The Libertarian Case for National Military Service

[broncofan]

Some philosophers make this same distinction in assisted suicide/right to die cases. Is there a difference between not feeding someone who requires a feeding tube to survive and giving them a lethal dose of morphine? In my view, the only reason the law makes the distinction is because of the difficulty in regulating assisted suicide. But otherwise, I would argue providing the dose of morphine to someone in excruciating pain is more moral than allowing them to painfully starve to death.

Human beings are moral agents. Failing to act has moral consequences.

To not feed a child who depends on you, and to prevent others from doing so based on notions of private property, is a gravely immoral act. Not because I say so, but because children are vulnerable and human beings have a responsibility not to look upon the suffering of others with indifference.

With views like this, and ideological origins like this, why are people so proud to proclaim they're Libertarians?

[broncofan]

However, in cases where the child cannot simply ask others for help, the parent should make known to others if practicable the abandonment of their child, as otherwise this would effectively be forcible starvation

If they have no responsibility to feed their child, they have no responsibility to tell others their child is starving. This is positive action as well and cannot be compelled. You cannot "abandon" someone you have no responsibility to care for to begin with.

What imperative would others have to feed someone else' child that those parents don't themselves have?

The distinction between prohibiting action and requiring a limited responsibility to act is not meaningful. As long as people have brains and some sensitivity to the pain of others, are able-bodied and can act, then their failure to do so will be morally significant and should be reflected in law.

[broncofan]

"There are situations that occur in which a parent would not be able to abide by such a law no matter how much they wanted to, such as during a famine"

A very pathetic excuse. Who could write a law flexible enough to account for exigency? A third grader perhaps?

Parents have a responsibility to feed their children to the extent they are capable and have the resources to do so. Otherwise, they have a responsibility to turn to an organization that can assist in providing for their children.

To avoid the difficulty of planning for contingency we should advocate the starvation of children?

[Stavros]

Some philosophers make this same distinction in assisted suicide/right to die cases. Is there a difference between not feeding someone who requires a feeding tube to survive and giving them a lethal dose of morphine? In my view, the only reason the law makes the distinction is because of the difficulty in regulating assisted suicide. But otherwise, I would argue providing the dose of morphine to someone in excruciating pain is more moral than allowing them to painfully starve to death.

Human beings are moral agents. Failing to act has moral consequences.

To not feed a child who depends on you, and to prevent others from doing so based on notions of private property, is a gravely immoral act. Not because I say so, but because children are vulnerable and human beings have a responsibility not to look upon the suffering of others with indifference.

With views like this, and ideological origins like this, why are people so proud to proclaim they're Libertarians?

The difference is based on contending arguments for the meaning of 'consent' and 'informed consent' with the additional problem of children not being old enough to value themselves, and those who are unable to give any kind of consent because they are -for example- in a Persistent Vegetative State.
John Harris, whose work on politics and morality has been of critical importance in the last 40 years or so, has argued that a crucial issue in deciding issues around children is not just based on 'our' beliefs that it is wrong to cause harm to others, directly or indirectly, but that it is 'our' decisions which replace the child's because the child intellectually, cannot give any kind of consent.
The libertarian argument fails because the decision by the parents to deliberately neglect the child, prevents that child from developing the very sense of self-worth and value which is fundamental to the 'self-interest' that libertarians claim as the natural condition of humankind, and the reason why it is wrong for government, or anyone else to impose their so-called 'morals' or laws on them.
In addition, it is not just morals which libertarians object to, but love. It is not possible for a libertarian to be a Christian, just as it is not possible for a Christian to be a libertarian. I am not even sure if Ayn Rand permits her ideal types to love. Self-interest doesn't sound very emotionally engaging. A libertarian has no need of any love except self love, a Christian has an obligation to love all. The two are incompatible.
John Harris's article is here and worth looking at.
http://jme.bmj.com/content/29/1/10.full

[trish]

The libertarian argument fails because the decision by the parents to deliberately neglect the child, prevents that child from developing the very sense of self-worth and value which is fundamental to the 'self-interest'

Interesting point.

[Jamie Michelle]

"The parallel postulate does not involve a performative contradiction in its denial" and yet it was long claimed to be a true synthetic a priori proposition; i.e. substantive and self-evident. We now know clearly it is not such an animal. Hence is remains true that if such animals exist, humans (Rothbard for example) cannot be trusted to recognize them. To remedy this problem I see you've added a criterion you neglected to mention before now. The substantive, self-evident claims upon which libertarianism is based are performatives. In libertarianism I suppose these take the form of promises, deals, contracts and agreements. The act of making a promise is a performative (according Austin). And promises can be synthetic (or substantial). And though promises can be kept or broken, they aren't usually thought of as true, let alone true a priori. So how are some performatives to be recognized as synthetic a priori truths and others not? If the truths of libertarianism are a priori, why doesn't everyone recognize them as such and accept them as true?

Hi, Trish. Actually, what I stated is that by merely denying a proposition one is using the truth of certain propositions. For example, one who argues that argument is not possible thereby contradicts themselves. For more on this, see my following article:

James Redford, "Libertarian Anarchism Is Apodictically Correct", Social Science Research Network (SSRN), Dec. 15, 2011, 9 pp., doi:10.2139/ssrn.1972733; PDF, 118091 bytes, MD5: e6de8181ad84c9d96400bb9582311c79. http://ssrn.com/abstract=1972733 , http://archive.org/download/Libertar...rtarianism.pdf , http://theophysics.host56.com/Redfor...rtarianism.pdf , http://webcitation.org/63xyCLjLm , http://pdf-archive.com/2013/09/10/re...rtarianism.pdf

[Jamie Michelle]

[QUOTE=Stavros;1391185]

Hi, Stavros. Your above claims are the logical fallacy of bare assertion.
--I did not go into a detailed argument, that is true, but I did provide links to extensive critiques of Rothbard, so it was not entirely 'bare assertion'.

Prof. Rothbard is correct on his explanation regarding parents' objective-law responsibilities vis-à-vis children. No legitimate law can compel positive action, but rather legitimate law consists solely of the prohibition of aggression...
However, in cases where the child cannot simply ask others for help, the parent should make known to others if practicable the abandonment of their child, as otherwise this would effectively be forcible starvation, i.e., the secreting away of a child too physically immature to seek help.
--What is so chilling about your defence of this argument is that you probably believe it. If parents did stick a notice on the door saying 'We are no longer feeding little Johnny' you must also agree it would be a violation of 'legitimate law' for anyone to open the door, forcibly if necessary, to feed little Johnny, and they could be arrested and charged with breaking and entering, and so on. This argument works because you refuse to apply any concept of morality to the situation, so that the moral decision by a stranger to feed the child is abhorrent to you, ...

Not so. Refer to my prior statements on this issue.

... and yet your manifold declarations of your Christianity in previous posts must surely impose on you an obligation to feed that child, if only as an act of love, the very love that Jesus asks you express to your equals at all times, and in this case specifically to the child in need.
Ask yourself, seeing that sign on the door: What would Jesus do?

Blackmail indeed is not a veridical objective-law crime, since the blackmailer is simply offering the blackmailed party not to reveal information about said party. Thus, the blackmailed party is actually better off at least having the option to choose whether he wishes information about himself to be made known than had the would-be blackmailer simply chosen to reveal the information or sell it to others (such as to the press)--as the blackmailed party can always just turn the blackmailer's offer down, in which case the blackmailed individual is in no worse position than had the blackmailer simply, e.g., gone to the press to begin with. But more to the point, blackmail in this sense involves no aggression against the person or justly-acquired property of another, and hence simply fails to be an objective-law crime.
--This is absurd, because the law, like economics, is not an objective reality in the sense in which we understand gravity, or light, or trees. ...

If that were so, then anything you have to say on this matter is nothing more than verbal diarrhea on your part. Either objective morality exists or it does not.

... The law expresses rules and values determined by society over many years, even centuries, and much as you might disapprove of it, blackmail is considered a crime -and I somehow doubt you would be taken seriously if you went on tv to argue the 'Rothbard defence'. If blackmail involves the disclosure of information stolen from the victim, say, photographs, which were stolen when a private dick entered premises to seal, isn't that a crime? ...

You see, that wasn't so hard, Stavros. Now you're starting to get it. Yes, theft of justly-owned property is an objective crime.

... And if a married man is photographed in a public place kissing another woman (or a man for that matter) what business is it of the blackmailer's in the first place? Does the intention to extort money from the victim not constitute a violation of any of his rights? Does the victim have rights?

The study of economics has emerged historically and for you or Rothbard or any of the others to claim some privileged access to 'objective truth' is meaningless when truth, like the language we use to describe it, is socially determined, for otherwise we would not be able to function as individuals in social networks. ...

Again, if that were so, then anything you have to say on this matter is nothing more than verbal diarrhea on your part. Either objective economics exists or it does not.

... We would be wandering around semi-naked and grunting. Your insistence that individualism is the natural condition of humankind is strange and in historical terms simply wrong, the correlation of it with laisse-faire economics, anarcho-capitalism call it what you will, is wishful thinking.

I don't have a problem with you or anyone else debating the merits of anarcho-capitalism, or any other form of capitalism, or communism, or social democracy, but the point surely is to engage in debate not be hectored from the sidelines by someone who insists before the debate begins she is right. That isn't debate at all.

Veridical economics (i.e., Austrian School economics) and veridical legal ethics are based upon axioms which themselves are unavoidably true: they are basic a priori axioms, i.e., true synthetic a priori propositions; or, propositions which cannot be denied without necessitating their use in the denial. That is to say, any attempt to deny the truth of said axioms would necessitate presupposing their truth in the denial. Their nature is such that their denial is in principle no different than one who argues that they cannot argue--anyone who so proceeds is contradicting themselves in the very act of the denial. For more on the nature of such true synthetic a priori propositions, see App. B: "Basic A Priori Axioms", pp. 7 ff. of my following article:

James Redford, "Libertarian Anarchism Is Apodictically Correct", Social Science Research Network (SSRN), Dec. 15, 2011, 9 pp., doi:10.2139/ssrn.1972733; PDF, 118091 bytes, MD5: e6de8181ad84c9d96400bb9582311c79. http://ssrn.com/abstract=1972733 , http://archive.org/download/Libertar...rtarianism.pdf , http://theophysics.host56.com/Redfor...rtarianism.pdf , http://webcitation.org/63xyCLjLm , http://pdf-archive.com/2013/09/10/re...rtarianism.pdf

[Jamie Michelle]

"There are situations that occur in which a parent would not be able to abide by such a law no matter how much they wanted to, such as during a famine"

A very pathetic excuse. Who could write a law flexible enough to account for exigency? A third grader perhaps?

Parents have a responsibility to feed their children to the extent they are capable and have the resources to do so. Otherwise, they have a responsibility to turn to an organization that can assist in providing for their children.

To avoid the difficulty of planning for contingency we should advocate the starvation of children?

This is already taken care of in my original statements within this thread on this matter. Your problem is one of not reading closely enough and assuming too much.

Per my statements on this issue, obviously if the ability and will exists within a society to provide for a given set of children, then those children will be provided for.

If such ability and will does not exist within a given society, then such children will not be provided for whatever positive laws may be in place.

[hippifried]

Libertarianism isn't about some bogus notion of "property rights", & doesn't attempt to create a fantasy anti-social unnatural world based on "self interest". Libertarianism & egoism (ala Ayn Rand) are not the same thing at all, irrespective of the constant egoist attempts to rewrite the dictionary. Without that separation, these arguments are vacuous.