Quote from: FirstAscent on August 31, 2011, 06:07:00 AM

Quote from: bitcoin2cash on August 31, 2011, 05:57:37 AM

Humans create governments and grant governments authority, not the other way around.

Correct! And in your fabled libertarian society, the citizens will band together and organize and create laws and build a government and agree to be taxed, sooner or later - just like you've agreed to be taxed by your HOA.

...and some people born into this society will be under some contracts that they never agreed to. The simple and obvious paradox that separates the sane Libertarians (utilitarians) from the insane (bitcoin2cash, et. al.)

It's easy to see:

Wealthy person becomes landowner of your property. They are perfectly in their rights to take away privileges you have on your property. Like the ability to leave (as I can own roads now) or get a home elsewhere. You have children, your children have signed no contract with wealthy person. Ergo they are trespassing. Oh, hey there are some pretty strict clauses of about trespassing in those contracts. Now landowner owns your children as well*.

The typical brain-dead response is: "Nobody would agree to a contract where this was possible." - Which is completely incorrect. Probably everyone on this board agrees to contracts that limit liability for the use of a product, which restrict your usage of land, and that are subject to change without notice. People in different social settings have signed contracts to work at a place for the rest of their lives. People even appear to capable of signing contracts for lives beyond their current one...and pay for the privileged to be released.

So even assuming they ignore all that evidence. They fail to see the other side of the coin. If granting privileges to someone and all their kids and their kids kids, ad infinitum is by their own definition valuable. How would they prevent a tiered system (rights 'haves' and 'have nots') when there is scarcity on the resource? (i.e. land).

*Now certainly someone could argue that: Trespassers haven't agreed to your contracts so they don't need to obey. Which I assume everyone can figure out why that's silly. They could also argue that trespassing is something where punishments can't be determined by the landowner (i.e. the government can say that this constitutes a penalty no more than $50 which would be an unwaiveable right). However there are two responses to this: i) The land owner *can* hold the parent partially responsible and essentially either put them under so much duress - all spelled out in the contract - that they are coerced into giving the landowner whatever rights they have over their child. ii) The child can not move from that spot without constantly trespassing - for which the landowner will eventually own them. (Government would have to grant another unwaiveable right) iii) Any of these interventions by government are really telling me what I can do with my land. Which I thought I had complete rights over.