I had to work a slew of ours to help pay our back dues to the entity that was not constitutionally authorized to raise revenue from us. (Article 1, Sec 7., “All bills for raising revenue . . . .) It’s why I couldn’t post but after catching up here, you still need to be “spotlighted.”

Ergo, I’m still waiting for you to answer the questions. I’ll repost below:

You said, “I believe that the Nuremberg trials were an important step in the development of international law, and were surely legal.”

Who told you that they were legal? Why do you believe that they are legal?

As to your comments about all laws being restrictive of individual freedom, I’d point out that the libertarian view of individual freedom excludes actions based in violence and/or the threat of violence (except in self-defense). Violence or the threat of violence are a factor in every example you cited.

I’ll also start taking environmentalists a lot more seriously once they start considering more market-based approaches to issues of pollution, like de-regulating the nuclear industry (which produces far less pollution than coal or oil). Their oft-heard mantra of “We must do more with less” however (usually spouted in conjunction with rants against increasing energy usage), exposes them for the Luddites that they are. And I’m not buying into that crap.

You raise a good point about negligence when you suggest that it should be a factor in sentencing, not a crime in and of itself. This would create a basic principle that guilt is established by the physical facts, and the degree of guilt is based upon the degree of volition (completely unintentional, negligent, or intentional) involved by the defendent. I acknowledge that such an approach would certainly be practicable. However, the current approach, which criminalizes negligence, does serve, in my opinion, to reduce the overall incidence of negligence by driving home the importance of the negligence.

Consider, for example, drunk driving. You think that laws criminalizing this are unjust, because the defendent does no actual harm. But consider the diffference in the thought processes of the individual contemplating driving while drunk:

(under current law): “If I get in that car right now and get caught, I’ll lose my license.”

(under your proposal): “If I get in that car right now and kill somebody, I’ll spend twenty years in prison instead of ten.”

There are two crucial differences between the two:

1. Control. In the first case, the driver understands that losing his license is beyond his control. It depends entirely on the luck of getting caught. In the second case, the driver thnks himself in control of his fate. He understands that, if he doesn’t make a mistake, he’ll be just fine. Now, do you know ANYBODY who thinks that they’re a bad driver, even while sober? Have you ever met ANY drunk or tipsy person who didn’t think he was perfectly capable of driving? Psychological studies have shown over and over that, when people think that they’re in control of the situation, they are much safer. That’s why people worry more about flying than driving, even though flying is safer.

2. Differential consequences. Psychological studies shown that people’s assessment of risk is at least logarithmic. The difference between 10 years in prison and 20 years in prison is inconsequential to most people when they’re doing the kind of calculation described above. Thus, the deterrent effect of making negligence a factor in sentencing is lessened.

As for libertarianism getting squeezed, I think that the increasing population actually makes a libertarian philosophy more relevant and important, not less. The more people we have and the closer our proximity, the more glaring the flaws in the collectivist approach will ultimately become and the more impossible it will become to identify people as cohesive separate groups. And the greater the need will be for the recognition and enforcement of individual rights because the individual will be the only non-arbitrary body society can consistently use to determine equal rights. Some will, of course, say that the growing population will make libertarianism impossible because you don’t have the ability to do whatever you want without fear of repercussion. But then I’ve never paid that much mind because that’s never what libertarianism was actually about.

The two killer problems with this approach are that 1) the setting of tax rates will become a highly political process, complete with special exemptions for industries with good lobbyists; and 2) there’s no way to fairly compensate all the victims. Some will suffer more than others.

But let me address the important point here: that libertarianism is getting squeezed by population, wealth, and technology. I agree that the basic principles of libertarianism provide the ideal towards which we should aspire, but I fear that we’ll be forced to compromise those principles with increasing frequency in the future.

And actually, the actions you described would constitute attempted murder. Criminal law does take into account someone being a lousy shot. With drunk driving, however, they’re usually not acting out of an intent to cause harm, merely negligence. That said, I’m all for having stiffer penalties for people who drive into a family of six while drunk, as opposed to someone who does so accidentally while sober. One is an accident, the other is negligence. I’m just not for punishing people simply because they’re drunk. Especially considering how flawed the system for catching drunk drivers is and how often it’s abused.

No, I think Stephen got your point and now that you’ve clarified I think you’re right. As Stephen said, there’s nothing wrong with the philosophy of your rights ending where my nose begins. With more people we simply have to be more mindful of other peoples’ noses. The increase in population numbers doesn’t change the validity of that underlying principle, it merely increases the importance of its observance and application.

My apologies for confusing you with a Malthusian.

“In fact, a great number of the problems we have with pollution stem from government’s disrespect for private property and their collectivist approach to managing it.”

So where’s your beef with my position?

the same end result could be achieved simply through litigation

Simply?!?!? You think litigation is cleaner and simpler than legislation? If so, why not replace criminal law with tort law?

Malthus: What does Malthus have to do with my argument? I didn’t write that people are going to starve to death (which was Malthus’ contention). I wrote that increasing population pressures inevitably reduce personal freedoms. Please address THAT point, not something entirely different.

We may have some problems with double negatives here, but I gather that you regard the release of toxic gases and drunk driving as not criminal. I’ll concentrate on the drunk driving case, as it’s a good demonstration of the difference between black-and-white thinking and shades-of-grey thinking that I alluded to above. You maintain, I presume, that the drunk driver commits no crime because he hasn’t actually harmed anybody, and that he commits a crime only when he actually harms somebody. I argue that probability is an appropriate factor to include in determinations of criminal behavior. If I act in such a way as to create a high probability that somebody will be harmed, then that action is criminal, in my opinion. It is the probability, not the eventuality, that makes it criminal. For example, if I enter a shopping mall, close my eyes, and fire a gun in random directions, but fail to actually hit anybody, then you would classify my action as not criminal whereas I would classify it as criminal. The difference between us lies in the probability issue.

As to your insistence upon using labels, what if we stipulate that I am worm snot, the scum of the earth, a baby-killer and orphan-raper, and a litterbug to boot? Then can we return to the business of discussing libertarianism?

Prove to me with the use of empirical evidence that the costs of “environmental degradation” outweigh the costs of lost productivity and we’ll have a debate

Actually, if I prove it, it won’t be a debate. But I’ll prove it anyway. Here’s an easy nontechnical piece on the costs and benefits of a single environmental regulation program. They estimate $122 billion in benefits and $3 billion in costs. End of debate!