On Wed, 23 Jul 2008 00:37:15 -0500, Publius
nospam.comcast.net> wrote:
>>>The concept of property and ownership is and always has
>>>been understood (and widely observed) whether or not any "social"
>>>mechanism was in place to redress violations (which there wasn't,
>>>through most of history),
>
>> Nope. That is just another lie. There has never been, and can never
>> be, any such thing as ownership in the absence of a society to
>> recognize and secure it [. . .]
>
>Ah, my. Still addled by the beguiling myth of the Organic Fallacy.
>"Societies," not being persons but merely arbitrarily defined collections
>of them (e.g., all the persons occupying Australia, all persons inhabiting
>Europe, etc.)
Those aren't arbitrary, and "Europe" is not a society. As you know,
I've already refuted your claims.
>do not "recognize" anything (nor do they tie their shoes,
>contemplate their navels, or love their mothers).
Now who's making the category errors?
>If any "recognizing" is
>being done, it is being done by some of the persons making up that society.
>You need to stop anthropomorphizing (and then idolizing)
You need to stop lying about what I have plainly written, lying
garbage.
>this collection and try to focus on the relevant entities.
So, according to your autistic view, law does not exist, tradition
does not exist, culture does not exist; only individuals exist.
Well, that's just stupid.
>You are right, of course, that there is no such thing as ownership "in the
>absence of a society." That is because ownership, property, rights, and
>related concepts are defined only for social contexts --- settings where
>there are multiple agents capable of interacting. The sole inhabitant of an
>island has no need for those concepts. Only when a second agent appears do
>questions about "what is mine and what is thine" arise. We then have a
>social context.
>
>If Alfie and Bruno are the two inhabitants, then clearly, a claim that
>"society recognizes Alfie's rights" can only mean that Bruno recognizes
>them. But what if there are 1000 other people on the island? What would
>"society recognizes Alfie's rights" mean, if not that most of those people,
>or at least a large fraction of them, are able to recognize Alfie's
>property as not being their own, and therefore refrain from stealing it?
It means they recognize it as Alfie's, and also will not let Bruno or
any of the other 1000 steal it. That's what distinguishes human
ownership of property from mere forcible animal possession.
You, of course, are unable to distinguish genuine human property
rights from forcible appropriation by animals, because you consider
forcible appropriation to be the basis of property rights. The
obvious implication of your "first possession" doctrine is that human
beings should recognize the property rights of animals in the
territories they have appropriated by force (as that is how you
believe property rights are obtained), and not try to dispossess them.
>As for "society" securing Alfie's rights, perhaps you can explain how these
>1001 people accomplish that, prior to the creation of some formal machinery
>for the purpose.
By moral suasion, social pressure, and if necessary, force.
>If someone steals Alfie's cow, most of the few who knew
>about it would say, "That's Alfie's problem" (just as they do today).
Nope. You are just baldly lying about what actually goes on in
society.
>A few
>--- his friends and relatives --- might help him get it back. As far as
>Alfie is concerned, "society" (most of that 1001 persons) is as useless as
>boots to a snake, at least for this purpose.
Possibly you do not live in a society, and consequently have no
concept of what it is like. That's probably because you are a
sociopath, as your sociopathic concept of the basis of human rights
demonstrates.
>> societal sanctions to redress theft and
>> other violations of ownership rights have been in place in all known
>> societies throughout history.
>
>You gotta scrap that mythological history of yours and acquaint yourself
>with real history.
Ah, no, actually. You gotta scrap your sociopathic fantasies about
where rights come from.
>Where some sort of government exists --- if only a self-
>appointed warlord with an ample number of loyal troops --- there will
>usually be some sort of mechanism for adjudicating private disputes and
>punishing wrongdoers.
What would make their doings "wrong," hmmmm?
>Those mechanisms, however, are not created to protect
>anyone's rights. They are provided only to keep the peace and minimize
>threats to the regime (such as Rome's Praetorian Guard).
That is exactly where rights come from. People have evolved a sense
of rights and justice (these are observed at a very early age, and
cannot plausibly be ascribed to social learning) because societies
where people have had rights have outcompeted societies where they
didn't.
It is notable that more intelligent people typically have a more
highly developed appreciation of rights and justice than less
intelligent people even as children, indicating that "theories" of
rights based on the primitive animal model of forcible appropriation
and possession indicate a pre-human or animal level of cognition and
moral development -- even when accompanied by an apparent facility
with language that is more typical of modern humans (homo sapiens).
>In ancient Athens
>the state established courts for hearing such disputes, but investigating
>offenses, identifying and locating offenders, locating any stolen property,
>and often apprehending the offender fell to the complaining party. Only the
>determination of guilt or innocence, and imposition of punishment, was left
>to the State (and in other places, not even the latter).
>
>See *Policing Athens: Social Control in the Attic Lawsuits, 420-320 B.C*,
>Virginia J. Hunter, esp. Ch's 4 & 5. Brief excerpt here:
>
>
http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=103017930
Of course, that source does not say what you claimed it says. That is
normal, routine, and expected.
Here is the reality, as described in Freeman (1963), pp. 105, 128 and
177):
"Since there were no regular police in Athens, such street fights were
not uncommon, and it lay with the spectators to decide who was in the
right and restore order."
Got that, stupid, lying garbage? The SPECTATORS decided who was in
the right and restored order. Not the participants.
"... It is clearly recognised as a duty of bystanders to help any
victim of violence;"
Got that, sutpid, lying garbage? There was a clearly recognized DUTY
OF BYSTANDERS to help any victim of violence. The victims of violent
crime, contrary to your stupid, outright lies, were NOT on their own.
SOCIETY secured their rights.
"this was very necessary in a city so ill-policed as Athens, for the
safety of the community depended upon active support of the law by all
well-constituted citizens."
Got that, stupid, lying garbage? "ACTIVE SUPPORT OF THE LAW BY _ALL_
WELL-CONSTITUTED CITIZENS." Not just the victims of crime.
"...There was no police-force; hence the bystanders took a lively
interest."
Got that, stupid, lying garbage? The BYSTANDERS -- i.e., other
members of society who WERE _NOT_ the friends or relatives of a victim
of crime -- took a lively interest.
Everything you say is wrong.
Everything you say is a lie.
Everything you say is evil.
>Simliar institutions prevailed in feudal England.
Right: even though feudalism is essentially a system of privatized
government, which is typically interested only in whatever affects its
owner's financial interests, _society_ still secured people's rights.
>The Lord would conduct a
>trial and impose punishment, but investigating the crime and locating the
>offender was up to the victim.
Nope. No more than in Athens. Unlike autistic sociopaths who think
the basis of property rights is forcible appropriation, bystanders in
feudal England recognized that their own rights were on the line too,
and helped the victims of crime defend their rights accordingly.
>If the complainant could identify an
>offender and show probable cause, the Sheriff would summon him to court.
>(Until the 12th century there was no distinction between civil and criminal
>law; all offenses except treason were private. In the 12th century Henry I
>declared arson, robbery, murder, false coinage, and crimes of violence to
>be offenses against the "king's peace," i.e., the state).
>
>Traditional Japan:
>
>
http://books.google.com/books?id=SJ9GjorvJGkC&pg=PA139
>&dq=law+enforcement+athens&lr=&ei=q6qGSPOQE4yQtgOJ4ryXBg&sig=ACfU3U1FTO3jts
>mdVeV9qbalX_M8zrHXHw#PPA15,M1
Traditional Japan was also feudal.
>A society (a number of interacting persons)
That's not a society, as I have already proved to you. There is no
dictionary definition of "society" that supports your claims.
>is a precondition for the
>notions of rights, property, et al, but public enforcement of those rights
>is a recent development.
Wrong, as proved above.
>The first police department in the modern sense
>--- charged with investigating offenses against private citizens and
>apprehending offenders --- was not created until 1829, in London.
It is hardly surprising that police in the modern sense did
not exist until modern times. Google "Scythian Archers" and make at
least a minimal effort to educate yourself.
>"The middle ages either had no system of law enforcement or one of two
>systems, depending upon what part of the world you were in. Where law
>enforcement existed, it was most likely a variety of the watch system -- a
>system premised on the importance of voluntarily patrolling the streets and
>guarding cities from sunset to sunrise ("2 A.M. and all's well"). The
>predominant function of policing became class control (keeping watch on
>vagrants, vagabonds, immigrants, gypsies, tramps, thieves, and outsiders in
>general). Despite some innovations during this time period (the Magna Carta
>of 1215 being a notable example), most of this era was characterized by
>lawlessness and corruption. By the 1500s, there was no country in the world
>with more robbers, thieves, and prostitutes than England. Other countries,
>too, experienced lawlessness to such a degree that citizen groups, known as
>vigilantes, sprang up to combat crime."
>
>
http://www.realpolice.net/police-history.shtml
Yep. "Citizen groups." I.e., society.
You are destroyed.
>Despite this lack of enforcement
The enforcement was just undertaken by society -- "citizen groups" --
rather than government.
>the concepts of property and rights were
>understood perfectly well.
Right. Meaning that no one would have recognized your absurd
propertarian fantasies as even being a theory of rights.
-- Roy L
