 All right, I am live on Facebook Facebook live on the Facebook mentions, so I Using my iPhone this is a neat new feature that Facebook has and let me see here Okay, there's comments people are free to ask questions. Okay doesn't go sideways. It's only a vertical app Okay, got it straight Got it straight. Okay, so people are I'm just gonna try this out. This is a new feature. It's Facebook live It's sort of like Google Hangouts step is just one way only Jeff Tucker introduced me to it and suggested I try this. I am on my iPhone. I'm using a Regular mic your bud mic I was actually gonna use this because you can plug it into a USB adapter to the iPhone But my iPhone is almost out of power. So that lightning port is taken anyway, so I'm looking forward to anyone typing questions Where you have nine viewers, I guess it's gonna start growing I had mentioned this the other day and some people had suggested some questions So I'll go ahead and start with some of those. I did a show with Tom Woods the other day on Libertarian theory of non the non-aggression principle and we're trying to rebut some of the opposition Some of the arguments against it some of the criticisms of the non-aggression principle I think the show was pretty popular. We did a good job It was only 30 minutes. We only had so much time in the meantime some people like Scott Bowers and others told me that I speak really fast For a southerner I guess or just in general, I don't know and that is probably true So maybe I need to slow down sometimes. I don't know just my style especially when I know I had a clock and I only have so much time to speak and in any case I actually had not had much time to prepare on the Issues that Tom and I were going to discuss just because of the way we did it at the last minute So I think I could have been more prepared But anyway, I was pretty happy with it. One of my friends Sebastian Ortiz mentioned that Excuse me He mentioned that he thinks at the end I shouldn't have implied that my views on the positive obligations parents arguably have towards children is I guess plumb line Libertarianism, Rothbardianism. I didn't mean to I think I Pretty clear that Rothbard and Walter Block for example have a different view on that It's just my personal view and it's not that fleshed out But I've written on it and I'm leaning that way and we put it that way But I also agree that children's The rights of children as against their parents is not really practically that enforceable in most cases you can't Have a legal system or a court compel a parent to be a good parent So it's not really that practical of a right to have or practical of an obligation to have but it does have it could have some legal implications Someone else on another thread on Facebook when I mentioned I might do this a few days ago Asked me to address Let's see here. I'm looking on Facebook. It's on Facebook now I'm not sure where the comments are supposed to show up Jeff told me they showed up on the iPhone If anyone's typing comments, I do not see any comments, and I'm not sure why let me click on the comments button No, they're hidden Maybe no one's typing comments If anyone could just type a test comment. I see if it comes up. Oh, okay. There we go. I see a join message so Let me hit this button. Okay, that just turns the camera around Okay, it's pretty cool feature. I gotta say I See your comments Shawn White just posted a comment, but it's on Oh now I see it. Okay. Yeah, it's working. So good So if anyone wants to type a question, I'd be happy to address it any libertarian theory issue Anything you want me to Go into I'd be happy to one person said they wished in the Tom Woods video that I had Discussed the issue of verbal threats in more detail Let me let me just point out something. I think in the Yeah thumbs up. Hey Jack my Jack my buddy Jack Chris just joined too Jack you need to try this feature out. It's pretty cool. So The issue of verbal threats, when do they arise rise to the level of aggression Here's how I look at it In the law in the common law and in the civil law the two major legal systems There is a a type of crime called Assault now most people are familiar with the term assault and battery And we use that sort of to describe when someone beats someone else up But technically in the law The offensive touching is the battery Okay, thumbs up on jack's point pro thing An offensive touching is a battery and that can include by the way noxious gas or fumes Any any basically physical interference with someone's body that they don't appreciate An offensive touching and of course including more serious touchings like hitting someone in the face or stabbing them or shooting them Or molesting them or whatever That's battery assault is coupled with battery because assault Is related to it But it is separate Assault is defined in the law Now i'm just telling you what it's defined in the positive law then we can discuss whether that should be also a type of crime in libertarianism um Assault Is the is one of two things. It's the It's the um The attempt To commit a battery now since battery is an intentional action Every time you batter someone you always assaulted them because you have to intend to batter them to actually intentionally batter them So every time you batter someone there's always there's also assault of that type the first type Intention the intent or the attempt to batter someone But if you if you try to hit someone That's assault, but it's not battery because you didn't succeed, but it's still assault It's an attempt at battering someone Okay Now the other question i'm going to have is can i scroll down on these comments? Oh, i can good so i can see the ones that go by that i'm not talking about now Hello, sebastian. I see you've joined. I just mentioned you earlier um Now the other type of assault in the law is um intentionally placing someone in in Fear of receiving a battery. So the example i gave in tom woods is the classical example in the law If i have a friend who's sleeping And i swing and axe at their head trying to kill them, but i miss That is assault of the first type. It's an attempt at battery and that is a crime in the law And i think it should be a crime in libertarian law too and i can explain why if I have a friend and i point a blank gun at them and i pretend to pull the trigger or i pull the trigger and I make them believe i'm about to shoot them But it's really an unloaded gun or it's a fake gun And i know this but they don't then it's not really an attempted murder, but it is still Placing the victim in in fear reasonably placed in reasonable fear of receiving a battery and that is also a crime under under most Western legal systems that i i understand at least the civil law in louisiana so I i think of those both as types of threat and so the question is why in libertarianism would a threat Be a crime and then you can go you can use that to other other cases like stalking Right or verbal threats Why should these or should they be considered? Aggression under libertarianism and i think they should i actually think the common law crimes of assault of both types Are species of aggression and the common law is right to classify them as types of crimes And the reason i give is something i go into in some of my writings like my my 19 i think 95 If you go to my website stephanconcella.com you'll see i have some articles from the journal libertarian studies And one in the loyal of los angeles law review on a stop-all and a punishment A theory of rights a libertarian theory of rights based upon a stop-all and punishment And i go into examples there about why we would consider assault or threats Including some verbal threats and including stalking to be types of aggression and the basic answer is in my view is that My thinking of rights the non-aggression principle as first formulated for libertarians is that you have the right to You don't have the right to initiate force against others But you do have the right to retaliate against others And you see there's a certain symmetry there the symmetry is that force is permissible only if it's in response to force But if someone did not use force against you you can't use force against them If they just insult you with their words then you can insult them back with your words So there's again a type of symmetry, but you can't use force to stop them from insulting you Etc There are some interesting side cases or not really exceptions. They sound like exceptions at first But like i believe for example The the traditional doctrine of fighting words is not completely a libertarian that is that Certain words you say to someone are so provocative that if they sock you in the jaw because they're upset then it's not really a crime Now I think you could actually score that with libertarian doctrine based upon sort of an implied consent notion. So for example If if two boxers going to the ring to box then they both assented or consented to receiving each other's blows if a girl Leans her head towards her boyfriend to kiss him then she's consenting towards him actually kissing her So there are certain things you can do that demonstrate your consent Playing football etc two guys in a bar. They get upset with each other. Say let's step outside and fight or let's have a duel They're both consenting to that so it's not aggression in that case And I think you could make an argument that if if you walk up to a big burly Harley's biker in a bar That you don't know You know tattoos and all of the jacket a tough guy and you just walk up to him and look him right in the face and say You know Your your mother wears army boots naked Then you're basically inviting a punch. You're you're you're you're saying you're saying in unspoken language Let's go fight So if he punches you I don't think it's unconsented to or you could argue that So it's not that fighting words justify violence or that speech justifies violence is that certain actions and types of speech Manifest your consent to being hit being kissed whatever So anyway, that's a tangent, but in any case before I go further Let me see what some of the questions are. Sebastian says how much what percentage of the legal categories or principles of the positive law would go away by implementing libertarian law I think the answer today would be far different than the answer from 200 years ago say 200 years ago the great bulk of The positive law that is the law actually enforced in most legal systems. Let's say the the great western systems England Europe the great bulk of that law was was private law. There was some public international law Which I think is also largely compatible with international with libertarian principles There were some so so-called public law like exceptions from private law By private law, we mean all the law that governs relations between private individuals. So that would include contract law property theory Law about marriage of ownership of children inheritance law torts and even private crime That great body of law that developed in the last couple of thousand years in the roman system in the common law system in england Up until a couple hundred years ago Was largely Largely compatible with libertarianism. I'd say a good at least half maybe 75 80 80 percent maybe more would compatible with what you would It seems like a reasonable working out of the abstract libertarian principles put it that way Um, and the exceptions would be public law exceptions giving the king or the crown certain exceptions the right of imminent domain Uh, exempting the exempting the the actors of the state from the operation of the law with sovereign immunity The kind of thing that bosquiat complained about um So accepting the public law the state exceptions, um You know conscription The rules of war things like that So i would say the great bulk of the private law was Was very compatible with libertarian principles because it was a spinning out of Intuitive principles of justice and property rights that everyone faces practically on a day-to-day basis And the mission of these courts And the mission of the law finders in roam The mission was to try to find a resolution to a situation compatible with justice try to find the just for the right result They didn't always succeed. They weren't always guided by purely libertarian principles There was there were sometimes legislative encroachments or sometimes pressure by the crown But by and large the rules they did develop over time that were systematized and codified by private codifiers Like justinian was a really private but okay. It was A codification of what had gone before napoleon blackstone coke The restatements of the law in the u.s um These principles are largely compatible, but since about a hundred years ago We've had legislation has risen to become a dominant if not the dominant source of private law in most developed legal systems so basically the the the private under framework of Property rights and private law that was developed more or less in a libertarian way has been gradually supplanted by huge legislative and statutory schemes and regulations Promulgated by administrative agencies of these bureaucratic states that we have now So I would say right now. I mean the code of federal regulations in the u.s. Which is just the administrative regulations and the the The united states code u.s.c. Which is the codification of all Congressional legislation that's still in force Are huge thousands and thousands and thousands of pages And those regulate more and more areas of private law and life so We're to the point now where A much higher percentage of what's called positive law the law enforced by the state is sourced in the constitution Or legislation or regulations Rather than the organic private law that is left over from the golden age of law I don't know the percentage. I would I would I would venture to say over half well over half of law Has been supplanted by legislative law of one form or another if not if not 75 percent And I would say well over two-thirds of that legislative law is unjust if not almost all of it So at this point, I would say you you can only give presumptive just status to a smaller fraction of the whole body of positive law, let's say in the west Maybe 20 percent something like that. And that's primarily going to be where the private law the common law rules still operate um And that's primarily in the state legal systems, which which largely have embodied the uniform commercial code and codes that did codify Largely libertarian common law principles from the past. You know, I can't think that's enough on that topic Let me see if we have any other questions. Maybe if you have a question, let me know I can go back for a minute to the question we were on which was the um And by the way, feel free to type a comment below I think I am getting comments if I missed one just retype it. I don't know if I missed any Because I'm getting used to this interface I'm a little surprised at the scale. This looks like I have to hold the phone vertically. So it's not a widescreen thing That's fine a little odd um Okay, so we were talking about assault, right and um Well, let me let me go into a little tangent. This gets a little bit into one issue I've written a bet about with my friend pat tinsley, which is talks about the the concept of Causality in the law how important it is to have a solid view of causation and causality This does tie in with again why I keep saying that to have a solid understanding of the principles of justice and libertarian principles You you really have to be informed by economics and in particular austrian and in particular mesesian praxeological economics and the reason is because Mises quite properly recognizes the role of causality, right that we have to We have to recognize that all human action Um is based upon a certain understanding of the laws of cause and effect in the world, right? There's a causal realm This was the natural sciences study and then there there's a uh um There's a teleological realm. That's right the the the rules that apply to the study of the consequences of Decisions that human actors make that's what we basically call economics, right? So we have uh Purpose of action and analysis of that and we have an understanding of the causal laws of nature and the reason this is important is because mesis explains that the structure of human action is to Be an actor who's aware of his status as an actor and aware of the The nature of other human beings To the extent that they exist in society with them as being fellow actors with their own purposes you have a purpose in mind And a purpose means an in an end state that you want to achieve Which implies that you have a vision Or a forecast or an understanding of what you believe Or think might happen in some time in the future And you think that what's going to happen in the future is not what you want to happen, right? You're dissatisfied you're made as mesis calls it uh uneasy with the prospect of what's going to happen Okay, so The whole purpose of the whole nature of human action is that people Have a awareness of their of their status in the world and they have some idea that we're traveling through time And there's something that's going to happen in the future Unless they intervene somehow now the intervention Requires the use of the employment of scarce means in the world, right? But you have to employ them according to their nature, right? So you have to have some knowledge in your mind About the way the world is you have to have some Uh forecast of the way the world will be if you don't intervene And you have to have some knowledge of what's available to you to make a change Right, so you have to have knowledge about what the causal laws are what the laws of physics are What what tools what means are in your environment that are available to you to manipulate to grapple with to grasp To handle to somehow change the course of events So this is the entire essence of human action. This is what we do. It's breaking it down into a very analytical Structure So we use our knowledge about the way the world is And the way the causal laws are that we think to Imagine what will happen in the future We imagine possible things that we can do in the future, right? This is where the economic idea of opportunity cost comes in you can only do one thing And the other things that you have to be sacrificed would be the opportunity cost of that So you choose your most valued end and you pursue it by selecting and using means That you believe with your knowledge are calculated to help you obtain The end so this is why causation is is embedded in the entire Understanding of what we do every second of our lives when we act We are operating on some kind of understanding of what causality is Um and causal laws, okay So this is why causation and libertarian theory is also important When we want to ascribe responsibility to someone for committing an act that we think is wrong That needs to be protected against or defended against or punished or retaliated against or condemned is wrong Number one We have to view these other people as human actors that is not robotic automatons with no purpose It's best to understand fellow humans not as robots but as fellow humans like we are with ends and purposes and then from our understanding of the way our lives work and the way What we've experienced in terms of interaction with others would develop a sense of What their intention? probably is To fully characterize someone else's action you need to understand what their purpose is or their end So you need to characterize them as actors You need to characterize what they're doing as an action Which means there's an end there's a means employed and there's a certain purpose So you have to you have to try to use what means is called verse to hen It's a german word meaning the understanding you have to characterize what they're doing in a certain way So doing that is what the legal system does in a more formal way. For example, that's why the legal system Distinguishes different types of murder, right? So there's first degree murder secondary murder negligent homicide manslaughter things like that vehicular homicide They they they generally They generally characterize the action as the same In some sense that is the outcome is the same someone was killed. There's a homicide the death of a man And it was an intentional action if it was totally unintentional, it wouldn't be a tort at all You wouldn't be responsible for it. You know if an asteroid falls on my neighbor and kills him It's not a tort by the asteroid or by me Because I had nothing to do with it and the asteroid didn't have any intentionality no mens rea So it wouldn't be an action. There's no there's no responsibility to be ascribed Likewise if I have a seizure, you know, I'm sitting next to someone at a movie and I might I just have a seizure And my hand just starts flailing wildly and strikes this other person and harms them Um, it's not really an intentional action. So arguably I'm not responsible for that It let's assume it's the first time and I had no reason to think so You have to have some degree of intentionality now the way I look at it is You have a spectrum or continuum going from fully intentional down to Sort of intentional, which is what we call the law negligence Okay, so if I don't want to kill you, but I'm just not being careful enough And if my car accidentally runs into you and I kill you It's partially intentional Not fully intentional the outcome is still the same if there's a death, but the intentionality is lower So my view is sort of you have to imagine the way we classify the the severity Of the crimes and therefore the the the severity of the retaliation or the restitution that could be a response to that Is like a product of the of the outcome and the intentionality and so It's worse to intentionally murder someone than to merc tend to accidentally kill them So you're because your intentionality is like one thousandth of that of the murder or something like that So you have to take these things into account and that's roughly what the law does and having a lower lower punishment For someone who accidentally commits homicide As to someone who commits first degree murder and it's why second-degree murder and manslaughter don't have the severe penalties as First-degree murder and I think that makes sense and I go into that in that causality article And also in my punishment proportionality article if anyone wants to look in more detail. Okay. We have another question Tony that's it What do you think of the HHH physical removal service? That's very funny. There there's a facebook site called HHH, which means hoppa physical removal service just kind of Not sure if it's making fun of hoppa or making fun of his critics. I can't tell it's just a funny irreverent site Sort of riffing on a common hoppa made about private property communities private covenant orders Having to exclude certain types of people I don't what what can I what can I say it's private? It's a free world people can Riff as they want it's I think it's sometimes kind of funny Uh, I don't know who's behind it by the way, and I don't care Sebastian Do you know Sebastian has a question And I'm going to stop this shortly because it's been 25 minutes already. I'll go A few more minutes. I don't do much past half an hour Do you know of any further research on your blog post the catholic church is a voluntarily funded elective monarchy and therefore not a state What potential avenues for the propulsion? Let me see here Uh, let me stop there because I can't read all that right now. Um, look, I don't have a lot of uh Detailed study of the catholic church My my only point in that post which was from a few years ago in the lou rockwell blog. I believe I I noticed I'm talking fast again. I'm going to slow down My only point was um that all the criticism of the catholic church Not the recent criticism about these um, uh, pedorasty scandals. That's that's a different matter Those are sound like legitimate crimes that um, that uh, should be classified that way and dealt with a certain way but People criticize the catholic church because it says you can't use a contraception or because and and and it and it So-called coerces people With the threat of hell if they don't obey certain dictates now as a as a libertarian I don't give that any credence whatsoever and it's ridiculous People are free to leave the church. They're free to do whatever they want if they want to believe Those teachings they can They don't have to so it's not an act of aggression. It's not an issue of libertarianism If that's all the the state did to me if the state just hectered me all the time Told me I had to pay my taxes or I would go to hell Right, then I would just ignore them. They wouldn't be Uh, a criminal organization then I actually would be happy to have an organization that that that Demanded tribute on the pain of condemning me to hell in the afterlife because I would just ignore them and I wouldn't pay any taxes The state does more the state actually threatens you with going to jail in this life If you don't pay taxes, that's real aggression. So I think we need to focus on what real aggression is and my only point was it's kind of amazing that this, um The the holy sea Vatican city, which is which isn't recognized as a sort of actor under international law Not quite a full state but has some Treaties with it. So it's seen as an international actor um It's kind of interesting that the holy sea the catholic church Is in effect a state with in a sense over I don't know about a billion Quote-unquote citizens right Catholics around the world, you know, they're citizens of their own states really But they pledge allegiance to the catholic church They give tribute to it. They pay it. My point is they whatever they pay is paid voluntarily And as far as I know in today's times the catholic church doesn't commit any aggression whatsoever except for the actions of the priests and with the young altar boys Which is a different issue I was an altar boy for three or four years and um, I don't recall anything bad happening. Maybe I blinked it out I'm just kidding. It was fine um So the catholic church is basically a quasi state with a billion citizens, which doesn't impose any taxes doesn't cause any wars Doesn't put anyone in jail for anything doesn't outlaw anything with a threat of of any kind of physical force So that was my only point that it's in a sense the most libertarian state in the world right now Okay Let's see what else we have here I've got to comment no taxes in hell sounds decent That's true. And that's where all the fun people will be right um Oliver westcott has a question Do you see a practical difference between a world of states and a world of private homeowners associations? Uh, absolutely millions of differences um primarily A difference in terms of justice Right states are not just and private associations would be just So that's the primary difference in terms of justice in terms of ethics But in terms of the way the world would look it would be greatly different for several reasons number one You would have instead of 200 states you would have Uh tens of millions of these associations. So the numbers would be so much greater And the size would be so much smaller Right So that's a huge difference right there and their purpose would be to satisfy the customer. It wouldn't be to um You know set up a propaganda organization whose whose function is to exist and survive and To exploit the people As much as possible And I would recommend you you look at hoppa's great book on banking in nation states A great article which is in the the review of australia economics. It's also in one of his books. I think it may be in economics and ethics of private property or in the great fiction. I forgot which book it's in He talked he discusses there the process by which the state Gradually monopolizes areas of human life to exert more and more control over Over the the population that it basically is exploiting You know it it sets up control of money roads defense police the law Uh even language in some cases right and um and education to education of the children So it does he seems insidiously um Whereas a homeowner association would have no ability to monopolize anything like that So yes, there'd be any number of differences. There could there could arise Uh private associations or covenant communities as hoppa calls them that you wouldn't personally like But you know if you stayed there you would actually be consenting to the rules And if you didn't like it you could join one of the other 10 million in the world So it would be a completely different landscape much more liberty much more prosperity much more free markets much more freedom And you know corruption As we know it now Would be orders of magnitude Different and less in my in my view I think i'm going to shut this down now. This is an experiment I hope it didn't go too badly. I think it was okay next time. I'll use a proper microphone I'll just get my phone charged ahead of time Like I said in the beginning I could actually use this. I've tried it on my phone. This is the one I use My audio technique for my computer and it actually works On my iphone if you have an adapter Which I have you have to have a usb adapter, but the problem is this adapter has no power A little power plug in so you can't have power going to your phone at the same time So next time I'm going to try a proper microphone Anyway, uh, if this works out, all right, we'll try it again I hope everyone enjoyed it Thanks so much. Feel free to post any questions and maybe I'll get to them in another FaceTime Facebook live Video, thank you. Bye. Bye