Dear Aidan,

«Secondly, the conditional threat to use violence in self defence or the defence of others is usually sufficient to prevent the situation from escalating.»

You may be interested in the "non-violent" Jewish way to kill people, based on Sanhedrin 81b - http://www.come-and-hear.com/sanhedrin/sanhedrin_81.html

When one is guilty of repeatedly breaking a Jewish law that is punishable by death, but cannot be executed for technical reasons (for example, only female witnesses), they are locked up in a tiny cell that doesn't allow them to lie down or even sit comfortably, then first they are given only little food and water so their stomach shrinks and subsequently they are given only barley, lots of barley with no water, which causes their stomach to explode and they die of indigestion/suffocation.

Surely according to your (and theirs) system of thought, such death would not be violent: one was made very hungry then offered barley, but they didn't have to eat that barley - their death was a direct result of voluntarily eating that barley, right?

“Firstly, there is no contradiction in wanting the government's ability to use violence restricted and supporting government action … even if it isn't satisfactorily restricted.”

Yes there is. You both denounce and advocate the use of violence to get what you want = contradiction.

Nor is the issue whether government action etc. “even if violence isn’t satisfactorily restricted”. It’s whether government action etc. USING such violence = contradiction.

And the issue is WHETHER government action does improve the economy so you’re begging the question.

“Secondly, the conditional threat to use violence in self defence or the defence of others is usually sufficient to prevent the situation from escalating.”

So you’re contradicting yourself. You agree that in advocating your economic policies, you do rely on the implicit condition that the government can escalate the violence to bodily injury if first threats are not obeyed.

“AIUI assault isn't actual violence but the threat of violence; the actual violence is battery.”

Not correct. If A threatens to stab B with a knife, but doesn’t actually stab him, that’s still a crime of violence. Same with assault. A threat to bodily harm someone, by someone who is willing and able to carry it out, is still an act of violence. That’s not me saying that. That’s the gumment. The only way to avoid this conclusion is to exempt the gumment from its own definition of violence, which is a double standard, which is what both
a) the gumment, and
b) you
are doing.
Therefore the gumment’s definition of crimes of violence is relevant.

“So tell me, do you think the ability of the ANYONE to maintain the value of their wealth while doing nothing ISN"T more important than the wellbeing of the population?”

Your begging two questions which I have already identified.

If you can tell me what they are, and answer my prior questions first, I’ll demolish your fallacious eat-the-rich marxoidism.

If you can’t or won’t, there’s nothing to talk about: you’ve lost the argument.

Your self-contradictions are not redeemed by a parting assertion of privileged and unspecified knowledge on your part.

Jardine,
My "fallacious eat-the-rich marxoidism" is a figment of your imagination. I have no wish for you to waste even a second demolishing your own silly stawman. I'd rather you ceased being an idiot. It really shouldn't be that hard: just stop assuming that if someone posts A it means they think B.

Regarding the claim about whether assault requires actual violence: whether something involves actual violence is NOT the same as whether it's classified as a violent crime.

Regarding your alleged contradictions: I want capable government, as do most people.
It is possible to have capable government that restricts its use of violence (that is, actions intended or likely to cause injury) to self defence and the defence of others, and I support such a restriction (and therefore totally reject your equating government action with violence). However I do not regard this restriction as a prerequisite for supporting capable government. Without capable government there's likely to be far more violence.

You do this every time! You make an illogical accusation that my position is illogical and unethical, I explain why it isn't, and you reject my explanation; sometimes due to your own incredulity, sometimes because of your arrogance, sometimes because of poor comprehension (such as your claim that I "do rely on the implicit condition that the government can escalate the violence to bodily injury if first threats are not obeyed", when actually the condition for escalation would be if the suspect endangers someone). You always want the burden of proof to be entirely on me, but it is almost impossible to prove something to someone who can't follow a logical argument.

You criticise questions to avoid answering them. If you think there's never any conflict between the wellbeing of the population and people's ability to maintain their wealth by doing nothing, by all means say so, but you can still answer the question as a hypothetical.
You seem to want to bog the debate down in trivialities. It often seems like you're actually trying not to understand what I have to say! Is that the case?

Jardine (continued),
You keep droning on about The Economic Calculation Problem. I hadn't heard of it before you first mentioned it, so yes, I did look it up on Wikipedia. And I found why I hadn't heard of it before: it was totally irrelevant, as it relates to replacing markets with central planning, which nobody's proposing. When and where markets exist (not merely if private property is owned) it's all moot, because they solve the problem. That doesn't mean economic calculation's not required to determine the effects of the governments action. But allocating resources to production is not the problem in a market economy that it would be in a command economy.

Would you like me to post a link to Keynes's General Theory? I doubt you'd want to read it, but at least it's relevant to the discussion, unlike the Mises link you supplied.

Regarding counterfeiting, I have heard it claimed that it revived the Portugese economy at one stage. But governments generally don't let counterfeit money stay in circulation, nor compensate those who innocently acquired it. Therefore counterfeiting will end up making people worse off. Plus if the government does its job properly, it will ensure there's enough genuine money in circulation to ensure there's enough spent to keep people employed, and the direct benefit will flow to the people (unlike counterfeit were it flows to the counterfeiter). As long as the country has its own fiat currency, the government never has to worry about running out of money or eliminating its domestic debt.

We seem to have trouble understanding each other's positions. I'd like this to be a constructive discussion, where at least one of us learns something. To that end, I'd like to propose three rules of debate:
•When you agree with something your opponent says, say so and don't ask him to justify his position.
•When you don't understand your opponent's position, say what you don't understand and ask for clarification.
•When you think you do understand but disagree, say so and point out any false assumptions or reasoning errors.

Can we agree to this?

Aidan

Whether you regard assault as non-violent is irrelevant. The fact is, the government does.

So you're contradicting yourself.

As for your idea that the economic calculation problem is: "irrelevant, as it relates to replacing markets with central planning, which nobody's proposing."

Wrong.

"When and where markets exist (not merely if private property is owned) it's all moot, because they solve the problem."

Wrong.

So you haven't understood it (probably because your source is wikipedia), blandly assume that it can't exist in practice, and then presume to talk down to me about economics.

You have learnt nothing from my offer to disprove your economic theory, or rather circular assumptions, and are still begging the question of the beneficence of the economic policies you advocate.

So you've lost the argument twice over.

The problem isn't that I don't understand you. The problem is that I have repeatedly proved that what you're saying is logically incoherent, and your only response has been more of your endless round of self-contradiction and question-begging. I don't know why you do it.

If you want me to continue with the discussion, you need to
1. admit that even if government complied with your limits on power, which it doesn't do and never even claimed to do, you would still be involved in advocating aggressive violence against the person and property of others; and hence are contradicting yourself in disavowing this fact. You need to stop denying the truth.
2. come to terms with the proposition that the economic calculation problem applies to the extent of the governmental intervention. I'm not asking you to agree with it. But you need to *understand* it and deal with it, which you haven't done.

Otherwise we'll just have to leave it on the basis that you have lost the argument.

I mean here we are, after all these discussions, and you’re still dancing round and round and round in circles trying to PRETEND AS IF you don’t understand that the enforcement of law and policy
1. is by the initiation of force and threats
2. is by actions that government itself defines as violence
3. is not limited to actions in self-defence.

You have argued, and squirmed, and evaded, and equivocated, and contradicted yourself, and got the facts wrong, and lost, and lost, and lost, over and over and over again.

And yet here you pop up again as if you have no understanding of this, and AS IF the problem is a want of understanding on my part. I don’t know whether your denial is motivated by stupidity or dishonesty, or what.

So let’s settle it once and for all: does the enforcement of law and policy involve the initiation of force and threats which the government defines as violence; or not?

Yes?

Or no?