Discussion on ethics, violence, and libertarianism - XL xQgg?QcQCaTYDMjqoDnYpG vs. The Tall Man

[Luke Heaven 13!]

That's not how the NAP works
The NAP doesn't say "act freely until override occurs", it says don't initiate conflict, and it defines conflict in terms of who has legitimate control over a given thing
If a gangster murders or extorts someone, that's not "acting freely", it's initiating force. If a citizen defends their home, that's responding to force. These are not symmetrical actions, and the NAP is precisely the principle that makes that distinction intelligible
If you can't distinguish between a mugger and the person being mugged, then no framework can help you

Cartels legitimately own property in Mexico. They have control over legitimate businesses in Mexico. If Mexican citizens were to find a cache of high powered weapons and decide to kill all the cartels where they live, would that be seen as bad because they initiated conflict?

 

[XL xQgg?QcQCaTYDMjqoDnYpG]

Cartels legitimately own property in Mexico. They have control over legitimate businesses in Mexico. If Mexican citizens were to find a cache of high powered weapons and decide to kill all the cartels where they live, would that be seen as bad because they initiated conflict?

You're insinuating that control = ownership
The NAP doesn't say "whoever currently holds the gun owns the land", it says force is unjustified when it violates someone's legitimate force boundaries, not just current power arrangements.
Cartels controlling territory by extortion and violence is not legitimate ownership, it's occupation by aggression. Their "businesses" are enforced through threats and coercion. It's large-scale theft.
If citizens were to rise up and use force against the cartel, that would not be aggression because it's not initiating conflict, it's a counter-force against an ongoing aggressor.
The NAP isn't something that protects cartels, it's the standard that explains why cartels are aggressors in the first place

 

[Luke Heaven 13!]

Let me put it this way:

If I’m living in the hood of LA and every night I hear my neighbor DKreashawn beat his girlfriend on his property. Finally, one night I decide to go over to his property with my gun to defend her. Is that bad because I’m initiating conflict?

If in a tight knit suburban community run by an HOA all of sudden a married couple, who owns a property in the neighborhood, fall deep into drugs. Every night they are getting drugged up and the property is decaying therefore all the property values are declining. Is it wrong from the HOA to file a lawsuit of condemnation with the city? Is that bad cause the HOA initiated the conflict?

Cartels controlling territory by extortion and violence is not legitimate ownership, it's occupation by aggression.

They don’t own territory by extortion. They own legit businesses and properties. They damn near own all the hotels in Cancun. They are not occupying by aggression. The only cartel aggression is cartels against each other. So again I ask, along with the first two questions above, if the people of Mexico find a huge cache of weapons and decide to use them to kill the cartels at the cartels own home, is that viewed as bad because the citizens are initiating conflict?

 

[The Tall Man]

You're still demanding answers while holding a position that makes answers meaningless

Wrong

You've said truth is perspective-bound, justification is circular, moral standards are internal to groups, outcomes define value, and force is valid when it benefits your tribe.

Wrong

Then you ask me to explain why something is wrong, as if there were a standard outside either of us that could make that question answerable.

Imagine me asking you to make a good rational case for your worldview, despite my having more knowledge about the basics of philosophy. I am such an evil person.

But you've already denied that such a standard exists.

Wrong

You've ruled out truth, reciprocity, and evaluative comparison. You've said that frameworks can't be judged, only selected.

Wrong

That means there's nothing left to resolve. I'm not going to perform inside a frame that discards the conditions that make reasoning possible.

Wrong

If you've changed your position somehow, if you now think truth is real,

Please quote me writing "truth is not real" or anything that has the same meaning, or simply admit you haven't ever even thought about these things before. Because such fundamental thought cannot be found in Hoppe's or Rothbard's writing.

or that justification matters, or that there is a way to resolve conflict without reducing it to dominance, then let me know.

Again please quote me actually writing these things.

That's when talking makes sense.

So, what you are saying is you don't want to talk to me unless I agree to some of your presuppositions.
How about no? You haven't even tried to make a case for any of them.

If all standards are internal, and all outcomes are relative, what exactly do you mean when you say someone else's worldview is wrong? Such as when you call libertarianism so wrong that adhering to it implies mental illness

Not all standards are internal; what is that even supposed to mean?
All outcomes of What exactly are relative?
What someone means by saying someone else's worldview is wrong is that they disagree with that worldview according to their own axioms.

You want to know if something is wrong or false. Nature is too manifold to be categorized this way. The best a human thinker can do is make a rational argument.

You have yet to make a single one for Libertarianism in this thread.

---

You make a thread in response to me telling you "Libertarianism is a mental illness" to discuss the merits of libertarianism, especially when it pertains to initiating violence.
And now you are unwilling to answer any of my questions because you can't deal with the reality that there is no absolute truth?
You are even unwilling to defend your opposition to my assertions.

If I initiate force, its good. If someone initiates force against me, its bad.

Man, I'm good at this.

Better than XL, he has yet to make one single argument.
So, this is a Golden Rule kind of way of looking at it.

The Golden Rule seems nice to many people, but it's not really all that universal if you take your time and think about it.
If you are a normal guy, I bet you don't want to get fucked by a guy. Does that mean, since you don't want to get dicked, you shouldn't dick others?
What about if I kill someone else, take his shit, and get away with it, 1 million dollars richer, and nobody ever does this to me? I mean, getting away with it is a pretty common reality of life.
I bet you wouldn't wanna get slaughtered and eaten so are you a Vegan?
Do you want to get kicked in the balls? I mean shouldn't a pervert that loves getting kicked in the balls kick you in the balls?

Is it that you just don't like someone initiating force against you?
You could adopt a better defensive strategy

 

[XL xQgg?QcQCaTYDMjqoDnYpG]

@The Tall Man I issued the challenge to test whether your claim (that libertarianism is a mental illness) could hold up in a public exchange governed by reason and clarity
You've denied objectivity, justification, reciprocity, and coherence. You've mocked constraint, collapsed preference into principle, and used analogies in place of arguments. I'm not saying that's categorically evil or something, you're entitled to hold those views
But you've also made it clear that no standard outside your group matters to you and that no form of reasoning could persuade you. At that point it's not philosophy
So I'm simply not going to keep performing inside a frame that's designed to dissolve reason itself.
If you ever change that frame, if truth, reciprocity, or structure become real again, you know where to find me

---

@Luke Heaven 13! You're stacking multiple scenarios and using the same word ("initiate") across very different structures

You hear a man beat his girlfriend and intervene with a gun​

If that's happening, it means aggression is already in progress. Defending someone against ongoing violence is not initiating conflict, it's responding to conflict. Libertarian ethics does not prohibit third-party defense, even if it's unauthorized. You have the right to intervene.

A couple destroys property value through visible decay and drugs, and the HOA files a lawsuit​

Filing a lawsuit is not force, it's a rights claim, that is a peaceful attempt to resolve a dispute using property covenants. If those covenants were both valid and contractually agreed to by the owners, then they're enforceable. Libertarian ethics does not forbid resolution mechanisms, it forbids initiating force outside rightful bounds.

Cartels own hotels in Cancun, and citizens raid them with weapons​

Owning a hotel does not immunize someone from the consequences of other crimes. If cartels obtained that wealth through kidnapping, extortion, or murder, and maintain it through threats, then their holdings are tainted by aggression. Counter-force is not aggression when it targets the proceeds of aggression.
But you can't just kill someone because they happen to be a cartel member. You'd need to trace specific acts, not group membership. That's the line between justice and reprisal
It's not the case that all violence is wrong. Force is legitimate only when it's directed at an aggressor, for a reason, at a specific boundary.

 

[The Last Stand]

My moral framework really isn't hard to follow.
If I and my people are either A or B then I am with them 100%.
If A or B don't have anything to do with me then I don't care at all.
If there is a benefit to either A or B winning for me and my people then I side with those who will benefit me.

That doesn't even make sense. Say we disagree on everything else but one particular point, with that logic, we are of kindred spirits. Then, my purpose with you and vice versa is confirmation bias because we agree on a point. But what if you differ with execution or logic? Example: we both agree that Audrey Hepburn is beautiful. You say because she has great tits. Now, we're at disagreement because that's not why I have that opinion.

 

[Luke Heaven 13!]

You're stacking multiple scenarios and using the same word ("initiate") across very different structures

Yes, because you used it. You set the terms of “initiating conflict”. In all the scenarios I mentioned, the responding party wasn’t the one being aggressed upon. Therefore, of what use is the NAP if I can go over to DKreashawn’s property and put a bullet in his head for beating his girl. Remember, I’m not the one being aggressed upon. However, I am initiating conflict between me and him. Just like the HOA. Just like the Mexican citizens.

This is why Dave Smith loses nearly all his arguments when talking about Gaza. Because he is doing exactly what you did. Obsess over who is the aggressor, then moralize it in anti-war rhetoric with the “I just don’t want to see babies die.” Cool, for all your moralfagging and finger-pointing, Gaza is still being bombed. What is the solution?

See, NAP is just an offshoot of Natural Law. Created for a United States of 13 colonies with a homogenous white population of less than 10 million. That doesn’t apply to 2025 United States where because I was too busy wondering if I would be an aggressor, DKreashawn just beat his girlfriend to death and a family is now left to identify her corpse in the morgue.

 

[XL xQgg?QcQCaTYDMjqoDnYpG]

Yes, because you used it. You set the terms of “initiating conflict”. In all the scenarios I mentioned, the responding party wasn’t the one being aggressed upon. Therefore, of what use is the NAP if I can go over to DKreashawn’s property and put a bullet in his head for beating his girl. Remember, I’m not the one being aggressed upon. However, I am initiating conflict between me and him. Just like the HOA. Just like the Mexican citizens.

This is why Dave Smith loses nearly all his arguments when talking about Gaza. Because he is doing exactly what you did. Obsess over who is the aggressor, then moralize it in anti-war rhetoric with the “I just don’t want to see babies die.” Cool, for all your moralfagging and finger-pointing, Gaza is still being bombed. What is the solution?

See, NAP is just an offshoot of Natural Law. Created for a United States of 13 colonies with a homogenous white population of less than 10 million. That doesn’t apply to 2025 United States where because I was too busy wondering if I would be an aggressor, DKreashawn just beat his girlfriend to death and a family is now left to identify her corpse in the morgue.

??
You're not arguing against the NAP, you're arguing against the idea that rights should constrain action
You framed intervention as aggression even after being told that libertarian ethics distinguishes between starting a conflict and responding to it. That distinction is what makes justice intelligible
Your real complaint seems to be that constraints might stop you from acting fast enough, even if those constraints are what make force justifiable in the first place
If the problem is that ethics doesn't always win, that's not some flaw of ethics, it's a reality of a world in which evil exists. But abandoning the boundary between aggression and response doesn't get rid of evil, it just makes justice impossible

 

[The Tall Man]

You've denied objectivity

You are such a little baby.
You can't even muster some kind of counter argument to my rational explanation why there is no objective morality.

Pathetic! No wonder you have to adopt something like Libertarianism so you can hide behind it's philosophy and feel good about yourself while loosing.

That doesn't even make sense. Say we disagree on everything else but one particular point, with that logic, we are of kindred spirits. Then, my purpose with you and vice versa is confirmation bias because we agree on a point. But what if you differ with execution or logic? Example: we both agree that Audrey Hepburn is beautiful. You say because she has great tits. Now, we're at disagreement because that's not why I have that opinion.

Well the post you are quoting is my answer to a question to my moral decision if two tribes are in conflict. A stands for one tribe and B for another.

I am not following what you are trying to say, or how you understood my post?

 

[The Last Stand]

Well the post you are quoting is my answer to a question to my moral decision if two tribes are in conflict. A stands for one tribe and B for another.

I am not following what you are trying to say, or how you understood my post?

I don’t understand what you’re saying. Could you try it again?

 

[The Tall Man]

I don’t understand what you’re saying. Could you try it again?

I guess we are stuck in a confusion loop.

 

[The Last Stand]

I guess we are stuck in a confusion loop.

Correct. Your original point, and I read it six times, isn’t making sense. So A and B are different tribes, if you align with one of them, then that serves a purpose for you? If A conflicts with B, then you’d fight for A?

 

[The Tall Man]

Correct. Your original point, and I read it six times, isn’t making sense. So A and B are different tribes, if you align with one of them, then that serves a purpose for you? If A conflicts with B, then you’d fight for A?

"What is good for me, my family, and my extended family is good." the core of my moral code.

If tribe A includes me and my family then I am on their side in a conflict, obviously. If I and my family are not part of the tribes then I would only side with a tribe if that had benefit for me and my family.

 

[The Last Stand]

If in a tight knit suburban community run by an HOA all of sudden a married couple, who owns a property in the neighborhood, fall deep into drugs. Every night they are getting drugged up and the property is decaying therefore all the property values are declining. Is it wrong from the HOA to file a lawsuit of condemnation with the city? Is that bad cause the HOA initiated the conflict?

I’d say no because the conflict did not initiate from the HOA, but from the source of the problem itself, the drug using household. Now, if the HOA did not do anything, then a further conflict between its residents, the community and possibly the city would occur. No action against an obvious threat would just let it foster.

 

[Anomalous Coward]

How does this work when there's a conflict between you and your brother