930 sats \ 3 replies \ @elvismercury 20 Feb \ on: Human Rights and the Public Good libertarian
At the most basic level there are no rights -- none -- other than those you seize for yourself. If you don't want to live in a perpetual murderous free for all vs other people who want what you have, you band together with a group of others and come up with some rules you all agree to abide by. That is the origin of rights in the only way that matters.
Property is an arbitrary construct that works pretty well in most cases to build law around. There is nothing special about property other than that. Cramming everything valuable in the world into the abstraction of "property" is one of the main reasons Libertarianism has been historically marginalized, and will probably always be marginal.
At the most basic level there are no rights
At the most technical level, I totally agree with this. "Rights" is such a useful shorthand for something I do believe in that I don't completely avoid the term.
I'd say being useful for building law around is pretty special, but we can disagree about that.
Cramming everything valuable in the world into the abstraction of "property"
This is explicitly not done by libertarians. I'd say we actually have one of the less totalizing world views. Our view is that the purpose of law is to resolve disputes and property rights is the best way to do that. Literally every other valuable thing is outside of the scope of libertarianism.
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"Rights" is such a useful shorthand for something I do believe in that I don't completely avoid the term.
Same. I try not to be Comic Book Guy about it, but some people are deeply confused about the concept and so from time to time I uncork it.
This is explicitly not done by libertarians. I'd say we actually have one of the less totalizing world views.
Interesting! I suppose I should be more conservative in how I talk about these things -- in my head, I'm thinking of the "libertarians" that I know, who have a hodgepodge of attitudes; but that's presumably as misleading as when people are pwning the dems, or whatever.
Insofar as this is a sensible question: is there a canonical thing that captures the nuances of modern libertarian thought? Such that, if you read it, you could credibly feel like you knew what the mainstream views / philosophy was?
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is there a canonical thing that captures the nuances of modern libertarian thought?
"Nuances"? No.
The conventionally accepted definition is that libertarianism is defined by the Non-Aggression Principle (NAP), which I've also seen called the Zero Aggression Principle (ZAP).
To be a libertarian in good standing you can believe anything you want as long as you reject the initiation of violence against people.
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