Quote from: FredericBastiat on August 31, 2011, 04:11:26 PM

Quote from: fergalish on August 31, 2011, 09:13:42 AM

The problem lies in defining what is violence or coercion. Here are some simple situations:

You might feel you have the right to set up a factory on your lakeside property, and dump chemicals in the lake while fishermen on the lake might feel this constitutes an act of violence against their livelihoods. See 'The Law' 4.1, 4.2, and 6.3
You might feel you have the right to sell meat from hormone-pumped animals even though those hormones can cause damage to the human biochemistry. No 'violence' involved, you're not coercing them, though victims might feel they have no option but to seek medical treatment, and would probably be quite angry at you. See 'The Law' 4.0, 4.1, 4.4, and 7.2
You might feel you can drink your alchohol and then drive your old broken car at high speed, but pedestrians whose families are maimed or killed will certainly feel aggrieved. See 'The Law' 4.0, 4.1, 4.2, and 7.1
And many many more... See 'The Law' above: post #23

Even whole countries can have problems:

your country might think to take all the water from the river and use it for irrigation, or maybe pollute it with nuclear waste, while downstream countries might not be best pleased about that. See 'The Law' 4.1, 4.2, and 6.3

So, not only is it difficult to get everyone to agree on what constitutes "violence", "agression" or "coerce" (just like "good" and "bad", there are no absolutes), but there are also clearly non-coercive, non-agressive, non-violent acts which *nonetheless restrict the freedom of others*. This can be the case *even when contracts are formulated and signed by all parties*: there can be unforeseen consequences which damage one party or another.

Way to go, libertarianists! Ignore the problems, and hope that someone else will solve them! Right now society already has a system for dealing with conflict, unforeseen or not. I'll be the first to admit it's less than perfect, but the libertarianists wouldn't even suggest an alternative!

YES! YES YES YES! YESSSSSSSSS! There IS a line drawn in the sand. It's called "The Law" See 'The Law' post #23. The line itself is more-or-less arbitrary, but it's the same line for everyone. The world couldn't suddenly decide to "rob, assault, maim and kill" you, without also allowing *you* to arbitrarily "rob, assault, maim and kill" them at the same time.

You misunderstand me - if you want your libertarian utopia, you'll have to start somewhere. Buy some land so, make a new private road and start making people pay to travel on it. Buy more land, build a power plant and sell the electricity. Staying paying for private health care. Go, do it. You'll fail. Not because the idea is fundamentally flawed, but because you need critical mass to make it work. Only then will we find out if the idea is fundamentally flawed or not. Libertarianism could well be great, so get started! I'm definitely curious.

I wrote definitions of Law in this thread. It's post #23. Perhaps if you read it, you would know what we're trying to get at. In re, the bolded comment "its the same for everybody", that's what you call equity in law. Monopoly privilege destroys equity (equal treatment under the law).

I'd need to see an example of the above bolded comment how there is the possibility of restricting the freedom of others thru non-coercive, non-aggressive, or non-violent acts. I'm having a difficult time seeing how I could bring harm to somebody by doing virtually nothing.

Why do we need to "herd" people like sheep? If their are a sufficient number of people interested in a project requiring joint effort (i.e. power plant, health care, roads etc.) then you have the critical mass you need already. Go do. Join the rank and file. If the idea/project is so great, and many people think so, then start your solidarity society. Notice how I made that distinction? I don't like gangs and their affiliations, they tend to break basic human rights.

Remember gang society vs. solidarity society. Beautiful how that works out. Is that a sufficient starting point for you, or do we have to grind out more of the minutia to make it sink in?

Nonsense and you already know it.

A new drug costs several hundred million dollars to develop. If you remove IP protections, that money will not be invested. So society loses medical research and gains what? Nothing.

Likewise, you insist that everyone has the right to use the Coca-Cola name for their fizzy soft drink and the Ford name for their auto products. That means no-one will have the peace of mind buying a reliable brand and a lot of people who did trust the Ford brand will die due to cheap parts. Thats a loss for all of us and what is the gain? Nothing.

Your ideology simply means that society must be poorer. Feel free to provide a benefit - so far all I see is that your principles are wrongly based (we are not autonomous - we are social beings) and as a result you have a poor result.

Come up with something positive please. And telling us that volunteering to provide several hundred million dollars for drug research is an option is, well, not an option.