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Because that's not a universally held definition only "leftists" disagree with? First, even where property rights are accepted, a well considered definition ge
by faeriechangling 4y ago
Because that's not a universally held definition only "leftists" disagree with?
First, even where property rights are accepted, a well considered definition generally has a caveat is made that property can't be taken "arbitrarily" or "unlawfully" or through a "legally established public necessity" or so on. In practice, every society which has had a legal concept of private property has also simultaneously had the concept that the government could certainly seize said property under certain conditions, and this has generally been treated as legally legitimate and not illegal robbery so long as it serves some common good. If you don't have such caveats, you run into all manner of issues justifying things like:
>Eminent Domain
>Taxation
>Court ordered seizures
>Civil forfeiture
You can also just just straight up deny the right to private property exists altogether. And not even necessarily from the obvious left wing perspective, you can just say the entire realm belongs to the king, so the king taking things to redistribute as they see fit is not theft, since everything was the King's to begin with. People have even claimed that the very concept of property is a form of theft.
Beyond those arguments, the probably most crucial argument here is that the poor's private property was stolen to begin with through government corruption and unindemnified torts to end up with this status quo, and how is restoring private property to its rightful owner theft? It is the very essence of protecting the right to private property! Particularly when people are calling for this private property to be restored through legal reform or through government overthrow (legal reform through extraordinary means). Not through simple anarchistic robbing of people who exist nearby you.
As for why people don't simply roll over and say they're pro-robbery, if you robbed somebody, you are a criminal and what you possess is not your property and subject to restoration to its rightful owner. People want to go beyond robbery, they want it to be legally established that people have absolutely no legitimate right to what they currently possess. People also don't necessary want to claim that if they argue for redistribution of wealth, that they also support grandmothers being subject to purse snatching. There's many obvious reasons why people don't describe their actions as "robbery", and your entire argument mostly is based on an presumption about who truly has a legitimate right to whatever property, as well as these peoples absolute unconditional right to this property, and argues any attack on either this presumption or presumed right (which has never existed) is some sort of leftist sophistry.
- alphanullmeric 4y agoThis has nothing to do with legality. I simply stated that taking someone's things by force is still theft when it benefits you. I still consider all four of your examples to be theft. Like I said in the other comment, whether we consider theft to be justified depends on the situation, but whether it's theft doesn't depend on your belief that it's justified. You lack the consistency to win this argument and it shows.
- faeriechangling 4y agoIf something is or isn't the crime of robbery has nothing to do with legality? > I still consider all four of your examples to be theft Fair enough but do you at least recognise that your position is not mainstream, which might explain why people don't simply accept it beyond simply being leftists?