Intro to libertarian philosophy animation

[vulturesrow]

How do libertarians feel about child pornography? From a policy perspective that is.

[bluesbassman]

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Cool, you own your own body and no one else can own you (unless you are an unborn baby - then someone else owns you and can kill you at will). [img]/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img]

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I agree with this. Until your mother decides to give birth, you do not yet possess rights and she may kill you at her choosing.

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Until you can speak, you aren't really human, and your mother may kill you at her choosing.

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You are human the moment after conception. You acquire rights the moment your mother chooses to create a biologically separate being.

But I didn't mean for this to degrade into an abortion debate. The more general concept of individual rights and their political manifestation are neither falsified nor primarily defined by their application to unborn babies, people who are comatose, etc.

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Sure...as long as it doesn't affect my portion of the creek. Do what you want to with your property, as long as it doesn't affect mine. I could care less if you want your part of the creek to be a cesspool, but I better not see a turd floating in my part of the creek.

[/ QUOTE ] But it will affect your part of the creek. It's a creek, after all, and you're downstream.

So you won't let me do what I want with my property? It sounds like you'd want there to be some regulations about how people do things, even things as mundane as disposing of sewage. Would you want me to put in a septic tank? That would probably catch most of the runoff, but if you sampled your water, you'd probably find some fecal bacteria in there. Should I have to install a whole filtration system? How can we be sure that it's absolutely not affecting you at all? Would there have to be inspectors to make sure I did the installation properly? Why should I let you impinge on my liberty and make me spend $10,000 just because you're squeamish about a few bacteria?

[BCPVP]

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So you won't let me do what I want with my property? It sounds like you'd want there to be some regulations about how people do things, even things as mundane as disposing of sewage.

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He'd probably sue you for damaging his property. And according to your example, it sounds like he'd win.

[coffeecrazy1]

The fact that you're upstream and I'm downstream is irrelevant in terms of my rights or yours.

I'm not exactly sure how my statement leads to you to say that I'm in favor of regulations. I'm actually not...your rights to the creek end on your property line...that's the whole point of property rights.

My point was that I don't really care what you do, as long as it doesn't affect me. For that matter, that's why I would not support a gay marriage ban, despite my opposition to gay marriage. I would not throw a fit unless clergy were being compelled to violate the tenets of their faith...only then do I have a problem.

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.

As many of my libertarian brethren have said, your freedom ends where your fist meets my nose.

[bluesbassman]

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How do libertarians feel about child pornography? From a policy perspective that is.

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I can't speak for all libertarians, but I think my view is typical.

Before I answer that specific question, I'll say that in general, a child does not yet possess full rights; they exist but are temporarily held in "trust" by the legal parent or guardian. Thus, a child has no "right" to cross a street without permission, but he or she has a right not to be abused or murdered by the parent.

As far as child pornography goes, a child cannot give meaningful consent to produce it or engage in sexual acts, and it would be abuse for a parent to make that choice for him (or her). Child pornography created without using children (such as by a computer or animation, etc) I think should be completely legal.

Of course this leads to the question of when does a person acquire the legal right to consent. I think the answer is actually very individual, and there is legitimate room for debate, which is the proper province of the philosophy of law. Although a libertarian political philosophy is simple in fundamentals, the application to specific cases can be complicated. (Which is true of any political theory.)

[coffeecrazy1]

As a libertarian, I also agree. Child pornography is a problem because the child cannot give consent. The same goes for bestiality. As blues said, when someone is able to give consent is a debatable point. But...that's a debate that I would like to be having, rather than a censorship one.

[edthayer]

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As a libertarian, I also agree. Child pornography is a problem because the child cannot give consent. The same goes for bestiality

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Are you a vegan?

[coffeecrazy1]

Um...not sure where you got that, but no...far from it. Is this going to say that animals can't consent to being slaughtered, therefore should not be?

[edthayer]

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Um...not sure where you got that, but no...far from it. Is this going to say that animals can't consent to being slaughtered, therefore should not be?

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Yes, that's where I'm going with this. It's hypocritical to say that it's okay to kill animals for food without their consent, while it's not okay to have to sex with them without their consent. It seems very arbitrary, and, as a libertarian myself, I don't like arbitrary things.

I eat meat btw. And as disgusting as bestiality is, I don't think I can tell someone else that they can't have sex with an animal when I'm eating an animal's flesh.