Comments Elsewhere

gc on why the government can shoot you in order to enforce your neighbors’ preferences about whether non-citizens stay at your house, but not whether citizens can: “If my child is performing badly in life, I have a responsibility to take care of him. I don’t have a responsibility to take care of someone else’s kid who comes barging into my house without my permission and sits down at my dining table with a chip on his shoulder, screaming at me for “racism” if I don’t give him dinner.”

gc, do you earnestly believe that the relationship between the State and its citizens (subjects?) is properly like that between a parent and a child? If so, why?

Do you think that if the government refuses to shoot someone for peacefully entering the country and working (for a private employer, not the government) for pay, that’s a hand-out akin to a parent providing dinner for a kid? If so, why?

gc: “Both the communist and the extremist libertarian assume that you can have equal affection (call it X) for all 6 billion other people. The libertarian sets X = 0, while the communist sets X = 1 (where X = 0 corresponds to no altruistic behavior whatsoever and X = 1 corresponds to the extent that you love your own child.)”

Do you earnestly believe that the way only way a person can or should show affection for someone is to steal other people’s money, or use violence to obstruct other people from getting a job, for that person’s benefit? If so, why?

Remember, this argument is not about “affection,” it’s about the use of force. I love my family and my friends and I have no trouble helping them. I do have a problem with attacking other people in order to do it.