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> If you or B or C want to initiate force against me, that's where I have a problem. And of course, taking back their TV would be force. > You'd be a violent

by wnight 15y ago

> If you or B or C want to initiate force against me, that's where I have a problem. And of course, taking back their TV would be force. > You'd be a violent asshole for trying to shoot me and my family for our stuff, and I'd be heroic for protecting my family from a violent asshole. Exactly. Which is why I'd wait for you to leave your house for the day and break in, change the locks, and wait for you to use force on me, making me heroic. > Choose to live at peace in the present. I choose to live at peace in the next present. This one is all camped out. > All I need to do is justify the position that you shouldn't do more violence and engage in more theft against whatever faction I was born into It doesn't matter what faction you were born into, if you buy a TV that was stolen - even if before you were born, you're a thief. You're hiding behind the defense that violence is bad (unwarranted violence is...) and as such, because taking TVs involves violence, that the TV must stay with you. That the violence in question would be directed at those enjoying already violently stolen property lessens the impact of the second round of violence, in the eyes of the observers. After it happened you'd be B, and history. Nobody would care. > The fact that you think your thievery is justified by your philosophy is irrelevant. >> You can't come up with anything that justifies the current distribution of stuff > Nor do I need to. If you want to enjoy the property with a good conscience, you do. Without the secondary market in stolen TVs you represent there wouldn't have been a profit in stealing the TV originally. Your attitude would seem less self-serving if there wasn't an almost certainty that your government is complicit in the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, at least at level where you or I would be an accomplice under law, despite these wars being fairly obviously just a resource grab, not security related as they were originally justified. (And if not these injustices, then countless others.) In other words, the mechanisms of your day-to-day life are busily creating more Bs and Cs all the time. And yet you have the arrogance to dictate that you're the end of the line. If your definition of ownership involved who could do the most good with a resource there would be an measure with which to determine your rights, but if you simply measure ownership as possession, if I take things away from you I own them as truly as you do. I was merely pre-defending myself (A') against the thieves of A. As you have been unable to suggest any mechanism for ownership that doesn't come down to opposing violence, and your imagined rights as a non-combatant to have the violence happen to others, I'm going to say again that you've failed to make the case for private ownership of resources.

lotharbot 15y ago
Your conscience says that property ownership makes one complicit in all the thefts and violence that came before; mine does not. Seeing as you have no problem threatening further theft and violence, it seems "a good conscience" is out of reach for you, but I'm doing just fine. > if you simply measure ownership as possession I do not. I measure ownership through the legal mechanisms under which I reside; "possession" hardly plays into it. I consider it appropriate to transfer ownership through those mechanisms, and not appropriate to worry about whatever violence may have happened prior to the establishment of those mechanisms generations ago. I also consider it appropriate to use the mechanisms provided by that legal system against those who attempt to illegally take possession of others' property; breaking in to my house and changing the locks makes you subject to arrest within this legal context. Of course, as I said before, you can try to create your own context of communal ownership through voluntary donation and persuasive means. Or you can try to change that legal context through force of arms, and deal with my side shooting back at your band of violent assholes. > you've failed to make the case for private ownership of resources. I'm not interested in making the case for private ownership of resources. I'm just making the case that I'm OK with the context I live in (and I'm OK with you voluntarily living in some other context), and that you'll probably get shot if you try to violently overthrow my society.
- wnight 15y ago
  > Seeing as you have no problem threatening further theft and violence, it seems "a good conscience" is out of reach for you Not at all. I'm just pointing out the hypocrisy of standing there holding a blood-covered TV arguing that this is exactly where the violence needs to stop. And yet you're not actually concerned at all about ongoing thefts that enrich your context, just that which would deprive it. > I measure ownership through the legal mechanisms under which I reside; "possession" hardly plays into it. You do not. Those laws make knowing possession of stolen property a crime, regardless of how many steps it's been laundered through. But yes, the government itself ignores that. You should consider what it says about the illegitimacy of a government that thinks it can bless theft. > I consider it appropriate to transfer ownership through those mechanisms, and not appropriate to worry about whatever violence may have happened prior to the establishment of those mechanisms generations ago. Of course not, the law says you don't have to. Don't worry, The laws in A' would say the same things. > Or you can try to change that legal context through force of arms, and deal with my side shooting back at your band of violent assholes. If you saw someone carrying a blood-covered obviously stolen TV you'd try to (even if only indirectly by calling the police) violently (if necessary) change his context. Why the hypocritical attitude when it comes to the idea of someone correcting your context? > Your conscience says that property ownership makes one complicit in all the thefts and violence that came before; mine does not. No. If that were true you wouldn't justify the theft inherent in your situation with the circular logic of the law of the latest conqueror.

by wnight 15y ago

lotharbot 15y ago

Your conscience says that property ownership makes one complicit in all the thefts and violence that came before; mine does not. Seeing as you have no problem threatening further theft and violence, it seems "a good conscience" is out of reach for you, but I'm doing just fine. > if you simply measure ownership as possession I do not. I measure ownership through the legal mechanisms under which I reside; "possession" hardly plays into it. I consider it appropriate to transfer ownership through those mechanisms, and not appropriate to worry about whatever violence may have happened prior to the establishment of those mechanisms generations ago. I also consider it appropriate to use the mechanisms provided by that legal system against those who attempt to illegally take possession of others' property; breaking in to my house and changing the locks makes you subject to arrest within this legal context. Of course, as I said before, you can try to create your own context of communal ownership through voluntary donation and persuasive means. Or you can try to change that legal context through force of arms, and deal with my side shooting back at your band of violent assholes. > you've failed to make the case for private ownership of resources. I'm not interested in making the case for private ownership of resources. I'm just making the case that I'm OK with the context I live in (and I'm OK with you voluntarily living in some other context), and that you'll probably get shot if you try to violently overthrow my society.

wnight 15y ago
> Seeing as you have no problem threatening further theft and violence, it seems "a good conscience" is out of reach for you Not at all. I'm just pointing out the hypocrisy of standing there holding a blood-covered TV arguing that this is exactly where the violence needs to stop. And yet you're not actually concerned at all about ongoing thefts that enrich your context, just that which would deprive it. > I measure ownership through the legal mechanisms under which I reside; "possession" hardly plays into it. You do not. Those laws make knowing possession of stolen property a crime, regardless of how many steps it's been laundered through. But yes, the government itself ignores that. You should consider what it says about the illegitimacy of a government that thinks it can bless theft. > I consider it appropriate to transfer ownership through those mechanisms, and not appropriate to worry about whatever violence may have happened prior to the establishment of those mechanisms generations ago. Of course not, the law says you don't have to. Don't worry, The laws in A' would say the same things. > Or you can try to change that legal context through force of arms, and deal with my side shooting back at your band of violent assholes. If you saw someone carrying a blood-covered obviously stolen TV you'd try to (even if only indirectly by calling the police) violently (if necessary) change his context. Why the hypocritical attitude when it comes to the idea of someone correcting your context? > Your conscience says that property ownership makes one complicit in all the thefts and violence that came before; mine does not. No. If that were true you wouldn't justify the theft inherent in your situation with the circular logic of the law of the latest conqueror.