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Mr. Wynand

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I think for someone to say they're completely calm before and after is unrealistic. If you value your life at all, you're at least going to be pissed. Your body produces adrenaline for a reason.

I was calm afterward, too. Angry, yes, partly at myself for walking on a nearly empty street while carrying valuables, but mostly at the thieves for taking the money (wasn't my money, BTW). But I didn't get the shakes later. I changed some things I do when carrying money or documents, but that was it. Color me unrealistic if you want.

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And you feared for your life?

Perhaps when you're afraid of being killed in your own home, it's different, because I don't feel that I acted oddly at all. Your reaction seems very strange.

Edited by K-Mac
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Property and life are part of the same currency of life itself: time. Having my car or some of my work stolen is no different than physically hauling me off to a dungeon for the amount of time it took to produce those things.

Yes, but a loss of property can be compensated; your health and life can't. You have to draw a line when it is ok to use Retaliatory Force yourself and when it is not.

You can't kill a little girl running away with your wallet. You have to let the government deal with it.

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In my opinion you only should have the moral right to kill someone if he is a threat to your life or health. You may very well stop someone from stealing your property, but if he does not pose a threat to you, you can't kill him no matter how valuable the thing is he is about to steal.

The issue you seem to be skirting is the principle involved and what it means to steal. The principle is that you have a right to life which is supported by your right to keep your property. Without the right to property you have no way to support your life. The only way your rights can be violated is by force. When someone is stealing your property they are a threat to your life, they are using force against you. You seem to think that robbery is not a threat and your principle seems to be that: "you can't kill him no matter how valuable the thing is he is about to steal." Is this your position? If so I think you are wrong.

Also I hope you realize that there are things much more valuable than property. Does the principle above apply in those situations also?

Mostly on this forum we deal in principles. I am not eschewing the use of hypothetical examples but if you are going to use them it is advisable that they be realistic and contextual. But even in the cases where they are realistic and contextual, if you don't agree with the principle involved, then you will never agree on any particular case. Make sure you understand the principle first. Your posts on this forum so far seem to consist mainly of specific situations designed to counter the principle involved with little desire to understand the principle and how it was arrived. I don't think this is a good way to learn.

I should think that most of the people here are imagining a situation at night, in your house, when some man, unknown to you, is breaking things and gathering booty. Not only are your following examples absurd, but so are your solutions:

If a little girl steals a watch and the only way to stop her from running away with it is to use the gun in your hand, you have to let her run away.

You can't kill a little girl running away with your wallet. You have to let the government deal with it.

What is the context? Is this broad daylight, at a children's birthday party and the little girl is smiling the whole time as she runs in circles? Of course: you should NOT shoot the little girl.

What if someone who appears to be a little girl is running down the street with your wallet and then she turns around and it turns out she is a midget wearing a blonde wig and she is pointing an uzi at you? You should shoot her.

How about your solutions: "you have to let her run away" or "you have to let the government deal with it" are these the only realistic solutions? If she is a little girl, then you should be able to run and catch-up to her. Maybe just yelling really loud will stop her. Maybe her parents can stop her and give her a swat on the behind. Must I really let the government deal with it?

Yes, but a loss of property can be compensated;

If you let the criminal get away who is going to compensate you? Even if you catch him, do you think that you will ever be fully, spiritually, compensated?

Edited by Marc K.
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And you feared for your life?

A little. The thug never actually pointed his gun at me, and I've reason to think it might not even ahve been loaded (had I been certain I'd ahve fought him off). Also the hammer wasn't cocked, but it was an automatic and those tend to be double action (meaning the hammer cocks, then fires when the trigger is pulled).

Perhaps when you're afraid of being killed in your own home, it's different, because I don't feel that I acted oddly at all. Your reaction seems very strange.

Different people react in different ways.

A coworker was with me when I got robbed. He's a big guy, tall and broad, and quite strong. He did get the shakes, and bad, after it was over.

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Marc K answered your reply to me in the manner I was going to, crizon.

When you initiate force, you forfeit your rights. The victim does not have the right to tie you down and torture you as punishment for theft, but no just man will cry over the "loss" of the life of a thief that results from defense.

To suggest that perpetrators have rights but victims do not is obscene.

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Actually I thought that I understood the principle here, as L-C said: "When you initiate force, you forfeit your rights"

In my opinion that is not practicable if you mean "any initiation of force results in the loss of all your right (including the right to live)"

I tried to give the example of the stealing girl, but yes, I probably wasn't clear enough.

Let's say this girl stole your wallet. You know she carries no weapons. You can judge that because she is wearing summer clothes; she can't hide a gun or a knife anywhere.

As you realize that the girl stole your wallet (or anything else) she already has a great head start and is running for a train station, where a train is about to leave and she will make it to the train; you won't.

You can't catch her and the only option for you to stop her is by shooting at her with a gun you carry. There is nobody else around that might get hit. You know that you will hit her, but you can't exactly shoot at her leg, because your aim is not good enough, so you conclude that there is a great chance that the shot will be fatal.

In this situation shooting is not moral. It would not be appropriate in any way. Now things obviously change drastically when she posses a credible threat to your health or live. Of course it would be justified that you defend yourself then.

When you choose not to shoot at her, it doesn't mean that you lost your right on the wallet, but that you choose to let the government handle the retaliatory force, because you know that your option to exercise retaliatory force would not be appropriate.

Society is based on the agreement that live is of different value than property and that a pure violation of property rights will not result in the loss of the right to live.

So I think a proper, practical formulation should be "A certain initiation of force results in the loss of certain rights"

Edited by crizon
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Actually I thought that I understood the principle here, as L-C said: "When you initiate force, you forfeit your rights"

In my opinion that is not practicable if you mean "any initiation of force results in the loss of all your right (including the right to live)"

I tried to give the example of the stealing girl, but yes, I probably wasn't clear enough.

Let's say this girl stole your wallet. You know she carries no weapons. You can judge that because she is wearing summer clothes; she can't hide a gun or a knife anywhere.

As you realize that the girl stole your wallet (or anything else) she already has a great head start and is running for a train station, where a train is about to leave and she will make it to the train; you won't.

You can't catch her and the only option for you to stop her is by shooting at her with a gun you carry. There is nobody else around that might get hit. You know that you will hit her, but you can't exactly shoot at her leg, because your aim is not good enough, so you conclude that there is a great chance that the shot will be fatal.

Then, if the victim of the theft is thoughtless enough to shoot a child, the person who initiated the crime (the adult who sent the little girl out to steal), should be convicted of murder.

In this situation shooting is not moral. It would not be appropriate in any way. Now things obviously change drastically when she posses a credible threat to your health or live. Of course it would be justified that you defend yourself then.

When you choose not to shoot at her, it doesn't mean that you lost your right on the wallet, but that you choose to let the government handle the retaliatory force, because you know that your option to exercise retaliatory force would not be appropriate.

Society is based on the agreement that live is of different value than property and that a pure violation of property rights will not result in the loss of the right to live.

If you're trying to sell us on the principle that violation of property rights should not be prevented using potentially lethal force, why would you not pick a more common example, like say a 37 year old career criminal stealing something extremely valuable, something an honest person spent a considerable chunk of his life working for.

The fact that you felt the need to pick an example so rare and so much appealing to emotions rather than objective judgment betrays not only that you don't have a leg to stand on, but that in fact you know it.

Just because there's an objective law allowing people to use force to defend their property, it doesn't mean that they're going to start shooting little girls. And even if it were to happen, the source of the problem in your scenario is the parent or guardian who sent that little girl to steal wallets. If you wish to protect little girls, protect them from the source of their problems, don't use them to argue for whatever legislation you want passed.

In a rational society, children ought to be shielded from all the evils of the world by their parents or guardians, not by legislation that restricts everyone's rights. I'm so sick of people using children as arguments to pass restrictive laws that also apply to adults.

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I picked an extreme case to illustrate that IMO this principle eventually breaks down and your example is just es emotional biased as mine and I would argue that minor thefts are a lot more common than major thefts. In your example, you can stop the robber with various methods, but if your only option is to kill him, then you can't do it. If he threatens your life, you can defend yourself with everything you got.

I just don't see how it can possibly work, when you loose your right to life after _every_ initiation of force. Just think what would happen if people started shooting each other after small thefts, minor violence (a slap in the face?) or other minor crimes.

You could maybe save it, if lethal force may only be used when the robber is about to steal something of great value, but then again: Everything ca be of great personal value. In the end you can't find an objective way to measure what is of great value and permits killing the robber and what is not enough.

That is exactly why mankind eventually came up with the idea to let the courts handle the retaliatory force as long as you're life isn't threatened.

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I just don't see how it can possibly work, when you loose your right to life after _every_ initiation of force. Just think what would happen if people started shooting each other after small thefts, minor violence (a slap in the face?) or other minor crimes.
But your example was not about a minor theft as such. For instance, suppose your minor thief had twisted her ankle and was writhing in pain instead of being about to board a train. That changes things. I see your example as being a case where force is not being used to retaliate for a minor crime, but to stop a fleeing criminal. I'm not saying that lethal force is justified in this example; but, I wanted to point out that you need to take flight out of the equation, because that introduces a significant element over and above the minor crime itself.
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Well you are retaliating to achieve something, and in the case of a theft it is to get your property back or to protect it, right? Retaliation for the sake of retaliation is meaningless and punishment ought to be the job of the government.

I don't see how my example misses the point and you (softwareNerd) as well as Jake_Ellison both said, that in my example shooting the girl would be immoral (or thoughtless). In other words we already have an exception for "Every initiation of force results in the loss of all rights". This also holds true if the theft (in the example) was not a child but an adult.

Our society (and maybe every working society) is based on the agreement that some value are worth more than others. Human life being the most valuable, or the only real value. The statement that every violation of property rights is a violation of the right to live, because property enable you to life is not true.

If you steal a dollar from a billionaire, you have not threaten his live in any way. Things changes obviously in the other extreme, when you steal the last insulin injection from a person with diabetes. This would be a direct thread to this persons life and it would be moral to use lethal force there.

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crizon:

I am going to suggest that you visit this page:

https://secure2.convio.net/ari/site/SPageSe...a5vywem21.app7a

It is a lecture by Leonard Peikoff called: "Why Should One Act on Principle?" It requires you to register but registration is free.

The reason I am suggesting this is that, as I have said before, in all of your pronouncements I can not find one statement of principle. In fact it is the opposite. Your statements are all pragmatic in nature and serve to destroy all value by disintegrating our most precious values. Let me demonstrate.

Our society (and maybe every working society) is based on the agreement that some value are worth more than others.

You are wrong that our society is based on an agreement, it is based on a principle. A principle which requires no agreement from criminals: the principle of individual rights. I could give a damn whether a thief agrees that I have a right to keep my property.

Some values are worth more than others but not for the reasons you think. Different people value different things differently, the value depends on the valuer. You seem to think that there is some intrinsic value to human life, this is plainly not true: Hitler's life is worth less than every single Jew he gassed and my life is worth more than the criminal who is trying to steal my hard earned property.

Human life being the most valuable, or the only real value.

So Hitler's life is more valuable than my stereo?

This is just the prescription that Barack Obama is looking for. The rich can work hard and earn a lot of money but if some poor soul, who doesn't work, needs money to survive, then the President may take it because life is the only real value. The poor man's life is worth more than the rich man's hard work = the destruction of property rights.

The statement that every violation of property rights is a violation of the right to live, because property enable you to life is not true.

You need to read "Atlas Shrugged", there is a principle involved and until you understand that you will continue to advocate the destruction of the US. The principle of individual rights is a supreme value which allows us to flourish in this country. Declaring the principle of rights to be untrue is to ring the death knell of freedom, progress and happiness. Of course it won't happen right away but you are choosing sides here.

In principle, if you allow certain violations of property rights, then you have given up the whole game ... on principle. If you respect the lives of 99.99% of the people you meet and only kill one, you are still a murderer. If a Judge only throws one case on purpose, he is still corrupt. You must protect the principle of property rights or you advocate their destruction.

If you steal a dollar from a billionaire, you have not threaten his live in any way. Things changes obviously in the other extreme, when you steal the last insulin injection from a person with diabetes. This would be a direct thread to this persons life and it would be moral to use lethal force there.

Why don't you state what principle you are working from when deciding these issues, I don't see it.

So the billionaire is not threatened at all? I suppose that means you could steal more from him then, how far are you willing to go: $2, $100, $250,000, $1 million, $10 million? How are you going to decide? To what principle will you appeal?

So you see in the first sentence you have destroyed the principle of property rights but then you want to some how invoke it in the second sentence? Why? I don't find anything "obvious" after that first sentence.

Why shouldn't I be allowed to steal the diabetic's last insulin shot? If it's his last one he doesn't have long to live anyway. What if I have two young daughters with less severe cases of diabetes and they can both survive for weeks on the same amount of insulin until I can find a wealthy diabetic to steal some more from. Surely you would allow me to take the insulin of a weak, dying, ugly old man to save my precious girls lives, right? I hope you see the absurdity of your statement.

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I think it is purely moral to defend your property with deadly force. As a side note, it is legal in Texas.

What does your property represent other than the product of your mind, and your effort? If someone steals that property, they have forced you to work as a slave for them during the time it took you to earn that property.

Slavers deserve a bullet in the brain.

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crizon:

I am going to suggest that you visit this page:

https://secure2.convio.net/ari/site/SPageSe...a5vywem21.app7a

It is a lecture by Leonard Peikoff called: "Why Should One Act on Principle?" It requires you to register but registration is free.

Great talk. Thanks for the link.

The reason I am suggesting this is that, as I have said before, in all of your pronouncements I can not find one statement of principle. In fact it is the opposite. Your statements are all pragmatic in nature and serve to destroy all value by disintegrating our most precious values. Let me demonstrate.

You are wrong that our society is based on an agreement, it is based on a principle. A principle which requires no agreement from criminals: the principle of individual rights. I could give a damn whether a thief agrees that I have a right to keep my property.

Some values are worth more than others but not for the reasons you think. Different people value different things differently, the value depends on the valuer. You seem to think that there is some intrinsic value to human life, this is plainly not true: Hitler's life is worth less than every single Jew he gassed and my life is worth more than the criminal who is trying to steal my hard earned property.

Yes your are right. My formulation was wrong. Better is: Every working society needs the agreement of that principle (at least of the majority).

True, different people value things differently, but life still must be the fundamental value, because without life everything else has no value. Every value is derived from life and that is more or less reflected in history and the nature of men. In every set of laws, every religion and ethics the destruction of life is at least among the worst possible violations and the loss of life is the worst possible punishment.

So Hitler's life is more valuable than my stereo?

This is just the prescription that Barack Obama is looking for. The rich can work hard and earn a lot of money but if some poor soul, who doesn't work, needs money to survive, then the President may take it because life is the only real value. The poor man's life is worth more than the rich man's hard work = the destruction of property rights.

I never said that one could not loose the right to life. A murderer and most certainly Hitler did by his actions, just like everybody who threatens you're life and health does. I don't see why and how the poor man's life is not worth more than property. Of course that doesn't follow the destruction of property rights. On the contrary, only when you value life you can value property.

You need to read "Atlas Shrugged", there is a principle involved and until you understand that you will continue to advocate the destruction of the US. The principle of individual rights is a supreme value which allows us to flourish in this country. Declaring the principle of rights to be untrue is to ring the death knell of freedom, progress and happiness. Of course it won't happen right away but you are choosing sides here.

In principle, if you allow certain violations of property rights, then you have given up the whole game ... on principle. If you respect the lives of 99.99% of the people you meet and only kill one, you are still a murderer. If a Judge only throws one case on purpose, he is still corrupt. You must protect the principle of property rights or you advocate their destruction.

Why don't you state what principle you are working from when deciding these issues, I don't see it.

So the billionaire is not threatened at all? I suppose that means you could steal more from him then, how far are you willing to go: $2, $100, $250,000, $1 million, $10 million? How are you going to decide? To what principle will you appeal?

So you see in the first sentence you have destroyed the principle of property rights but then you want to some how invoke it in the second sentence? Why? I don't find anything "obvious" after that first sentence.

Why shouldn't I be allowed to steal the diabetic's last insulin shot? If it's his last one he doesn't have long to live anyway. What if I have two young daughters with less severe cases of diabetes and they can both survive for weeks on the same amount of insulin until I can find a wealthy diabetic to steal some more from. Surely you would allow me to take the insulin of a weak, dying, ugly old man to save my precious girls lives, right? I hope you see the absurdity of your statement.

I never said that I'd allow violation of property rights. Stealing is still immoral in any sense. My argument was about when and how you can use retaliatory force yourself. Just because you choose not to shoot the robber, it does not mean you lost your right of that property. It only means that you choose to let the government handle the retaliatory force.

I'm sure you acknowledge the need of the monopole of retaliatory force for the government with the single exception of emergencies, which I consider only to be a direct threat to your life and health. How can it be an emergency of someone steals a blank peace of paper and runs away unarmed?

If you consider that an emergency, then why is it not an emergency, when you are not around to stop the criminal? In most cases you still could go look for the criminal and shoot him and take back your property yourself. After all, according to your approach, every violation of property rights is a violation of your right to life and an emergency (?).

I gave the example of the insulin shot to illustrate that stealing can be a direct threat to your health and therefore can be a true emergency (without the need to threaten you with arms or physical force). IE if the unique healing-formula for a terminal illness that you suffer from, is written on the stolen paper, then it would be moral for you to shoot the robber. If it was blank, then it would be highly immoral to shoot.

Think about following situations and think about whether or not it is OK to shoot the initiator of force in each case, assuming that it always is your only option to stop him from initiating (further) force.

a) You argue with your girlfriend and she is about to slap you in her anger. You judge it is no threat to your life. You happen to have only one hand free, holding a gun.

B) A person that is unable to reason properly (mental illness, child) is about to do minor damage to your car (like a visible scratch)

c) A person is about to make an honest error resulting in damage to your property (IE somebody is about to execute a virus that will format your computer, that contains valuable information)

If you judge that any of these situations do not allow the shooting of the initiator, then the principle "Any initiation of force results in the loss of all your rights" does not hold true, but I don't think that is the real point of disagreement here.

I think it is about what situations are in fact emergencies, where I denied that every theft is an emergency that allows you to use lethal retaliatory force.

Edited by crizon
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Crizon,

So you can arbitrarily pluck extreme examples out of thin air to illustrate your argument, but others shouldn't be allowed to modify those examples to demonstrate the fallacy of your premise? Why do you get to be arbitrary but others don't? You see the problem here, don't you. You are cheating. You are demanding that we follow one set of rules in the argument but you can do anything you want. You shouldn't wonder why people have a problem with your posts.

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Crizon,

So you can arbitrarily pluck extreme examples out of thin air to illustrate your argument, but others shouldn't be allowed to modify those examples to demonstrate the fallacy of your premise? Why do you get to be arbitrary but others don't? You see the problem here, don't you. You are cheating. You are demanding that we follow one set of rules in the argument but you can do anything you want. You shouldn't wonder why people have a problem with your posts.

The Hitler example was out of line. Nobody should take any comparison to Hitler seriously unless there IS a REAL comparison, IE with Stalin, Pot Pol, et cetera.

Also, "Why does X person get to do bad thing but we don't?" speaks of childishness. If X WAS being arbitrary it is unnecessary for others to be equally arbitrary in order to disprove it. In fact, this works to the advantage of X if BOTH are being arbitrary. Think about it. Who is more foolish? The original fool, or the one who follows him/her? There is no cheating in debate other than silencing your opponent or falsifying perceptual data. Since he has done neither (as far as I know) there is no cheating involved. He may be acting belligerent but to say he is 'cheating' is conceding defeat.

Just my two cents: Even if someone rightfully uses force to defend their life, they should still have to go to a judge afterward to make their case because force is legitimately monopolized by government. Not because they are guilty, but because the government has a right to know when force has been used, no matter how and why it was used.

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Crizon,

So you can arbitrarily pluck extreme examples out of thin air to illustrate your argument, but others shouldn't be allowed to modify those examples to demonstrate the fallacy of your premise? Why do you get to be arbitrary but others don't? You see the problem here, don't you. You are cheating. You are demanding that we follow one set of rules in the argument but you can do anything you want. You shouldn't wonder why people have a problem with your posts.

A principle must also work in extreme situations, doesn't it?

Can you please tell me where my examples use false premises?

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Also, "Why does X person get to do bad thing but we don't?" speaks of childishness. If X WAS being arbitrary it is unnecessary for others to be equally arbitrary in order to disprove it. In fact, this works to the advantage of X if BOTH are being arbitrary. Think about it. Who is more foolish? The original fool, or the one who follows him/her? There is no cheating in debate other than silencing your opponent or falsifying perceptual data. Since he has done neither (as far as I know) there is no cheating involved. He may be acting belligerent but to say he is 'cheating' is conceding defeat.

Just my two cents: Even if someone rightfully uses force to defend their life, they should still have to go to a judge afterward to make their case because force is legitimately monopolized by government. Not because they are guilty, but because the government has a right to know when force has been used, no matter how and why it was used.

I was not really arguing for the right to be arbitrary (although, since it was poorly worded, I can see how that can be inferred), I was arguing against arbitrary examples and pointing out the contradication in his defense of his example but the refusal to accept another's variation of it.

If there is a just and rational government to go to, then I can see your point.

Principles must work in extreme cases, of course. But they must be REAL cases. If anyone can point to a single real life example where a little girl stole a man's wallet, ran away, was about to board a train and the man was only able to shoot accurately enough to kill her but not accomplish any other deterrance with his rifle, and the only options left to him were to kill her or loose the wallet forever, then I will withdraw my objection. Otherwise it is just arbitrary BS designed specifically to be un-assailable, rather than real. This is very much a "lifeboat" example.

Edited by wilicyote
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If you judge that any of these situations do not allow the shooting of the initiator, then the principle "Any initiation of force results in the loss of all your rights" does not hold true, but I don't think that is the real point of disagreement here.

I think it is about what situations are in fact emergencies, where I denied that every theft is an emergency that allows you to use lethal retaliatory force.

First of all the principle:"any initiation of force results in the loss of all your rights" has not been enumerated by me, nor anyone else as far as I can tell, so either find and quote someone saying it or please stop the mischaracterization.

And yes, we are talking about self-defense and emergency situations so your "situations" are absurd. We are not talking about a girlfriend slapping a boyfriend, or little girls at birthday parties, or girls so far away that you can't chase them down yet close enough to shoot?!?!?, in fact we aren't talking about 5 year old girls at all, and we aren't talking about someone taking a piece of paper. The fact that you are suggesting these situations seems dishonest to me since I told what I was talking about, remember:

I should think that most of the people here are imagining a situation at night, in your house, when some man, unknown to you, is breaking things and gathering booty.

I suggest you stick to this scenario with slight alterations if you want to have an intelligent discussion.

I'll tell you what I would do. If he is in my bedroom, I blast him without reserve. If he is downstairs, I call the police, grab the shotgun, turn on the light and yell that the police are on the way. If he is still downstairs when I get there, I shoot. If he takes one step toward me, I shoot. If he attempts to run away with my property in his kit bag, I shoot. If I tell him to lie on the floor and not move and he complies, I won't shoot him. If he attempts to get up and ignores my warnings to stay where he is, I shoot.

The fact that you don't think that someone who is willing to violate your rights is a threat to your life or health is incredible to me. But actually, I think you have dropped your original argument which was:

In my opinion you only should have the moral right to kill someone if he is a threat to your life or health. [...] if he does not pose a threat to you, you can't kill him no matter how valuable the thing is he is about to steal.

when you said:

I gave the example of the insulin shot to illustrate that stealing can be a direct threat to your health and therefore can be a true emergency (without the need to threaten you with arms or physical force).

So you now acknowledge that if a thing is valuable, you can kill the robber.

At least we got somewhere.

You need to realize that the situation where someone is in your house, at night, uninvited and stealing your things he is a direct threat to your life. He has already broken nearly every one of your rights. He has no qualms about violating your rights. You must proceed accordingly.

Also you should work-out and understand the principle that: "Without property rights, no other rights are possible." -- Ayn Rand, "Man's Rights", VOS

Here is a whole page on rights including the above quoted essay:

http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pag...n_rand_writings

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The Hitler example was out of line. Nobody should take any comparison to Hitler seriously unless there IS a REAL comparison, IE with Stalin, Pot Pol, et cetera.

The Hitler example was not out of line. I did not call him Hitler or compare him to Hitler or even compare his ideas to Hitler's ideas, please read what I said.

Crizon was trying to make the argument that all human life is valuable, intrinsically. The easiest way to cut down that argument is to mention Hitler's name.

Please be careful with unfounded accusations.

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If there is a just and rational government to go to, then I can see your point.

Principles must work in extreme cases, of course. But they must be REAL cases. If anyone can point to a single real life example where a little girl stole a man's wallet, ran away, was about to board a train and the man was only able to shoot accurately enough to kill her but not accomplish any other deterrance with his rifle, and the only options left to him were to kill her or loose the wallet forever, then I will withdraw my objection. Otherwise it is just arbitrary BS designed specifically to be un-assailable, rather than real. This is very much a "lifeboat" example.

Actually I don't see why examples must necessarily be real.

Does the answer to "Is it moral?" change when the situation is hypothetical? I actually think that using hypothetical scenarios is a very effective way to illustrate ones thoughts and I still fail to see why my example is un-assaiable.

I simply choose a situation where your health is not in direct danger and your only option to defend your property is to use lethal force.

First of all the principle:"any initiation of force results in the loss of all your rights" has not been enumerated by me, nor anyone else as far as I can tell, so either find and quote someone saying it or please stop the mischaracterization.

I didn't make it up, but I admit that I did interpret it:

Actually I thought that I understood the principle here, as L-C said: "When you initiate force, you forfeit your rights"

In my opinion that is not practicable if you mean "any initiation of force results in the loss of all your right (including the right to live)"

[...]

So I think a proper, practical formulation should be "A certain initiation of force results in the loss of certain rights"

And yes, we are talking about self-defense and emergency situations so your "situations" are absurd. We are not talking about a girlfriend slapping a boyfriend, or little girls at birthday parties, or girls so far away that you can't chase them down yet close enough to shoot?!?!?, in fact we aren't talking about 5 year old girls at all, and we aren't talking about someone taking a piece of paper. The fact that you are suggesting these situations seems dishonest to me since I told what I was talking about, remember:

Ok, I'll try to express my line of thought there. I do agree with the morality of property rights in any way, but I also think, like Rand, that one has to give up retaliatory force to the government to secure that the rule of law is established properly (I'm not sure exactly how she formulated it).

I also think that there must be exceptions in emergency situations and if you can use lethal force to defend your property then it must qualify as an emergency. The explanation why it is ok to do that seemed to me, that a violation of your property rights is a threat to your life, because you need property to sustain your life.

Then I tried to explore if this holds true for any violation of property rights and I formulated the example with the wallet-theft.

I did not get a clear answer, if it is moral or immoral to shoot or not in this example, because people did not accept my example and sadly I still don't understand why :dough: (honestly)

I suggest you stick to this scenario with slight alterations if you want to have an intelligent discussion.

I'll tell you what I would do. If he is in my bedroom, I blast him without reserve. If he is downstairs, I call the police, grab the shotgun, turn on the light and yell that the police are on the way. If he is still downstairs when I get there, I shoot. If he takes one step toward me, I shoot. If he attempts to run away with my property in his kit bag, I shoot. If I tell him to lie on the floor and not move and he complies, I won't shoot him. If he attempts to get up and ignores my warnings to stay where he is, I shoot.

If you judge that a guy breaking into your house at night is a credible threat to your life, then it is moral for you to use lethal force and I think that judgment is reasonable.

The fact that you don't think that someone who is willing to violate your rights is a threat to your life or health is incredible to me. But actually, I think you have dropped your original argument which was:

So you now acknowledge that if a thing is valuable, you can kill the robber.

At least we got somewhere.

Sure I don't think that any violation of my property rights is a threat to my life. Some violations may be (like the last insulin shot), but if I'd own a food store and somebody stole an apple I would not consider it a threat to my life.

The first quote wasn't accurate, I admit.

You need to realize that the situation where someone is in your house, at night, uninvited and stealing your things he is a direct threat to your life. He has already broken nearly every one of your rights. He has no qualms about violating your rights. You must proceed accordingly.

Also you should work-out and understand the principle that: "Without property rights, no other rights are possible." -- Ayn Rand, "Man's Rights", VOS

Here is a whole page on rights including the above quoted essay:

http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pag...n_rand_writings

I never said that you have to give up your property rights at any point. If someone tried to take my right to property (IE a government passing a law that would "legally" socialize my property) then I would consider it a threat to my life.

A robber does not take your right to property. It is not legally his just because he took it and the retaliatory force of the government will enforce your right to this property.

As I said, my disagreement is about when it is moral to use retaliatory force (specifically lethal force) yourself and I don't think theft itself qualifies for that.

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As I said, my disagreement is about when it is moral to use retaliatory force (specifically lethal force) yourself and I don't think theft itself qualifies for that.

I am having a hard time following you because you change contexts while using the same examples. You need to be much more explicit in your formulations.

For instance you use the idea of "retaliatory force" here when I specifically said I was talking about self-defense.

Retaliation is a function confined solely to the government. (Search for threads on the subject, I explicitly defend this position). The word implies a kind of "after the fact" sense.

"Self-defense" implies "immediate danger" when action must be taken at that moment (at least in the situations we are talking about).

So in the context of what I was talking about and indeed what you say earlier in your last post, the quote above contradicts what you have already acknowledged. You agree that lethal force may be used when someone is stealing your insulin.

A word on concrete examples: you are not going to get an answer to absurd, unrealistic examples used to refute a point of view that no one has stated or holds. I will not defend a position that I do not hold. This would quickly devolve into questions of whether it is immoral to say gesundheit when someone sneezes.

A better way is to quote something someone has actually said and state why you disagree with it and then enumerate a new principle with which you do agree. Quoting Ayn Rand is especially helpful when discussing Objectivism.

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Well for me retaliatory force includes self-defense, but if this is a wrong definition, then I'm sorry and I can understand why my statements seem hard to understand.

I think we don't have such a big difference in opinion after all. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think we just disagree about whether or not property must be (highly) valuable or life-dependent for you to use lethal force in oder to defend it.

By life-dependent I mean the concrete situation, where the theft of the property will directly cause harm to your health or your death.

I don't think see how you can draw a appropriate line, when you use value in property in order to decide if lethal force may be used or not. When is something valuable enough to use lethal force and when not? Is it a car, a TV or is a wallet enough?

If you don't use value as a criteria at all and state that any violation of property rights permits lethal force, then you are again in a world of trouble to justify lethal force as a result of the smallest property violations.

Now I don't know if you agree with the criteria of value here, but I think the only proper criteria is your health and life.

I know I'm putting the card before the donkey here, but Ayn Rand said in a quote I read recently (sadly can't find it.. it was in some sort of interview) that one ought to think about the consequences, when talking about a principle, specifically the consequences for yourself. I'm not really sure if this can be applied here though.

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Well for me retaliatory force includes self-defense, but if this is a wrong definition, then I'm sorry and I can understand why my statements seem hard to understand.

Yes, that's wrong. Force can be:

1. Initiatory (crime)

2. Defensive (permitted to private individuals)

3. Retaliatory (e.g. police raid)

4. Pre-emptive (e.g. nuke terrorist states before they can attack)

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I think we don't have such a big difference in opinion after all.

Well, I don't know for sure but I suspect we have a huge difference of opinion, otherwise this wouldn't have taken so long.

More importantly, and I hope you will excuse me for saying, I'm not really interested in your opinion. I don't say that to be mean, it just isn't my main purpose here. I'm more interested in communicating about Objectivism. I strive to understand Ayn Rand's proof of her philosophy. This is why I asked you to state explicitly from which principles you operate, you still haven't done so, I hope you will, it would make these conversations much more fruitful.

If you don't use value as a criteria at all and state that any violation of property rights permits lethal force, then you are again in a world of trouble to justify lethal force as a result of the smallest property violations.

Again, this is your formulation not mine and frankly, I don't like it: "any violation of property rights permits lethal force", it puts the onus on me when I am not the one who initiated force. NO ONE HAS THE RIGHT TO INITIATE FORCE AGAINST ME. If a robber comes in my house and tries to steal my property and I am around, I have the right to stop him. The amount of force I use is completely up to him. Violating my rights is an initiation of force. If he doesn't want me to use any force then he should not initiate its use. If I confront him in my house, he should surrender immediately, especially if he sees a gun.

All of my values are arranged in a hierarchy with my life at the very top and that helps me make a lot of decisions. If someone threatens those values then I will respond in kind. A little girl is not a threat to me. A person who grabs a blank piece of paper and runs down the street is not a threat to me. A masked man, uninvited in my house at night is a threat to my life whether he is actually stealing anything or not.

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