Vladimir Berkov

If you mean the part about sovereignty vs. ownership, I answered that question much earlier in this thread. In short, sovereignty is not ownership but sovereignty + lack of private ownership = government control. Again, you seem to be ignoring the practical concerns and addressing only theoretical possibilities. For instance, if we were talking about fishing in an American inland lake, I would agree that selling fishing rights is the way to go. The complications in the matter at hand, however is that it is NOT possible to create fishing rights areas which are sufficiently large because of both practical, legal and diplomatic concerns. They most certainly do concern us as the matter in question is occuring almost entirely as the result of international action at the borders and limits of national sovereignty. To dismiss international concerns is simply foolish, considering the problem is at its root an international one.

The fact that the government could try to sell fishing rights in a certain territory doesn't solve the problem for the reasons I explained in detail much earlier in this thread. For the selling of fishing rights to work, the rights would have to be sold for areas which contain discrete fish populations. It is very difficult if not impossible for this to happen. For one thing, it is ridiculously hard to predict exactly where in the ocean the fish will be at any given time. For the other, the area the fish populations exist in can span national boundaries, governmental vs. non-governmental waters, etc. Comparing fishing rights to broadcasting is like comparing apples to oranges. Broadcasting rights are easy to deliniate, once you buy the rights to a certain frequency you know you will able to broadcast on it over a certain area. All the territory covered by the broadcasting rights is within the jurisdiction of the United States. Too, there is no problem with neighboring stations "stealing" your broadcasting rights as by nature, stations operate at discrete frequencies. The fishing issue is much more analagous to the problem of broadcasting rights at national borders. For example, if a station gets a license from the U.S. government to operate at 91.7 FM they get to prevent other stations in the U.S. from interfering with that frequency with a competing or jamming broadcast. However, there is nothing to prevent a Mexican station right across the border from operating at 91.7 because they are out of the jurisdiction of the U.S. government and court system. At best, you have to hope for some international agreement between the countries and experience shows this is much, much, much harder than protecting rights via a domestic court system.

Because of the fact that the ocean in question is under the sovereignty of the government, yet is not and cannot be private property.

This is a false alternative. It is akin to saying that in the matter of national defense, it would be better to rely on "human ingenuity and initiative" than on the government. Government action does not preclude human ingenuity, the only real issue is whether this sphere of action is proper for government oversight. And Objectivists certainly recognize at least SOME spheres of action proper for government, such as courts, defense, the legislature, etc. Well, if nothing is done certainly the harm will result. The US generally does a decent job of enforcing the laws in other areas, so I see no reason why fishing should be any different. And again, what I am advocating is largely the status quo. The current system does seem to work. It would be their right if it was their property. But again, the ocean "property" we are talking about isn't property in the strict legal sense. It is a region of government control where no fee simple private property rights can ever exist. If there was no risk of extreme harm, I would agree with you. This is why I don't agree with the idea of endangered species on private property. Context is everything. The context we have here is of a government-controlled resource, unable to be turned into private property, which if not protected will be destroyed with grave consequences. My solution of government oversight applies ONLY to such situations. It is not a blank check for government action in the entire economic sphere. As I said before, this isn't an issue of individual rights. It is about use of a government-controlled resource. It would only be an issue of individual rights if it were a privately-owned resource, and I think the argument so far proves that the potential for it being privately-owned will occur, if ever, in the future once wierd new technology is invented. In the here-and-now, it is impossible to turn into a private property resource.

Positing the future existance of weird hypothetical technology such as self-contained air domes or physical walls in the ocean is not a solution to the problem at hand. It is clear that our ability to damage or destroy the resources in question exists today. Any wierd hypothetical future technological solution is irrelevant to the current problem because it is entirely possible that the resource could be entirely destroyed before the technological "fix" even exists. This is absurdly false. Ocean fisherman have proven time and again that without oversight, they will fish species into dangerously low levels and possible extinction. Atlantic Cod fishing is a perfect example, although I am sure there are many others. http://www.ices.dk/marineworld/recoveryplans.asp If you think letting the oceans (or the air, waterways, etc) to be destroyed is an acceptable outcome then there really is nothing further we can discuss. This is why I think the current system is largely heading in the right direction. For example, the government could just say "Each fisherman can fish X tons of fish each year." This would say that each fishermen essentially has a "right" to a number of fish. But what the fisherman has is not a right TO the fish but the right to try to catch fish. Thus the system where there is an open season, where fisherman are free to catch as many fish as they want as quickly as they can, (until the overall total number among all fisherman is reached) is a better system. Each fisherman has the right to try to catch as many as he can, and the most fish will go to the most efficient, most able and best fisherman. The fat, dumb and lazy fisherman will get little or nothing.

Ggdwill, I think the issue you have come across is somewhat different. The idea of "common property" as you have described is more of the idea of communal property, which indeed does have the negative implications you described. A situation in which everyone owns the air and nobody owns the air is untenable. The situation regarding the fish is different. It isn't an example of communal ownership but rather of government oversight, which need not create a private right of remedy. For example, government control over pollution of the air need not be based on the irrational whim of individual air-breathers. It is based on the reason of educated scientists, economists, etc. Individuals still do not own "air" as such, and thus have no rights which have a legal remedy. For instance, if the government decides 0.01% pollution is acceptable you can't sue the government because if your air has 0.001% pollution or even 1% pollution. It is perfectly reasonable to have government control without people's irrational whims having to be taken into account. For instance, can a person sue the government because of his irrational whim that the B2 bomber should be painted pink? Or that he thinks the Lincoln Memorial should have a statue of Jeff Davis instead?

I have no problem at all with Rand's proposal for how to distribute ownership of the airwaves, but her idea is irrevelant to this ocean fishing problem because the oceans and the fish, unlike the airwaves, cannot easily be divided and sold to private parties. There is no way that the oceans surrounding a nation can ever become "real" property in the same sense that land property can be. A nation simply cannot allow an individual to own a segment of its offshore waters to the extent that it can bar others from trespassing. Thus the only possible way that it can divide the ocean is by selling rights (fishing, mineral, etc) to a certain segment to the highest bidder. With mineral rights, this is a perfect solution. Mineral rights exist in one place, once you own the rights to a certain mineral deposit you can be assured that they won't disappear or move to a neighbor's area where you will be unable to extract them. With fishing, the problem is that as Dismuke said, wildlife can be transient. That is why strictly geographic division of rights (IE a fisherman can fish all he wants within a certain area) won't work. Fish populations will likely straddle property-rights division lines. The same problem with overfishing you would have with no government system would still occur, as fishermen would fish all they could when they did find fish on their property because if they did not, in all likelyhood the fish would end up somewhere else and someone else will catch them anyway. With fish, the additional problem is that most of the time nobody is really sure where the fish are in the first place. That is one of the challenges of fishing. Estimates of fish populations, locations and seasonal movements are just that, estimates. And they can change from year to year, or even day to day. There is no possible way that the government can auction off property rights in something so nebulous. I understand this is your position, the problem is that you have been unable to show me any concrete way the government can ever establish ownership of ocean fish as private property. If you can figure out some way, I would be glad to hear it. I can't think of any. I think it is just hard for Objectivists to accept that there are some things which by their nature, are difficult if not impossible to be owned as private property and must be held in stewardship by the government in some manner. The general rule should certainly be private property ownership, but where private property ownership is impossible, that is where there may be a need for government action.

I think you are confusing two issues. The issue is not whether government should protect some individual industry from competition/destruction (which I agree is not a valid purpose of government) but whether a government should exercise control over resources which cannot be owned as private property yet are important, perhaps even essential for human survival. I don't think you would dispute the inability of any private entity to "own" the fish or ocean territories we are talking about here. Thus we are left with the fact that there is a valuable, useful commodity which exists in the wild without a rightful owner, but with many people who wish to exploit it. Nor do I think you would dispute the result of such a combination absent some government intervention. Private fisherman would have little personal incentive to conserve the fish in the ocean. Not only is there a "tragedy of the commons" situation here but there is also a "prisoner's dillema." The most likely result is fish species being fished into uselessness or even extinction. And once they are gone it is uncertain if they could ever return. Nor do I think you would dispute the valid claim a government has as to sovereignty over areas of ocean surrounding its borders. Since there can be no private property ownership, you have sovereignty without countervailing private property interests. Therefore there exists only a governmental interest in the region in question. The government can then, state how such a resource in its control may be used. It might state that no fishing is allowed at all. The government is not mandated to allow private enterprise to exploit government-owned regions for private gain. Therefore the only remaining question is what the government WISHES to be done with the region. The only equitable solution, I think, is for the government to act as the surrogate private-property owner for the region. That is, to find some way to act as a proxy such that the resource can be exploited by private enterprise for the benefit of the nation but nevertheless controlled as to simulate the instinct towards preservation a real private property owner would feel towards his valuable resource. Fish farms cause a whole new range of problems, considering they usually exist on coasts or streams which are not private property, plus many fish cannot be farmed, other fish are inferior or even unhealthy if farmed, etc. I think it is foolish to state that the existance of consumable species in the oceans is unimportant.

No, what I am saying is that the fish as they exist in the ocean CAN'T be property by definition. An individual, corporation or even government can't "own" the fish not because of some legal statute but because of sheer impracticality. Thus there are really only two options. Either the government exercises no control over the fishing and the fish get fished to extinction and the fishing industry dies, OR the government exercises some control over the fishing which allows the fish populations to survive and the fishing industry to exist. Perhaps it is conceivable that the fish in the ocean could become ownable as private property, but it would essentially require a complete restructuring of maritime law, ocean boundaries, international treaties and the like to where oceans, as non-governmental space would cease to exist and all ocean would be governed by some country to where individual tracts of ocean could be dividied and owned by individuals or corporations. I wouldn't bet on something like that happening anytime soon, or ever.

And when properly constructed, that is just what the sort of laws at issue do. It prevents one fisherman/company/nation from destroying the ability of all fisherman to fish. There might be quotas for each fisherman, limited "seasons" in which the fish may be caught, etc. The goal, which I don't think anybody really disputes, is not to protect the toothfish as such but to protect the livelyhoods of the fishermen who fish the toothfish by preventing the resource from being destroyed.

I think Odden's straight "no" answer is incomplete. There shouldn't be laws protecting endangered species vis a vis private property. For example, a law that forbids you killing a certain variety of bird found on your property. There is however, a legitimate reason for governments to make laws restricting access to natural resources which ARE NOT on private property. The oceans surrounding Australia are not private property, nor are the fish caught there private property UNTIL they are caught. The Australian government has to act as a surrogate property owner to protect the fish populations and to prevent them from being overfished to extinction. Normally, there is no worry about a private resource being dangerously destroyed because it is against the interest of a property owner to destroy his own property. But in the case of non-private natural resources, there is no such inhibition and the "tradegy of the commons" usually results. This is where the government can legitimately step in and protect the species.

Being the "but for" cause of someone's death doesn't alone mean someone is culpable or responsible in a legal or moral sense however. For example, imagine a person who picks up what he thinks is a toy gun, points it at a man and pulls the trigger, only unknown to him it is actually a real gun and the man is killed. The person is certainly the "but for" cause of the man's death. In a real sense he killed the man. But it would be strange to say that he is culpable or responsible for the man's death. This is why the criminal justice system is so focused on intent, rather than simple "but for" causation. You need intent PLUS causation to be culpable in most cases, and these requirements are found in the definition of the crime. For instance, the crime of murder might require "knowingly, intentionally or willfully causing the death of a person." If you didn't have knowledge/intent of your actions, even if a person was killed, by definition you didn't commit the crime of murder.

I find it strange that a psychoanalyst would call the legal "insanity defense" a technicality. You would think that a phychoanalysts, more than most people, would understand the need for there to be an insanity defense in the legal system. Whether people think the jury came to the wrong conclusion based on the facts or not, that doesn't diminish the importance of the system or the way the law is set up. You might as well just call the fact that she was found not guilty based on the "technicality" of her being tried by a jury and not by a judge.

Then what about shot towers? There isn't much use for a piece of shot which is shaped like the illustration you posted. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shot_tower Also, a cursory search of the internet yeilded the following info stating raindrops are not teardrop-shaped: http://ga.water.usgs.gov/edu/raindropshape.html

I thought drops of liquid were spherical? I know that lead shot is made by dropping the lead in liquid form from a height sufficient for it to attain terminal velocity, and by the time it reaches the bottom it has cooled into a spherical shape.

Kendall, I am going to try to respond to all your points in one big chunk rather than fragment this conversation with quotes, let me know if I miss something. First, your comparison between my examples of military acts and criminal acts undertaken within a nation itself is faulty. Military matters cannot directly be compared to the ethics of civilian criminal matters. In criminal law, BOTH parties know from before the act occur that they are bound by the same law and that a neutral third party (judge or jury) will judge their actions objectively on whether or not they conform to the law. Neither party judges the other nor does either create the law. In the military matters we have been discussing there is no such third party, and in fact you explicitly stated how you think the very idea of a neutral judge is a bad one. In military matters there is no law which binds both parties, instead each party has its own law which it gets to impose on the loser ex poste facto. Even beyond that, the idea that because there is proportionality in civilian punishments there is a difference in morality in military acts doesn't logically follow. It is perfectly possible that some civilian penal system imposes the same punishment for all crimes regardless of severity. You still have to show how there is a difference in culpability or morally in the two acts of the Japanese pilots. The essence of my problem with your position is that it seems to require neutral, well-informed objectivity on the part of all combatants down to the lowliest private soldier. What your position requires is for a soldier to be able to judge the "justness" of the underlying conflict, understand the military law of his enemy, weigh the relative strength of his side versus the enemy's and come to the reasonable conclusion on whether his side is just and thus he can morally do whatever he wants, or that his side is unjust and that he should immediately desert or at minimum refuse to follow any orders which violate the military law of his enemy. I think such a position is vastly over-optimistic. For one thing, in war there is no clear-cut way to even determine which country is the defender and which the aggressor. It isn't necessarily the nation which first resorts to military force, as you can be the defender and yet use preemptive strikes against the enemy. Nor is it necessarily the nation which has the most free government. To complicate matters, all governments claim some form of self-defense or self-interest when going to war, even if such a claim is fraudulent or shaky. And all governments use propaganda both to confuse the enemy as well as reinforce support for the war at home. How can you expect a soldier to sift through all the various layers of diplomacy, politics, propaganda to arrive at the one correct conclusion as to the morality of his nation's war? Most soldiers don't fight because they think they are an aggressor nation, they fight because they think the war is justified and in their country's self-interest or self-defense. The truly perverse element of your argument is that you put the ultimate burden on the individual soldiers to determine the morality of both their personal actions and the actions of their government, yet the very structure of any good military works to PREVENT individual soldiers from making such determinations. Soldiers are not supposed to figure out the politics and justice of a war on the grand scale. They are trained to think at a very small scale and to follow the orders of their superiors under threat of harsh punishment or death. The entire military machine works to keep soldiers from deciding for themselves what actions are moral and what are not. They only need to know what actions their side allows and what are punished. To expect a soldier to refuse to follow the orders of his superior on the grounds that the order violates the military law of the enemy is just too much.

Yes, I noticed the shoes too, they don't quite work. What would look good is brown leather calf-length riding-style boots, or else brown low-boots with calf-length leather leggings.

I like motorcycling attire too, although my tastes in it may differ...

Do you have any support for this assertion? What exactly is the moral difference between the Japanese pilots? I cannot be something about their actions, as you see both American pilots as being moral even though they did the same acts. But does this really solve the problem I stated earlier? Countries generally do not go to war expecting to lose, and they already assume that losing the war will have terrible consequences. Simply stating at the beginning of the conflict that if your country wins you get to try the losers by your rules only adds to the enemy's overall fear of losing. This almost certainly will lead to the opposite effect than the one intended, leading to more atrocities and more brutality. I will try to use an example. Let's say America states it will try the Japanese by American laws in 1941 when the war started. In 1941, the Japanese think they can win the war, they aren't enormously worried about losing and hence they are not worried about facing American war-crimes tribunals. Since you have stated that America by definition can't commit war crimes, there is nothing stopping America from fire-bombing Japanese civilians whenever they wish. The Japanese, in turn have to choose whether to respond in-kind and target American civilians and thus be open to war-crimes tribunals if they lose, or else refrain from targeting civilians and be more likely to lose the war. History shows that nations will be brutal and commit atrocities if they think it will be to their military advantage, regardless of potential post-war legal consequences if they lose. This is particularly true of aggressor nations who will likely face severe post-war sanctions regardless of whether they commit war-crimes or not. It is only once a nation realizes that the war is lost that they will be cautious of potential post-war liability, and by this time this caution is far too late as the vast majority of atrocities have already been committed. Nazi Germany is an excellent example of this. Too, because stating that you will impose your military law on a losing enemy makes the enemy losing the war that much more dangerous and catastrophic, it is likely to strengthen their will to fight. Again, Germany is an excellent example. The Germans fought heroically on the Eastern Front even when pushed back to the streets of Berlin because they so feared losing or surrendering to the Soviets who they knew would exact harsh vengeance on their military and civilian population alike. You cite Sherman as an example of your theory working in practice, yet I think it shows the opposite. The civilians frightened into submission by Sherman were essentially already defeated, they had no real way to militarily oppose the Federal troops. At such a point, a threat from the opposing side carries great weight because the choice is essentially "surrender or die," where surrender is the better of the two options. The calculus clearly favors surrender because it entails almost no risk. To a country which still has real military capacity in which the members of the military face harsh punishment if they surrender, the calculus gets tipped in the other direction. They might as well simply fight because if they surrender they will be treated harshly for certain, but in continuing to fight they have at least the possibility of success. In fact, in such a situation they might be spurred on to even more desperate, brutal tactics in a last-ditch attempt to gain victory or at least kill those they think are their enemies. Look at how the killing at concentration camps was stepped up as the Soviets drew closer and it looked more and more likely that the camps would be overrun.

I am not sure I would call the shooting unjustifiable, but I would question whether the shooting was necessary. From what I can tell, the suspect starts moving away from the officer on the right with the gun in his hand (this is when the two are basically touching each other) and the officer draws down on the suspect but doesn't shoot. The suspect starts increasing the distance between him and both officers, and then waves his gun in the direction of the officer on the left, at which point the officer on the right starts unloading on the suspect until he is down. The only question I have is why the officer on the right didn't try tackling or using other physical means against the suspect when he was so close to him, and saw that he had a gun and was a real threat? It seems that the officer could have tackled the suspect and thus prevented the shooting, because at that time it seemed as though the officer didn't think the mere fact the suspect was armed was immediate reason to shoot. A big missing piece of information is the sound, however. What the suspect and the officers said at the time could have a big impact on whether the shooting was justifiable and what changed the officer's opinion on the danger-level of the suspect from the start of the video to the moment the officer decided to pull the trigger.

Thank you for responding to my question. So are you saying that there is a way to differentiate between the immorality of different military strategies of aggressor nations although the same cannot be done for defending nations? In my examples above, do you see any difference in morality between the two American pilots? Do you see any between the two Japanese pilots? Since you stated that a defending nation can't commit war crimes by definition, I can only assume you see no moral difference between the two American pilots, but I am unclear on your position on the Japanese pilots. If you hold there is a difference in the morality (and thus potential culpability) of the Japanese pilots, I would like to know how you think a defending nation could ever ethically prosecute the aggressor for war crimes. It would seem there would be no requisite mens rea on the part of the aggressor soldier to commit a war crime. The aggressor soldier would think he is fighting a just war, and using an allowable military tactic at the time he commited the offense. Any realization of the culpability of his action will only occur if and when his country loses the war and he is brought before a court comprised only of the victors. It would seem that the only way you can have prosecutions for war crimes is if there is some agreed-upon standard of military ethics BEFORE any conflict arises. For instance, if American and Japan had signed an international treaty forbidding summary execution of prisoners before the war, it would make sense to punish Japanese soldiers who broke this treaty on the grounds that they knew they were committing a punishable offense at the time. But if no such treaty exists, the only scheme of military ethics the Japanese soldier has to go by is that of the Japanese Army which might very well tell him that executing prisoners is encouraged.

But the idea that jeans are "honest" clothing is exactly what attracted 50s and especially 60s "counter-culture" types to them. Previous rules of proper attire dictated that jeans were only worn by working-class men. Starting really in the 50s it started to become "cool" for people who were not working-class and who didn't need to wear jeans to wear them. Part of this is certainly due to the influence of the cowboy theme in the post-war era, I agree. Jeans in the 60s particularly were a statement by young people, again, people who were not workmen or largely even working-class, that they were rebelling against the establishment, and the "suits" and instead were going to substitute a more egalitarian and democratic fashion, drawn on the lower class in the same way that the era idolized folk music and folk art. The problem today is that the generation which wore jeans as a statement of their reaction to the establishment now IS the establishment. It is their children and grand-children who are wearing jeans today. Nobody wearing jeans today is wearing them as a protest against injustice or for democratic or egalitarian values. People today largely wear jeans simply because they grew up wearing them, their parents wore them, their friends wear them, celebrities wear them, and they are sold and seen in every possible store. This is why you see the proliferation of so many different styles, cuts, demin fabrics, distressing, embossing, painting, ripping, acid-washing, shredding and plain destruction of jeans. It isn't cool JUST to wear jeans as it was in the 50s or 60s. Today, you have to be wearing the right brand and style of jeans. Essentially you wear the jeans of the group you want to identify with. And because of this, jeans are no longer "honest" workwear. They are simply another status-symbol for label-concious consumers eager to impress people with the fact that they paid $285 for a pair of jeans which cost $2.85 to produce in China.

Obviously we have a vastly different conception of what "style" is, because to me the man in the picture you posted looks like a total slob. In fact, I think there is something wrong with every single article in his wardrobe. Not only is the shirt untucked, but the collar is open while wearing a tie. Not only that but the shirt looks like it isn't quite the right size as it is completely pulled apart at the waist. You then of course have the tie-with-jeans problem. Really the only thing that keeps me from saying the guy is some random homeless bum of the streets is that the clothes all look reasonably clean...

A boater hat is a type of straw hat as illustrated below. No, I don't wear undershirts. White duck trousers are basically white cotton "khakis" only in a white color and cuffed. Cotton does shrink, yes, but manufacturers allow for it in the sizing. Too, since I am in West Texas, it is so dry that 100+ degree heat is not as big a deal as it is in other places. The main thing is the sun, not the heat. True, people pay large sums for "designer" jeans, which I find amusing more than anything else. At bottom though, jeans were and still are unacceptable as anything but casual pants or workwear. People in the 70s tried to get them to be accepted as business or dress clothing but they failed. I would say that the widespread appeal of jeans is largely based on 60s principles of nihilism, egalitarianism and prolitarianism. The ironic thing is that while jeans are based on such ideals, their mass appeal has led the well-healed to have to buy ever more expensive brands of jeans in an attempt to differentiate themselves from the truly proletariate who can only afford off-brand jeans at Wal-Mart. "Tie-and-jeans" is a sartorial oxymoron. Ties are a symbol of formality, whereas jeans are a symbol of informality. Thus wearing a tie with jeans is either signaling your contempt for the tie, your ignorance, or your attempt to be "unique" by wearing mismatched articles of clothing in an "ironic" fashion. Any of these signals is likely not one you should wish to send.

I am not saying that the judge wouldn't desire being free if he were convicted of a crime, I am saying that it would be even more desireable for him to want to be treated in a reasonable, fair and just manner. This is akin to the objectivist principle that there are no disagreements between rational men. A rational man who has committed murder cannot wish to be set free without serving a sentence. By inherently contextual I mean that the Golden Rule doesn't supply a context for when it should be applied. It assumes that the "user" will just apply it in whatever context he finds himself in.