Yes, I've heard that mental masturbation can be a good palliative.

conscious: He obviously doesn't think that he needs logic to be juvenile.

WHO determines what is adequate? It's not a who--it's the continued existence of private property that demonstrates the adequacy. At this point, little of it is left in this country, so we currently live under an inadequate enforcement.

"some seriously hard factual evidence to refute your ridiculous claims". Still waiting to see some, rather than simply referring me to some book. That's like referring me to the Bible which I'm not going to waste my time reading either. Explain the factual evidence to me and demonstrate how it works in a logically rational manner and I might give it some attention.

"Facts be damned". Once again, I can't find any facts in any of your comments, just references to a book or so and some online propaganda nonsense.

As to opinions, an objectivist's opinions are generally based on knowledge and facts known to date but need some additional knowledge or facts to fully develop from an opinion to an acknowledged reality. And, yes, I may well find myself standing all alone one day. It won't be the first time, but then I'm not much on caring for the accolades or agreements of others to give me my sense of worth or accomplishment.

Other than that, I think the old adage applies here that 'It's often better to be thought a fool, than to open one's mouth and remove all doubt.' If you're only response to others that you disagree with is ad hominem personal attacks rather than facts, you so arrogantly claim, yet fail to elucidate, you simply demonstrate you're sophomoric level of knowledge when discussing things with serious men of the mind.

In the meantime, go back to your coloring books and devise another anarchist fantasy world in which your intellect matches your ego.

LOL - I admit that I probably went a bit overboard, but I see so much of this type of "non-responding" going on, that I finally just snapped. I was trying to beat insomnia to boot. Ha! Slept like a baby right after. So sue me. ;)

And your logic justifies your juvenile personal response?

Normally I would agree with you, but this just begged to be taken down. I replied to Zenphamy's earlier comments with utmost courtesy and went to some length to offer solid evidence. A response to such sincerity on my part claiming nothing more than a flawed semantic "gotcha" and an "opinion" is downright offensive and lazy to boot.

"Wow! What an impressive intellectual tour-de-force. You said "to adequately enforce". Never mind a pesky little detail as to WHO determines exactly WHAT is "adequate". Oh I guess that would be you?"
If you said this nicer you'd have a better chance of being understood.

Wow! What an impressive intellectual tour-de-force. You said "to adequately enforce". Never mind a pesky little detail as to WHO determines exactly WHAT is "adequate". Oh I guess that would be you? No? Don't tell me, "the people"?

And what is your response when presented with some seriously hard factual evidence to refute your rediculous claims about anarchism and private property? Thoroughly study it and maybe learn something? Nooo, not you. You don't need to read no 325 page book. No, you have an OPINION. And that is far more valid than mere facts.

So you'll stand by your opinion. Facts be damned.

Well, I hate break this to you, but opinions require no proof and therefore are cheap and in limitless supply. Careful my hero. You may find yourself standing all alone one day, just you and your opinion.

What I said was "to adequately enforce". I'll stand by my opinion. Thanks

You must not have looked very hard then; or did you search at all?

Butler Shaffer has written a fascinating 325 page book on the subject - "Boundaries of Order: Private Property as a Social System".
You can find it here: http://www.amazon.com/Boundaries-Order-P...

If that is too much for you, then the TOFLA course devotes an entire chapter to Free Market Justice, i.e. non-coercive contract enforcement.
It is available here: http://tolfa.us/L6.htm

helidrvr: I can find no ability within Anarchism to adequately enforce private property. Without such an enforcement means, there is no private property, or it's subject to faith that no one else will want or take it. Faith in the good actions of others begins to sound more like religion.

You've stated in various posts that you don't agree with patents and patent enforcement, so how can you then claim support of private property? Remember that a title or deed to real property is no different than is a patent, except for longevity. I own myself including my mind as well as what my mind produces. No one else has any right to just use any of that or take it as their own.

With the simple realization that no one has a right to coerce me, that I have a natural right to be left alone, the only logical conclusion to be drawn is that I am free to avoid, subvert, resit and come up with whatever creative device I can to achieve and maintain my freedom.

Anarchism teaches me that I do NOT have to obey any self-appointed ruler(s).

Patents are a coercive legal construct used to enforce claims of property right. They are not a property right in and of themselves. By objecting to patent law AS IT EXISTS TODAY and the trolling "industry" it has spawned, I am in no way rejecting the premise of property rights as a governing principle for social success.

Real property and once you have an enforcement system you have a form of govt. Anarchy doesn 't mean that no matter how many descriptirs you try to put with it. Plus you stated outright you do not support patents, the single most important property right of all! Owning land does not propel, propagate tehnology to individuals, create millions of jobs across hundreds of industries. Every nation with poor protection of property rights also have the lowest economic freedom indices. Economic freedom is a major goal of most anarchists. Or is it not?

>> Anarchism takes the position [....] that private property isn't necessary <<

This is a complete fabrication, utter nonsense. Whole books have been written by leading proponents of the NAP in support of their conclusion that property is the cornerstone of social success. I for one am absolutely convinced that a society which does not recognize property rights is doomed to fail. Yet, in spite of my frequent declarations to that effect I find myself accused over and over of being "anti property". Why do I bother?

Even tolfa.us has an entire chapter on "Markets" and another on "Justice" which obviously presupposes trade in privately owned property and disputes arising from individuals' failure to adhere to the NAP.

So please, all of you who keep insisting that adherence to the NAP implies a rejection of property, quit that silly lie.

Mike; Not sure where you're headed with your comment. Religion and philosophy do not equate, regardless of Christians' or other's desire to attempt to make them comparable. Simple definitional semantics, particularly with Objectivism, separate the two and forever shall. Quoting a real person or her works that others can follow and replicate using rational logic, doesn't compare to quoting a hypothetical supernatural being or works allegedly inspired by that same hypothetical supernatural being, relying on faith alone and the hope for immortality. Fearing death doesn't stop it and a dream of immortality on another non-evidential plane to justify living a life of suffering and poverty strikes me as a little irrational, at best.

I'm not sure where a dualistic religion that briefly threatened Christianity and mathematical logics enters into a discussion or even thinking about the philosophy of Objectivism or the writings and art of the definer of that philosophy.

But, it remains that Anarchism takes the position that man will, given the freedom to do so, accept, live within, and flourish in a society that only has voluntary contact and trade between individuals and voluntarily will follow the nonaggression principle and that private property isn't necessary. A utopian dream, at best.

Objectivism, on the other hand, understands the reality that many individuals will not or cannot live rationally, accepting all other men's natural rights, particularly private property, and that the necessary evil of a societal or community enforcement mechanism must be and that it is by any other name or description, government. Though objectivist wish still for an absolute means to limit that government in perpetuity.

So I guess, that's my address to the idea of Objectivist Anarchism.

Khalling asks: "... can people mint their own gold coins? Obviously not as currency, but numbered and limited?" This is not clear, as much of what you write is muddy because you do not take the time to develop an idea. Do you mean to ask whether under CURRENT US LAW one can mint one's own coins, tokens, or medals? Under current US law you cannot mint your own coins. However, you can issue your own tokens and create your own medals; and many people have for over 40 years. I assume that you are not asking a wider philosophical question. In _Atlas Shrugged_ the gold coins of Galt's Gulch were minted on the "authority" (taken, not given) of the United States of America. Absent a government monoopoly on coins -"Article I Section 8: "... To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures..." we discussed this - or, I tried to - in the topics on Contradictions in the Constitution. You cannot enter into a treaty with Spain to goto war against France if Spain is attacked, but can you not agree by contract to sell Star Wars Action Figures to the government of Spain? The common concept here is what is allowed or permitted to an individual in a limited constitutional republic. In both 1800 and 1802 Republicans in the Senate introduced legislation to close the Mint as a burden on the Treasury. So, does the government have an objective monopoly on the coining of money? Or did you have a different question entirely?

There are almost always differences in function or design. Absolutely, different mouse traps every time, but the underlying idea of trapping a mouse remains the same for all. Age is not a valid determinant either. A in Key West comes up with the idea of trapping a mouse today, B in Thailand comes up with the idea of trapping a mouse a few hours later. It does not follow that A has any more rights to claim ownership of the idea than does B.

In the mean time, patent trolling has reached epidemic proportions.

http://blog.independent.org/2014/08/19/p...

Helldrvr, you seem to follow some anti-intellectual impulse to "latch on to practical ideas" without ever demonstrating the practicality or identifying the ideas.

OK, helldrvr, demonstrate the fact about anarchism that lets you increase your own personal freedom here and now.

I would love to have a look at this. so would db. sadly, it is difficult for me to get a copy where I am. I'll get it when I'm next in the states. I wonder why it isn't in electronic form.? so, I cannot give an opinion one way or the other.

Zen, I agree that the title does bring focus to a problem. We have Christians here in the Gulch. It has been asserted that Objectivism is a religion because people quote Ayn Rand as an authority. This discussion is a perfect example of why Objectivism is not (necessarily) a religion (though for some or many it may be). Although "Christianity" must include the Manichean Heresy, our local Christians never quote the Bible to prove that Jesus was not Divine. On the other hand, libertarians do quote Ayn Rand to show why justifications for government are contrary to the remaining body of Objectivism. Mathematician David Hilbert at Goettingen proposed a famous set of problems. "Gödel demonstrated that any non-contradictory formal system, which was comprehensive enough to include at least arithmetic, cannot demonstrate its completeness by way of its own axioms. In 1931 his incompleteness theorem showed that Hilbert's grand plan was impossible as stated." -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Hilbe... Turing's work supported Goedels: some numbers are not computable. If not for that, we would not be here via the Internet on our home computers. So, if we do not question "Objectivist Anarchism" we may not develop some future formalism that provides truly useful theory and practice.

My fear is Anarchists use the word anarchy. It has a meaning. get everyone feeling all self-contained in their NAP then bam! some property rights are gone...others aren't far behind....well you should have known...we always said anarchy...
We're waiting on critiquing this. Tom Woods, all reasonable sounding interviewing Stephan Kinsella-a dangerous thinker. all that open source for stone axes. cannot wait.
hey on another topic, can people mint their own gold coins? Obviously not as currency, but numbered and limited?

Having just agreed, I am going to offer a different and wider view: government is just one way to instantiate law. Law is antecedent to government. That is not my idea. I got if from Wolf Devoon. You can find his "Constitution for Galt's Gulch" here on Galt's Gulch: http://www.galtsgulchonline.com/posts/9f...

Teh US Patent and Trademark Office have had programs on that very thing off and on over the years. It almost never comes up. In fact, they keep discontinuing the program because simultaneous invention is a myth. There are almost always differences in function or design. Besides, it is so easy to check in the age of information. You do a title search before you buy your house.