarily a “less exploitative” system, if Hoppe’s analysis of the flaws is correct. So if the conclusion that communism is superior is based on Marx’s flawed reasoning regarding exploitation, that conclusion being wrong does not mean nothing about his critique of capitalism is correct.

Stephen – I’m currently an ordinary everyday radical libertarian lady torn between Austrian and Mutualist, reading madly to find my allegiance – I’ve been inspired and edified by Hoppe’s writings on the science of economics… But I am also worried about certain of his statements that seem authoritarian and homophobic. I also have recently encountered a specially horrific individual, who considers a white supremacist, anti-woman “private” tyranny completely acceptable Hoppe-style anarchy.

I wished to yell at him that even a very conservative man like Hoppe would not condone such cruelty as he was describing… And yet… Somehow I feared he would condone more cruelty than I liked. I feel I rather like the man described in your comments about Hoppe, and yet I also find in some of his writings a sense of authoritarianism that frightens me deeply. It’s affected my perception of his insights. Even reading the book of essays you edited doesn’t sooth my fear that Hoppe might have left me abused, by my spouse in the name of tradition, on some compound somewhere. And that if he didn’t think it was ideal, that like monarchy, it was something better than nothing. His comments that we should encourage hieriarchal tribalism where we find it do not make me feel ill at ease. When Hoppe writes about class or capitalism, what is and is not exploitative, I, an ordinary person, and – I admit, a victim of domestic violence with the propensity to jump at shadows – worried about his comments and notion of natural elites, can’t help but wonder what “exploitation” he would allow.

Jonathan Carp:

In reality, there are no “rules” and they don’t “apply” to anyone. Everyone is free to do anything they like.

Stephan Kinsella:

Carp: “In reality, there are no “rules” and they don’t “apply” to anyone. Everyone is free to do anything they like.” This is a positivistic/simplistic/skeptical standard. And it engages in equivocation, which is typical of opponents of objective liberal norms. Note for example Carp says everyone “is” “free”. This is a factual statement. BUt it’s slipped in as if it has normative import.

Carp:

Stephan: The reason you see equivocation is because you think I am engaged in some hunt for norms, which do not exist. Typically for an advocate of an “objective order,” you do not (cannot?) see how the “moral order” you advocate is culturally conditioned/contingent and completely meaningless (if not plain destructive) outside a particular milieu. For example, “private property,” especially in land- to, for example, the Mbuti of the Ituri Forest in the Congo this concept would either be gibberish or devastating, depending on how forcefully it was applied. To Native American societies, who were informed in the most solemn Lockean terms that they did not “own” their hunting grounds because they did not “mix their labor” (whatever that actually means) with them, it was devastating.

Your “objective liberal order” is a collection of hypothetical imperatives useful for attaining particular ends under particular conditions, but for reasons I cannot fathom, you seek to claim universality for it.

Jonathan Carp:

“The reason you see equivocation is because you think I am engaged in some hunt for norms, which do not exist.”

Kinsella:

I think it’s a category mistake to say norms “exist.” “Exist” usually applies to the material world of physical phenonemon. To use it for the teleological and normative realm is implicitly to adopt a type of scientism or monism. Alternatively, if instead it means something like “justify” then it can lead to equivocation since “show that a norm is justified” is different than “show that this physical thing/phenomenon exists” or “show me that this descriptive fact is true.”

So really, all we are talking about is: what action we “should” or “should not” engage in; or, in a meta-way, what laws “should” or “should not” be in force in a community or society. That is, we are asking: what laws (or norms) are justified. THat is indeed what you yourself are asking, or implicitly assuming or asserting, whenever you suggest, advocate, or criticize any given norm or law. So to be consistent, Carp, you can simply shut up and don’t weigh in on any normative discussion whatsoever, never express any prescriptive or normative opinions, a la Wittgenstein’s admonition to pass over in silence wherof you cannot speak–or you can enter the normative arena but then you cannot go whining about your opponent’s “unscientific” view that norms “exist”. For you yourself have to stake out a moral claim just to talk with us. If you do this you cannot go jabbering like a moral relativist or skeptic that norms don’t “exist”. As I wrote in the conclusion to “New Rationalist Directions in Libertarian Rights Theory,” http://mises.org/journals/jls/12_2/12_2_5.pdf

“Under the three theories outlined above—argumentation ethics, estoppel theory, and the self-contradictions of rights-skeptics—we can see that the relevant participant in discourse cannot deny the validity of individual rights. These rationalist-oriented theories offer, in my opinion, very good defenses of individual rights, defenses that are more powerful, in a sense, than many other approaches, because they show that the opponent of individual rights, whether criminal, skeptic, or socialist, presupposes that they are true. Critics must enter the cathedral of libertarianism even to deny that it exists. This makes criticism of libertarian beliefs hollow: for if someone asks why we believe in individual rights, we can tell them to look in the mirror, and find the answer there.”

” Typically for an advocate of an “objective order,” you do not (cannot?) see how the “moral order” you advocate is culturally conditioned/contingent and completely meaningless (if not plain destructive) outside a particular milieu.”

Irrelevant. You yourself must advocate some norms to discuss this in a civilized way.

“For example, “private property,” especially in land- to, for example, the Mbuti of the Ituri Forest in the Congo this concept would either be gibberish or devastating, depending on how forcefully it was applied. To Native American societies, who were informed in the most solemn Lockean terms that they did not “own” their hunting grounds because they did not “mix their labor” (whatever that actually means) with them, it was devastating.”

THe fact that some people in the past have not consistently respected or advocated rights is not a disproof of the liberal conception of norms.

“Your “objective liberal order” is a collection of hypothetical imperatives useful for attaining particular ends under particular conditions, but for reasons I cannot fathom, you seek to claim universality for it.”"

Sure it’s hypothetical, in that it appeals to values or grundnorms that themselves cannot be deductively proven (Hume’s is-ought gap), but that people voluntarily do happen to adopt; but it turns out, son, that you and I and indeed anyone who does choose to engage in civilized discourse about norms does in fact adopt a certain set of civilized norms. Thus this community of people can appeal to those norms in disputes about higher-level ones, to ensure they are consistent with these undeniable, necessarily presupposed norms. If an outsider–an outlaw, a criminal–doesn’t adopt these civilized grundnorms, then that is fine; he is treated like an animal, a danger, a technical problem for crime control. But for the rest, people who voluntarily join society, as you are doing here by virtue of having a peaceful, rational, truth-seeking discussion with me about norms, already all adopt the basic norms of civilized life. Then my task is simply to show you that the socialist norms (or skepticism or relativism) that you advocate is simply incompatible with norms you already hold.

Now, Carp, if you want to deny this, if you want to announce to be now that you actually do not value civilized human life, prosperity, peace, that you do not respect my rihgts, then it will be good to know, for I and others can stop treating with you as a civilized interlocutor and keep our eyes on you as some kind of dangerous wild animal. Which is it, Carp? Are you with us, or against us?

I take if from your snappy tone that you realise that you are wrong and are trying to distract from the substance of the issue.

On issues of intellectual monopoly, you are generally excellent. Maybe you should stick to that area.

Now the purpose of child support is for the courts to require that the non-custodial parent preserve the children (and by inference, the custodial parent’s) LIFESTYLE.

This involves significant amounts of hidden alimony that is labeled as a “Lifestyle Adjustment” for both the children and custodial parent.

But it all makes sense, now.

The courts have manipulated their child support guidelines to maximize reimbursements for collecting child support under the Child Support Promotion and Incentive Act.

It isn’t about providing for one’s children.

It’s about power, control, money and greed for the state.

That’s why non-custodial parents are treated as though they are the custodial parents indentured servants, whose only contribution to their children that has any value is their direct (cash) child support payment, and who should consider themselves to be damned lucky to be allowed to visit their children at the custodial parents whim.

http://true-equality.110mb.com/reports/CSPIA_Abuses_Report.pdf

The reason that I mention this, is that the Roman Catholic Church got to write the history books. Consequently, the “truth” that most people from Western Europe get, is that published by the Roman Catholic Church. Unfortunately, those in Eastern Europe, who are mostly Orthodox Christians were suppressed by Islamic expansion and then Communism. Whether those in Western Europe will recognize the Orthodox Christian community as existing on the same level as the Roman Catholic Church remains to be seen.

http://rulingclass.wordpress.com/2011/10/24/anarchism-and-the-firm/

http://rulingclass.wordpress.com/2011/10/30/the-corporation-as-social-contract/

The Church now apparently views its purvey beyond its simple rendering to Caesar, and proposes that Caesar’s share should be enlarged in scope and authority.

However, because copyright and/or patent have already annulled our liberty (to copy a work, or to utilise a registered design), people have become used to the idea they can exchange that liberty in contract, and so see little problem in extending the exchange of liberty to copy into the exchange of liberty to perform any arbitrary act.

Continued employment being contractually conditioned on non-disclosure also seduces people into believing a contract can alienate a person from their freedom of speech. This is compounded by copyright’s precedent.

I often find that people who are ready to consider copyright’s time may be up, still believe contract can come to the rescue.

The sooner copyright and patent are abolished the sooner people can be disabused of the notion that liberty is something that can be subject to contract.

your critique (more like sneering, but nonetheless) only applies to christianity (because only christians believe in the separation of G-d in three “wings”, as you put it), and also to non-rationalist religious people, who believe G-d actually interferes directly in the world – which is nonsense. and furthermore, it is mostly a critique of any religion who has a central authority such as the Pope and that, as such, almost requires obedience and agreement with everything coming from the central authority. In that way, your critique does not “make one doubt” the “religious shebang” of deist jews or muslims (and only in part does it for deist christians).

I’d find it quite odd if the man appointed to continue the work of John Paul II and his antagonism to communism having lived through it in Poland would endorse a state socialist economic outlook.

They’re probably just thinking of resurrecting Banco D’Ambrosiano and doing a bit of rent-seeking promotion first

Marx’s original insight about capitalism was that it was the most revolutionary and creative force ever to appear in human history. And though it brought with it enormous attendant dangers, that was the first thing to recognize about it. That is actually what the Manifesto is all about. As far as I know, no better summary of the beauty of capital has ever been written.

… There is no longer a general socialist critique of capitalism–certainly not the sort of critique that proposes an alternative or a replacement. There just is not and one has to face the fact..

Christopher Hitchens, ‘Free Radical,’ Reason (2001)

Nevertheless, if the pope were to solemnly declare Communism as Church dogma, then I’d call it quits.

BEcause you have a property right in physical objects, not in their value. The market value of the car is irrelevant. The original owner owns the chassis, the steering wheel, the seats, even if it’s “worth” nothing on the market.

Maybe I was trying to be overly polite. I possibly should have been more blunt and said it was nonsensical.

It’s not nonsenical in the slightest. Nor have you shown it is.

“…the landlord would put a clause in the lease saying…”

This tacitly acknowledges the contradiction, by trying to shoehorn the word “agent” into an arrangement where it doesn’t belong,

Who says it doesn’t “belong”? It’s not a shoehorn. I’ve written 5000 contracts. You change things al the time. There is no reason you can’t have this in there. You don’t have a clue as to what you are yapping about.

whilst allowing the word “lease” to slip in, which implies an opposing commercial relationship.

“Contract is just a way of specifying use and transfer of title to property. ”

Exactly! The existence of a contract tells us nothing about whether the underlying property right is legitimate.

What in god’s name are you jabbering about. If there is no property right there is no title for a contract to transfer. If there is, there is.

“I fail to see the relevance or coherence of this assertion.”

I think it’s fairly obvious.

You are wrong twice: it is not obvious, and you are not thinking.

If you have a state-granted right/privilege/monopoly and I am willing to enter into a contract to access it, it doesn’t automatically make the underlying property right legitimate.

Who said it did?

This argument would tend to stand in the way of say, the banking industry, which is heavily regulated and in most instances designed to increase leverage, socialize losses, and prevent competition, which must to great extent explain how they can extract 40% of current corporate profits.

Synergistically, unions often negotiate for the wrong seniority and security prizes. Imagine a GM union that decades ago refuted the class argument and rather negotiated for richer shares of the profit, thus putting them in alignment with management in increasing flexibility, innovation and profit. We might imagine then, that GM workers today, though fewer in number, would be far richer.

IOW, there is at least some reason to believe that free markets would result in less inequality than we have today, even while the whole of society was richer.

Maybe I was trying to be overly polite. I possibly should have been more blunt and said it was nonsensical.

“…the landlord would put a clause in the lease saying…”

This tacitly acknowledges the contradiction, by trying to shoehorn the word “agent” into an arrangement where it doesn’t belong, whilst allowing the word “lease” to slip in, which implies an opposing commercial relationship.

“Contract is just a way of specifying use and transfer of title to property. ”

Exactly! The existence of a contract tells us nothing about whether the underlying property right is legitimate.

“I fail to see the relevance or coherence of this assertion.”

I think it’s fairly obvious. If you have a state-granted right/privilege/monopoly and I am willing to enter into a contract to access it, it doesn’t automatically make the underlying property right legitimate.

I purchase a house for $200,000 and spend $200,000 in upgrades. I later sell the house for $230,000 during the financial collapse, losing $170,000.

In the case of the Camaro, the owner spent $10,000 on a car whose resale value in effect went to zero.

Why is he entitled to anything back? How are the two examples significantly different? For in a very real way, the market determined the price of the Camaro.

In fact, the latest owner should feel lucky he is not prosecuted or sued for possession of stolen property regardless of how he attended to it while in his possession. The law loves to play in gray areas. That is where the trouble is.

What is the relevance of “bizarreness”? If left-libs had their way and were letting tenants squat on the landlord’s property, the landlord would put a clause in the lease saying “you have to pay me $700/month rent, and agree to represent me for ownership purposes of the land as my agent.” This is not difficult.

“The contract and the property right are separate issues.”

Contract is just a way of specifying use and transfer of title to property.

” I may be willing to enter into a contract with regard to a currently enforceable property right, due to the fact that it is currently enforceable, but that says nothing about whether or not that property right is legitimate and should, or should not, be enforceable.”

I fail to see the relevance or coherence of this assertion.

I disagree. I think it would be bizarre to consider the tenant to be an agent when it is the tenant who is paying the landlord.

The contract and the property right are separate issues. I may be willing to enter into a contract with regard to a currently enforceable property right, due to the fact that it is currently enforceable, but that says nothing about whether or not that property right is legitimate and should, or should not, be enforceable.

This may interest you.

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/441/when-patents-attack

“In the end, current Antarctic territorial claims are only valid as long as they are not challenged. So I ask the anarchists and extreme libertarians, exactly how does one negotiate a territorial claim (or defend their property right) with an unmatchable armed force that happens to be an absolutely necessary miltary ally?”

http://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2011/10/who-really-owns-antarctica/

Lower returns do not necessarily mean that State lotteries would fail to attract revenues; some customers might choose to support the more expensive lottery (where the house takes a higher percentage) for the psychic satisfaction of supporting the State, in the same way that people often buy lottery tickets from charities.

Some people choose the State lottery today (as opposed to playing the numbers in a private venue) out of a belief that they are helping “the elderly” or “education.” In a hypothetical minarchy, they might believe themselves to be “supporting law and order and defense.”

There are stronger arguments against the State than the question of whether a State can be voluntarily funded. A greater concern is that a State which judges cases against itself has an inherent conflict of interest and a predisposition to decide in favor of itself.

In a voluntary system of mutual support, ie, the “Old West” Cattlemen s Associations, Gold Miners Associations I believe most people would sell their property for the Common Good of the Freely Membered Association. At least in the sense that Prior Sales of others’ property having benefited most everyone. Any Meeting where there’s a disposition of Property and a Hard Refusal takes place, the Refuser/Property Owner could terminate his/her membership in the Association ( the refuser’s like minded friends as well ). Perhaps the Specter of losing Members will temper the predilection of the ‘Grabbier’ Associations.

A good case for Subsidiarity

I studied IP at Glamorgan University in Wales. I would really love to catch up on what is happening in recent times regarding the proposals you speak of. This for me would be some six years on.

Unfortunately I am not working currently and so cannot afford the fee.

Any correspondence would be fantastic

Thank you

Alaster Whyte

Thanks

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Not sure what the deal is and I think another poster mentioned seeing the same. Anyway, I hope some kind of podcast will be available for download for the Agora “unconference”|

I subscribe to your rss feeds and just thought I should tell you that in the subject line of this post it now reads “Order Ginseng Online No Prescription – HQ Pharmacy? Rather odd considering this post has nothing at all to do with ginseng. Perhaps a spambot somehow got ahold of your code?

Ryan

Walmart’s actions suggest your hypothesis is true but I’d rather say something like “wages represent x% of a small businesses net income on average but y% of a large business and a dollar increase from a baseline of $8/hr would have the following effects”

I just came across those links this week, interesting synchronicity if I do say so. UPB contains at least one massive logical flaw in it, as the young lady pointed out in the above thread (that got her banned without warning as were those who agreed with her take).

When I first found Moly, I liked what he said but could not quite trust his energy. Something fishy, company, cointel about him. Those links show a bit of it. Any other agendas they may have are not relevant to the criticisms they put forth, nor are the relevant to the treatment of Noesis on the FDR board.

Read the thread for yourself and then you decide.

The fact that he would include non-sequitur links in his slander, in a comment about Hoppe’s argumentation ethics and Stefan’s views on them, I think pretty well establishes his true motives.

I suggest that whoever is reading this disregard the malicious accusations spread by the above individual. Thanks.

http://www.fdrliberated.com/?p=7121

http://board.freedomainradio.com/forums/t/29310.aspx?PageIndex=1

PS. For some reason this post appeared in my RSS reader with the title “Order Ovral G Online No Prescription – HQ Pharmacy” so you might want to look into that.

A slight correction; your FICA rate is not 6.2% up to $90K (actually $108K, send me the difference, LOL), it is closer to 15.3%, as the self-employed are liable for, since monies paid to Social Security and Medicare are employment expense that would otherwise have been paid out as wages;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Insurance_Contributions_Act_tax

Thanks for supporting real property rights, mr k.

Be careful: this kind of critical thinking and derision of Christianity may lead to conversion.

Read Hoppe’s A Theory of Socialism and Capitalism and loved it!

At first, I was thinking “Well the title’s not as sexy as Democracy: The God That Failed, so maybe that one’s just for the cool kids,” but then reading example after example of his argumentation ethics and his destruction of Popper’s rational empiricism as both a method and as a pee-poor defense of social engineering and I was like “zOMG! Han-Hermann rules!” And then my wife asked me to stop talking like a youngster, but I still loved the book. Thanks for the recommendation!

I think that Popper is fundamentally in error on a number of core issues to do with the scientific method, and rational vs empirical knowledge — although I actually disagree with many of Hoppe’s excellent arguments as to WHY he’s wrong. A few minor points of contention really.

Like many of the philosophers before him, I claim that Popper too misunderstood the difference between two fundamental aspects of human Reason:
* Logical or tautological systems (formal, modal, fuzzy, math, etc) having to do EXCLUSIVELY with artificial or abstract CONCEPTS.
* Rationality (explanations of reality itself), i.e of interacting physical OBJECTS (objects which exist: i.e. shape + location).

Reaility is NOT tautologous. It is just… what it is. We can only rationally explain it; but never “prove” it absolutely (with omniscience). Conversely, ALL logic systems are tautologous.

We merely point at objects and utter a corresponding mouth noise. We do not and cannot “know” reality directly, but only through our subjective senses (which can and do fool us; hence rationality). Science is objective because it is rigorous with definitions and rational (i.e. deals with existing or hypothesized OBJECTS — their mechanics — via explanations… in order to *visualize* so as to understand/communicate).

The current state of tax-funded of science is a circus. Physics has all but been erradicated by mathematicians engaging in Ptolemaic circularity and reification of concepts into objects (scientific fraud, essentially). They believe that time, space, and energy are physical entities (i.e. to do with Physics) rather than just mathematical quantities and abstractions. They continue to propose hyper-dimensions and surrealistic zero-d particles and wave-packets. To this day, not a single phycist on Earth who can even draw any one of the hundreds of particles “predicted” by the standard model of quantum, even thoguh they claim every day to verify them inside reassuringly expensive particle colliders.

Meanwhile the “empirical” state economists and social theorists (also largely hijacked by mathematicians and relativists) engage in similar practices; immoral social and financial “experiments” on a frightening scale.

Then when he emailed me he arguably gave me implicit license to use that work in some ways. Even if it does not cover my own republishing of it, as I did, then that would probably be fair use or parody/commentary.

And even if not: then I think he’s have a hard time getting a judge or jury to find that I infringed his rights in a barely-changed smartass variation of my own original work. But who knows!

However, you gave him permission to freely reprint and use this article however he wishes, but he did give you no such thing. Now if this case was taken to IP court, does that mean you’re intellectually infringing on your own property? Are you both the prosecutor and the defendant in a criminal court case? I wonder what the penalty of such a horrible crime will be proscribed by the judge.

The amounts of derp are too much for me to handle.

There were also pockets of anarchy during the war as the town governments broke down. Violence did not seem to break out in those towns. Probably because socialised police were not around at the time. Oh wait… it’s because most people don’t turn into criminals when the state isn’t around. I also don’t have a link for that one.

I’m surprised these incidents don’t get much publicity among anarcho-capitalists. It would greatly add to the arguments for a natural law society. I’m also ashamed for not having saved the links

Here is a link showing the King wasn’t a tyrant as pictured by the Founders:
The Case Against the American War of Independence http://vimeo.com/24525685

Martin Van Buren was probably the least worst president to serve his full term: http://mises.org/daily/2201

Keep up the good work!

Rights, Justice, Action!
Law, Ethics, Action!

or some such …

For example, the cover art shows a man thrusting his child into the world, which she greets with open arms. You could say there is a force driving her toward self-reliance and freedom. Find a few synonyms for a driving force, momentum, or birth… pick between a few for freedom: The Impetus for Liberty. Natural Law and the Impulse for Freedom, The Genesis of Sovereignty. These are just off the top of my head, I’d probably map out dozens of spin-offs of that one concept, then start over a few more times with different interpretations and drill down again for each of those.

You do however still have to ensure the title accurately represents the contents of the book. Subtitles can help with that.

Your link is: Would the Absence of Copyright Laws Significantly Affect the Quality and Quantity of Literary Output?, Julio H. Cole

It should point to:

http://www.acton.org/sites/v4.acton.org/files/pdf/4.1.112-119.CONTROVERSY.Cole,%20Julio,%20H.–Would%20the%20Absence%20of%20Copyright%20Laws%20Affect%20Literary%20Output.pdf

1. H.L. Mencken, Prejudices: Fourth Series (New York: Octagon Books, 1985), pp. 227-28:

Politics, as hopeful men practise it in the world, consists mainly of the delusion that a change in form is a change of substance. The American colonists, when they got rid of the Potsdam tyrant, believed fondly that they were getting rid of oppressive taxes forever and setting up complete liberty. They found almost instantly that taxes were higher than ever, and before many years they were writhing under the Alien and Sedition Acts.

2. H.L. Mencken, A Mencken Chrestomathy (New York: Vintage Books, 1982), pp. 145-46.

Political revolutions do not often accomplish anything of genuine value; their one undoubted effect is simply to throw out one gang of thieves and put in another… [T]he American colonies gained little by their revolt in 1776 … Under the British hoof they would have got on just as well, and probably a great deal better.

3. H.L. Mencken, Minority Report (Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press, 2006), pp. 146-47.

I marvel that no one tries to launch a royalist movement in the United States. I have printed several articles in favor of it from time to time, but they were always more or less jocose. Nine Americans out of ten are actually monarchists at bottom. The fact is proved by their high susceptibility to the political claims of presidents’ sons and other relatives, usually nonentities. The rise of Roosevelt II was obviously due to his name. He would never have been appointed Assistant Secretary of the Navy if it had not been for that name — indeed, he would never have been elected to the New York State Senate. Wilson appointed him to the Navy Department for the same reason that Roosevelt I appointed Charles J. Bonaparte — in order to gather in some reflected dynastic glory.

And there’s also Mencken’s Declaration of Independence in American, but I think we all know about that.

I’m generally not a fan of colon-titles, so “Fundamentals of Libertarian Legal Theory” works fine for me with what you have at the moment.

Saying “Alex Keaton” instead of “Alex P. Keaton” is as jarring as saying “President John Kennedy”. Some things were never meant to be abbreviated.

Ever notice that, if you remove just one letter from Hoppe’s last name and put the remaining letters on a pro-statist bumpersticker, you’ll quickly find someone to avoid?

If you were to recommend a Hoppe book to a layperson as a starting point for Hoppe’s ideas, which would it be?

Thanks!

“If taxation without consent is not robbery, then any band of robbers have only to declare themselves a government, and all their robberies are legalized.”

“It is self-evident that no number of men, by conspiring, and calling themselves a government, can acquire any rights whatever over other men, or other men’s property, which they had not before, as individuals. And whenever any number of men, calling themselves a government, do anything to another man, or to his property, which they had no right to do as individuals, they thereby declare themselves trespassers, robbers, or murderers, according to the nature of their acts.”

Libertarians look at situations where employees are unhappy yet don’t leave jobs (or where spouses are abused yet don’t leave their relationships) and often too quickly say, “Well, that’s their voluntary choice,” ignoring that the dynamics of the workplace or the family may involve exercises of power that lie outside the realms of politics or physical violence.

And then you responded:

Why is it “too quick” to say this? From the libertarian standpoint, it is voluntary, and so there is not “problem” in that justifies a forceful response–that is, there are no rights being violated. That is not to say we as humans cannot have opinions and evaluations about such situations, but there is an intellectual division of labor, after all, and libertarians specialize in identifying the key *political* problems, which is aggression, the use of force against innocent people without their consent; the violation of individual rights. It is easy to see that the employment relation in a free market does not involve aggression so it is certainly correct to observe that because it is voluntary on the part of the employee, there is no rights violation and no political problem. Once the libertarian establishes this, his job as libertarian is done. What is wrong with this?

My response is: Well, maybe there isn’t anything wrong with it, but we could do better. Libertarian anarchists are in the unique position of being the only ones with a consistent, logical, morally principled, and universally applicable system of beliefs about power, market, property, justice, aggression, etc. (Of course, maybe everyone believes this about himself; otherwise, why continue believing it?) We understand better than socialists and neocons and others why government actions are wrong, including their intrusions into and disruptions of every aspect of the market, including the labor market and everything that affects people’s employment status. We understand better than at least some others how government regulations and restrictions limit people’s choices, sap their economic well-being, and keep them dependent on the government and government-subsidized businesses to maintain a high quality of life. We understand how government interventions beget more government interventions to “solve” the problems it created, and we understand how each government intervention into our economy has profound effects that spread through space and time (what is seen and what is not seen).

Therefore, we do have something to say about how government interventions into the economy, which affect all businesses and all markets, not just the labor market, affect people’s options for jobs, their ability to work for themselves, their salaries and benefits, the state-approved qualifications and certifications that are required for them to be hired, and even the nature of the companies that exist to hire them in the first place. All of these things would be different to varying degrees in a free society, and all of them are subject to criticisms and suggestions from libertarians qua libertarians.

Maybe you say that we can’t criticize “unsatisfactory” or “unproductive” employer–employee relations qua libertarians, but I think our unique perspective on the entire nature of government, society, and the market (including the labor market, obviously) gives us perfectly good reasons to talk about “unsatisfactory” or other non–aggression-related labor situations qua libertarians.

In other words, many problems with the labor market and, indeed, with restrictive, unfulfilling, unsatisfactory employee–employer relations are political problems that have directly to do with the lack of libertarianism in our economy, so I think we should comment on them and should offer our suggestions for how they could be improved, qua libertarians. No, the choice of an individual employee to work for an individual employer does not involve any coercion or rights-violation, but nearly everything surrounding the choice does (all the intervention that limits their choices and their wages), so we can criticize all of those aspects qua libertarians and offer concrete reasons for these shortcomings along with suggestions for fixes, without conflating a constrained choice with a coerced choice. We could add more, and give non-libertarians something deeper and broader than “it’s voluntary—no problem here” by explaining how our philosophy does, in fact, offer many very attractive solutions to “unsatisfactory” employment: mainly, opening up many new options for everyone that are limited or forbidden by the State.

Consider also that you are already paying their children’s educational expenses through your property taxes.

What ever happened to working your way through college for that matter. I found the semesters that I paid for myself to be very rewarding.

There is some real pride that comes in actually earning your money through physical labor. Its a shame more kids these days don’t get the opportunity to experience that pride and resulting confidence. And there is a good lesson in humility and later appreciation for the service provided by manual laborers as well. Just sayin…

I’ve been winging it so far on teaching him, and though it’s going well I’m always open to ideas.

I’ve definitely broken the “writing first” rule, because he gets frustrated and gives up quickly, and it’s very hard to “make” a 4-year old write. He knows the sounds though, and we go through each word sound by sound. We stop at signs along the road, and we figure them out together. I swear I’m going to wear out the button for my hazards – and this is one of those “I-know-I’m-going-to-reflect-on-this-nostalgically-some-day” processes, so I make sure not to let petty adult worries push me to skimp on these moments.

As a proud papa, I have to say that he really kicks butt with math. I think he got the math mind of his grandfather, a retired Chemical Engineering professor.

As to concrete steps to get there, I think the strongest form of education is example. If we take responsibility for educating our own ( as opposed to government schools ), defending our own ( as opposed to dial 9-1-1 and wait ), financial security ( as opposed to aggression-funded social “security” and pensions ), we’ll have disposed of most of the justifications for aggression, won’t we? It might even catch on.

1. Damiana
Found in Mexico and the southern part of the United States, Damiana is known as a libido enhancer for both men and women.

2. Epimedium
Also called Horny Goat Weed, Epimedium is used as a natural treatment for erectile dysfunction. Legend has it that this herb was discovered by a Chinese goat herder who noticed that his flock had increased sexual activity after ingesting the weed.

3. Ginkgo Biloba
Better known as a brain enhancer, Ginkgo Biloba is also used to treat impotence because it can help enhance the effects of nitric oxide, a natural compound in your body that relaxes artery walls to allow more blood to enter your penis.

4. Ginseng
Ginseng has been used as an aphrodisiac for thousands of years and helps revitalize the entire body.

5. L- arginine
Known as nature’s Viagra, L-arginine is an amino acid that helps increase nitric oxide production. Cashews, dairy products, green vegetables, oatmeal, peanuts, and seeds are some of the foods that are rich in L-arginine.

6. Maca
Ancient Incan warriors took Maca before going to war to increase their strength. After the battle, they were forbidden to take it in order to protect the captive women from their increased sex drive.

7. Muira Puama
A shrub native to Brazil, Muira Puama has long been used as an effective aphrodisiac and nerve stimulant in South American folk medicine. It helps improve libido and sexual function.

8. Tongkat Ali
Found in Southeast Asia, Tongkat Ali helps boost testosterone levels and increase arousal and sperm quality.

9. Tribulus Terrestris
Tribulus Terrestris has been long used in the ancient Chinese and Indian medicine to improve sexual desire and potency in men.

10. Yohimbe Bark Extract
Yohimbe is an evergreen tree found in Cameroon, the Congo, Gabon, and Nigeria. Yohimbe Bark Extract is widely promoted online and in health food stores as a natural aphrodisiac to increase libido and treat erectile dysfunction.

Source:
Top 10 Aphrodisiacs Found in Male Enhancement Supplements

I’m sure you’ll find that such a word encapsulates the idea of private property, as well as liberty, etc–and the clear opposite of “Individualism” is “Collectivism”, which aptly describes all systems of government that subsume liberty in an attempt to produce a controlled perfect utopia.

But, in reading your post, I can’t help but agree: we *still* need to keep the word capitalism, and to do our best to defend it, and to clarify what proponents of liberty mean by it. And we would do well to remember that when a corporation cozies up to government, it’s aptly called “crony capitalism”, yet it also goes against everything a proper understanding of “capitalism” stands for!

See Rethink Music – Per Tradition.

Let’s take copyright. The cornerstone of the Free Software Movement is dependent upon copyright. The GPL is a copyright license. So I’m not sure how you can make the claim that Stallman or Moglen “oppose IP”. The evidence seems to contradict your understanding.

As well, without government regulation and law, copyright, patents, and trademarks would not exist. If you’re an anarcho-libertarian, then how do you reconcile that with a desire for government laws that provide for monopoly rights on works of authorship and invention?

This fool law that mistakes ideas for property should be abolished or rethinked.

Elton.

I think this is mostly correct. Unfortunately I often see thick libertarians (primarily of the left variety) letting these tangential values (libertarian as they may well be) obfuscate a somewhat clear and straight-forward understanding of libertarian justice. If their interest in other entailed values does not conflict with libertarian justice, I see no “political” conflict therein – yet the conflict ensues for some.

“But I think in practice, many thin libs simply assume that any condemnation of a non aggressive act is an implicit call for some agency (maybe the state) to forcibly repress it.”

I think this is also unfortunately true in many instances. However, the positioning is somewhat nuanced. Take, for instance, the commentary at C4SS on the funding of public sector unions. I believe conversations about where tax money actually goes, what is actually spent or what could lower spending, for instance, are all valid areas of critique for both sides. But the “thick” libertarian propensity (because of their elevation of what they perceive to be the entailed libertarian value of equality) has put many in the position of defending certain beneficiaries of the state while condemning others. Are they calling for explicit state action? I would say not. But it’s arguable that they’re putting themselves in the position of criticizing a move, through the state, which might repeal its over-all coercion on net. This is what gives thin libertarians cause for worry.

“She seemed to have (more or less blindly) decided that libertarianism is defined by an acceptance of non aggression, coupled with an insistence that it does not matter what other beliefs go with it. That is, at best, a distortion of thin libertarianism.”

I think this is somewhat true and untrue. Again, between scope and context, this is a fairly subtle difference in understanding. This is not to confuse actual parties with political leaning (although the parties have derived their names, usually, from such leanings), but take the example of someone saying that they are a democrat (not necessarily big “D”, but in a generally political context in modern America). What is the main thrust of the democratic philosophy? I would venture to say it’s primary thrust would be that people should have a (somewhat) equal say in the political process. That would be the primary tenet. It could be said that having such a political theory might bind you to certain ethical evaluations. Most obviously equality might be entailed. In that same vein, charity from equality perhaps. Would it make sense to say that being a charitable person is what constitutes a “democrat”? This is where I think over-all scope is in question – and not scope in the context of political philosophy even (per se) but the scope of terminology. The term democrat, as we know it, might entail other values – but those values are not necessarily implied within the context of political labeling. Democratic values might entail charity – but one need not be charitable to be democratic in the political sense. I think the over-all confusion might be the conflation of “libertarianism” in two different arenas; more generally in the ethical sense, and in the derivative political sense (justice being a derivative of ethics). The problem might lie in the spectrum that exists between libertarian political philosophy and libertarian ethics – the former obviously stemming directly from the latter but not entailing the other values derivative from ethics (charity, virtue, aesthetics, etc.).

It’s probably not a perfect analogy; but I suppose there are different contexts for the word “Christian”. In one sense, that religion is an expression of belief…a qualifier. It’s a belief that Jesus was, in fact, the Son of God. But there is a much broader sense in which being a Christian entails values other than mere belief. It may entail meekness, sacrifice, piety, etc.. It doesn’t mean that either conception is wrong, or that they are incompatible – it’s a reflection of differing scope or context. We can understand, on the one hand, how one Christian may say that another is not really Christian if he does not do or value X, Y, and Z. On the other hand, we can also understand how the other Christian may agree or disagree, but also find that such accusations are irrelevant given the context in which he is saying that he is Christian.

Unfortunately I think it’s a really sticky debate. And it doesn’t really seem like there’s even a clear dichotomy. There’s a sense in which both are right in what they claim – yet the misunderstanding between the two in their vernacular is causing them to argue past one another. In any case, it’s an argument that will carry on in the future (along with its frustrations). But it’s good when two people who obviously disagree on it somewhat can have a productive conversation; or at least one that doesn’t devolve into resentment and name-calling.

There’s something to this, but in the current discussion, I don’t think that’s at issue. The question is whether any type of non aggressive behavior can be considered bad from a libertarian perspective. A thick lib can certainly admit that there’s no place for the law to forbid certain types of (non aggressive) hierarchical relationships, and still say that these relationships cannot be morally justified. To be libertarian however, he must insist that all offensive behavior which is non aggressive only be combated by non aggressive means. (Boycotts, social condemnation, education, etc.)

“But sometimes these “thick” libertarians will, wittingly or otherwise, subvert or negatively augment their principled libertarian conception of justice by bringing these tangential values into the sphere of debate over justified aggression.”

If this means that they allow values other than non aggression to cause them to support aggression in some cases, than that is a real problem for a libertarian. But I think in practice, many thin libs simply assume that any condemnation of a non aggressive act is an implicit call for some agency (maybe the state) to forcibly repress it.

As a side note on the thick/thin debate generally, I’ve often thought that Rand’s problems with libertarianism were not with libertarianism per se, but with some straw man version of an ultra thin libertarian. She seemed to have (more or less blindly) decided that libertarianism is defined by an acceptance of non aggression, coupled with an insistence that it does not matter what other beliefs go with it. That is, at best, a distortion of thin libertarianism.

I don’t disagree with you and nothing I’ve written (hopefully) indicates otherwise. I suppose the distinction I’m trying to make is that while libertarianism may imply certain tangential evaluations, it’s not clear to all of us what place that holds in political conversation (theories of justice). For instance, a thickly bound libertarian conception may hold that personal independence (economically or otherwise) is preferable, but it’s not clear why someone discussing libertarian application to law should be introducing, say, subsistence farming into the discussion. Libertarianism, in some sense, might imply that this is preferable, but it has little to do with application in the sphere of justice.

That isn’t to say that libertarians can’t play to values outside of the sphere of justice. But sometimes these “thick” libertarians will, wittingly or otherwise, subvert or negatively augment their principled libertarian conception of justice by bringing these tangential values into the sphere of debate over justified aggression. This is what thin libertarians are leery of. People like Roderick Long and Sheldon Richman do a pretty good job of not falling into such a trap; they are able to separate the two and still have a discussion about these other values. Other left-leaning libertarians sometimes seem to have a harder time doing this.

“If it makes sense for NAP-supporters, as NAP-supporters, to adopt these non-NAP commitments, then in what way does it make sense to say that libertarianism is only the NAP?”

Again, just to reiterate, when most people discuss libertarianism they are talking about the sphere of political theory (law). The question, in this context, shouldn’t be “in what way does it make sense to say that libertarianism is only the NAP?” – it very well could entail more. The question is, what values entailed by libertarianism (if they are at all) other than NAP have any place in the sphere of justice? The worry, of course, is that any such introduction of values would obviously augment the application of the NAP (by nature…otherwise why does it matter?) and arguably detract from it or make exceptions to it. Other values may become a wedge through which the door to _exceptional_ violence is held open. And, again, given the writing of many left-leaning libertarians, those worries are not provoked mistakenly. Thin libertarians have reason to be skeptical.

I think thin libertarians would argue that justice (as a virtue) is the only purview of government or law in the way that we understand it.

But I don’t know any thick libertarian who argues differently. Such a statement, therefore, goes nowhere towards answering the question “thick or thin”? In other words, the difference between thick and thin libertarians is not over the purview of law but over the scope of things that one is committed to (though not necessarily logically committed to) because they are a committed to non-aggression.

There are obviously other virtues which people believe ought to be endorsed (virtues that many libertarians may agree with).

Sure, but the thick libertarian is arguing that you can’t help but have good reasons to endorse some of them if you actually endorse non-aggression. In other words, a libertarian can’t reject them “without in fact interfering with its proper application,” “without logically undermining or contradicting the deeper reasons that justify the non-aggression principle,” or without failing “to condemn the destructive results that flow from [aggression]—even if those results are, in some important sense, external to the actual coercion.”

If it makes sense for NAP-supporters, as NAP-supporters, to adopt these non-NAP commitments, then in what way does it make sense to say that libertarianism is only the NAP?

I think thin libertarians would argue that justice (as a virtue) is the only purview of government or law in the way that we understand it. There are obviously other virtues which people believe ought to be endorsed (virtues that many libertarians may agree with). However they feel it has no place in the sphere of what constitutes just aggression. That isn’t to say that more thickly bound conceptualizations of libertarianism are wrong. The fundamental disagreement is regarding the scope of political justice.

This is true only if justice is the only aspect of morality that you’re concerned with. If you’re a thick libertarian (which is another way of saying you’re a libertarian who links justice with other aspects of morality) then you need to justify many types of action, including non-aggressive action. For example, being mean because you like to see others unhappy is improper behavior. If you can show that many types of hierarchical relationships are sufficiently related to aggression, then you may be able to show that they are condemnable, even if they are not a violation of justice.

Let’s say that I invite you over to my house. A condition for entering my house is that you must remove your shoes. It could be said that I’m asserting some kind of “authority” over you – a hierarchy even – in that I’m somehow forcibly telling you what to do. But is this really the case? Some defenders of private property would say yes. But I think this is an oversimplified way to look at things.

I don’t believe, as property owners, we are ever asserting that we have specific rights to make others do whatever we want. You have just as much of a right to wear shoes when you’re in the house as you have when you’re on your own property. Instead, what I’d like to suggest, is that any power that we have is tangential to our own property rights – that, if we do indeed grant that property is a valid concept, we simply have control over who may or may not use that property and no other enforcible powers beyond that. Therefore, any expression of power or authority as such exists only to the extent to which we may withdraw our explicit or implicit consent for others using that property.

So, to get back to the analogy: If I tell you to remove your shoes before entering my house, I’m not claiming some authority over you in that I have some right to tell you what you can and can’t do. On the contrary, my request only has power to the extent that it is an implicit condition upon which you may use my property.

If we were to take such conditional interaction and, as other anarchists often do, conflate it with authority, then it would make a good deal of fairly ambiguous daily interaction immoral. Families, churches, and many other voluntary organizations would seem malicious and predatory under such a notion. In fact it would seem hard to justify trade as being anything other than malign under such a notion. For, if one was asked to shovel snow out of a driveway in exchange for money we could then say that person was being temporarily subjugated to the will of another. We may say, “Clearly this is absurd – the person in question is not being forced to do such a thing. He’s doing it of free will and association.” And such a point couldn’t ring any clearer. In fact, it would ring just as clear and for the same reasons in regards to the removing of your shoes before you enter my house, or in regards to labor being exchanged for wages on the floor of an assembly line.

This is why anarcho-capitalists will forever clash with anarchists of other stripes. Few self-described anarchists seem to be willing to differentiate conditional association with what ANCAPs would describe as “authority” (forced hierarchy), even if those anarchists (according to their own view) willingly subject themselves to many conditional associations in their everyday lives without recognizing them as such. It presents an inherent problem to their ideology, and I believe it’s largely (maybe even subconsciously) why many dismiss private property altogether, or subscribe to the labor theory of value – it’s the result of cognitive dissonance.

Ultimately the distinction is clear. Private property as such is not simply a throwback to a feudal system (as other anarchists often claim) where owners of large tracts of land claim ownership over the lives of serfs. Instead we claim that any such command or power, as it may be perceived, can exist only, and unequivocally, as an expression of property rights -and nothing else. We submit then that all voluntary association, trade, or hierarchy is derived from the ownership of ourselves and willful consent therein – and that, as such, by nature their exhibition cannot be coercive. Even more clearly, the idea of restraining men from such voluntary association would be, by definition, explicitly coercive. In this way the anarcho-capitalist position is clear; free men of free association born out of an inherent ownership of self, labor, and the product thereof, reasoned simply and deductively. In this way, I don’t believe the onus is on Rothbardians to further justify self-ownership and free association. The onus is instead on detractors to explain why men should not own themselves or should be restricted in their associations with other free men.

yes, and libertarians are not against hiearchy.

Maybe libertarians aren’t (if we accept your historically recent definition) but AN-archists are not against HIER-archy? In the immortal words of Violent J and Shaggy 2, how does that work? As William Gillis wrote:

“Anarchy” –in one of the most brilliant, clear and crystalline etymologies available in political ideology/idealism– is defined by its opposition to rulership. All forms of rulership.

If it’s voluntary, it’s not bad-domination, bad-authority.

This seems to obviously not be the case and so I’m going to say the burden is on you to prove this. It also seems like a pretty privileged perspective. This position also assumes that rulership can only be determined from the actions of the person who submits. Yet it still seems like an open question to ask “What kind of person would regard another as subordinate in this context?” No matter how airtight the theory is that force should not be used to prevent such relationships, I don’t see how you can argue that they cannot come under criticism.

Only the use of interpersonal violence needs to be justified.

That may be true within a philosophy that is defined as dealing only with the justified use of violence but that’s a rather trivial point. But in general, it’s clear that other things need to be morally justified even if they don’t warrant force to be used. Why are such considerations precluded from the scope of anarchism?

At the end of the day, there are anarchists and there are anti-”aggressionists.” They overlap, of course, but they don’t appear to capture the same ideas.

Het proces tegen Geert Wilders, is oorspronkelijk een internationale actie van de moslimdictators via Nederland en is een schande, het is niet legitiem!

Zie de eerdere opmerkingen van moslim dictators, als:Abdullah van Saudi Arabië, Kadhaffi van libie, Ali Abdullah Saleh van Jemen, Ahmedinejad van Iran , de Mohammed, Leiders van Turkije, Omar al-Bashir van Soedan…Even later een rechtbank tegen Geert Wilders. Aangezien deze dictatoriale regime’s niet legitiem zijn, zou dit waanzinnige proces samen met de dictators, zo snel mogelijk moeten verdwijnen. Het proces tegen Geert Wilders, dat dankzij de medewerking van deze dictators tot stand kwam, is dodelijk. Door de islamitische cultuur-wetgeving gestimuleerde bevolkingsgroei, die nog steeds exponentieel is, betekent dit, dat in alle moslim-landen de gevreesde overbevolking zeer snel plaats vindt.
Neem nu Egypte, de overbevolking daar, is een groot probleem. Het bewoonbare gedeelte van Egypte is zo groot als Nederland, maar er wonen wel negentig miljoen mensen, vijfmaal zo veel als in Nederland. De hoofdstad Cairo beslaat een oppervlakte van Amsterdam en haar voorsteden maar het herbergt meer mensen dan in heel Nederland. Pakistan is weer hetzelfde. In Marokko, zijn er binnen 23 jaar meer dan 28 miljoen moslims bij gekomen. Turkije stijgt naar 80 mi