h a l f b a k e r yPoof of concept
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Instead of having the right to life, liberty, and property,
why not simply have it so that you have the right to
property, and consider ones liberty and body as their
inviolable property? This would, of course, mean that
parents would legally be classed as holding the childs body
and liberty
in a state of stewardship. If their actions result
in damage to the child, they can be tried as failing in the
responsibility of stewardship blah blah blah.
If you attacked someone and killed them, then you would
be unfairly depriving them of their property, and in return,
government would be legally entitled to deprive you of the
same.
It's not a fully hashed out legal system, but it's a start.
http://www.onlibert...operty-and-morality
Not endorsed [mouseposture, Jan 10 2010]
How Absolute are my Property Rights in a Libertarian System?
http://everything2....rtarian+system%253F A sample of a really old discussion. [Aristotle, Jan 11 2010]
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I think this idea has some merits, partly because i think the concept of property can be extended into the mind. One may believe mental events are one's own, but are they? I don't know about the idea of the death penalty because to me, you can't usually deprive them of life and add that life to your own. That would make sense if you were acting in self-defence and someone was trying to kill you, or possibly if you needed a transplant organ, but neither of those can be made sense of here. Self-defence is normally a mitigation in homicide and in either situation, the property can't be returned to its owner. |
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Having said all that, i do think this is very thought-provoking. |
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Selky, others have been there before you. Many others: for
example, see link. |
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People who disagree with this idea tend to consider it
sophmoric, but many take it seriously. If the term
"libertarian" isn't yet familiar to you, try Googling it: I think
you'd be interested. |
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Yeah, I know what libertarian is. I myself am in
favour of Federal Nightwatchman state. |
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//what exactly changes?// |
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The concept of parenthood, for one. Also it means
you only need to cover the issue of property,
rather than life and liberty as well. Sort of. |
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I'd bring back corporal punishment as well. You
punch someone in the face, you receive an equal
(in respect to the effects, not the force) punch to
the face. Then it's done, no criminal record or DNA
sampling afterwards. |
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The problem is one of inalienable possession. I am my children's father and they are my children, in a grammatical sense, but i don't own my children. That's alienable possession. Libertarianism can only apply to alienable possession because in principle it's transferable. |
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The problem becomes in defining liberty as property. |
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The problems with libertarianism are many, as well. It poorly protects items naturally ocurring in the public trust, for example. Like air, or ironically, property values. |
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//liberty as property// lack of liberty means somebody else has control of property. |
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Yes, it means someone else has control of property...
which is your, inalienable property, so they have no
right to. |
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We may be using the word "inalienable" in a different way. I don't mean inalienable in a legal or ethical sense. I mean it in terms of an attribute or relationship between two items or entities which is true of them by definition. Actually, that doesn't quite work, but it's a start. My children are necessarily mine or they wouldn't be the people they are. They will cease to be mine when one of us dies, in a sense. Alienable possession applies to things whose ownership can be transferred. |
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That seems like a very flawed proposition. By definition property can be transferred from one person to another. Personal liberty as a social value arose to address the very serious PROBLEM of individuals (bodies and intangibles) being treated as property. Slavery, child Labor, debtors prison, are all examples of the treatment of human life as a property. A property that can be traded. Objectifying personal liberty destroys the foundation of modern civilization. A dinosaur of an idea that deserves to remain in the museum: Bone. |
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This is merely Libertarianism, or Anarcho-
Thatcherism,
which is widely known to exist as a political
philosophy. A right-wing form of anarchy where
that
people tend to convert to with a religious fervour. |
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I see the idea even bored the poster, as
evidenced
by his "blah blah blah"s. |
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[marked-for-deletion: widely known to be drooled
over] |
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Roll on the 2010's liberty bubble. |
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I disagree. I don't think this is the same as
libertarianism at all, for the reasons [WcW]
mentions
apart from anything else. I don't agree with it at
all,
but i can see a clear distinction between it and
libertarianism. |
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As i said, i think there's a fundamental flaw in it
because it fails to distinguish between a necessary
relation and a contingent one. There are
situations where one's children can be bought and
sold, but that's about as far from a free society as
it could possibly be. However, you're saying that
children are their own property held in trust by,
for example, their parents? I think that fails to
take into account a relationship which exists
between a parent and child automatically. An
absentee parent, which is what a child sold into
slavery would have, is still a parent, so it's like a
hydra - the ownership has been removed and
"grows back" immediately. Can it then be sold
again? |
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Also, what determines ownership? A child's
genome is an amalgam of the parents', so to an
extent, that part of the child's identity is not their
own. Did they make it themselves? The child's
personality and identity are then partly
determined by the child's physiology and partly by
its influences. The physiology is effectively
inalienable without something like surgery or
drugs. Some of the child's personality is theirs in
the sense that they have made decisions about
which experiences to have. They may have
decided to hang out with the cool kids, to take up
football or participate in drama or audiovisual
stuff, and so on. But, how much is that the child's
alienable property? |
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I think you need to go into the concept of
property you're using here in more depth. |
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Okay. Your body is your own property, right?
Which is why it is illegal to punch someone or kill
them, unless it's done in defence. All this would
do, in that respect, is codify that, making ones
body legally theirs. The implications regarding the
treatment of children, though - that would be
difficult. At the moment, parents can choose what
happens to their children medically. If they don't
want their child vaccinated, they won't be, even if
it puts the childs life at risk. If the childs body was
the childs inalienable property, however, held in
trust by the parents, they would be putting
someone else's property at risk by the act of not
getting the child vaccinated. Once they reach a
certain age, of course, they can make their own
choices and the parents have to back off. |
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??Personal liberty as a social value arose to address
the very serious PROBLEM of individuals (bodies
and intangibles) being treated as property.
Slavery, child Labor, debtors prison, are all
examples of the treatment of human life as a
property.?? |
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No, I don't think that was the case. The problem
was defining it as alienable property - property
that can be bought and sold. Besides, in most
cases of slavery, the slave hadn't actually sold
themselves, so they were still their own property. |
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In that case, certain things are inherited as property
and don't depend on working for them, for example
one's own body belongs to one. What do you think
about inherited property? |
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Concerning slavery, i think it has been used as a form
of bankruptcy by the Romans, though i may be
wrong, so i presume people did sell themselves into
it. |
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Bonded servitude is still occurring now, you don't have to go back to the Romans.
Therein lays one of the problems with the law. Legally defining personal freedom is inherently self contradicting. If people 'own' themselves then they should be free to do what they like with their 'property'. If you apply restrictions on what they are allowed to do (such as sell themselves or their children into slavery) then they are no longer, technically, free. Anyone for irony? |
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Someone less lazy than me should explain why this idea is quite interesting as an illustration of the limitations of Occam's Razor. |
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//If people 'own' themselves then they should be
free to do what they like with their 'property'. If
you apply restrictions on what they are allowed to
do (such as sell themselves or their children into
slavery) then they are no longer, technically, free.// |
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Er, no, they couldn't sell their children into slavery.
They could sell themselves (in a way, it's what
people do now when they get a job), but they
wouldn't own their children, so they couldn't sell
them into slavery. |
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//In that case, certain things are inherited as
property and don't depend on working for them, for
example one's own body belongs to one. What do
you think about inherited property?// |
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It's the dead persons own property, so they are
allowed to give it to whoever they choose, be it
their children or not. |
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OK, so how would that apply to a child? They're
born owning themselves, but that's not a Lockean
concept of property for a start because they
haven't "mixed their labour" with it. Then again,
the Lockean concept of property may be flawed. |
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The property of one's own body and life doesn't
seem to be acquired to me. |
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Oh, and bonded servitude: yes it does, but it can
be disguised as something else and the Romans are
the most straightforward example i could think of
on the spot. |
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// As property goes, the human body isn't worth a
lot // |
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Depends on how you count it. Alpha interferon,
for example, is very expensive, and whereas it may
be an organic compound made of the same
elements as most of the rest of the body, you're
not going to find it easy to make from those
elements unless there's an actual living vertebrate
body available to you. Besides, what about things
like Napoleon's penis or locks of hair from a pop
star's head? |
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Well exactly. A lot of it depends on how far down
you do the rendering. On the whole, there seems to
be a strong correlation between the complexity of
the component and its value, and the logical
conclusion of that is that an entire living human has
the greatest economic value. Apart from anything
else, they can (theoretically in my case) be
employed, which is half a million quid minimum for
the working life of an adult full time at minimum
wage. |
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So you want possession to be 100% of the law? |
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When I visualize the 'bakery existing in physical space I usually don't imagine it as having this many armchairs. |
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Before the World Wide Web there was Usernet and
Libertarians used to discuss this kind of nonsense
even then. To explore the dark underbelly of this
kind of philosophy is never a pleasant trip. |
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Essentially Libertarians believe that they can strip
down society down to it's cruellest, most
inhuman, legal axioms and still have it function. |
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This is a common example. See the link I've
provided for a discussion of it. |
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What if I don't like my neighbors? |
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"All you need is property..." |
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"All you need is property..." |
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"All you need is property, property... Property's all you need." |
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