LvM L&Sa - I.1.Ownership (5)

Some believe that ownership as it shows itself in the distribution of property at a given time may be attacked by pointing out that it has sprung illegally from arbitrary acquisition and violent robbery. According to this view all legal rights are nothing but time-honoured illegality. So, since it conflicts with the eternal, immutable idea of justice, the existing legal order must be abolished and in its place a new one set which shall conform to that idea of justice.

It is common to point out that this "criticism"ⁱ is broken in that it fundamentally misunderstands the nature and structure of property. Certainly the happy, productive thirty year marriage between rapist and his victimⁱⁱ is not going to be dissolved by some young, idealistic chappy and his nonsensical observations as to what women "are entitled" to in the theoretical world he imagines he inhabits, and equally so undisturbed possession of any other item is not going to be challenged by imaginary wrongs that are not there in fact.ⁱⁱⁱ

Nevertheless, the other wing is equally broken : law makes no representation and holds no pretense to eternity, but in point of fact contains clear and explicit instructions of how it may be changed, whereas the "idea" of justice, inasmuch as it is "eternal" and "imutable" is also nonsensical, seeing how no one statement of such is shared by everyone, and in fact there exist myriad reasonable statements thereof, understanding reasonableness as "shared by at least some people". In other words, both the crimes and the idea of justice they conflict with exist solely in the head of the "critic" whiner, and any attempt at their application in practice by a group sufficiently confused so as to try is bound to end the same way every other application of misshapen whine derivatives ever has ended.

This bird has no wings on which to fly, off to the fire with it.

It should not be the task of the State "to consider only the condition of possession in which it finds its citizens, without inquiring into the legal grounds of acquisition." Rather it is "the mission of the State first to give everyone his own, first to put him into his property, and only then to protect him in it."

Except one has no property outside of what he may acquire, just as one has no rights outside of what he may defend. It's not the job of the state to alter the patrimonial or political standing of the citizenry, nor by giving them estates or chattels nor by taking such from them, nor by giving them rights nor by taking their freedoms away. The job of the state is to strictly keep the measures by which they can know how much each owns in estate or chattel, and what rights and which freedoms one can still exercise and enjoy, then defend - violently if need be, to the point of extinction of all citizens but one, if need be - the ability to make those measurements, correct and acurate, and then prevent the use of violence for any other purpose. On the basis of such knowledge it is then the job of the citizens themselves to negotiate whatever arrangements they can live with, and that's the end of the story.

1. The quotes are there because in order for an objection to become a criticism it needs not only be grounded, but also meaningful to whatever it objects to. Taking as the topic of discussion a simple fireplace in a cave somewhere, the objection that this fireplace causes bad luck hunting is baseless, whereas the objection that this fireplace presents various dangers to the cavedweller is well grounded but not a criticism. Only once it specifies itself to become an observation that the current fireplace poses more danger than it absolutely must, whereas piling some rocks around the burning wood will certainly reduce that danger does it become a criticism. Once it has reached that stage the cavemen can start comparing the cost of finding and placing the rocks with the likely cost of items lost to the fire over time through embers rolling out of the fireplace or items rolling into it.

   Obviously criticism is a great thing to have, and obviously teachers encouraging children to criticise is a great idea. Nevertheless, subsequently failing to reject braindamaged complaints that are either baseless or not criticisms is failing at teaching, and the net result is worse than the previous situation, where children just copied Trilema page by page, day by day, and got their palms switched for each mistake. Now this is a criticism of western academic fireplaces, extinguished as they are. [↩]

2. If you think this is an exotic example you're painfully unqualified to discuss these things. To this day most rapists live in jurisdictions where marrying the victim constitutes defense in law against the crime, and this has held true for all of history, everywhere. [↩]
3. For those with even cursory familiarity with the workings of the law, the nude allegation that "X must have done something wrong" is roughly equivalent with the statement that "I don't like the color of X's tie". It makes absolutely no difference, unless you can prove X did Y and Y is in fact punished by some law you have no case and get lost. And there's no possibility for a class action against X, class action suits work for classes of plaintiffs, not for classes of respondents. Malfesance will have to be proven for each and every individual case on its own, or else nothin' doin'. [↩]