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NAP allows for defensive violence; i.e. if someone is violating your rights you can defend yourself. Stopping a serial killer & pollution are both cases where
by dantheman 15y ago
NAP allows for defensive violence; i.e. if someone is violating your rights you can defend yourself.
Stopping a serial killer & pollution are both cases where someone's rights have been violated.
- jshen 15y agoHow would a libertarian society deal with pollution from coal fired plants?
- lhnn 15y agoHow is this hard to understand: If the coal plants are proven to be harming the populace, they are aggressors. However, I don't think coal-fired plants necessarily kill the planet (or people).
- jshen 15y agoIt certainly harms people (http://www.ucsusa.org/clean_energy/coalvswind/c02c.html http://www.ucsusa.org/clean_energy/coalvswind/c02c.html) But you didn't really answer the question. How would a libertarian society deal with them? Would such a society ban all coal fired plants, and if so how would it be enforced? Would someone weigh the pros and cons, if so who and how? Would such a society every establish a regulatory body to actively monitor plants and limit their pollution?
- lhnn 15y agoI'm not a politician or a philosopher. My guess, however, is that pollution of air and flowing waters can be controlled through Libertarians' concept of property rights, since the pollution thereof has an effect on other peoples' private properties. Therefore, regulation seems likely and moral, though it isn't necessarily the only option.
- jshen 15y agoIsn't regulation the government using forces to collect taxes which it then uses to use force to have inspections? My problem with libertarianism is that it always turns into a lot of hand waving from the libertarian. They start off saying that government force is a great evil, then I bring up something like pollution and suddenly the argument is much more nuanced, "well of course we'd have to use force". Exactly, of course you have to use force. Once we admit this, what does libertarianism mean? How is it different from what we have today?
- lhnn 15y agoWell, libertarians I speak to tend to acknowledge the need for some government. You're setting up a false dichotomy.
- jshen 15y agoNo I'm not, the problem is that libertarians talk in circles. "It's never acceptable to use force!!!". What about xyz. "Well of course you use some force". Ok, so what does libertarianism mean? "taxation is violence!!!". Um, but don't you need taxes to pay for that government you said we needed a minute ago. "Well of course :confused look:". So what does libertarianism mean again?
- dantheman 15y agoMany people think that voluntary arrangements can be made to provide police actions. That way the police defend the people and treat them well, since that's who pays their salary. It would quickly lead to end of all victimless crimes, as no one would pay for that type of enforcement & those being targeted would be able to hire their own protection forces. Am advocating something like this for the entire united states - of course, not. But I'd be very interested in seeing these ideas tried voluntarily by willing participants.
- jshen 15y ago
- zachrose 15y agoBruno Latour writes about this sort of thing as a paradox of modernism, in which nature is purified from society (Boyle) and society is purified from nature (Hobbes), the net result being that political philosophies and matters of nature don't fit together very well.
- rbranson 15y agoHow does NAP deal with property rights? Pretty much all the property in the entire world was gained through aggression.