 As I read more and more of Hopper, I'm continuously impressed at how he manages to close gaps in general libertarian theory that I never even noticed were there. Argumentation ethics, his proposed, self-fulfilling evidence of the existence of private ownership over one's self as their own exclusive property. While remaining largely contested both within Austro-Libertarian circles as well as external ones, I have to say it makes a whole lot of sense to me, and when given proper exposition closes any is-ought gap, also known as Hume's guillotine, that may have existed prior to it. This is when a gap of logic exists when stating what is a fact and then claiming a value from it. Argumentation ethics does not claim a value, it instead shows it to be a normative fact that through the use of argumentation, humans are individual rational self-actors and that to employ violence against another human is a performative contradiction on the part of the aggressor. As far as I can tell, this is indisputable a priori proof of self-ownership as you are owning yourself as private property, which is required to further extrapolate further justification of private property, which I did in this video on screen now for your amusement. So now that's out of the way, I want to get into the real topic of this video. Following from this foundation, what exactly is libertarianism, or at least this interpretation of it supposed to be? Previously, I had considered it as essentially half of a moral philosophy. Things such as the non-aggression principle tell you what not to do, aggress or coerce, as it is immoral. This does not follow that all non-aggressive and non-coercive action is therefore moral, it is simply amoral. But if libertarian theory doesn't tell us what is explicitly moral, how can it be a moral philosophy at all? On now I've come to argue that it is not, and is much more complete when understood instead as a legal theory in the vein of natural law. I've previously argued natural rights by the way of John Locke, who described them as life, liberty and property. But with a foundation that overcomes the is-ought gap, we can better understand that the only natural right is in fact property, and life and liberty are instead offshoots from that. Infringing on a person's life or liberty requires you to act on the performative contradiction of resorting to violence against another self-owner, and in essence, you are violating their right of self-ownership of themselves as property. As a natural right, violating this would be a violation of natural law, therefore illegal, and for this specific reason, also immoral. As I said, this doesn't tell us what action is explicitly moral, only that which is legal. Action which does not violate the autonomy and property of another person. And this is still only the foundation of libertarian legal theory. Much more can be inferred as either legal or illegal from here. The most contentious area here of course regards certain rights and legality involving children. And let me just cut to the chase here. Children can not consent to what you're thinking of, but that will have to be the topic of another video I make that leads off of this one. I yet again affirm that I have never seen a libertarian argue that children or adolescents can consent to sexual activity. The closest I've seen has been from egoists, and that's resulted in several bans from my Discord server. Everything that children can consent to this requires an entire obfuscation of natural rights and law, and you literally can't have libertarian theory without that. Anyone who claims the former point and claims to be a libertarian is quite simply a disgusting charlatan and must be thoroughly ostracized from all libertarian circles and deserves nothing less than the woodchipper treatment if they come even close to acting upon it. The legal framing of the NAP also makes a much more mature-seeming principle. If the NAP were a moral principle, it would fall completely flat and only dictate the bare minimum behaviour required to not be immoral. That is not even the beginning of a moral compass, it's a moral flaw. F-L-O-O-R by the way. So absent of a moral philosophy, what are we supposed to do? Well perhaps nothing. At the core of our values are individualism, non-aggression, and most importantly for this freedom of association. The only real answer for how societies should best be structured in accordance to moral guidance is for societies to be formed as covenant communities, where issues of a nature pertaining to the moral fibre of a given society are determined through a single voluntary contract of association that all the residents sign. Essentially, instead of a wishy-washy fabricated social contract, you get an actual contract to sign, outlining any behaviour you have to abide by or else be ostracised. It's well worth mentioning here that ostracism is what Hopper meant with his infamous and context-starved quote of physical removal. He did not mean a helicopter ride. If somebody bought a house in a covenant community and later went against something stated in the contract, for example if the contract said something silly like you must only park red cars on your driveway and he bought a blue one, he absolutely could not be subjected to violence for this. His body, his house, and his car are still his exclusive property and he absolutely cannot have these be infringed upon. At the same time, the other members of the community such as residents, shopkeepers, mechanics, teachers, or anything else would be contractually obligated to ostracise him. And again at the same time, he must not force or coerce others into associating with him. Essentially if you break the rules of a covenant, you will be pushed out through isolation, not literally dragged out. While I use an exaggerated example, you can use it for anything that isn't objectively illegal through the property axiom but could still be considered immoral. To sum it up, if you believe a society must adhere to certain tenets or should follow certain tenets for success and happiness, you can live in one where others agree with you and agree to impose it upon themselves. You absolutely cannot impose it upon anyone who does not consent to it, but they also cannot impose a right to associate with you. Out of a system of many separate communities following given rules, you in essence have a petri dish for the competition of societies. If a more conservative or a more progressive society makes for a better one, however you may define that, you will both have the option to live in one of your choosing and the ability for everyone else to monitor the results and make their own judgments. The key here is that you can be conservative or progressive and live amongst your peers, but you cannot force others to be. What we have in Western democracies is these two warring factions fighting for the control over how every single person must live. This is nothing short of barbaric and a system of violence on an immense scale. You don't get to choose what preferences to rule your own life by, 51% of the population of a given geographic boundary have demonstrable control over your body and your property, and your voice of resistance is drowned out by the applause of millions. This has to be rejected and a system of individual choice taken up if we are to truly call ourselves civilized. Civilization does not come out of control, it comes out of cooperation. So after my little rant there, now it should be easy to see why Hopper put communists and Democrats on the shortlist for who should be ostracized from any covenant society trying to maintain a libertarian social order. Now if all this I've explained is new to you and you're confused about where to look for moral theories, I can throw my own slightly biased hat in the ring for you and suggest you look up the virtue ethics of stoicism. There are countless moral philosophies, nearly all of them going back thousands of years, but I believe the virtues within stoicism are the most similar to the aesthetic principles of libertarianism. Virtue is found within yourself, and only you can make yourself live a virtuous life by embracing inner and outer struggle and overcoming it by being fair, mild tempered and rational in an unfair emotional and chaotic universe. You cannot force anyone else to live a good life and you can't even help them if they don't want it. All you can do is accept the limitations that reality has placed upon you, act within the boundaries of justice and make sure it is upheld, find what happiness means to you and pursue it. Life is always going to be hard. Do you want this fact to deflate you or inspire you? You have the choice and the strength of will to decide which. Imagine Sisyphus happy and be prepared to receive as much meaning out of life as you are willing to put into it. Now go push a boulder up a mountain just for the sake of it and take it easy.