One effort at justification that this puritanical libertarian is regularly engaged in is seeking to convinced those enamored by the state to consider whether enamored is worthwhile. There is so much about the human animal, captured most by the insatiability of animal want (demand), that is tempted to seek security of satisfaction at any cost. …
Tag Archives: coercion
7.2, Szaz, Values, Disorders and the Growth of the Therapeutic State
(Pg. 96) “Applied to behavior, especially sexual behavior, the disease label combines a description with a covert value judgment…Psychiatrists diagnose the person who eats too much as suffering from ‘bulimia’ and the person who eats to little as suffering from ‘anorexia nervosa’. Similarly, the person who has too much sex suffers from ‘sex addiction,’ while …
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6.4, Jesus, Disassociation and Living Well
Jesus chose to disassociate from much of the social (and so political) standards of his day. He repeatedly frustrated the Pharisees and Sadducees with the way in which he ignored the nuances of their rules and regulations. Jesus might engage in what counted as work on the sabbath. Jesus might spend time with the discriminated …
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5.2, Analogy and Coercion
The thesis for the “5” series of posts is to meditate on coercion, its prevalence, its unjustifiability, the costs (which may be split between the coercer and the coerced), the value of liberty, the foundation of liberty in property rights, and the reasonability of the anarcho-capitalist framework. We will inch our way into this. But …
5.1, A New Series: Property Rights, Liberty, Oppression
Living, as we do, under regimes of internal coercion and aggression much of which we have grown up with and adapted to, it can be difficult to first, shake off the fetters theoretically and conceptually. Second, to imagine community in its fullness. Third, to pursue non-aggression and voluntary association in a state of aggression and …
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4.7, The Aristotelian Insight on Virtue Production
How do I know when I have a virtue? This is a part of measuring for progress, and though I am leery about the over-emphasis of measuring for progress, it is not in itself wrongful. Why leery? An analogy: one cannot at the same time make money (produce) and count money (verify progress). Attention and …
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Inheritance tax
It is quite something that “we” live under a regime that targets saving first, and then giving to our most cherished children second (or whoever stands to inherit), for extra confiscation. To disincentivize saving (not spending and not investing but what is required for investing), savings being the foundation of having something to give as …
Coercion and lack of demand
That an activity is coerced is EVIDENCE that it is not in demand. When I say coerced I refer to initiated aggression. Were the service or good produced in demand coercion would be unnecessary. The simplicity is part of what troubles the modern oppressed. But the simplicity is also what so immediately creates the discomfort. …
Who is more attracted to government?
Government is by definition the initiation of force and the preventing of competition in whatever spheres the government sets up for itself. Who would, on average, be more attracted to such a position? The man who values liberty and property and limits on the assault and theft or the man who does not think he …