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Law and Freedom
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Your sense of living and your world view was shaped by something or someone. So, you do live by a law, the Golden Rule, right? Free thinking people abhor monopoly and like diversity. Thus, no matter what "law" they were raised in, they simply gather, in their entire life time, various laws of various points of view (/ cultures). Monopolistic forces create laws as a result of their nightmares and then force them on everybody. Let me state what freedom means: freedom is the ability to say "No" and have that decision respected. Very simple! Still, I am not one who believes that lack of force is the goal of freedom. That would be an illusion. Force is a law of Nature. Everything alive fights for survival. The only thing that matters in Life is diversity. That is how Life survives since it has no brain and thus has no knowledge of what is... best / right. Thus, freedom is something which is born from fight and from diversity, and is in absolute contrast with monopoly. Monopoly is the death of Life.
Aren't you glad that everyone doesn't live in utter disregard of law? I, for one, am sad that most people have respect for institutionalized law.
If there was no law, what would keep the thugs from running the whole country? The thing with violence is that it works both ways. The answer is like this: if there would be no institutionalized justice then there would be need for justice. That means there could be:
To tell the truth, I was unable to understand how this would work. I could not figure out how private justice could work. But, hey, when I realized that it was not my responsibility to make it work, I realized that it would actually work because there are lots of people around. I said to myself: "dude, obviously you can't make plans for how the society should work since the society is not in your head, but is out there and formed from lots and lots and lots of real people who can (and do) make choices regardless of what you think". Certainly, there are lots of sheep who would not fight for their lives, but there are also lots of people who would take the opportunity and provide arbitration and enforcement even for these people. Such business men would be very good at their job, but they would be in the business of making a profit and thus they would know when to cut their losses. This means that private justice would work only where a profit could be made. Certainly, nothing would stop people to put together some money and hire private law enforcement agencies to fight some public cause (like catching some serial killer). However, there is obviously a profit to be made by the people who pay, since the killer actually causes damage to their property. Monopolistic justice means lack of change, lack of adaptation, and therefore means death. Life prefers to live. Institutionalized justice actually triples the costs: once for creating, maintaining and enforcing the laws, and once for fighting those people who are criminals (according to the monopolistic laws). On top of this, they also have to fight the real criminals, those who are criminals in the view of any human with common sense. In the absence of institutionalized justice, there would be ways to make a profit by providing private arbitration and private enforcement of either arbitration resolutions or of personal choice.
Does anarchy mean lack of law and chaos? A common dictionary says:
As you see, there is no such thing as "absence of law". An anarchist, and particularly an anarcho-capitalist, does not associate anarchy / anarchism with chaos, but with the definitions given above. Also, since there already is a word for chaos (that would be "chaos"), why use the word "anarchy" to define the same thing?
Would you like to live in a state where dueling in the streets with thugs was the only remedy to disputes? That is the law of the jungle!I wouldn't like that. If you would stop for a moment and think at the jungle, you would see that is full of life. Actually, the jungle is the place which has the highest diversity of species. Anyway, would there be fights in the streets? Well, yes... and the people who have to live in those streets would have an interest to clean them of thugs or leave. That means there is a profit to be made. So, private security agencies would be hired to kill the thugs. Ahh, sure, killing is against the laws of religions. Well, Life doesn't care. One either fights for one's life, or gets extinct! So, unlike in the apocalyptic movies, in reality there would be people fighting against criminals. There would be people who would be professionals at this job. One might ask: "what would stop these agencies to create the trouble in the first place?" The answer is: Reputation. Unlike in a 90 minutes movie, in reality, the word about the reputation of enforcement agencies would travel around, fast. Thus, if such agencies would cause the trouble then they would not be hired to remove the trouble, but other, reputable, agencies would be. Or people could ask: "what would stop these agencies to control everybody, rob them and make them do things?" The trouble is, they already did that and now they call themselves "The State". Obviously, one can't create a State in order to remove The State. I came to despise institutionalized justice only after I started thinking how a free world would look like, that is, a world were people would have their personal space ships (powered by gravitons) and would fly around the solar system, out of the fist of the criminals who want to spread the poison of monopoly everywhere in the Universe.
I am speaking metaphorically stating the law of the jungle as kill and eat or be killed and eaten. There's a much higher Law for man. I'm sure you agree. I don't. There is no authority over me. I follow my inner nature, that's all. I am a free thinker and recognize no authority over me. I lived to experience the Greatness of the Universe. I suffered so I could learn. I saw the Edge between Life and Death and I saw there is no pain in Death, but only choice. I realized that I either fight or get extinct. A simple law of Nature. I had the honor of being shown the people who have fought their entire lives against their own ignorance. I have learned from Masters of Despair. I have learned from Gardeners of Thoughts.
Any body politic that devises a way to protect life... There will never be anything like that. Moreover, I have no desire to help building and to follow one as I am no sheep. The ones who can protect Life are people themselves, those people who build a network of choice around themselves.
Liberty and property would be political authority. Nobody has authority over me. Some people have the power to make me do things, but nobody has any authority. (Exception from this would be a woman I love, but only to a limited extent.)
There are some in our midst who will kill, steal and destroy only because they think they can and they want to. And there are others who would fight against such criminals.
Humans have rights. Rights? Humans have no rights. They have a certain nature, nature which makes them do stuff. "Rights" are born from suffering minds who think they need to explain (to slick criminals who make them waste their lives) why they should be free of criminal interference, interference as they (= not everybody) understand it. For instance, lots of people waste their time trying to prove why humans own themselves. Dudes, that is human nature. That is no "right". It is a fact. It is Reality. It just is! It is the underlying medium of (propagation of) interaction: Life. It is a fight for survival. It may very well happen that if you imprison a living creature, it would get used to its status and stop fighting for its survival. But, dudes, that does not change Reality, Reality which integrates the survival instinct into living creatures. The survival instinct is simply Life itself. It is physically impossible for Life to exist without the survival instinct. It is dumb to even separate the two. Life is survival instinct. That is a Law of Nature. It does not need proof because it doesn't care, just like gravity needs no proof in order to exist. It acts independently of any subsequent claim, unlike property which has no medium of interaction outside living creatures (except for the claims which arise after humans start living). If someone takes a human as a slave, the "slave" simply blows the criminal's head off (or he tries, anyway, maybe...). Dudes, as simple as that! No proof of apriori freedom "right" is required! It's just Life in Motion! Take communism for example. Its poison collapsed because it was killing humans and so humans killed it first (not all over the world), not because there are rights. There is nothing to prove in poison being evil. That is simply a fact, Reality. If you swallow poison, you get as dead as a corpse. Humans, as a civilization, change their environment to fit their instinct (the survival instinct in this case), not because there are "rights". Anybody could build the most incredibly beautiful argument, wasting millennia, about rights, absolute systems of reference outside the human mind, and stuff like that. But the entire civilization would most probably simply pass by because it utterly does not care, because its nature has nothing to do with mathematical abstractions, but simply with biology (= human logic). A system is merely a prison / trap for a free mind! All the things about rights and property arise as a consequence of human interaction. They do not exist outside them.
The principles of morality are like the laws of physics. Human beings only discover them (or not). People can choose whether or not to act on these principles. No human can choose to act or not on the principle of gravity. In contrast, each individual has different moral principles. I guess it's better to say that the principles are the same but they look different because they are manifested from different points of view. All humans act in their best interest (as defined by biology), so, yes, it can be said that the moral principles are the same, but this is not something which obliterates conflict (quite to the contrary). But when you tell most people that something is absolute, outside human emotions, they automatically think that there is a point of confluence of righteousness, a point where there is no conflict. In fact, the Universe exists exactly because there is conflict (a conflict between Void and Change).
It is incorrect to say that all humans act in their best interest. But is it correct. The explanation is very simple: you believed that I was saying that people define what their best interest is. However, I specifically said: "as defined by biology". With "biology" I mean the laws of physics, not the human made science. People don't act in their best interest because they know what that is, but because their instincts drive them to do certain actions which are in their best interest, that is, to maximize their chances or survival and minimize their chances of death. I suppose you could say "well, no, there is nothing which makes them do certain actions which maximize their chances or survival and minimize their chances of death". In such a case I would say that is incorrect. Living creatures do exactly that. There is this very incredibly simple survival instinct which simply forces living creatures to want to live. The living creatures act in consequence: they fight for their life, like, for example, they go look for food instead of sitting on their asses waiting for their their bellies to be automatically filled with food. Living creatures don't do things because they choose so, but because they are forced so (by their instincts). Of course, this doesn't mean that living creatures succeed in living, but it simply means that they increase their chances of survival. But the actual results can be seen only on the long term. Living creatures actively increase their chances of survival because their instincts force them to do so. Most certainly, these instincts have no brain, have no emotions, have no logic. They are pure machine, they pure laws of physics. As a matter of fact it is wrong to say even that humans are forced by their instincts, for the simple reason that those instincts are the human. You know, there actually are living creatures which have no instinct of survival. The only thing is that these creatures get extinct before we can even see them, because the environment is simply not fit for them to live (and they just can't adapt to the environment).
Is it wrong for a human parent to sacrifice his life for his child, under extreme threat? If morality could only be defined as correct, if it directed people to actions which keep them alive, then this action would have to be considered immoral on that basis. There is, here, a very simple problem, common to all moral philosophies: you want to define a common morality for everybody, you want to have a standard by which you can judge and execute other people because they don't stay within the boundaries you set. Sure, most people have some common standards, like not killing other people, but that is all: a context. It's a common ground. You can see human nature in action every second of your life. But do you have the strength to accept it as is and let it be?
Why all the paranoia about using the word "right?" Isn't that just talking about what's right and wrong? It isn't about right and wrong. It is about freedom of mind. Those who claim "rights to something" are simply trying to condition others, meaning, are trying to brain wash them. No human has a right to his identity because it has an ability given by birth to identify himself. Others take away this ability. Notice: other humans take away what is already there! Life is given through birth, others take it away. There is no right to Life unless you have some interest to take one away, or fight against those who want to take your Life away from you. The point is: one human is trying to take another human's Life. All these "rights" happen inside a society, where humans interact and are trying to get some advantage out it. They are trying to condition other humans to believe in the same thing, they are trying to fit everybody in the same mold. Throughout his life time, every human is conditioned by others to fit the standards. Claiming rights or claiming absence of rights is a way of trying to control others, to obtain some advantage out of the (conflictual) situation. Every human likes to hear how great he is, how everything he does is morally correct, how he fits the idea of pure / absolute morality. People don't like to be separated from the heard. They like to fit. They like others to be like them. For example, some anarcho-capitalists call communists all those who say there is no intellectual property. They use conditioning in order to achieve their goals. They want those who are listening to be forced by their morality to unconsciously adhere to their beliefs that there is intellectual property. They may be doing so as a joke, but those who read what they say can't tell the difference... and these anarcho-capitalists like it that way. There is the (in)ability to do one thing or another. Ability simply exists. Rights are simply smoke created by those who claim their existence or negative existence, smoke which makes other waste their time trying to find their way out. Let me explain the difference between rights and abilities using emotions instead of logic. All those who believe in rights should do a simple exercise / test: Repeat, several times, the following: "I have a right to be free!" You could also write this on several large paper sheets and pin them to the wall in order to visualize your goal. As you repeat it, you feel better and better about yourself since you have someone's permission to be free. You've got yourself a right from someone who agreed to give it to you! Someone said to you: "Yes, you have a right to be free. I agree! I concur! You are correct! It is your right!" Now repeat "I am free!" As you repeat this, you understand that it is your choice to be free. It is your decision to be free. It is your will to be free! You do not ask permission, you do not wait for permission! You take control of your abilities to act in accordance to your nature. You are free! Yes, there are many people who do their best to imprison you, to rape your mind and murder your soul. They use smoke to make you lose sight of your goal: freedom of mind. They make you waste your time wandering through the labyrinth of illusory proofs, making you to endlessly seek in fog what does not exist: a right. These individuals want to take away from you what you already have: your freedom, your ability to say no to their control over your mind. They say "These are the rights you have, these are rights you don't have. Prove otherwise!" And you go around seeking your much needed proofs instead of simply being free and just go do your usual business.
How are you free? You just do what you feel like doing. I guess some might say that these feelings should be explained: why they exist, why there are the way they are. Okay, so you have to understand your feelings before acting. But here is the catch: you don't have to prove them (to anybody)! You just have to look inside you and understand your own nature. You have to understand what lies beneath appearances, not prove that is either right or wrong! Some people might say: "Well, I have this feeling like raping. So, I firmly believe that I have to prove it is either right or wrong." Then I would ask: "Why do you have to prove that?" They would answer: "Because I don't like it." Aha, you don't like it! Then, why don't you try to prove why you don't like it? Why don't you simply choose: "Okay, I am not going to rape because I just don't like it! It would be wrong!" Incredible, no proof is required, no time or energy is wasted. It's all about the inner nature. Of course, this inner nature is conflicting, it is never a straight line. You must find your own balance! You find that balance by understanding your nature and by understanding other people's nature, but not by trying to prove anything. If a human understands, then everything is reduced to his understanding of reality and to his inner nature. If there is a conflict between his inner nature and the consequences of his actions, a choice is made. But there is nothing to prove. If you don't like raping then simply don't do it. Don't waste time trying to prove what already exists. On the other side, if you do like raping then what would a proof change? In order to stop raping there must be a conflict within the mind, there must be two parts which strongly say: "I like it" and "I don't like it". Of course, some people might say that I chose an example about something which is proved to be wrong: raping. Okay, so take a blank sheet of paper. You feel like tearing it, right? Obviously, if that is what you feel then you tear it. But if something is telling you that it is wrong to do so, you just don't tear it. No proof of any kind is required to take an action or to refrain from doing an action. When in doubt, don't act!
Think about this over night, maybe over many nights. Then ask yourself: "Do I have right to be free because I have permission / agreement, or am I free because it is my will?"
P.S. Question: Is it right or is it wrong to tear the blank sheet of paper? :) Answer: It is wrong because you are destroying a part of a tree, something which did not hurt you! Now go plant one to repay your evil deed! (I can already hear in the back row: "Make me!")
Child porn is patently wrong. The issue is not what is right and what is wrong, but what you want to do about it? It is irrelevant whether there are child exploiters out there, it is irrelevant whether there are terrorist out there, it is irrelevant whether there is pollution out there, it is irrelevant whether there are dirt-poor people out there, it is irrelevant whether there are dead-sick / handicapped people out there, it is irrelevant whether there are abortionists out there... What is relevant is what are you going to do about it? Are you going to rob honest people to go hunt for your idea of crime? Do you want to use other people's resources (without their consent) to "fix" what you see to be wrong? It is not possible to do away with crime, as most people understand it, because it is human nature and it is much easier to destroy than it is to build. Existing crime is irrelevant. What is relevant is whether an individual wants to waste more resources, to engage and create more crime in order to satisfy the delusional idea that crime can be done away with. You keep saying "we". Who is this "we"? Do you have the resources necessary to find child exploiters and you are asking around to see if anyone wants to hunt them? Or are you just implying that others should do what you want? What does it mean that "we should adopt..."? I, for instance have no need to adopt anything. I have something called "common sense". So, why do "we" need to adopt anything which is neither contract nor existing common sense?
I suggest we adopt this as our definition of X, and that we display it prominently and declare that we will fight it in any way we can. Where would "we" be displaying this? What does it mean "fight"? Are you saying that businesses should start policing? Are you going to pay for that? Are you going to compensate the honest people who get hurt in the process?
But without the declaration and intent, I think we've sanctioned it. Let's at least be against it. I am against it. I have (a certain) common sense which needs no declaration. Think about this: say businesses don't do what you want, say I and others don't do what you want... so, what are you going to do next? THAT is the only relevant thing! Are you going to rob us? It is much easier to destroy than it is to build, so why don't you start building because time is short.
I'd have one law only, that all violations of life, liberty and property (criminal actions), would be tried with jury trials. You're just trying to create a system, something different that what is today, and you believe it would be as you think of it. I once thought that. I thought I have the luxury to waste my time trying to improve the state by forcing it (in my mind) to do what I wanted. But the things one conceives will NEVER happen because reality is outside any mind. What matters is what you will do, not what you would do. Remember that you have no magical powers with which you could change the world as you want to. So, this is much like being a Miss World and saying "I want peace on Earth. I want everybody to have enough food..." Get rid of all laws and see that private courts would exist. You don't have to create a system, it / they would just pop up. Reputable private enforcement agencies would accept the decisions of reputable private courts, and enforce their decisions. No "law" is required because these private institutions would act based on profit in a competitive market. None would Rule. They would have their own rules, but there would be no law to force everybody.
But we should all respect our veniremen who would be sitting in judgment over us and our behavior when we are accused of violating someone else's life, liberty or property. In order to make decisions about compensation / punishment, a professional body is required. Jurors are not experts and institutionalized justice does what its manipulators want. Private organizations would be limited by the lack of resources and by the fact that they can't just force people to obey them. They would have to follow the people (or as others would say, market forces), instead of people following them.
Allow the veniremen to try anyone who knows a child is being abused and does nothing about it. You'll find a lot more folks willing to do their duty and tell the victims family what is going on. Well, Stalin's philosophy will never die: make the people police themselves... and they'd better like it! What I would do in such a case, I would because it's what I decide, not because it's my "duty".
Another thing that has been puzzling me has been the idea of how a state-free law system deals with murder and abuse. There are reams of emails describing bloody money, in the case of murder, and other compensatory claims for abuse. But what happens when the abuser is a family member and the abused is a minor? It is either solved within the family or it is not solved at all. In a state-free society, we / the society would let some crimes would remain unpunished. The society commonly accepts that certain things go unpunished not because they are not wrong, but because we cannot figure out how to punish them. Various people can figure out various ways to
punish the people they I have to say again that X was asking about a certain group of crimes, not about specific cases. Murder would NOT away get UNpunished in a society with private justice. Yeah, sure, that murder of X by Y could get away unpunished. If the victim (or relative, or whomever gets involved) of a crime like murder or rape would go to a private court to prove her case and get a resolution, then it would be left to (big) enforcement agencies to enforce that. There is no guarantee that the crime would be punished. In such a case, there might still be some people willing to punish the criminals, with or without payment.
Private courts, private enforcement agencies, vigilante, rights group, etc., all are part of the concept called private justice. Why? Because neither you, nor I, nor X would get to decide how society works, who can provide private justice. It either is private, or you have monopoly on it. So, all these groups, who conceptually make the "we" word, get to do justice as they see it. Groups of crime would not get away unpunished. The variety of groups who would provide private justice, would cover all groups of crimes. So, in the case of private justice, "we" would not let murder of rape get away unpunished. I am not a part of "we who would let the category of crime called murder / rape get away unpunished". If there is anything that private courts and large enforcement agencies would not provide is resolution and enforcement for cases like "he swore at me, ma'". Then again, these groups are the ones which would set the standards for what a crime is, for instance rape and murder.
Oh, sorry, this wasn't a "I hate the state" thread. My feelings for institutionalized justice have nothing to do with the fact that simple observation of Reality shows that institutionalized justice says that if you defend yourself against criminals who attack you, you have very good chances to become the criminal in the eyes of this justice system, unless you can prove that you were the victim (and not with good chances in such case either). Therefore, you have to choices: (1) don't get caught defending yourself, (2) wait to get robed and slaughtered. I could actually like point 2, I might like to play the role of the victim, just like most of those who run or support the institutionalized justice system. Yet, my feelings do not change the available choices. My point is that in a state-free society, with private justice, each type of crime would determine a reaction even from people who are not part of the family. Actually, it's quite possible that family member would not have the ability, determination, resources, expertise to provide justice. You, I, all the people here could set forth a resolution for a crime, either individually or as a group. That type of crime would not get away unpunished. Variety is the only mechanism which sustains freedom, which is the path to prosperity. With a private justice system, there is no generic "we" group which would do the morally correct (by yours, mine, or X's standards) actions. But there are specific "we" groups which would think similarly and thus would do the same actions. But other "we" groups would do different things. So, I didn't like your use of the word "we" to refer to a monolithic behavior of the society.
Well, that's nice for that "we". I today read about the spies Palestine that were dealt with by "we". Something about stoning and shooting in public, not very pleasant. So what?! That doesn't fit your moral principles and you want to reshape the world to fit them? In a system with private justice you would be free (= not crushed by the state, but limited only by your group's resources) to get together with your friends in thinking and go punish those dudes. But, yes, such things would happen (and do happen even a state-run society). In a society with private justice there would be different groups of people which would do different things because they see things differently. Certainly, those people who don't like such freedom are free (= have the natural ability) to get together and create a monopolistic group which would impart justice by their standards. The ways words are used induce specific ways of thinking. I do not like to use words like "we" to refer to the entire society as a monolith because it induces the idea that society is not fragmented. Society is very fragmented, starting from its biological motivations (by reflection in the environment, because the root motivation is the same – survival). The human society is not a behavioral monolith. |
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