View Poll Results: Is It EVER Justifiable To Violate Someone's Rights To Prevent A Larger Rights Violation?

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  • Yes

    6 46.15%
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Thread: Libertarian Pragmatism

  1. #91
    Quote Originally Posted by otherone View Post
    the individual, acting out of self-preservation, will make mistakes. Your argument that the state, acting out of self-preservation has the same right. It does not. I have a right to defend myself. The state has no rights.
    I didn't say anything about the state having rights. All I'm saying is that, state or no state, any attempt by anyone to deal with crime will inevitably result in innocents being harmed. Anyone calling for criminals to be punished, either by a state or by private parties, is accepting that risk, because they find the trade-off worthwhile. We are both taking a pragmatist position.



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  3. #92
    Quote Originally Posted by r3volution 3.0 View Post


    What you're espousing is a pragmatist position.

    If you're only trying to minimize the risk of innocent deaths, you're already accepting some risk of them resulting.

    This is in contrast to the view that the risk must be 0% for action to be justified.
    Your definition of pragmatism is so large that by your logic anyone who drives a car is a pragmatist who believes it's OK to run over little kids every now and then.
    Quote Originally Posted by dannno View Post
    It's a balance between appeasing his supporters, appeasing the deep state and reaching his own goals.
    ~Resident Badgiraffe




  4. #93
    Quote Originally Posted by r3volution 3.0 View Post
    I didn't say anything about the state having rights. All I'm saying is that, state or no state, any attempt by anyone to deal with crime will inevitably result in innocents being harmed. Anyone calling for criminals to be punished, either by a state or by private parties, is accepting that risk, because they find the trade-off worthwhile. We are both taking a pragmatist position.
    Trade-off.
    A safe society that violates people's rights.
    All modern revolutions have ended in a reinforcement of the power of the State.
    -Albert Camus

  5. #94
    Quote Originally Posted by William Tell View Post
    Your definition of pragmatism is so large that by your logic anyone who drives a car is a pragmatist who believes it's OK to run over little kids every now and then.
    But that's exactly my point; everyone is a pragmatist.

    We all accept trade-offs. We differ only in the weighting, which particular trade-offs are worthwhile.

    I'm trying to show that not only can one be a libertarian and a pragmatist, but one can hardly be a libertarian without being a pragmatist.

    That true purism, if even theoretically possible, is insane.

  6. #95
    Quote Originally Posted by otherone View Post
    Trade-off.
    A safe society that violates people's rights.
    Trade-off, less aggression is better than more aggression.

  7. #96
    Quote Originally Posted by merkelstan View Post
    Advocacy of replacing the German constitution is a crime, so not here. Maybe in another place or another time. The idea of a marketplace for jurisprudence and protection services seems interesting.
    That is a recipe for tribal warfare, and when each surviving tribe stakes out it's turf your access to competitors will be cut off.
    Never attempt to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig.

    Robert Heinlein

    Give a man an inch and right away he thinks he's a ruler

    Groucho Marx

    I love mankind…it’s people I can’t stand.

    Linus, from the Peanuts comic

    You cannot have liberty without morality and morality without faith

    Alexis de Torqueville

    Those who fail to learn from the past are condemned to repeat it.
    Those who learn from the past are condemned to watch everybody else repeat it

    A Zero Hedge comment



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  9. #97

    Cool

    Quote Originally Posted by Swordsmyth View Post
    That is a recipe for tribal warfare, and when each surviving tribe stakes out it's turf your access to competitors will be cut off.
    This outcome might be possible under some circumstances, but your one-sentence assertion doesn't begin to survey the arguments for and against market security. "These are serious and difficult questions, and glib answers will naturally be inadequate..." - Lew Rockwell

    You've already got a large portion of the people who really care about security hiring private security firms. One study estimates it is a $350 billion industry in the US alone. You have a lot of people who care about enforcing their contracts signing agreements to use private arbitration services. Now admittedly this is occurring under the 'umbrella' of the monopolist state, but maybe the fact that people pay for the monopolist, while additionally paying for the private service indicates that the private service is considerably better at doing the job -- much like private schools are in the realm of education or private medicine compared to the Veteran's Administration etc etc.

    Indeed, there are many arguments that suggest that an orderly progression to a network of private security firms, arising in a first world country not already subject to war and civilizational collapse, would be a significant advancement. I don't have the time or incentive to write a treatise on an-cap security theory here, mainly because they already exist. The first I know of was written by Gustave de Molinari (1819-1912).

    http://store.mises.org/eBook-P10638.aspx
    https://mises.org/library/can-anarcho-capitalism-work Lew Rockwell gives an overview of anarcho-capitalism.
    https://wiki.mises.org/wiki/The_Production_of_Security
    http://anarcho-capitalist.org/wp-con...%20Liberty.pdf
    https://mises.org/library/why-i-am-anarcho-capitalist
    https://mises.org/library/law-without-state

    Essential economics to understand the above: https://mises.org/library/man-econom...wer-and-market

    Bur for now, let's consider just one argument: Under the coercive State, each citizen has no choice whether he wants to support the cost of aggression. The recent multi-trillion dollar costs of US State aggression against Iraq are not nearly compensated for the taxpayer by gains such as plundering of the oil resources or expanded markets for US products. Only a handful of crony industries made profits from this war crime. If we survey modern military engagements, we can conclude that in general, aggression is more expensive than defense (or perhaps more importantly, deterrence). If this is correct, the ability of consumers in a security marketplace to switch providers would lead them to tend to prefer defensive/cooperative security providers over aggressive ones. This would lead to a high degree of stability in this dynamic ecosystem.

    This is just one an-cap argument regardinng security. Bob Murphy lays-out a few more in this lecture. https://mises.org/library/market-security-4

    Are there legitimate arguments against an-cap society? Yes. Do I think it is proven that the historic model of 'territorial monopolies of force' can be superceded? No.

    But neither is the past a jail for the future. Citizens of regional tyrannies in 508 B.C. probably wouldn't have given Athenian democracy much chance of flourishing either.

    [N.b. None of the above constitutes illegal advocacy of changes to the German constitution.]
    Last edited by merkelstan; 05-19-2017 at 05:51 AM. Reason: links to further reading

  10. #98
    You've already got a large portion of the people who really care about security hiring private security firms. One study estimates it is a $350 billion industry in the US alone. You have a lot of people who care about enforcing their contracts signing agreements to use private arbitration services. Now admittedly this is occurring under the 'umbrella' of the monopolist state, but maybe the fact that people pay for the monopolist, while additionally paying for the private service indicates that the private service is considerably better at doing the job -- much like private schools are in the realm of education or private medicine compared to the Veteran's Administration etc etc.
    Indeed, which is why it's not evidence of how security firms would behave absent an external authority forcing them to play nice.

    Under the coercive State, each citizen has no choice whether he wants to support the cost of aggression. The recent multi-trillion dollar costs of US State aggression against Iraq are not nearly compensated for the taxpayer by gains such as plundering of the oil resources or expanded markets for US products. Only a handful of crony industries made profits from this war crime. If we survey modern military engagements, we can conclude that in general, aggression is more expensive than defense (or perhaps more importantly, deterrence). If this is correct, the ability of consumers in a security marketplace to switch providers would lead them to tend to prefer defensive/cooperative security providers over aggressive ones. This would lead to a high degree of stability in this dynamic ecosystem.
    That only begs the question: i.e. assumes that there would be a free market in security, that providers wouldn't simply coerce people.

  11. #99
    Responses in bold.

    Quote Originally Posted by r3volution 3.0 View Post
    This sidesteps the issue.

    I'm not claiming X minor aggression would prevent Y major aggression.

    I'm asking whether X minor aggression would be justifiable IF it would prevent Y major aggression.

    Sounds like a useless thought game at best. Historical reality doesn't lend itself to the question. My response isn't sidestepping the issue, just pointing out how useless the thought game is.

    The real danger to me though is that if you answer yes then you never stop the killing. Seems to be the who War on Terror is based on this same theory- if you can just kill all the terrorists then you'll have peace. "Aren't the lives of thousands of civilians worth saving the lives of millions if the terrorists win?" Just sounds liek an argument for authoritarianism.


    A. Every sentence (down to a $1 fine) implicitly risks the death of the person sentenced. Resistance to any law, however minor, will ultimately escalate into a situation where the resistor is killed. So, even if the death penalty were abolished (and I disagree that it ought to be, but that's another discussion), you would still be risking the lives of innocent people by convicting criminals.

    Fair point. Which is why giving the State power to make law is insane.

    B. Accidentally imprisoning/fining innocent people may be better than executing them, but it's still aggression.
    If you accept the NAP as a moral theory, aggression isn't the issue. Aggression is only an issue when it is acting coercively. Aggressive actions in response to an aggressive attack is justifiable to most people.

    The issue of imprisoning innocent people is a great argument for a revitalization of the entire concept of justice we have in the USA, really the entire West.

  12. #100
    Quote Originally Posted by r3volution 3.0 View Post
    Indeed, which is why it's not evidence of how security firms would behave absent an external authority forcing them to play nice.

    That only begs the question: i.e. assumes that there would be a free market in security, that providers wouldn't simply coerce people.
    Except there would be external authorities. At the very least the population would be very well armed. The State doesn't act as the external force making people play nice, it eliminates that external force because it is a threat to State power too. Hence, the monopoly on violence.

    The problem statists of any stripe seem to have with wrapping their head around libertarianism, voluntaryism, or anarchism is the realization that absent the State, local groups could not coerce people like the State can. Local groups, even large corporations, simply do not have the power to do so. This is partially because there will be mass competition and the people themselves would be armed and act as a powerful counter-force. But even more than that the lifeblood of all business is money. You cut the money off, you starve the business. Absent State nationalist brainwashing soldiers will not work for you if they cannot get paid and paid well.

    And even if they could they would be better than the State. Your local warlord will never be as powerful as your State's governor. If the mayor decides he wants to be a despot than he and his security force of a few thousand will have to contend with a well armed population of tens of thousands of people. Those aren't great odds for the would-be warlord.
    Last edited by PierzStyx; 05-19-2017 at 12:09 PM.

  13. #101
    Quote Originally Posted by PierzStyx View Post
    Sounds like a useless thought game at best. Historical reality doesn't lend itself to the question. My response isn't sidestepping the issue, just pointing out how useless the thought game is.
    Those particular hypotheticals aren't the point. If you find them unrealistic, fine, choose others and respond in relation to those.

    Or are you saying that there never was/could be any situation in which a minor rights violation prevents a major one?

    The real danger to me though is that if you answer yes then you never stop the killing. Seems to be the who War on Terror is based on this same theory- if you can just kill all the terrorists then you'll have peace. "Aren't the lives of thousands of civilians worth saving the lives of millions if the terrorists win?" Just sounds liek an argument for authoritarianism.
    If your point is that the WoT is counterproductive, you know that I agree. If your point is that, because the WoT is counterproductive, all attempts to trade minor aggressions for major ones are necessarily counterproductive, that's a big inductive leap: and clearly untrue.

    Fair point. Which is why giving the State power to make law is insane.
    The situation is the same whether it is the state or a group of private defense agencies making these decisions.

    Either way, innocent people will inevitably be harmed, however competent and well intended the decision-makers may be.

    If you accept the NAP as a moral theory, aggression isn't the issue. Aggression is only an issue when it is acting coercively. Aggressive actions in response to an aggressive attack is justifiable to most people.
    Aggression = any violation of property rights

    That is what I'm suggesting we aim to minimize.

    The issue of imprisoning innocent people is a great argument for a revitalization of the entire concept of justice we have in the USA, really the entire West.
    Agreed, but my point is that, however you reform the judicial system (including by going stateless), the risk of harming innocents will remain.

    If you accept that risk, you're a pragmatist. If not, you have to oppose all attempts to punish criminals, along with self-defense.

    ...which I'd call a reductio ad absurdum.

    Quote Originally Posted by PierzStyx View Post
    Except there would be external authorities. At the very least the population would be very well armed.
    Plural, many authorities, ~320 million within the geographical area called the United States. They would face the same problem as the private defense agencies and for the same reason: i.e. conflicting interests resulting in disputes, with no common authority to make them resolve their disputes peacefully. Hence, the stronger eat the weaker and you don't have a free market, you have warfare until someone decisively wins: then you have a state.

    The State doesn't act as the external force making people play nice, it eliminates that external force because it is a threat to State power too.
    The state makes its subjects play nice, and it does this for selfish reasons.

    The same reason a farmer prevents his cattle from goring one another.

    The problem statists of any stripe seem to have with wrapping their head around libertarianism, voluntaryism, or anarchism is the realization that absent the State, local groups could not coerce people like the State can. Local groups, even large corporations, simply do not have the power to do so. This is partially because there will be mass competition
    Begs the question (assumes private defense agencies won't simply coerce people into paying them for 'protection')

    and the people themselves would be armed and act as a powerful counter-force.
    Americans are extremely well-armed. How's that working to check state power? When has an armed populace ever checked state power? People rarely revolt, and when they do they usually lose. And if they win, they don't abolish the state, they just install their own as the rulers (French revolution, Russian revolution, American revolution, etc).

    Absent State nationalist brainwashing soldiers will not work for you if they cannot get paid and paid well.
    Why can't a PDA pay them with the loot it steals from the people (i.e. exactly what states do)?

    And even if they could they would be better than the State. Your local warlord will never be as powerful as your State's governor. If the mayor decides he wants to be a despot than he and his security force of a few thousand will have to contend with a well armed population of tens of thousands of people. Those aren't great odds for the would-be warlord.
    A small state isn't less able to oppress just because it has fewer soldiers; because it also has fewer potential opponents.

    The ratio of soldiers:subjects is what matters, and there's no reason to suppose this would be lower in geographically smaller states.

    ...we touched on this in the "Mises on World Government" thread, where my last post awaits your response.
    Last edited by r3volution 3.0; 05-19-2017 at 12:30 PM.

  14. #102
    Responses in bold

    Quote Originally Posted by r3volution 3.0 View Post
    Those particular hypotheticals aren't the point. If you find them unrealistic, fine, choose others and respond in relation to those.

    Or are you saying that there never was/could be any situation in which a minor rights violation prevents a major one?

    Provide an example wher eit would actually make sense. You can think up anything. Whether that applies in the real world is entirely different.

    If your point is that the WoT is counterproductive, you know that I agree. If your point is that, because the WoT is counterproductive, all attempts to trade minor aggressions for major ones are necessarily counterproductive, that's a big inductive leap: and clearly untrue.

    The War on terror is a clear example of people exchanging what they think of as a major threat -terrorism- for a minor one -military occupation. It is a real world example of what you are talking about. All this thought process does is create tyranny.

    The situation is the same whether it is the state or a group of private defense agencies making these decisions.

    Who ever said private defense agencies would be making law?

    This is an example of what I mean with statists. You assume that because it works one way in the State -namely those with policing power are also those writing their own rules- that this is how it must always be so. This is simply untrue.


    Either way, innocent people will inevitably be harmed, however competent and well intended the decision-makers may be.

    Which is why you take it out of the hands of those who have no skin in teh game and place the whole process into the hands of those who stand to win or lose depending on the result.

    Aggression = any violation of property rights

    Not true. If you break into my house, that is an act of aggression. If I shoot you, that is an act of aggression. Only one of them is justified though.

    That is what I'm suggesting we aim to minimize.

    Agreed, but my point is that, however you reform the judicial system (including by going stateless), the risk of harming innocents will remain.

    That isn't the State. Its very purpose is to hurt people, innocent or not.

    If you accept that risk, you're a pragmatist. If not, you have to oppose all attempts to punish criminals, along with self-defense.

    ...which I'd call a reductio ad absurdum.

    It isn't absurd to realize that the system of the State itself makes what you are talking about or to realize that there is a better system and better forms of justice that will ensure actual justice without having to violate the rights of anybody.
    Last edited by PierzStyx; 05-19-2017 at 12:32 PM.

  15. #103
    Quote Originally Posted by r3volution 3.0 View Post
    Trade-off, less aggression is better than more aggression.
    What if the aggression is coming from the state?

  16. #104
    Quote Originally Posted by r3volution 3.0 View Post
    But that's exactly my point; everyone is a pragmatist.

    We all accept trade-offs. We differ only in the weighting, which particular trade-offs are worthwhile.

    I'm trying to show that not only can one be a libertarian and a pragmatist, but one can hardly be a libertarian without being a pragmatist.

    That true purism, if even theoretically possible, is insane.
    I think there is a difference between justification and admitting an inevitable(if imperfect justice is truly inevitable). You wouldn't justify that the innocent prisoner needs to be held because doing so serves justice. It would be admitted as a mistake if it was known the prisoner was innocent. On the opposite spectrum, one may attempt to justify dropping a bomb on a building with an innocent civilian in it along with some high value target. They willfully violate an individuals right's with the justification that it prevented larger rights violations.

    The OP is a tough question to answer because there are all sorts of scenarios where an innocent causality could be the least bad outcome. But will I ever really be presented with such a scenario during my lifetime? I think the beauty of having the market make these decisions is that tough questions will get the consideration they deserve at the times they arise. Where the state hides behind the secrecy of classification 'in defense of our liberties' market providers of defense would be forced to provide consumers information on why they need to do X. In defense of their reputation would need to explain why an innocent was afflicted. The market will make some morally wrong decisions too, I'd think, but the mechanisms involved in free association, and the wasteful nature of violence, I think would lead to more consideration for innocent lives.



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  18. #105
    I have to take rev's computer and money because I can do more good with it.
    >_<

  19. #106
    Quote Originally Posted by merkelstan View Post
    I have to take rev's computer and money because I can do more good with it.
    The question is "is it ever...", Not "is it always?"
    Never attempt to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig.

    Robert Heinlein

    Give a man an inch and right away he thinks he's a ruler

    Groucho Marx

    I love mankind…it’s people I can’t stand.

    Linus, from the Peanuts comic

    You cannot have liberty without morality and morality without faith

    Alexis de Torqueville

    Those who fail to learn from the past are condemned to repeat it.
    Those who learn from the past are condemned to watch everybody else repeat it

    A Zero Hedge comment

  20. #107
    Quote Originally Posted by merkelstan View Post
    I have to take rev's computer and money because I can do more good with it.
    I sincerely duobt it.

    Try to think of a rational counterargument dummkopf.

  21. #108
    Quote Originally Posted by Swordsmyth View Post
    The question is "is it ever...", Not "is it always?"
    But I'm 84% certain I will make 20% better use of it!
    >_<

  22. #109
    Quote Originally Posted by merkelstan View Post
    But I'm 84% certain I will make 20% better use of it!
    Irrelevant.

    Is it ever justifiable to kill? Yes self defense being the obvious case. Is it therefore justifiable for me to kill for my own profit? No.
    Never attempt to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig.

    Robert Heinlein

    Give a man an inch and right away he thinks he's a ruler

    Groucho Marx

    I love mankind…it’s people I can’t stand.

    Linus, from the Peanuts comic

    You cannot have liberty without morality and morality without faith

    Alexis de Torqueville

    Those who fail to learn from the past are condemned to repeat it.
    Those who learn from the past are condemned to watch everybody else repeat it

    A Zero Hedge comment

  23. #110
    As ususal this topic has been fleshed out exhaustively before in libertarian circles. And I do mean exhaustively.

    Probably best illustrated in the Walter Block (Austrian) vs Ronald Coase (Chicago) dispute. Property rights vs wealth maximization.

    https://mises.org/library/6-ronald-c...arian-critique
    https://mises.org/library/coase-and-...roperty-rights
    https://mises.org/library/underminin...e-and-becker-0
    http://www.walterblock.com/wp-conten...;s-defense.pdf
    >_<

  24. #111
    Quote Originally Posted by merkelstan View Post
    As ususal this topic has been fleshed out exhaustively before in libertarian circles. And I do mean exhaustively.

    Probably best illustrated in the Walter Block (Austrian) vs Ronald Coase (Chicago) dispute. Property rights vs wealth maximization.

    https://mises.org/library/6-ronald-c...arian-critique
    https://mises.org/library/coase-and-...roperty-rights
    https://mises.org/library/underminin...e-and-becker-0
    http://www.walterblock.com/wp-conten...;s-defense.pdf
    This post is not about Property rights vs wealth maximization, it a question of one Right vs. another.
    Never attempt to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig.

    Robert Heinlein

    Give a man an inch and right away he thinks he's a ruler

    Groucho Marx

    I love mankind…it’s people I can’t stand.

    Linus, from the Peanuts comic

    You cannot have liberty without morality and morality without faith

    Alexis de Torqueville

    Those who fail to learn from the past are condemned to repeat it.
    Those who learn from the past are condemned to watch everybody else repeat it

    A Zero Hedge comment

  25. #112
    @PierzStyx

    I'll respond in detail to your last post in the near future; I'm not in the mood to do so presently.

    Also, you've missed half of my last response to you; you were writing your response after I posted and you missed it; it happens.



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  27. #113
    Quote Originally Posted by Swordsmyth View Post
    This post is not about Property rights vs wealth maximization, it a question of one Right vs. another.
    You are right. I am off topic. Thanks.
    >_<

  28. #114
    Quote Originally Posted by merkelstan View Post
    Property rights vs wealth maximization.
    Nonsense, the two are coextensive.

  29. #115

    Question

    Quote Originally Posted by PierzStyx View Post
    Provide an example wher eit would actually make sense. You can think up anything. Whether that applies in the real world is entirely different.
    The third example: i.e. any conceivable criminal justice system (state or stateless, restitution or punishment).

    What of that?

    Who ever said private defense agencies would be making law?

    This is an example of what I mean with statists. You assume that because it works one way in the State -namely those with policing power are also those writing their own rules- that this is how it must always be so. This is simply untrue.
    Every anarcho-capitalist to walk the Earth, from Molinari to Rothbard and onward.

    ...what do you think the principles (e.g. NAP) in terms of which interpersonal disputes in ancapistan would be resolved should be called?

    ...if not "law"?

    Which is why you take it out of the hands of those who have no skin in teh game and place the whole process into the hands of those who stand to win or lose depending on the result.
    Surely, you don't actually believe it's possible to construct a legal system in which no innocent persons are ever wrongly convicted?

    Not true. If you break into my house, that is an act of aggression. If I shoot you, that is an act of aggression. Only one of them is justified though.
    Your use of the term "aggression" is unusual..

    In the libertarian tradition, "aggression" means unjustified violence.

    So, for instance, you shooting me for fun would be aggression; while you shooting me in self-defense would be mere violence.

    All aggression is violence; not all violence is aggressive.

    The concept is not perfectly clear in Rothbard et al, hence this.

    That isn't the State. Its very purpose is to hurt people, innocent or not.
    No, the state's purpose is not to hurt people.

    If the state is democratic, the state's purpose is to get reelected.

    If the state is not democratic, it's purpose is to increase the value its property.

    It isn't absurd to realize that the system of the State itself makes what you are talking about or to realize that there is a better system and better forms of justice that will ensure actual justice without having to violate the rights of anybody.
    It's absurd to think about anarcho-capitalism when an obviously superior system is an option.

    To wit, there could be no crime at all, no one's rights would ever be violated, the seas could turn to lemonade, and the sky could rain Scotch.

    If you reject the above, you're a sell-out statist..

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