The same reason I have made all of these posts -
I live in the hope that someone can demonstrate that I am wrong.

Obviously not.

Sorry... their legitimacy isn't based on not telling people what to do... it is based on everyone having an equal ability to tell everyone else what to do... (whatever that might mean)

"Picking up a piece of paper before anyone ellse is a universal ethic?

So presumably you have no objection to the devine right of kings?"

This is a non sequitur. The origin of feudal title is based upon conquest and oppression, not transformation of unowned land.

Tomsmith...
You are as thick as pigshit.

Tomsnmith...
もう 面倒臭いなんですよ
本当に
picking up something hich is not legitimately owned blah blah blah... but how do u determine what is legitimatley ownd you retard...

I want outside adjudication on this discussion.
I demand it.
Tom.. what is your opinion. Tom?

A voluntary, non-force based system is legitimate because it is universal... it is universal in part, because it is not based on force.
Deciding rules for other people is non-universal and requires force.

Picking up a piece of paper can be an act of force if it is done in opposition to legitimate ownership.
Ownership over the things we have created is not in itself a requirement for universalism (communist systems can also be universal).

Which means surely that legitimate ownership cannot be simply based on who picks something up first - because the act of picking something up can be an act of force. It would also be entirely legitimate to object to a property system based upon "who created it" - since this in itself isn't necessary for universalism.

So, if you and your chums have decided that a certain tree, or wallets, or pieces of paper are yours - but I and my African friend disagree - in what sense is that not you deciding the rules which we will be bound by?

Talking about the "boundaries of society" doesn't help us either, for exactly the same reason - it is entirely possible that people will disagree with the boundaries of society - and since there is nothing within the universal, non-force system which tells us what these boundaries must be... how will we determine them?

Tell me which definitions of the term you are having difficulty with and I will attempt to clarify.

I don't have an intuitive grasp of the term - you have provided several definitions which don't seem to add up.

If you don't have any grasp of the meaning of the term, why do you accuse me of over reliance on it as a panacea for poor argumentation avoiding what you believe to be the "key point- the basis for property laws"?

This would seem like a strange thing for you to do if what you say is true.

I don't have any intuitive grasp of what you mean by "universal".
Could you explain this term to me?

"Response shows distinct lack of perspicacity."

I am sorry you do not seem to understand the argument. What can I do to help?

"Over reliance upon the term "universal" as a pancea for poor argumentation. Avoids key point - the basis for property laws."

I am not arguing about property laws. What do you understand by the term universal as applied to ethics?

Instead of writing a response to each of your selective and out of context quotes I think it is easier to summarise the argument so far. This should suffice to clear up any misunderstandings:

People only have control over their own physical bodies and thoughts, and are unable to exert control over other individuals without the use of force. In the absence of force voluntarism is the default. Its legitimacy is based upon its universality, not the fact that it arises naturally in the absence of force. It is nonsensical to suggest that forceful response to the initiation of force forces people who would like to use force not to use force. All outside claims on property I own through voluntary exchange entail force. The use of force is illegitimate because it establishes a non-universal ethic.

"To achieve universality... everyone is fully entitled to the natural property they have in their person and labour"

"What do "natural" principles have to do with anything?"

"Universality means everyone subject to the same rules, essential for any coherent political ethic. Some people proposing what some other people should be able to have and do is obviously not an example of a universal ethic because only some people get to decide the rules."

"What I produce is owned by me. It is not owned by some other specific person or group because such a property ethic would be non-universal."

" On the other hand an ethic of "Everyone should have x" cannot be applied universally because someone is deciding what everyone else should do."

"everyone is fully entitled to the natural property they have in their person and labour and is justified in defending this property against agression."

"A new child is born in Africa. Has he consentec to your ownership of your wallet? Have I?"

A new child born in Africa has no claim on my wallet. My wallet and its contents exist due to voluntary exchange with other people who want what I produce. What I produce is owned by me. It is not owned by some other specific person or group because such a property ethic would be non-universal. It is not owned equally by everyone because such a system is non-functional.

"you just aren't allowed to take any property without the consent of everybody!"

Although equal ownership of everything and everyone by everyone is a universal property ethic, all property isn't (cannot) be owned by everyone in practical terms. Arguing for a system of truly communal ownership of all property is logically acceptable but amounts to a demand that everything be destroyed because you don't like the results of free exchange.

"You are now in the mad position of claiming that everybody must agree to you having ownership of your wallet, as a law of nature, or the position of saying their is implicit consent when there is clearly none."

Absolutely not.

"Who is it that determines the boundries of these systems?"

The participants determine the boundaries of the systems the participate in.

"I am free to go off with my chums and start a commune"

Of course, feel free. Have fun

"but under no circumstances may I touch your wallet?"

Of course not. My wallet is mine, not yours. Touching my wallet is initiating force against me.

"Why? Who has decided that your wallet is yours? I withdraw consent."

You don't need to give consent for my wallet to be mine.

"voluntarism or consent based property systems are the default...without force it simply exists..."
"because it is my wallet... you are initiating force against me in taking it because I have not consentec"
"There is no reason for freely choosing people to be forced to live in a single system"

voluntarism and consent based property systems are not the default. A new child is born in Africa. Has he consentec to your ownership of your wallet? Have I?
You are entirely free to live under any system you like under *freedom of choice* - you just aren't allowed to take any property without the consent of everybody!
You are now in the mad position of claiming that everybody must agree to you having ownership of your wallet, as a law of nature, or the weasley position of saying their is implicit consent when there is clearly none.
Who is it that determines the boundries of these systems? I am free to go off with my chums and start a commune but under no circumstances may I touch your wallet? Why?
Who has decided that your wallet is yours? I withdraw consent.

Tomsmith,

In which case.. it is ok for me to adopt a communistic approach to property and take your wallet. That is my free choice and therefore you can't use force to stop me.

No?

Why?

Because "You cannot have a system where everything is owned equally without the explicit consent of everyone involved. Imposing such a system without consent requires force."

You're almost there, it has taken a while. The last leap you have to make is that *any* system of property ownership will require the explicit consent of everyone involved (everybody) if it is to be established without force.
Since everyone doesn't agree, in practice, our social systems require force - including the one you are proposing.
I suppose it is possible that we might find a moral principle on which everyone can agree ("do unto others..."?) - but the principle of respecting freedom of choice clearly cannot, by itself, be a principle on which everyone can agree. In fact, if you had to choose a principle likely to lead to disagreement - freedom of choice is it.

Couldn't the principles be based on non-hypocritical morality and real logic (by the way, not sure where the "sic" was - but pretty sure that writing it makes you an ass) ?
I think the most important thing is to examine your principles, something which you are entirely unwilling to do

Tomsmith,
To be honest with you, I'm pretty sure that you are being dogmatic.

"Now, you have told me, several times, that the standards which you use to judge whether an action is moral or not are not based upon natural principles (beyond human decision making), but that everything must be chosen by "freely-choosing individuals...free to choose whatever system suits them best".
Presumably, the principle of *respecting the freedom of choice of others* itself, must be a natural principle - because if such a principle led inevitably, as you claim, to a worse outcome for some individuals, they would not choose it - and therefore their freedom of choice would have to be ignored with respect to this matter - the principle cannot establish itself."

There is no must or should about free choice. In the absence of externally applied force free choice is simply the situation. The rules that arise in such a situation have moral authority because they are universal, as opposed to those that are imposed by force.

"there are likely to be a minority of people for whom the communistic system is the better choice. If we only have our principle of freedom of choice, then there is actually nothing we can do to stop them from living in this way - we can only have them agree to our "property rights system" by forcing them to do so against their will. If we decide not to force them to obey our property rights, then they will be at an advantage to those who do - and people will have an incentive to ignore property rights - the system will collapse.
If we agree that in practice, the communistic system will not work if adopted by everyone, the only possibility is to establish property rights by force, or alternatively to make these property rights another principle. Please note that we make this choice not for moral or logical reasons but for pragmatic ones."

With free choice people who believe the communistic system is the better choice will of course choose the communistic system. There is only a problem if they attempt to impose the communistic system on anyone that does not choose it. The communistic system can exist fully as part of a larger freely chosen whole but the opposite is not true. As I said before free choice means exactly that; nobody is choosing that people make their own choices, it is merely the reality of human existence without coercion. If you don't like it then your first and only choice can be to resign your autonomy and voluntarily accept the control of someone else. Otherwise having control over the choices of other people can only be achieved through force.

"I'm afraid to say that I think you are going to have use force, or alternatively adopt a new principle - *no freedom of choice with respect to the nature of property rights*.
Again, this principle is not based on moral or logical considerations, but on practical ones."

Most stable conceptions of property are based on capital creation. In your example the tree would probably belong to whoever grew, tended, pruned or otherwise invested in it first. Feel free to choose whatever property rights you like but don't expect people not to object when you use force to try and take their stuff. Forcing your conception of property rights onto other people is the problem. There is no problem in resolving disputes between people voluntarily living under the same universal system or different systems provided boundaries are respected. The system people choose is up to them.

"However, if you are going to make that argument, I don't feel you can legitimately claim to be representing the "force free" society - all that "no force" means is that we have a lot of principles, decided for arbitrary or pragmatic reasons, which excuse certain uses of violence - but equally, it would be possible for anyone to make such principles to excuse the violence they consider to be necessary."

Violent response to force is not the imposition of force. The imposition of force is undesirable because it establishes ethical systems that are non-universal. Violent response to the imposition of force is the protection and preservation of free choice and universality.

"let's criticise other systems on the basis of pragmatic, real world effects, not hypocritical moralistic or pseudo-logical nonsense"

All pragmatic arguments have as basic assumptions certain "hypocritical, moralistic or pseudo-logical nonsense".

It would not be internally inconsistent to argue for property rights for those who do not respect them, just as it is not internally inconsistent to argue for mercy for the merciless.
It is however internally inconsistent to state that only societies which don't require coercion are acceptable, and then say that a certain society you like, which requires coercion, is acceptable. Which is what you are doing.

First, I think it is necessary here to have a definition. I don't think that anyone is claiming that a society can exist without any implicit or explicit violence at all - you have said that people should be allowed to defend their property - but you would not view this as force. So force, in this discussion, means an immoral form of violence.

Now, you have told me, several times, that the standards which you use to judge whether an action is moral or not are not based upon natural principles (beyond human decision making), but that everything must be chosen by "freely-choosing individuals...free to choose whatever system suits them best".
Presumably, the principle of *respecting the freedom of choice of others* itself, must be a natural principle - because if such a principle led inevitably, as you claim, to a worse outcome for some individuals, they would not choose it - and therefore their freedom of choice would have to be ignored with respect to this matter - the principle cannot establish itself.

So, you start with the principle *freedom of choice of others must be respected*
Where does this take us?
Well, I think there are a number of problems here. Firstly, as I'm sure you are aware, there is a problem with respect to property. Unfortunately, we cannot ask a tree who it wants to belong to, which means we can only state who we want to give the tree to. The problem here is obviously that we could theoretically have two (or more) different opinions as to who the tree should go to, and no real way of deciding between them using only our principle *freedom of choice must be respected*.
You try to get around this by claiming that there are only two possible forms of ownership using the principle *freedom of choice* -a form of communal anarchy, where there are no rules with respect to property and a "natural property rights system" - and that because the communistic system will have negative effects, in practice, rational people will choose a "natural property rights system".
I don't think this argument gets us very far. Firstly, there are likely to be a minority of people for whom the communistic system is the better choice. If we only have our principle of freedom of choice, then there is actually nothing we can do to stop them from living in this way - we can only have them agree to our "property rights system" by forcing them to do so against their will. If we decide not to force them to obey our property rights, then they will be at an advantage to those who do - and people will have an incentive to ignore property rights - the system will collapse.
If we agree that in practice, the communistic system will not work if adopted by everyone, the only possibility is to establish property rights by force, or alternatively to make these property rights another principle. Please note that we make this choice not for moral or logical reasons but for pragmatic ones.

"I think this is the internet argument equivalent of an insanity plea"

I think this is irrelevant

"So, if the system is not based on natural principles, outside of the decision making process, and the only acceptable rules are ones which freely choosing individuals choose, how do we get to the system where "nobody gets to choose for everyone else", if such a system will leave some freely choosing individuals worse off and they will therefore not choose that system?"

Freely choosing individuals are free to choose whatever system suits them. The only thing freely choosing individuals are not free to do is choose for other freely choosing individuals, since all freely choosing individuals are free to choose whatever they want, rather than what you or someone else wants them to want.

What would you choose?

"If all principles must be choosen and if some disagree with the principle "nobody gets to choose for others", how can we arrive at it without someone else choosing it for them?"

If some people disagree with the principle of not choosing for other people then they are free to let someone else choose for them. Nobody is choosing that people make their own choices, it is merely the reality of human existence without coercion. If you don't like it then your first and only choice can be to resign your autonomy and voluntarily accept the control of someone else. Otherwise having control over the choices of other people can only be achieved through force.

It is internally inconsistent to argue for the property rights of those that do not respect property rights.