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Special live stream in 10 minutes!
Re-doing the stream that was supposed to happen yesterday on the Non-Aggression Principle and abortion.
Only streaming on YouTube this time and hoping for no major technical difficulties.
Join in the chat and feel free to ask questions!
Here’s how my argument went:
People who reject the NAP cannot invoke the protections of the NAP.
Communists reject the NAP.
Communists cannot invoke the protections of the NAP.
This sounds reasonable, and is structurally valid insofar as the rules of logic go.
The flaw to this argument is not in that communists reject the NAP, because they obviously do.
The flaw to this argument is that communists cannot invoke the protections of the NAP, because they technically can.
So long as a person is not aggressing, violence cannot be justly utilized against them. Aggression, as we recall, is the infringement of a person’s life or property without consent.
My failure was that I was conflating the call for aggression, as aggression in and of itself.
Therefore in my mind, there was no difference between Person A who stole from me, and Person B who asked someone (such as Person A) to steal from me.
The difference is, Person A actually stole from me, and Person B did not.
According to my original argument, both persons would be guilty of aggression insofar as they failed to respect my absolute right to my property. But in reality, only Person A aggressed; Person B just talked.
Interestingly, this has some fun implications for the “support the troops” folks who think the commanders of the military and police issue unjust orders but the rank-and-file are smol pwecious babbies “just following orders”. If the order is unjust and the infantry obey, then according to my new argument, the infantry are far more guilty than the commanders. The commanders, in theory, just talk. The infantry are the ones pulling the trigger, killing innocents and stealing property.
Clearly, this doesn’t feel right: it seems that people who issue unjust orders should face some kind of justice for saying “kill that person, oppress these people”, more so than the people who actually carried out those orders.
This was a significant point of contention in the original discourse for the original argument as well: the rank-and-file communists didn’t have the “expectation” for orders to be obeyed; politicians and military/police officers do, and therefore commanders should be liable in a way that infantry are not, or are significantly less liable.
I believe that line of thought is statist indoctrination. It presumes that the officers are a legitimate source of authority. They are not. They possess a monopoly on legal force, but their immoral use of that force makes them illegitimate as a source of authority. And I have already stated my belief that the acquisition of power--that is, the expectation to be obeyed--is arbitrary, which I know was contested but whatever that argument was failed to convince me, and since I deleted I can’t recall or reference it.
All that aside...
Communists who are not aggressing cannot be the targets of justified force (self defense), not because communism is protected thought, but because they are not violating the NAP, even when advocating for the state to violate the NAP on their behalf.
And this is where and why I was wrong: advocating for NAP violations is not inherently a NAP violation, because talking about or even actively planning to violate your life or property is not the same thing as actually violating of your life or property.
(Now you can set rules on your property to the tune of “thou shalt not plan theft on my property” and because you own the property, you may lawfully evict someone you find to be planning theft on your property even if you are not the target of the planned theft, because there is no such thing as freedom of speech or thought on your property, and that was the point Hoppe was making in “there can be no tolerance”. You simply cannot evict someone from their property for planning a theft, which was what I was arguing, and why I was incorrect.)
This is how you actually argue, by the way. Not calling someone a fascist or a fed just because the conclusion of an argument runs afoul of your personal feelings on the issue. You have actually point out where someone went wrong and why in order for them to take your point seriously and reconsider their argument.
But since you didn’t do that with me, and instead you immediately descended to childish insults... are you really my friends, and are you really good defenders of liberty?
If you have to ask, you already have your answer.
Don’t miss tomorrow’s episode of Pro-Life Pro-Liberty LIVE tomorrow at 2pm Pacific/3pm Mountain/4pm Central/5pm Eastern!
This week I’ll be discussing the Non-Aggression Principle and how it applies to the abortion issue. Feel free to hop on the live chat on YouTube or Periscope when the stream starts (the links will post 10 minutes before stream time) and share your questions and comments!
See y’all tomorrow!
Special live stream at 10 am central!
Re-doing the stream that was supposed to happen yesterday on the Non-Aggression Principle and abortion.
Only streaming on YouTube this time and hoping for no major technical difficulties.
Join in the chat and feel free to ask questions!
As of 6/30/2020, I’m formally disavowing Mandalorians. I have changed the name of my blog from trithereonitemando to paladin-of-trithereon to better reflect this change.
Why am I expunging Mandalorians from my identity? I mean, granted they are very badass, got swaggy armor and weapons and other tech, and they have a great focus on family. Karen Traviss even gave them a damn near fully functional language. They are one of the most fascinating cultures of the Star Wars universe. And aren’t they the least problematic of the three major factions of Star Wars (as described by Vergere in Legacy of the Force: Sacrifice)?
Recently I was forced to confront the simple truth that being mercenaries doesn’t exempt the Mandalorians from a moral obligation to follow the Non-Aggression Principle, especially in regards to their adoption of war orphans. While the adoption of war orphans seems a kind gesture (as opposed to leave them to starve in the ruins of war), it is ultimately a sacrilege of the concept of family. I realized this when analyzing the adoption of Gamorra by Thanos (as depicted in Avengers: Infinity War) during the culling of Zen-Whoberi (Gamorra’s home planet). Thanos was wrong to commit his genocide, steal a child, weaponize and indoctrinate her in his genocidal crusade. He was so off-kilter in his moral compass that he thought he was doing right by Gamorra.
Similarly, it is wrong of the Mandalorians to engage in wars that despoil planets (even if the wars aren’t for the direct benefit of Manda'yaim) and take the kids whose parents they’ve slain and raise them to be killers and warriors and kidnappers of other children. Watching Thanos interact with young Gamorra made my skin crawl, and realizing Mandos do the same thing was rather disheartening.
I still like Mandos (specifically Kal Skirata and gang from Republic Commando) more than Jedi or Sith, and I’m still going to enjoy content about them (you’re not going to find a cancel culture endorsement here) but I’m just not going to identify with them as strongly as I have previously.
Mythbusted: "Under the NAP, I am not allowed to decide"
Mythbusted: “Under the NAP, I am not allowed to decide”
This is a typical example of someone who simply does not understand libertarianism, nor the point of the nonaggression principle. Take a look at the above conundrum. We can establish certain verifiable facts: The trolley will kill people no matter what (we assume for argument’s sake that there is no third option available that would stop the trolley from killing anyone. So if the potential savior…
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Cane Fighting takes a NAP
Question: I am reading this book, Cane Fighting <http://a.co/2hTMg8u> And I read his thoughts “One of the greatest advantages of the high concealment stance is that it offers you the ability to strike your assailant first during the threatening encounter.”
I think the NAP requires the opponent to make the first aggressive (level 4 or 5) move before responding. Of course, no need to let them land one, let them miss, two or three times. The question is, at what point does the NAP permit a more aggressive self-defense?
