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Dump or don't dump...I don't care. If you choose to dump, then you can do so, but you do not have the right to choose to dump your sewage such that it enters my property, unless I say it is okay. As to the means of keeping your sewage out of my section of creek, I could care less, so long as it gets done. Getting it inspected or it costing $10,000 is not my concern, nor is it an impinging of your rights. In fact, it is simply the cost of exercising those rights responsibly. No one ever said freedom was free.

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My point is that this is actually an incredibly restrictive philosophy. If you want to guarantee that no one is ever affected negatively by anyone else's actions, that necessitates an enormous and intrusive government for enforcement. Your utopia of liberty actually turns into a very restrictive society where no one can do anything.

Your rights are being impinged right now. You're being forced to breathe contaminants in the air. According to your philosophy, this invasion of your rights must be remedied by forcing everyone else to cease driving cars. After all, they're emitting carcinogens which you can't avoid breathing. Would you say that the inconvenience of everyone having to ride bicycles or walk isn't your concern, nor is it an impinging of their rights?

In fact, we'll have to shut down all the power plants and oil refineries, too. Among other things, they're causing global warming. That's causing sea ice to recede in the north, which is destroying Inuit/Eskimo hunting grounds. Their livelihood is being destroyed as a consequence of someone else's action. Clearly their rights are being violated, which must be avoided at all costs, correct?

I agree with you about gay marriage, etc. It's just that in the real world, people have overlapping and conflicting rights, and it's naive to simply say, "Everyone has rights and they should always be respected."

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So, you are arguing that making everything public and abolishing property rights makes things less restrictive? Hmm...I thought that's what the Soviet Union did.

What you are overlooking is my right to consent. You never asked me if it was okay for you to dump your stuff in my creek...you just wanted to know if you could do it, regardless of my feelings. I have gotten so much farther with people simply by asking. Maybe it would be better to dump sewage in the creek...but you never asked me.

What I am defending is my right to say no, if I so choose. Most people give their consent to things like pollution because of the upside of pollution...which is the product of all those factories. Almost everyone seems to not have a problem with breathing a few fumes in exchange for electricity, hot water, and the ability to drive around in a car...myself included. So...I am consenting to the necessary evils of modern convenience.

However, I am not enjoined from running off and joining a commune in the middle of the woods. As strange as they are, no one faults the Amish for sticking to their beliefs.

As to your global warming/melting of ice caps argument, I would say that any statement that invokes chaos theory as part of its proof is in trouble. Global warming is not a proven fact...it is still being debated as to its harmfulness, or whether it actually exists as a result of our actions, or simply as the result of the Earth oscillating through its own geologic and atmospheric cycles. And...how come we haven't heard about the epidemic of starving Eskimos and Inuits yet?

No, it is not naive to say that...it is American, and it is the best part about our country to say so. The cynicism in this country is overwhelming and suffocating. The thing that drives most mainstream individuals from both sides of the political divide up the wall about libertarians is our overriding optimism about people and their capacity for goodness. Believing that "the real world" can never change is the exact reason why it never does.

Libertarianism is inherently romantic. The majority opinion now is that of cynics, with little to no faith in the divinity or ascendancy of mankind.