[SolarCross]

As libertarians we are very interested in the discovery of right from wrong. The UN has its own take on human rights presented as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. So what do we think of the UN's attempt at an articulation of rights?

There doesn't seem to be any rational argument for why this or that thing is or should be a right, it all seems to be just plucked out of thin air. Some articles contradict others.

Article 17.

(1) Everyone has the right to own property alone as well as in association with others.
(2) No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his property.

This one would seem to forbid tax!

[Bulaba Khan Jones]

This one would seem to forbid tax!

Arbitrary: Determined by chance, whim, or impulse, and not by necessity, reason, or principle

You're misunderstanding what the text said.

[SolarCross]

Definition of the word 'arbitrary'[/url]"]Arbitrary: Determined by chance, whim, or impulse, and not by necessity, reason, or principle

You're misunderstanding what the text said.

Well then the article is meaningless. If stealing by "necessity, reason or principle" is allowed then anything goes. If you get mugged, the mugger can just say "It was necessary, because I wouldn't have money otherwise". The cop that coerces you into paying the official bribe can say "I had a reason, my bosses said I could". The King that sends all of his men and all of his horses to ransack your town or village and put you all under his tax racket, can just say "It is all by the principle of right by conquest, God didn't stop me so he must approve!".

[Drlee]

Methinks you are a one-trick-pony. I am sure glad we have another "tax is theft" thread though.

Shall we revisit the words have meaning argument again?

Only a libertarian could look at the declaration of human rights mine that from it. God in heaven.

[Rich]

Only a libertarian could look at the declaration of human rights mine that from it. God in heaven.

Althogh generally I'm in disagreement with Taxizen. It seems reasonable that he should find the UN to be un-libertarian.

Libertarianism is by its nature a one trick pony in that it believes all you need are property rights. Well the true correct property rights, as defined by Libertarians. Well sort of defined by Libertarians. Well ever so vaguely defined by the true Libertarians, who ever they are.

[SolarCross]

I don't know that I have quite yet come to the conclusion that the UN is un-libertarian though of course in so far as it is a club for states and even possibly a platform for making a world government it already has, without looking too deeply, a few strikes against it.

[Drlee]

Althogh generally I'm in disagreement with Taxizen. It seems reasonable that he should find the UN to be un-libertarian.

Libertarianism is by its nature a one trick pony in that it believes all you need are property rights. Well the true correct property rights, as defined by Libertarians. Well sort of defined by Libertarians. Well ever so vaguely defined by the true Libertarians, who ever they are.

[Husky]

The UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights has always baffled me: how can you codify notions that are entirely relative and dependent on subjective experience?

[lucky]

As libertarians we are very interested in the discovery of right from wrong. The UN has its own take on human rights presented as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. So what do we think of the UN's attempt at an articulation of rights?

It is not an attempt at "discovery" and "articulation" of some pre-existing system. It is an attempt to set goals and implement them widely.

Now, Therefore THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY proclaims THIS UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS as a common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations, to the end that every individual and every organ of society, keeping this Declaration constantly in mind, shall strive by teaching and education to promote respect for these rights and freedoms and by progressive measures, national and international, to secure their universal and effective recognition and observance, both among the peoples of Member States themselves and among the peoples of territories under their jurisdiction.

No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his property.This one would seem to forbid tax!

Read Hayek's "The Constitution of Liberty". He talks a lot about arbitrary actions vs the rule of law. A legislated and indiscriminately applied tax is the opposite of arbitrary in this context.

[Joe Liberty]

So what do we think of the UN's attempt at an articulation of rights?

There doesn't seem to be any rational argument for why this or that thing is or should be a right, it all seems to be just plucked out of thin air.

That is my assessment as well.

Some articles contradict others.

And some are rather confusing:

Article 1: All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

Not sure how one has a right to control the behavior of others. I think I get what they're shooting for, it's just very poorly worded.

Article 22 is pretty much meaningless:
"Everyone, as a member of society, has the right to social security and is entitled to realization, through national effort and international co-operation and in accordance with the organization and resources of each State, of the economic, social and cultural rights indispensable for his dignity and the free development of his personality."

Lots of words there, not much substance. What is "social security"? Why, whatever someone wants it to be at any given time.

Article 23 (3) is also rather meaningless:

"Everyone who works has the right to just and favourable remuneration ensuring for himself and his family an existence worthy of human dignity, and supplemented, if necessary, by other means of social protection."

So, you have the supposed right to be paid a certain amount, no matter what work you provide. In other words, the responsibility for "himself and his family" is not his anymore, it's somebody else's. Everybody else's.

Article 25, more of the same vague feel-good stuff without any substance:
"Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family..."

You have the right to seek such, yes. You don't have a right to just have a certain "standard of living" handed to you for nothing.

Article 17.

(1) Everyone has the right to own property alone as well as in association with others.
(2) No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his property.

This one would seem to forbid tax!

No, that one simply requires that some (any) rationale be applied first. Which makes it meaningless.

Really, this is a document that creates "rights" out of things that somebody else has to provide. That means they aren't really rights at all.

I could go on. Article 26 articulates a "right" to an education paid for by somebody else, and the "right" to be forced to go to school. Can anybody name another "right" that you have to be forced to enjoy?

[Drlee]

I get it Joe. If one of the articles is something with which you agree...that is good. If it is something with which you disagree...."Lots of words there, not much substance."



How about a real argument.

[Bulaba Khan Jones]

That is my assessment as well.

It must be very confusing as to why human rights are just plucked out of thin air. It certainly makes no rational sense at all why human rights are considered rights at all. It's totally random and it makes no sense at all.

And some are rather confusing

I can see that.

Not sure how one has a right to control the behavior of others.

What you quoted is not a law. It is unenforceable. You could not possibly enforce a law that stated "everyone shall act in a spirit of brotherhood". This is not possible. This is why the article you quoted is analogous to a statement of principles. Unless you actually, really, seriously believe that there could possibly be an enforceable law concerning "spirit of brotherhood".

Figures of authority, police, laws, regulations: this happens all the time. People are constantly told to not steal, be corrupt, murder, torture, and so on.

But oh, I should add that this isn't a perfect world and sometimes theft, corruption, murder, and torture happen. Didn't want to confuse you there.

I think I get what they're shooting for, it's just very poorly worded.

You think you get? You only think you get what "free and equal in dignity and rights", "endowed with reason and conscience", "act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood"? Good lord, no wonder you say you are confused; you don't even understand what those phrases mean.

I am absolutely stunned and baffled by this apparent inability to understand a concept like a "right", recognizing what is a statement of principle and what is an enforceable law, and what a phrase like "free and equal" means. What you wrote was satire, right?

[SolarCross]

I am absolutely stunned and baffled by this apparent inability to understand a concept like a "right", recognizing what is a statement of principle and what is an enforceable law, and what a phrase like "free and equal" means. What you wrote was satire, right?

Rights are enforceable though, that is kind of the point. The point of rights is to determine which actions are aggression and which are defensive. If you attack me with a knife and I knock you out, who is in the right? If I have the right to defend my life then i am in the right and you are not, so my enforcement, my violence is right and your use of force, your violence is not. My right to life is enforceable. If on the other hand you have the right to kill me and I don't have the right to defend myself, then my violence is wrong and yours is right.

This is the reason rights need to be justified by some reasoned argument and not just plucked out of thin air, because the use of force is a serious business.

[Rei Murasame]

You have the right to seek such, yes. You don't have a right to just have a certain "standard of living" handed to you for nothing.

Indeed. But that's why a certain amount of fighting is always required:



She was seeking it, right?

[Bulaba Khan Jones]

Rights are enforceable though, that is kind of the point.

You've missed the point entirely: Joe Liberty cannot distinguish statements based on context. He is unable to recognize the difference between something that can be enforced in our material space-time continuum from a statement of principles like "spirit of brotherhood". There is no law in the entire world that enforces behavior in line with "spirit of brotherhood".

The point of rights is to determine which actions are aggression and which are defensive. If you attack me with a knife and I knock you out, who is in the right? If I have the right to defend my life then i am in the right and you are not, so my enforcement, my violence is right and your use of force, your violence is not. My right to life is enforceable. If on the other hand you have the right to kill me and I don't have the right to defend myself, then my violence is wrong and yours is right.

First, I have a hypothetical situation for which I'd like your perspective as a libertarian. One man signs a voluntary contract allowing himself to become property, a slave, to another person. Is this legal or acceptable in the framework of a libertarian society you'd picture? Some libertarians say yes to this. Libertarians often talk about rights and freedoms. What they mean by economic freedom is the freedom for the wealthy to continue to accrue more and more property and wealth. Rights are disproportionately focused on private property and thus, when some libertarian philosophers clearly place the highest emphasis on property rights and less on personal rights and freedoms, this is where the term "applied autism" comes into effect and why people disdain it.

In what case would torturing and murdering children not be wrong, and would indeed be right? What possible situation could there be? Simply because one person, or a group of people insist that it's right? Insisting on something being right negates the obvious objectivity of ethical and moral concern? A group of people going around killing people, perhaps including you from the example you made, would mean that there'd be no one around to stop them, but this does not change the likely conclusion they are mentally deranged, psychopathic, etc. This is why that pop psychology crap "everything is subjective" is so vapid.

This is the reason rights need to be justified by some reasoned argument and not just plucked out of thin air, because the use of force is a serious business.

Are you saying that you think the UN doesn't have its reasons for making its declaration of human rights? They need to write out an essay explaining their reasons for why freedom from slavery is a human right?

[SolarCross]

First, I have a hypothetical situation for which I'd like your perspective as a libertarian. One man signs a voluntary contract allowing himself to become property, a slave, to another person. Is this legal or acceptable in the framework of a libertarian society you'd picture? Some libertarians say yes to this.

It depends on what you mean by the word "slave", if by slave you mean chattel goods rather than conscript then the answer depends on whether the man actually owns himself in the first place. If he really does own himself then of course he can trade himself away because his ownself is his to do with as he pleases. If he doesn't own himself then he does not have the right to trade himself away but that implies he was a slave begin with. Only a freeman can sell himself. If he can't sell himself then he was a slave to start with, presumably owned by the person asserting that he can't sell himself. By what right would you have to force him not to sell himself? Are you his legitimate owner?
When libertarians talk about slavery using hypotheticals like this we are not proposing policy, we are doing thought experiments to discover the nature of rights and freedom.

Libertarians often talk about rights and freedoms. What they mean by economic freedom is the freedom for the wealthy to continue to accrue more and more property and wealth. Rights are disproportionately focused on private property and thus, when some libertarian philosophers clearly place the highest emphasis on property rights and less on personal rights and freedoms, this is where the term "applied autism" comes into effect and why people disdain it.

No that is just wilful misrepresentation. Personal rights are property rights. Why does a woman have the right not to be raped? Because her body is her property not the rapists. Why do I have the right to say what I want? Because the thoughts and vocal organs that create it are my property. Whether you are a beautiful woman or an ugly one or whether I have intelligent or stupid things to say is irrelevant and so it is with external property. Whether you have lots of property or little property is irrelevant, what matters is did you acquire it by rightful methods?

In what case would torturing and murdering children not be wrong, and would indeed be right? What possible situation could there be?

Sorry what are you insinuating? Is this about abortion? I agree abortion is murder but some others don't see it that way. It is a grey area, but libertarians are not alone in having different ideas on that.

Simply because one person, or a group of people insist that it's right? Insisting on something being right negates the obvious objectivity of ethical and moral concern?

It seems to me that libertarains alone are interested in discovering objective ethical and moral criteria. Every other ideologue from socialists to liberals seems only interested in giving themselves permission to fuck people over.

A group of people going around killing people, perhaps including you from the example you made, would mean that there'd be no one around to stop them, but this does not change the likely conclusion they are mentally deranged, psychopathic, etc. This is why that pop psychology crap "everything is subjective" is so vapid.

What is your point? I don't get it.

Are you saying that you think the UN doesn't have its reasons for making its declaration of human rights? They need to write out an essay explaining their reasons for why freedom from slavery is a human right?

Whether they have reasoning or not is moot if they keep it secret. They may not want to clutter their articles with rational arguments but that wouldn't stop them publishing a supplementary document that did. They probably blew a few hundred million dollars writing that fluff. I could do better for free.

[Drlee]

Why does a woman have the right not to be raped? Because her body is her property not the rapists.

Oh good Lord. Are you sure you are not a republican. So your assertion is that the only reason society has a stake in enforcing rules against violence to another person is a property violation. A trespass?:lol:

So then you would not punish rape any more severely than you would punish theft of a watermelon? They are both, after all, to your way of thinking just theft. Nothing more.

So how much is this property you call one's body worth? More than a Buick and less than a Cadillac.

This is truly comical. Absurd. Idiotic. But funny.

[Rich]

If you abolish government than slavery would be rapidly reintroduced. There's plenty of people who would sell themselves for a shot of smack. But there's plenty of people who will sign a contract where some level of slavery is included as a penalty for contract breakage. Hell who reads most contracts anyway. While out and out Paedophiles might be a small minority. There are plenty of men who'd pay to fuck a fifteen year old girl or if their gay to fuck a fifteen year old boy. With welfare abolished there's going to be plenty of human raw material. Abolishing government is absolutely ludicrous. No welfare means it should be cheap to recruit your own private army.

No government is impossible. Those that claim they want it are lying. they just want to abolish democracy and have the propertied rule directly. However if want to look at small government in a complex urbanised society then the overwhelmingly best example is pre Christian Rome. Late Republican and Early Empire. Its really not pretty. When you do that, you see why Libertarianism is actually a form of fascism. Its not a coincidence that the precursors of the Nazis were called the Freicorps. Its not a coincidence that all the Libertarian heroes were slave owners: The confederacy, Jefferson, John Locke, Cato, the Spartans were slave owners. All of them were opposed to universal suffrage.

Fascists and Libertarians are exactly the same in that they're both deeply unhappy with the results of democratic government. In particular they are both unhappy with universal suffrage. That it results in what by historical standards is left wing government. Libertarianism and Fascism only differ in their context. Their essence is the same. Its like the Israeli regime and the Dutch regime are fundamentally the same. Its only the context in which they operate that makes them look different, makes Israel look exceptional.

[Rei Murasame]

Fascism was born out of the unification of the ideas about a national syndicalist offensive, which would subjugate the national bourgeoisie within the strictures of the state and simultaneously prepare the country for a regional war against international finance and war against the established first-order imperialist powers at their back.

Syndicalism and national liberation were seen as actions that had to be carried out simultaneously. This is why, for example, Japanese right-socialism was called Japanese right-socialism. This is why strict regulations for industrial safety were introduced for the first time under right-socialism (before that, Japanese people were just getting wounded and killed by machines in factories all the time). This is why there was that incident when the bourgeoisie called for strikes to be broken by 'conciliation by sword', the police showed up and joined the side of the national unions against the factory owners and settled the strike in the reverse of the way that was anticipated, the workers got what they had demanded and the factory owners had to accept the change in relationship (factory owners began to realise that the state was no longer their exclusive toy). This is why 'enterprise is family' was a thing, where unions and owners would co-manage the factories. This is why wages rose by roughly 30% across the board in Japan during right-socialism. This is why women and men had gender wage parity by 1939. This is why union density increased from 45% to 85% by 1944.

So fuck your talking point, Rich. Don't you ever compare us to libertarians again.

[Joe Liberty]

You've missed the point entirely: Joe Liberty cannot distinguish statements based on context. He is unable to recognize the difference between something that can be enforced in our material space-time continuum from a statement of principles like "spirit of brotherhood".

Yeah, it does appear that Article One is just a continuation of the Preamble. So the document is poorly constructed as well. So I will accept that Article One does not attempt to spell out an actual right.

Libertarians often talk about rights and freedoms. What they mean by economic freedom is the freedom for the wealthy to continue to accrue more and more property and wealth.

We apply rights consistently and universally. Everyone has the right to economic freedom, not just those whom somebody somewhere has decided own too much stuff.

Rights are disproportionately focused on private property ...

Property rights are necessary for individual rights.

... and thus, when some libertarian philosophers clearly place the highest emphasis on property rights and less on personal rights and freedoms,

Personal rights and freedoms can't really exist without property rights. They're contingent upon on property rights.

Are you saying that you think the UN doesn't have its reasons for making its declaration of human rights?

I'm sure they have their reasons, but those reasons don't seem to be consistent or objective, in reasoning or application.