Originally Posted by MtnGoat

precisely. good reduction to the basics, sarge.

for me, i have never stated violent coercion is always wrong, what i have stated is the *initiation* of violent coercion is wrong.

it's initiation innately validates a violent response in defense, after all the initiator has chosen to act upon the idea that violence is an acceptable act, thus the person responding is merely acting upon the already agreed upon basis proven by the initiator's choice to initiate.

Is it the establishment of the 20 mph school zone speed limit on 6th Avenue or my breaking that speed limit which initiates violent coercion?

Same for the CAFE Standards or some phantom Global Warming legislation.

The argument can be made both ways. I'm endangering school kids at 30mph and breathers at so many parts per million toxic emissions. I'm initiating.

But if I don't actually hit anyone or if the scientific data is wrong and I'm not hurting anyone, then that law is initiating coercion.

the pure argument here would be that you are not actually initiating in the speeding case unless you hit someone.

likewise in the global warming case, if you can show to an objective standard harm is applied.

since i posit that no one's system, including mine, can ever actually be reached in perfection and instead must operate with a series of compromises..

that the infringement for not going 62 instead of 60 or 100 instead of 60 are mild, compared to telling someone they must change their entire life style and then forcing them to, thus a much higher standard for claiming equivalency to initiation

Originally Posted by rick.benjamin

When a drunk driver blew through a stop sign and totaled my daughter's car, sending her to the hospital, I was glad the deputy and the fire responders already had the driver in hand. I was wanting to apply some "immediate action" to him.

And thats what he deserved. Objectivists and libertarians do not argue for anarchy. Yes, law is backed by coercive force, and there are times when that is appropriate, your daughter's "accident" being one. (I put accident in quotes because I have trouble calling the consequences of the drunk driver's irresponsibility an accident. If you drink and drive, tragedy is an almost inevitable consequence.)

What Objectivists argue for is that the government use its coercive force only against those who initiate force. That includes thieves, murderers, rapists, foreign invaders, copyright and patent violators, and even polluters. If you do something to knowingly harm another person, harming their person or violating their property, government must step in. And it does so using police officers carrying things like guns, billy clubs, tear gas, and handcuffs. Those implements are the working end of government. Everything else in politics is just about deciding how to use them.

Thats whats so wrong about all sorts of supposedly noble causes government takes up. It does so using coercive force. Do you really think improvements in health care can be accomplished by pointing a gun at the right people? Because thats what you are doing. If doctors, hospital staff and management, and insurace companies don't go along with the government's plans for us, then unless they just leave their practices, the government has to arrest them as lawbreakers. That means sending cops to their offices or homes and taking them away by force. Is there anyone here that really believes that our health care problems can be solved at the point of a gun?

Traffic regulation is a trickier problem, hinging on wether or not you think the government should be building and managing, as well as owning, the roads, which is a topic I am not willing to go into at this time. Suffice to say that even if the roads were all privatized, we would still need traffic cops. And pulling you over would still be coersion. If you refuse to pull over, the cops will chase you, using such tools and techniques as spike strips, the "pit" maneuver, and even shooting out your tires if needed to stop you. And if you continue to resist, they will put you in jail. That is coercive force. Which is why we have things like the ammendments IV through VIII, and other constitutional and procedural protections to limit the authority and power of government to use its coercive power.

Originally Posted by lrsudog

It cannot be coercion if the effected parties are willing participants. There is no compulsion to remain under the legal authority that proclaims a 65 MPH speed limit.

Rule of law is a condition of living in the United States, and anyone who chooses to live in the United States tacitly excepts that condition by continuing to live here.

When someone wants to live here, there must be infered a preference for the type of society here that Rule of law helps provide. Wanting to belong but also wanting there to be no regulation strikes me as similar to wanting to join an glider club because one likes the peaceful nature of it but complaining that they don't allow power planes.

In fact, the United States is less conditional than that example, as in the United States, any individual is free to spend his resources to consensus build in an attempt to remove what regulations he feels create particularly onerous conditions.

I am rendered willing to obey (sort of) the speed limit by the effect that breaking the law might have on me. I believe I am coerced into staying somewhere close to the speed limit. Left to my own devices, I would probably drive much faster than I do. I avoid it because I can't afford the consequences if caught. The law itself is not coercive, but the penalties for unlawful behavior are.

There are extra-legal physical residents of the US that avoid breaking laws simply because they value their continued presence here. Do you consider fear of consequences not coercive in nature, if the individual makes the choice to obey because of the fear of consequences?

Wanting to belong, without wanting to accept the conditions of membership strikes me as unreasonable and contrary to the welfare of the group into which membership is sought. I'll have to mull this one over for awhile.

Volutarily accepting conditions removes the possibilty of coercion in the choice

or

Coerced into choice by the undesirablity of the alternative

Is there anyone here that really believes that our health care problems can be solved at the point of a gun?

why yes, there are.. because wether or not they like that blunt characterization, that is the bidness end of getting their way, and it's irksome to many that some of us don't ignore it while fixated on an admittedly noble goal. the use of this tool against people who have not done the same to you is *wrong*.

Originally Posted by MtnGoat

depending on wether the law takes negative rights, or protects them, it IS evil on the one hand and not on the other.

in *every* case you violate someone's negative rights, you are acting upon the basis that your judgement is superior to theirs and proving it by your willingness to make them do what you judge is correct against their will and threatening them into it.

And we agree this is necessary in a civilized society with laws? So why do you always write it as if I'm special, I'm initiating, I'm taking negative rights?

We're all doing it. It's called law, citizenship and democracy.

Coerced into choice by the undesirablity of the alternative

that is what is happening, since if you leave here you just wind up where it is worse, not better.

also, the option of leaving does not change that force is still being used and that it's proponents version of justice is you fleeing from their use of force... an interesting concept of fairness and equality.

and also one which is actually only a temporarily available sideways avoidance of the actual meanings of their escape clause which is dependent on current political circumstance.

for example, any supporter of the UN charter of human rights has no consistent ideological basis for this point, because they contend the UN charter applies everywhere and thus the fact of 'escape' is only a temporary convenience of circumstance, not a proper principled one because the charter permits no escape as it claims to apply to everyone, everywhere.

Hence if they rest their principled objection that the use of force is acceptable on the basis that you can leave, what happens to this principle when it is in direct conflict with the charter they support that says you *cannot* leave?

Originally Posted by MtnGoat

I agree, which is why it puzzles me that you are so invested in the official use of violence or the threat of it so darned often.

Because it seems pretty plain to me that killing people is bad news, even if they deserve it. It seems pretty plain to me that conflict is going to happen, but that violence is not a necessary outcome of conflict. It seems pretty plain to me that solving problems with violence is an absolutely last resort.

And we agree this is necessary in a civilized society with laws?

No. we do not agree. that is the problem we are discussing. i agree sometimes the compromise may be unavoidable, but since i view it as so wrong, it MUST be absolutely minimized.

this is why i view systems using less of it as superior to systems using more of it. if something is bad doing it less is better than doing it more, even if it means you do it some

So why do you always write it as if I'm special, I'm initiating, I'm taking negative rights?

For one, because you usually are arguing for it, number two, because i often address those i am discussing things with personally. read my other posts to other posters and I use the same 'you' with them.

for another, you cannot separate what you support from the others who support it with you. their cooperation with you does not provide moral cover for *your* support of it. if you support something, you are still personally responsible for your choice to do so no matter how many others do so too. that is also why I use "you" regardless of how many agree with you.

We're all doing it. It's called law, citizenship and democracy.

that's a 'because' answer combined with 'everybody does it', a dodging of the validation of WHY.

and not everybody does it. only those who agree with you do it. it is a lot of people, but not everybody does it, and i'm one of those. there are a zillion and a half, maybe a quadrillion, places where everyday joe and jane run into your phantom proxy, whereas my guy is off fishing and minding his own bidness.

Originally Posted by MtnGoat

that is what is happening, since if you leave here you just wind up where it is worse, not better.

also, the option of leaving does not change that force is still being used and that it's proponents version of justice is you fleeing from their use of force... an interesting concept of fairness and equality.

and also one which is actually only a temporarily available sideways avoidance of the actual meanings of their escape clause which is dependent on current political circumstance.

for example, any supporter of the UN charter of human rights has no consistent ideological basis for this point, because they contend the UN charter applies everywhere and thus the fact of 'escape' is only a temporary convenience of circumstance, not a proper principled one because the charter permits no escape as it claims to apply to everyone, everywhere.

Hence if they rest their principled objection that the use of force is acceptable on the basis that you can leave, what happens to this principle when it is in direct conflict with the charter they support that says you *cannot* leave?

My academic arguments aside, I firmly believe in both the desirabilty and necessity of laws. I also believe that whichever way I ultimately come down on the "coercive" question, I will support some laws that you would find objectionable.

I live in a neighborhood with covenants - and they are enforceable under law. My neighbor can not choose to paint his house bright purple and play his music loud late at night. I am glad of that and would seek enforcement of these rules if violated. I can't park a race car in my driveway. My wife supports that rule.

Originally Posted by sarge

I am rendered willing to obey (sort of) the speed limit by the effect that breaking the law might have on me. I believe I am coerced into staying somewhere close to the speed limit. Left to my own devices, I would probably drive much faster than I do. I avoid it because I can't afford the consequences if caught. The law itself is not coercive, but the penalties for unlawful behavior are.

Not if you voluntarily subject yourself to them. If I want to play baseball and do not steal home because I don't want to be called "Out", am I being coerced into not stealing home?

There are extra-legal physical residents of the US that avoid breaking laws simply because they value their continued presence here. Do you consider fear of consequences not coercive in nature, if the individual makes the choice to obey because of the fear of consequences?

Not if the individual willingly engages in the game. Nobody is "Forced" to steal their way into the U.S.. When an illegal comes across the border, a known condition of not being nabbed by La Migra is to keep on the down low. It is the tall nail that gets hammered first.

Wanting to belong, without wanting to accept the conditions of membership strikes me as unreasonable and contrary to the welfare of the group into which membership is sought. I'll have to mull this one over for awhile.

Then mull this too: Everyone here is drinking from the well that they did not dig. To expand on this, if the condition for obtaining a drink of water at this well is a requirement to not urinate within twenty feet of it, is that requirement "Coercion" for the person who wants to pee in the well?

Volutarily accepting conditions removes the possibilty of coercion in the choice

or

Coerced into choice by the undesirablity of the alternative

Well then, does the United States have to arbitrarily makes its conditional use less restrictive because Canada is too cold for the guy who doesn't like conditional use? Does my home owner's association have to let me paint my house black and purple because I don't like living in another development because people are allowed yard cars and don't mow their lawns?

Originally Posted by NewbieX

Because it seems pretty plain to me that killing people is bad news, even if they deserve it. It seems pretty plain to me that conflict is going to happen, but that violence is not a necessary outcome of conflict. It seems pretty plain to me that solving problems with violence is an absolutely last resort.

all of which i agree with... and then you turn and use institutional violence with abandon because you think your judgement is better than millions of people you have not even met. this is not meant as an insult so don't take it so personally, but that is what is going on.

i simply have no desire to order the lives and decisions of people i don't know and assume i known better. i am fully prepared to accept their effects on me without resorting to coercion on them so long as my negative rights are respected. i realize this means a lot of things happen i don't agree with... but that is OK, because I simply do not have the expectation that people need to do what i want them to do.

i treat them as equals, while i do not think you do

I live in a neighborhood with covenants - and they are enforceable under law. My neighbor can not choose to paint his house bright purple and play his music loud late at night. I am glad of that and would seek enforcement of these rules if violated. I can't park a race car in my driveway. My wife supports that rule.

i have no problem with covenants since they represent a totally open choice to buy within private borders, essentially.

So if I support some tax to provide education and you do not, this makes me bad and you good. Simple as that? Even if your plan limits higher education to 20% of the population and turns the country into Madmax Beyond Thunderdome?

If you support some tax to attack Iran, but I do not...this makes me good and you bad. What if Global Warming or declining education standards or any number of other things threaten us?

Are we only justified in initiating coercion if it's some gov't project you support?

I have no problem with your ideals, I think they make a good bit of sense, but I disagree that they will always lead to the best solution for the country.

I guess my point is that we cannot expect to run a country based purely on objectivist ideals and the cult of the individual. We have to allow for looking at consequences and adjusting policy to accomplish subjective goals that effect the vast majority of citizens.

Things like affordable housing, clean air and water, accessable education, freedom of information, a good business environment and other subjective ideals make for whether the country is a good place or a craphole.

I'd rather live in a place where the gov't made some concessions to practicality, than a nightmare that was perfect from the initiation of coercion standpoint.

Originally Posted by lrsudog

Not if you voluntarily subject yourself to them. If I want to play baseball and do not steal home because I don't want to be called "Out", am I being coerced into not stealing home?

I believe so. I think it is the presence undesirable consequences that prevents the action. The rule itself brings no force to bear, but the penalty associated with violation does. If I understand your point correctly, choosing to accept the rule rather than the consequences removes the possibility of coercion?

Not if the individual willingly engages in the game. Nobody is "Forced" to steal their way into the U.S.. When an illegal comes across the border, a known condition of not being nabbed by La Migra is to keep on the down low. It is the tall nail that gets hammered first.

Certainly, the condition for failing to follow the path of avoiding attention is known, but it is the undesirabilty of the consequences of attention that impart the force. I agree that a choice is made, but disagree that the presence of choice eliminates the possibilty of coercion.

If I am presented with the choice of accepting a hammer-blow to the knee or handing over a dollar, does the presence of a choice remove the coercion? Or is the example invalid because both choices carry a penalty? If so, is it possible to turn your example (above) around a little and say that the illegal had a similar choice -stay in an undesirable environment or migrate and go on the down-low.

Well then, does the United States have to arbitrarily makes its conditional use less restrictive because Canada is too cold for the guy who doesn't like conditional use? Does my home owner's association have to let me paint my house black and purple because I don't like living in another development because people are allowed yard cars and don't mow their lawns?

I didn't understand this last well enough to frame a response.