@"But alas they only attack and complain and propose the robbery of others to solve social problems"

Also, fuck that shit. Do you consider it robbery if the state uses taxes to pay for military and police?

Cause taxation is either just and fair, or robbery, and once you've paid out your taxes, it is up to your representative to decide what to do with it.

Nothing is yours, you only have property because the state protects your rights. It should protect all your rights, not just property rights.

@orathaic re:abortion

You're absolutely right. Abortion belongs to bodily autonomy and must not be denied to any woman.

But it's a necessary evil, let's not forget that. It's legal. It must be legal. It doesn't make it right.

@orathaic re:taxation

Military and police defend property. Yanick clearly said it is the reason why they are an exception. Don't act disingenuous.

In fact, military and police are a necessary evil too.

"Nothing is yours, you only have property because the state protects your rights."

I would like to +100 this. <3

A super bloated military that is a charity state for defense contractors and zillions of shiftless moochers is not necessary.

And abortion is hardly evil. Letting people die of easily treatable dosease because we can't organize a health care system, now that's evil.

@orathaic re:"nothing is yours"

My property is mine. I have agreed to let the stat defend it. If it becomes unable to do so, I defend it myself. We are not children and the state is not our mother, however tempting it may be to believe in the illusion of safety.

@Jamiet

"Nothing is yours, you only have property because the state protects your rights."

so as long as States protected the right to slavery... slavery was just and moral? or the state is inadequate... but if you go off of subjective grounds then at ANY time the state could be open to be rebelled against.

my principles are quite clear:

there is either purpose to life, or there is no purpose to life. if there is no purpose, then nothing matters, but if there is purpose, then it is optimal to try to find/achieve it. Not having any evidence to the contrary, there is every possibility that such a reason for life exists. do find this purpose, we much search for it. to do so w must have freedom of will, thus freedom to do as you please is an essential right.

however, if there are other people searching for such a purpose, they have a right to freedom as well. when these rights interfere, the search for meaning in life can become compromised. thus you are not allowed to take away some level of freedom or ability from another person, without them consenting to it as an individual.

to maintain our livelihood we are allowed to use the environment for sustenance, however i do not believe that our inadequacy to support ourselves DEMANDS that other people be forced to help us. on the inverse of that, if you see someone in need of help, "two heads are better than one" and it is good to help that person.


this is not even a religious argument for principle, rather it's a way to combat the unoriginal nihilist perspective that ignores logic

Nothing is yours, you only have property because the state protects your rights

in the United States the people are sovereign. to say nothing is mine is a violation of that sovereignty. i don't know what the situation is where you are ortho, but that is the reason for 'due' process that the state bears the burden to 'take' my property. as for taxes again you have this backwards. what we give to the 'state' remains ours and only as the representatives do the will of the people are they allowed to spend.

as for abortion, just because it is 'legal' does not take away the fact that it is murder as is capital punishment or the 'justified' killing of deadly force that the police and the military do. ortho you are just backward and biased as you were not aborted and thus have no right to claim that abortion is not murder regardless of the 'rights' of the mother

I would like to +100 this. <3

jamiet you are a +1 pig and a small minded +1 whore

Brad, the COLLECTIVE people are sovereign, not individual people. The collective, acting through the government can tax/take your property until you have none. To the extent they have not yet done it, they have allowed you to keep it.

"The collective, acting through the government can tax/take your property until you have none. To the extent they have not yet done it, they have allowed you to keep it."

That's true only theoretically. The collective won't do it because they don't want to have it done to themselves. Otherwise you could say that the collective has allowed me to live because they have not decided to kill me. In practice, it makes no sense.

The collective seldom exercises its right to take, I agree. Abuse would lead to revolt. But the alternative, that individuals are sovereign, is complete nonsense else you couldn't be taxed at all.

Zmaj, the collective has taken the lives of people before: the wrongfully convicted of the death penalty. They just happen not to be the people you know.

Hauta: true, we can never be completely sovereign. There will always be coercion by the state. I'm just looking for a way to reduce that coercion to a minimum.

At the least, it sounds like you agree with me that Brad's notion of individual sovereignty is wrong.

Hauta, I re-read Brad's last post and, honestly, I don't see what's wrong with it.

Hauta you're Roussea, we're Hume. It's collective contracts vs individual utility

one's based in reality, the other is rousseau's

"Otherwise you could say that the collective has allowed me to live because they have not decided to kill me. In practice, it makes no sense."

Depends on the scale of the collective. Two people conspire to kill one all the time, sometimes with impunity.

and that horrifies me

It is horrific, and it's also why the prescriptive "non-aggression principle" is doomed to fail.

in the United States the people are sovereign.

THAT is what i wrote you dummies! ^ i did not claim INDIVIDUAL sovereignty, stupid ass! I DID say that taking of my property without due process it a violation of the PEOPLE's sovereignty. READ!!!!! That's why you guys are all fouled up. You take things out of context; you misquote; you misread. No wonder you are so backward. the sad thing is that you believe your tripe and will be relieved of your liberty, your property and your dignity. but as you have acted you would not deserve any of that if it were not form the Creator anyway; just a bunch of sheep looking to be sheared!!!!!

When Capt Brad gets mad, he gets Old Testament on your ass.

and let that be a lesson to you!!

Property gets taken all the time by abusing due process. From seizing land so it can be developed by rich people, changing or restricting the usage especially in Texas if you are on the wrong side of the current wall, or seizing money and property allegedly connected to a crime even if its never charged. Police routinely seize "large" amounts of cash from individuals who then have to go to court to prove they had a legitimate reason for carrying it like going to purchase something from a seller that would only take cash, on the way to deposit it at a bank, or transferring it across a border to relatives.

@Zmaj: "
Military and police defend property. Yanick clearly said it is the reason why they are an exception. Don't act disingenuous."

My apologies. I'm not acting disengenuous, because i gave Yanick muted (for good reasons), so i did not see that comment.

Your loss. Yanick is one of the most articulate analysts in this forum.

@"Zmaj Online (2302 D (B))
05:47 PM
+1 (+1)
@orathaic re:"nothing is yours"

My property is mine. I have agreed to let the stat defend it. If it becomes unable to do so, I defend it myself. We are not children and the state is not our mother, however tempting it may be to believe in the illusion of safety."

You could not have earned all those things on your own. You did bot build the roads or train lines which bring you to work, you did not pay for the research which invented the internet, you did not pay for your schooling or your teachers' schooling. You did not invent the vaccines which kept you safe growing up, or the rest of the medical technology which has kept infant mortality down. You owe everything to our collective. Our society. Not necessarily one state, a flawed attempt to realise the potential of our collective. But everything you have done, earned, or been a part of, exists soley because we are a social species.

You are part of a society. A collective. And you hve responcibilities towards that. We are all children, when you pretend you are not, that you have infinite freewill, and are capable of independently navigating the world, that is a demonstration of how childish you personally are. You can't even see the world around you for what it is.

You can claim that (in the US) citizens are sovereign, and completely ignore the reality that corporations are actually running the entire show. Massive investment banking firms, multi-nationals and industries tied to the state (the military-industrial complex, the farming industry, the pharma industry - all tied to the state or too big to fail).

You can pretend all you like. You are not sovereign. The dtate claims a monopoly on violence, militarises the police, and shuts down any opposition. The media ignores the opposition (Green party, and Libertarian party), the electoral system prevents citizens from making serious political change or challenging the status quo two-party system. The corporations dodging tax (see:Apple) force you to pay for their corporate welfare.

This is not a system where the citizens are sovereign. It costs billions to dollars to run a political party, to seek election, and to win the presidency. The only groups with that kind of money are corporations and the super-wealthy (who also happen to own corporations) - and the supreme court has decided they are people, corporations are sovereign. They control the very use of ideas via copyright laws (see: Disney) and what is allowed into the public domain - infact, if you relase a good story into the public domain Disney can make their own version of it, and anyone else who wants to make a version will be threatened with legal action for violating Disney's copyright... (And they have more money, so they will win). Justice only exists for the wealthy.

You are somehow blinded to the reality you are living in.

And no, brad, you didn't specify what you meant when you said 'the people'.

Interesting quirk of english. In American and in the UK we use a different grammatical structure when talking aboyt groups of people (think sports teams).

In one "the team, they won the match".
In the other "the team, it won the match".

In one case the group of people (like they people) is multiple individuals (and thus plural 'they'), in the other case the group is a single group (and this singular 'it').

Guess which country uses which, and who on the forum interpreted your 'the people' which way.

@orathaic

As I already said above: "True, we can never be completely sovereign. There will always be coercion by the state. I'm just looking for a way to reduce that coercion to a minimum."

Your rant leads nowhere. Yanick, for example, talked on several occasions about concrete measures that an individual can take (and that he takes) to make his community better. You, on the other hand, talk about corporations, militarized police, and a bunch of stuff that you can't affect in any way. Who is blinded to reality?