Rep. Stephen Fincher: “If the Poor Want Their Children to Eat… Sell them as Slaves.”

so a person's life is their property, but the time and labor they exchange for land and houses belongs to the "property is theft" crowd?

how ironic
 
so a person's life is their property, but the time and labor they exchange for land and houses belongs to the "property is theft" crowd?

how ironic

Indeed.

A person's life is indeed their own property, and nobody else's. Which is why I disagree with the "Pro-choice" wing of libertarianism. The unborn have rights as well. But this nonsense about having a right to your own life leading to being able to steal other people's property is entirely ridiculous.

LINO !
You want the tyrannical government to control which Lane people can drive on. I demand that you immediately revoke your libertarian status to Tyrant murderer who kills freedom. :lol:

:crazyeye:

It's not about the labels. It's about the substance of the criticism. You proclaim yourself a champion of freedom, yet actively support a system which as I have shown is productive of unfreedom among the great majority of the population. Your only response to that seems to be "yes, but I don't care", which doesn't just make your claim to "libertarianism" less than credible, but your claim to have the remotest interest in human freedom beyond the extent to human freedom may be coincidental with the sanctity of property.

You are a believer in and advocate of arbitrary and undemocratic authority. Plain and simple. That you only sometimes identify that authority with the state doesn't change anything.

How are you defining "Freedom"?

"Freedom" is an abstract concept unless you define it in a logically coherent manner. Defining it in a logically coherent manner leads somewhere pretty close to where I'm at. Its when you start defining freedom as the ability to do and take anything you want, other people's rights be darned, that it starts to suck and it starts to look like the society you want. Which isn't actually free.

It's too bad GW doesn't consider a person's life their property, maybe he would then consider the govt ensuring the quality of that life as important.

I do believe a person's life is his property, but I don't believe in the sort of positve rights theory that you do...
 
How are you defining "Freedom"?

"Freedom" is an abstract concept unless you define it in a logically coherent manner. Defining it in a logically coherent manner leads somewhere pretty close to where I'm at. Its when you start defining freedom as the ability to do and take anything you want, other people's rights be darned, that it starts to suck and it starts to look like the society you want. Which isn't actually free.
In this particular instance, I'm using "freedom" to mean "freedom from coercion". It's a negative freedom, before you resort to your standard, off-the-shelf spiel. (You're like the intellectual equivalent of a script kiddie.) Through the use of violence, property-holders are able to oblige the propertyless to enter into a subservient role of wage-labourer. THis is a clear example of systematic coercion, and that it may be a coercion fully within the law, within the property-holders own conviction of "right", does nothing to change that reality.

How are you defining it?
 
I do believe a person's life is his property, but I don't believe in the sort of positve rights theory that you do...

Isn't providing protection a positive right? How about providing education? Do you believe in no positive rights?
 
In this particular instance, I'm using "freedom" to mean "freedom from coercion". It's a negative freedom, before you resort to your standard, off-the-shelf spiel. (You're like the intellectual equivalent of a script kiddie.) Through the use of violence, property-holders are able to oblige the propertyless to enter into a subservient role of wage-labourer. THis is a clear example of systematic coercion, and that it may be a coercion fully within the law, within the property-holders own conviction of "right", does nothing to change that reality.

How are you defining it?

Assuming the property is held legitimately, no they aren't "Obligating" them to be a wage-laborer. And its not "Coercion." My argument to the contrary has nothing to do with the fact that its "Legal" either. Its simply not coercion. Nobody is being forced to work because I use violence to protect what is mine, nor is such violence unjustified. I'll give you that its violence, but its not a violation of the NAP, since it is not aggressive violence.

Isn't providing protection a positive right?

Only if its an actual RIGHT. In this case, I view that bare minimum of governmental function to be more of a necessity than a right.

How about providing education?

Not a human right at all, and not something government should have any involvement in. Abolish public schools entirely.

Do you believe in no positive rights?

Any positive right necessarily involves the usurping of someone else's negative rights. In other words, you are correct, I do not.
 
16 Tons is the anthem of a model society.
 
[re: Education] Not a human right at all, and not something government should have any involvement in. Abolish public schools entirely.
Do you think the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is wise?
http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/


Any positive right necessarily involves the usurping of someone else's negative rights. In other words, you are correct, I do not.
So a child has no positive right to life, since it is usurping my negative rights? Am I doing this rightly?? :crazyeye:
 
Where are people in poor rural areas supposed to get an education exactly if it isnt provided? Private schools can only take in so many students in terms of resources. That's a good way to ruin upward mobility for a potion of society for whom ignorance will become a family tradition.
 
Where are people in poor rural areas supposed to get an education exactly if it isnt provided? Private schools can only take in so many students in terms of resources. That's a good way to ruin upward mobility for a potion of society for whom ignorance will become a family tradition.
That explains the Republican dislike of public schools quite well, doesn't it?
 
That explains the Republican dislike of public schools quite well, doesn't it?

It does give the pro-business crowd a good hopeless lower class for the return to the horror show late 1800s-early 1900s industrial situation that ghostwriter thinks would be utopia. No school means more time for the children to get in the machinery to fix it.
 
Ignorance helps either party though, then you can just sell the people on whatever you want to sell them on and lie with little concern of being caught.
 
Ignorance helps either party though, then you can just sell the people on whatever you want to sell them on and lie with little concern of being caught.

That's true, and I'm not trying to sasay that there's a nefarious purpose behind it. But the Republicans tend to not like to help people - people aren't corporations, my friend! - so poor education is not seen as a negative consequence.

With Democrats, though, you have the UFT as a significant campaign finance consideration. So even if the Democrats would find a dumber population easier to persuade, I doubt you'd see them actively advocating for ending free public education.
 
Any positive right necessarily involves the usurping of someone else's negative rights. In other words, you are correct, I do not.

Does that hold for children too? After all, a child has to be taken care of, so that is a positive right. Do positive rights therefore stop at some point, at adulthood perhaps?
 
If the children want care they either need to hope their parents deem them worthy or they prove themselves productive to society. No handouts!
 
It does give the pro-business crowd a good hopeless lower class for the return to the horror show late 1800s-early 1900s industrial situation that ghostwriter thinks would be utopia. No school means more time for the children to get in the machinery to fix it.

Even the most hardcore capitalist-industrialist supports a basic level of public education. There's an advantage in having a workforce that can read and do sums.
 
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