How Libertarians Could Eliminate Government Tax Coercion Overnight
Pay your taxes voluntarily. Alright?
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...
Odd use of the possessive. How does a government demand become "mine?"
ReplyDeleteI know libertarians hate acknowledging that they are citizens of this country. But nevertheless you are.
DeleteAnother famous libertarian tactic: "your taxes" is a completely normal use of the possessive. But libertarians love to pretend that when people speak the way 99% of everyone else does, they are using words "oddly"!
DeleteGene, this reminds me of the meta-ethical theories of non-cognitivism. Non-cognitivism holds that when we speak of 'x is good', we are really just asserting a psychological emotion (this view is sometimes called 'emotivism') to a statement, akin to saying 'Hurrah for x!' or 'Boo on y!'
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, this is not how people use evaluative language. The non-cognitivist, like the libertarian, uses a new response: calling evaluative statements correct because 'that is how people use these words' is begging the question.
This response does not work (for the non-cognitivist) for several reasons, but I think that libertarians are attempting to use a similar move: just because 'we use language that way' or 'we think of things being this way' does not mean that it is good, or justified, etc.
Who called something correct "because 'that is how people use these words'"?
DeleteNot me Alex. I said it was invalid to claim that how people use these words is an "odd use" of language.
Why would you turn that into a claim about something being "correct"?! Were you not paying any attention to what I actually wrote?
Gene, relax a bit, okay? I was just making an observation. I'm glad to know that I was wrong in characterizing what you have said, but there is no need to be so temperamental. Please be more gracious in your replies, or I will not post on your blog.
DeleteYou were delivering a lecture to me on a philosophical point I have understood for decades.
DeleteKids, how to stop your mom from forcing you to eat liver: start liking liver!
ReplyDeleteMore like: so you don't have to be forced to behave morally, do it voluntarily.
DeleteFrom what I understand, you are trying to ridicule the position of "Remove illegal immigration by removing borders" by flipping it back on libertarians. Yes or no?
ReplyDeleteI don't think this line of argument is a good one.
ReplyDelete