I already did this several times: you simultaneously claim that contracts do, and don’t, create new rights.

As in “contracts create the universe” or “contracts give rise to alienable rights”?

Like I said, wouldn’t it be convenient for you and other robots if “create= 2″?

I regularly provide point by point refutations of your claims, which end up being ignored by you. This has been going on for about 10 months now. I find it peculiar how you can make the claim that this is a waste of time.

In your dreams. As I have said to you before but it bears repeating, you confuse response with reply. A mere response contributes nothing. You contribute nothing.

Maybe you should consider playing somewhere else then.

You wish. You are fundamentally a tyrant, like Kinsella, who would rather stifle discourse by rudeness, ridicule and unfounded claims of victory than actually engage in it. This is why it is impossible to take you seriously, as so many others here have ceased to do. Why, is obvious to everyone but you.

If I were to take you seriously, I woud expect you to lay the contradictions you claim out, and explain why they are a contradiction, so everyone can see what you are talking about and so I might have chance to rebut your explanation.

I already did this several times: you simultaneously claim that contracts do, and don’t, create new rights.

Instead you just declare a contradiction and expect me to prove your assertion wrong.

I clearly explained the contradiction several times, as well as provided references to you making the contradictory claims.

This is why I find your posts a waste of time.

I regularly provide point by point refutations of your claims, which end up being ignored by you. This has been going on for about 10 months now. I find it peculiar how you can make the claim that this is a waste of time.

You contribute nothing.

What you mean is that I disturb your games and you find it annoying. Maybe you should consider playing somewhere else then.

Instead you just declare a contradiction and expect me to prove your assertion wrong.

This is why I find your posts a waste of time. You contribute nothing.

you are avoiding a confrontation. No matter how you define “create”, it still cannot have simultaneously contradictory meanings. Assuming, of course, that you’re to be taken seriously.

——————————————————————————–

Origin:
1350–1400; Middle English creat (past participle) < Latin creātus, equivalent to creā- (stem of creāre to make) + -tus past participle suffix

—Related forms
cre·at·a·ble, adjective
in·ter·cre·ate, verb (used with object), -at·ed, -at·ing.
self-cre·at·ed, adjective
self-cre·at·ing, adjective
un·cre·at·a·ble, adjective
EXPAND
un·cre·at·ed, adjective
COLLAPSE

—Synonyms
2. originate, invent.

Peter, wouldn't it be inconvenient for you if words could only be used like numbers? Then how would you "falsify" things?

in the referenced quote by you, while discussing easement, you confirmed that contracts do not create new rights. Now you switched your argument around, again, and claim that contracts do create rights, and present easements as an example.

“It should be pretty obvious that the preferences of a mob are no more legitimate and authoritative than the preferences of anyone else.”

Such inflammatory rhetoric! Mob?

Heavens to Betsy, no! Gasp!

“You shall pay the government 35% of your income.” That is not a law. That is an edict.

Careful, Mr. Phinn, your assumptions are showing. “Shall pay” is a command, that would have to be backed up with force. You are presuming that 1) someone has the power to make his/her personal preferences law, and 2) can back it up with force and 3) can only be opposed with greater force. If you make those presumptions, you are assuming a dictatorship. You are implying that all taxes originate from such power. This is not necessarily true, is it?

Yes, you idiot, it is.

“You would have to make a rule that people are forced to follow. I think that is the fundamental concept of “law” isn’t it?”

No, what you describe is a fundamental concept of “edict” or “command” or “legislation.” These things are merely expressions of someone’s preference as to what others do or not do.

I guess you are free to presume that it comes about that way, but I do not. Imagine it comes about is a way that even you believe is legitimate, say trespassing or murder or robbery. Do you have a problem against a “rule” that prohibits that conduct under threat of legal enforcement? What would you call such a rule? Give the word you will accept and we can refer to it that way from now on.

Whatever name you give it, I mean to presume that it is more than a “preference” since preferences are not enforceable. They are suggestions, not enforceable rules. I’m taking about rules of law. Presume whatever form of enforcement you wish, that is irrelevant.

These are not universal ethical principles, but merely preferences.

Yes, but you are the only one talking about preferences. I mean to imply a legitimate rule of law, however you assume it is legitimized. I agree that ethics must be in there somewhere, but principles of ethics are not automatically universal, although I think some principles are very commonly held to be true and self-evident. You might think some types of conduct is ethical, say blackmail, while I might not. Whether a rule of law prohibited blackmail exists or not, you would still have your opinion and preferences, but if one did exist, you would have the right to blackmail me, meaning if you did you might be subject to redress by whatever enforcement means “our” society has adopted. You might want to revise or abolish that law, but I would not. You could try, legally, and I could oppose you, legally. Eventually, our social institutions, if I may be so bold as to presume we have some, would decide. In today’s world of 2011, I think my side would win.

It should be pretty obvious that the preferences of a mob are no more legitimate and authoritative than the preferences of anyone else.

Such inflammatory rhetoric! Mob?

“You shall pay the government 35% of your income.” That is not a law. That is an edict.

Careful, Mr. Phinn, your assumptions are showing. “Shall pay” is a command, that would have to be backed up with force. You are presuming that 1) someone has the power to make his/her personal preferences law, and 2) can back it up with force and 3) can only be opposed with greater force. If you make those presumptions, you are assuming a dictatorship. You are implying that all taxes originate from such power. This is not necessarily true, is it?

If it were a law, or principle of ethics, then it could not also be true that it is ethically required for people to pay anything other than 35%, such as 20% or 85%. A rule cannot be considered an expression of ethics if it changes as readily as we change our shirts, as Balzac would say.

Sorry, I think you are confusing means with ends. An ethical principle for taxes may rest on a groups’ right to self organize and self-govern. Do you believe that free people have such a right, ethically speaking?

Unless you assume a scenario of conquest and occupation, common law takes quite some time and considerable effort to evolve to some state, and likewise it takes some considerable effort to change them once established.

Perhaps you are thinking of the ease by which something like Obamacare was passed; legislative law. I agree, he made it look like ramming through his preferences, but then let’s see what happens next. It looked easy because opposing forces had been asleep at the wheel and allowed the wolves in the henhouse, so to speak. If you let the chickens roam free and unsupervised, they are bound to be eaten by varmints. But even there, isn’t there at least a shred of ethical principle that could be rallied in support, say compassion for the health needs of our fellow humans? I case can be made for some ends that rest upon that principle, though we probably agree that Obamacare is far from the most appropriate means.

Most controversy about laws are like that. There are some ends that are rooted in an ethical principle that is widely accepted, and the means are proposed to achieve those ends. In a mercantilist state, to illustrate my point, a law imposing tariffs is not the best means to achieve the declared ends of fair competition. (lame example but I think you get my point)

Sure, the mob can get together and hire goons to tear me to ribbons and spill my entrails for not complying with its edicts,

Stephen King fan?

By merely asserting that X is right and Y is wrong (as you often do), you are necessarily also asserting that a universal principle of ethics exists, and that you know what it is.

That is a pretty uncharitable way describing me. I don’t think I do or have done what you say. But I do pick up the disdain.

Actually, Phinn, we probably agree on 95% of any ethical principles you care to describe, since we are both humans and probably have a pretty good sense of right and wrong, which is another way of describing ethics. Where we actually disagree is on the means. Because of that, you seem to want to make me out as someone who has no idea about right, wrong, good or bad. Does that seem reasonable to you? Is that the only possibility that could explain why I support means that differ from yours, even though I believe we have much in common concerning desirable ends?

You then contradict yourself, however, when you then claim that the “law” you stand on is also a “human device,” which is your pet phrase for edicts that that change according to whoever swings the biggest stick of the day.

You misunderstand me completely, but I’m not offended. Laws are a human device to the extent that they would not exist if it were not for the humans who create them. (I’m not talking about gravity and thermodynamics here. Those are natural laws, not the ones you call “natural law”, meaning they pre-exist human laws.) Neither IP or any other law is a natural law in the sense you probably mean. In my view, if they would naturally arise from a state of anarchism, they might be called “natural”. Even though you may classify this meaning of “natural law” from positive law, all laws eventually become positive law. Rights cannot exist without positive law. To restate it, rights cannot exist without a means to enforce them. Again, we may differ on the means of enforcement, but they must exist in some form, or no rights can be said to “exist”.

Like IP laws that get rewritten depending on how much Disney’s lobbyists have to spend on buying politicians.

See, we agree. Are you surprised? CTEA is a perfect example of what can be referred to as neo-mercantilism, a generalized form of trade-tariff mercantilism; collusion between private business interests and political means used to serve the ends of unfair competitive advantage. Before you say it, of course IP is a fair target for that criticism. The question is, is it the same or different? CTEA, and much of recent IP law changes support the argument that it is the same. The interesting point for me is, like your understanding of the need for ethical principles to underpin legitimate laws, is there a legitimate underpinning for IP laws in principle? I say yes.

But, my larger point is quite simple — by even uttering a single ethical precept, you are also necessarily asserting that a universal, timeless and eternal principle of ethics is out there, somewhere, for us to discern and follow, like we would a law of physics or mathematical reality.

Who disagrees with this? Knowledge is imperfect, ongoing, and cumulative. This seems to be true in every domain of human understanding. Don’t you agree?

No, what you describe is a fundamental concept of “edict” or “command” or “legislation.” These things are merely expressions of someone’s preference as to what others do or not do.

Normative assertions do not qualify as principles of ethical behavior unless they can be justified rationally and universally. Otherwise, the assertion is merely a human device, as you might say — something that someone pulls out of his ass, which happens to sound sorta good to a certain set of people for a limited amount of time, and which he backs up with threats. Like “let’s all wear bellbottom jeans” or “Lady Gaga is the best evar!!!” or “Let’s call these people ‘police’ and give them funny costumes and guns and privileges to do what others can’t do.”

These are not universal ethical principles, but merely preferences.

It should be pretty obvious that the preferences of a mob are no more legitimate and authoritative than the preferences of anyone else.

(I am reminded of a passage from Balzac’s Pere Goiriot, which the author placed in the mouth of the sociopath M. Vautrin —

“There are no such things as principles; there are only events, and there are no laws but those of expediency: a man of talent accepts events and the circumstances in which he finds himself, and turns everything to his own ends. If laws and principles were fixed and invariable, nations would not change them as readily as we change our shirts.”

Preferences are often confused with principles of ethics. For example, let’s say the “rule” is “You shall pay the government 35% of your income.” That is not a law. That is an edict. If it were a law, or principle of ethics, then it could not also be true that it is ethically required for people to pay anything other than 35%, such as 20% or 85%. A rule cannot be considered an expression of ethics if it changes as readily as we change our shirts, as Balzac would say.

Sure, the mob can get together and hire goons to tear me to ribbons and spill my entrails for not complying with its edicts, but that still does not make its preferences a form of law. That’s not even “might makes right,” which is nonsense. That’s just “might makes you do what might wants you to do.”

By merely asserting that X is right and Y is wrong (as you often do), you are necessarily also asserting that a universal principle of ethics exists, and that you know what it is. You then contradict yourself, however, when you then claim that the “law” you stand on is also a “human device,” which is your pet phrase for edicts that that change according to whoever swings the biggest stick of the day. Like IP laws that get rewritten depending on how much Disney’s lobbyists have to spend on buying politicians.

But, my larger point is quite simple — by even uttering a single ethical precept, you are also necessarily asserting that a universal, timeless and eternal principle of ethics is out there, somewhere, for us to discern and follow, like we would a law of physics or mathematical reality.

No property is created. The objects of the property are given.

Ah, you are tiresome. “Created”. That doesn’t mean I CREATE the universe, but thanks for the physics lesson.

If I say “Property rights are appropriated to an owner” is that ok with you, or are we now going to debate the meaning of “owner”? We can debate the meaning of “appropriate”. That should be good for 1,000 words.

please provide an example.

Ah, how about an easement? Is that not a property interest created by contract? And once created, does it not operate as a property right? Amnesia? Wait, to make you happy I should say that the owner of the land appropriates some of his rights and transfers them to the other guy, who now has them under contract. But now that just a contract, not property. Oh yea, they are “co-owners” now…

If you want to claim a new connotation of a word, and then feed it back to me as a contradiction, you are going to need lots of popcorn; that can (and does) go on forever.

I’ll leave you to Kid Salami. He is much better at pointing out your foolishness than I am.

Why can’t I just demand (through whatever PDA or other legal mechanism that is in place) that this man be stopped under threat of force from emitting smoke and thereby “invading the borders of my property” (and so indirectly insist we all stick to bare feet so that I can have clean linen)?

Sure, why not? Who’s claiming you can’t?

This idea of pollutants is entirely new – i speak to my PDA man and I’m told I can sue the factory owner for damages or apply to some local group that has agreed with the factory to act as an intermediary to reimburse people who are directly bothered by it or whatever. That is, other people in my area have some to some arrangement.

Surely I can argue that the requirement to do ANYTHING is “partial control” of time and property (ie. my paper and my ink to submit the documents)?

Why can’t I just demand (through whatever PDA or other legal mechanism that is in place) that this man be stopped under threat of force from emitting smoke and thereby “invading the borders of my property” (and so indirectly insist we all stick to bare feet so that I can have clean linen)? Surely ignoring my demand is “aggressing” against me.

Or, is there some “exception” that creeps into the rules to allow for the fact that people like shoes? If so, what is the criteria on which the validity of these “exceptions” might be discussed?

All property is “created” in some way or antother, one of which is Kinsella’s beloved “homesteading”.

No property is created. The objects of the property are given. They can only be unaffected, appropriated, transferred and abandoned, which is the result of a 2×2 matrix representing the existence of an owner prior and post an act. I’m too lazy to draw so I’ll just list it:

Unaffected: no owner -> no owner
Appropriated: no owner -> an onwer
Transferred: an onwer -> another owner
Abandoned: an owner -> no owner

There is no logically possible alternative.

Property can be affirmatively created by contract.

It cannot. If you disagree, then please provide an example. Also, the funny thing is, you actually agreed with me back in July that a contract cannot create a right that none of the parties to the contract has prior to the contract, so you’re contradicting yourself again.

Hold on a bit until I get my popcorn, I’m curious what method you’re going to use to wiggle out of this one. Please do not disappoint me with one of your old tricks, I want to see a new one.

Ridicule is a defense, not a weapon.

So what? Distinction is unimportant to you? Black from white is all there is? This explains your preference for strict liabilty rules; fewer facts to bother with.

As for the rest, it is the famous “Is not.” “Is too!” “Nah uh!” retort. Impressive.

Hey, don’t take it personally…I’m trying to help.

It is applicabilty that is being compared, not method of creation. All property is “created” in some way or antother, one of which is Kinsella’s beloved “homesteading”.

Property can be affirmatively created by contract. I’m referring to the operation of rights to goods. Contracts usually involve the transfer of goods and services between parties, and rights and liabilities extend only to those parties.

However, if those same two parties create a property interest, say an easement, once created, it operates on everyone, incuding successors to the property who did not sign a contract.

Same with laws. A law secures enforcabilty of a right to something, and that something is property, not a contract.

The promissor to a contract essentially relinquishes some of his property.

Yes, this is “consideration”, a requirement for an enforceable contract. The question is who is it enforcable against? In contract law, only the party to the contract who does not perform is liable. In property law, the right created is enforceable against everyone.

Your idea is interesting. I guess you could say that one way to think of property rights is that everyone in the world has effectively signed a contract with the rights holder.

The problem, of course is that the first problem in a contract dispute is to determine if there is a contract, and one element is mutual assent. What theory would you use to establish that a given property right is created by the implied consent of the rest of the world?

You would have to make a rule that people are forced to follow. I think that is the fundamental concept of “law” istn’t it? So I think you have to decide whether the concept of law is legitimate, for whithout it, there is no property right.

One law that does not require any form of state enforcement is “might makes right”. This is what Kinsella indrectly supports. According to him, you set up a property right by homesteading, and everyone agrees who owns what in advance, because it is a natural law which pre-exists the state, and is never, ever ambiguous. Then if there is a conflict, PDAs enforce these rights as “defense against aggression”. This is a strict liability rule for defending against aggression.

This is a sophisticated and indirect form of claiming a right, and then defending it, which in turn is just a rule of the jungle, where superior force prevails over inferior force.

I personally don’t see that as much of an improvement.

I am not implying anyting of the sort. I am saying directly that we are capable of distinguishing one thing from another, and we do.

Of course we can distinguish. But “so what”? We can distinguish blacks from whites so that a rule saying the latter can own the former as property comprehensible. so what?

Despite Kinsella protestations to the contrary, I do not make a claim that once a law is established as enforceable code, it is forevermore considered legitimate. Obviously laws are subject to review, revision and repeal. Slavery is a fine example.

Aww, how nice. If negroes are enslaved, “by law,” you respect that, but are generous enough to consider “reviewing” it as part of the “democratic” process. How humane.

I am not implying anyting of the sort. I am saying directly that we are capable of distinguishing one thing from another, and we do.

Despite Kinsella protestations to the contrary, I do not make a claim that once a law is established as enforceable code, it is forevermore considered legitimate. Obviously laws are subject to review, revision and repeal. Slavery is a fine example.

Viewed from my, and generally “our” contemporary perspective, slavery was always wrong, even when it was legal. Why? There is some reasoning that allows us to distinguish one answer from another and formulate some perception of truth on the matter.

Why should the debate on IP be subject to less analysis? In fact, because the concept is much more esoteric than slavery, analysis should be even more exacting. Do you disagree?

A logical extension of that line of reasoning is that it was correct for someone in the 1850s to treat certain humans as property, since society as well as the courts supported that principle.