Comments on: A Guy’s Gotta Eat

By: Don

Don — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 17:45:49 +0000

@ Rights March, I’m not as subtle as David. You don’t live in a free market and thus are not privy to the enormous range of tools available to market yourself. You live in the state made cage and must play by a different set of rules.

Back in 2004 I stole something and it will always bother me. Hurricane Charlie wiped out the infrastructure of SW Florida and the state further handicapped the populace. Our home, in a very rural area, had a well but there was no electricity to run the pump and we had been without water for 3 days in 90+ degree heat. Further, the police took over the local building centers, Lowes, Home Depot, etc. and were basically auctioning off access to those places. My brother loaned me his generator but in order to connect it to my well I needed 10′ of 30 amp wire and I could not get it at the home centers because of the police. A short distance from my house was a new house under construction so I went over there with wire cutters and removed, stole, 10′ of 30 amp wire, connected the generator and had a shower for the first time in 3 days.

To the best of my knowledge that is the only thing I have ever stolen and the first time I have ever told anyone about it.

If the state hadn’t taken over the market I would not have stolen that wire.

This example is just a microcosm of how we are forced to live everyday so it is sort of unimaginable how we would live in a free market world but I do know everything would be better. You see, adding state thuggery to the whole thing is not a solution but rather a liability and as far as I’m concerned completely unnecessary, unwarranted and contemptible.

By: David Z

David Z — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 04:38:30 +0000

i’m not saying rights go out the window, just that a lot of things that we currently look at under color of “rights” aren’t really rights in the first place. this goes for any state-granted or explicitly-state-supported privilege.

that EG quote took a while to sink in for me, but it’s really quite simple. Just let it simmer for a little bit.

By: Rights

Rights — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 03:52:18 +0000

I’m not following you… Why throw rights out the window because we live in a state-run world? It seems that that sentiment would amount to a reductio ad absurdum that no one has any rights at all, and anything goes for whoever can get away with it. I don’t agree.

No one owes you work or bread, and the existence of the state doesn’t justify your taking it from me. Two wrongs make a right fallacy.

By: David Z

David Z — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 13:09:18 +0000

If you are talking about a free market, then I agree with you. But we’re not talking about a free market, so you can throw that argument out the window. Sorry.

Give us work. If you do not give us work, then give us bread; if you do not give us either work or bread then we shall take bread.
— Emma Goldman

By: Rights

Rights — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 09:07:23 +0000

I have to say I disagree with you a little on this one. Even if you are starving, that does not make it okay to rob someone. Your hunger does not negate anyone else’s rights, or present a moral claim on someone in any way. “A guy’s gotta eat” is pretty much “my needs negate your rights.”

Everyone has needs, everyone gets hungry, every “guy”‘s gotta eat. Everyone needs material values to survive, and you only have two options for gaining access to the values of others; voluntarily or by force.

If you are starving and literally have nothing to offer or trade, you can ask for help, charity, handouts, an advance, credit, etc. but you cannot morally rob your neighbor and to sanction any law that does is still evil. So the argument from efficiency about welfare is unecessary from there.