From: gsmith@clio.iwr.uni-heidelberg.de (Gene W. Smith)
Newsgroups: soc.motss
Subject: Re: Individualism & the Common Weal
Date: 16 Nov 92 19:17:58 GMT
Organization: IWR, University of Heidelberg, Germany

In article <1992Nov13.043631.6426@gordian.com> mike@gordian.com
(Michael A. Thomas) writes:

>  Oh yes, I have heard of this school. One question, where/when did
>I sign this contract? 

You don't have to.  If you never, ever try to use the government to
enforce your own property rights, and never try to keep anything if
someone asks you for it, I don't see anything wrong if you do what
other people would call stealing.  But if you insist that you have
property, you must consider the claims of others.  If you make use of
the government, you should help pay for it.

>  On the contrary, property would exist even if no one were there
>were no one take it. You probably wouldn't think of it in those
>terms but it would exist none the less. 

Utter and complete looney nonsense.  Care to explain how a bunch of
hydrogen atoms drifting around in space with nobody there constitute
"property"?  This is typical of the deranged nonsense produced by
insisting on a nonstandard meaning of a word.  I have no idea anymore
what you mean by property, and no reason to think you even know what
you mean.

I am actually surprised to
>see that you can think of rights independent of government though.
>Most Social Contract folks see them as being an artifact of 
>governments as well.

I think rights of governments derive from more fundamental things,
such as the Silver Rule.

>  This one intrigues me. Is the fact that we stole, by brute force,
>Alcatraz (or whatever) from the Indians the last thing to be said?
>Is brute force the bottom line in all social settings, or is there
>a principle beyond that which, in the abstract, says that it was
>wrong to confiscate their land?

I didn't say it was *right*, I said it determines what is property.

Are you suggesting we pay back for all the black people which were
brought to this country, as Donald and Laura were talking about
a while back?  

>  Not that Germany is really germane to this discussion, I am not
>convinced that the manufacturing sector of the German economy is
>much healthier than its US equivalent.

Well, it is a hell of a lot bigger per capita, for starters.

>  You are speaking of Hong Kong and Singapore I assume. No question
>about that, they are quite repressive on social issues from my
>understanding. If anything, they are probably more in the mold of
>Germany in that respect.

Germany is a democracy, for starters.  You have a very peculiar idea
of Germany, which is better in some civil rights areas that the US.

>  Pthbbbt. It was the best I could remember from a Calvin cartoon :-)
>How is it spelled? 

I'm spelling it your way now.

>  Taxes which go to support functions which are not related to
>the defense of individual liberties are looting though.

So if I build a road with tax money, that is looting?  Does that mean
if you drive on the road, you are a looter?

Propertarians are nuts!

-- 
     Gene Ward Smith/Brahms Gang/IWR/Ruprecht-Karls University 
               gsmith@kalliope.iwr.uni-heidelberg.de
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