Australia Considering Humanitarian Visas for Persecuted Farmers in South Africa

[Timsup2nothin]

Well, let's take a look at this "white supremacist nonsense" in detail then, shall we?

No thanks. If I want to look at white supremacist nonsense I know where you find it.

 

[Berzerker]

Yes, from the "freedom" (or power) to impose your will on others.

Freedom is the absence of coercion or constraint (power to impose your will on others)

This is exactly right! And the funny thing is, the concept of self-ownership, of rights-as-property, clearly came to us from societies in which there was a significant population of people who were owned by other people. The concept of self-ownership makes no real sense outside such a context. Indeed, taking a wider view it's clear that the whole notion of 'freedom' is nonsensical outside the context of slavery. For without a population so patently unfree, what is the point of constantly reaffirming one's freedom? Why would it even occur to anyone to do this?

Self ownership came to us from slave owners? Or did it come from slaves? Frederick Douglass called slavery man stealing... Stealing from whom? The man.

The abolition of slavery in the United States was the greatest violation of property rights (and redistribution of wealth) in US history. Nothing else even comes close.

The continent was stolen and most of the owners murdered

But you're clearly missing my point in bringing it up. I'm merely trying to show that "property rights" are more often than not a euphemism for the most vicious kinds of unfreedom, rather than synonymous with freedom as some in the thread are attempting to claim.

So you take the word of slave owners over the slaves? What argument did slaves use to gain their freedom if not self ownership?

Prisoners can own property, as can slaves in some contexts.

Those are privileges, not ownership... Slaves needed permission to 'own' property.

This statement is contradictory. If you can own yourself, then you are property, which supports the idea that you can be made by law into someone else's property...

Why? Owning yourself doesn't mean you can be enslaved by someone else.

whereas saying that people's right to freedom means that they cannot be property by definition invalidates the property-of-self concept.

Freedom means you own yourself, not someone else. Thats why slavery violates the freedom and property rights of the victim. "Rights" in their most basic form before politicians stepped in to redefine them to benefit their friends are valid claims of moral authority. Do you have the moral authority to own other human beings? Of course not, but why? Because of property rights, other human beings 'own' themselves, not you.

Either people cannot be property or they can. If they can't, you can't call freedom a "property right" to "own" yourself. If they can, then you can't say that the definition of freedom contradicts the concept of slaves being owned through property rights.

Does your computer belong to you or me? Do I have a property right to it or do you?

EDIT: Thinking more about this, it strikes me that we're talking about two entirely different ways of conceptualizing freedom. One is the "freedom" the state gives you through laws defining your "rights", privileges etc., while the other is the more abstract, universal human right to freedom, which theoretically, supersedes any law...at least in the abstract moral/philosophical sense.

Freedom is the absence of coercion or constraint. If the state says you can enslave others, the state is ignoring their freedom.

My point was that they are different forms of freedom and it seemed like they were getting blurred/conflated into one thing.

And who conflated freedom/property rights with slavery?

 

[Farm Boy]

True. Although I don't know if the farmers are going to assume any of those roles... those are some heavy crosses to bear. Usually a lot safer/easier to just relax and let it happen.

Why do you think economic migrant was in there? The degree to which that shellacs them or does not I don't know. I know the tolerance for that for that feels very high, particularly when it is profitable in goods acquired or in services rendered.

 

[Sommerswerd]

Why do you think economic migrant was in there? The degree to which that shellacs them or does not I don't know. I know the tolerance for that for that feels very high, particularly when it is profitable in goods or in services.

I noticed the economic migrant, and I know why you put it in there... but the more I thought about it, the less likely it seemed to me. I admit that I am not familiar enough with the overall situation in the country to call my guess educated though.

For me it was more like... well if the gubmint took a US farmer's land away... would he move to Australia? Probably not.

 

[Traitorfish]

But you see the white people were also living under colonial rule. Did you know that?

So I think the problem is that you don't really understand what people mean when they say "colonialism", and you have no intention of learning.

 

[inthesomeday]

“Colonialism is when the capital is far away.”

-Leopold II

 

[Hehehe]

So I think the problem is that you don't really understand what people mean when they say "colonialism", and you have no intention of learning.

Oh right. So you're going to argue that that colonialism was quantifiably different, but you're not going to bother to quantify it in any way?

 

[Arakhor]

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