I'm Allowed to Rob You!

I'll try to keep this brief, in case you won't respond again. And yeah, this is getting too taxing on my time too :p > For one thing, I might want to control the laptop you paid for, so it's clearly leaving something important out. Blindingly obviously, "value you want to control" only applies when you've produced or legitimately acquired that value, through a voluntary exchange for example. But I think this idea covers all property, regardless of whether it's a house or a book you wrote. There's no point in bickering about "what if you don't want to control the value you've produced? -is it property then?" .. etc, what you want to do with value under your control is up to you. As for an apple in your hand, yes, of course it depends on the context, but it's pointless to confound the issue like that. The point was that in general , anything that's already in your possession is automatically considered your property, and there's no need for a central state to "enforce" that - it's just our intuitive understanding of property. > Reasonable levels of taxation, determined democratically and enforced fairly, don't violate any of these. There is no reasonable level of extortion, and it's not like we get to determine it democratically anyway. But how exactly do you think a portion of our property could, in fact, be the government's property instead? -Because "we" (hah!) have "democratically determined" a certain level of taxation? Does taxation mean some of your property magically tu

> The other alternative is if the Supreme court rules spying is unconstitutional but then they are just ignored by the Executive branch Is there any doubt that mass surveillance is "unconstitutional"? Do you think the people organizing the surveillance (ie. establishing the police state) give a fuck? > for now there is still constitutionally protected rights and limited government Constitutionally protected rights, such as Bradley Manning's habeas corpus, perhaps? Limited government? -Oh please. The takeaway here is that strangely enough, a piece of parchment written 200+ years ago cannot magically prevent tyranny in 2014. (Much like the very same parchment cannot magically grant some people rights that others don't have: this video )

>> we should not have rulers > Explain "should not"? It’s a violation of our rights, for starters. Second, it doesn’t benefit society at large. A ruler’s rule only benefits himself, and his cronies. And finally, as the “If You Were King” video explained, you can’t be a “good ruler” - there’s no such thing, because whatever good you’d like to accomplish, is financed by the immorality of robbing people for taxes. Besides, whatever you wanted to accomplish would require people doing something to that end, and they’d either do it voluntarily (and your rule would be unnecessary), or you’d have to force them and then you’re just being a thug. > Life's unfair. Rule of law applies in some sense - if I put my savings in a bank (UK), the government guarantees them even in the event of the bank going bankrupt. That’s irrelevant, and not even a net benefit to society, again, because those guarantees cause people not to care which bank they put their money in. Without such guarantees, people would only use trustworthy banks, and banks would have to show trustworthiness through their actions . Besides, any deposit guarantee by the government is paid from money that’s been forcefully confiscated from everyone. Oh, and there’s a limit to how many deposit guarantees they can actually carry out without the economy imploding from inflation etc. > Why not apply the law more carefully and thoroughly instead of throwing it away? Again, no rulers doesn’t mean no rules. You’re thinking of laws in a

Yeah, we can agree that utility is non-linear. What we haven't established yet is: "so what?" :) > I think it's a fair question, but it seems hypocritical to ask immediately after asking: "why would anyone else have the right to decide how their property is allocated or used". Why would it be hypocritical? I'm not advocating for someone else using your property, nor for helping some through harming others. > However, every study I've seen done on this issue has shown that unconditional cash transfers to impoverished people tends to be used reasonably well[1] Didn't we already conclude that evidence is really quite meaningless in this discussion? It's not difficult to find statistics and articles to support the idea of redistribution. It is difficult, however, to explain why anyone's money should be "redistributed" away from him, considering it's his property. If a rich person's kid has a shitload of Lego bricks, should some of them be taken away from him to be redistributed to poor people's kids? > Certainly there will be some people who choose not to use redistributed income well, just as there are some people who have lots of capital who choose not to use their income well. What does it mean to use one's income well? Who decides if my use of my income is acceptable? Why would anyone be in a position to decide that for me ? If I want to buy my seventh Ford Fiesta because it will bring me immense joy, can you claim I'm not using my capital or income well ? > This one you'll h

I can't tell what you're trying to convey. You may just be trolling, of course. "The rule of law" sounds good and all, but you have to differentiate between laws that are only detrimental to us, and laws that would actually correspond to morals: 1) Don't aggress against others, 2) Don't violate others' property rights.. and those are the only two laws you need. Now we've got like hundreds of thousands of laws, and they're mostly just meant to benefit the ruling class (and their cronies) at our expense. The "If You Were King" video clearly shows there is no such thing as a "good ruler". That applies to governments too (because politicians are our modern-day rulers). But in case you really need it, here's some additional clarification: this video You talk about "freedom", but do you know what it means?