Patents violate natural rights

[sjw]

Rothbard hasn't won anything. Are you an AnCap, BTW?

Natural rights are violated by patents. There, happy?

Secure borders also violate natural rights. We could go on.

Patents violate natural rights less than any alternative, however.

Specifically, permitting the 2nd inventor to use the new idea,

without compensating the 1st inventor, will cause all invention

to be done in secret. Boy will natural rights be buggered then.

A USA (I am Canadian, BTW) without a patent system would have

lost the Cold War and we'd both be arguing in a Gulag about now.

Talk about having a gun to your head.

Rand was wrong about some things but this isn't one of them.

Mike

This is why Rothbard has won. All you are doing is repeating ad nauseam pragmatist arguments.

Have you been so divested of morality that you cannot see any issues of natural rights violation with regards to patents? It's not complicated: I think of something, I transform my property. You then whine that you "thought of it first" and put a gun to my head. It's "patently" obvious there's a problem here.

Discussion continued from here: http://www.objectivistliving.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=9169&view=findpost&p=107792

[sjw]

Mike: No I am not an ancap. Are you an Objectivist?

I'm glad you are admitting that patents violate rights. I wonder how you square that with "the moral is the practical."

Indeed Rothbard won the debate with Rand, the evidence is everywhere. Objectivists are culturally irrelevant, but Rothbardians are having a huge impact. This loss is well-deserved. And Rothbard won fair and square, by actually being dedicated to a higher standard of truth than Rand was.

Shayne

[kiaer.ts]

All too many Objectivists fail to understand that patent law is positive civil law, not negative natural law.

Note this thread (on whether, if the validity of patents is granted, it is wrong to require patent holders to pay a tax to have the patent enforced) in which my interlocutor is unable to defend patent law and so switches his argument to copyright—and like a good ARIan implies I am attacking Ayn Rand—intentionally blurring the distinction between independent invention with the production of texts, as if the purpose of copyright law were to prevent writers from independently composing the same artwork.

http://rebirthofreas...1451_1.shtml#25

Ted Keer

Corporate law and patent law are creations of the state. They are positive creations of civil law. A patent, for example, places a restriction on a third party, preventing him from using something, even if he unknowingly and independently created on his own, if it happens to have already been patented by someone else. Is a reasonable tax on corporations and on patented items actually theft? I deny that taxation necessarily equals theft.

Steve Wolfer

You said, "Is a reasonable tax on corporations and on patented items actually theft? I deny that taxation necessarily equals theft."

A couple of thoughts... Corporations don't have individual rights, but the tax is levied against property owned by shareholders, and the property is taken against the wishes of the owner. So in that sense, reasonable or not, it is theft. Government would have to give a different name to what they are doing... They couldn't say we are going to increase the personal income theft rates from 28% to 30% - they would have to have another word - taxes. If we define theft as the unlawful taking of property - then no amount of theft or confiscation would ever be theft. If we define theft as taking property from its owner without their permission then all taxes fall into that category.

---------------

I don't understand what a "tax on patented items" is.

You said, "Corporate law and patent law are creations of the state." All law is a state creation, but these laws are the codification of existing relationships. Private firms used the concept of shares before the creation of corporate law. And patent laws are attempts to protect property rights - which existed before the laws.

Ted Keer

Privilege and Positive Law

Steve, do you understand that patents and corporations are positive creations of the state, of civil law? There are no such things as patents or corporations in a state of nature, while in a state of nature murder is still murder. That is an essential difference.

And of course all things being equal, the shareholders in a publicly traded corporation will prefer not to pay a corporate tax. Just like I would like it if my dentist wouldn't charge me to fix my cavities. The mere desire not to pay doesn't make it theft. The issue here is that the state gives artificial freedom from liability to the principals of a corporation. That limited liability isn't something that comes from the state of nature - it is another positive creation of civil law. The law prevents a corporation's victims from collecting certain damages. Just as patent law prevents third parties from using their own inventions. This is fundamentally different from criminal law, which is negative, and tort law, which provides redress. Corporate and patent law does not provide redress, it provides privilege.

Some will argue that these positive creations of civil law are unjust.

But even if you think patents and corporations are okay, you cannot get away from the fact that they are creations of the state. If give you an apple, and the state demands a bite, that could be described as theft. The state did not have anything to do with the transaction. But if I can make a profit as a corporation selling apple pies because of my limited liability, or selling cored apples while no one else can do so without a license from me to use an apple corer, then my profits depend in part on the state restricting innocent third parties from pursuing their otherwise natural and reasonable goals. If it is legitimate for the state to create such protections, it is legitimate for the state to tax the benefits of such protections. You need not apply for a patent nor incorporate, if you do not wish to pay the taxes associated with those acts. Whether a state exists or not, you have a natural right not to be murdered. But you cannot complain that your "natural right to patent or to incorporate" has been violated if the state demands that you pay a tax as part of the privilige of benefitting from such privileges. There is no such thing.

Steve Wolfer

Ted,

In a "state of nature" the paper and pen needed for writing a law do not exist. "State of nature" is not always a meaningful criteria for examining the law.

As we all know, the law is not perfect. The law that creates a corporation does not create "artificial freedom from liability", but rather defines a relationship of the shareholder as more like that of a lender - it is a mechanism for raising capital. You would agree that a bank should not be liable for the acts of a corporation just because it loaned money to the corportation. Without that kind of definition, lawyers would sue shareholders just because they exist. No one has been deprived of a right to sue that they had in 'nature'. The court can (and has) pierced the corporate veil when it is determined that incorporation is being improperly used to avoid liability.

All liability is limited and a purpose of the law is to define reasonable categories of liabilities. The ideological enemies of capitalism in general and of corporations in particular have attempted to paint the corporation as evil and this is one of their arguments.

Patent law is the attempt to define ownership in an area. Yes, it prevents a third party from using their own inventions if someone else registered first - maybe there is a way to modify the law so that this is a valid exception... but I suspect that it couldn't be done in a way that was equitable and enforceable. The first to register requirement is an artifact of making the law practical.

Unless you are denying that intellectual property rights are individual rights, there is the issue of theft. Theft existed in the state of nature before it was defined as law.

The ownership of my house is recorded and that record maintained by the county assessor and protects me in the case of someone trying to claim my place as their own. That recording is not a positive creation of civil law except to facilitate protection of property rights.

You said, "If it is legitimate for the state to create such protections [corporations and patents], it is legitimate for the state to tax the benefits of such protections." That doesn't follow. I could make a profit by borrowing from a bank instead of incorporating and the right to engage in transactions and to keep any profits I make does not change. The mechanism chosen to raise funds can not deprive me of my right to do business, or give the government ownership of some part of my money. And if I have the right to intellectual property, then it is not a gift that government allows me to keep profits. The legitimacy of a law depends only upon its relationship to individual rights. All profits are dependent, in a sense, on the existence of law, that doesn't justify government taxation - at least not one penny more than needed to sustain and apply the valid laws.

Ted Keer

Yes, Steve, you are free in the state of nature to invent a pen, and then again so am I, and in the state of nature you cannot use the fact that you invented the pen first from preventing me from using one I invented.

In the absence of positive law, in the absence of a state, if someone commits murder, you have the natural right to punish him yourself unilaterally in self defense. Do you have a similar natural right in the absence of the existence of a state to insist on a patent right? Let's say we live on an island, a new species of seal comes to reproduce on the island. You skin one, come home wearing it as a raincoat, show the village, and then the next day you see that I, returning from sea, have coincidentally done the same thing, inventing a rain coat from one of the newfound seal's skins. Do you have a natural right, in the absence of a state of any sort, to stop me from wearing the coat unless I pay you a license fee? Do you have the right to attack me and stop me from using the coat? I am not asking if it might not be wise create a new law, and a mechanism to enforce it, and a means to pay for it (i.e., a tax) but whether in the total absence of such a law you have a natural right to restrict your neighbor, just as you have a natural right to self defense?

If you see the difference there, then I think it's a very simple step to ask those who benefit from positive payment law to pay for it, perhaps with a percentage tax on their profits from the patented object during the period while the patent is enforced. That doesn't sound like theft to me..

Jordan

Ted,

Interesting points.

Steve,

I think the principle of taxation is justifiable, though it's application tends to be highly questionable. So I'm with Ted that taxation needn't necessarily be theft, even in the technical sense.

Three more points on top of the ones already out there.

1. I am taken by the analogy of nations as being similar to big clubhouses. They have their price. They might be the only gig in town, but that's not the clubhouse's problem. I understand that the analogy doesn't work for lots of people. It's far from perfect.

2. The tax evader takes the benefit of the jurisdiction's protection, but none of the burden, and at the expense of the jurisdiction. Sure, he didn't ask for it, but that doesn't preclude a theory akin to unjust enrichment.

3. How can one justify the existence of (minarchist) governance but not the means to run it?

Jordan

Steve Wolfer

Ted,

I have the right to defend my property - with or without a state or its laws. The way you are describing this Ayn Rand would have no right to the profits from her books unless the state gave her the "privilege" of copyright law! And then you are claiming that she owes the government for creating the laws that recognize her rights.

We don't need stories of hypothetical, coincidental seal-skin raincoat inventions. The right to the product of one's efforts is a natural right. The law always comes later and this distinction of "positive" law and "asking" people to pay for protecting their right to their own property shouldn't sit well with any one who respects property rights.

If you can figure a better way to handle those few instances where two inventors come up with the same product at the same time, independent of each other, just say so. Until someone does, the existing law is immensely better than no law to protect inventor's rights.

In the absence of patent law, I still have the right to the product of my efforts, but I will have a difficult time protecting those rights and it will severely limit my economic options. Any rational society will recognize this and attempt to create the laws that benefit the economy by maximizing the incentives for investors.

[i have corrected a few typos of mine from the original for ease of reading]

Edited September 12, 2010 by Ted Keer

[sjw]

Ted,

Your thinking is blasphemous. How dare you suggest that if a corporation gets a state privilege then it can't argue about not being taxed. I mean, what would happen to Objectivist antitrust theory if it was ever revealed how much big business profits from the Federal Reserve and the morass of regulations that tie the hands of smaller businessmen?

Shayne

[kiaer.ts]

Ted,

Your thinking is blasphemous. How dare you suggest that if a corporation gets a state privilege then it can't argue about not being taxed. I mean, what would happen to Objectivist antitrust theory if it was ever revealed how much big business profits from the Federal Reserve and the morass of regulations that tie the hands of smaller businessmen?

Shayne

While I do advocate the repeal of anti-trust and the regulatory state, I do not necessarily advocate the total abolition of patent law. Patent law should certainly be rained in drastically. For instance, patents not actually put into production should become void. An independent inventor should have the right to the private use of his invention. Genes should not be patentable—although some other form of intellectual property law may make sense in their case. I recognize patents as beneficial, but see the issue as lacking any definitively stated validation.

Edited September 12, 2010 by Ted Keer

[mfgreaves]

I am an Objectivist who would prefer that industrial capitalism should survive, and not perish. How would this survival happen if communists could share knowledge by confiscation, but capitalists could not share it by ownership and exchange? If corporations could not be created to tackle projects at the large scales that states can?

I am on very firm moral ground here. In the absence of patents, natural rights would be in greater danger, not less.

(Thank you for splitting off the thread, we were very OT.)

Mike

Mike: No I am not an ancap. Are you an Objectivist?

I'm glad you are admitting that patents violate rights. I wonder how you square that with "the moral is the practical."

[sjw]

So we need to violate morality, in order to preserve morality. Again, this is why you lost to Rothbard.

I am an Objectivist who would prefer that industrial capitalism should survive, and not perish. How would this survival happen if communists could share knowledge by confiscation, but capitalists could not share it by ownership and exchange? If corporations could not be created to tackle projects at the large scales that states can?

I am on very firm moral ground here. In the absence of patents, natural rights would be in greater danger, not less.

(Thank you for splitting off the thread, we were very OT.)

Mike

Mike: No I am not an ancap. Are you an Objectivist?

I'm glad you are admitting that patents violate rights. I wonder how you square that with "the moral is the practical."

[sjw]

While I do advocate the repeal of anti-trust and the regulatory state, I do not necessarily advocate the total abolition of patent law. Patent law should certainly be rained in drastically. For instance, patents not actually put into production should become void. An independent inventor should have the right to the private use of his invention. Genes should not be patentable—although some other form of intellectual property law may make sense in their case. I recognize patents as beneficial, but see the issue as lacking any definitively stated validation.

Do you advocate nuking China if they don't recognize your patent system and someone there reinvents something you allowed to become patented?

Shayne

[mfgreaves]

Fascinating. An Objectivist (I presume, perhaps incorrectly); an engineer (I understand);

and you're opposed to patent rights. I guess, eventually, I've seen everything. 8-)

A patent-less, corporation-less West, organized on Rothbardian principles, would have surrendered it's world to communism and/or fascism. You'll never convince me otherwise. We are about 2 centuries too far into the experiment, benefiting from patents, to imagine how the 20th century would have played-out without such property constructs. I'm betting that you wouldn't have liked it, Shayne.

So we need to violate morality, in order to preserve morality. Again, this is why you lost to Rothbard.

The context in which you can create things, with your own mind and property, is what you are not addressing. All the patents on all of the things which you can create in any historical context, eg. a screwdriver, have already expired. What is protected by patents now, are things like field-effect transistor variants, which never would have come into existence without patents and corporations. Unless perhaps by State Science Institutes.

Respectfully,

Mike

[sjw]

Fascinating. An Objectivist (I presume, perhaps incorrectly); an engineer (I understand);

and you're opposed to patent rights. I guess, eventually, I've seen everything. 8-)

I stopped calling myself an Objectivist as I awoke to a number of problems in Rand's philosophy, primarily problems related to individual rights. Yes I'm an engineer and a small businessman and patents are a huge detriment, precisely because I innovate like crazy. There are 40K software patents filed per year and I have no rational means of making sure one of my innovations doesn't trip one of them. Nor can I afford to patent my many inventions. Unlike big businesses, I don't have a direct line to the Federal Reserve.

The vast majority of innovators in my field are opposed to patents, and by this I mean individuals, not corporations.

The sick irony is that you think you are defending the inventor, when you are really directing a thuggish boot to step on his neck. But you should know better. You know that your argument is without a moral base, and you just don't give a damn about that. Instead you just care about the fictional reality in which you live, where you pretend that without patents we can't have industry.

A patent-less, corporation-less West, organized on Rothbardian principles,

I do not promote Rothbard, I merely observe that he bested you. On the contrary, I disagree with anarcho-capitalism, and I even permit a defanged form of patents, with limitations relating to consent of the governed (a concept Objectivists care less about than the Renaissance thinkers that helped create the system of government Objectivists pretend to revere), in my own system. I certainly don't disagree with corporations, except that they should be representative of the constituent owners, not some alien creation.

You'll never convince me otherwise.

A bald-faced admission of irrationalism if I ever saw one.

We are about 2 centuries too far into the experiment, benefiting from patents, to imagine how the 20th century would have played-out without such property constructs. I'm betting that you wouldn't have liked it, Shayne.

Your interpretation of history has been refuted repeatedly, but in any case, it's certainly not a given here.

Shayne

[mfgreaves]

The vast majority of innovators in my field are opposed to patents

I know. I began to suspect that you were a software engineer

when your opposition to patents became clear.

Mike

[kiaer.ts]

While I do advocate the repeal of anti-trust and the regulatory state, I do not necessarily advocate the total abolition of patent law. Patent law should certainly be rained in drastically. For instance, patents not actually put into production should become void. An independent inventor should have the right to the private use of his invention. Genes should not be patentable—although some other form of intellectual property law may make sense in their case. I recognize patents as beneficial, but see the issue as lacking any definitively stated validation.

Do you advocate nuking China if they don't recognize your patent system and someone there reinvents something you allowed to become patented?

Shayne

Notice that I used the word civil right. (You use the term "artificial" right.) A civil right applies within a polity, not outside it. I believe in the reality of the state, and hence its finitude. It is anarchists who think that civil rights are infinite and instantiate themselves.

[sjw]

Notice that I used the word civil right. (You use the term "artificial" right.) A civil right applies within a polity, not outside it. I believe in the reality of the state, and hence its finitude. It is anarchists who think that civil rights are infinite and instantiate themselves.

I did notice, I'm just trying to be sure of what your position is. Indeed, you have a refined understanding of patents compared to most Objectivists, who would advocate for nuking China.

So what limits do you place upon the jurisdiction of the State? As in, how do you determine its proper range of jurisdiction?

Shayne

[sjw]

I know. I began to suspect that you were a software engineer

when your opposition to patents became clear.

Mike

Indeed.

The idea that I can be presented with a problem, set out to logically solve it with the tools at hand, and wind up with a program that could not be legally used because someone else followed the same logical steps some years ago and filed for a patent on it is horrifying. --John Carmack

If people had understood how patents would be granted when most of today's ideas were invented, and had taken out patents, the industry would be at a complete standstill today." --Bill Gates

[kiaer.ts]

Notice that I used the word civil right. (You use the term "artificial" right.) A civil right applies within a polity, not outside it. I believe in the reality of the state, and hence its finitude. It is anarchists who think that civil rights are infinite and instantiate themselves.

I did notice, I'm just trying to be sure of what your position is. Indeed, you have a refined understanding of patents compared to most Objectivists, who would advocate for nuking China.

So what limits do you place upon the jurisdiction of the State? As in, how do you determine its proper range of jurisdiction?

Shayne

I have just come up with what I think is justification for a very constrained system of patent monopoly. Let me post something else I wrote about how to "enforce" duty to report laws to give you an idea of how I think.

[kiaer.ts]

Payment in Kind - An Alternative to "Duty to Report" Laws

Government is a human institution. All human action comes at some finite but real cost. Even a minarchist government needs funding . There is a cost to maintain and supply a military, a court system, a police force, and the other necessities of state action, no matter how privatized those entities may be. And monetary funding is not the only requirement for the existence of a government. If no person is willing to fight for the military of a state or serve in the police force, there can be no government. Police and military and even judges and legislators are not altruists. They do not work selflessly, nor under self-sacrificial circumstances. The right to life you imagine you have is not a claim on theirs.

When designing a government it must serve the interests of the governed. But it must also serve the interests of those who govern — and in two senses. Those who govern are humans. They must not be expected to work for free, or at a loss, or counter to their own self interests. And they must have the tools necessary to their professional interest in protecting rights, which itself must be rational and attainable and not self-defeating.

If, for example, the police are to fight force, they must be allowed to use force. The military must be given clear goals and cannot be given impossible goals. They cannot be told to defeat an enemy without upsetting anyone. To ask people to serve in a voluntary military as ill-equipped pawns who will be deployed in a surge only to please one faction then be brought home whether or not their task is accomplished in order to please another faction is to ask them to be sacrificial objects to fickle whims. To ask a politician to leave successful private life and serve as a state governor only to face maliciously brought harassment lawsuits to be defended against at her own expense is to expect only power mad altruists to hold public-office.

Those who protect us from others who threaten us with force must get paid for their services. This was as true during the dimmest of the Dark Ages as it is now, and as it was before the pyramids were built. Amongst savage palaeolithic tribes the men went to war as needed and the women folk supported them. During the Middle Ages the peasants fed the lord and his horses and the lord, presumably, fought to protect the manor. Peasants and savages paid for their protection in kind. Now we pay for our protection in money, which is better for all concerned. But some still pay in kind and are in turn rewarded in kind with pensions and honor and scholarships and citizenship. And there was nothing wrong with the fact that once, according to their circumstances, all men paid in kind.

Our modern military is supported by the most sophisticated system of trade this world has ever seen. No foe can beat it and its backers in a fair fight. It is only when we fail to provide for its other proper professional interests, like a clear plan to follow, and a free hand to fight, that it falters in its mission. In the days when there were wars but there was no money, such self-sabotage was much more rare and the needs of war were known direct. Imagine, if you will, the fate of the peasant, who, when the Mongols were at the gate, said, "You cannot expect me to fight for the state, it would be altruism! You may be lord, but I am no slave!" Were he somehow to live, and were the barbarians repulsed, what do you think his fate would be next time he was caught outside the gate when the horde attacked? Would not his peers refuse to provide the aid he himself held back the day before? Would they not tell him this? "We cannot risk raising the gate. Good luck! And fend for yourself."

The modern state depends upon payment in money from its citizens for the protection that some men offer others. It also requires that those who serve with their labor do so with honor and integrity, which normally they do, at least those in uniform. But it also requires other things from all of us, whether we pay taxes or we serve in the armed forces or not. We each of us must testify honestly in court if called. We must pay attention to the issues at hand in an election, and the integrity of those for whom we vote to put in charge of the men with guns. And, in addition, we must also, so far as we are able and would not ourselves be put in harm's way, report crimes or otherwise act as reasonable first responders when the situation warrants.

This is the necessity of a free state. If we wish to benefit from the protection of the law, we must pay for it, in money or in kind. The need for us to report crimes and to take other reasonable actions is a necessary prerequisite of the police and others doing their jobs. We cannot expect the police to fight crimes we do not report. If you can look out the window when you hear a woman's screams, can you not call the police to (one hopes) prevent a murder? If a car crashes into a tree on your lawn, is it unreasonable for you to take the initiative to turn off the ignition key so that when the police and ambulance arrive they do not need to call for the fire brigade to extinguish an otherwise easily preventable blaze before they act?

If you opt not to act in such situations, perhaps you have not initiated force yourself. But have you not refused to pay in kind for the sort of protections you yourself would want? The state must not initiate force against you. Not even to punish you actively for your inaction. But if you refuse to pay your taxes, do others still have a responsibility to labor to protect you? Are they your slaves? If the legislature determines that in order to redress crime, one must, as a rule, report crimes when one sees them, not under threat of jail, but under threat of reciprocal withdrawal, is this not a reasonable expectation of payment in kind? Does it not warrant a warning that refusal to pay comes with termination of services?

Of course there are details. That is why we have wise judges and cautious legislatures and fifty state laboratories in which to work out, in the real world, how best to implement our principles. One of our principles is that the police are not our slaves. If refusal to report a crime is made grounds for the temporary withdrawal of police protection (in lieu of payment of a fine if you want that protection to remain interrupted) then does the person who refuses to act have grounds to complain if others refuse to aid him in return? Is the withdrawal of services unpaid-for the initiation of force? Of course the alleged conscientious objector's actions cannot be arbitrarily judged. The benefit of the doubt would have to go with the supposedly negligent party. But there are those who would shirk their responsibility to support the state that protects them. Some people undoubtedly do hold themselves apart from the law. And in respect for them as persons they should be treated as they wish, as outlaws.

Edited September 13, 2010 by Ted Keer

[sjw]

Interesting spin Ted. I think you've followed your "A case has not been refuted until it has been stated at its strongest" dictum well.

However it doesn't answer my question that I can see. I just want to know how, according to you, the State determines how far across the span of the Earth it has a moral right to foist its "artificial" laws upon the Earth's inhabitants.

Shayne

[Brant Gaede]

Since I haven't gotten my mind properly around Shayne's rights' views yet, I don't want to say much about that now, but the computer software patents should expire within five years for starters simply to return a little sanity to that overall situation. That would be a stopgap only until things get rationaled out.

--Brant

[kiaer.ts]

Interesting spin Ted. I think you've followed your "A case has not been refuted until it has been stated at its strongest" dictum well.

However it doesn't answer my question that I can see. I just want to know how, according to you, the State determines how far across the span of the Earth it has a moral right to foist its "artificial" laws upon the Earth's inhabitants.

Shayne

As I said, that essay was for the meanwhile, to let you see how I think.

You asked above, what are the limits of jurisdiction.

The need for jurisdiction—limits to the scope of the law within time and space—is a result of the fact that men are finite beings, that knowledge comes at a cost, and that values are finite as well. Infinite justice is as invalid an idea as absolute certainty, and even more pernicious. Objective law means defined law, which means finite law.

The state may come in various forms, from free city to empire, from municipal ward to nation state. Ultimately, there must be some highest authority. The lack of a highest authority means infinite regress epistemologically, and civil war politically—or anarchy—if you prefer euphemisms. This sovereign state must be geographically defined. ( I define the state as a common right of way, the property bordering it, the people inhabiting this territory, and the government they establish to protect their rights within it.)

But the justice it meets out must also be defined in time. There must be a statute of limits on redressing wrongs, else no act is finished, no wrong forgotten, no fact established, no power final. Objective law requires definitions. Infinite justice is not possible. Finite justice requires that limits be defined. What those limits should be must be a matter of compromise based on reasoned consensus. It is for this reason that we have legislatures, to determine a reasonable age of consent, reasonable sentences for crimes, reasonable statutes of limitations.

Is there a right to unilateral secession? Only individuals have rights, per se. A local jurisdiction may legitimately secede from a larger jurisdiction which violates the rights of its members. There is no right, however, to secession from a just jurisdiction. How is this defined? Rand stated the criteria; freedom of speech, freedom to emigrate, and the lack of political imprisonment.

What are the results when the limits of jurisdiction are not observed? Without a limit to prosecution in time, you have the absurdity of reparations paid to non-victims by non-aggressors. You have ethnic grievances made immortal. You have recent immigrants removed from land sold to them by the ancestors of men who stole it from one native tribe who conquered it from another native tribe back to the dawn of man. Without defined borders you simply have the war of all against all.

[sjw]

As I said, that essay was for the meanwhile, to let you see how I think.

You asked above, what are the limits of jurisdiction.

The need for jurisdiction—limits to the scope of the law within time and space—is a result of the fact that men are finite beings, that knowledge comes at a cost, and that values are finite as well. Infinite justice is as invalid an idea as absolute certainty, and even more pernicious. Objective law means defined law, which means finite law.

The state may come in various forms, from free city to empire, from municipal ward to nation state. Ultimately, there must be some highest authority. The lack of a highest authority means infinite regress epistemologically, and civil war politically—or anarchy—if you prefer euphemisms. This sovereign state must be geographically defined. ( I define the state as a common right of way, the property bordering it, the people inhabiting this territory, and the government they establish to protect their rights within it.)

But the justice it meets out must also be defined in time. There must be a statute of limits on redressing wrongs, else no act is finished, no wrong forgotten, no fact established, no power final. Objective law requires definitions. Infinite justice is not possible. Finite justice requires that limits be defined. What those limits should be must be a matter of compromise based on reasoned consensus. It is for this reason that we have legislatures, to determine a reasonable age of consent, reasonable sentences for crimes, reasonable statutes of limitations.

Is there a right to unilateral secession? Only individuals have rights, per se. A local jurisdiction may legitimately secede from a larger jurisdiction which violates the rights of its members. There is no right, however, to secession from a just jurisdiction. How is this defined? Rand stated the criteria; freedom of speech, freedom to emigrate, and the lack of political imprisonment.

What are the results when the limits of jurisdiction are not observed? Without a limit to prosecution in time, you have the absurdity of reparations paid to non-victims by non-aggressors. You have ethnic grievances made immortal. You have recent immigrants removed from land sold to them by the ancestors of men who stole it from one native tribe who conquered it from another native tribe back to the dawn of man. Without defined borders you simply have the war of all against all.

I don't know what you mean by "geographical." Do you just mean "contiguous"? If so, then what limits the extent?

Regarding secession, did America have the right to secede from England, and what were the grounds?

Shayne

[kiaer.ts]

As I said, that essay was for the meanwhile, to let you see how I think.

You asked above, what are the limits of jurisdiction.

The need for jurisdiction—limits to the scope of the law within time and space—is a result of the fact that men are finite beings, that knowledge comes at a cost, and that values are finite as well. Infinite justice is as invalid an idea as absolute certainty, and even more pernicious. Objective law means defined law, which means finite law.

The state may come in various forms, from free city to empire, from municipal ward to nation state. Ultimately, there must be some highest authority. The lack of a highest authority means infinite regress epistemologically, and civil war politically—or anarchy—if you prefer euphemisms. This sovereign state must be geographically defined. ( I define the state as a common right of way, the property bordering it, the people inhabiting this territory, and the government they establish to protect their rights within it.)

But the justice it meets out must also be defined in time. There must be a statute of limits on redressing wrongs, else no act is finished, no wrong forgotten, no fact established, no power final. Objective law requires definitions. Infinite justice is not possible. Finite justice requires that limits be defined. What those limits should be must be a matter of compromise based on reasoned consensus. It is for this reason that we have legislatures, to determine a reasonable age of consent, reasonable sentences for crimes, reasonable statutes of limitations.

Is there a right to unilateral secession? Only individuals have rights, per se. A local jurisdiction may legitimately secede from a larger jurisdiction which violates the rights of its members. There is no right, however, to secession from a just jurisdiction. How is this defined? Rand stated the criteria; freedom of speech, freedom to emigrate, and the lack of political imprisonment.

What are the results when the limits of jurisdiction are not observed? Without a limit to prosecution in time, you have the absurdity of reparations paid to non-victims by non-aggressors. You have ethnic grievances made immortal. You have recent immigrants removed from land sold to them by the ancestors of men who stole it from one native tribe who conquered it from another native tribe back to the dawn of man. Without defined borders you simply have the war of all against all.

I don't know what you mean by "geographical." Do you just mean "contiguous"? If so, then what limits the extent?

Regarding secession, did America have the right to secede from England, and what were the grounds?

Shayne

Contiguity is determined by the common right of way. Freely navigable bodies of water can join land territories which are not themselves contiguous. Humans are ingenious and obstreperous animals, so there are other possibilities. Human conventions and historical realities and accidents are fascinatingly complex and not reducible to laws in the mathematical sense. I reject Rand's doctrine of the metaphysical versus the manmade as a metaphysical doctrine. But looking at historical accidents you can see why she formulated it.

Hopefully, the boundaries of a state will be natural, based on common culture and language. That is most stable and natural. In fact, they are determined by war and the threat of war. War, although not necessarily active, is the default state between sovereign nations. Peace exists when there is a tacit, or, preferably, formalized mutual recognition. Humans are apes and if they do not chose otherwise that is how they live, in mutually hostile bands of about thirty individuals each. I suggest reading Nicholas Wade's Before the Dawn on the similarities of primitive tribes, bands of chimps, and the average rate of death in intertribal warfare, the same for both species, at about 30% per male lifetime.

Yes, America had the right to secede, assuming it was going to be a better protector of the rights of its citizens. The violation of the right to petition the government is a violation of free speech and leads to political imprisonment. Indeed, when Frankiln went to England as the agent of the colonies prior to the Declaration of Independence he was almost arrested:

http://www.sonofthes...in-franklin.htm

While the Continental Congress was in session in the fall of 1774, much anxiety was felt in political circles in England concerning the result. The ministry, in particular, were anxious to know, and Franklin was solicited by persons high in authority to promulgate the extent of the demands of his countrymen. So urgent were these requests that, without waiting to receive a record of the proceedings of the Congress, he prepared a paper entitled Hints for Conversation upon the Subject of Terms that may probably produce a durable Union between Britain and the Colonies, in seventeen propositions. The substance of the whole was that the colonies should be reinstated in the position which they held, in relation to the imperial government, before the obnoxious acts then complained of became laws, by a repeal, and by a destruction of the whole brood of enactments in reference to America hatched since the accession of George III. In a word, he proposed that English subjects in America should enjoy all the essential rights and privileges claimed as the birthright of subjects in England. Nothing came of the Hints.

After the attack by Wedderburne when before the privy council, and his dismissal from the office of postmaster-general for the colonies, Franklin was subjected to the danger of arrest, and possibly a trial, for treason; for the ministry, angry because he had exposed Hutchinson's letters, made serious threats. Conscious of rectitude, he neither left England then nor swerved a line from his course of duty. When, in February, 1776, Lord North endeavored to find out from him what the Americans wanted, "We desire nothing," said Franklin, " but what is necessary to our security and well-being." After stating that some of the obnoxious acts would probably be repealed, Lord North said the Massachusetts acts must be continued, both "as real amendments" of the constitution of that province, and " as a standing example of the power of Parliament." Franklin replied: "While Parliament claims the right of altering American constitutions at pleasure, there can be no agreement, for we are rendered unsafe in every privilege." North answered: "An agreement is necessary for America; it is so easy for Britain to burn all your seaport towns." Franklin coolly answered: " My little property consists in houses in those towns; you may make bonfires of them whenever you please; the fear of losing them will never alter my resolution to resist to the last the claim of Parliament."

Mr. Strahan, of London, had been a sort of go-between through whom Dr. Franklin had communicated with Lord North. On July 5, 1776, Franklin wrote to him: " You are a member of Parliament, and one of that majority which has doomed my country to destruction. You have begun to burn our towns and murder our people. Look upon your hands; they are stained with the blood of your relations! You and I were long friends; you are now my enemy, and I am yours.-B. FRANKLIN."

Edited September 13, 2010 by Ted Keer

[Selene]

Shayne stated:

"Regarding secession, did America have the right to secede from England, and what were the grounds?"

Yes.

These are the grounds...

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united STATES of AMERICA,

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain [George III] is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained, and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the meantime exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies, without the consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops amoung us:

For protecting them by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases of the benefits of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms. Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by the authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare. That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.

[Brant Gaede]

"America had the right ..."

The details were more than a little messy.

--Brant

[sjw]

"America had the right ..."

The details were more than a little messy.

--Brant

Exactly Brant. Talk about concrete-bound responses to my question...

Shayne

[kiaer.ts]

"America had the right ..."

The details were more than a little messy.

--Brant

What are you talking about? That was perhaps the most honorable and civilized serious war in history and on both sides. What would have been a better result? If you want to prove the existence of a benevolent creator, I couldn't think of a better miracle to adduce.