The Glade 4.0

Property is simply the final authority over the use of the object in question this statement alone includes all the other qualifiers you mention.

And if I want to be a precise you could directly control my body's actions (electically stimulate muscle groups), you could enjoy the benefit of my body becomming healthier (better organs to harvest later, more productive work), and you could use it without me (put me in a chemical coma).

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

Says me. We're discussing how people think things should be; that's my opinion. Clearly you don't currently have a legal right to booby trap your property. I think you should, but I also think that if that were the case you should also be obliged to provide a means by which people can approach you and ask permission to be there.

If you think it should be different, fine, but in my imaginary world, that's the way it ought to work.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

It is merely your opinion that these choices are not equally valid. In order to make this determination, you've placed certain moral imperatives higher than others. Having the opinion that those imperatives are higher than other imperatives does not invalidate the opinion of individuals who disagree and would choose a different or even inverse balance of moral imperatives.

The difference, generally speaking, is that based upon (my perception of) your chosen balance of imperatives, you strip individuals of liberty in choice.



Is your property an extension of yourself, given that it typically takes time, effort, or some other aspect of your life to acquire property? Presuming that it does indeed take time, effort, or some other aspect of your life to acquire property, why should other individuals be able to dictate the usage of that property, thereby over-riding your individual autonomy? The only justifiable circumstance in which they may do so would be for that usage to cause immediate infringement of their own health (including life itself), livelihood (property/ability to acquire property), and/or individual autonomy.

Therefore, provided that one's usage of property does not cause said infringement, it should fall under individual autonomy and be considered an equal right as any "personal" rights.

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“The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.” - Thomas Paine

Um, duh? Just as your positions (or anyone elses for that matter is merely your opinion).



Can you elaborate on this? I'm not sure I understand what you mean here.

Don't say duh when you're making statements that have the implication of being "correct."



No problem.

What I mean is that by demanding that other people place the life of a child ("saving a child")as more valuable than property such as a car, you are dictating that individuals should follow a principle of beneficence (saving a life strongly falls into this category).

By dictating the beneficence as an overriding principle to follow, one must (as I said above and you dismissed with "duh", without (apparently) fully contemplating the ramifications) place other principles as less important. If beneficence is the key principle to live by, choice becomes limited, and as choice becomes limited liberty is constrained.

If, however, like Elmo or others, you were to place individual autonomy as your core principle, individuals would be open to choose whether they want to follow the idea of beneficence or not. Indeed, America has as a core, unwritten principle of its foundational documents the ideal of individual autonomy (probably unwritten because it wasn't defined as such at the time).

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“The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.” - Thomas Paine

Thanks for the clarification.

My duh was in response to your commenting that my statements were just my opinion. Everyones posts here are just their opinions, regardless of how much folks may claim them to be facts.

I understand now what you mean by supposedly "stripping individuals of liberty of choice". However, I think you are completely wrong.

First, individuals ALWAYS have a choice. Murder for example is a crime. Society "demands" that people not kill each other. Yet people still do kill each other, sometimes very much on purpose and in full recognition of it's illegal status. They still have the choice to perform it.

Second, I'm stating that I believe it's morally reprehensible to choose to save property over the life of another human being.

Third, based on my position, which I also believe is shared by the vast majority of the populace, I believe that the laws of the land should support the position that people are worth more than things.

Lastly, I believe that the concepts the Elmo and others forward would lead to anarchy and show a distinct and fundamental lack of understanding about how people and societies behave and function. It's actually the issue that I have with Libertarianism as a whole. It looks great on paper, but in practice it is completely untenable.

How people and societes behave and function on average is that the strong exploit the weak. This is done with no regard for anyones rights. This is how societies function on average at the scale of nation-state.

You simply want to legislate your moral values (yet you cry when others attempt to legislate their moral values on you) or you want to legislate based on majority opinion (except when that majority opinion goes against what you desire) or you wish to uphold both contradictions because you assume the majority believes as you do.

None of these respect rights and all of those scenarios conflict directly with what you've stated before when a majority has passed a moral law you dislike.

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

Aizle:

While all human life begins with equal and innate value, the choices one makes can lessen or negate that value. My property is a direct extension of my life, as I willingly sacrificed a portion of my life to obtain that property. The property obtained is my own life, there is no difference.

If I work for 10 years to buy a home, and you burn my house to the ground, you have stolen those 10 years from me, and by doing so you have decreed my life not to have value.

If you do so in violation of my rights, than you have excused yourself from the protection of rights doctrine, and have declared your own life not to have value.

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Ezekiel 23:19-20 

That doesn't deal at all with the issue of whether you value individual autonomy or not.



Why? My property is more valuable to me than my neighbor, as an example.



Appeal to popularity aside, this doesn't address at all the why behind why you think beneficence should overrule individual autonomy.



Then you merely demonstrate ignorance of the core principles of libertarianism. It and anarchism are not synonymous. Anarchists put individual autonomy over all other moral principles. Personally, I think a true libertarian does not, understanding that civil society requires some compromising of autonomy for other societal needs.

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“The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.” - Thomas Paine