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Do you own yourself (self ownership)?

Do you own yourself (self ownership)? Should or shouldnt you own yourself?

  • Yes (should)

    Votes: 32 76.2%

  • Yes (shouldn't)

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • No (should)

    Votes: 3 7.1%

  • No (shouldn't)

    Votes: 7 16.7%
  • Total voters
    42
Mach said:
You wrote specifically:


Nothing is absolute? Is an absolute statement. Which is contradictory.
We do accept absolutes when we use logic, when we agree on the meaning of a word, etc. They are funny when we claim something in reality "is absolute", but they are serious when we are talking about meaning, math, etc.
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I note how definitions and meanings of words can change and new meaning can be added to existing words. Take the word "Gay" for instance.
 
ARealConservative said:
in a matter of contract law, the understanding of what they agreed to is what makes it so., perception is reality
we are dealing with contracts, not math theory.
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And who decided we were talking contract law?
 
LibertyBurns said:
So the the master of a slave does not have ownership of that person but, they do own them. That is only in a society that accepts people as property though? So a nation that rejects people as property cannot own a person? Nor can a nation with strong property rights protect their citizenry from being enslaved if they are considered property?

Classical liberal thought in my opinion goes hand in hand with contracts, property rights, and the free voluntary trade between peoples.
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One thing to be borne in mind is that classical liberal thought was developed in a time when the world was functionally infinite.

There was a "commons" from whence we all were entitled to take what we needed to live.

Now almost everything is "owned" by someone.

I can't just find some place in the wilderness and build a home and do some farming.

I have to pay.

If I "own" my life, why must someone pay in order for me to sleep at night without breaking the law?

We hear a lot from libertarians about not wanting to pay taxes to the government, but little about all the "life taxes" levied by owners of property.

Why, when the "commons" became impractical due to population, did we settle on "rents" as the solution.

That's what the feudal lords came up with.
 
haymarket said:
Its time for illumination and education. This should be a nice starting place for you

Social contract - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Thanks for the pointless link. Now explain a few things to me if you don't mind:

1. Do you believe his claim that its based on nature?
2. Do you believe that we are bound to each other through natural connections?
3. Do you believe that the theory of natural law was actually based on forcing people to do the bidding of others?
4. Tell me exactly where you get off rejecting natural law if you are a believer in this
5. What makes you think exactly we are born into contracts with other citizens of a nation when nations are merely created
 
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I do think I own myself, but I appear to have lost the receipt. If I ever return me, I realize I won't get a cash refund, but could I please get some store credit?

THanks.
 
Moot said:
Rights are a man made construct and as such are not absolute. Why is that a contradiction?
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Rights are built on the backbone of the concept of freedom shaped around the realities of destruction and consent that include all possible actions one could take. The root of this is the being itself that because of its right to stay free from harm unless otherwise consented too the right to life is born.

The idea you can reject the former to claim that you came up with it is absurdity.
 
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Lokiate said:
Self ownership is an archaic term based on 18-19th century sociopolitical philosophy. I take it to mean ownership of the person as an entity, not property by todays standards. By that I mean one can physically own a person (via slavery, indentured servitude, and/or contractual obligation, such as military service), but they cannot own what makes the person a [wo]man, and not an animated piece of meat. The mind, the intellect, the wants, etc of the individual. For example, the Army owned my physical self for four years, but they did not own "me". I was still my own person, subject to tell whoever to eat a dick at any time.
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But you gave your consent to the army to use your labor for four years. Otherwise it would have been involuntary servitude. Perhaps that is why so many rebelled against the draft.
 
What if...? said:
One thing to be borne in mind is that classical liberal thought was developed in a time when the world was functionally infinite.

There was a "commons" from whence we all were entitled to take what we needed to live.

Now almost everything is "owned" by someone.

I can't just find some place in the wilderness and build a home and do some farming.

I have to pay.
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Never has one been able to take what they needed to live without paying. Building a home and doing some farming involves using your labor to give value to the land that it didn't have before. Your labor has value when it is used to create something that you or others want and/or can use.

If I "own" my life, why must someone pay in order for me to sleep at night without breaking the law?
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This statement seemed nonsensical to me, can you rephrase or explain it another way? If you own your life why wouldn't you be able to sleep or why should someone pay in order for you to sleep? I have no idea the point you're trying to make.


We hear a lot from libertarians about not wanting to pay taxes to the government, but little about all the "life taxes" levied by owners of property.

Why, when the "commons" became impractical due to population, did we settle on "rents" as the solution.

That's what the feudal lords came up with.
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What do you mean by "life taxes" levided by owners of property. Are you talking about "rent seeking"? When was this "commons" you keep talking about?
 
Moot said:
But you gave your consent to the army to use your labor for four years. Otherwise it would have been involuntary servitude. Perhaps that is why so many rebelled against the draft.
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I gave them my service for personal reasons, but once I was in, I quickly became very disenfranchised with a lot of it. Certain individuals, regardless of rank, got nothing but contempt and the absolute bare minimum from me. Sometimes, not even what regulation required of me because they abused their authority over stupid ****. At first I was passive-aggressive toward them. Later on, openly hostile to those individuals. It got me in trouble plenty of times, but the end result was worth it. Nothing changed, except that I demonstrated that I can't be broken. I told them through my actions that "you don't own me." The same is said through any subversive act, or rebellion towards those physically owned one way or another. You can bind a person, but you can't bind their will.

The draft, though gone with no sign of ever returning, is a more apt example, but one that I have no experience with. However, if I were drafted, I would have refused to go.
 
Henrin said:
Rights are built on the backbone of the concept of freedom shaped around the realities of destruction and consent that include all possible actions one could take. The root of this is the being itself that because of its right to stay free from harm unless otherwise consented too the right to life is born.

The idea you can reject the former to claim that you came up with it is absurdity.
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You said it yourself that "freedom is a concept." A concept is an idea, an abstract man made idea. It seems more absurd to reject the concept and then claim it as a reality that needs to be recognized. The being has no rights except what others chose to recognize and protect as such. There is nothing absolute about rights. Yesterday slavery was recognized as a right, today it isn't. Things change, people change, societies change, religions change, everything in nature changes...nothing stays the same forever. So if there is such a thing as an absolute then "change" is it. Change is the only absolute.
 
Lokiate said:
I gave them my service for personal reasons, but once I was in, I quickly became very disenfranchised with a lot of it. Certain individuals, regardless of rank, got nothing but contempt and the absolute bare minimum from me. Sometimes, not even what regulation required of me because they abused their authority over stupid ****. At first I was passive-aggressive toward them. Later on, openly hostile to those individuals. It got me in trouble plenty of times, but the end result was worth it. Nothing changed, except that I demonstrated that I can't be broken. I told them through my actions that "you don't own me." The same is said through any subversive act, or rebellion towards those physically owned one way or another. You can bind a person, but you can't bind their will.

The draft, though gone with no sign of ever returning, is a more apt example, but one that I have no experience with. However, if I were drafted, I would have refused to go.
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For whatever reason, joining the army was still your choice and you gave your consent. How you handled yourself after freely giving your consent was also your choice.
 
Viktyr Korimir said:
No, this is crap-- another false dichotomy. Murder is a problem because civilization requires order. If civilization has orderly laws governing homicide, then homicides that occur within the bounds of those laws-- to an almost outrageous extreme-- are simply not a problem. A lot of the problems our society has now concerning street violence are a consequence of attempting to over-regulate homicide.
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Liberty is the concept that you own your life. That you can use your time, energy and talents to go after whatever it is that you want and often times this leads to going after property. Like property no one can take way your life and stop you from having your liberty to do with it whatever it is that you please. Everyone has this right and so that means that no one is higher than an other and we are created equal. Liberty is the idea that we can do whatever it is that we want as long as it doesn't violate the rights of another. Liberty wasn't created by society so naturally neither was the right to your life.

No, I can not. I can, at most, sell parts of it. I could, theoretically, sell parts of it that I require for life-- but then removing those parts would constitute murder under the laws of most societies. I could, theoretically and if the law allowed, sell myself into chattel slavery but I would have the same moral obligation to regain my freedom as any other slave. I can not sign such a contract because I can not honorably keep it.
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Don't be silly. We all have a right to do whatever it is that we please with our lives and that includes selling ourselves out to the highest bidder if that is what we decide to do.
 
Moot said:
For whatever reason, joining the army was still your choice and you gave your consent. How you handled yourself after freely giving your consent was also your choice.
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Indentured servants also agree to their contractual bindings, that doesn't make them any less physical property of the contract holder.
 
Moot said:
You said it yourself that "freedom is a concept." A concept is an idea, an abstract man made idea. It seems more absurd to reject the concept and then claim it as a reality that needs to be recognized. The being has no rights except what others chose to recognize and protect as such. There is nothing absolute about rights. Yesterday slavery was recognized as a right, today it isn't. Things change, people change, societies change, religions change, everything in nature changes...nothing stays the same forever. So if there is such a thing as an absolute then "change" is it. Change is the only absolute.
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Is the idea of liberty created by people or observed? Observed obviously.
 
Henrin said:
Liberty is the concept that you own your life.


Don't be silly.
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These two statements in the same post have a certain simplicity of beauty about them. ;)

Of course, the silliness comes from the first statement.
 
haymarket said:
These two statements in the same post have a certain simplicity of beauty about them. ;)

Of course, the silliness comes from the first statement.
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You have nothing to say hay? Don't worry, that is expected from you.
 
Henrin said:
Liberty is the concept that you own your life.
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This is why would-be tyrants denigrate and ridicule the very notion of liberty. Their goal of controlling you is thwarted to the extent that their claim of ownership is seen as illegitimate.

They have no use for ethics, and mock all talk of principle as the domain of dilettantes. However, even a third grader can see them for what they are: thugs who rule by fear, compulsion, and brute force.
 
Moot said:
Sorry Mo, I have to disagree on this one. You own you. You are responsible for you. No else has the right to own you, your body or your labor without your consent. You can sell or barter your labor to create value. Self ownership is a concept that goes back to the Magna Carta and it has to do with who owns your labor. Free men own their own labor. John Locke used the concept of self ownership in his 2nd Treatise on Government which inspired many constitutions including the US constitution. Thomas Jefferson made reference to it in the Declaration of Independence and even Abraham Lincoln understood the concept of self ownership when he helped to bring about and signed the 13th amendment.....


Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
Section 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.[2]


If labor has value, which it does, then it can be treated as property and used as trade. That is why slavery existed and why we fought a Civil War. Now, no one can own you or your labor, except you. No one can force you to work or work without compensation. You are free to use or sell your own labor to create value for yourself and/or others. Thats all it is.
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It's interesting you mention Jefferson. Did you also take note that Locke used "Life, Liberty, and Property" in his Treatise but Jefferson used "Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness" when he penned the Declaration of Independence? Why do you suppose that is? If Jefferson felt so strongly about the subject then why replace that word? He could have simply added Pursuit of Happiness to the end of Locke's words - but he didn't. I've read several of the letters Jefferson wrote. He seems to have had a very different view on property than what many believe.


I'm a sentient being and as such cannot be owned by anyone.
 
Centinel said:
Ownership is a social convention. Ownership simply means that one has the exclusive right to use a particular thing. I own my car, so I may use it to the exclusion of others.

With regard to self-ownership, each of us own his or her own body, and nobody else does. Nobody is the property of another.

I think this thread has demonstrated that the use of the word "own" in this context is somewhat awkward and unusual. Perhaps there is a better way to describe the concept.
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Centinel said:
I'll continue to advocate for a society in which a person can be owned only by himself and nobody else. The alternative is one person owning another, which is to say slavery.
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In one breath you say there might be a better way to describe the concept and in the next you seem to negate such a possibility. Here you've turned the coin over instead of simply throwing it away. Regardless of how much you and your friends want to believe it, not everything should be reduced to property - especially people.
 
MoSurveyor said:
In one breath you say there might be a better way to describe the concept and in the next you seem to negate such a possibility. Here you've turned the coin over instead of simply throwing it away. Regardless of how much you and your friends want to believe it, not everything can be reduced to property - especially people.
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I am not suggesting that people be reduced to property. I am suggesting that each person has an exclusive right to control his own person, from which it follows that no person should ever be the property of another.
 
MoSurveyor said:
It's interesting you mention Jefferson. Did you also take note that Locke used "Life, Liberty, and Property" in his Treatise but Jefferson used "Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness" when he penned the Declaration of Independence? Why do you suppose that is? If Jefferson felt so strongly about the subject then why replace that word? He could have simply added Pursuit of Happiness to the end of Locke's words - but he didn't. I've read several of the letters Jefferson wrote. He seems to have had a very different view on property than what many believe.


I'm a sentient being and as such cannot be owned by anyone.
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Jefferson got the line he abused in the DOI from Mason. You like Haymarket need to learn your history.

Second, pursuit of happiness has nothing to do with happiness as in joy but the legal constructs to protect liberty which did include property. Do not waste my time speaking of things you don't understand and then act like you somehow win based on ignorance. I consider it rude.
 
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