Dormin111

I'm not sure if this is a national story, but I live in the affected area and have been hearing a lot about it. http://www.myfoxny.com/story/20498376/putnam-county-refuses-to-release-pistol-permit-data The Story - The Journal News newspaper used FOMA's (Freedom of Information Act requests) to obtain public data on the private addresses of hand gun permit holders in Westchester and Rockland Counties in New York state and publish them in the form of an interactive map. All hand gun permit owners have to give their addresses to a public registry. The map was published in the wake of the Newtown School shooting, likely to intimidate and direct some form of hatred towards local gun owners. The Journal News has also FOMA'ed the same information from Putnam County, but an official in the town has filed a something (not sure if its a law suit, petition, or injunction of some sort) to stop the information from going out. He claims that releasing the information will endanger Putnam County residents. Opponents say the information is public domain and it is technically public information which anyone with a FOMA can access. Does the Putnam County Official has the right to block the request? Does the public have the right to know who does and doesn't possess guns? Is publishing private addresses in a newspaper an invasion of private property?

I believe another poster on this site referenced Rand voting for Nixon over McGovern even though she abohred Nixon.

I have heard determinists respond with, "but I was predetermined to question my beliefs and believe they are true."

I'm pretty sure the use of "savage" is rhetorical here since Galt/Rand is targeting postmodernists. She is suggesting that the postmodern rejection of basic axioms for scepticism is on the same intellectual level of the pre-modern rejection of reason for superstition.

That was not my intention. Fair enough. The issue we have been circling and the one I do not think you have adequately addressed is the difference between force and other products. You breifly stated that force should not be treated differently than any other product, but I do not see how this can be true for reasons I have alredy stated and I am sure you are aware of. When shoe companies compete, they try to provide a better service to their customers than their competitors within a legal framework. An ordinary company has little incentive to operate outside the confines of objective law given the potential for legal backlash. This is not the case with theorietical defense agencies which may very well depend upon criminal activity to sustain itself. I suppose the immidiate retort would be to point out that the same thing can be said about the government; however a minority will not sway a proper government to abuse rights, any number of well funded people can buy the services of, or start an insurance agency. The incentive of a company is to pursue profit. This is normally not a problem. The incentives of governments are generally not as angelic as civic text books like to say, but at least there is a general sense of what a government should, or should not do.

ppw, I thought the very same thing when I first saw the trailer. I think the message laid out there was not put well. In the movie it is not presented as: "Each and everyone of us live in a deterministic world where we are bound by distant forces we can't control." but rather as: "Each and everyone of us has the power and efficacy to make such an impact on this world that the effects of our actions will be felt throughout time." I think it is a profoundly benevolent view of the world.

Has anyone else seen it? Cloud Atlas is my pick for movie of the year. Beautiful film making, a gorgeous score, and best of all, supremely benevolent philosophical premises. It is a big movie with a lot of ideas, and I'm wondering what others thought of it.

The issue would be brought before your security firm and your neighbor's. Some sort of arbitration would occur and a decision about your fate would be made. However, what decision is made is largely predicated upon the power of each firm in terms of military might. My concern is that essentially the stronger of the two firms could enforce their own decision regardless of the what actually should occur according to objective standards. If you simply refuse to comply, then presumably yourn neighbor's security firm will want to arrest you. Whether or not the firm can will depend upon its evaluation of how your firm will react. A gun fight in the street is possible, though expensive and not an attractive option. Rather, one firm would probably just stare down the other.

I need something a little more than that. I still don't really get what you are advocating. Ok, you want a market for law, but what does that mean in concrete terms? Do you want to set up your own private security firm (or someone else to set it up for you) and not be stopped by the state from doing so? And if so, how would you treat competitors and what rights do they have in yourn mind? And furthermore, what are rights? Maybe I'm not seeing it, but to me you keep falling back on the "sim-city" arguments where you envision anarchy just springing out of nowhere and providing just law (for the most part). Perhaps there isn't even that much of a difference between what you and I are saying. I see no problem with secession as long as the new government is equally or better suited to protecting individual rights. Edit: Upon further thought, I think the entire definitions of anarchy and government should revolve around the question of rights. Do non-objective force wielders have the right conduct their own form of justice? If your answer is no, then surely you would support a just force user's right to destroy the unjust force users. In which case, there is no anarchy, because the legal system is united. Even if their are multiple organizations providing the justice, their cooperation and common idelogy put them on the same level as friendly countries. The only difference would be the existence of some form of profit motive since presumably these organizations would be private enterprises and not charities. My only concern there is that the profit motive is not necesarily (and in fact almost never) aligned with objective justice. Under such circumstances, we would return to the same issue with legal systems clashing. My question to you is what proof do you have that this would lead to objective law? You have mentioned incentives, but can you clarify?

Before I give a full response, can you give me your definition of anarchy?

I will try to redefine the parameters of my argument. It is very important to clarify what someone means when he says "I support anarchy" or "I support minarchy." As you have implied, this does not mean that I would rather live in a 1984 dictatorship instead of an anarchist society of Rothbardians, nor would you rather live in Somalia than a state based on the principles of the American Founding Fathers. But when we voice support for anarchy or minarchy, it must also be recognized that we should not be speaking in the some sort of "sim-city"-esque sense of divinely reordering society. Rather, all we can do is attempt to make institutional change within our own limits and except the consequences of said changes. (Bear with me, this is going somewhere.) I support the establishment of a proper government by Objectivist definitions with a representative republic and voluntary funding. Implied in this support, is a belief in objective law and justice. There is a morally correct way to use force and a virtually infinite number of incorrect ways. As far as I am concerned, the enforcement of proper justice is the only concept for which it is proper to use violence agianst another individual to achieve an end. I do not recognize the validity of any government, gang, private security firm, etc, which does not abide by objective law. Of course it must be noted, that amongst such violators, there is a sliding scale of illegitimacy. To say, "I support anarchy," is the same as saying, "I support the rights of individuals to engage in acts of non-objective justice," or at the very least, "I recognize the rights of such individuals to "compete" with objective lawmen on the open market." You have tried to evade this issue by relying on "incentive" arguments which all rely on the previously mentioned "sim-city" view of society. But this argument must be brought into concrete form: Let us say that you are the CEO of a private defense firm in an anarchist society who enforces objective law (or if you disagree with that term, then you enforce the non-aggression principle). Now another firm enters your local market place and attempts to introduce Sharia law (random example of a legal system we can all agree is immoral) onto the population. Does this new firm have a right to "compete" with your firm? Does it have a right to enforce Sharia law onto your firm's customers or individuals without protection? If your answer to those two questions is "no," then I fail to see the difference between your version of a "private security firm" and a "government" since your firm is coercively enforcing its legal domain over a territory. If your answer to the questions is "yes," then I do not understand how you can advocate for the existence of such evil. Of course just as I advocate for a proper government, yet am met with improper ones, you would surely advocate for the existence of good firms, and yet many bad ones would exist. If this is the case, then why would you prefer to leave the progression towards proper law up to intimidation and fighting on the market instead of civil society and the political process (however flawed that may be)? And imo, most importantly, even if the stars alligned and we Objectivists achieved the dream of convincing more than half the population to agree with us, would you then support the dissitents rights to form enclaves based on around their beliefs so they could continue state-enforced religious fundamentalism, welfarism, warfarism, extortion, and theft? Or it would it be improperly coercive to force the dissidents to abide by objective laws? You are arguing for the end of governments with the hope that whatever springs up afterwards will be better than the current state, even if that new thing is just a bunch of de facto smaller states. I am arguing for reforming our current states, or if absolutely need be, tearing them down to build new states. The more I think about this point, the more anarchy seems like a floating abstraction that is impossible to realize, even under optimal conditions. You say that the force within society will be distributed in a way so as to create competition and internalize legal costs. Why would this happen? How would this happen? Would an existing government sell off its weapon assets to the highest bidders? Would the government just stop enforcing laws? These are not just simple transition questions, they lay at the heart of what you are arguing for given the current context of the world. I think that by leaving such questions blank, or better yet, by saying "the market" will sort them out, anarchists are able to get away without defining their terms and what they actually believe in. It is very easy to say: "in an imaginary world where a bunch of private companies had roughly equal levels of force and provided service to an assorted population sensibly, this is how anarchy would work with incentives and etc." It is much harder to put into precise terms how or why such terms would be arrived at. I am sure you are equally aware that no proper government would enforce the exitence of a public post office or other frivilous organization which is not the state's responsibility. But even at a more practical level, I would much rather except such miniscule levels of theft (the pre-Civil War US gov ran off of about 1% of GDP) over the chronic theft and fear likely to occur under anarchy (if such a thing even exists). I addressed this issue in my first post of the thread. No, security is not like other goods (and in fact is not a good in any valid sense). The choice between legal systems is not like choosing a cell phone, but rather it must necesarily impact other individuals via the threat or use of force. Unlike other Objectivists, I actually do see room for competition of legal firms under the state's umbrella. They could compete over speed, location, harshness/leniancy of judges, prices, etc, but then cannot properly compete over which laws are enforced and not enforced. EDIT: The difference between force and other products is also amply historically demonstrated. Throughout history, virtually all communities organized into force monopolies (governments). This is due to force's unique property of imposition.

All good responses. I'll need a few days to respond.

A few breif add ons to your responses: 1. For the vast majority of parents, education will almost certainly be the second most important thing to get for a child after basic necesities. There is no reason whatsoever that no market would exist for cheap school in a free economy. A great example of this in action is this Cato study (http://www.cato.org/...ncome-countries) where researchers examined profitable private school in the slums of Kenya, Ghana, India, and Nigeria, literally some of the poorest places on the planet. In the cases where there were public schools, the private schools significantly outcompeted them, even when the public schools were "free." 2. At a certain point, a lost cause is a lost cause. Nobody likes to admit it, but if the parent doesn't give a shit (which, as you say, is an extremely small minority), then unless the kid is a rare anomaly, there is nothing anyone can do about it. Why is forcing children to go to shitty slum public schools any better than the alternative? In most instances, it is preferable to let the kid enter the work force during high school and acquire some level of experience, skill, and references. 3. Not all jobs require basic math or reading skills. And besides that, I would be willing to bet that in a free economy, there would be virtually universal K-8 education anyway due to its low cost and high demand. 4. Same old, same old. An important element to stress in these conversations is that education has been so regimented and standardized, that it would look unimagineably different in a free market. Why do kids today sit in rows of desks? Why do they go to school five days a week between roughly 7:30AM and 3:00PM? Why are all taught minor variations of the same established subjects? Why are classes regimented by age group as opposed to ability or interest? Why do schools waste sizeable portions of their budgets on sports while leaving more important subjects underutilized? Why, Why, Why??? EDIT: If you really want to throw a screwball, you can also try bringing up the theories of Charles Murray. Put simply - education quality is close to irrelevent in terms of success. Schools are not artists who mold clay children into beauiful sculptures, but are art apraisers who simply grade alredy existing statues.

The difference is one of consent and legitimacy. Yes, in the grand sense, someone somewhere must have the guns to enforce your rights, but when a government exists, the group with the guns (properly) is an organization which has the consent of its citizens and the assured firepower to back it up. That is not the same as having the consent of of one's paying customers and the hope that your gang is more powerful than the other gang. I am sure you are aware of Rand's argument for voluntary taxation. As long as the state isn't initating coercion, the population is not "captive." The only reason an individual would not want to be a part of a proper state is if he desired to be injust, in which case, coercion of such an individual would be proper. I agree with much of what you say in that Objectivists often sell an-caps short. However, right here is a perfect example of anarchist rationalization. Every argument against the gang warfare scenario is just smoke and mirrors which pushes the the conclusion behind a series of excuses. First, who's to say that "private security firms" won't just form their own de facto monopolies in given areas and coercively tax their own citizens (ie. a force a protection racket). Only now, there isn't even a pretention of legitimacy based on natural rights or consent of the governed, just a corporation trying to make a profit whose only responsibility is to its shareholders. Second, your assertion of the difficulties of war would only further encourage protection rackets since very agencies would be willing to go to war to defend oppressed customers. Third, at the end of the day, we are still looking at "might makes right." If a conflict between two firms errupts, and they don't fight each other in the streets, then sure they will negotiate. In such a case, the company which will get the better deal will be the one with more physical power, and therefore less to lose in case of a fight. This will naturally marginalize the weaker company and cause it to lose customers (that is, if it allows extortees to leave), thereby bolstering the strength of the stronger firm. And thus it comes down to the biggest guns make the rules. No objectivity. No real consent. No notion of legal equality. Only those fortunate enough to buy the right protection, and those unfortunate enough to crushed by it.

Wealth doesn't have to be produced by a market. It can also be produced by slavery and tribal communalism (which at best is an extremely primitive market, and doesn't need established laws). I think there is some truth to Rothbard's assertion in "Anatomy of the State" that the first formal governments in history arose as unproductive (at least above subsistence level) aggressive tribes conquered productive peaceful tribes, and then rather than simply pillage everything as usual, the agressors decided to set up camp and begin extracting tribute. I agree that it is a strawman to say "there are no markets if there is no valid law." But I think it is more valid to say "there are no fair or stable markets if there is no valid law." If you consider what a market is in its most abstract form, the results of incentivized interactions between individuals, then indeed there is always a market of come sort, even in who the criminal ganags choose to steal from. But such markets are predicated upon zero-sum game robbery, rather and mutually beneficial trade. I think the basic argument holds up that the better the legal system is, the better (more legally equitable, less violent and fradulent) the market will be. The claim is not that in the face of agression in an anarchist system, everyone would stand aside and throw up their hands (that is a strawman). Rather, the claim is that what someone can or can't do is entirely predicated upon how much force he can wield. The ability of anyone to do anything is predicated upon the notion that he has gang members somewhere who will be not only be willing to fight on his behalf if need be, but also defeat any opposition which might arise. Anarchists claim that the market will for some reason naturally incline towards freedom; I see no reason for this to be so.

I put this together myself. As great at Rand's writings were, some times it would have been easier if she had just made bullet points.

Rothbard believed in the same rights as Rand and to the same end (as expressed in the quotes). However, he did not view the existence of these rights in the same "order" (for lack of a better word). You are correct that Rothbard never actually refered to "purchasing rights," but he does say that the protection of rights must be purchased. According to his philosophy, for those rights to be protected by Rand's method (government), his basic princiniple of self-ownership would have to be violated. Admittedly my description of the philosophy is not through Rothbard's words but through a layer of Objectist criticism. Rothbard would say that the right to life, liberty, and property are all the same thing, as embodied in the right to self-ownership. There are different types of anarcho-capitalists, I only explianed the Rothbardian variant, again in a sort-of Objectist criticism lens. Rothbard, unlike almost all other anarchists, actually did believe in objective law like Rand did. In this context, objective law refers to an objectively morally correct way to collectively wield force. Rothbard used the non-agression principle as the root of this law, which makes it very similar, though not identicial to Rand's conception of objective law. However, unlike Rand, Rothbard believed this law could only be properly created in the abscence of state. In my (Objectivist) opinion, that is a recipe for opening the use of force to any person or group who has the ability to wield it, regardless of the ethical basis of their intent. This leads to gang warfare, or at best, the chronic threat of it. "As soon as you take up a gun and force people to adhere to your own concept of justice, then you are in effect declaring yourself to be a ruler over those people, without their voluntary consent, and to my knowledge Rothbard was in no way advocating that." There are anarchists who believe this, but only a small subset of so called "left libertarians," who are in reality pacifists. Rothbard uses almost the same definition of government as Rand. To Rand, government was an "organization which held a legitimate monopoly on the use of force in a given geographic area."Rothbard's definition is identical save for the removal of the word "legitimate," since to him, no such legitimacy was morally possible. That being said, Rothbard still believed in the organized right of self-defense, but through private companies. Under the domain of such companies, justice would still be coercivley enforced on behalf its customers against threats. Rothbard believed that no consent was necesary to coerce legitimate threats. As long as any private companies did not aggress against non-criminals, and therefore freedom of entry and exit were permitted, the system would not resemble a state.

Rand once said that the Montessori School was her preferred method of education: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montessori_education I don't know too much about it, but it involves very self-directed learning. Marsha Enright, an Objectivist educator, runs a Montessori program which she is trying to expand.

As Fawkes points out, private arbitration in today's society is not force. Private arbitration exists under the umbrella of the state and any problems will be brought to higher authorites, rather than be settled with violence. A government is a contextual need that arises from the complexity of mass society. If ten people were shipwrecked on a derserted island, it is very unlikely that they would need to convene a state and administer force in any systemic manner. Rather, with such a tiny population, all disputes should be solvable through simple discussion. With the case of something like Galt's Gulch, or a smaller Objectivist quasi-utopia, government probably isn't necesary because everyone is on board with the same rules and legal system. However, as you note, with larger societies you tend to get more outliers who will disrupt the order. I do not think it is even possible to get a 100% Objectivist population on any large scale, but I also don't think it is necesary. When it gets to the point that simple conversation and base agreement won't solve conflicts, then a government needs to arise to solve disputes of force. At what population size or level that occurs is a judgement call. I personally think that even in a Galt's Gulch situation with only a few hundred people, a government of some sort is necesary. Even very rational people have obscure legal disagreements and there will always be the outlier who doesn't buy into the system. I agree with the anarchists in the sense that a majority of people must be on board with at least the basic legal premises for a proper Objectivist government to function. This doesn't mean everyone must be a Rand scholar, but it does mean that most people should understand what natural rights, the non-aggression principle, and the government are. Once these basic principles are comprehended, the rest should fall into place. As for the social ostracism, I think it's a red herring. Social ostracism can be an effective tool, but it is by no-means the last line of defense against tyranny. Also, if social ostracism will stop the immoral initiation of force amongst "private security firms," then why do we even need "private secruity firms"? Why can't the same rules apply to every other industry and individual? No individuals or companies will steal or defraud because they will be afraid of mass boycotts? It's a pipe dream.

I will do my best to explain Rothbard's mistakes from the Objectivist position. Essentially Rothbard inverts the basic moral/political rights of man. According to Objectivism: 1. The first political right of man is the right to life. That is the right to exist as a man qua man. Without this right, I would be dead. 2. From this right extends the correlary right to liberty, or freedom from coercion. To live as a man, I must be free from physical attack, theft, and fraud from my fellow man. Only then can I use my rational mind to continue my life and attain happiness. Without this right I would be killed or enslaved. 3. Finally, we arrive at the secondary correlary, the right to private property. In order to exist I must be able to lay claim upon and defend objects in existence, so that I may use and dispose of said objects as I please. Without this right, I would at best live in a constant state of fear that all of my production would be lost, and at worst, perish after losing my produce. 4. Objectivism maintains that these rights must be secured in the order listed. The only way to do so is to create an objective arbiter of disputes which will defend a man's right to life and liberty, SO THAT he may engage in economic transactions with private property. This arbiter is the state, an organization which holds a legitimate monopoly on force within a geographic area and uses said monopoly to defend individual rights. According to Rothbard: 1. The first political right of man is the right to private property, AKA self-ownership. Man has the right to engage in economic transactions with his own property, which originates from his own body and the labor it puts into his environment. 2. Man can then use this right to purchase his rights to life and liberty from other individuals on the market. Overall, the market will produce optimal conditions of for liberty which individuals will voluntarily opt into. The Problem: Man cannot engage in economic transactions fairly, or live his life with any meanigful liberty, if his basic rights aren't protected in the first place. Rothbard's vision boils down to "might makes right" because there is no objective standard by which force should be used in a stateless society. Rand stated that rights must be protected from the outset by a single body with the power to coercively stop all those who wish to violate rights. Rothbard claimed the protection of rights should be tossed up to the market so that hopefully the good people will grab the most guns and kill off/intimidate enough of the bad people so that objective law reigns over (part of) the land. The most common rebuttal claimed by anarchists is that governments are inherently contradictory because they are coercive entities by default. The idea is that even if a state doesn't tax its citizens (as Rand supported), it still coercively prevents other private companies from setting up "competing governments" which might provide more efficient or different services. This challenege is predicated upon the use of an invalid concept knowns as the "market for force." Force is not a commodity or a tradeable good. Force is the imposition of will upon another being. There is no "trade" or "exchange" of coercion, only one party dominating another until the physically weaker party is destroyed or it capitulates. To suggest that there can be "competing wielders of force" is an invitation for gang warfare as "competitors" try to destroy each other on the "open market." While we all should have the right to create products and services, and then offer them to others in voluntary exchnages, none of us have the right to pick up a bunch of guns and arbitrarily declare ourselves to be enforcers of justice unless we are permitted to by society in some manner (ie. appointed/hired by officials elected by the general population). Imagine what that would mean in concrete form: if someone steals my ipod, I would be able to find that person a few days later and execute him on the spot with a bullet to the back of the head. I could then declare that I am not a law breaker, but actually the judge, jury, and executioner in my own judicial system which I voluntarily formed for myself. And by the standards of my own legal system, the theif deserved his punishment. The only way I could be stopped (assuming that competing governments were permitted), is if another "private government" attempted to strike back at me... at which point I would rally together my own gang and we would enjoy a nice shoot out in the streets. Anyway, I actually really like Rothbard aside from the anarchism and 100% reserve stuff. Feel free to ask more questions.

http://heritage.org/index/country/norway The Heritage Foundation's Index of Economic Freedom ranks Norway the 40th freest economy in the world. The index is by no means perfect, but its lists a lot ways in which Norway is no socialistic including its efficient judicial system, low inflation, relatively light business regulations, and lack of trade barriers.

His primary error is addressed in Howard Roark's courtroom speech in the Fountainhead. Essentially he is presenting a strawman/false dichotomy between altruism and predatorialism where every man must either sacrifice himself for the sake of others or sacrifice others for the sake of himself. Objectivism promotes rational selfishness in the literal sense of acting in your own self-interest. That is, human relationships should be based on the mutually beneficial exchange of values where neither party is sacrificed. It is not in an individual's self interest to use force to achieve his ends or to screw over potential and active associates.

The idea of privatizing roads and general infrastructure is very bizzare and foreign to most people, but there is nothing about infrastructure which makes it inherently different from any other economic sector. As such, the best thing that can be done for roads is to place them in private hands so that they are constructed and maintained by market standards.

No clear winner but Obama destroyed Romney with the "army has fewer horses" segment.

Should any verbal or written suggestion of criminal activity be considered a criminal offense?