How to Win an Argument with Tom on Biblical Interpretation
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...
Who's Tom?
ReplyDeleteOk. The First Stick Guy quotes some big internet sources, and the Second Stick Guy quotes some less prestigious ones. Aside from First Stick Guy talking about some journals, I don't see how this argument can go somewhere.
ReplyDeleteIsn't there some larger question about the presentation of information present here? I mean, if we lived in the Soviet Union, it would seem like you'd have all the universities and professions stacked up against you on issues like higher productivity of capitalism, etc. If everything that claims to be 'professional' and 'respectable' is saying you are wrong and crazy, under what circumstances should you believe them?
Also, I'm not quite getting this. Did you have some argument with someone about Biblical interpretation, and they cite something you didn't find convincing?
Interesting take.
ReplyDeleteObviously my take is a bit different. The most important difference, I think, is that you appear to think that we're having an argument that one side or the other needs to "win."
Tom, I'm just joshing you.
DeleteWorks for me, Gene!
DeleteI do want to elaborate on my point of view, though.
I don't really discuss religion, or my beliefs relating to it, very often or in very many places. This is one of those places, because I think you do take religious belief seriously rather than just considering it another football to kick around.
In discussing religious belief -- as opposed to, say, politics -- my goal is not really to persuade anyone of anything. It's more a matter of being interested in saying "here's what I believe and why" versus what someone else may believe and why, and seeing if anything interesting comes of it.
I'm not disinterested in persuasion because I don't think it's important. I'm disinterested in persuasion because almost any religious belief by definition includes a strong element of faith.
Faith is not really subject to empirical proof or disproof, and (assuming certain things even MAY be true) it is foolhardy, and perhaps downright evil, to intentionally attempt to prang someone else's.
Who is this Tom? Is he part of the conspiracy?
DeleteTom is Knappster.
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