“Police officer” or “cop” are words used to describe people who commit specific acts. Just like “rapist”, “child molester”, or “mugger” are words to describe people who commit specific acts. It’s not really about the person, but about the acts the person chooses to commit.
Tag: rights
Collective Ownership
If I am told that because I live in a certain place, being born there, I have a share in the collective ownership of the whole region, including other people’s private property, but that no one can opt out of the rules imposed on the land without moving away, this is not legitimate collective ownership.
Turning Your Back on Your Supporters
My support ends here. Sorry, Chelsea Manning, you’ve stabbed an awful lot of your supporters in the back with this move.
On Getting Libertarianism Wrong
One of my mentors and favorite libertarian theorists, Hans-Hermann Hoppe, has once again gotten it dangerously wrong on libertarianism.
Challenging Books, Colleague Friendships, & Rights as Liberties (30m) – Editor’s Break 051
Editor’s Break 051 has Skyler giving his commentary on the following topics: letting your kids pull “all-nighters”, the value in Sudbury Valley modelled private “schools”, reading books that challenge our beliefs, why colleague friendships don’t last after somebody leaves the job, and a reformulation of rights as liberties.
The Reformulation of Rights as Liberties
Everyone and their mom likes to posit that humans have rights, and they shan’t be violated. Some say the source of these rights are God, or the gods. Others say that our rights were bestowed upon us by nature. Others, by “government” (Oy!). Through my study of this concept and the evolution of where my thinking on it stood, I have decided, for now at least, that “rights” are just liberties.
Not Requiring Evidence of Jurisdiction is a Violation of Due Process
Here’s a conversation I’ve had over the past week or two regarding jurisdiction. A number of themes are touched on throughout. This conversation began when a friend shared this success story of someone successfully defending themselves from an IRS attack by challenging jurisdiction, covering a six-year span.
Them Furriners
Those who focus on, or obsess over, “immigrants” without making the distinction between people who archate and those who don’t, regardless of where they were born, are harming liberty. Badly!
All State Actions are Inherently Criminal
For the state to do something—anything at all—requires theft to fund its actions and coercion to extract compliance from whomever its actions victimize. Even if the action in question would be justified if carried out by a private actor, the state will necessarily carry it out in an unjustified manner.
Sit-ins
I scarcely noticed in 1960, when I was a sophomore in high school, and it happened so fast. All of the lunch counters and soda fountains in Frankfort, KY’s drug stores and dime stores disappeared overnight.