I was introduced to the notion that all human rights are in fact property rights about a decade ago on an internet forum. At first I balked at the idea, largely because I'd not thought of things in that way prior, but as I allowed time to work its digestive magic it quickly became clear to me that this was indeed true.
Going back to the definition of a "right", which is a "just claim" to something, it becomes clear upon even superficial consideration that human rights are claims to property.
The immediate objection that arose in my mind upon introduction to the assertion, was that regarding life itself. I'd never prior considered my life as property. My life was my own, of course, and yet the idea of it as my property never quite made it to the surface, so to speak. However, it took very little time and consideration to come to the realization that my life was, indeed, my property, even if the thought implied some sort of separation between "me" and "my life". But even if we agree that I am my life, who is to say that I cannot own myself?
My right to my life, which is to say my just claim to myself, implies most forcefully the idea that we own ourselves. Our right to our own lives may be restated as our just claims to our own lives. So put, the notion becomes more clear and more forceful in its own favor.
Now consider the Other - your fellow human being picked from the great wad of humanity at random. If we call him Johnny Q. Public, then I ask you this: all else equal, does Johnny Q hold any claim to your life that is greater than your own? Does he hold any claim whatsoever? The only answer to which I can ever bring myself is "no" in each case. How might Johnny Q make a valid claim to YOUR life that is of greater valence and salience than is your own? What might such a claim look like? I see no way of answering that question in a manner that does not stem from a presumption that is innately and embarrassingly obvious in its arbitrariness.
If it is correct across all possible pairings of human individuals that a man holds the primary and possibly sole just claim to his life vis-à-vis any other man, then we must perforce conclude that no man holds authority over another, once again and ever so importantly, all else equal.
In other words, so long as I have not trespassed against another, there is nothing that I might do that could justify the interference in my affairs by another. Whether I smoke a joint on the courthouse steps, employ the services of a prostitute, buy and sell illicit drugs, go helicopter skiing from eighty-foot high ice cornices, or do any of a nearly endless number of things that might cause me serious injury, it is nobody's business that I so engage myself, much less that men in uniforms and with sidearms place me in a cage for it.
The basic and inherent freedom of the human individual directly implies agorism as the only valid societal foundation. For those not familiar with the term, "agorism" is a philosophy wherein all human interaction between individuals of their majority is undertaken on a strictly voluntary basis. Coercion and other means of force must not be employed in an agorist society, such use exposing the perpetrator to both criminal and civil liability.
For example, the rape of one individual by another would leave the rapist open to criminal charges and liable upon due conviction to the consequences of his actions. Someone stealing a stick of gum from another might be liable for recompense, being given the opportunity to make good. Failure to balance that scale could result in the escalation of charges into the criminal.
As for those who have not attained their majority, they live under a slightly different set of rules whereby their basic rights are maintained, but their individual prerogatives may be validly curtailed for the want of life experience and sufficient physical and mental development.
This brings us to the notion of life itself. One's life is what we shall call his "First Property". It is literally the first thing with which the living entity is endowed. The entity owns itself, leading to the idea that he is autodiathistically entitled to keep and dispose of himself as he may see fit. It is also eminently arguable and seemingly self-evident that one's life is also cardinally "first" in significance. Therefore, "First Property" appears to these eyes to be a truly appropriate moniker and appellation.
Upon one's acceptance of the notion of his First Property, the rest of human rights as those pertaining to the property of the individual come into sharp focus, usually with little to no help.
I own my life, which is to say that I own myself. That which I materially or intellectually come to possess through no demonstrably criminal act also becomes my property. As I stroll along the Gulf Coast, I come upon a sea shell that I find beautiful, I am free to pick it into my physical possession and take it with me wherever I may choose, for as long as I might. The taking having constituted no crime, the shell becomes my exclusive property. Being property, I retain and reserve the right to defend it from destruction or theft at the hands of another, for unless I voluntarily relinquish exclusive ownership of the shell, nobody else may lay claim to it and act upon that claim as if it were valid. In such cases of a counterclaim, we have courts who, in their presumed wisdom and impartiality, will hear the case to be made by one man against the claims of another, to some object or other asset, and render judgment as to whom said asset belongs in exclusive, or partial right.
When one begins to consider themselves and all that surrounds them in terms of property rights, their ideas of how the world properly works becomes far more clear, if deeply altered. Lo and behold the world becomes an easier and better place in which to live.
Be well, and until next time please accept my best wishes.
Sunday, February 23, 2020
Covid-19
In this post I will depart a mite from the standard purpose of discussing issues that relate to human liberty directly and touch upon one that could strike deeply, however obliquely, to the same issue.
There is much debate over whether covid19, the so-called "corona virus" of Chinese origin, is a weapon. If you know the basics of that which drives bioweapon design, the confusion should subside at least in good part, though your unease may not.
There are a few holy grails after which the designers seek:
1: long latency (incubation) period. Thus far it is confirmed the latency is at least 14 days with some reports claiming as much as 24. This is quite long, so here we have a mark in favor of this being a weapon, and a rather suspicious one at that. Think of how far and how many people may travel from a single place in two weeks' time in this age of air travel. China with its billion and a half people could have thousands of individuals in every nation on earth in much less time than that. Thousands of highly contagious people could spread the virus to such an extent that there comes with it effectively zero hope of containment on any mass scale.
1a: And what if the actual latency varies between individuals such that in some people the agent incubates at intervals counted in months? Highly varying latency between individuals reduces predictability, which leaves people in a state of relative uncertainty not only as to the nature of the bug, but diagnostically, and also in terms of how human organizations such as "government" tend to respond. The less predictable the bug, the more difficult becomes our decision-making processes, diagnostics, etc. The longer a bug has to spread and the less telltale the outbreak pattern, the better for the wielder of the weapon.
2: Sudden onset. The virus appears to bring on symptoms rather suddenly. Mark the second, if a less convincing one.
3: High contagion during latency. It seems clear that the covi19 virus is at least very contagious during the latency period, if not wildly so. Mark the third.
4: High lethality. Because the numbers reported are not to be trusted, especially those offered later in the reporting cycle, it becomes very difficult to determine the rate of lethality. The possibly less-massaged numbers from January suggest a lethality of around 30-35%, which is very high. Those figures may not be representative of the truth, but then again the same may be said for those reported later on, which suggest far lower danger. Therefore, we remain in limbo on the question of the kill rate. But if perchance lethality is that high and this bug goes pandemic, which it now looks like it may, we are talking about nearly three billion dead at the speculated rate. Let us hope it proves less lethal. We cannot quite issue mark the fourth due almost certainly to the lies of the Chinese government.
5. A vaccine exists. If a vaccine already exists, and thus far there is no way of knowing, then the likelihood that covid19 is a weapon comes to perhaps 95% or greater. No mark in favor due simply to a lack of data.
We see three of five elements are marked in speculative favor of the covid19 virus being the product of willful human endeavor pursuant to the goal of developing a weapon. Sixty percent is not quite damning, but it gives great reason for pause. If this proves to be a weaponized organism, nobody should be surprised.
With this issue arise potentially great implications for human freedom as this is the precise sort of chaotic circumstance that permits for enormous force behind a tyrant's moves to gather ever greater power and false authority into his hands at the cost of individual liberty. In this sense, a pandemic of a highly lethal biological agent is functionally no different than that of a more conventional "terrorist" attack. It is, in fact, far greater a threat for any of several reasons, not the least of which is that the parties responsible always hold some plausible deniability. If there is no positively identified enemy beyond "mother nature", then there is nobody against whom to train one's weapons, further meaning there could possibly be no secure victory against the instrument of one's destruction. This is the brand of chaos that could be employed as the justification for utter usurpation of all power, whether by design from the get-go or by the pure opportunity of happenstance.
The justification of public health and national survival, when couched in the context of a general terror of a deadly plague, stands to meet with near-universal public acceptance. Frighten people sufficiently and they will surrender to you anything you might demand, if you can convince them even for a brief moment that you and only you are capable of delivering them from catastrophe.
Whatever the truth, I would advise one and all to keep their eyes on this issue to see how "government" ultimately responds. My tendency is to expect further claims to power with commensurate denigration of the individual prerogative.
Let us hope this does not prove out in the worst way imaginable, but be prepared for it in any case.
Be careful out there, and as always please accept my best wishes.
There is much debate over whether covid19, the so-called "corona virus" of Chinese origin, is a weapon. If you know the basics of that which drives bioweapon design, the confusion should subside at least in good part, though your unease may not.
There are a few holy grails after which the designers seek:
1: long latency (incubation) period. Thus far it is confirmed the latency is at least 14 days with some reports claiming as much as 24. This is quite long, so here we have a mark in favor of this being a weapon, and a rather suspicious one at that. Think of how far and how many people may travel from a single place in two weeks' time in this age of air travel. China with its billion and a half people could have thousands of individuals in every nation on earth in much less time than that. Thousands of highly contagious people could spread the virus to such an extent that there comes with it effectively zero hope of containment on any mass scale.
1a: And what if the actual latency varies between individuals such that in some people the agent incubates at intervals counted in months? Highly varying latency between individuals reduces predictability, which leaves people in a state of relative uncertainty not only as to the nature of the bug, but diagnostically, and also in terms of how human organizations such as "government" tend to respond. The less predictable the bug, the more difficult becomes our decision-making processes, diagnostics, etc. The longer a bug has to spread and the less telltale the outbreak pattern, the better for the wielder of the weapon.
2: Sudden onset. The virus appears to bring on symptoms rather suddenly. Mark the second, if a less convincing one.
3: High contagion during latency. It seems clear that the covi19 virus is at least very contagious during the latency period, if not wildly so. Mark the third.
4: High lethality. Because the numbers reported are not to be trusted, especially those offered later in the reporting cycle, it becomes very difficult to determine the rate of lethality. The possibly less-massaged numbers from January suggest a lethality of around 30-35%, which is very high. Those figures may not be representative of the truth, but then again the same may be said for those reported later on, which suggest far lower danger. Therefore, we remain in limbo on the question of the kill rate. But if perchance lethality is that high and this bug goes pandemic, which it now looks like it may, we are talking about nearly three billion dead at the speculated rate. Let us hope it proves less lethal. We cannot quite issue mark the fourth due almost certainly to the lies of the Chinese government.
5. A vaccine exists. If a vaccine already exists, and thus far there is no way of knowing, then the likelihood that covid19 is a weapon comes to perhaps 95% or greater. No mark in favor due simply to a lack of data.
We see three of five elements are marked in speculative favor of the covid19 virus being the product of willful human endeavor pursuant to the goal of developing a weapon. Sixty percent is not quite damning, but it gives great reason for pause. If this proves to be a weaponized organism, nobody should be surprised.
With this issue arise potentially great implications for human freedom as this is the precise sort of chaotic circumstance that permits for enormous force behind a tyrant's moves to gather ever greater power and false authority into his hands at the cost of individual liberty. In this sense, a pandemic of a highly lethal biological agent is functionally no different than that of a more conventional "terrorist" attack. It is, in fact, far greater a threat for any of several reasons, not the least of which is that the parties responsible always hold some plausible deniability. If there is no positively identified enemy beyond "mother nature", then there is nobody against whom to train one's weapons, further meaning there could possibly be no secure victory against the instrument of one's destruction. This is the brand of chaos that could be employed as the justification for utter usurpation of all power, whether by design from the get-go or by the pure opportunity of happenstance.
The justification of public health and national survival, when couched in the context of a general terror of a deadly plague, stands to meet with near-universal public acceptance. Frighten people sufficiently and they will surrender to you anything you might demand, if you can convince them even for a brief moment that you and only you are capable of delivering them from catastrophe.
Whatever the truth, I would advise one and all to keep their eyes on this issue to see how "government" ultimately responds. My tendency is to expect further claims to power with commensurate denigration of the individual prerogative.
Let us hope this does not prove out in the worst way imaginable, but be prepared for it in any case.
Be careful out there, and as always please accept my best wishes.
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