A popular ethical thought experiment is the question of given the ability to time travel, would you kill baby Hitler? Allow me to nip this supposed quandary in the bud. The voluntaryist approaches this differently than a coercivist. Killing baby Hitler would prevent Hitler’s involvement with the Third Reich, but so would many other actions toward baby Hitler.
Category: Two Cents
On Income Inequality II
Those who fight for economic egalitarianism and against income inequality are attempting to do the impossible by government force. Not only do they want income levels coercively flattened, but they also hope that more and more of their fellow human beings will share their ideals.
On Back Talk
Among many other contra-conventional parenting practices I engage in is the allowance of so-called “back talk”. I have no interest in using my “authority” as a parent and threateningly large size and loud voice to silence any of my children who fill the need to respond to what they judge as an unsatisfactory final word.
On Property
In a sick and twisted way, property is a form of slavery. No, I do not mean that claiming property rights is enslaving to other people. What I mean is that claiming property rights in something means that you must either hold fast to or abandon it when it’s being threatened.
On Co-Sleeping
We are co-sleepers and room-sharers in my family. We started our family bedroom in early 2013, before my youngest was born, and several years before we started renting our house out on Airbnb (2016) and doing some light traveling. This arrangement is how humans slept for the entire history of our species (and before, of course) up until 200 years ago.
On Social Justice Warriors
Can you spot the similarity in these two groups? 1) conservative parents who wail against swearing and sexuality in public broadcasting, and 2) social justice warriors (and their liberal feminist compatriots) who wail against conservative speakers on college campuses.
On Intellectual Property V
The United States has a “first-to-file” patent system, which means the first person or company to file for a patent on a novel invention gets the monopoly protection. This is obviously a violation of so-called intellectual property rights.
On Capitalism III
Noam Chomsky and other left anarchist types criticize capitalism and wage labor by arguing that workers can’t give valid consent because their alternative to working is starvation. Nevermind that employers are not the force creating the prospect of starvation (that’s Mother Nature’s doing), but doesn’t this criticism apply equally to every other arrangement?
On Pushing Boundaries III
As I’ve already written, politics swims downstream from culture. Change the culture, change politics. What does culture swim downstream from? Only that which has any effect at changing it: renegade behavior.
On Voluntaryists II
It should be obvious to all why Thanos in Avengers: Infinity War was a villain: he is a coercivist, not a voluntaryist. Coercivists who identify problems prefer solutions which are coercive, aggressive, or violent. There’s little thought given to non-violent solutions.