Curt Doolittle

Theme: Responsibility

  • WHAT DO WE VIOLATE? –“…I’ve come to think of violence as amoral. The rapist,

    WHAT DO WE VIOLATE?

    –“…I’ve come to think of violence as amoral. The rapist, and the victim who kills him in self defense… one is immoral, the other moral. Nothing to do with the violence itself, but the violation of rights.”–

    One can produce property without rights — all living creatures do.

    But one cannot produce a right except via contractual exchange.

    So then, do property rights have any meaning outside of the context of a state or polity with whom one ostensibly holds a contract?

    What is the point of using this term “rights”? Its meaningless except in the context of some contract or other – a contract libertarians would almost always refuse to enter.

    You create your property by your own actions. If people try to appropriate you property against your wishes, then that is not a violation of your magical rights – its just an attack against your property. Period.

    In fact, the only reason to define morality any differently is to logically excuse parasitism.

    Then the only limit to your property is your own parasitism : free riding on others who produce benefits that you consume but that you fail to pay for.

    We need no rights whatsoever. We need only recognize property is the result of our actions. Nothing more.

    All platonism is false.

    We are supposed to be the smart people. We should try to demonstrate it. Libertarian shouldn’t mean “stupid”. Too often it does.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-02-16 11:14:00 UTC

  • VIOLENCE IS A VIRTUE NOT A VICE **If you will not fight for property rights, you

    VIOLENCE IS A VIRTUE NOT A VICE

    **If you will not fight for property rights, you have not earned those rights in exchange from those who DO fight for them. Instead, you’re just another beggar trying to get them at a discount. Just another free rider on the backs of others. Just another parasite.**

    The source of liberty is the organize use of violence to suppress criminal, unethical, immoral, and conspiratorial behavior.

    Violence is a virtue, not a vice.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-02-16 04:21:00 UTC

  • The Fiction Of The Morality Of Ghetto Property Rights

      Lets get this straight OK? If you agree to not engage in murder, violence, destruction, theft, and fraud, it’s because you’re afraid of not doing so. It’s not because you’re a good person. It’s because you can so easily be caught. If you agree not to engage in omission, obscurantism, impediment, then you’re doing it for ethical reasons: not stealing from the people you interact with. If you agree not to engage in externalization, free riding, rent seeking, corruption, conspiracy then you’re doing it for moral reasons: not stealing from your entire polity. If you agree not to engage in military conquest, overbreeding, immigration without assimilation, or religious conquest, then you’re doing it because you care about not stealing from other polities. Lets do away with the fiction that respect for life and property is anything more than fear of retaliation. It’s not moral or ethical. It’s just necessary. Living a moral life means not stealing from any one, ever, under any circumstances, no matter how easy it is. Lets put an end to ghetto ethic, and return our definition of morality to its aristocratic origins: universal suppression of taking from others except in fully informed warrantied voluntary exchange. Propertarianism is the protestant ethic of the northern european people written in Anglo analytic philosophy: the language of science. Conservatism when it applies to the protestant ethic may be stated in ARATIONAL terms, but it is, to date, the most scientific system of ethics yet devised. We must prove something works first then adopt it. Not adopt it before it is proven.

  • The Fiction Of The Morality Of Ghetto Property Rights

      Lets get this straight OK? If you agree to not engage in murder, violence, destruction, theft, and fraud, it’s because you’re afraid of not doing so. It’s not because you’re a good person. It’s because you can so easily be caught. If you agree not to engage in omission, obscurantism, impediment, then you’re doing it for ethical reasons: not stealing from the people you interact with. If you agree not to engage in externalization, free riding, rent seeking, corruption, conspiracy then you’re doing it for moral reasons: not stealing from your entire polity. If you agree not to engage in military conquest, overbreeding, immigration without assimilation, or religious conquest, then you’re doing it because you care about not stealing from other polities. Lets do away with the fiction that respect for life and property is anything more than fear of retaliation. It’s not moral or ethical. It’s just necessary. Living a moral life means not stealing from any one, ever, under any circumstances, no matter how easy it is. Lets put an end to ghetto ethic, and return our definition of morality to its aristocratic origins: universal suppression of taking from others except in fully informed warrantied voluntary exchange. Propertarianism is the protestant ethic of the northern european people written in Anglo analytic philosophy: the language of science. Conservatism when it applies to the protestant ethic may be stated in ARATIONAL terms, but it is, to date, the most scientific system of ethics yet devised. We must prove something works first then adopt it. Not adopt it before it is proven.

  • American Policy In A Nutshell : Talking About The Carrot of Choice, But Not The Stick of Accountability

    AMERICAN POLICY IN A NUTSHELL [A]merican policy (frustratingly) demonstrates rather than explicitly states, that you may have any government you willingly elect. But if you willingly elect a government that does not adhere to the charter of human rights both internally and externally; or if that government acts as a bad citizen in the network of finance and trade, then you and your government will be punished for the choice of the government you have elected, and you will be punished repeatedly and severely until you choose to elect a government that respects the charter of human rights and acts as a good citizen in the network of finance and trade. They only talk about the carrot, but not the stick. They don’t do much distribution of carrots, but they distribute sticks all-the-live-long day. That paragraph should be required as a warning label on all US diplomats, messages, goods, commercials, movies, passports, tickets, whatever we export. Just like we require warnings on cigarettes. [T]he USA is not a country. It’s a corporation. That corporation runs an empire. That empire controls the finance and trade system worldwide. We are all consumers of that system. In the main, it’s a better system than most that have existed. But the quality of that system is declining rapidly.

  • American Policy In A Nutshell : Talking About The Carrot of Choice, But Not The Stick of Accountability

    AMERICAN POLICY IN A NUTSHELL [A]merican policy (frustratingly) demonstrates rather than explicitly states, that you may have any government you willingly elect. But if you willingly elect a government that does not adhere to the charter of human rights both internally and externally; or if that government acts as a bad citizen in the network of finance and trade, then you and your government will be punished for the choice of the government you have elected, and you will be punished repeatedly and severely until you choose to elect a government that respects the charter of human rights and acts as a good citizen in the network of finance and trade. They only talk about the carrot, but not the stick. They don’t do much distribution of carrots, but they distribute sticks all-the-live-long day. That paragraph should be required as a warning label on all US diplomats, messages, goods, commercials, movies, passports, tickets, whatever we export. Just like we require warnings on cigarettes. [T]he USA is not a country. It’s a corporation. That corporation runs an empire. That empire controls the finance and trade system worldwide. We are all consumers of that system. In the main, it’s a better system than most that have existed. But the quality of that system is declining rapidly.

  • The N.A.P. Is Insufficient For Suppression Of Demand For The State – In Fact, the NAP Is “Unethical” By Definition

    (I wanted to thank Jason Maher for very intelligent comments. But also to respond to criticisms, and perhaps to fill a few gaps.) This post is part of a discussion on Argumentation Ethics. 1) In that thread, my purpose was to illustrate that neither AE, nor performative contradiction, are causal arguments. However, since both correctly assume self ownership is a necessity, then that the single assumption is sufficient to deduce all of the institutional solutions that Hoppe addressed in his work. It’s weak causal argumentative support, but it demonstrates internal consistency. And, in both logic and mathematics, whenever we construct a proof, we require internal consistency. Internal consistency does not determine external correspondence. And external correspondence is the only test of ‘truth’. But his arguments are internally consistent, and that’s something that doesn’t happen very often in ethics. 2) The rest of my post (and most of my work) is designed to articulate the universally DESCRIPTIVE ETHICS demonstrated by man, and to argue how, given such a descriptive ethics, liberty can be achieved as a system of NORMATIVE ETHICS. 3) The reason this construction is necessary is to correct the FAILURE of libertarian arguments to gain political support – or even to constrain the state. Or more simply: if we have better rational and economic arguments, then why do conservatives succeed in resisting the state, but libertarians fail to resist the state? The answer is that humans vote and act, morally, not rationally. (And it’s necessary for them to do so for many reasons, not the least of which is limited cognitive ability in real time, combined with fragmentary knowledge and living in an environment surrounded by others who are engaged in limited theft and violence, but pervasive deception, fraud, obscurantism, free riding, rent seeking and conspiracy. So the purpose of my work is to attempt to correct libertarian ethics such that the failed effort to gain popular support can either be corrected by improvements to libertarian ethics such that they are preferable to a political majority, or to alter the libertarian strategy such that we abandon both the attempt to obtain a political majority (or even an effective resistance), and attempt a separate solution. The various means which I’ve attempted to suggest are too long for this forum. NOW, TO JASON’S INSIGHTFUL COMMENTS –“An interesting conceptual division of methods to nick what belongs to someone else. Mr. Doolittle’s principle argument is the the Non Aggression Principle can only deal with #1 and part of #4, but is completely powerless against #2 and #3. Specifically, he speaks of the NAP lacking a mechanism for dealing with classes 2 and 3, and even encourages them…”– You are correct. Yes. –“”Private property is contrary [to] the female reproductive strategy””– This fact may seem humorous to you but the consequences explain why the introduction of women into the voting pool has driven us consistently toward a redistributive society, despite the fact that none of such would have occurred without the introduction of women in the voting pool. (I can’t vouch for Australia because I don’t know the data, But it’s true in the states and Canada. In Canada, without the French vote, the mix would be as conservative as the united states. Which is why conservative Canadians want Quebec to secede.) The female reproductive strategy is not monogamous, but polyamorous for support and protection, but to capture the better genes she can run across from those multiple encounters. And then to retain the burden of care, but to place the burden of upkeep on the tribe. Wherever monogamous marriage (the nuclear family, or the northern european absolute nuclear family) declines women return to this strategy via proxy of the state. Property rights that accompanied animal husbandry and agrarian settlement, inverted matrilineal reproductive control, and placed reproductive control in the hands of males – something the marxists have argued against since Engels wrote his tome on it. I can go into this at depth but lets just say that the evidence is that women cause the change in property rights policy and that they demonstrate a return to community property in their voting patterns. –“NAP covers externalities easily… complete allocation of private property rights to avoid “tragedy of the commons” and then allowing people to sue for damage to their property.”– –“NAP covers fraud too since it is basically theft through breach of contract.”– –“NAP doesn’t cover asymmetric information to the degree that it simply means two different people have different information. But having different information isn’t a property rights violation and is simply the state of nature. It is impossible and absurd to talk about all people in the world having identical information.”– Individual contracts place an extremely high transaction cost on all exchanges. So if you are one of the owners of an enormous shopping mall, and you rent space for stores to merchants, and you want to maximize your revenue, will you, or will you not, want to decrease transaction costs? People are entirely cognizant of transaction costs. The high trust society eliminates them, by a normative prohibition on all involuntary transfers, not just those transfers that constitute aggression. Further, no society exists that has property rights and liberty as we know it EXCEPT where there has been a near prohibition on all involuntary transfers – because it is the only way to reduce demand for the state: demand for the mall owners so to speak, to reduce transaction costs. We must remember that for humans, loss aversion, and altruistic punishment are MORE ACTIVATING (we are more passionate about them) than self interest. So all our decisions are asymmetrically weighted against risk. So the libertarian errors are those of incorrect attribution of praxeological analysis to transactions. And the reason for that praxeological error is that mises and rothbard both made the error of using commodity purchases and ordinal preferences, where commodity purchases are marginally indifferent except on price, and where human differences are not ordinal but a network, and where that network demonstrates necessary biases against risk and necessary cooperative biases that punish offenders> Think of it this way. If we did not operate by such rules, then transaction costs would be infinite, and we would not exist. It is not possible for humans to function without these prohibitions. It is non logical for libertarians to rely on the NAP, which structurally contains errors that are impossible for humans to cooperate using. I am aware that it is quite unlikely that you will, at first reading, drop your high investment in rothbardian and misesian logic. And I suspect that this one argument is insufficient to convince you. But you will have a very hard time both rationally and empirically circumventing that logic. So it is not that I err, or fail to grasp, or have not made sufficient efforts in this area of inquiry. It is that I am not trying to JUSTIFY liberty, but instead am trying to explain how to obtain it as a preference, because it is not justifiable. and it is not justifiable because while liberty is in our reproductive interests. It is not in the reproductive interests of all. Or even the majority. —“And perhaps more importantly, the NAP is not the only basis for anarchy. David Friedman is one of the most famous living anarchists and he (and I) argue based on consequences, not NAP.”— Well, I never made that statement. I’m making the statement that NAP is insufficient for DESCRIBING what people do. And that the weakness of the NAP explains why we fail to understand why even those people who prefer government out of their lives, demonstrate a demand for government under conditions that the NAP prescribes. The NAP only prohibits crime. It does not prohibit unethical or immoral conduct. To obtain voluntary participation you must forbid both unethical and immoral conduct, otherwise individuals will demand intervention to prohibit it. By having the state, a population trades free riding, theft, unethical and immoral conduct that they cannot avoid for rent seeking and corruption that they can avoid. You cannot eliminate rent seeking and corruption via the state without also retaining the prohibition on unethical and immoral actions suppressed by the state. Its non logical. I am trying to reform libertarianism to repair the errors in Rothbardian ethics in order to explain why we lose. And the NAP is one of the reasons that we lose: because it prohibits criminality but not unethical or immoral behavior. And if the NAP fails to prohibit unethical and immoral behavior, and If we claim to have a lock on ethics, then what is the basis for that claim? If we have a lock on ethics, then why do we fail? Are humans naturally unethical? That would mean that natural law was a false basis for liberty. This is because aggression is not the test of the ethics of property. It is only the test of criminality. Ethical constraint and moral constraint are place higher demands on property rights. Blackmail, as Rothbard argues, is not a violation of the NAP. It is a voluntary exchange. What is it about blackmail that we can say is moral or ethical? It should be clear at this point that the NAP is not a test of ethical or moral behavior, but only of criminal behavior. THE NAP IS LESS OF A REASON FOR A VOLUNTARY SOCIETY The NAP is LESS of a reason to prefer a voluntary society if we merely exchange free riding, rent seeking and corruption via the state, which we can both avoid and which we rarely experience, for unethical and immoral behavior which is pervasive in society, and we cannot avoid or fail to experience. Praxeology demands that we attribute rational choice to individuals. It’s non-praxeological to assert that the exchange of pervasive and daily thefts is preferable to infrequent and invisible thefts. If only for the transaction costs to each of us. So no, the NAP is LESS of a reason to prefer a voluntary society. People see the state, rationally, as the lesser evil between pervasive criminality, unethical behavior, and immoral behavior. They willingly trade rent seeking and corruption that they cannot see for criminality, unethical, and immoral behavior. And they are rightly rational to do so. So what is the means by which we eliminate the state’s free riding, rent seeking and corruption, while also prohibiting the criminal, unethical, and immoral? What is the basis for property rights if we must prohibit the criminal, unethical, immoral, AND the CORRUPT? NAP does not tell us this. Our reliance on the argumentative value of the NAP is the reason we fail. The NAP is in fact a RECIPE FOR FAILURE, because it is an unethical and immoral standard for the construction of property rights, norms and the common law. THE NAP IS ONE OF THE REAONS WE FAIL. Without prior promise of constraint of blackmail, we cannot reduce demand for the state. Private Property only developed where unethical and immoral conduct was suppressed at every possible level. The EVIDENCE is that the demand for private property only exists in the suppression of immoral and unethical conduct. Criminality is insufficient. So it’s not RATIONAL to argue that the NAP is sufficient. The trust necessary for private property must exist PRIOR to the demand for private property, and the reduction of demand for the state. Further, it’s not evident (it’s contrary to the evidence) that the market suppresses unethical and immoral behavior. Just the opposite. The expansion of the market INCREASES opportunity for immoral and unethical behavior. Immoral and unethical behavior is cheaper than honest ethical and moral behavior, which imposes costs on the participants. Property rights are a cost. Every time they are respected. Forgoing those opportunities requires trust. The result of forgoing opportunities and TRUST creates property rights. Not the other way around. Private property does not create trust. Once you suppress criminal, unethical and immoral behavior, the only POSSIBLE means of interaction is via private property. We cannot confuse cause and consequence. TRUST FIRST. PROPERTY SECOND. STATE LAST. So, again, trust (willingness to take risks / low transaction cost exchange) requires the suppression of criminal, unethical and immoral behavior. And the trust that appears to be sufficient for demand for private property requires near total suppression of unethical behavior. We must suppress even MORE unethical and rent seeking and corrupt behavior in order to reduce demand for the state. If we are to define property rights as the basis of a moral and peaceful society, then what is the definition of property rights that prohibits not only criminal behavior (the NAP) but also unethical, immoral, as well as free riding, rent seeking, and corruption? I think that it looks like the state would be the natural means of transforming criminal, unethical, immoral behavior into free riding, rent seeking and corruption in an effort to decrease transaction costs. Now, how do we FURTHER suppress free riding, rent seeking and corruption without the state? Privatization. But for privatization we must have a set of property rights that increase suppression of free riding, rent seeking and corruption, without sacrificing the reason for the state: suppression of unethical and immoral behavior. It’s non logical to ask people to yet bear again that which they have rid themselves of, by clear and demonstrated preference, almost universally. People have already demonstrated that they are willing to trade unethical and immoral behavior, for corrupt and rent seeking behavior. And they were rational to do so. You cannot tell them that they are gaining something by simply reverting them to a previous state that they have already rejected. We can only offer them something BETTER. Which is to ALSO prohibit rent seeking and corruption AS WELL as unethical and immoral behavior. So no. The NAP was a terrible mistake for the liberty movement. It was tragic. I understand why they resorted to ghetto ethics, because they didn’t understand where liberty and the high trust society came from. But now that we do (or at least I do) we must base any argument that we deem ethically superior on a set of property rights that is a net gain, not a net loss, for the population. This is very difficult for Rothbardians to swallow, but pride and personal investment in a failed ideology are less important than the achievement of freedom.

  • Respecting The Person Or The Ideas Or Conflating The Two

    (interesting) (tolerance as tax evasion) Do you separate respect for the person from respect for their ideas or do you make the solipsistic error of conflating a persons beliefs which they can change with their physical body which they cannot? One can say: i) that we coexist peacefully, ii) that we compete peacefully, iii) that we cooperate on different ends peacefully, iv) that we cooperate on the same ends peacefully. If someone possesses a catastrophic error, and you wish to cooperate with them, what is the impact of letting them hold on to silly ideas? Well, they can have whatever silly idea they want as long as it doesn’t affect your ability to cooperate on ends together. It is possible to possess ideas, values, beliefs, traditions, myths, metaphysical value judgments that are not merely differences in tastes, but which actively PREVENT cooperation on certain types of ends and means. If your culture denies reality, provides no means of correction of knowledge, provides no means of correction of individual thought, and at the same time, we know we must use science to understand that which we cannot perceive and sense directly, and such that TEACHING COOPERATION ON MEANS IF NOT ENDS In solipsistic argument, respect is for the purpose of raising children who do not yet have the ability to cooperate in the world. At some point we must become adults, or be the wards, subjects and victims of adults forever. One becomes an adult at the very point where one abandons solipsistic argument (the one you’re making probably) and distinguishes between the meaningless errors of children which they may grow out of, and the meaningful errors of adults that they may not grow out of. Tolerance in children is necessary for pedagogy. Tolerance in adults is only logically necessary for tastes, but not for truths. If you do not correct the errors in thinking of yourself and your fellow citizens then you are a conspirator in the conspiracy of ignorance, and a threat to society – and to man. Just as you are a threat to a society and to man if you fail to enforce and adhere to manners, ethics, and morals. TOLERANCE AS “FREE RIDING, CHEATING AND STEALING” If you do not enforce and adhere to manners (ethics of signals), ethics (participatory ethics), and morals (ethics of externalities) then you are not paying the behavioral ‘tax’ for living in a society – you are a tax cheater so to speak in the normative system of costs. if you are less ABLE to pay normative taxes, that is the same as if you are less ABLE to pay real taxes – in both cases these are statements of your willingness and ability. In other words, if you let adults around you believe that which is economically dangerous to the polity, then you are just trying to save yourself the cost of paying for the normative infrastructure, just like any other tax cheat is trying to save himself the cost of paying for physical infrastructure. You can say that you are not competent (productive enough) to pay that normative tax, but if that is so, then you of course, like any other person who evades taxes, no right to speak about norms.

  • Respecting The Person Or The Ideas Or Conflating The Two

    (interesting) (tolerance as tax evasion) Do you separate respect for the person from respect for their ideas or do you make the solipsistic error of conflating a persons beliefs which they can change with their physical body which they cannot? One can say: i) that we coexist peacefully, ii) that we compete peacefully, iii) that we cooperate on different ends peacefully, iv) that we cooperate on the same ends peacefully. If someone possesses a catastrophic error, and you wish to cooperate with them, what is the impact of letting them hold on to silly ideas? Well, they can have whatever silly idea they want as long as it doesn’t affect your ability to cooperate on ends together. It is possible to possess ideas, values, beliefs, traditions, myths, metaphysical value judgments that are not merely differences in tastes, but which actively PREVENT cooperation on certain types of ends and means. If your culture denies reality, provides no means of correction of knowledge, provides no means of correction of individual thought, and at the same time, we know we must use science to understand that which we cannot perceive and sense directly, and such that TEACHING COOPERATION ON MEANS IF NOT ENDS In solipsistic argument, respect is for the purpose of raising children who do not yet have the ability to cooperate in the world. At some point we must become adults, or be the wards, subjects and victims of adults forever. One becomes an adult at the very point where one abandons solipsistic argument (the one you’re making probably) and distinguishes between the meaningless errors of children which they may grow out of, and the meaningful errors of adults that they may not grow out of. Tolerance in children is necessary for pedagogy. Tolerance in adults is only logically necessary for tastes, but not for truths. If you do not correct the errors in thinking of yourself and your fellow citizens then you are a conspirator in the conspiracy of ignorance, and a threat to society – and to man. Just as you are a threat to a society and to man if you fail to enforce and adhere to manners, ethics, and morals. TOLERANCE AS “FREE RIDING, CHEATING AND STEALING” If you do not enforce and adhere to manners (ethics of signals), ethics (participatory ethics), and morals (ethics of externalities) then you are not paying the behavioral ‘tax’ for living in a society – you are a tax cheater so to speak in the normative system of costs. if you are less ABLE to pay normative taxes, that is the same as if you are less ABLE to pay real taxes – in both cases these are statements of your willingness and ability. In other words, if you let adults around you believe that which is economically dangerous to the polity, then you are just trying to save yourself the cost of paying for the normative infrastructure, just like any other tax cheat is trying to save himself the cost of paying for physical infrastructure. You can say that you are not competent (productive enough) to pay that normative tax, but if that is so, then you of course, like any other person who evades taxes, no right to speak about norms.

  • THE PRICE OF MORAL LIFE I don’t see the problem with paying people to have moral

    THE PRICE OF MORAL LIFE

    I don’t see the problem with paying people to have moral incentives versus by not paying them and providing them with immoral incentives. The difference is that I don’t think they natively deserve anything. I just acknowledge that we all follow our incentives and that for those people who cannot engage in production, they need an incentive to act as if they do. So why not pay them to police the world for criminal, unethical, and immoral conduct and then deprive tehm if that payment if they fail in their duties?

    That isn’t a question then of free riding, or allowing them to act immorally. It’s a question of exchange. We need the world free of criminal, unethical, immoral, conspiratorial behavior, and we need it clean, and well maintained in order for those of us who are productive to live in something other than gated communities. So lets pay people to do a lot of very simple work: act morally.

    Right now, the underclasses have every motive to act immorally and the state has every incentive to profit from their immorality. So why not force the state to act morally by forcing the underclasses to act morally, by PAYING them to act morally.

    I’ll deal with the upper classes later. But I’ve got them covered too.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-02-11 13:50:00 UTC