I’m not sure what exactly it is today, maybe it’s that all societies have a life span and we are living in the final stages of ours, but it seems today there is this propensity towards evil. This is nothing new. Time after time people are confronted with doing what is right or many times lining their own pockets. This may include hurting others to propel themselves forward. If you just do what you’re told, don’t upset the apple cart, you will become exorbitantly rich, or be principled and be destroyed.
Turning a blind eye to a crime makes you complicit and in some cases as guilty as those involved. In a way you are obstructing what is right, obstructing justice. Over 2000 years ago Pontius Polatus gave a crowd a choice to crucify Barabbas, a known murderer, or Jesus, the crowd overwhelmingly chose Jesus. Don’t we see the same thing over and over again today. People we thought were honorable and credible fall. People put in power to protect us choose money over the safety of their constituents. Maybe it’s me but in my sixty years of breathing I never remember a time where it was more important to advocate for your family and yourself. It’s seems in today’s America people won’t flinch as they crush you into dust. Take care of yourself.
Great start! Consent matters. But there can be no consent with coercion. There can be no consent with deception. Yet this is what they did with the Covid fraud. They deliberately killed innocent people to create fear to get you and your family injected.
The first crime was murder, mainly through deadly hospital protocol. The second larger crime was the coercion and deception to get billions injected.
Everything government does violates consent. How we should best respond is a challenging question, but I think that is a moral, logical, and philosophical fact.
In order for consent to be real, it must have five characteristics: it must be informed, voluntary, transparent, explicit, and revocable. Stay tuned for parts 2 and 3!
For the longest time I naively thought that almost all people have a moral compass. Now I think barely any have. There are cases where I would forgive - like a parent stealing a bit of food for their child. Is this something that needs to be taught? I thought it was inborn. OMG Maslow. I read a couple of his books 40 years ago. Now I will have to look them up again.
I think people do generally have some moral compass, or at very least the emotional systems that mediate empathy, conscience, forbearance, compassion, etc. (Not psychopaths, though.)
Re Maslow: I actually prefer my accounting of our needs, which I will publish in a future installment of my big book.
People do have one but like the earths magnetic pole, it has been moving south for quite a few years; now that it has shifted enough for use to notice, we are all paying attention
Interesting perspective. What about forced deprivation? Non violent? Presumably - deprivation is an excuse to persecute the instinctual reaction of those who have been deprived. For example: What if the individual that stole the bike was running to the hospital because they can't drive to get their loved one their medicine and it's matter of life and death. It's 3:AM and rather than be polite they used it and then returned it later on? Maybe left a note, maybe not. What about moral consent?
It’s a good question, but I think the answer is pretty easy.
First. It’s an edge question, and edge questions don’t invalidate moral fundamentals. Theft is theft, and we cannot change the definition of theft to include “unless you really really need it.” But, we have a solution: common law.
If the bike owner says, “Okay, no worries, I understand why you took it,” problem solved. If not, it goes to court. That is when accumulated human wisdom, and the present-moment wisdom of a jury, kick in. (And ideally, a jury in a private court who understand their right to use nullification to set aside any law.) So they hear the facts of the case and can make judgements about every aspect. Was the need genuine? Was the bike harmed in any way? Was the owner harmed in any way. And hopefully they come to a wise decision. “The thief did no damage and the owner wasn’t harmed in any way, so we recommend that the thief only have to pay $20 for ‘rental’ of the bike during his emergency.” Or whatever. (I know that juries don’t make recommendations, but maybe they should!) The bottom line is that we do not need perfect answers to every edge question because we have common law as a backstop.
And government courts are backlogged because governments are crap at doing everything. Private courts would have market incentives. They would want cases, so they would become more efficient at clearing them. Governments have no such incentives.
Incentives matter to government when incorporated. America is a corporation for a while back. United Corporations of America. Owned by foreign nationals.
This is why the three Laws state specifically that "without consent" is part of the Laws though the third is pointing out that You cannot defraud anyOne who is consenting to Your actions with full knowledge.
The three Laws of Ethics (Natural Law expressed as the three things not to do):
1. Do not willfully and without fully informed consent hurt or kill the flesh of anOther
2. Do not willfully and without fully informed consent take or damage anything that does not belong to You alone
3. Do not willfully defraud anOther (which can only happen without fully informed consent)
I'm here because I've been following you for a long Time having a kindred Social and Spiritual outlook. I'm not as prolific a writer like you, but this was posted to my blog yesterday:
That August of 1976 found me, a 31 year old from Canada having hitchhiked my way across some forty-five US States, arriving in Kansas City, a city poised on the brink of an American political spectacle: the Republican National Convention.
My very first stop, and this is crucial to understand the unfolding tapestry of those days, was the Roman Catholic Archdiocese Office of the Archbishop. My mission, even then, was deeply spiritual, not merely political. There, I was received by the Archbishop’s secretary, a pleasant priest with whom I shared a long and, I believe, significant conversation. When I inquired about a simple bed for the duration of my stay, a humble request for lodging, he revealed, to my genuine surprise, that all available beds were taken, filled not by the local clergy or by ordinary supplicants, but by “People from the Vatican,” here, mind you, for the Republican Convention, operating far from the public’s curious gaze.
Why, I wondered then, as I still do now, was the Vatican so deeply embedded, so discretely present, at a major American political convention? It was the first sign, perhaps, that the spiritual powers I sought to address were indeed interwoven with the very fabric of worldly governance. And that priest, seeing my shoulder-length hair and beard, took me in his own car, driving me to the Liberty Memorial Mall, stating with an air of knowing certainty, “This is where where you belong.” .............................................much more following the link!
I stumbled upon stuff like what you state a few years ago through a Substackers, an English lady - I forgot her name. I started reading and looking into things - she was talking about the men in black (or something of that stretch). At first I thought it was just another conspiracy theory but it is not. The Russian revolution and the second war are not, what we have learned in school. Nothing is, I think, what we have learned in school. It is mostly facade for something way bigger. Last year I read a thin booklet, No one dares call it a conspiracy, that probably everyone should read who is interested in what is really going on. The names have changed but the institutions are out there, not even covered. They have websites and tell exactly what they are doing. Can it get any weirder?
Interestingly, Maslow did not order things in that manner. The idea of 'consenting' does not seem to be at the top (read: the bottom) of his list. Indeed, as many people have chosen safety over freedom, many people don't seem to place the values in that order either.
Thinking about consent. What if you are in a marriage with little love, and the man wants to make love. The woman more or less consents, or she gets more or less raped inside a marriage.
How about the man who consents to marry under the false pretenses that his wife will stay faithful to him, and then she cheats on him, divorces him, takes his kids away from him, and forces him to pay alimony and child support.
Consent is a nonsensical standard if it is treated as something that can change from moment to moment. Can one consent to a contract at law and then, when it become onerous, un-consent? Agree to have someone do the work... and refuse to pay?
Maslow said nothing about consent that I can see... and most of what he did talk about doesn't actually work in a 'consent' society.
Well, no. That is an issue, obviously. But I was more referring to the fact that every contract, every obligation, every set of relationships includes 'now/later' aspects: I agree to do something for you now, if you will do something for me later. It need not go so far as slavery. One can buy on credit, use up the thing (so it cannot be repossessed) and then fail to pay it off.
But my claim goes farther than that. I do not believe that 'consent' is at all a valid way of measuring value. I have seen (obviously insane) parents try to do this with changing a babies diaper... literally asking them if they wish their diaper changed. (Which involves a rather dramatic violation of privacy, obviously!).
No, the 'slave contract' is an issue... but it is merely the tip of the iceberg.
"One can buy on credit, use up the thing (so it cannot be repossessed) and then fail to pay it off."
—True, but what is the problem you're raising? Enforceability in a market-anarchic condition?
"I have seen (obviously insane) parents try to do this with changing a babies diaper... literally asking them if they wish their diaper changed."
A) Children are a complicating factor, but they can be dealt with at least as well (and ethically) in a condition of market anarchism as with government and B) parents who ask a baby's consent before changing a diaper are virtue-signaling retards who understand nothing about reality.
I think the real-world solution to the slave contract dilemma is that contracts are only deemed legit and enforceable if a) they deal in alienable property (IOW, you cannot surrender your soul, your self-ownership, etc.) and B) they contain a termination clause.
Well, that is an interesting theoretical objection, but it is difficult to see how it works out practically.
Let us take the most trivial example: I hire a teenager to work in my store. I tell them that they must wear a certain uniform, stock the shelves in such and such a way, and ‘be polite to the customers’.
A couple of hours later I noticed them yelling at a customer and I fire them. They complain that they didn’t like that customer and so didn’t want to be polite to them. I say I don’t care, it’s my store, they’re fired.
IOW when I hired them I expected them to agree to behave in such and such a way… even when they didn’t want to. That, writ small, is the slave contract, writ large. But more importantly for the discussion I was addressing… what happened to the NAP? How is it even relavent to the discussion? When I hired them I told them I did not care what they wanted to do, I expected them to consent ‘now’ to a set of behaviors ‘in the future’. And I fired them when they suddenly decided that they ‘no longer consented’ to those behaviors.
And that behavior on their part will mean that other employers will no longer hire them. In a truly free market they would die in a ditch… because they wished to regulate their behavior on whether they ‘consented’.
I am saying that in order to have any society at all, we need to set aside the chimera of the idea of ‘consent’. Basic contract law means that there is only one point of ‘consent’ (and even that may be forced), the point where the contract is signed. Everything after that is obligation.
True. But they will all react if their consent is violated. They value it highly. And they cannot achieve either freedom or security if they are subjected to (nonconsensual) initiations of force.
One can never achieve complete freedom, complete security, or complete anything in Maslow's hierarchy. They are all subject to tradeoffs and a lot of hard work along the way. And one thing that one will find out along the way is that one will need to 'consent' to a lot of things that one does not want to 'consent' to in order to reach one's goals. And this lack of consent will often be mutual... two people both having to balance reaching their goals and helping another person reach their goals.
"one will need to 'consent' to a lot of things that one does not want to 'consent' to in order to reach one's goals."
—Yes, but one is still consenting. Unlike to government, to which one never consented in the first place, and to whose activities one never actually properly consents.
I understand where you're coming from, but "force" doesn't equate to physicality only. Force is "being compelled by physical, moral, or intellectual means," so yes, the theft of the sleeper's property is an act of aggression by force even if such force did not include physical violence against the owner.
The non-aggression principle is enough because it implies a requirement for consent. Without consent, the act is considered aggressive, even when nonviolent in nature.
The fact that it is implied but not explicitly stated bugs me, as does the fact that we must explain why things that aren't physical violence are nonetheless "force." I'd like something that requires less presumption and subsequent explanation. Let's talk after parts 2 and 3, which I will likely post over the next two Tuesdays, and see what you think then.
I think the explanation of what constitutes force is the definition of the word itself. I don't often find it necessary to explain because I expect reasonable adults to know the meanings of the words they choose to use. That said, I look forward to the next parts of this series.
Somewhere in the scheme of things, “threat of force” needs to be seen as force.
If a thief comes up to me and demands I give him my cash, he’s implying that he will use force to take my money. It would then be completely moral and ethical for my response to be quick, violent and complete in defense of myself. Self preservation is always the moral imperative.
It seems that most think that aggression means the use of force. To aggress on someone does not entail force or violence, necessarily. The bike theft was aggressive, but no force was used. I also think the word force is over/misused. Compel is a much better word in many cases. I agree with your premise that NAP is not enough. NAP is rooted in personal property rights, without which it cannot stand. My observations of what goes on in the world is that people don’t respect personal property rights, so it’s pointless to attempt to explain NAP. My first rule of self defense is, “don’t be there.” The first rule of personal property rights is, “it’s not mine.”
I am a bit obsessed with finding a way to word some principle like the NAP so that it says what needs to be said, expresses the ultimate “rule,” and doesn’t need too much ancillary explanation. I know perfection isn’t possible, but I am going to keep trying!
I find it surprising that the NAP, which prohibits the initiation of coercion (the use or threat of force) against someone, presumably without the other person's informed consent, has been accepted by most libertarians for so many years. Violation of the NAP is a sufficient condition of committing an unjust act, but it's not a necessary condition. In other words, one who violates the NAP has committed an unjust act. But if one commits an unjust act, one hasn't necessarily violated the NAP. Any act that violates someone's rights to life, liberty, or property is unjust, whether coercion was employed or not.
I think some people simply don’t think it through as far as you. (Though what I find shocking is the ones who insist on not thinking it through any further, even when they are presented with really good reason to. Confirmation bias is a bitch!)
(By the way, I know I owe you an email. Still playing catch-up!)
Chris, I think that Murray Rothbard never intended the NAP to be some all-encompassing philosophy. Given that, however, your point is correct. Most people believe the word "violence" to mean physical violence. In relationship to the NAP however, the use of the word "consent" is, perhaps, a better way to look at it.
Though whether Rothbard intended it or not, most libertarians do hold the NAP as the gold standard. (And some do not look further, or fight to defend it in the same way that I hear some Christians defend the Golden Rule. "That's all we need, and I don't want to hear anything more about it.")
In Part 2, I further lay this out, and in Part 3, I posit a consent principle that I think is an improvement. Stay tuned over the next two weeks!
TLDR. 🤷 all the yada yada. Why Libertarianism is as dead in the water. Reason, Cato, Institute, this. Better to find a capable demagogue and form a cadre, become Anti-Elite.
I turn the other cheek...to adjust the telescopic site. 👏
I’m not sure what exactly it is today, maybe it’s that all societies have a life span and we are living in the final stages of ours, but it seems today there is this propensity towards evil. This is nothing new. Time after time people are confronted with doing what is right or many times lining their own pockets. This may include hurting others to propel themselves forward. If you just do what you’re told, don’t upset the apple cart, you will become exorbitantly rich, or be principled and be destroyed.
Turning a blind eye to a crime makes you complicit and in some cases as guilty as those involved. In a way you are obstructing what is right, obstructing justice. Over 2000 years ago Pontius Polatus gave a crowd a choice to crucify Barabbas, a known murderer, or Jesus, the crowd overwhelmingly chose Jesus. Don’t we see the same thing over and over again today. People we thought were honorable and credible fall. People put in power to protect us choose money over the safety of their constituents. Maybe it’s me but in my sixty years of breathing I never remember a time where it was more important to advocate for your family and yourself. It’s seems in today’s America people won’t flinch as they crush you into dust. Take care of yourself.
The crowd overwhelmingly chose Barabbas, you meant to say?
Yes sorry to free Barabbas, and crucify Jesus. That’s what I meant they chose Jesus to be killed.
Great start! Consent matters. But there can be no consent with coercion. There can be no consent with deception. Yet this is what they did with the Covid fraud. They deliberately killed innocent people to create fear to get you and your family injected.
The first crime was murder, mainly through deadly hospital protocol. The second larger crime was the coercion and deception to get billions injected.
Everything government does violates consent. How we should best respond is a challenging question, but I think that is a moral, logical, and philosophical fact.
And yeah, Covid was especially egregious!
I think you mean "informed consent", otherwise deception becomes acceptable.
In order for consent to be real, it must have five characteristics: it must be informed, voluntary, transparent, explicit, and revocable. Stay tuned for parts 2 and 3!
For the longest time I naively thought that almost all people have a moral compass. Now I think barely any have. There are cases where I would forgive - like a parent stealing a bit of food for their child. Is this something that needs to be taught? I thought it was inborn. OMG Maslow. I read a couple of his books 40 years ago. Now I will have to look them up again.
I think people do generally have some moral compass, or at very least the emotional systems that mediate empathy, conscience, forbearance, compassion, etc. (Not psychopaths, though.)
Re Maslow: I actually prefer my accounting of our needs, which I will publish in a future installment of my big book.
People do have one but like the earths magnetic pole, it has been moving south for quite a few years; now that it has shifted enough for use to notice, we are all paying attention
Great analogy.
YES, consent matters!
It's a top-level value!
Interesting perspective. What about forced deprivation? Non violent? Presumably - deprivation is an excuse to persecute the instinctual reaction of those who have been deprived. For example: What if the individual that stole the bike was running to the hospital because they can't drive to get their loved one their medicine and it's matter of life and death. It's 3:AM and rather than be polite they used it and then returned it later on? Maybe left a note, maybe not. What about moral consent?
It’s a good question, but I think the answer is pretty easy.
First. It’s an edge question, and edge questions don’t invalidate moral fundamentals. Theft is theft, and we cannot change the definition of theft to include “unless you really really need it.” But, we have a solution: common law.
If the bike owner says, “Okay, no worries, I understand why you took it,” problem solved. If not, it goes to court. That is when accumulated human wisdom, and the present-moment wisdom of a jury, kick in. (And ideally, a jury in a private court who understand their right to use nullification to set aside any law.) So they hear the facts of the case and can make judgements about every aspect. Was the need genuine? Was the bike harmed in any way? Was the owner harmed in any way. And hopefully they come to a wise decision. “The thief did no damage and the owner wasn’t harmed in any way, so we recommend that the thief only have to pay $20 for ‘rental’ of the bike during his emergency.” Or whatever. (I know that juries don’t make recommendations, but maybe they should!) The bottom line is that we do not need perfect answers to every edge question because we have common law as a backstop.
Well then it's no wonder that the court systems are backlogged - beyond comprehension. 😁
But I get your original idea regarding forced compliance. The idea of centralized government doesn't work and isn't worth a damn...
Especially when conspiratorial grifters get involved - in the name of - for the "greater good" [€vil].
Right on.
And government courts are backlogged because governments are crap at doing everything. Private courts would have market incentives. They would want cases, so they would become more efficient at clearing them. Governments have no such incentives.
International Trusts👇
Incentives matter to government when incorporated. America is a corporation for a while back. United Corporations of America. Owned by foreign nationals.
This is why the three Laws state specifically that "without consent" is part of the Laws though the third is pointing out that You cannot defraud anyOne who is consenting to Your actions with full knowledge.
The three Laws of Ethics (Natural Law expressed as the three things not to do):
1. Do not willfully and without fully informed consent hurt or kill the flesh of anOther
2. Do not willfully and without fully informed consent take or damage anything that does not belong to You alone
3. Do not willfully defraud anOther (which can only happen without fully informed consent)
I'm here because I've been following you for a long Time having a kindred Social and Spiritual outlook. I'm not as prolific a writer like you, but this was posted to my blog yesterday:
That August of 1976 found me, a 31 year old from Canada having hitchhiked my way across some forty-five US States, arriving in Kansas City, a city poised on the brink of an American political spectacle: the Republican National Convention.
My very first stop, and this is crucial to understand the unfolding tapestry of those days, was the Roman Catholic Archdiocese Office of the Archbishop. My mission, even then, was deeply spiritual, not merely political. There, I was received by the Archbishop’s secretary, a pleasant priest with whom I shared a long and, I believe, significant conversation. When I inquired about a simple bed for the duration of my stay, a humble request for lodging, he revealed, to my genuine surprise, that all available beds were taken, filled not by the local clergy or by ordinary supplicants, but by “People from the Vatican,” here, mind you, for the Republican Convention, operating far from the public’s curious gaze.
Why, I wondered then, as I still do now, was the Vatican so deeply embedded, so discretely present, at a major American political convention? It was the first sign, perhaps, that the spiritual powers I sought to address were indeed interwoven with the very fabric of worldly governance. And that priest, seeing my shoulder-length hair and beard, took me in his own car, driving me to the Liberty Memorial Mall, stating with an air of knowing certainty, “This is where where you belong.” .............................................much more following the link!
https://rayjc.com/2025/07/07/the-prophet-in-the-political-arena-my-unforgettable-1976-kansas-city-encounter/
Like you, I appreciate people who follow a link of their own Free Will!
I stumbled upon stuff like what you state a few years ago through a Substackers, an English lady - I forgot her name. I started reading and looking into things - she was talking about the men in black (or something of that stretch). At first I thought it was just another conspiracy theory but it is not. The Russian revolution and the second war are not, what we have learned in school. Nothing is, I think, what we have learned in school. It is mostly facade for something way bigger. Last year I read a thin booklet, No one dares call it a conspiracy, that probably everyone should read who is interested in what is really going on. The names have changed but the institutions are out there, not even covered. They have websites and tell exactly what they are doing. Can it get any weirder?
Interestingly, Maslow did not order things in that manner. The idea of 'consenting' does not seem to be at the top (read: the bottom) of his list. Indeed, as many people have chosen safety over freedom, many people don't seem to place the values in that order either.
Thinking about consent. What if you are in a marriage with little love, and the man wants to make love. The woman more or less consents, or she gets more or less raped inside a marriage.
An interesting example.
How about the man who consents to marry under the false pretenses that his wife will stay faithful to him, and then she cheats on him, divorces him, takes his kids away from him, and forces him to pay alimony and child support.
Consent is a nonsensical standard if it is treated as something that can change from moment to moment. Can one consent to a contract at law and then, when it become onerous, un-consent? Agree to have someone do the work... and refuse to pay?
Maslow said nothing about consent that I can see... and most of what he did talk about doesn't actually work in a 'consent' society.
Another excellent example. My late husband was in that case. I have to reread Maslow. It has been too long. Thousands of books have been read since.
You are hinting at the slave contract dilemma. I have a detailed answer here: https://christophercook.substack.com/p/answer-slave-contract-dilemma-no
(I comped you for a week so you can read it.)
Well, no. That is an issue, obviously. But I was more referring to the fact that every contract, every obligation, every set of relationships includes 'now/later' aspects: I agree to do something for you now, if you will do something for me later. It need not go so far as slavery. One can buy on credit, use up the thing (so it cannot be repossessed) and then fail to pay it off.
But my claim goes farther than that. I do not believe that 'consent' is at all a valid way of measuring value. I have seen (obviously insane) parents try to do this with changing a babies diaper... literally asking them if they wish their diaper changed. (Which involves a rather dramatic violation of privacy, obviously!).
No, the 'slave contract' is an issue... but it is merely the tip of the iceberg.
"One can buy on credit, use up the thing (so it cannot be repossessed) and then fail to pay it off."
—True, but what is the problem you're raising? Enforceability in a market-anarchic condition?
"I have seen (obviously insane) parents try to do this with changing a babies diaper... literally asking them if they wish their diaper changed."
A) Children are a complicating factor, but they can be dealt with at least as well (and ethically) in a condition of market anarchism as with government and B) parents who ask a baby's consent before changing a diaper are virtue-signaling retards who understand nothing about reality.
I think the real-world solution to the slave contract dilemma is that contracts are only deemed legit and enforceable if a) they deal in alienable property (IOW, you cannot surrender your soul, your self-ownership, etc.) and B) they contain a termination clause.
Well, that is an interesting theoretical objection, but it is difficult to see how it works out practically.
Let us take the most trivial example: I hire a teenager to work in my store. I tell them that they must wear a certain uniform, stock the shelves in such and such a way, and ‘be polite to the customers’.
A couple of hours later I noticed them yelling at a customer and I fire them. They complain that they didn’t like that customer and so didn’t want to be polite to them. I say I don’t care, it’s my store, they’re fired.
IOW when I hired them I expected them to agree to behave in such and such a way… even when they didn’t want to. That, writ small, is the slave contract, writ large. But more importantly for the discussion I was addressing… what happened to the NAP? How is it even relavent to the discussion? When I hired them I told them I did not care what they wanted to do, I expected them to consent ‘now’ to a set of behaviors ‘in the future’. And I fired them when they suddenly decided that they ‘no longer consented’ to those behaviors.
And that behavior on their part will mean that other employers will no longer hire them. In a truly free market they would die in a ditch… because they wished to regulate their behavior on whether they ‘consented’.
I am saying that in order to have any society at all, we need to set aside the chimera of the idea of ‘consent’. Basic contract law means that there is only one point of ‘consent’ (and even that may be forced), the point where the contract is signed. Everything after that is obligation.
True. But they will all react if their consent is violated. They value it highly. And they cannot achieve either freedom or security if they are subjected to (nonconsensual) initiations of force.
One can never achieve complete freedom, complete security, or complete anything in Maslow's hierarchy. They are all subject to tradeoffs and a lot of hard work along the way. And one thing that one will find out along the way is that one will need to 'consent' to a lot of things that one does not want to 'consent' to in order to reach one's goals. And this lack of consent will often be mutual... two people both having to balance reaching their goals and helping another person reach their goals.
Agreed re: tradeoffs.
"one will need to 'consent' to a lot of things that one does not want to 'consent' to in order to reach one's goals."
—Yes, but one is still consenting. Unlike to government, to which one never consented in the first place, and to whose activities one never actually properly consents.
Well, I wasn’t exactly addressing the issue of government.
Oh, I’m sorry. I guess I’m kinda fixated 🤣
I understand where you're coming from, but "force" doesn't equate to physicality only. Force is "being compelled by physical, moral, or intellectual means," so yes, the theft of the sleeper's property is an act of aggression by force even if such force did not include physical violence against the owner.
The non-aggression principle is enough because it implies a requirement for consent. Without consent, the act is considered aggressive, even when nonviolent in nature.
The fact that it is implied but not explicitly stated bugs me, as does the fact that we must explain why things that aren't physical violence are nonetheless "force." I'd like something that requires less presumption and subsequent explanation. Let's talk after parts 2 and 3, which I will likely post over the next two Tuesdays, and see what you think then.
I think the explanation of what constitutes force is the definition of the word itself. I don't often find it necessary to explain because I expect reasonable adults to know the meanings of the words they choose to use. That said, I look forward to the next parts of this series.
Somewhere in the scheme of things, “threat of force” needs to be seen as force.
If a thief comes up to me and demands I give him my cash, he’s implying that he will use force to take my money. It would then be completely moral and ethical for my response to be quick, violent and complete in defense of myself. Self preservation is always the moral imperative.
Protective force is justified in response to the initiation of coercive force.
I totally agree Christopher - Consent Matters!
It seems that most think that aggression means the use of force. To aggress on someone does not entail force or violence, necessarily. The bike theft was aggressive, but no force was used. I also think the word force is over/misused. Compel is a much better word in many cases. I agree with your premise that NAP is not enough. NAP is rooted in personal property rights, without which it cannot stand. My observations of what goes on in the world is that people don’t respect personal property rights, so it’s pointless to attempt to explain NAP. My first rule of self defense is, “don’t be there.” The first rule of personal property rights is, “it’s not mine.”
For sure.
I am a bit obsessed with finding a way to word some principle like the NAP so that it says what needs to be said, expresses the ultimate “rule,” and doesn’t need too much ancillary explanation. I know perfection isn’t possible, but I am going to keep trying!
I find it surprising that the NAP, which prohibits the initiation of coercion (the use or threat of force) against someone, presumably without the other person's informed consent, has been accepted by most libertarians for so many years. Violation of the NAP is a sufficient condition of committing an unjust act, but it's not a necessary condition. In other words, one who violates the NAP has committed an unjust act. But if one commits an unjust act, one hasn't necessarily violated the NAP. Any act that violates someone's rights to life, liberty, or property is unjust, whether coercion was employed or not.
Exactly. Thank you.
I think some people simply don’t think it through as far as you. (Though what I find shocking is the ones who insist on not thinking it through any further, even when they are presented with really good reason to. Confirmation bias is a bitch!)
(By the way, I know I owe you an email. Still playing catch-up!)
Thanks. I thought you were pretty busy trying to catch up after your vacation.
Chris, I think that Murray Rothbard never intended the NAP to be some all-encompassing philosophy. Given that, however, your point is correct. Most people believe the word "violence" to mean physical violence. In relationship to the NAP however, the use of the word "consent" is, perhaps, a better way to look at it.
Well said.
Though whether Rothbard intended it or not, most libertarians do hold the NAP as the gold standard. (And some do not look further, or fight to defend it in the same way that I hear some Christians defend the Golden Rule. "That's all we need, and I don't want to hear anything more about it.")
In Part 2, I further lay this out, and in Part 3, I posit a consent principle that I think is an improvement. Stay tuned over the next two weeks!
Will do.
TLDR. 🤷 all the yada yada. Why Libertarianism is as dead in the water. Reason, Cato, Institute, this. Better to find a capable demagogue and form a cadre, become Anti-Elite.
I turn the other cheek...to adjust the telescopic site. 👏