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can not think of a single example of a society that educated, or attempted to educate everyone, where there were strictly private schools.
Any Orthodox Jewish community is a perfect example of such a society. Every child is educated in a private school, and tuition for poor children is paid for through private donations. I myself was able to go to a Jewish private school through such philanthropy.
Essentially if one were to privatize the education of everyone, someone would still have to pay for the education of those who could not afford the tuition.
Correct. So even if you believe that private charity is not enough to pay for children's education, that is not by itself enough of a reason to support public schools. We could simply use taxes to pay for need-based scholarships instead of public schools.
A few points here:
Contracting out government functions is not quite the same as privatizing. Take the case of charter schools. Charter schools are simply public schools run by private corporations. They do not have to compete in the market like real private schools do.
Second, what exactly is the problem with government contracting of prison services? If they can do it more efficiently than the government can do it itself, so what?
Third, the main reason why the prison industry is so large is because of the insane war on drugs. End that and the number of criminals is drastically reduced.
I'm not familiar enough with Iceland to argue the point.
I assume however that the real objection is to taxes, which really become a kind of payment for protection.
Not just to taxes. It's the lack of choice. Sure, as you said, most people are going to need protection. But that doesn't mean that one organization can claim a monopoly on force and forbid any other protection organizations from competing. Just because most of us need to purchase food doesn't mean Kroger can come along and force us to buy from them, and not from Publix.
And the thing is, if it was just protection, then people like me probably wouldn't complain all that much. But it's not just protection. It inevitably turns into a vast regulatory regime, paternalistic mandates like Social Security and the War on Drugs, not to mention all of the other countless tax dollars wasted on pork each year, as embodied in the present day welfare state. None of this could conceivably be justified under the argument that we would have to purchase these services for ourselves anyway.
Like it or not you need laws.
You certainly do. But laws are not the same thing as government. The two are independent of each other.
Re: Iceland
I have not read Njal's Saga; I am only familiar with the Iceland as a historical example of non-statist law enforcement after reading some of David Friedman's work. Here is one of the academic papers he has written on the subject: http://daviddfriedman.com/Academic/Iceland/Iceland.html
Aren't you the one who argued against seeing only one movie in the downloading music debate a few whiles back?
I argued against strong intellectual property rights, yes.
On The Free Zone Board, no one hears you scream.
Re: Congrats, Spall!
Thanks.
I think your post-college resume will speak highly of you.
I certainly hope so, as the current job market sucks huge donkey balls.
Re: I'm famous
Tell Indy thanks for me (isn't it fun being the middle (wo)-man?). And don't worry, I doubt I will ever have the desire to become a politician.
I'm famous!
Well, maybe not quite yet. Jewsweek published my article: http://www.jewsweek.com/bin/en.jsp?enPage=BlankPage&enDisplay=view&enDispWhat=object&enD...
Jews and Democrats
Here is an article I wrote in response to an article urging Jews to vote Democratic, as if they needed any encouragement. Here is the link to the article to which I was responding: http://www.jewsweek.com/bin/en.jsp?enPage=BlankPage&enDisplay=view&enDispWhat=object&enD....
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As the old saying goes, for every two Jews, there are three opinions. A more accurate, albeit less amusing saying might be, for every ten Jews, there are eight Democrats. It seems that as much as Jews disagree with each other, there is one issue on which we can all agree: Democrats good, Republicans bad.
Be that as it may, the times, they are a-changin’. Although it is unclear whether Jews will significantly shift their support away from the Democrat Party in the next election cycle, there has been a visible change in Jewish approval of President Bush and the Republican Party in general. Much of this change can be attributed to the war on terror, with President Bush’s strong support of Israel, as well as a startling rise in anti-Semitism on the far left.
But we should not be deceived, or so Bradford R. Pilcher argues, in his recent Jewsweek article “Be a good Jew and vote Democratic.” American Jews should not be tempted by Republican support for Israel, and instead should continue in lockstep with their monolithic support of the Democratic Party. While Pilcher is correct that Jews should not vote for Joseph Lieberman simply because he is Jewish, he is mistaken on two accounts when he expects Jews should to vote for Democrats simply because they better represent Jewish values than Republicans. First, the Democratic Party, even on the positions he mentions, does not represent traditional Jewish values. Second, even if the Democratic Party did represent Jewish values, that would still not be reason enough for American Jews to support them.
Bradford Pilcher’s article begins with a discussion of abortion. He argues that Republicans “obstinately block exceptions in cases of rape or a danger to the mother's life from their attempts to restrict abortion.” Although this may be true for some on the extreme right wing, in a debate with John McCain on the Larry King Show on February 15th, 2000, George Bush explicitly stated his belief in exceptions for rape, incest and the life of the mother. It seems a bit unfair to judge the Republicans by their extremists, unless we are willing to do the same with regard to the Democrats. Do Al “Hymietown” Sharpton or Cynthia “the J-E-W-S” McKinney or James "The Elders of Zion are behind the war in Iraq" Moran truly represent the views of the Democratic Party? If so, a pox on both of their houses. If not, then we need to focus on the mainstream views of each party and not be distracted by the fringe elements. And when we consider Bush’s pro-life position with exceptions, and compare it to the mainstream Democratic pro-choice position with little to no restrictions on abortion, it becomes clear that the Republicans are more in line with Jewish values.
Moving on to a discussion of sex education in public schools, Pilcher characterizes the Jewish view as one “which says sex is good and healthy and the more you know, the better off you are.” This is true. What he does not mention, however, is that traditional Judaism does not condone premarital sex, whereas the underlying assumption of the Democratic position is that there is nothing wrong with sex before wedlock. Now, some may disagree with this, and say that in our current society, abstinence before marriage is simply not an option, but that only confuses the issue. The question is not what would be the best policy, given our current society. Rather, the question is what would be the best policy in accordance with traditional Jewish values. Clearly, the Republican position, regardless of its appropriateness in today’s permissive society, is more aligned with Judaism than the Democratic position.
One political issue that Pilcher does not mention - but that would almost entirely solve the sex education debate - is Republican support for school choice. Possibly the greatest problem facing American Jews is assimilation, and a frequently offered solution to address this dilemma is a stronger investment in Jewish education. Unfortunately, Jewish private schools, which devote a considerable portion of their funding towards scholarships for low-income students, are struggling in the current economic downturn with an increasing number families unable to pay high tuition costs. What makes this problem even more frustrating for parents who wish to send their children to private religious schools is that these parents are already paying for public schooling through both state and federal taxes. Rather than force parents to pay twice for one product, Republicans argue that parents should be given the freedom to choose where to send their children, whether it be to a private parochial or secular school, or even to another public school with a better performance record than their current one. Democrats, unfortunately, are beholden to powerful teacher’s unions, and oppose any efforts to give parents more choice of where to send their children.
Another area where Pilcher believes the Democrats represent Jewish values is environmentalism. He argues that “Judaism tells us we are trustees of the earth, not its masters.” Again, this is true. But we are also not its servants. Judaism teaches us that the earth was put here for us to use and enjoy. While we should certainly protect it both to show gratitude to G-d for His gift and also to preserve it for future generations, we should not put the environment on a higher plane than ourselves. And that is precisely what much of the environmental movement wants us to do.
Some estimates have placed the cost of the U.S. complying with the Kyoto Protocol at 400 billion dollars in addition to the loss of almost five million jobs. Despite this high cost, Kyoto would only commit the U.S. and other industrialized countries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions; it would not apply to developing countries. Such a policy would have little impact on global carbon emissions from man-made sources. Further, it is not entirely clear whether reducing man-made emissions will even have much of an effect on global warming, or if the climate will change much at all. It seems foolish to commit to such a costly plan when the economy is already doing so poorly, and especially when the science is so shaky. Judaism clearly does not require us to adhere to the “precautionary principle” and sacrifice the wellbeing of people so as to be better safe than sorry in the event of some scientifically unsupported doomsday scenario.
This same anti-humanistic environmentalism is at play with regard to fuel economy standards. When Congress enacted the corporate average fuel economy (CAFE) standards in 1975, auto manufacturers responded in the most cost-effective manner possible. As should have been expected, they did not research new technologies, but instead reduced the size and weight of automobiles. Not surprisingly, smaller and lighter cars tend to be less safe for the driver in the case of traffic accidents. The National Academy of Sciences estimated that these standards have directly resulted in a loss of life between 1,300 and 2,600 per year. To improve the environment at a cost of thousands of lives is certainly not a Jewish value.
Finally, Pilcher criticizes the Republican’s anti-egalitarianism, arguing that Bush’s tax cuts “ignore the poorest in favor of the wealthiest” and “benefit the richest Americans over the poorest,” with the unstated assumption that this is contrary to Jewish values. At first glance, this seems about right. Judaism certainly does value high levels of charity, with the wealthiest sharing their good fortune with the downtrodden. This argument fails, however, when we consider that charity is an individual virtue, and not a collective one.
In order to do righteous acts, people must have free will. This concept is central to Jewish theology, and is one of the beliefs that separates Judaism from more deterministic religions. If we were all automatons, we would simply do whatever we were pre-programmed to do. We would lack the ability to act ethically or unethically, to choose between good and evil. Similarly, if we were compelled to do good deeds by government law, or else suffer the consequences of acting illegally, there would be little that could be said in praise of these good deeds. After all, good-deed-doers would simply be following the law, doing what they are compelled to do.
Thus, while individual charity is a virtue reflective of Jewish values, collectively compelled charity is not. Yes, it is a mitzvah to give tzedakah. No, it is not a mitzvah to vote for policies which remove the choice to give tzedakah from the individual and instead compel us to do so. The Republican view of taxation – to pay for essential services but not to replace private sector charity – is closer to Jewish values than the views of taxation espoused by Democrats.
So, if we accept the conclusion that Republicans better represent Jewish values than Democrats, should Jews vote Republican? Not necessarily. Similarly, if we reject this conclusion and instead agree with Pilcher that Democrats better represent Jewish values, should Jews vote Democratic? Not necessarily.
Jews, as a group, share a set of values. But Jews, as individuals, differ significantly with each other, as the “two Jews, three opinions” cliché mentioned earlier attests. Jews should not vote for a politician or a party based on Jewish values, although Jewish values certainly influence our personal values as Jews. Rather, Jews, as individuals, should vote for whomever they believe best represents their own personal values.
This point becomes clear when we consider what would happen if everyone, not only Jews, voted for the politicians or parties who best represented their affiliated religion’s professed values. Less than two percent of Americans identify themselves as Jewish, in contrast to more than 75% who identify themselves as Christian, according to the American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS), conducted in February and April of 2001. These numbers do not bode well for those of us who would wish to use the democratic process in order to implement Jewish values, for we would surely lose to Christians who wish to use the democratic process in order to implement Christian values. Most Jews recognize this problem, which is why many of our grandparents and great-grandparents came to the U.S. in the first place - to avoid the entanglements between Church and State which were all too common in Europe and other countries where Jews had been historically discriminated against as a religion minority. This concern is one reason why Jews have historically supported the Democratic Party – not because a strong wall between Church and State is an inherently Jewish value (just look at Israel), but because Jews as individuals would be among the losers in a state-sponsored religious popularity contest.
But the fundamentalist Christian wing of the Republican Party, albeit powerful, can be countered by Jewish, libertarian, and other more moderate subgroups that support a strong wall of separation. By abandoning the party altogether, Jews are essentially giving up and letting the Christians do with it what they will. At the same time, by giving the Democratic Party an assured lock on the Jewish vote, Jews are removing any incentive the Democrats might have to implement policies that Jews want. As long as we are not Republicans, the Democrats reason, acquiring the Jewish vote will be a shoo-in.
Bradford concludes with a statement with which I fully agree, although I doubt it means the same thing to him as it does to me. “Sadly, the Jewish community so renowned for its ability to argue has stopped talking.”
Or, as I would put it, don’t be a good Jew and vote Democratic simply because that’s what good Jews do. Be a good Jew and disagree.
Two more ideas for WEAC
Since you requested other ways that people can promote liberty without voting, here are two more I thought of:
1. http://www.trickleup.org/
TrickleUp is a private charitable program that gives $100 loans to groups of five third-worlders to start a business. Unlike other welfare or charitable programs, this gives people the ability to pull themselves out of poverty rather than creating a sense of dependency. Teach a man to fish and all that.
This same strategy can be used domestically. Through private charitable giving that empowers people rather than making them dependant on the giver, we can reduce the role of the state welfare system and counter the arguments that supporters of the welfare system make when they say, "if the government doesn't do it, who will?"
2. http://www.freestateproject.com/
Taken from their website,
The Free State Project is a plan in which 20,000 or more liberty-oriented people will move to a single state of the U.S., where they may work within the political system to reduce the size and scope of government. The success of the Free State Project would likely entail reductions in burdensome taxation and regulation, reforms in state and local law, an end to federal mandates, and a restoration of constitutional federalism, demonstrating the benefits of liberty to the rest of the nation and the world.
At first glance, The Free State Project may look like another political scheme. In a sense, it is. But it differs from other political schemes in a number of significant ways. First of all, FSP is an example of a commitment device. The problem with voting, as I mentioned, is that it is irrational for the voter to do something that he knows will have no effect on the outcome he desires. A commitment device solves this problem by holding people to their promise, and their promise, in turn, is based on the promises of others.
In other words, it is irrational for one libertarian to move to a state in the hope that his presence will move the state closer to liberty. However, if he is able to commit to doing so on the condition that thousands of other people do the same thing, this action is no longer irrational, as long as the commitment device is strong enough to prevent him from defecting.
These are just two ideas that promote the cause of liberty without simply expecting the individual to act irrationally. There are many others.
On to Liberia
"I don't think our troops ought to be used for what's called nation building."
- George W. Bush, from the 2nd Presidential Debate of the 2000 Campaign at Wake Forest University, Oct. 11, 2000
"I'm not so sure the role of the United States is to go around the world and say this is the way it's got to be. We can help. And maybe it's just our difference in government, the way we view government. I want to empower the people. I want to help people help themselves, not have government tell people what to do. I just don't think it's the role of the United States to walk into a country and say, we do it this way, so should you."
- George W. Bush, ibid
This is surely what the Founding Fathers had in mind. No doubt they would be pleased that the current President is living up to such noble ideals.
No, voting, as a single act, does not affect an election.
Good. Which means that voting is irrational for the individual.
But unless people vote for candidates that support liberty, only politicians who take liberty away will hold power.
And that is precisely what is happening already, which is a great reason to start looking at other alternatives and to stop wasting time focusing on the political system.
But isn;'t that the entire poing of political parties>? GROUPS of peopel acting in concert?
Nope. People do not act in concert. People act as individuals. Without a commitment device or the use of force, I can only cause myself to act, not others.
Then offer another option.
I already did. Education. Social change. Here are two more, albeit less respectible solutions: tax evasion and a participating in an underground economy.
Even if we realize that voting is a waste of time, we must also realize that many people disagree, for whatever reason, and will continue to vote. We can influence the votes of this large group through education, social change, and demonstrating that the private market is able to solve problems that the public sector isn't.
Again, I could not disagree more. There is not REQUIREMENT to vote, but there certainly is a responsibility to do so.
Where does this responsibility come from? I never agreed to any social contract that would require me to vote. You claim that there is a responsibility to vote with no other argument but simply saying it is so. I can equally claim that there is a responsibility to abstain from voting.
You argued that people do not have the desire to spend the time to learn about candidates, and I'm asking why you think they will be more interested in learning about ideologies.
I didn't say they will be more interested in learning about ideologies. People are only willing to spend time acquiring information that is of use to them. Political information is not of use to them because their vote doesn't matter. However, the information that this is so - that voting is a waste of time and that they should look elsewhere for solutions to their problems - may be of use to them because it benefits them by allowing them to avoid the costs of voting.
That's the great thing about the private market. There is much less of a need for people to acquire information than in the public market for politicians. I can simply benefit from the purchases and transactions of other consumers. If I purchase a product once and it does not satisfy me, I don't need to wait 4 years to purchase a replacement. And so on.
That's the point - anarchy does not promote stable society.
That is precisely not the point. These countries reached the state of anarchy through violent revolution, not gradual change. I am not advocating that all of sudden, one day, we just pull the carpet out from under the government. Rather, I am advocating that we gradual lessen the role of government bit by bit until it no longer exists.
And if someone decides to walk over them? Then what?
And if another country decides to build a larger army then us, then what? If the European Union decides that it doesn't like US hegemony anymore, then what? Another cold war? What if they have better production capabilities than us? Then what?
If the govermnment has no standing federal army, then how is it supposed to prevent such collusion? You don't need a federal army to prevent collusion. You only need an army large enough to counter the largest current private organization.
Your own sentence here undoes your argumetn - "the power to enforce it". That means a standing army stronger than the combined forces of those who would collude.
Correct, but that does not imply a federal army. And if we assume that collusion is a valid risk, which many economists do not because of the difficulties of maintaining a cartel, that should be the only role of the state.
I couldn't disagree more. It is entirely rational to consider that if every person currently practicing the apathy that you are promoting were to vote for someone besides the big two, there WOULD be change.
Again, you do not seem to understand my point. Individuals act; groups do not. When deciding whether or not to vote, individuals weigh the costs and benefits of their actions. As an individual, does the benefit I get from driving down to the voting booth and wasting a half hour of my time outweigh the costs? Clearly not, if we consider that one vote does not make a difference. Thus, it is irrational for an individual to vote, so long as his only purpose in voting is to change the outcome of the election. Economists and political scientists have suggested other reasons why people vote in order to explain this seemingly irrational behavior, but all agree that voting for the sole purpose of changing the outcome of an election is completely irrational.
To repeat, I agree that if everyone who doesn't vote decided to vote for a third party, there would be a big change. But groups do not act; only individuals act. It is not in any individual's interest to waste time doing something that has costs but no benefits.
But change will not occur if I and everyone else surrendur.
I am not suggesting surrender; I am simply suggesting that people look at other options, because voting has proven to be fruitless.
. Change will only occur if MORE people start taking responsibility for their country and voting, not less.
There is no responsibility to vote.
Problem is, your arguments against trying to get people to learn about those they are voting for works against your education theory too.
Good lord this is getting frustrating. You completely misunderstood the point of rational ignorance. I am not trying to prevent people from learning about political issues and candidates; I would love to live in an imaginary world where everyone found politics interesting even though they had absolutely no control over the democratic process as individuals. The point of rational ignorance is not to convince people to be ignorant, but to understand why people are ignorant about political matters, and why it is entirely rational for them to be ignorant. The car-vote example was intended to demonstrate why this is so. People will spend time researching different cars when they get to choose the car they get as individuals. But if car purchases were decided by democratic vote, very few people would waste time researching cars because their individual vote will not make a difference.
If the people are too lazy to learn about politicians whose faces they see on TV every day, how much effort do you expect them to put into educating themselves on libertarian principles in general?
Which is why my primary message that I want to spreading is that voting is fruitless and that we should look elsewhere to solve our problems. This does not require an effort to understand, nor does it require any effort to research.
Human nature. There are mercenaries working all over the world
If this past century has proven anything, it is that powerful governments and militaries are much more dangerous than any private mercenaries. Anarcho-capitalism relies on the same assumptions about human nature that the rest of economics relies upon: namely, the rational pursuit of self-interest.
I have yet to see one nation anywhere that has created the utopian environment you speak of through private armies.
I already mentioned the example of medieval Iceland. David Friedman has written extensively on the competitive supply of defense services and anarchistic character of this society.
Look at Somalia and the Balkans. Warlords and private armies. Hardly a free society.
Hardly stable societies either. No one here is suggesting violent revolution or military juntas. Such countries are poor examples of a failure of gradual changes.
For another example of a country with an almost non-existent military, look at Switzerland. By not pissing other countries off through foreign intervention, Switzerland has been able to avoid the massive military spending plaguing most other countries.
Further, if the argument is that private police forces will eventually collude, then the obvious solution is to limit the sole role of government to preventing such collusion. With such an anti-trust law, and the power to enforce it, there is little need to socialize the entire protection industry.
If that's what they really want, and support, than they are even more incompetent than they are corrupt. Voter patrticipation is at an all time low.
First of all, voter participation has actually increased a bit recently, but it is still fairly low compared to historic standards. Regardless, as I have been trying to explain endlessly, it is entirely expected that voter participation will be low. What is unexpected is that voter participation is as high as it is. It is next to impossible to convince a large number of people to do something that is irrational. Voting is irrational in that the benefits do not outweigh the costs. Even the most competent and honest politicians would not be able to get people to act irrationally.
You can educate yourself as much as you want; if you, through apathy, give all the power to govern to the few, no amount of education is going to make you any freer.
My point is that education, unlike voting, is something that we can do can change the actions and beliefs of other people. My vote has no significance on the outcome of an election; my ability to spread ideas and knowledge can effect people other than myself and help create institutions and memes that promote liberty.
Just the opposite? What has voting accomplished in terms of reducing the role of government in people's lives? Absolutely nothing. Your strategy has failed. It is time to look at new strategies.
Then keep looking
So you admit that your strategy of voting has been entirely useless. As much as you wish it were not so, there is absolutely nothing you can do to change the fact that voting from the point of view of the individual is irrational.
You have two basic choices. 1) try to inflluence voting more effectively, or 2)armed insurrection.
This is false. There are more than simply two options. I already mentioned two: education and entrepreneurship. Cultural change is another.
Apathy in regard to selecting your government will NEVER be a useful strategy in gaining personal freedom.
But you have already admitted that the alternative to apathy has failed. Voting has not accomplished the goals that you seek.
Notice what I said. Until we find a solution to large public good problems like national defense, we may need to have a socialized system. But that does not mean it is impossible to live without that system at some point in the future.
Don't hold your breath.
So said the naysayers who believed that transportation in the railroad age would always require state intervention to enforce standards and regulate monopoly. Until, of course, trucking came to fruition.
We hear the same arguments from opponents of school choice and social security privatization. How will the market provide? These people are so blinded by socialism that they are unable to conceive of a world were these goods could be provided by private individuals as opposed to governments, even though education and retirement savings do not differ fundamentally from clothing and food.
And speaking of clothing and food, after communism collapsed in Russia and Eastern Europe, people expressed the same doubts. How will the market provide these basic necessities? They could not conceive of an economy that was not commanded and controlled by a benevolent - or more often not so benevolent - supreme leader.
I don't understand your hostility to the idea that one day we may no longer need state monopoly control over a military. Assuming the circumstances permitted, why would you object to such an arrangement? I accept that you believe this is unrealistic, but do you have any principled objection?
Re: In Praise of Apathy
Personal life choices regarding career aren't meant to be made on the same basis of what is best for governing our collective society.
I don't understand. In both situations, we act and make choices as individuals, not as collectives. Certainly the voting process is collective, but the decision to vote is not. My point is that when we choose a career we don't base our decision on the assumption that everyone else is going to make the same decision. So too, when we choose whether or not to vote, why should we assume that everyone else is going to make the same decision?
A helluva lot changed when the baby boomers raised a stink about such things as civil rights, women's rights, the human cost of war and even sexual freedom.
Agreed, but I think most of this was a result of cultural change. The political changes only fell into place after the culture was ready for them.
Apathy actually makes us sad. It's a resignation to the status quo. Question fucking authority!
I do all the time. But it is also authority that tells us we must vote. I'm not apathetic about changing society for the better; I'm only apathetic about reaching this goal through the political process. There are other paths that seem more promising.
I'm thinking about leaving the conclusion of the article open ended. It is true that I don't have a concrete solution. I have some possible solutions, but I don't think I necessarily even need to put forth a definite answer. Definite answers are part of the problem; too many people think they have all the answers, and if only they were in charge, they would use their power to fix things. This is the type of mentality I am trying to avoid.
Of course they don;'t come out and say it openly, they're not that cock, at least not yet. And the power borkers in question would be the Republicrats.
Well, without any kind of concrete evidence, I can't really dispute your contention. It seems to me that Democrats and Republicans want people to vote and support programs that encourage people to vote, because they realize that most voters are going to support the two major parties. I've seen no evidence that leads me to believe otherwise.
The task being monumantal is no excuse for not trying it. It beats the hell out of surrendurring. That's not in my personality. If it were, I would never have become a libertarian.
It has nothing to do with surrendering. There are other ways to go about promoting a freer society than through the political process. Education is probably the most important, but so is simply entrepreneurs constantly coming up with new innovations that make our lives easier and make the government less relevant.
I agree with you, on the minimal government thing, but you'll never accomplish that by encouraging people to stay home and allow the robots to select the President and legislature who make the laaws creating that bigger and bigger government. You state a desired goal, then advocate an action that would bring about just the opposite.
Just the opposite? What has voting accomplished in terms of reducing the role of government in people's lives? Absolutely nothing. Your strategy has failed. It is time to look at new strategies.
Well, ideally I would want no government at all, but for the time being, and until we find a solution to large public good problems, I am satisfied with simply reducing the number of areas of our lives that are decided by politics.
There has to be some government. If not, you have complete anarchy, no common defense
Notice what I said. Until we find a solution to large public good problems like national defense, we may need to have a socialized system. But that does not mean it is impossible to live without that system at some point in the future.
The message from the power brokers to me is loud and clear - get out and vote - not that you're smart enough to make a difference.
Can you cite a specific example of this message? Who are these power brokers you are talking about?
The solution is not to encourage people to abstain, but rather to encourage them to learn about the people they must choose between.
But that is an impossible task. It is hard enough to convince people to invest even a small amount of time required to vote, as evidenced by the low voter turnout statistics. It is unreasonable to expect people to waste their precious time researching issues that they have no control over as individuals and that is not inherently interesting to them. I research these issues because that is my hobby. However, if you asked me any question regarding professional sports, I would have no clue, because sports is not my hobby.
But we can't each choose a man that will be our personal President.
But we can, and that is the essential point of libertarianism. We argue for "self-government," where people are their own personal presidents on as many issues as possible. The more areas of our lives that are left up to democratic decision making, the less areas we can be our own personal presidents.
Like it or not, unless you want no government at all, some means of selecting "leadership" has to be in place, whether it is an elective system, a coup or a inherited crown,
Well, ideally I would want no government at all, but for the time being, and until we find a solution to large public good problems, I am satisfied with simply reducing the number of areas of our lives that are decided by politics.
Apathy is what the power brokers want us to feeel.
I'm not so sure about this. Our government pays for many "get out the vote" programs, and in many other countries with even more powerful governments than ours, there our laws that force people to vote or suffer financial and legal consequences.
But all of us who are dissatisfied with the situation have a moral obligation to continue to fight to change it, in whatever small ways we can.
I disagree that we have a moral obligation, but even if we have a desire to change the status quo, I'm not so sure voting is the way to go about doing it. My individual act of voting is not a "small way" to change the status quo; it is either no way (most likely) or a big way (least likely). Either the election comes down to a swing vote of one or doesn't. If it doesn't, an additional vote will make absolutely no difference, small or large.
The purpose of a party like the Libertarian Party is - at least in my opinion - not to win elections, but to advertise libertarian ideas - to educate people that there are other ideas out there besides the ones we frequently hear.
Another problem with voting is what public-choice economists call "rational ignorance." It is rational to be ignorant about political candidates and political issues because even if we are culturally influenced to vote (by being constantly told to vote by teachers, parents, and the media) we are not culturally influenced enough to spend a lot of time actually researching the candidates and issues in great detail.
David Friedman makes this point with a useful analogy:
Suppose the way we bought automobiles was you create a group of 10,000 people and you say, "Alright. In two weeks, we're going to have an election. Whichever model of car wins, you all get one." In that system, you would not spend the next two weekends test driving because you would say to yourself, "With 10,000 people out there, even if I figure out what's the right car for me, which is going to take quite a lot of time and effort, reading Consumer Reports, test driving and so forth, my vote is very unlikely to decide it. I'm going to get what the rest of them want anyway." So none of us are going to make much effort to figure out what car we want and we'll get whatever car we happen to have seen an ad for recently, something of that sort.
Well, same thing in the political system, except the number is much larger than 10,000. And I think that's really an inherent problem, and you may or may not be -- people can argue about whether there are some things that have to be done that way. But I think even if you believe there are some things that have to be done by the political system, you should assume they will then be done badly, because I don't think we have good mechanisms for getting political systems to work.
Re: In Praise of Apathy
Thanks for the helpful comments.
I can see how the "assumption" sentence would be confusing. Perhaps I need to reword it. My point was basically that we don't go through life assuming that everyone is going to do what we do. We make our own decisions based on what is good for us as individuals, and not based on what would be good for society if everyone did the same thing.
I read, "if we assume that everyone will choose something different from ourselves, then why shouldn't we assume the same thing when it comes to voting, i.e. all will choose something different. How does this logically follow that they then shouldn't vote at all?
The argument by itself doesn't prove that they shouldn't vote at all; the argument simply disproves the statement, "but what if everyone else thought that way?". Since we don't make our career decisions based on this question, we shouldn't make our voting decisions based on this question either. We only control what we do as individuals; we do not control what other people do.
Any suggestions on how to reword this to make it clearer?
What would be the point in voting if we all voted the same?
Not that we will all vote for the same candidate, but that we will all do the same general action of voting.
Your conclusion raises questions rather than answers them: How would "they" have less power over us? It seems to me, they'd have every power over us. How does not having to answer to the public give "them" less power?
Good point. I've thought about this and realized that it isn't as conclusive as I would like. The problem is that in order to argue the point in more detail, I would need more room and the article would be too long to publish. The basic idea is that if more people stopped trying to solve every little problem by calling for government assistance, and instead tried to solve their problems in other ways, politics would be less influential in our lives. Instead, even when people try to counteract the "public problem solvers", they get into this mentality that if only their favored candidate were in charge, all would be different. But that is simply not true.
It's a big problem of how we get to "there" from "here", and there is no clear-cut solution, but participating in the political process seems to be counterproductive.
I'll have to think about how I can make this conclusion more conclusive.
In Praise of Apathy
[This is an opinion article I wrote that I plan on submitting to my student newspaper. I would appreciate any comments or criticisms, especially noticeable grammatical, logical, or other obvious flaws. I'm not so interested in whether you agree with my overall argument; only if my conclusions follow from my premises.]
In this upcoming election season, we will be asked to vote for Democrats, Republicans, Greens, Libertarians, and any number of other political party candidates. There is, however, one voting choice that we are never encouraged to make, even though more people choose this option than any other. This is the option to abstain from voting altogether.
Why is voter abstinence rarely if ever offered as a valid alternative? A common objection is that if you don't vote you have no right to complain.
Is this so? It certainly isn’t literally true, as the First Amendment protects the freedom of speech of both voters and non-voters alike. Rather, it must be a moral argument: it is wrong for you to complain after the fact when you had a chance to act and you didn’t. But this is only true if we assume that the prior act would have had affected the outcome. It is wrong for me to complain after I failed an exam if I didn’t bother attending class or studying. Had I attended class or studied, I would not have failed. This is simply cause and effect.
Voting works differently. Whether or not I voted in the 2000 Presidential election, George Bush would still have won. Even if I was registered to vote in Florida, where the margin between the two candidates was a mere 537 votes, my vote would have had absolutely no effect on the outcome. Unless the margin between the two candidates is a difference of only one vote, my act of voting is a waste of time, insofar as it does not affect the outcome, and I should still have the right to complain regardless of whether or not I actually voted.
But what if everyone thought that way?
Clearly, if everyone thought that way and didn’t vote, then it would be wise for me to vote, because I alone would control the outcome of the election. But I don’t control what everyone else does; I only control what I do. When choosing a career, most of us do not say to ourselves, “I want to become an electrical engineer, but what if everyone thought the same way? If everyone became an electrical engineer, there would be no doctors, no teachers, and no policemen. Thus, I should not become an electrical engineer.” If we do not assume that everyone is going to do what we ourselves do in regard to vocation, why should we assume differently when it comes to voting?
But if people don’t vote, won’t democracy fail?
It very well might. And would that be such a terrible thing? As Winston Churchill once said, democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others. Democracy is certainly better than monarchy, aristocracy, or tyrannical dictatorship. But the underlying truth here is that while democracy may be the best form of government comparatively, it is still severely flawed. Democracy, like all forms of government decision making, is a zero-sum game, where in order for one group (the majority) to win, another group (the minority) must lose.
Is there an alternative or are we stuck with the least-bad option? A possible solution may be to significantly reduce the number of issues that are subject to political decision making.
Take, for example, the issue of prayer in schools. Conservatives believe that a proper function of schooling is to instill moral values in children, and that prayer is one of the best ways to achieve this goal. Those on the left differ, and instead argue that in a secular democracy, church and state should be kept separate. Both of these positions are respectable, given that different people have different values and beliefs on proper child raising and on what constitutes a just society. The problem is that only one of these groups can get what they want if the decision is decided democratically. Whichever group is larger, left or right, will win; the other group will lose.
Contrast this with the decision of what to eat for lunch. If I go to a restaurant with a group of friends, rarely do we take a vote on the one thing that everyone will eat. Instead, each of us gets to decide for ourselves. Everybody wins. Nobody loses.
Some issues, like national defense, may need to be decided upon democratically for the foreseeable future, at least until changes in technology and international relations are such that political coordination of the military is no longer necessary. But other issues, like education, drug policy, or retirement savings, could be changed today to allow individuals to make their own decisions, and avoid the problem of winners and losers inherent in democracy.
It may seem like a paradox: how can we implement these reductions in democratic decision making without actually voting in the first place? Perhaps we cannot, which may be one of the reasons why an increasing number of issues that were previously decided by individuals are now decided by democratic majorities. But as more and more people realize that voting does not actually accomplish the things we are told it does – your voice is not heard, your vote does not count – the less legitimacy democratic decisions will have, and hopefully, the less power they will have over our lives.
Re: Did Congress declare war against Iraq?
Yes. HJR 114
That is not a declaration of war. That is authorization for military force justified not by the Constitution, but by the United Nations, which is kind of ironic considering that the United Nations specifically opposed this war. Ron Paul says this in more detail here: http://www.house.gov/paul/tst/tst2002/tst101402.htm
Clinton was criticized because he mainly used military action as a distraction whenever a new scandal started to make the headlines.
And that certainly isn't what Bush is trying to do, right? He didn't lie about the presence of WMD in order to distract voters from the poor economy in order to build off the national sentiment following 9/11 and increase his chances for reelection, did he?
Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
Re: Regarding boredom...
If the conversation is starting to bore you then why did you take so much time writing a response... not to mention bemoaning the fact that you lost it.
Because after I lost my response, I realized that I wasn't interested enough in this conversation to write it again.
At least I learned something from this exchange... apparently you believe that other posters are here just to amuse you.
Of course, and I am only here to amuse myself. Why else would I be here?
Re: Actually, congress wages war
Did Congress declare war against Iraq?
Need I dig up quotes from the founders on what they believe to be proper foreign policy? Need I dig up quotes from George W. Bush on what he believed to be proper foreign policy, prior to his election?
I recall conservatives criticizing Clinton for nation building and acting as the world's policeman.
My, how times have changed.
Dammit, I wrote a long response to your post and the preview timed out and I lost it. Regardless, this conversation is starting to bore me. If you honestly believe that the Constitution allows the president to wage war against any country for any reason, I doubt there is anything I can say to convince you otherwise. So much for small-government Constitutional conservativism.
Spall. Most if not all CDs have a notice stating that the material on the CD is copyrighted.
I'm aware of that. I think you misunderstood the context of my statement. WEAC and I were discussing whether or not it would be OK for me download mp3's of songs that I already purchased on cd if I damaged or misplaced the cd. It is clear that I would not be able to steal a new pair of shoes if I damaged or misplaced them, because I would be depriving the shoe-store owner of his property. However, in the case of the cd, if I download the mp3's I don't necessarily deprive the record company of property.
What I am trying to highlight is the fact that the moral argument for intellectual property is not at all clear, whereas the pragmatic economic argument is much more reasonable.
We can go after a country only if we are attacked first?
No, we can only go after a country if it attacked us or threatened to attack us. Iraq did neither.
We can't take action against a country that is merely supporting the kinds of people who knock down the twin towers?
The role of the U.S. government is not to be the world's policeman. There is no documented connection between Saddam and Al Qaeda.
Sorry Spall, but "providing for the common defense" and "securing the blessings of liberty" means more than just taking it on the chin.
It means protecting us against those who have attacked us or threatened to attack us; it does not mean attacking those who have done neither.
What other group has the power to legally coerce people against their will?
Judges, police, certain monopolies, not to mention individuals and private corporations in certain instances.
Judges and police are currently considered part of the government. Monopolies, individuals, and private corporations do not have the power to legally coerce people against their will.
But sometimes police actions are necessary to provide for the common defense and secure the blessings of liberty.
And where do we draw the line? At what point have we stopped simply defending ourselves and instead have become the world's policeman?
When I say that all forms of consensual sex should be protected, I am referring to equal protection under law.
Which would include marriage, a contractual arrangement (from the state's perspective) that confers certain rights and privileges to the parties.
Correct. Under the doctrine of equal protection, if heterosexuals have the legal right to enter into marraige contracts with each other, then the same right must be protected when it is excercized by homosexuals.
Do you expect anyone to accept the argument that irresponsible behavior doesn't carry with it an associated societal cost?
I expect you to accept the argument that neither homosexual behavior, incenstuous behavior nor polygomous behavior violate rights, and should therefore be legal and enjoy the same legal protections as heterosexual behavior. You cannot justify restricting this kind of behavior by pointing to socialist systems which you yourself agree are unjust.
You appear to be arguing that we should make it easier for people to behave irresponsibly.
I am arguing that people have the moral right to behave in any way they want to, as long as they do not hurt anyone else in the process. Your argument relies on the fact that we currently live in a welfare state, and taxpayers are unjustly forced to pay for the behavior of others. This is an argument against socialism, not against the freedom to behave irresponsibly without hurting anyone else.
you accuse me of being in support of incest. I guess you figure that anyone who believes alcohol should be legal is in favor of alcoholism...
ROTFL. I'm impressed with your ability to make absurd associations.
You seem to be unable to understand the concept that support of freedom does not require support of what people choose to do with their freedom.
Assuming they are at the age of consent you support the legal right for a brother and sister to marry. The linkage is obvious and that is a direct support for incest.
Wrong. It is direct support for the right to commit incest. It is not support or opposition to that choice itself. Similarly, supporting alcohol legalization is not necessarily support of alcohol use.
Choice is fundamental. People who are pro-choice in terms of abortion do not necessarily favor abortion. They simply support the legal right for people to make that decision themselves without being stopped by the government.
On the flipside, the proper analogy would be if I supported of making it a legal right for people to drive while intoxicated.
Only then you could legitimately claim that I favor alcoholism.
False. The two are seperate issues. One who wants to legalize drunk driving is not necessarily in favor of alcoholism, or drinking at all.
Are you sure Righton isn't posting under your screenname?
I can't figure it out. Is this an act of desperation, an expression of anger, or some kind of bizarre secret desire?
I don't recall you ever being so illogical. Since Rigton has a history of posting under other people's screennames, this seemed like a likely explanation.
You are the one who is clouding the issue with welfare rights.
I could just as easily used the orphanage system, the healthcare system, CPS, and/or many other services that are extended to those incapable of caring for themselves.
These are all examples of welfare rights. Any legal entitlement to a good or service that must be provided by the government at taxpayer expense is a welfare right.
Further, if you were actually serious and consistent, you would argue for a ban on marriage for anyone who is a carrier of defective genes, as he or she runs the risk of passing this gene on to future wards of the state.
A ridiculous association not worthy of comment.
Actually, this is the best proof that your argument is inconsistent and unjust. The fact that you do not apply your own logic to relationships other than incest that have a high probability of resulting in defective children proves that you do not really believe your own argument, but are simply trying to justify your dislike of incest and desire to treat those who commit incest unequally under law.
Here, you're just plain wrong. When you buy software, you are not buying a cd, you are buying a license to use the product.
I am not talking about software. I am talking about music. I have purchased many cd's and none of them said anything about a license.
Is your point that wars and police actions have a lot in common or that we should have stayed out of those conflicts?
My point is that the proper role of the U.S. military is to defend our country from foreign aggression, not police the rest of the world. Politicians will use any excuse to expand their own power. I'm surprised that a so called small-government "conservative" like you agrees with this unconstitutional expansion of power.
Politicians will look for any justification to expand their powers.
Again you demonstrate a firm grasp of the obvious. Of course, you omit the fact that virtually any group will do the same. "The price of liberty is eternal vigilance" -Jefferson.
What other group has the power to legally coerce people against their will?
If they are developing or have already developed WMD and might proliferate such weapons to terrorist groups that could harm us then the constitution demands that our government take them out.
If? Might? Could? Is this the Rube Goldberg version of a foreign policy? Where exactly does our Constitution demand that we become the world's policeman?
Don't try to mix apples and oranges, Spall. A thing can be legal but not protected (and, oddly, visa-versa).
When I say that all forms of consensual sex should be protected, I am referring to equal protection under law.
Exactly which individuals have their rights violated by a relationship between a brother and a sister?
The taxpayers are if their mongoloid offspring have to be cared for by the state.
Wrong. The taxpayer's rights are violated by having to pay for welfare, not by people who are irresponsible. Similarly, people who have children but do not have enough money to pay for their children's education have not violated taxpayer's rights. The government violated taxpayer's rights by forcing taxpayer's to pay for public education. You can't socialize something and them blame others for the acts of the socialists.
Since you are arguing in support of incest I see that your common sense is indeed overruled by your libertarian sense.
Nice dodge. Instead of actually addressing the question (whose rights are violated by incest?), you accuse me of being in support of incest. I guess you figure that anyone who believes alcohol should be legal is in favor of alcoholism, anyone who believes that education should be privatized is in favor of illiteracy, anyone who is in favor of ending welfare is in favor of poverty. Are you sure Righton isn't posting under your screenname?
I'd say its more likely that they will stay together for longer if they are legally permitted to enter into a contract with one another.
Really? Among blacks whose incomes are less than $24K the ratio of single parent families somewhere in the neighborhood of 85%. That number has been steadily on the rise since the 60's.
You honestly can't be this dumb. Do you not realize that your statistic has nothing to do with my claim? In order to disprove my claim, you need to show that couples are more likely to stay together if they are not married rather than if they are married.
Educating the mentally retarded offspring of a sibling marriage would be one of them. So too might be the counseling of the adopted children of same sex marriages.
Don't try to cloud the issue simply because welfare rights are a component to the argument.
Welfare rights are the argument entirely. Is it just to force me to pay for the education or counseling of your child? No. Then why is it just to force the taxpayer to do so?
You are the one who is clouding the issue with welfare rights.
Further, if you were actually serious and consistent, you would argue for a ban on marriage for anyone who is a carrier of defective genes, as he or she runs the risk of passing this gene on to future wards of the state. Further still, this is an argument against cohabitation, not marriage.
The magazine publishers allow for doctors and dentists to place the magazines in waiting rooms.
How do you know this? When have magazine publishers specifically said that they allow this use for their product?
Also, the publishing of magazines is mostly paid for by advertising, not by subscription price (which usually costs litttle more than what it costs them to ship the magazines).
This is not true for all magazines. Some of the magazines I subscribe to have almost no ads at all.
The publishers frequently GIVE magazine subscriptionto doctors free as advertising, hoping that the patrons at the doctor's office will like it and subscribe themselves.
Just as musicians frequently GIVE mp3's of their songs away for free online as a form of advertising, hoping that future customers will go to their concerts and buy their cd's.
The radio station has paid huge royalties to the music publishing company to distribute the material as they do,
I believe it is the other way around. If anything, radio stations get paid to play the music, or get it for free.
You paid for the license to use the program.
No I didn't. My CD didn't say anything about a license. I purchased a piece of plastic encoded with ones and zeroes. When my car breaks down I cannot simply go to the dealer and steal a new one. Why should I be able to "steal" a new cd if I broke the one I purchased? That is, of course, if intellectual property is the same as physical property.
Are you beginning to see the problem with equating the two?
Re: Question for board members
One more thing. Minarchist posted this message at PIALT:
I have a free membership on ihup and have been lurking for years, but tried to reply to "Spall - Question for board members" and it said I had to uupgrade to premium at 8.95/month. Is that what everyone on there does?
I assume he needs a personal invite in order to post here?
I'll respond to all of the other posts when I get some free time.
Re: Question for board members
I asked because Johnpol and I are having a conversation that is very similar to the intellectual property thread I am involved in here. Rather than repeat myself, I wanted to just point him to these threads.
I assume that none of you have a problem with Johnpol, correct?
Question for board members
Can I post a link to this board on the PI Alt board?
Here's another example
I purchased a CD. I then either lost or broke the CD. Rather than go out and purchase another copy, I download the same songs and record them to a writeable CD.
Have I done something morally wrong? Should there be a law against what I did?
Does this case illustrate the problem with using the same arguments of property rights for IP as we do for physical property?
I'm surprised that considering the cross-over of threads, nobody noticed the perfect example of strategically withholding your intentions.
I can think of many examples demonstrating this point; the house-painting one just happened to be the first that came to mind because I was already in the mode of thinking about externalities and that happens to be similar to a common example used in economics.
Regardless, am I off base in thinking that the point I am making is a simple one? That in the context of a larger argument, a sub-argument can be refuted by a counter-example that does not necessarily have anything to do with the larger argument? Is this not obvious to most of you, whoever is reading this?
I think that's part of what Spall may be trying to get at. Not all laws are based on shared morality or any morality whatsoever. Morality is subjective is many areas.
My point is even broader than that. Even if the owner agrees with me that there is nothing immoral about my act, he may still tell me otherwise because it is in his financial interest to discourage me from movie hopping, as he doesn't know whether I would pay or not.
But you are correct that his personal view of morality is not sufficient proof either.
Moreover, it can often be merely the view of a prestigious or well-known or wealthy individual or company that gets a law passed based on "their" morality, not the publics morality.
Maybe in a extremely small town, but as voting populations get larger, the influence of a single individual to pass a law that most people disagree with is highly unlikely, even if that individual is incredibly powerful. The much more likely scenario is that a significant portion of the population, with political influence, wishes to impose their personal beliefs on everyone else.
It is a violation of the property rights of the owner, because he set the rules (as you have agreed he has the right to do), and you deliberately broke them, and it is a breach of contract because you contraced at the door to pay your money and watch ONE movie, then took another that you didn't pay for.
Again, I already agree that it is a breach of contract and a violation of property rights. I am ignoring the trespassing issue and only focusing on the Intellectual Property issue, and whether any actual harm has been caused to the owner other than a rule violation. I think I can fairly conclude by now that there is no harm caused.
But the side issues have to be addressed in the context of how they relate to the main issue, or you have just begun a completely different conversation.
No, they don't. Making analogies to specific claims made in the process of a larger debate, even if the analogy has nothing to do with the larger argument, is basic argumentation technique. You claimed that strategic withholding of information is proof of immorality. I gave you an analogy that contradicted your claim. If you don't understand this, I'm not going to waste anymore of my time explaining this to you.
I can agree that you have not caused him DIRECT harm, but that is still irrelevant to the main argument.
In your opinion. In my opinion, the lack of actual harm is extremely relevant.
It is never morally right to violate the rights of another.
Really? Take this case presented by David Friedman:
Consider the following example. A madman is about to open fire on a crowd; if he does so numerous innocent people will die. The only way to prevent him is to shoot him with a rifle that is within reach of several members of the crowd. The rifle is on the private property of its legitimate owner. He is a well known misanthrope who has publicly stated on numerous occasions that he is opposed to letting anyone use his rifle without his permission, even if it would save hundreds of lives.
Two questions now arise. The first is whether members of the crowd have a right to take the rifle and use it to shoot the madman. The answer of libertarian rights theory, as I understand it, is no. The owner of the rifle is not responsible for the existence of the madman, and the fact that his rifle is, temporarily, of enormous value to other people does not give them a right to take it.
The second question is whether it is desirable that someone take the rifle and use it to shoot the madman--whether, to put it more personally, I wish that someone do so, or whether I would rather see the members of the crowd stand there and be shot down. The answer to this question seems equally unambiguous. If someone takes the rifle, there is a relatively minor violation of the legitimate rights of its owner; if no one does, there is a major violation of the legitimate rights (not to be killed) of a large number of victims--plus a substantial cost in human life and human pain. If asked which of these outcomes I would prefer to see, the answer is obviously the first.
I recommend reading the entire article, as well as his solution to these sorts of problems: http://daviddfriedman.com/Libertarian/Machinery_of_Freedom/MofF_Chapter_41.html
The point he is making is simple: rights are useful way to think about morality, but are the start - not the end - of the conversation. Simply claiming that such and such is right and such and such is wrong is not persuasive. We need to think about what makes certain things right and certain things wrong. Property rights are a useful tool to answer these questions, but they are not always adequate.
Can you imagine if your position became law? Can you imagine not being able to prosecute squatters who sneak into your house to use your bed, or kitchen while you are not home?
That is not my position. You misunderstood what was written. I never said that squatters should not be prosecuted. I said that squatting may not necessarily be immoral in all situations.
YOu have two legitimate choices - 1, pay to see it, or 2, wait for it to be offered cheaper or free. It is not right to say, "well, I was going to wait for it to be free, but instead, I'll sneak in and watch it for free now."
Granted, you don't believe this is the right thing to do. But what I am asking you is if you see any difference from the point of view of the theater owner between:
1. A customer who chooses to wait to see it when it comes on tv for free.
2. A customer who doesn't pay to see it and does not take up a seat that would be used by others, and would not have paid for it otherwise.
We both agree that the owner has the right to control his property. The question is simply whether he is worse off in either of these situations.
You're acting like each individual question exists in a vaccuum. You HAVE nbeen saying it is ok to sneak in and see it for free. That is the basic point of contention.
Correct, but in order to have a complex discussion, we need to be able to address side-issues such as this one, without contantly going back to the original question and ignoring the side issues.
Again, that isn't the question right now. The question is whether I caused him harm or made him worse off than he would have been otherwise. I clearly did not.
Yes, Spall it IS the question right now. You can't use something to support your original point and then claim the original point is irrelenat to the discussion.
You seem to be unable to deal with subtopics. Ignore for a moment the original question. Simply concentrate on the sub-question of whether or not I caused him harm or made him worse off than he would have been otherwise. I clearly did not.
Now, go back to the original topic. Does the theater owner have a right to exclude me if he wants to? Of course. Did I cause him any financial harm or deprive him of any revenue? No. Is it immoral to violate a right even if it does not cause any harm? Maybe. I don't know. This is the point I am trying to understand, and I have not recieved a satisfactory explanation yet.
The basic discussion is whether or not it is wrong to either utilize analog cable signals that you are not paying for or seeing a movie in a theater that you did not pay for.
Correct. Now you wished to prove that it is wrong to do this by asking why a person would not be willing to announce his actions. I gave a separate case that has nothing to do with this issue other than the fact that it demonstrates a valid reason for not wanting to announce one's actions even though they are perfectly moral.
The point is not that these cases have anything to do with one another, but that you can not prove immorality by citing a lack of desire to announce one's intentions.
No, not besides the point. If you wait for local TV, SPONSERS are paying for the movie, and more often than not there is a lot of editing and format changes. It is still perfectly legal, and you are violating no one's rights.
Of course not. But again, you are missing the point. The question was not whether it is morally justified to wait for a movie to be shown for free on TV before you watch it. Of course it is. Rather, the question is whether or not you have ever decided to wait for a movie to reach this point before you were willing to watch it because you didn't want to pay money for a crappy movie.
That still dosn't make it right for me to be impatient and sneak into a theater to see it for free before that time.
I didn't say it did. All I said is that this is an example of someone who wanted to watch a movie but not enough to pay for it. That was the question you asked me; whether such a situation can exist.
Yes you are, because you enter the theater. He may not be better off, but you have taken something for free that you were not entitled to.
Again, that isn't the question right now. The question is whether I caused him harm or made him worse off than he would have been otherwise. I clearly did not.
I only said that because your example about painting your own house an awful color is irrelevant. This conversation is not about nusiance laws, it is about viloating someone else's property rights.
No, the conversation in that particular instance was about why it might be perfectly moral to strategically withhold information.
I already gave an example: a man who wanted to paint his house yellow would have a strategic reason to not ask his neighbor's permission because he knows that the neighbor would object. There is certainly nothing immoral about painting one's house yellow, yet the neighbor is biased and not an objective source for moral decisions.
Like I said, irrelevant.
Is it immoral in this case to strategically withhold information or isn't it? That is the question that needs to be answered, not whether this is identical to movie watching.
Bad example. In that case, you are doing somethingon YOUR property. In the case of movie hopping, you are doing something on HIS property.
That isn't the point. The point is that in both situations, I have a strategic reason to not declare my intentions, and this lack of declaration does not necessarily prove immorality.