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Orkeosaurus wrote:I didn't say that they require no consideration from others, I said they require no labor from others. Someone who is alive is alive so long as no one intervenes.

Consideration is a form of labor.

And that person who is alive can only remain so through physical exertion in the pursuit of food, water, and shelter; either through direct or indirect means.

Orkeosaurus wrote:
If rights are fundamental and inalienable, they need to be able to be attained by a person without interaction with anyone else. Because despite the fact that most people today live in fairly social circumstances, that's not the only possible circumstance for a person to live in. (Unless you want to start blaming nature for violating people's rights!)

If they can be attained without interaction, why are they being discussed? Remember, even a slave possesses agency, and therefore freedom in its most basic sense.

Dogma wrote:And that person who is alive can only remain so through physical exertion in the pursuit of food, water, and shelter; either through direct or indirect means.

I agree first of all, but in a general sense. I think Orkeosaurus is not saying what you think he is.

Sure I need food and water to survive (shelter is debatable in it's full spectrum of relevance to survival as an actual need) but the only thing often stopping me is another person who actively engages in regulating my access to the two essentials of life. I will not go to far because I hope to give you as little lee-way as possible Dogma .

Wrexasaur wrote:
I agree first of all, but in a general sense. I think Orkeosaurus is not saying what you think he is.

On re-reading his posts I think he's making the same point I am, but drawing the opposite conclusion. To summarize my view:

1: If a right is to be truly inalienable, then it must be impossible to take away. The right to life is a good example, as anyone who is killed must have been alive to begin with. As such by the very circumstance of being alive, the right to life is fulfilled.

2: Because a truly inalienable right is rendered conditionally impotent, if we mean for rights to be compelling concepts we must treat them as more than fundamental ideas. For example, the right to life is not the right to life at all, but the right to not be killed by another human.

3: Because we must now attach additional concepts to our basic rights, it is no longer acceptable to reject rights on grounds of natural legitimacy; because no compelling right is truly natural.

Wrexasaur wrote:
Sure I need food and water to survive (shelter is debatable in it's full spectrum of relevance to survival as an actual need) but the only thing often stopping me is another person who actively engages in regulating my access to the two essentials of life. I will not go to far because I hope to give you as little lee-way as possible Dogma .

What if something else is stopping you? Perhaps a 1600 lb Grizzly Bear. Is that bear violating your rights?

dogma wrote:

Wrexasaur wrote:
Sure I need food and water to survive (shelter is debatable in it's full spectrum of relevance to survival as an actual need) but the only thing often stopping me is another person who actively engages in regulating my access to the two essentials of life. I will not go to far because I hope to give you as little lee-way as possible Dogma .

What if something else is stopping you? Perhaps a 1600 lb Grizzly Bear. Is that bear violating your rights?

The right for me to poke it in the eye, yes. Beyond this it is reacting as I would under it specific circumstances. I will go directly into the meaning of this: being that I am, and the bear does threaten I do attack directly. Given that I would behave no different than the bear under the given circumstances, I have no option but to react in the same way or face the consequences.

I fight you flight, you better be faster than I am. Hence the bow, spear, and ready side-arm to take down such foes that counter me to the core.

I present no counter to be taken, just the space that connects us to what we inequitably face at least once in a life time, perhaps twice if we have the ability to do so.

Then why discuss the concept of rights at all? If capacity is all that matters, then pondering the correctness of a decision seems rather pointless. After all, you could be poking more bears in the eye.

Emperors Faithful wrote:

I think that the UN got it bang on with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. (Now if they would just DO more about it...)

ahhhhh. . . if only, if only.


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dogma wrote: After all, you could be poking more bears in the eye.

I recall fond memories of the man attacks mountain lion with a chainsaw thread.

dogma wrote:Consideration is a form of labor.

I'd say only the reverse is always true.

And that person who is alive can only remain so through physical exertion in the pursuit of food, water, and shelter; either through direct or indirect means.

If, say, the religion of a person is not in any way affecting the ability of another person to pursue food, water, and shelter then how is that person's religion forcing the other person into labor?

If they can be attained without interaction, why are they being discussed? Remember, even a slave possesses agency, and therefore freedom in its most basic sense.

Just because they can be obtained without interaction doesn't mean the interaction of others can't stop you from obtaining it.

1: If a right is to be truly inalienable, then it must be impossible to take away. The right to life is a good example, as anyone who is killed must have been alive to begin with. As such by the very circumstance of being alive, the right to life is fulfilled.

2: Because a truly inalienable right is rendered conditionally impotent, if we mean for rights to be compelling concepts we must treat them as more than fundamental ideas. For example, the right to life is not the right to life at all, but the right to not be killed by another human.

3: Because we must now attach additional concepts to our basic rights, it is no longer acceptable to reject rights on grounds of natural legitimacy; because no compelling right is truly natural.

Hmm. When I said "inalienable" I didn't mean to say it was a right that couldn't be taken away by any means, so much as a force that couldn't be taken away without the intervention of another person. As you noted, the "truly inalienable rights" you described aren't really "rights" in the common sense of the word, merely features.

You make a good point about with #2: this goes back to the negative and positive rights that sebster was referring to. The negative form of what is commonly called "Freedom of Speech" is protection from being forcibly silenced by another. The positive form may be the right to actually speak; however there's the possibility of that being "violated" by sickness, or accident, or simply having no one willing to listen.

However, I don't see how having "Freedom of Speech" being a stylized way of saying "Freedom from Censorship" makes it unnatural; maybe I'm misunderstanding what you're talking about with "natural legitimacy".

What if something else is stopping you? Perhaps a 1600 lb Grizzly Bear. Is that bear violating your rights?

Can a bear violate your rights? Can a tornado, or a disease?

I don't think so, mostly because I think that for forces of nature to violate your rights would make the concept of "rights" become too diluted to really be useful. I see "rights" as being an issue of morality, and I don't see morality as a feature of bears or storms.

dogma wrote:Then why discuss the concept of rights at all? If capacity is all that matters, then pondering the correctness of a decision seems rather pointless. After all, you could be poking more bears in the eye.

Unfortunately my ability (capacity rather) to poke bears in the eye bears ( heh ) no relevance to my right to do so. Right is no more than a definition that I use to decipher which way to indicate when I turn.

If the bears were (and in some cases are) the ones to take their rights out on us, we are usually none the wiser to inform anyone of their opinion. I have no problem with liberties, and this is reflected in my generally... erm... disdain, for these so called rights. You have the right to say you have rights, and the government has the right to enforce the public opinion as to what is actually deemed to be right in a culturally relevant sense.

Orkeosaurus wrote:No, and I'm not opposed to roads either.

That doesn't mean those things are inalienable rights. Just civil services.

So if a state decided schools were too expensive, shut them all down and told the parents to get their kids educated privately, you wouldn't have a problem if some people couldn't afford to get their kids educated? You'd just accept that education was a civil service no longer being provided, and that the children involved didn't have a right to education?

How am I ignoring them?

If rights are fundamental and inalienable, they need to be able to be attained by a person without interaction with anyone else.

Why is that important to what rights are? It appears to me that you think rights begin and end with things government cannot take away from you. While I'm working on the basis that rights are things you need to have to get a decent shot at a good life. Which is basically what I said when talking about positive and negative rights earlier.

It's an interesting distinction, because I honestly cannot get my head around the other side. I'm not saying it's wrong, I'm saying I can't really grok where the idea that 'rights need to be attained by a person with interaction' comes from.

Because despite the fact that most people today live in fairly social circumstances, that's not the only possible circumstance for a person to live in. (Unless you want to start blaming nature for violating people's rights!)

Why would we base the core values of society on the idea that people could live a life removed from society? Shouldn't the core values of society be based around what people need to have decent shot at living, based on the society we have and the way people actually live?

Orkeosaurus wrote:I'd say only the reverse is always true.

If you consider something you are doing work. If you are doing work, then you are at labor. The fact that you might enjoy your consideration does not prevent it from being laborious.

Orkeosaurus wrote:
If, say, the religion of a person is not in any way affecting the ability of another person to pursue food, water, and shelter then how is that person's religion forcing the other person into labor?

The non-religious person must account for the existence, and thought, of the religious person. Even if he does so by attempting to ignore him.

Orkeosaurus wrote:
Just because they can be obtained without interaction doesn't mean the interaction of others can't stop you from obtaining it.

Yes it does. Unless you're confining interaction to the interpersonal sense.

Orkeosaurus wrote:
Hmm. When I said "inalienable" I didn't mean to say it was a right that couldn't be taken away by any means, so much as a force that couldn't be taken away without the intervention of another person.

You mean the intervention of another force. Which is fine, but since you're already assuming the existence of one force (the individual will), you must also assume the existence of any other conceivable force. At which point you're simply making an arbitrary distinction between the subjective force (the will) and some hypothetical opposition.

Orkeosaurus wrote:
You make a good point about with #2: this goes back to the negative and positive rights that sebster was referring to. The negative form of what is commonly called "Freedom of Speech" is protection from being forcibly silenced by another. The positive form may be the right to actually speak; however there's the possibility of that being "violated" by sickness, or accident, or simply having no one willing to listen.

However, I don't see how having "Freedom of Speech" being a stylized way of saying "Freedom from Censorship" makes it unnatural; maybe I'm misunderstanding what you're talking about with "natural legitimacy".

Its unnatural in the sense that it isn't assured by nature. For example, if I wanted to I could censor you. The matter of capacity prevents nature from serving to sanction the right.

Orkeosaurus wrote:
Can a bear violate your rights? Can a tornado, or a disease?

I don't think so, mostly because I think that for forces of nature to violate your rights would make the concept of "rights" become too diluted to really be useful. I see "rights" as being an issue of morality, and I don't see morality as a feature of bears or storms.

I agree. However, that also means any argument for any right must hinge on consequentialism: ie. we have the right to freedom because the world feels better in the context of its possession.

sebster wrote:So if a state decided schools were too expensive, shut them all down and told the parents to get their kids educated privately, you wouldn't have a problem if some people couldn't afford to get their kids educated? You'd just accept that education was a civil service no longer being provided, and that the children involved didn't have a right to education?

I wouldn't necessarily refrain from petitioning against the move simply because I don't think it's a fundamental right; I would be pretty unhappy if they demolished all of the country's roads as well.

"Some people couldn't afford" is an interesting part of the situation; let's look at it in the context of something simpler, like food. How do you get food? The most basic way would be to hunt for or grow food in some fashion. However, this does not require the labor of others; it only requires access to land and resources that have existed on the earth prior to anything done by someone else. Now, clearly, most acquisition of food today (in the industrialized countries, at least) is a result of buying it from someone else. This makes sense, people organize a system in which they can specialize in one occupation and trade with others to get what they need. Still though, if that system went belly-up, it would be back to sustaining oneself from what's on the earth.

Why is that important to what rights are? It appears to me that you think rights begin and end with things government cannot take away from you.

While I'm working on the basis that rights are things you need to have to get a decent shot at a good life. Which is basically what I said when talking about positive and negative rights earlier.

It's an interesting distinction, because I honestly cannot get my head around the other side. I'm not saying it's wrong, I'm saying I can't really grok where the idea that 'rights need to be attained by a person with interaction' comes from.

I should probably expound on my position, then; I think everyone has a claim to the land and resources of the planet. What a good life entails is dependent on your situation, but generally speaking you can live a decent life without the aid of others (ignoring childhood, here). You can live better with the aid of others, and that's why people choose to form relationships, but it's possible to live well while doing all of your work for yourself, and receiving no work from others.

It's not possible to live well without access to the planet's resources; it's not possible to live at all. That may be a form of positive right, depending on how you phrase it. ("I have a right to use this grassland" versus "I have a right to not have others stop me from using this grassland")

This is where economic systems come in; natural resources are scarce (in the sense that they're not infinite, or so abundant they may as well be), so part of the reason states from is to try and manage them. I don't know of any economic system that does this perfectly; capitalism gives the resources to individuals, but there's no method of making sure it's distributed equally. Democratic socialism puts the lands in the hand of the government, which means it's put in the hands of whoever forms the majority at the best of times, and whoever controls the system of election at the worst of times. (In that sense, I think the best form of economic system that's going to be around in the near future is some form of hybridization between the two.)


Automatically Appended Next Post:

dogma wrote:If you consider something you are doing work. If you are doing work, then you are at labor. The fact that you might enjoy your consideration does not prevent it from being laborious.

The non-religious person must account for the existence, and thought, of the religious person. Even if he does so by attempting to ignore him.

Maybe we're defining "labor" differently. I was reffering to significant physical activity, or even strenous mental activity.

I wasn't considering "you have be aware of something's existence" a form of labor.

Yes it does. Unless you're confining interaction to the interpersonal sense.

Eh? Yes, I was talking about the relationship between people...

You mean the intervention of another force. Which is fine, but since you're already assuming the existence of one force (the individual will), you must also assume the existence of any other conceivable force. At which point you're simply making an arbitrary distinction between the subjective force (the will) and some hypothetical opposition.

No, I mean another person.

Lightning is a force.

Its unnatural in the sense that it isn't assured by nature. For example, if I wanted to I could censor you. The matter of capacity prevents nature from serving to sanction the right.

Ah. I didn't ever mean to imply that rights were assured by nature.

I agree. However, that also means any argument for any right must hinge on consequentialism: ie. we have the right to freedom because the world feels better in the context of its possession.

How is that different from morality in general?

Orkeosaurus wrote:Maybe we're defining "labor" differently. I was reffering to significant physical activity, or even strenous mental activity.

I wasn't considering "you have be aware of something's existence" a form of labor.

Probably. I tend to favor the notion that inaction is impossible, so that could be the source of dispute.

Orkeosaurus wrote:
No, I mean another person.

Lightning is a force.

Yes, it is. Why is lightning incomparable to a person?

Orkeosaurus wrote:
How is that different from morality in general?

It isn't. That's the crux of my argument. Rights are moral principles, and thus can only be judged by the 'reality' they produce.

Wrexasaur wrote:
Unfortunately my ability (capacity rather) to poke bears in the eye bears ( heh ) no relevance to my right to do so. Right is no more than a definition that I use to decipher which way to indicate when I turn.

If the bears were (and in some cases are) the ones to take their rights out on us, we are usually none the wiser to inform anyone of their opinion. I have no problem with liberties, and this is reflected in my generally... erm... disdain, for these so called rights. You have the right to say you have rights, and the government has the right to enforce the public opinion as to what is actually deemed to be right in a culturally relevant sense.

So you believe that might makes right?

I didn't mean to say that people weren't forces, just that there are forces besides people. (Also, I don't know why I had called rights a "force" to begin with. It seems a strange description for them...)

In terms of rights being moral principles, I agree with you.

Orkeosaurus wrote:I didn't mean to say that people weren't forces, just that there are forces besides people. (Also, I don't know why I had called rights a "force" to begin with. It seems a strange description for them...)

Ah, gotcha.

Orkeosaurus wrote:
In terms of rights being moral principles, I agree with you.

I'd be interested to hear what you see as human rights.

I tend to think in terms of what you shouldn't do more than what you should be able to do.

I guess if I tried to define rights, something like this?

1) The right to believe whatever you want, and to express your beliefs in a manner that do not deprive others of their rights (so speech, religion, press and so forth would be covered).

2) The right to own property that you've created, or at least own it in the part that it was created by you.

3) The right to make transactions without the use of physical force or fraud.

4) The right to defend yourself and your property, when you are justified in doing so.

5) The right to not be physically harmed by others, unless you are doing something to violate someone else' rights first.

6) The right to fair use/"ownership" of land and natural resources. Along with that, the right to provide for oneself with those resources, and the right to have privacy on your land (and a degree of privacy on public land).

7) The right to be tried fairly if accused of a crime. The right to be punished fairly if convicted.

How do you reconcile the right to speech with itself? In other words, what prevents the apple pie shouting match?

Peach cobbler?

(I'm not familiar with what the apple pie shouting match entails. )

Ah, my bad. I thought that analogy was common.

Basically it references American politics as mob politics.

Ipso Facto arguing over who's apple pie is the best (invariably Aunt May's) by yelling a lot.

@JEB_Stuart: What do you mean? Idealogical rubbish? That's the very point of right and wrong, while all but impossible to enforce, it something to aspire to.

Also, It's commonly REFFERED to as the 'Right to Democracy', all that it says article-wise is that people have a right to help run the country (if they are competent enough for the job), like being an advisor to the king possibly. The 'representatives' could easily be a town mayor that talks to the king. Democracy is just the way that many people interperet it.

With the right to own property, no one is giving something to someone for nothing. It's just that a person has a right to OWN something. If he is able to legally aquire it. Not just stealing it, and calling it his property.

Emperors Faithful wrote:Democracy is just the way that many people interperet it.

Incorrectly.

Emperors Faithful wrote:
With the right to own property, no one is giving something to someone for nothing. It's just that a person has a right to OWN something. If he is able to legally aquire it. Not just stealing it, and calling it his property.

That's a meaningless right.

What? The article? Or democracy itself?

How's it meaningless?

Emperors Faithful wrote:What? The article? Or democracy itself?

Both. No one has the right to run anything. They might have the capacity to run something, or the ability to run something, but they never have the right.

Emperors Faithful wrote:
How's it meaningless?

Because ownership is always based on theft, or basic acquisition, when considered a priori.

...? Okay, I understand what you're saying, but this is about a person CONTRIBUTING to running their government, not a totalitarian rule.

*sigh/facepalm*
I don't believe it. I really don't. So everything, even taking from the roots of the earth. is now stealing?
*sigh/facepalm again*
Plzzz don't be one of those 'Mother Earth is being raped' nuts...

Orkeosaurus wrote:I wouldn't necessarily refrain from petitioning against the move simply because I don't think it's a fundamental right; I would be pretty unhappy if they demolished all of the country's roads as well.

The key difference between a right and something that’s nice for government to provide is that the right doesn’t go away if it stops being popular. A right means you get it no matter what. I think education fits into that category.

"Some people couldn't afford" is an interesting part of the situation; let's look at it in the context of something simpler, like food. How do you get food? The most basic way would be to hunt for or grow food in some fashion. However, this does not require the labor of others; it only requires access to land and resources that have existed on the earth prior to anything done by someone else. Now, clearly, most acquisition of food today (in the industrialized countries, at least) is a result of buying it from someone else. This makes sense, people organize a system in which they can specialize in one occupation and trade with others to get what they need. Still though, if that system went belly-up, it would be back to sustaining oneself from what's on the earth.

But that’s all very much fixed at a hypothetical level, the idea that if you don’t have food you should go out an hunt is nice and all, but what relation does it have to a kid who’s brought up in the inner city? The thing that will really improve the lives of people in the society that we actually is education, healthcare, stuff like that. Knowing that you could go hunting if you didn’t live in a concrete jungle with 5 million other people is not a useful thing.

I should probably expound on my position, then; I think everyone has a claim to the land and resources of the planet. What a good life entails is dependent on your situation, but generally speaking you can live a decent life without the aid of others (ignoring childhood, here). You can live better with the aid of others, and that's why people choose to form relationships, but it's possible to live well while doing all of your work for yourself, and receiving no work from others.

It's not possible to live well without access to the planet's resources; it's not possible to live at all. That may be a form of positive right, depending on how you phrase it. ("I have a right to use this grassland" versus "I have a right to not have others stop me from using this grassland")

It can be negative or positive, depending on how it’s phrased. It would be a negative right if it was ‘no-one can stop me accessing grassland’. That is, no-one could start putting up fences to stop you reaching grassland. It would be a positive right if it was ‘I need access to grassland and if I cannot reach any then I should be helped.’ That is, if there is no grassland near a person, there would be an expectation of government to irrigate land to turn it to grassland, or help the person to an area with grassland.

But I would disagree with your basic approach. Access to natural resources simply isn’t a useful way to start an analysis of rights in modern society. I’m not sure if I’m being unfair to your position but if it was noted that a kid grew up without access to any form of education and was put to menial work at the age of ten, then it wouldn’t make sense to say ‘yes but at any time we would have happily sent him and his family out into the wilderness with a .22 where he could hunt for his own survival’.

You need to start with the way people actually live, and looking at what those people need to have access to if they’re to have a fair shot at a happy life.

This is where economic systems come in; natural resources are scarce (in the sense that they're not infinite, or so abundant they may as well be), so part of the reason states from is to try and manage them. I don't know of any economic system that does this perfectly; capitalism gives the resources to individuals, but there's no method of making sure it's distributed equally. Democratic socialism puts the lands in the hand of the government, which means it's put in the hands of whoever forms the majority at the best of times, and whoever controls the system of election at the worst of times. (In that sense, I think the best form of economic system that's going to be around in the near future is some form of hybridization between the two.)

Yeah, hybrid forms are strongest, taking the efficiency of the markets as the core of the economy, but placing government regulation and intervention over the top to introduce some fairness and remove externalities. Despite the rhetoric this is the form now followed by every developed country, and most all of the developing ones as well.

Emperors Faithful wrote:...? Okay, I understand what you're saying, but this is about a person CONTRIBUTING to running their government, not a totalitarian rule.

You really don't. Any given person, even in a totalitarian state, contributes to their government.

Emperors Faithful wrote:
*sigh/facepalm*
I don't believe it. I really don't. So everything, even taking from the roots of the earth. is now stealing?

Yep, stealing seems to lose its moral force, doesn't it?

Emperors Faithful wrote:
*sigh/facepalm again*
Plzzz don't be one of those 'Mother Earth is being raped' nuts...

No, I'm just older than you are. Better educated too. You'll get it eventually.

sebster wrote:The key difference between a right and something that’s nice for government to provide is that the right doesn’t go away if it stops being popular. A right means you get it no matter what. I think education fits into that category.

I disagree.

I think that as a moral concept, a right needs to be unable to be violated without the actions of another person; since people don't have an education by default, it can't be a basic right.

But that’s all very much fixed at a hypothetical level, the idea that if you don’t have food you should go out an hunt is nice and all, but what relation does it have to a kid who’s brought up in the inner city? The thing that will really improve the lives of people in the society that we actually is education, healthcare, stuff like that. Knowing that you could go hunting if you didn’t live in a concrete jungle with 5 million other people is not a useful thing.

But I would disagree with your basic approach. Access to natural resources simply isn’t a useful way to start an analysis of rights in modern society. I’m not sure if I’m being unfair to your position but if it was noted that a kid grew up without access to any form of education and was put to menial work at the age of ten, then it wouldn’t make sense to say ‘yes but at any time we would have happily sent him and his family out into the wilderness with a .22 where he could hunt for his own survival’.

You need to start with the way people actually live, and looking at what those people need to have access to if they’re to have a fair shot at a happy life.

While I think having natural resources shared is the most "moral" or "correct" form of economics, I'll admit fully that our current economic systems don't mesh with it very well at all.

Because of this, I'd make pseudo-right to replace it, along the lines of "the right to make a decent living through working". In a modern, industrialized country this would mean enough money for food, water, shelter, etc, and access to healthcare and education. (Of course, if a person wanted to spend all their money on candy instead, they could.)

When you bring children into it, you complicate the issue, because they're fundamentally unable to support themselves in the same manner as adults, or at least they are for most of their childhood. Granting them education of healthcare, instead job opportunities, makes more sense, since they can't do the jobs adults can, and they're a lot more likely to spend all of their money on candy.

dogma wrote:
Both. No one has the right to run anything. They might have the capacity to run something, or the ability to run something, but they never have the right.

Thank you Dogma, I couldn't have said it better myself. This idea that every man or woman has the right to help run the government, or any other entity for that matter, is nothing more than a fabricated illusion. A government will function, frequently more efficiently, without the help of its citizens. I will concede though that in the USA and many Western countries we have the liberty to participate in government, and that should not be taken for granted, although we tend to do that all too frequently.

dogma wrote:
Because ownership is always based on theft, or basic acquisition, when considered a priori.

Unless I am mistaken, I think you mean a posteriori, as the realization of how ownership comes about will have to come through empirical knowledge, which comes from experience. But I may be completely wrong. Regardless, I can understand your basic premise on this idea, but I can't necessarily say that I agree with your conclusion. Basic acquisition makes sense in so far as you are referring to a trade of one item for another. But theft I find to be completely illogical. There is no owner of a wild plant or animal, or natural resources, in the sense of frontier dwelling, or pre-history, as they exist outside the realms of an ordered society. Theft, in my mind, would require a specific owner to have something taken away without his/her consent, ie taxes. If you could please clarify your position, I would greatly appreciate it.

JEB_Stuart wrote:
Thank you Dogma, I couldn't have said it better myself. This idea that every man or woman has the right to help run the government, or any other entity for that matter, is nothing more than a fabricated illusion.

I agree with this. Though I would like to say that illusions are compulsory, and cannot be dispelled without great effort.

JEB_Stuart wrote:
A government will function, frequently more efficiently, without the help of its citizens. I will concede though that in the USA and many Western countries we have the liberty to participate in government, and that should not be taken for granted, although we tend to do that all too frequently.

The next question will always be: is efficiency the highest ideal of the state?

JEB_Stuart wrote:
Unless I am mistaken, I think you mean a posteriori, as the realization of how ownership comes about will have to come through empirical knowledge, which comes from experience. But I may be completely wrong. Regardless, I can understand your basic premise on this idea, but I can't necessarily say that I agree with your conclusion. Basic acquisition makes sense in so far as you are referring to a trade of one item for another. But theft I find to be completely illogical. There is no owner of a wild plant or animal, or natural resources, in the sense of frontier dwelling, or pre-history, as they exist outside the realms of an ordered society. Theft, in my mind, would require a specific owner to have something taken away without his/her consent, ie taxes. If you could please clarify your position, I would greatly appreciate it.

I mean a priori in the sense that any action is absent justification. As such, when something is taken it is either stolen (not necessarily from another human), or acquired through fundamental action; depending on your own moral bias.

dogma wrote:
I mean a priori in the sense that any action is absent justification. As such, when something is taken it is either stolen (not necessarily from another human), or acquired through fundamental action; depending on your own moral bias.

Ah, very good, that helps to clarify quite a bit. I see your point, and I appreciate your logic, although I don't necessarily agree with it. All around nicely done.

@dogma: I don't know how to respond to this, so I won't. BTW, saying "I'm older than you" is never a decent response. Either justify you're answer or don't bother posting. (Sorry, getting a little frustrated here with your vague answers.) What I will say though is that an inatimate object (like Earth) cannot own another inatimate object. That's like saying that the gold belongs to the mountain from where it was mined from.

@JEB_Stuart: What is wrong with the 'liberty' to have a say in how your country is run?