Thursday, October 25, 2018

Just leave your leg in the car


  • Your artificial hip.
  • A thought in your head.
  • A letter in your pocket.
  • A phone on your belt.
  • A pacemaker in your chest.
  • Your hearing aid.
  • Your tattoos.
  • A gun in your pants.
  • Your cane or walker.
  • Glasses on your face or contact lenses on your cornea.
  • Dye on your hair.
  • Fillings in your teeth.


None of those things are any of my business, and if I invite you onto my property I won't make the ridiculous demand that you leave any of them behind.

Even if I imagine I have the "right" to do so, doing so would still make me a self-centered, property rights violating jerk.

I know there are environmental conditions, such as artificially strong magnetic fields and radio signals, which could make it necessary to either leave certain things behind, or which make it dangerous for people with those things to be in certain places. Like how neckties aren't safe to wear around certain spinning equipment. That's not what we're talking about here.

My rights end where yours begin, and yours begin-- at the very minimum-- at the surface of your clothing/possessions or skin. My rights can't penetrate beyond that level; inside your personal space. That's the absolutely essential kernel from which all property rights grow.

If I'm not willing to respect all your rights I am not obligated to allow you on my property, but if I do allow or invite you onto my property, I am obligated to respect your rights. All of them. If I demand you strip naked and submit yourself to being raped as a condition of coming onto my property, that would make me a rights-violating jerk. Some might imagine I would be within my rights to set that condition, but I don't. To me, that's utterly ridiculous.

You may have a different opinion. If so, fine. I don't demand you surgically excise your differing opinion and leave it behind as a condition of coming onto my property. Because I don't imagine that anything you aren't using to actually initiate force or to damage my property or take it from me is violating my property rights in any way.

_______________

Reminder: I could really use some financial help.
-

This blog is my job.
"I do the job... I get paid."

15 comments:

  1. So if I invite you onto my property, I must respect your "right" to stand next to my bed and bellow the national anthem at 3am (free speech), sacrifice a goat on my front porch (freedom of religion), etc.?

    You do have a right to sing the national anthem and sacrifice goats. You don't have a right to use my property under any conditions other than the ones we agree to. Any use outside such conditions is an initiation of force.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Don't invite people into your bedroom at 3am. Bellowing is an external act. If they are sitting in your living room at 3pm imagining doing this they haven't violated you in any way.

      If someone sacrifices a goat on your property they have committed an act which, among other things, makes a mess and a smell. It has external effects. Same with the 3am "concert"; they wouldn't be violating you if they didn't commit an act which has physical effects beyond their body.

      Delete
  2. If you invite someone onto your property, you have the right to insist they leave if they aren't considerate of your rules for guests. Bellowing at 3 am on my property would result in at least a brisk discussion, and insisting you leave if you persist.

    If someone did the written equivalent of bellowing on this private property blog, i.e. SHOUTING WITH ALL CAPS ON AND MAKING A JACKASS OF THEMSELVES, it would be up to Kent to either tolerate that behavior, ask them to tone it down a notch, or block them from commenting further -- his property, his rules.

    You have to respect the rights of people while they are on your property -- you don't have to allow them to stay.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. This is one of my pet peaves with a certain segment of libertarians. Your "property" rights do not justify the abrogation of another individual’s natural rights. Their "actions" may justify that, but not your property rights. To claim otherwise is to assert a form of ownership on another's person or behavior. A person’s natural rights are an inherent component of their total 'essence' or reality and cannot be separated from their tangible or physical nature. Your right to self-defense and your right of free association may exclude them or limit their actions but not your "property" right. I concur with Mr. Henshaw's caveat; "You have to respect the rights of people while they are on your property -- you don't have to allow them to stay."

      Delete
    2. And I agree with him as well.

      I'll (perhaps unwisely) return to this topic a couple more times in the next several days. I have a couple of other points to make-- which, again, won't change anyone's mind. But it will at least clarify (I hope) my thinking on this. With the last post being what I see as the nail in the coffin of "My property rights mean I can make any rules for your body when you are on my property". We shall see how others see it.

      Delete
  3. This is one of the few times I think you're off base, Kent. The owner of property has the right to set any rules he pleases before sharing his property with others. If someone does not like the rules the property owner sets, he/she is free to go somewhere else.

    If I demand you strip naked and submit yourself to being raped as a condition of coming onto my property, that would make me a rights-violating jerk.

    A jerk, maybe. But as long as you communicated the conditions clearly in advance, not a rights violator, any more than charging someone money to come onto your property violates their rights.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. For years, since I first communicated this idea, I have tried my best to see it the way you describe. I have almost gotten there a couple of times, but then the whole thing crashes down.

      It just comes down to-- to me-- that if you don't have absolute rights to your body and the immediate body-shaped space containing it, there can be no such thing (in my mind, anyway) as "property rights".

      And, I realize no one who disagrees with this will ever change their minds, and I won't change my mind without something more than the argument that keeps being presented to me. Worse (I guess), I can't see how I'd maintain my conviction that property rights are real if I were convinced that you have no bodily rights once you set foot on someone else's real-estate.

      Delete
    2. Well, that's just it -- you DO have absolute rights to your body (and your other property).

      And everyone else has absolute rights to THEIR bodies (and their other property).

      There's no conflict. You don't have a right to use other people's property without their permission, and they don't have a right to stop you from using yours (including your body). Where the two sets of property mix, it's all a matter of consent and agreement, not of "having no bodily rights."

      Delete
    3. I tend to agree with JdL and Thomas here. Say I purchased a large tract of land and put up a huge bulletproof reinforced concrete dome over it. Then I decorated the interior like an airsoft area. However, instead of plastic BBs, I permit the use of real guns*. If I created a contract that specified the rules ahead of time and customers came to me willingly (and paid me for access), has anyone violated the NAP?

      *Really bad idea!

      Delete
    4. In that case, no, you haven't violated anyone's rights.

      If, however, your rules contained irrelevant stipulations, such as "You are not allowed to think of a white bear while on my property", then you would be a violator.

      There is a huge difference between rules which serve a purpose and rules which are petty and controlling. Rules seeking to regulate things other than behavior/acts are non-rules in my mind.

      Delete
  4. "Rules seeking to regulate things other than behavior/acts are non-rules in my mind."

    In English, that means "your property isn't your property if I don't want it to be your property."

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes, it is.

      Using my property is an act.

      Using my property without my permission is theft.

      Using my property in any way that conflicts with my requirements for using my property is using my property without my permission.

      Delete
    2. Using your property is an act.
      Using your property without your permission is trespassing, which is archation, but not theft.
      Passively possessing something-- inert object or thought-- which stays completely on/inside my body while I, with your permission, use your property-- not an act in itself.
      If your "permission" means I am required to allow you to violate me, then you are a bad guy, and I wouldn't go onto your property anyway, unless I had to. In fact, I would shun you. I don't violate people as a condition of them coming onto my property, and I expect the same consideration from others.

      Delete
  5. "Passively possessing something-- inert object or thought-- which stays completely on/inside my body while I, with your permission, use your property-- not an act in itself."

    Using my property is the act. And if if you don't have permission to use it with X on your body, then using it is using it with X on your body is using it without my permission.

    ReplyDelete