In ancapistan, if you have no property, you have no rights
Ancaps often declare, "All rights are property rights." I was thinking about this the other day, in the context of running into libertarians online who insisted that libertarianism supports "the freedom of movement," and realized that this principle actually entails that people without property have no rights at all, let alone any right to "freedom of movement." Of course, immediately, any ancap readers still left here are going to say, "Wait a second! Everyone owns his own body! And so everyone at least has the right to not have his body interfered with." Well, that is true... except that in ancapistan, one has no right to any place to put that body, except if one owns property, or has the permission of at least one property owner to place that body on her land. So, if one is landless and penniless, one had sure better hope that there are kindly disposed property owners aligned in a corridor from wherever one happens to be to wherever the...
Interesting. 84. But I think I should have received an additional bonus for not just knowing where Branson is, and not just having been there, but having worked there.
ReplyDeleteI scored 57, but I look skeptically on every section after the first. In terms of cold numbers, the rural/small town share of American population is a minority segment - it has no more claim to be a hallmark of "the mainstream" than the walkups-over-bodegas segment does. Similarly, military service is the pursuit of a tiny minority of the country, as Murray's own figures make clear. And on and on.
ReplyDeleteI'm reminded of Jon Rogers' complaint a couple of years ago that "More people play World of Warcraft than farm! So why aren't WoW players 'the real America?'"
But then I also wonder why Murray has a question about whether you've visited/worked in a factory, but no similar question about farms. There's no pleasing me.
I also can't escape the feeling that on questions like Branson, Murray's own provincialism may convince him it's a bigger deal than he imagines, even among country-music-loving, non-degree-having white people. Murray's heard of it, therefore it's important. Is he sure about that? The paradox of the semi-detached!
64. However, in my short life I have had quite a variety of living situations (from the big city to a rural population just over 3000) and levels of income (ranging from homeless to $100k); with the exception of the Navy, all of my jobs have been labor-intensive. I got almost no points when it came to restaurants, television and movies.
ReplyDeleteThe descriptions that he provides for your score are pretty vague and certainly don't apply to me. I grew up in a middle-class house that became upper-middle class (possibly even upper-class), yet with the exception of 2007 I have been lower-middle class (or working-class) even though I currently work in the same exact industry and position as my father did when he was middle-class/upper middle-class.