I think on the other hand, that if the neighbor is sufficiently noxious, others wouldn't trade or contract with him. You also have the option of placing your speakers against your property line and playing Mozart or Bach back at him or maybe Bluegrass. And your land at a discount doesn't hold true unless you assume that every possible buyer dislikes rap music as much as you.

If individual freedom is important to you, then you may need to put up with possible negatives that go along with it. In your example: First investigate the neighborhood. If you still move in or the neighbors are new then act as follows. Get soundproof windows and doors. (They are also good added insulation). Make sure you and your family are protected from disease. As to the goat killer, avoid contact with him. If encountered tell him how you feel and move on. It is the price you pay for your right to say NO. Of course, you could also move to a 50 acre lot.

So, I knew a guy in college who founded his own religion. Norman also had a habit of sitting on his bed and chanting regularly.

His roommate couldn't take it and demanded a new room and was given one. No one wanted to room with Norman. He cheerfully told me that he had gotten a single.

The 'move' strategy essentially means that if a property owner is sufficiently noxious that no one wants to live near him he can probably get their land at a discount.

Property rights would imply, to me at least, the right to enjoy your property free from unreasonable interference from your neighbor.

Rand advocated for a government that enforced peoples's property rights. She indicated that it was important the the rules be objective and known. Not that there were no rules.

I think that works...for the rap music. It does not work for disease nor does it work for vivisection or child abuse.

In the former case, the right of someone to 'have smallpox' can harm you - and everyone around you unless you live as a hermit and require double-packaging of every item you receive (since smallpox, for example, can survive 10 years in woolen cloth - hiring someone to do your shopping would not suffice). Society does not work well when one person's freedom to 'have smallpox' could destroy thousands of people. (The answer is not 'these thousands should have the vaccine' nor is it 'wild smallpox is eradicated'. I use this disease as an example of a class of activity we must consider in terms of a social structure. Term it "Martian Blue Death" if that makes more sense to you.)

In the case of vivisection* or child abuse, I strongly judge that a society that permitted these activities to occur unhindered would not be one I wanted to be a part of. *(The title "Goat Evisceration" was intended to imply sadistic vivisection without grossing people out.)

So I think that the 'thin grey layer' of law needs to exist, but it needs to be carefully thought out.

Jan

You build a sound barrier fence, or you move. Your likes and dislikes are not imposable on others.

Texas wouldn't be a bad place to end up, would it?! -- j
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You cannot require that every interaction be based on mutual agreement. That is certainly the ideal but suppose my neighbor wants to listen to loud rap music and I don't. We don't have mutual agreement.

So, does that mean that he can't play his music? Does it mean I have to listen to it anyway?

Governments and laws are designed for situations where you don't have mutual agreement.

The only permissible limitation, if one chooses to use that word, is that of the use of force or fraud against another. Any other definition allows a whittling away or an actual break in individual freedom and life. Every interaction with others must be based on mutual agreement, recognizing each others rights. Otherwise, there is no liberty or freedom, and therefor no right to life, ultimately.

Wow.

The limits appear to define the threshold from civil damages to criminal damages.

Makes me appreciate the long history and struggle for rational civilization. And then contemplate how fast it can unravel (or be unraveled). Makes most of our current news cycles pretty scary. And it is also what makes Leonard Peikoff's book "The Ominous Parallels" such an essential read.

Jan; the foundation you propose being the Constitution must rest upon an originator and firmer foundation, that of individual rights. That foundation never changes.

You ask: "How do we deal with the gray lines of the real world and maintain freedom?"

You go back to the principles of Objectivism. At its base, Objectivism is not a pie-in-the-sky Utopian dream nor does it promise that. It is a philosophy based around the reality of the world in which one lives and tries to prosper while defending those rights that all men have. The ethics and the morals are really simple in that if one wishes for themselves the rights of a free individual, one must recognize those identical rights of others that they interact with.

Objectivism will not remove from your life all dangers inherent in living nor the petty nuisances of your neighbors. If you don't wish to hear the rap music, build a sound barrier fence, if you don't like goat evisceration, talk to your neighbor and offer to buy his goats from him, if you're deathly afraid of disease, hire someone to do your shopping for you. At the extreme end, you may move far enough away from your neighbors to eliminate all of those nuisances. It's your actions that are within your control--not the actions of others.

These likes or dislikes are your burden and responsibilities, not imposable by you on to others.

Weregild (man price) is part of an old Germanic legal system where you paid a price for damages including murder. This is blood money.

We still assess damages in the event of causing accidental death, but long ago stopped considering that sufficient for deliberate murder.

It does put limits on the concept of "actionable damage" since there are some actions we do not want to allow even if you are willing to pay damages.

These and broader questions like them are what property law is supposed to determine. The best way to get to balanced, livable outcomes is to make property rights as well defined as possible, as secure as possible, and as tradable as possible, so that the Coase Theorem can go to work optimizing the result for all concerned.

Those who require explanations should start by reading this book. http://daviddfriedman.com/laws_order/ind...

Each one of us must define our own freedom. I live in a high rise condo building. CC&R'S. I am not allowed to place an umbrella on my balcony patio no matter how hot the day.
However, I am free to travel in my camper by just leaving. I know my home will be safe while I am away because it is in the high rise building.
I have the choice of exchanging one freedom (the umbrella) for another (keeping my home safe)
We have a case going on now, where "the city" is going to build a life guard tower in front of some homes on the water, destroying their view.
We will see how that turns out!!!
When the government does something for the "common good", watch out. That is when we lose our freedom! I'm fighting that as fast as I can.

Haha! Rap should be ten times that amount.

The general framework has been that by possibly having to recompense for proven damages, that would curb such behavior. Hence, making Rap really expensive makes sense!

BTW, what is weregild?

Good questions on important issues. When does the parsing of society reach a point that everything is well defined and everyone knows what can and can't be done? Well, never.

Will a scorched leg from a hot cup of coffee always be worth $6,000,000? Our traditional system of arbitration in the common law court system generally held that individual cases with jury verdicts did not/do not set legal precedent. This leaves the parsing to repeated considerations of similar cases by locally picked juries of peers.

In light of this, when I hear of Compressional driven "reforms", I cringe in anticipation of more destruction of what has been a centuries proven legal system.

Sounds great. What general part of the country do you live in?

Jan

Well, that was Davy Crockett's solution --move when you can see your neighbors smoke. But sooner or later you wind up in Texas. Or somewhere else where you must have a neighbor and the problem comes up again.

I own 225 acres debt free and it's still not big enough. But I can live with that better than 10 acres. I can shoot a deer out my back door and eviscerate it with my music at full blast the go out and vaccinate and castrate a group of calves, barbecue the backstrap from the deer fry up the mountain oysters from the calves and nobody cares. If you want to live in your own personal Gulch size matters. Save up your pennies like I did because it isn't cheap. P.S. build your house in the middle of your Gulch.

So, we don't try to stop anyone from doing something we just receive damages if they cause us damage.

I can see that keeping down the 'nanny state'. Of course we then wind up with micro-damages ($0.15 for playing classical music, $2.25 for rap?)

Taken to extreme we re-institute weregild and you can kill anyone who you can afford to pay for.

I'm more concerned (at least as of this moment this morning, which is gloriously bright and sunny here in the Northwest at a crisp 60 degrees, expected to reach 65 today), how much you enjoyed your luncheon date. Do you remember what you had for lunch? I gotta go, gotta get outside and enjoy this wonderful day. I think I just might drive (in my little Crystal Red Corvette) all the way up to Monroe and go to the Washington Gun Collectors gun show. Life is good.

I have no idea what the neighbors are doing today. They are all quite liberal, the only one that is a conservative can't vote anyway, he's Canadian. I can contend with the liberals as long as they keep the music down and mostly keep to themselves. The lawyer next door is the worst, and I’m sure he’ll never see my comment here in the Gulch. My wife and I are the friendly ones in the neighborhood and only one of the liberals really responds favorably to us. She is married to the conservative Canadian across the street and we even on occasion discuss a little politics.

And now speaking of eviscerating goats, a long time ago my little brother (suicide 12/25/85 at 39 years) met my new wife the first time when he brought some fresh pork up from his farm in Buxton, Oregon for a winter kickoff party we were throwing. When I say fresh, I mean fresh, he brought it up on a rope. It jumped out of the back of his pickup and came screaming into the house. My wife jumped up on the counter when she heard it squeal, yelling, “Get that pig out of my house”.

And now the rest of the story. We eviscerated that little fresh wiener pig in the back yard, storing those parts most of us don't eat in a five gallon bucket. I must have had too much to drink as I gutter spiked the head onto a board (as a joke), and asked my wife where I can hang it. Somehow she didn't see the humor we saw in it. Anyway, there was a garbage strike at the time, so what would I do with that bucket of soon to be smelly stuff? Since it was close to Christmas, we put the bucket in a box, wrapped it with gift wrap, put it in the back of my pickup, and drove to the store to get some more charcoal. Of course I parked far enough out from the store entry where my truck would not be seen easily from the store. And what would you know, problem solved. Someone got a huge surprise.

move. -- j

Good. Actionable damage, then. Part of the 'thin grey layer' includes the concept of actionable damage?

There are other categories to be considered: for example, what is the distinction between 'spanking your child' and 'beating your child'? When does society get to intervene?

Jan

Actionable damage is the key words here. There is a recourse to what is called "Inverse Condemnation" where you must demonstrate that the action of a neighbor - private, commercial whatever - has down valued your property. Reducing your quality of life can also be actionable but must rise to a level where your health is actually threatened. The current vaccinations brouhaha may test these thresholds.

Good input. Thank you.

Jan