Eden and Evolution

It is because I recognize that the word 'government' has a meaning other than that I wish it to have for the moment! You have to qualify the word to get it to mean 'governing of humans over humans' (oppression of some humans by others)! You have to qualify it further to mean 'governing of humans over humans through through some means other than the punishing of rights infringers' (unjustifiable oppression).

In other words, you can come up with examples of "government" which don't involve any humans ruling over any other humans? Please do! I look forward to this enlightening--nay, amazing--discovery.

You're being slightly sneaky, though. The police do not just have power to punish rights infringers. They have extra powers: for example, if they think there's a "rights infringer" hiding in my basement, they can break into my house, whether I want them to or not--and, if I resist, they can shoot me. They will not be punished for my death, even if no rights infringer ever turns up in my basement.

The "power to punish wrong-doers" inherently includes the power to do all sorts of things to innocent bystanders. It is inherent in what police are, that they must infringe some rights, in the name of catching rights-infringers. You think that's OK. I don't.

You need God to tell you strawberries are good and crabapples are bad? When men got around to talking about some kind of God and what made that God angry or happy, they already had the words for "good" and "bad" to apply.

You're saying that morals and ethics are simply a matter of taste, which is really to say there aren't really any worthy of the name; nobody thinks it incumbent that strawberries ought to be preferred over crab apples in any moral or ethical kind of way.

Cordially,

The reason it doesn't work is that unevolved humans are uncomfortable when they don't know who's the chief of their tribe, and they don't really believe in the golden rule either. So when someone says, "I'm your chief!" they feel genuine relief. Then, when the chief says, "He's our enemy!" they willingly attack him. Other humans, afraid of this new warlord, will ask, "Where's OUR chief?" Government ensues.

Humans will be ready for civilization when they are truly shocked, horrified and amused by that latter scenario.

Unevolved humans? I thought humans evolved from the primordial slime. There's no direction to it, no goal, no purpose. If that's the case what sense does it make to be "shocked or "horrified" at whatever evolution has produced? What are you comparing the product of evolution WITH, to justify a complaint against "tyranny"?

Cordially,

Unevolved humans? I thought humans evolved from the primordial slime.

Assuming common descent, which I obviously am, your statement is true. But unfortunately humans are a bit too recently swung out of the trees, and haven't overcome their basic animal nature. We are still pack animals, which means we still let the alphas steal our bananas and females. And we also wish we were those alphas, meaning we cheerfully steal bananas and females, and kill our rivals, when we can get way with it.

If that's the case what sense does it make to be "shocked or "horrified" at whatever evolution has produced?

Humans have a special gift: we are capable of self criticism. We can question our animal instincts. We can feel regret and shame. We can aspire to something that is contrary to our nature. Indeed, that's what makes me a believer to this day. We have the potential to be more than the animals we were born. In fact, that's a Bible quote!

What are you comparing the product of evolution WITH, to justify a complaint against "tyranny"?

Ultimately, I'm comparing it with a purely abstract construct. Our self-criticism rises to the amazing level that we can even invent things like the Pareto Criterion[1], the Universality Criterion[2], or the Golden Rule[3].

Evolution being unpredictable, it's impossible to say whether we'll ever as a species reach the point that we start following the golden rule. There are reasons to be hopeful, however. Unless we do reach essentially that state, civilization will always be a series of ups and downs punctuated with periods of tyranny.

Notes:

This states that an act is just if at least one person benefits, and no person is affected negatively.
This states that any moral rule, to qualify as a moral rule, must have the property that it can be applied equally to every living human being. The Golden Rule is one example.
Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

"Twist and Shout" time?

No, I'm saying I don't need a God to tell me a right and wrong where right is where I get to listen to harps forever and wrong results in accordions. Also the words "good" and "bad" are used at a more primitive level.

Personally, if I had no better arguments than to pretend to misunderstand what people are clearly saying I'd rather be thought a silent fool than a loud liar.

No, I'm saying I don't need a God to tell me a right and wrong where right is where I get to listen to harps forever and wrong results in accordions.

Harps vs. accordians forever is a straw man argument. But even with your own notions of good and evil the logical implication of an atheistic presupposition is that whether or not one thinks that listening to harps versus accordions forever is right, wrong or neither, there isn't any real moral, ethical or rational distinction between any such notions or their opposites. They are all equally evanescent epiphenomena of irrational physical forces, perhaps the result of eating too many crab apples last night. I am not pretending to misunderstand what you are saying. I understand it very well, and whether I am a liar as you insinuate, or not, is irrelevant to the point under consideration; namely, that under such a naturalistic philosophy you cannot formulate an argument that justifies an ethical objection to anything.

I'd rather be thought a silent fool than a loud liar.

Nice paraphrase of Proverbs 17:28

Cordially,

To me, the idea that some invisible big guy likes some things and not others adds nothing to an ethics argument.

"In other words, you can come up with examples of "government" which don't involve any humans ruling over any other humans? Please do! I look forward to this enlightening--nay, amazing--discovery."

Think about it technically.

Some examples of 'govern' from dictionary.com:
"a valve that governs fuel intake"
"a student who could not govern his impulses"
"Chance usually governs the outcome of the game"

Also, there is the term 'self-government'.

Self-government (the individual governing himself and his emotions and base instincts, usually in accordance with his interests (personal prosperity, personal fulfillment through means of his choice, personal safety (from philosopher-kings especially), the preservation of the society he cares about for his children, and that is structured such that he has reason to believe it will well afford his children with reasonable chance for prosperity, fulfillment, and safety)) seems to be the fundamental organizing principle in the society you have in mind, I think?

Self-governed individuals behaving in ways that (taking into account the actions of other selves, and taking into account that the actions of the others depend upon the action of the individual) further their own interests (or for some sick people, that don't further their interests, so long as they don't mess with others). Self-government can be checked by other individuals' interests when they get out of the "line" drawn by one's own property. This is self-governments of different selves checking each other systematically.

There is a sub-branch of economics, which overlaps with evolutionary biology an mathematics, called 'game theory' and it deals with such systems of interacting individual interest and their equilibriums and so on. With the formalisms of this field, these sorts of interpersonal dynamics can at least begin be talked and thought about formally, and without necessarily being imposed on others.

At any rate, if the word 'government' is clear, I'm not saying you will have a social system without humans governing other humans (in fact, I am saying that you will not, even your "true civilization" is not free of this, not without killing everyone first). I am just saying that that is not inherent in the word 'government' itself, as evidenced by the valve example above. (Note that some wack leftists academics in the humanities would draw a connection between human oppression and the valve governing fuel intake, and use that to publish a paper on evil Technological Western Oppressor Culture or the like, all while living off your tax dollars - the basic ideas that give convoluted root to such wackiness go back at least to Rousseau). If I and my neighbors each decide to ward off thieves with guns, we are governing the behavior of other humans, using force. The difference is that we are not initiating harm or immanent threat of harm against other people, only making it clear by our behavior that there is a cost to initiating that harm. Through the force of our volition, shaped by our beliefs about justice, we have changed the incentives for thieves, thus deterring much theft, thus governing the behavior of would-be thieves. Note, also, that this is a very distributed sort of government, as opposed to the philosopher-king sort.

Going back to why I say my earlier bit about 'government' was not flowery, but technical. Generally, say there is some force. For some reason, it behaves in a roughly predictable way, so it creates roughly predictable patterns (gravity on earth is a force that acts to move big heavy things toward earth, you get a pattern in which most cars are on the ground and not floating in midair). The force governs the patterns. This is happening in the system you described as "anarchist". There is individual volition. This is a force. Because volition is shaped by individual thought about reality and individual inheritance, in a given culture, or a given place with neighbors talking to each other, or just by accident from different people noticing and instinctively wanting the same things, it often works in a roughly similar way in each neighbor; thus it is often a coordinated force.

For example, if one way volition is shaped is into the will to "shoot the man that tries to kill me," then volition governs murder patterns to a large degree (on the assumption that most would-be murders want to keep their lives, a reasonable assumption in general, it really honestly changes their incentives) - specifically, it acts to make murder more rare than it would otherwise be. This is why I said, earlier, that without any government you won't get more than particles moving randomly. (For the record, I think that there are some very smart people that seem to want this - what I called "death-wish anarchists". You can prevent their ideas from getting into your head, and thus prevent them from influencing your actions in ways that are contrary to what your truly care about, while still holding tight to love of liberty, by hounding those ideas with reason. It is also handy to look at language for clues. Language is a formalism for human thoughts (thoughts go to language), it is a semi-inherited and semi-acquired formalism, and there are often usefully informative connections there that we are often not consciously aware of without taking long and serious analytic thought, or looking in a good etymological dictionary.)

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From what you are saying, you seem to want a society governed, roughly, by the following constitutional principles ('constitutional' in the sense "of or proceeding from the basic structure or nature of a person or thing; inherent" - dictionary.com):

(a) an human adult is a human who has reached [say] 16 years of age to the day.

(b) a human child is a human who has not yet reached [say] 16 years of age to the day.

(c) each individual adult human has dominion over his body.

(d) each individual adult human has dominion over the property that he owns. the property that he or she owns is that which he or obtains through voluntary trade, his creation, or as a gift.

(e) if one human or party of humans (the first party) physically injures, or kills, or is in the act of directly attempting to physically injure or kill, another human (the second party), this is known as "infringement of bodily rights" of the second party by the first party. the human whose bodily rights have been infringed upon (the second party), or another human (the third party) acting on the second party's behalf, has the right to infringe on the bodily rights of the first party [to some specific extent], without himself being subject to (e).

(f) if one human or party of humans (the first party) damages the property of, or steals the property of, or is in the act of directly attempting to damage or steal the property of, another human (the second party), this is known as "infringement of property rights" of the second party by the first party. the human whose property rights have been infringed upon (the second party), or another human (the third party) acting on the second party's behalf, has the right to infringe on the property rights of the first party [to some specific extent], without himself being subject to (f).

(g) children are the charges of their biological parents, or of those adults whom their biological parents have left them in charge. an adult in charge of a child is responsible for providing that child with food, water, clothing, education, shelter, and basic means of hygiene. the adult in charge of a child has to right to infringe on the bodily rights of the child with reason, and without causing permanent or debilitating injury. should the adult fail in his responsibilities, or infringe upon the bodily rights of a child in a manner beyond that detailed in the preceding sentence, that child may choose another adult charge. This choice may only be enforced by force of the child himself.

Now, I'm not saying I got down exactly what you're thinking or that I got down something really great or that I'm a necessarily a supporter of what I wrote above. This is just an example to illustrate that something roughly like what you seem to be thinking about could be written down.

I'm also not necessarily saying there is an advantage to writing it down; there may be, but that is a different topic. I'm just saying that principles similar to the above would be there in what you are discussing. I am not a fascist for being curious about these principles. I am not trying to impose them on anybody by pointing them out. People are curious, and I'd bet that if, hypothetically, you had a group of people acting on these principles for some time, eventually you'd get a curious person somewhere pointing them out, and writing them down if he were literate. So far as I am aware, the only reason to refrain from thinking about these principles is if someone with nefarious purposes is using fear to get people to avoid thinking about where things actually follow.

This is not to say that all constitutionalism is voluntary. The US constitution contains a mix of things.

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For the record, this structure differentiates your system significantly from that of the classic religious anarchists, of whom I was not initially sure you were not a follower. The Anabaptists, from whom the Quakers are derived, and who themselves Russell claims are ideologically derived from the Greek Orpheus cult, are not big on organizing principles of any sort (IIRC). They believe that their community of true believers will be run, not by organizing principles like "each person has the right to shoot an attacker", but by what they believe to be God's fiat going directly into their heads. When the Anabaptists tried it (as I remember), it ended up being run by individual impulse and not working for very much. Their forerunners, the Orpheus cults, were frenzied, impulsive, bloody things (Bertrand Russell claims) involving ripping apart and eating live animals and intoxication and such. Basically the idea originally was that base primal energy is something holy - that it was the divine directing individuals, well, directly. Russell (who was a property-despising socialist, so analyze what he says very carefully if you read him) claims this was originally a gut reaction against civilization for people who had only recently begun living civilized. I think it is a likely reaction of any people who believe other people exert unjust power over them - in reaction to unjust structure, they clamor for total chaos rather than just structure. They will not get it total chaos without killing everything (though some, in the back of their minds, accept the latter condition), they will just get rule by base emotional impulse, which is not sufficient for keeping crafty rational-mind-using philosopher-kings at bay. It is understandable for a human to want some sort of primal chaos after having been herded like a sheep since childhood, but it is counterproductive if what is really good to live in is some of just structure (your neighbor will shoot you if you try to kill him) combined with ample avenue for individual choice.

"The "power to punish wrong-doers" inherently includes the power to do all sorts of things to innocent bystanders. It is inherent in what police are, that they must infringe some rights, in the name of catching rights-infringers. You think that's OK. I don't."

I do not think it is OK, I think it is very bad. The problem you discuss is also a problem in your system, barring miraculous reweaving of the fabric of the universe (which might be nice for all I know, but I do not know, and at any rate it is not an option we can necessarily expect to happen in our lifetimes, even if you believe it will happen some day). I do *not* think it can be avoided by giving the power to the people instead of to the police. I *do* think that giving that power to the people instead of the police does have other benefits like decentralization of force, and reduced chance and incentive of the force-wielders to use unjust force.

If you have an armed populace and they are free to protect themselves against rights infringement with arms, what is keeping them from doing "all sorts of things to innocent bystanders"? Two things: (1) self-government (the same thing which allows people to drive down streets lined by busy sidewalks without mowing over pedestrians - go to a a busy downtown at midday, and notice that a frail woman in an SUV could flick her wrist and kill dozens, yet things like this almost never happen, because most people aren't monsters), and (2) deterring disincentives ("eye for an eye" sorts of things, as in (e) and (f) in the example constitution).

I think the decent options are the following, either:

(1) Allowing individual citizens or those acting on their behalf (relatives, neighbors, hired bounty hunters, etc.) to go after wrong-doers. If a population did this, the behavior could be described by principles like (e) and (f) in the above example constitution. It is really a form of very direct democracy - if you're going after some dude for stealing your car, your neighbors all better have reason to think you justified, or else they will think you are the criminal, and go after you. This opens things up to large families or other sorts of "loud" blocs (bribers, say), ruling the roost through covert trickery if people aren't highly rational and highly informed. Bounty-hunterism also creates incentive for crimes to occur, and you could get all sorts of situations in which some guys form a business framing other people for crimes, and then hiring out their services to extract justice from the framed people. This would technically be illegal according to the above example constitution, but might be difficult to prevent.
or
(2)
Somehow trying to keep a citizen-checked judiciary, and letting that issue warrants to privately-hired bounty hunters or for government agents only on the basis of evidence. Creating a chair for a judge involves lots of risks that must be checked through some mechanism, and ultimately by an armed populace, to avoid rule by fiat. Creating a chair for government agents creates lots of risks that must be checked to prevent jackboots and expansion into policing like we have today. Creating a route for bounty hunters to justify their services creates lots of risks involving a subset of private citizens who have a vested interest in crimes occurring. How this would fare would depend upon the checks - insufficient checks, and it devolves into what we have today. Decent checks, it might confer as much freedom as the white people had before Lincoln. With our economy already being largely industrialized and technological, and with people on this continent largely over the unfounded thinking about humans that allowed them to justify slavery to themselves, it might last a good bit longer being decent until what happened under Lincoln happened.

I lean toward (2), but depending upon the specific checks; else (1). I can understand if someone else leans toward (1) entirely, and I will listen to their arguments. My problem with many people who call themselves anarchists is that they want me to accept (1) without discussing it, and then they call me a traitor to liberty for my fortitude to (what I consider to be) their cult with its English-like jargon designed to cut off certain thoughts.

Also, there is the term 'self-government'

Anarcho-capitalism is almost synonymous with "self-government", if by it you mean that each individual "governs" himself and his private property. In fact it is the only sort of "government" that doesn't involve at least one human having power to aggress against at least one other human.

There is a sub-branch of economics, which overlaps with evolutionary biology an mathematics, called 'game theory' and it deals with such systems of interacting individual interest and their equilibriums and so on.

My PhD is in mathematics, so I'd rather claim that game theory is a branch of mathematics borrowed by both economists and evolutionsts. :-)

With the formalisms of this field, these sorts of interpersonal dynamics can at least begin be talked and thought about formally, and without necessarily being imposed on others.

I quite agree. I'm always game for stimulating talk! Some people, of whom you aren't one at the moment, scare me because their talk is heavy with the implication that they plan to "do something about it", or expect others to. If the end result is a stimulating converstation about governments, well. If the end result is someone actually setting one of the durn things up, not well.

I'm not saying you will have a social system without humans governing other humans (in fact, I am saying that you will not, even your "true civilization" is not free of this, not without killing everyone first).

This is where things become murky again. You claim that it is impossible for any "society" to exist without some humans governing other humans, where I use "society" in the broadest possible sense. My inner ear hears you adding, "So, since someone has to be in charge..." which sets off the alarm bells. But I dispute your claim. Ignoring young children and the insane, for the purpose of this discussion, I claim that it's perfectly possible for no human to rule any other human involuntarily.

I do need to point out, yet again, that killing in self-defense isn't "ruling". Neither is being someone's employer; though there's an authority structure, it is contractual and purely voluntary. You can quit your job, and nobody will ever arrest you for it. Similarly with clubs, etc.

If I and my neighbors each decide to ward off thieves with guns, we are governing the behavior of other humans, using force.

Ah, I see precisely what has you confused. The exact ethical rule is the non-initiation of force. A thief has broken the rule. The homeowner who shoots him has not. Defending yourself from a murderer isn't "ruling" him in any sense that matters--indeed, the attempted murderer is guilty of trying to rule you. Equating murder and self-defense with deadly force will only result in confusion. The two things are worlds apart.

This is why I said, earlier, that without any government you won't get more than particles moving randomly.

On the contrary, all humans act in self-interest, excepting the severely insane. Self-interest isn't random. Even idiots that think rain-dances are good for their crops aren't behaving randomly; they're acting perfectly rationally, given their stupid assumptions, and other humans can easily act accordingly. We can laugh at him; we can try to teach him about weather; we can try to sell him magic rain-dancing galoshes; we can tolerate his silliness with friendly good humor--we have lots of choices. But our misguided farmer friend isn't a wild animal, a falling rock, or some other unpredictable force. He acts consistently with his perceived self-interest.

In other words, humans act. Any human action carries the a priori truth that the actor thought it would benefit him in some way. Similarly, any trade proves that the trader values what he gets above what he gives. If you follow that out in all its implications, you'll realize that we actually have incredibly powerful insights into the behavior of others. They are anything but random.

For the record, this structure differentiates your system significantly from that of the classic religious anarchists, of whom I was not initially sure you were not a follower...

I'm sure there are analogies. The best summary would be, an anarcho-capitalist who is also a Bible believer.

The Anabaptists, from whom the Quakers are derived, and who themselves Russell claims are ideologically derived from the Greek Orpheus cult, are not big on organizing principles of any sort (IIRC). They believe that their community of true believers will be run, not by organizing principles like "each person has the right to shoot an attacker", but by what they believe to be God's fiat going directly into their heads.

Quakers and Anabaptists are strict pacifists. They manage to maintain order in other ways, such as meidung. Pennsylvania was an anarcho-capitalist colony for many years. I can't speak to the details of their law enforcement, but their society was, in broad terms, the sort of thing I recommend. It was less structureless than you think, because the citizens shared many cultural assumptions, including the non-initiation of aggression and, for the non-quakers, the permissibility of self-defense.

As for Russell, no comment. He's a dolt.

This is just an example to illustrate that something roughly like what you seem to be thinking about could be written down.

Yes, and your suggestion is a pretty decent first stab at it. I encourage writing such things down, because homo libertatis, if he ever exists, will need something to study in school. However, to call it a "constitution" carries the further baggage that someone or other will be empowered to enforce it; that's emphatically not true. Each individual will enforce it within his own sphere.

I think the decent options are the following, either:

Allowing individual citizens or those acting on their behalf (relatives, neighbors, hired bounty hunters, etc.) to go after wrong-doers...
Somehow trying to keep a citizen-checked judiciary, and letting that issue warrants to privately-hired bounty hunters or for government agents only on the basis of evidence...

I lean toward 2...

"Government agents" in #2 opens a very large can of worms: it implies that there's a govenment to employ these agents, and that its agents have special powers--namely, to "go after wrong doers," even if only "on the basis of evidence." Those special people with their special powers are guaranteed to be the oppressors of future generations. Ultimately, it will become their decision what constitutes "evidence," and what constitutes a "wrong doer." It can be no other way.

First, the supposedly independent, supposedly limited citizens' judiciary would without fail evolve into a full-time, professional judiciary--after all, the magic of specialization works there as it does everywhere. People who really want that job will become experts at getting it, whether that involves getting elected or whatever mechanism. If judges themselves are selected purely at random by lottery, then the power-hungry will move into supporting positions from which they will command significant influence over the clueless folks chosen at random.

Once the professional judiciary is solidly in place, it will immediately form incestuous relationships with whoever enforces the laws--these "government agents". Both win: the judges get direct access to an enforcement staff; the enforcers get judges who will accommodate their wishes. Once the separation of powers is weakened sufficiently, we're back where we are now: a monolithic ruling class made up of judges, cops and their supporting bureaucrats.

The key ingredient that makes this scenario work is that, way back at the beginning, we assumed that these agents were special, and had special business being armed, and special powers to apprehend wrong-doers. In other words, as soon as you gave up your gun and decided to let someone else take responsibility for your safety, the end result was guaranteed.

My problem with many people who call themselves anarchists is that they want me to accept #1 without discussing it...

If you want these "agents" to have power over you, that's ultimately your business. You have the right to go submit to slavery, just as you have the right to commit suicide or to overeat. But you appear to be casually assuming that those agents will also have power over me. I rather object to that! What gives you the right to tell me that I must submit to some master? How would you like it if I came and told you that you must submit to my imam, and I can't agree to let you out of your burqa without some serious discussion first?

"You're suddenly getting highly emotional, so I'll take a break for the moment. What personal experience with suicide is prompting this intense reaction? Whatever it was, you have my sympathy and condolence. Note, however, that FR doesn't allow bad language. Repeated dropping of the F-bomb will get your posts deleted, and might lead to a brush with a moderator."

You were giving an number of signs that you were more interested in absolute, fetishized freedom than in good (I will detail these below). I could view these signs as one of (a) coincidental, or as (b) a result of you basically being an OK guy fundamentally motivated worthy concerns who happened to pick up some jargon from others (hey no one is perfect), or (c) as a result of your being what I call a "death-wish" anarchist (not that the people I call this are entirely bad or motivated, as people, solely by a death wish - it is just that is one strong thing inside some people).

I have spent the last number of years of my life in university, and even on the internet, with Gen-Y peers, surrounded mostly, shall we say, *not* by clean-cut Republican folk. Not having calculated that things would be different on FR (as I should have calculated), I ended up pegging you for (c), after consideration of the signs I was getting (which I will detail below). Having pegged you as a (c), I was essentially going to give up on the conversation, but not without yelling what I really thought of you and your situation first (what I thought is a mix of ideas I mostly derived from having read 1984, which I assumed almost all Americans read in high school, and some ideas from what I think really drives anarchists to obsess over Fight Club, and some ideas from a book written in the '60s during their recovery from Ayn Rand's cult - I can go more into all this later if you want).

Then, after the yelling, I read on (I am now behind on reading my pings, and I don't want to wait to read them all before replying), saw that when pressed you really backed up your position not with a fetish, but with real concerns - this suggested that one of (a) or (b) were the case. I realized I was mistaken. I noted that what I did was weird (I really should have considered the fact that I was on FR--and also the fact that you appear to support Israel's fight for survival against terrorism--more carefully). I tried to explain it as best I could in a line or two.

The signs you were giving me (that I can remember) were the following:

(1) Jargonized use of 'government', jargonized use of 'constitution', jargonized use of 'anarchy'.

(2) Insistence that what differentiated your form of constitutionalism was mine was, essentially, whether or not we talked about it, and the name. This is manipulative.

(3) Apparently grouping me in with enemies of freedom and with property infringers for disagreeing with you. Again, I am not on your property by typing stuff FR, unless you own FR. If I am in your head at all, it is because you chose to read what I wrote - you can always go to yahoo.com or something else. If I am not infringing on your property, and you believe I am saying bad things, the way to fight that is with words. Not by categorizing me in with property infringers. This delicate distinction has the potential to reduce massive amounts of bloodshed, and to allow people who disagree with each other to live with each other nonetheless. It also has the potential to allow multiple people to learn from each other without having to fear for their safety.

(4) Failure to recognize that words like 'freedom' and 'liberty' have two meanings - one loaded with ideas morality and maximizing human choice and human potential hand human happiness (by limiting freedom just enough ("Human liberty" = you should not be 'free' (see below) to steal my car and have me powerless to stop you, or be free to steal my car and go unpunished, or the like) so that your neighbor has freedom, too), and another meaning that is simply about lack of constraint. Absolute lack of constraint is not possible in this world - cars would float. Absolute lack of constraint for living things means death.

(5) A slip-up use of the word 'victimizers' when what you should have said was 'tyrants'. This confusion is important because changing government will not reduce 'victimizers' because a man can be his own victimizer. Someone who thinks "anarchy" will eliminate victimizers is mistaken, and quite possibly looking for an external solution to a problem only he himself can fix, inside himself.

This last one, (5) is related to why I think cubicle-living urban anarchists obsess over the violence and voluntary submission in Fight Club (note that in the real world, once you have a structure like that, the chances of everything is does staying voluntary 5 years after they have started blowing up buildings, is next to nil). They see allegiance to an voluntarily-chosen tyrant as a way to get out of what they see as prison, and they obsess over this option instead of, say, taking a salary cut and moving rural, or starting their own businesses or the like. Even though there are many unjust bounds in our society, it is still good to make as much, starting with yourself, out of what you do have (and we have a heck of a lot more than, say, people in Poland in the 1970s, or Angela Merkel growing up - read about what she did in spite of her unjust restrictions, and how she herself is now using what she learned from her experiences to make things better). That is the only way those bounds will become more just: hard work by self-motivated, clear-thinking, caring individuals, doing what they can. Civil war, or government collapse, will just birth a different unjust system if the ideas in the heads of people are wack (and people who can see any sort of long-term hope in the social structure formed in Fight Club have wack ideas). This does not mean you hit people for disagreeing with you. It means you hold your own and try to talk to them.

You've seen what progress Poland has made in the last few decades. Real progress can, and in fact only will, be made without getting men to prostrate themselves and their minds to other men Fight Club style.

"I'm not sure whether I understand you or not. If some idiot wants to commit suicide, do you believe it's your business to stop him?"

It is not my business to stop him. It is his life, not mine, not yours, he should have the choice is he ends it or lives it. More on what I believe to by the why of this later.

Apparently grouping me in with enemies of freedom and with property infringers for disagreeing with you.

That's a bit of a misunderstanding. My point is that if someone says, "It is imperative that society have a government and law-enforcement," then that person is saying, "I consider it an absolute necessity that certain people have special authority over you." In other words, you are expressly advocating that some people have the power to aggress against me.

If you had said, "I believe society cannot be without someone to slaughter Israel's supporters," it would be clear that you were doing something bad--namely, advocating mass murder.

Instead, you're suggesting that someone needs to be out there to build highways and such, and therefore, naturally, I have no choice but to pay those people whatever they demand from my income. In other words, you are advocating the theft of my property. You aren't personally stealing anything, but you are endorsing the thieves that are.

...another meaning that is simply about lack of constraint. Absolute lack of constraint is not possible in this world...

There are lots of meanings attached to "freedom". It can also mean that I'm not physically restrained. Or, it can mean that I'm washed from my sins. In older times, it would mean that I was a Roman citizen, and in more recent history, it would mean that I was not an African slave. None of those meanings are applicable, though.

The only applicable meaning in this context, where we're discussing law and interpersonal relations, is the meaning that satisfies the universality principle: it must be possible for everyone to enjoy the same freedom simultaneously. License to steal your car, for example, violates that test; it effectively makes me "freer" than you.

There are technically two possible definitions of freedom that satisfy that definition, but one of them is obviously excluded. One is freedom with private property, and the other is freedom with no private property. If I can steal your car, but you can steal mine, that might be called "freedom" by someone--such as an anarcho-socialist--but even in the best case that would imply a society in which conflict resolution was virtually impossible.

By contrast, freedom which includes self-ownership, brings all the rest of private property along as an implication. If I can't initiate agression against your person, because you are your own exclusive property, then I also cannot violently take things from you, such as the clothing on your body or the food already in your mouth.

Next, since you clearly have the right to defend your person if I should initiate violence against you, it follows that you can also defend the clothing on your back, or the food in your mouth, if I tried to seize if by force. Similarly, you have rights over the spot on which you are standing; I do not have the power to initiate violence in order to evict you.

From this, homesteading follows naturally: you cannot seize things from my person, but you are free to take things found in nature and not claimed by anybody, since no violence is required to gain it. Having taken some unclaimed thing from nature, it is put out of my reach, since taking it from you would require the intiation of violence. In short, we're back to my definition of freedom.

There are still open questions in this area, of course. There is a "continuum problem": things actually on your person are clearly off-limits to me. But what if you set that item down? If I'm quick, I can take it without actual violence against your person. However, even wild animals and five-year-old children grasp the concept that property rights extend beyond the physical person. Even kindergartners manage to get along, most of the time, recognizing that a toy isn't up for grabs when you turn your back, but only when you have clearly relinquished it.

The open question is: how far beyond your person, in time and space, do your rights extend? Does walking along an unclaimed trail make it your property? Or do you need to use it habitually? Or, do you also need to improve it in some manner with your labor? Does fencing a property make it yours? What if you never actually "use" any of the property inside the fence? Then again, what if you "intend" to use it--does future intention translate into present rights? It clearly depends on how far in the future you plan to actually do something.

I agree with the anarchists that these problems are usually solvable by custom and negotiation. I disagree with them that they always can: for example, the only watering hole in a desert will be hotly contested. Fencing it in and claiming that you plan to start a water park there in the future will get you killed. That's a thorny one, though: if you've lived on the oasis for years, a newcomer clearly doesn't have equal title to the watering hole. If two thirsty travelers discover it at about the same time, though, trouble will follow.

Civil war, or government collapse, will just birth a different unjust system if the ideas in the heads of people are wack

That's why I said people aren't ready for true freedom. Most people will gladly steal, or even kill--not just for the only watering hole in the desert, but for a pair of Nikes.

>>No one has ever seen a dog turn into a cat in a laboratory.

>What an incredibly ignorant Liar-for-the-Lord - I hope this
>fool is already fired by now (again).

What a quick, neat strawman there. Built and knocked down in one sentence. (Referring to the dog into cat bologna from above).

It was the article author's strawman. Did you forget to read the article itself before you displayed your own ignorance?

And it was incredibly stupid of the author to include it.

Humm, did I misinterpret your comment entirely?

If so, I apologize for insulting you.

Humm, did I misinterpret your comment entirely?

Yes, but that's ok. ;-) I kind of anticipated that and tried to ward it off with the parenthetical remark. I'll try to be more clear next time.

Sorry. I get a little kneejerk on my responses sometimes.

And welcome to Fr!

"Why was the experiment still in the textbook? Crocker said the authors' answer was, "because it makes the point . . . The problem with evolution is that it is all supposition -- this evolved into this -- but there is no evidence.""

...whereas the evidence that there is a God is so abundant...
I'll all for keeping God in schools but I believe in fairness towards both schools of thought.
You're never going to find the fossil of a worm with half an eyeball or a fish with one leg, and you're never going to find the skeleton of an angel.