I would think that taking a shit on a public bed is a crime. Taking a shit on anybody's bed is retarded. I mean you could say that taking a shit on your bed doesn't harm anybody but yourself but why would you take a shit on your own bed? This cartoon's point is as shitty as its drawings.

Rottenseed in the green sweater. EDD in the pink shirt.

Ahh, now I understand why blankfist is an anarchist. He got tired of people partially enslaving him, so he blew up a school, and when people didn't get the joke, he became just another enemy of the state, unfairly persecuted for trying to educate us all in the folly of the concept of public property.

blankfist, I've never been to California, but do you really have regular interactions with honest-to-God socialists who argue that property is theft?

*brief *wheels

>> ^NetRunner:

No, no, not an anarchist. I just thought it was mildly amusing, is all.

Though, I do have a Marxist friend who argues against personal property rights quite often. I think he's a Marxist, though last week he claimed he was a Communist, and just a year ago he was an Anarchist. Who knows with those crazy leftists.

I'm not sure if private property is the issue.

I think the main argument involves valuable, common resources that a community needs to survive being owned, manipulated, and exploited by a handful of private interests.

Does it really make sense for one person to own all of the land in a town, another person to own all the water rights, and another to own all the energy venues?

Does it really make sense for those three people to benefit, often handsomely, at the expense of everyone else?

>> ^NetRunner:
but do you really have regular interactions with honest-to-God socialists who argue that property is theft?

Property is theft.

Generally those of us who hold this position fall into one of two camps:

1) usafruct: the right to use, but not harm, that which is unused.
2) common holding: the right to use, but not harm, everything.

Either way the bed-shitting is not defensible on socialist grounds, as harm is clearly done.

I tend towards 1, but am not adverse to 2, if a post scarcity equilibrium can be reached.

P.S. I was born in LA, so this is relevant to your question.

>> ^dgandhi:
1) usafruct: the right to use, but not harm, that which is unused.
2) common holding: the right to use, but not harm, everything.


Who determines what is and what is not harm?

Wow. The cartoonist really kicked the shit out of that strawman. FINISH HIM!

Also, this: http://blog.videosift.com/dystopianfuturetoday/Libertarian-Reluctantly-Calls-Fire-Department-Onion

>> ^blankfist: Who determines what is and what is not harm?

That is kind of like asking who makes decisions in a democratic republic, there is no simple answer.

>> ^blankfist:

Who determines what is and what is not harm?


It's hard to believe that such a thing would be terribly difficult to define.

Destruction. Overuse. Neglect. Hoarding. Polluting. Essentially anything that would render it unserviceable to others.

Can you think of any gray areas off the top of your libertarian noggin?

>> ^dgandhi:
>> ^blankfist: Who determines what is and what is not harm?
That is kind of like asking who makes decisions in a democratic republic, there is no simple answer.

No, in a democratic republic we have a very clear answer as to who makes decisions and who doesn't. Where's the confusion?


>> ^rougy:

Gray areas? Well... who decides "overuse"? Who decides "neglect"? "Hoarding"? "Polluting"? Who is the authoritarian voice of harm that dictates what is or what is not overuse, neglect, hoarding and polluting? You, rougy, obviously think this is something that is easily defined, so please be the person to define it for the rest of us.

^ I'm particularly curious about the "hoarding" question. I can see simple enough ways for people to arrive at consensus on the definitions of the other things, but hoarding is a problem that gets right to the root of why I'm in favor of a mostly-capitalist economy.

I like the theory of "from each according to ability, to each according to need", but how do you come up with the right valuation of the needs and abilities of each that's fair and acceptable?

I think there's room for us to come to common agreement about basic needs, below which our society won't allow anyone to fall, and to do so using a portion of the output from the more productive members of our society. I also think there is a need for us to provide basic goods and services that benefits everyone, and would be difficult or impossible to keep the benefit from those who wouldn't contribute (like the schools blankfist doesn't want to pay for).

I think overall a mix of public and private property is really the better way to go, rather than adopting a system that makes everything private, or everything public.

Not a bad discussion for a cartoon that involves shitting a bed.

The decisions will be a community consensus, of course.

Who decides what is wrong with our communities right now?

And hoarding is also very easy to understand: it's when a small group of people keep or control more than they need, while others go without.

Ask the Nicaraguans, the ones who weren't killed by our CIA-backed Contra death squads.

Ask United Fruit, who thought it was better to kill peasants than to let them have a plot of land so they could scratch out a living.

>> ^rougy:
The decisions will be a community consensus, of course.


WHAT?! Do my lying eyes deceive me?! Did rougy just say these are matters that should be handled from a self-governing community? How Libertarian that was of you!

This is funny - the cartoon and the conversation.

"Property = theft" is self defeating, isn't it? I mean, for theft to occur, property rights have to exist. It makes no sense.


I think all of you are missing the true nature of things - impermanence. You can't own a rock any more than you can own a star in the sky. You can try to possess something for some fleeting amount of time, but that possession gains you nothing. You can try to define "use" of material, but as soon as you've used the material, it is no longer what you had to begin with. There is no such thing as property - it is an illusion that we all subscribe to. Ultimately, the illusion benefits no one.

>> ^blankfist:
WHAT?! Do my lying eyes deceive me?! Did rougy just say these are matters that should be handled from a self-governing community? How Libertarian that was of you!


There was a movement to establish a Libertarian enclave in New Hampshire, I think, many years ago. Is that still active?

Anyway, I hope it happens. I honest to God hope it happens, and I want as many Libertarians to move there and start living according to the code of their political views.

And I predict that in a very, very short period of time the place will be nothing more than a petulant grove of warring wasp nests, each wanting what's only best for them.

Zeitgeist determines (or rather indicates) what the moral climate is concerning everything. Property, right/wrong, good/evil and so on. Zeitgeist is the amalgamated opinions of everyone and the most "powerful" attitude holds sway.

>> ^blankfist:
No, in a democratic republic we have a very clear answer as to who makes decisions and who doesn't. Where's the confusion?

Seriously? Who decides, on any arbitrary case, what is or is not fraud? Without specifics the question is meaningless. Legal systems have mechanisms for dealing with, and defining different kinds of fraud in different ways in different contexts, why should it be any different with harm?