Do you own yourself (self ownership)?

grip said:

I agree the energy my body came from is part of the universe. Most scientific absolutists will assert that my body is all that I am and yet since my bodies energy is part of the universe, maybe I'm more than I know?

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Not until you can present evidence for it, but that's off topic for this thead and forum.

Thrilla said:

as a matter of practicality, property.. as applied to humans.. is true.
one need only to acknowledge the existence of slavery to see that it is true... Humans can be, and are, property( at least partially)... that is indisputable.

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A lot of people hold power of various types and scale over others; Slavery is an extreme example of that. But power over another does not demand ownership. All it demands is a society in which that power is recognized and accepted. In most Western societies, all of us have someone (usually several someones) that has power over us in some way or other. If you're married most likely your spouse has power over you.



Taking a view from a property worshiper's standpoint, does that mean we're like little corporations with some of our fellow citizens holding pieces of us? LOL!

Cephus said:

Not until you can present evidence for it, but that's off topic for this thead and forum.

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I can be more than I know without presenting evidence of it too someone else. It's my secret....lol


Find out where freedom exists and then you'll know by what means someone is owned or controlled. You can lock a persons body up in prison for life controlling their actions but have you controlled their mind?

Let me add this-
This is internet masturbation over a condition that can't exist in the real world and is something the semi-philosophical debate, thinking they are deep, while drinking over priced caffiene drinks and eating THC laced brownies.

A nerd coffee clatsh. It reminds me of the palp Stuart Smalley would babble or would be on some hippy poster. :roll:

By the time you factor in all the 'real world' limitations each 'libertarian' agrees to in differing amounts, this whole exercise becomes silly at best.

But prattle on, it is fun to read.... eace

notquiteright said:

Let me add this-
This is internet masturbation over a condition that can't exist in the real world and is something the semi-philosophical debate, thinking they are deep, while drinking over priced caffiene drinks and eating THC laced brownies.

A nerd coffee clatsh. It reminds me of the palp Stuart Smalley would babble or would be on some hippy poster. :roll:

By the time you factor in all the 'real world' limitations each 'libertarian' agrees to in differing amounts, this whole exercise becomes silly at best.

But prattle on, it is fun to read.... eace

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Real world limitations? Yes there are limitations. Libertarianism =/= anarchism.

notquiteright said:

Let me add this-
This is internet masturbation over a condition that can't exist in the real world and is something the semi-philosophical debate, thinking they are deep, while drinking over priced caffiene drinks and eating THC laced brownies.

A nerd coffee clatsh. It reminds me of the palp Stuart Smalley would babble or would be on some hippy poster. :roll:

By the time you factor in all the 'real world' limitations each 'libertarian' agrees to in differing amounts, this whole exercise becomes silly at best.

But prattle on, it is fun to read.... eace

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Carl Jung interpreted the Ouroboros (snake eating its own tail) as having an archetypal significance to the human psyche. The Jungian psychologist Erich Neumann writes of it as a representation of the pre-ego "dawn state", depicting the undifferentiated infancy experience of both mankind and the individual child. We are neither owned, nor self realized as long as we stay trapped in the social cycle of redundancy. It's like saying science without faith is lame and faith without science is blind.

Now that was mental masturbation.

Moot said:

The SCOTUS ruled women have recognized rights up until viability of the fetus. Interesting that you would compare prostitution to having an abortion. Unless I'm mistaken women don't sell their aborted fetuses as a commodity or to create value. (As an aside, sadly, that does happen in some cultures.) Some women do however use their bodies as a commodity (prostitution) and as such it has value as long as someone is willing to pay for it. The government has chosen not to protect that right but it doesn't mean that women don't use their bodies as property that can be sold with or without their consent.

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It was not my intent to compare prostitution to abortion. I addressed one, prostitution, then the other in a different paragraph, double-spaced from the first.

My reference to prostitution and it's illegality was merely to point out that ownership of people is an illusion and it serves no useful purpose to believe in such a thing. Prostitutes are nothing more than skilled laborers.

Moot said:

Well what it is the protected right to privacy if not the reasonable expection without government interference to have privacy in one's home (property) and health information (property) and identity (property)?

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Everyone has a reasonable right to privacy. That's what the law states, yes? Why must such right issue from property alone? Isn't it sufficient to simply state that people have the right to privacy with respect to their person? Why must we insist it be owned? What is to be gained by such an assertion??

Moot said:

You can own yourself. The conflict as I see it is the emotional objection to being considered property and yet that is exactly what the government considers a "person". The government and insurance companies even go further to give a "person" value according to his/her most productive years in the labor force as if they were a commodity. Employers consider the employee a commodity that can be bought to help add value to a product.

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I am all too aware of how The System sees people and I remind others of this on occasion. But as you've just pointed out, it's not the person who is being valuated, it's their contribution to society that's being valuated: "productive years in the labor force", "a commodity" referring not to the person but to their labor. Certainly the System sets a value on labor but why must labor originate from something that is already owned when it is only people from which labor originates? There is no reason to insist in ownership of people.

Laughing,
Never said it had to be one or the other, but by the time you get done checking off all the limitations, and they vary person to person it becomes a big pile of not much.

Snake eating it's butt, NOW that's the kinda mental circle jerk I am talking about!

I stopped owning myself when I raised my right hand and repeated after a butterbar.

Even later I say 'I do' and it was a done deal.

Past that 'self ownership' is just stroking it... :2wave:

MoSurveyor said:

A lot of people hold power of various types and scale over others; Slavery is an extreme example of that.

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Exactly, slavery is an extreme example of owning others. So if others can own someone then why can't a person own his or herself?

But power over another does not demand ownership.

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Demanding ownership over others is slavery, otherwise where would a kind and benevolent slave owner get his power?

All it demands is a society in which that power is recognized and accepted. In most Western societies, all of us have someone (usually several someones) that has power over us in some way or other. If you're married most likely your spouse has power over you.

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What you described is a contract and in signing a contract, each side is giving consent to give up "some" ownership of self....especially in a marriage.

Taking a view from a property worshiper's standpoint, does that mean we're like little corporations with some of our fellow citizens holding pieces of us? LOL!

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Yes, you give up "some" self ownership when you borrow and use your labor as collateral. You also give some "self ownership" when you consent to pay taxes in exchange for government security and protection of life and property.

Moot said:

Exactly, slavery is an extreme example of owning others. So if others can own someone then why can't a person own his or herself?
No one can own another. One can only exercise power over another.

Demanding ownership over others is slavery, otherwise where would a kind and benevolent slave owner get his power?
"A kind and benevolent slave owner"?!? I'm sorry but ... LOL!

What you described is a contract and in signing a contract, each side is giving consent to give up "some" ownership of self....especially in a marriage.

Yes, you give up "some" self ownership when you borrow and use your labor as collateral. You also give some "self ownership" when you consent to pay taxes in exchange for government security and protection of life and property.

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Are you under the impression that I can't translate these things into the "property mentality" if I so desire? Trust me, I am quite capable of such a feat as I'm sure many here are. It's not a question of understanding the concept, it's a rejection of it. I guess that wasn't clear?

You and the other property mentality types here seem to have problems translating, though. You can't seem to convert these common actions into power instead of ownership. I was just trying to help that process along.

MoSurveyor said:

Are you under the impression that I can't translate these things into the "property mentality" if I so desire? Trust me, I am quite capable of such a feat as I'm sure many here are. It's not a question of understanding the concept, it's a rejection of it. I guess that wasn't clear?

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Well yes, as matter of fact I was under that impression because you kept deflecting to "others having ownership" or "others having power" or "ownership over others" or "having power over others" without ever really acknowledging the ownership or power one has over his or her own self.

You and the other property mentality types here seem to have problems translating, though. You can't seem to convert these common actions into power instead of ownership. I was just trying to help that process along.

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Why so angry? It's just an exchange of philosophical concepts, Mo.

MoSurveyor said:

Moot said:

Exactly, slavery is an extreme example of owning others. So if others can own someone then why can't a person own his or herself?
No one can own another. One can only exercise power over another. This a good example of your deflection. You've already admitted that slavery is ownership over others. Self ownership does not mean "owning others" or "power over others".


Demanding ownership over others is slavery, otherwise where would a kind and benevolent slave owner get his power?
"A kind and benevolent slave owner"?!? I'm sorry but ... LOL! Yes, believe it or not, not all slave owners were bad and ruthless. Take Thomas Jefferson, for instance.

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As a courtesy, would you mind not typing your answers in my quote box?

Self-ownership is just an expression referring to one's liberty of self-determination. There's no risk of someone else owning me just because I say I "own myself," because it's true that my life isn't a commodity to be bought and sold. I never purchased myself, nor engaged in some other exchange or contract in order to have freedom over my own life. My right over my life is natural. But I could still say "I own my life," if I want to express and defend my rights by expressing it that way.

The point is this: if someone kills me, that is murder, denying me my right to life, robbing me of my future. If I am forced to work for free, that is slavery, denying me my right to liberty, robbing me of my present. And if someone takes my assets from me, or inflates the currency to devalue them, that is theft, denying me my right to property, robbing me of the part of my past that I used to earn and save for it.

Your life is your future, your liberty is your present, and your property is the part of your past that you used to create it. If I say "I own myself," I'm really just asserting my right to life, liberty and property.

For the concept self ownerhisp to be coherant, that would mean I can sell myself, and then have absolutely NO RIGHTS of autonomy and have someone else have all the rights of exclusiveness to myself, and I would not have that right, which is not only impossible but rediculosuly stupid.

which would mean that if you were jacking off your owner could sue you for messing with hsi property, but how could he sue you, who is his property over you, so would he sue you for your property? But how could you have any property since you were his property and he has exclusive rights to you, but how can he have exclusive rights to you when you are you ....

YOu see how stupid this concept is?

Trying to make everything property.

lizzie said:

It really doesn't require perfect theoretical people, merely a willingness to let people suffer the consequences of their own stupidity, or enjoy the successes of making intelligently sound decisions.

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What about when I or other innocents are left to suffer the consequences of anothers stupidity which exists because you got rid of government or weakened it to the point where it was impotent?

Those innocents are today protected by government and by government programs and regulatory functions in law and in practice.

For example: let us say that libertarians achieve their dream society and government is reduced to a very small number of abilities and powers. One of the things we get rid of is the FDA. You start selling a drug that becomes the modern version of thalidomide.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thalidomide

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKo0GUrM1mQ

It kills some and leaves behind a wake of damaged people that will need expensive care for decades.

How is this libertarian serving of the free market a good thing for society?

What happens to those people?

MoSurveyor said:

You used the term "government" in your second post. Between our posts that's the first time it's been used so what did you mean when you used it??

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What I meant by government (or state) is an agency that exercises a territorial monopoly of ultimate jurisdiction (decision making) and taxation. A government is the ultimate arbiter in all cases of conflict, even those conflicts involving itself.

Does this sense of the word match up with your idea of government?

Anarchy is lack of government but still meets the requirements of "a social order in which everyone is free to act in any way he wishes as long as he doesn't harm others or their property".

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Okay, I'll agree with that.

You've created a whole legal system - book keeping, interpretation, judgement, and enforcement. Who will you trust to do the book keeping, interpretation, and judgement? You also seem to have established mercenaries.

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I agree. In a stateless social order, people would develop systems and institutions to perform all these functions.

What I meant by government (or state) is an agency that exercises a territorial monopoly of ultimate jurisdiction (decision making) and taxation. A government is the ultimate arbiter in all cases of conflict, even those conflicts involving itself.

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Sounds like a private estate, the difference is a "government" is accountable to the people iwthin the territory (given a democratic government), whereas a private estate is just a dictatorship.

RGacky3 said:

Sounds like a private estate, the difference is a "government" is accountable to the people iwthin the territory (given a democratic government), whereas a private estate is just a dictatorship.

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Agreed. In a democracy, some state agents are elected by the voters. Nonetheless, democratic governments still exercise a territorial monopoly of ultimate jurisdiction and taxation.

"...I trust I understand, and truly estimate the right of self-government. My faith in the proposition that each man should do precisely as he pleases with all which is exclusively his own, lies at the foundation of the sense of justice there is in me. I extend the principles to communities of men, as well as to individuals. I so extend it, because it is politically wise, as well as naturally just; politically wise, in saving us from broils about matters which do not concern us. Here, or at Washington, I would not trouble myself with the oyster laws of Virginia, or the cranberry laws of Indiana.

The doctrine of self government is right---absolutely and eternally right---but it has no just application, as here attempted. Or perhaps I should rather say that whether it has such just application depends upon whether a negro is not or is a man. If he is not a man, why in that case, he who is a man may, as a matter of self-government, do just as he pleases with him. But if the negro is a man, is it not to that extent, a total destruction of self-government, to say that he too shall not govern himself? When the white man governs himself that is self-government; but when he governs himself, and also governs another man, that is more than self-government---that is despotism. If the negro is a man, why then my ancient faith teaches me that "all men are created equal;" and that there can be no moral right in connection with one man's making a slave of another...."

Abraham Lincoln, 1854 Peoria speech

Peoria Speech, October 16, 1854 - Lincoln Home National Historic Site

Agreed. In a democracy, some state agents are elected by the voters. Nonetheless, democratic governments still exercise a territorial monopoly of ultimate jurisdiction and taxation.

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yet your ok with a system of private estates ...

RGacky3 said:

yet your ok with a system of private estates ...

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Yes, I'm okay with a system of private property. I prefer individuals or groups own their land, homes, and businesses rather than the government.

Even thought your definition of government is essencailly the same as private estates, other than government is democratically accountable ... Basically kingdoms.

RGacky3 said:

Even thought your definition of government is essencailly the same as private estates, other than government is democratically accountable ... Basically kingdoms.

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What is your point?

Are you agreeing or disagreeing with my definition of the government as an agency that exercises a territorial monopoly of ultimate jurisdiction (decision making) and taxation?

Do you agree or disagree with the idea that there should be a government?

I'm having trouble understanding whether we agree or disagree and, if we disagree, exactly what you disagree with.

What I'm saying is your actually totally FINE with government as long as its private and unaccountable ...