Re: Historical comparisons


royls@xxxxxxxxx wrote:
On 9 Mar 2006 15:40:59 -0800, "William Mook"
<william.mook@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

[hissy fit deleted]

Translation: you know have been demolished, and have no answers.

NOTE: You just had to have another hissy fit rather than answer the
damned question.

Please answer this question with something more than, "I already stated
the obvious" or some similar nebulous claim;

If a free and open and diverse and robust market exists in the buying
and selling natural resources how can any one person or group in that
market be privileged?

As I said before:

Musta missed it! lol.

Everyone who owns them is privileged, because others must pay them for
access to what nature provided for free --

This raises some interesting questions...

1) How do you figure free,
2) And even if it were free, how do you figure it creates privilege?


So, I'm not following your logic here.


TO the first point, even if there were gold lying freely on the ground
somewhere, there's still the cost of finding it, going out there,
picking it up, carrying it securely to market - nothing is ever free -
so, I don't know how you figure that anything ever could be.

TO the second point - let's say something were really free - say
something like sunlight falling on the Earth. It has value, and with
the right equipment that value can be extracted in electrical form,
chemical form, biological form. Its not really free that way because
it takes land area and time ane effort and knowledge to make use of it
- but I've already 'demolished' the idea that anything is free
already, so to the second point - haha - even if it were free, if
anyone can set up a solar collector on any available surface where the
sun shined - how would allowing people to do that freely create
privilege?

The point is, privilege requires something more than just making use of
what is freely available. If anyone can compete there is no privilege
created that I can see. So, you need to educate me here..

I mean, I'm as handsome as they come - that was freely given me by my
genes. Does that mean I'm priviliged? Not really - I compete with all
sorts of guys - girls like personality as much as looks! lol. Does my
good fortune in the looks department mean I'm privileged? Not really,
because everyone can compete. Sure, I might have certain advantage
over others - but I'm not privileged. I don't get ALL the girls! lol.
So, I don't understand your logic at all. In fact I see no consistent
logic. You make a statement about stuff being free and then assume
that just because something is free and valuable, that that somehow
creates privilege.



and which they have every
right to use, because they have rights to life and liberty.

Everyone has rights to life and liberty. That's a side issue having
nothing to do with your first point - which you haven't supported.
Nothing is ever free and even if it were, ownership of free things do
not necessarily create privilege. You haven't supported your position
at all as far as I can see. You're just restating your conclusion -
not the facts and the logic you use to arrive at your conclusion.

The
owners are thus getting something for nothing at the expense of
others, the very essence of privilege.

If I found gold lying on the ground somewhere on the bottom of the
ocean and picked it up and carried it back to market and sold it for a
profit - how am I privileged if any Tom *** or Harry could do the same
thing? Sure, I would profit by bringing something to market. But if I
went to the expense to find this resource, figure out a way to recover
it, and took the trouble to recover it - it ain't free even if its
sitting at the bottom of the ocean - so I would be getting something if
this happened - but I'm not getting something for nothing!

Furthermore,if this gold that I found sitting at the bottom of the
ocean - if no one else knew about it before I discovered it - know one
even suspected its existence - how do you figure my discovery of it is
at the expense of everyone else? See, this is where I think you have a
socialist bug somewhere in your system. How does my making use of a
fortunate event deprive everyone else of something - even if they never
knew of it before I came along?

As I already explained (and you deleted unanswered, and apparently
unread)

Don't have to be an *** about it. Hell, I tried to follow your
logic, but when it gets too twisted for me to follow, I try to color up
the conversation and get back to my main sticking points.
..
the existence of a market in privileges does not mean they are
not privileges.

You have to explain that one to me. Like I said, you have to go back
to simple examples and stuff for me to see what you're saying. Can you
do that? This taking on airs and dissing me because I don't follow
your damnable logic wears thin! lol.

I mean take the example of me finding gold at the bottom of the ocean.


It meets your first two criterion on the surface, but when I think
about it in detail, your conclusions don't hold any water for me!

That's cause it ain't free for me to find it, to get at it, or to bring
it safely back to market and get some value out of it.

When I sell it I can only sell it at market rates.

Once sold, I don't have it any more and if I want more value I've got
to go get more of the 'free' stuff.

But, anyone can go out and pick up gold at the bottom of the ocean, so
if I were a guy who picked up some gold, I wouldn't feel privileged at
all even though it meets all your standards of a privileged situation.

The existence of a market in slaves did not mean that
their owners were not privileged.

There you go, you prove my point. It wasn't the market that created
slavery - it was the idea you could own human chattel that created
slavery. The very concept of human chattel creates the slave and the
slave owner.

You haven't explained in a way I can understand how other forms of
chattel, like me claiming I own a chunk of gold I found at the bottom
of the ocean, creates privilege. Sure, it creates value for me to make
that claim - but I don't see how that denies value to others -
especially if they didn''t even suspect that gold existed in the first
place, and if anyone can go out and pick up a piece for themselves.

The existence of a market in taxi
medallions does not mean they are not privileges.

Sure taxi medallions confer some sort of privilege, but that's not the
kind of privilege I'm talking about.

We're not talking about privileges we're talking about a fixed
privileged class being created by property rights.

Master and slave was created by the concept of human chattel and
creates a privileged class of people having unfair power over others.
This form of property right DOES create privilege by definition and
should be universally banned. That is a form or property right that
creates privilege. That I grant you and I agree, we shouldn't be
allowed to own one another..

A class of business person - the Taxi operator - is created by the
concept of taxi medallions. I grant you that. Does that property
right create privilege of the same type as human chattel? lol. Not in
a pigs eye! lol.

The privilege to operate a taxi in the streets of NYC is what the
medallion confers. Is this the sort of privilege I'm discussing with
you? Not really. I'm not a slave to the taxi operator, in the same
way I would be a slave if we allowed me to be human chattel. I can
walk, take the bus, hire a limo, ride with a friend, drive my own
car... so, while you play with words, you're not really letting me
understand what the basis of your objection to property rights freely
owned is. You've got to try again. Sorry..

So, I'm not following your logic that free stuff in nature being owned
by people willing to put the effort to bring that stuff to market is
the same as slavery. You've got to explain that to me.

Its a great privilege for me to be with my girlfriend. I wonderful
privilige. And its not one that anyone else can share! Very
privileged.

This is not the same order of privilege we're talking about here - at
least not the one I'm talking about. I'm talking about the sort of
privilege that would derive from say a RULE that said I am the only guy
that can have sex with anyone. That's the sort of privilege I'm
talking about. Human chattel creates a slave class and that's wrong.
I give you that. But you haven't shown me in a way I can understand,
how ownership of other stuff creates poverty and hardship in the same
way as human chattel does.

Just because I claim the right exclusively to my girlfriend's time and
attention - and deny others that right - doesn't mean I am denying all
men the right to have the time and attention of other women! lol.



The existence of a
market in licenses to steal would not mean they were not privileges.

A right to steal? Steal? Steal?

This is nearly the same as human chattel in different words.

Okay, lets think about this - if there is a piece of gold found in my
pocket, its mine - and if you took the trouble to find it and liberate
it - that would be stealing. That deprives me of the value of the gold
and you benefit. The fact that you took the trouble and risk and
effort to liberate the gold from my pocket doesn't enter into it. I am
unjustly poorer by your theft of my gold. Society is not enriched by
your theivery. Therefore, I would have to agree, that licenses to
steal another's property would not be a good thing generally. Although
penguins steal nesting materials from one another - and it benefits
everyone. lol. But we're not penguins with limited nesting material
drawn from the ocean.

But this bears little relation in my mind to the situation where I find
gold at the bottom of the ocean. Gold in my pocket is in some sense
already participating in the market. Gold at the bottom of the ocean
is not. So, my discovering it, developing it, bringing it to market -
is quite different than someone liberating that gold from my pocket in
the streets.

And the existence of a market in private titles to natural resources
does not mean they are not privileges.

But they don't create a privileged class the same way human chattel
does, or human theivery does. In the case of slavery and theivery you
are taking something that rightfully belongs to someone else.

You assert that natural resources are the property of everyone. But if
people don't even suspect that those resources exist and they aren't
part of the market and contribute nothing to society - then your claim
is highly suspect to my mind. How can someone own something they know
nothing about? How can someone claim value in something that
contributes no value at all to their lives?

I mean you have a pretty logical argument. You have deinfed ownership
in a way that supports your conclusion logically. But when you think
about it in real terms it doesn't make any sense. And its in those
terms I want to understand what you're saying.

If I claim to own a person - I am denying that person the right to live
their life as they desire. That's a great cost for any benefit I
receive. This is an unfair privilege. So, such claims of ownership
are denied by any decent society.

If I claim to own the gold in your pocket - I am denying you the right
to the value of that gold. That's an unfair burdern for you for any
benefit I receive. This is an unfair privilege. So, such claims of
ownership are denied by any decent society.

Now, if I claim to own a natural resource that is undeveloped, and in
fact, unknown to society before I arrived on the scene - I am denying
no one any rights to anything in a practical sense. Sure, in some
theoretical sense you could argue people are denied - but if they
didn't even know the resource existed until I came along and took the
trouble to find it? I am denying no one any rights. If I am granted
the privilege of developing this resource and benefitting by bringing
it to market - everyone is better off, and I deny no one else the right
to develop other resources found elsewhere. This is a fair and
equitable privilege. So, such claims of ownership enrich society and
any decent society recognizes them.

If I'm wrong tell me where I've made a mistake. If not, then your
whole concept falls on its face.

Answer this fully and honestly with peer reviewed references and I will
take back all the bad things I said and thought about you! lol.

?? "Peer-reviewed references"? LOL!

So, you won't provide any peer reveiwed references? Why not?

Are you really unable to
understand the self-evident

Oh boy, here we go with the hissy fit again... sheez.

This is the point. Its not self evident to me. I'm asking you quite
honestly and plainly, what is the basis of your belief?

You know Newton discovered his three laws of motion hundreds of years
ago. Anyone who knows anything about physics, or science, or
engineering, knows about Newton's laws of motion. Even so, if someone
were to ask me or anyone who knows, about the three laws and why those
laws are believed to work the way they do... people can point to
accepted reference works, and even peer reviewed documentation of those
laws. Any decent person wouldn't laugh at a newbies question, or make
fun of his ignorant notions. Any decent person would clearly state the
three laws, the observational basis for those laws, and the step my
step logical connection between those observations and the three laws
of motion. They would do it with far less verbiage than you have
spewed forth here.

The only people who couldn't explain the three laws in this way are
those who really didn't understand it in the first place.

If somone asked me about force and acceleration - I could answer their
questions - in a clear and cogent way. That's because I understand
about force and acceleration. I wouldn't tell them its self evident or
attack them because they didn't know.

I am asking you to explain yourself to me in a way I can understand.
You have not done so. You have taken every opportunity to attack me
and demean me and dismiss the question.

This doesn't say anything about me. It says a lot about you and the
level of knowledge you have, and the shallowness of your beliefs.

and indisputable facts

What indisputable facts exactly? Do you have a list?

I identified above

You mean your two points? Well they're not self evident to me. Sure,
if you define property rights in the way you have and follow the logic
of slavery and theivery, you can say quite logically that private
ownership of resources is a formof theivery. But I don't understand
your definition. Why do you hold it? Where does it come from?

I dispute your indisputable facts. Not because I think about it
logically. But because I think about it practically. If I take a
piece of gold no one anywhere knew existed its not the same as me
taking a gold coin out of your pocket. So, I don't see the fact the
way you do, so I dispute it - and ask you to explain and support your
view of that fact.

unless they appear in a peer-reviewed journal? Which peer-reviewed
journals do you think focus on research into what's privilege and what
isn't?

I don't know. You're the one making all the big claims. Again, lets
reframe this a little. If you were making statements about how objects
fell that I could see were at variance with Newton's laws, I would say
dude,what you say doesn't make sense. If you then asked me why I said
what I did, I would explain the laws of motion. If you asked me what
is the basis of those laws, I would point you to an accepted reference
on the subject of Newton's laws. I would not demean you and say what
journals do you think focus on research into Newtonian motion - because
it was me who told you that you were wrong and its up to me to prove
it.

Similarly, you keep talking about indisputable facts and things people
have known for a long time. So, I ask you, what is the basis of those
facts, and where can I read up on it.

Hell, I gave you the Stanford paper on the efficiencies of private
versus public ownership. I gave you the Cato Institute paper on the
benefits accrued by society by private ownership of property and
resources.

You dismissed the Cato Institute stuff in a very general way making
broad statements, but not supporting any of it with details and your
thoughts - so your comments were to my mind just asinine, and didn't
convince me at all.

I'm asking you for something very simple - clear convincing logic based
on clear convincing facts - that support your grand statements. You
have yet to produce anything approaching that.

I accept that slavery and theivery involve forms of property rights
that create a sort of privilege we shouldn't have in society. I do not
accept your logic that extends that to property rights over natural
resources - particularly if those resources are not known to exist
prior to the involvement of a developer. I understand that your logic
is impeccable, but I do not accept your indisputable fact that defines
the public's rights over natural resources in the way you have. That
definition was made to support the conclusion you wanted - it did not
derive naturally from clear thinking about what is really going on in
the world when people take the trouble to develop a resource.

.