tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7225373.post3958403280404257945..comments2024-02-29T03:34:23.190-05:00Comments on Who Were the Sea Peoples?: Callahan on Block on Callahangcallahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10065877215969589482noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7225373.post-76996150558931816902022-05-09T02:04:10.490-04:002022-05-09T02:04:10.490-04:00Just a quick question, why does Rothbard and likel...Just a quick question, why does Rothbard and likely Block by extension think that it's permissible to torture a suspect when they also believe that the police do not have the power to even subpoena a suspect? <br /><br />"Jones is invited to defend himself against the charges, although there can be no subpoena power, since any sort of force used against a man not yet convicted of a crime is itself an invasive and criminal act that could not be consonant with the free society we have been postulating. " (https://socialdemocracy21stcentury.blogspot.com/2013/06/rothbard-on-private-protection-agencies.html#comment-form) <br /><br />Rothbard even claims that it is a criminal act to use any sort of force "against a man not yet convicted of a crime" so defense agencies wouldn't even be able to subpoena a suspect and in theory, even aprehend them if they constituted a flight risk. This seems like a giant glaring contradiction that you should've brought up in your paper. BZhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02639095987526290064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7225373.post-30818207367256680442022-05-08T01:44:32.525-04:002022-05-08T01:44:32.525-04:00"I contend that it is unjust for law enforcem..."I contend that it is unjust for law enforcement officials to torture suspects, even when it is absolutely clear to those officials that the suspects are guilty. Every human being is worthy of respect for their human person, and no one, whatever they have done, is ever justly tortured. The fact that allowing such torture produces bad results is not the reason that torture is unjust; it is evidence that it is unjust."<br /><br />What a boat load of nonsense. If you want to see why, ask yourself the following question: Why is it okay for the prosecution to rely on witness testimony if the prosecution has the ability to coerce or bribe the witness(s) into giving false information during their testimony. The answer is simple, any competent prosecutor needs to rely on more than just potentially baseless acusations to build their case against a suspect and would need to bring in additional evidence such as circumstantial evidence just to build a preponderance of evidence at the very least. If they failed to do so, the defense could easily shred their case by just casting doubt on the reliability of the witness testimony(ies) or bringing up counter evidence like an alibi. <br /><br />If you bring the same logic/reasoning to torture, then it's clear that no prosecution could just convict innocent people just by citing "evidence" collected during a torture session. The defense could easily cast doubt on the "evidence" and have the prosecutions entire case thrown out by demanding the prosecution follow up on the "evidence" (ex: demanding the prosecution dig up the body of the murder victim or find the murder weapon based on the information they tortured out of the suspect). Thus, no prosecutors would be willing to torture a suspect unless they were absolutly sure that the suspect was guilty since they would have to prove the valiidity of the information they got out of the suspects or risk suffering punishments.<br /><br />P.S-1: If you try to debunk my case by citing some kind of historical evidence, let point out in 99.99% of those cases, the suspects had no real ability to challange the prosecution. For example, the prisoners at Guantamono Bay had could not trust or depend on their lawyers because the DOD frequently used guards pretending as their lawyers to extract information from the prisoners during interrogations. <br /><br />P.S.-2: If you try to counterargue that the prosecution could just torture or use the threat of it to pressure the defendant into accepting a plea bargin, let me point out that both Rothbard and Block by extension agree that any coerced confessions would be invalid so the prosecution can't just torture innocent suspects into admitting their guilt. Even if they the prosecution successfully did so, the defendants could just appeal their case to a higher Ancap court which would throw out the prosecutions case if they discovered that suspect had indeed been coerced into signing a confession or accepting a plea bargain. HWYThttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10939790336008747837noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7225373.post-73657380520727815702022-03-24T00:37:10.985-04:002022-03-24T00:37:10.985-04:00There's no point in trying to convince them. T...There's no point in trying to convince them. They have completely different intuitions to normal people. It's like trying to convince a slave owner before the civil war that owning slaves was immoral. They have simply too much at stake to change their position. Block has written 1000+ papers defending property absolutism and ancapism and is a senior scholar at the mises institute. He also has a massive cult following among ancaps that regularly donate to his blog and buy his books. So no, changing their minds is never going to happen. You might be able to change the minds of their followers but not there minds. BZhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02639095987526290064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7225373.post-64490694003428892442022-03-21T17:43:38.552-04:002022-03-21T17:43:38.552-04:00Yep, couldn't agree more. Block seems utterly ...Yep, couldn't agree more. Block seems utterly insane. I just read his paper about why road blockades would never occur in a system of private roads. In it, Block attempts to debunk the "evil umbrella" arguement by claiming that property owners could simply just build extremely tall towers and add rotating extensions to them to homestead the airspace and prevent the malicous umberella builder from shrouding their properties in darkness. I just find the shear lengths that Block goes to in order to justify his libertarian theories of property and homsteading insane. Block himself even admits that his solution is bad but claims that modern cities are more than capable of living in darkness and implies that no serious harm would be done by the malicious umbrella builder. Even when confronted with a serious reducto that he admits tacit defeat to, Block still won't stoop down to pragmatism and admit that property rights are not absolute. BZhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02639095987526290064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7225373.post-77759899193895491992022-03-21T01:41:23.824-04:002022-03-21T01:41:23.824-04:00This comment has been removed by the author.BZhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02639095987526290064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7225373.post-37202717856513401082015-09-28T12:32:46.923-04:002015-09-28T12:32:46.923-04:00Gene, in light of your posts on primary and second...Gene, in light of your posts on primary and secondary reality, I have to ask this: how do we get people out of their 'secondary reality'? From what I can gather, Block seems like a nice guy. And yet, some of the conclusions he reaches - via Murray Rothbard, who was not a very good philosopher (that is putting it mildly) - are absurd.<br /><br />If pointing out the absurdity of conclusions isn't enough, what else is there? Hmmm... Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00053155617490357148noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7225373.post-41582946027627484802015-09-28T09:37:38.834-04:002015-09-28T09:37:38.834-04:00I'm not sure why Block is worth engaging. Most...I'm not sure why Block is worth engaging. Most, if not all, of his arguments can be seen for what they are (i.e., incredibly bad) by anyone who is 12 years old. He is another case of a libertarian trying to use economics to answer non-economics-related questions. Answers that usually involve some bizarre mish-mash of econ terminology.Samson Corwellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10148822362930969284noreply@blogger.com