<p>Actually, just answer me this question afruff:</p>
<p>Is property necessarily more important than human lives?</p>
<p>I eat fish only; no red meat, veal, pork, poultry, or the like, and have for almost 15, and with a small break, closer to 20 years. My family has never eaten any meat either. We now are glad to be on the "right" side of this argument, which isn't even any more about killing animals, as much as the enormous waste, as well as destruction to the environment that meat eating causes.</p>
<p>
[quote]
All this comes at a time when meat consumption is reaching an all-time high around the world, quadrupling in the last 50 years. There are 20 billion head of livestock taking up space on the Earth, more than triple the number of people. According to the Worldwatch Institute, global livestock population has increased 60 percent since 1961, and the number of fowl being raised for human dinner tables has nearly quadrupled in the same time period, from 4.2 billion to 15.7 billion. U.S. beef and pork consumption has tripled since 1970, during which time it has more than doubled in Asia.</p>
<p>The 4.8 pounds of grain fed to cattle to produce one pound of beef for human beings represents a colossal waste of resources in a world still teeming with people who suffer from profound hunger and malnutrition.</p>
<p>Energy-intensive U.S. factory farms generated 1.4 billion tons of animal waste in 1996, which, the Environmental Protection Agency reports, pollutes American waterways more than all other industrial sources combined. Meat production has also been linked to severe erosion of billions of acres of once-productive farmland and to the destruction of rainforests.</p>
<p>More than a third of all raw materials and fossil fuels consumed in the U.S. are used in animal production. Beef production alone uses more water than is consumed in growing the nation’s entire fruit and vegetable crop. Producing a single hamburger patty uses enough fuel to drive 20 miles and causes the loss of five times its weight in topsoil. In his book The Food Revolution, author John Robbins estimates that “you’d save more water by not eating a pound of California beef than you would by not showering for an entire year.” Because of deforestation to create grazing land, each vegetarian saves an acre of trees per year.</p>
<p>“We definitely take up more environmental space when we eat meat,” says Barbara Bramble of the National Wildlife Federation. “I think it’s consistent with environmental values to eat lower on the food chain.”
[/quote]
</p>
<p>
[quote]
No, I said that assuming that the assumptions of limited food production hold true, then you are potentially leading others toward starvation. If you find that immoral, then it is. You do not.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>So finally tell me, do you think that is immoral or not? If you do not care to take a stance, why are we even debating about the ethics/morals of diets? In the part that you quoted, I assumed your diagnosis of the food situation to be true (although I am not too well-versed in that area).</p>
<p>
[quote]
Universal morality is, unfortunately, harder to apply than you seem to believe. Westerners find suicide incredibly immoral. Historically, however, the Japanese found suicide acceptable under specific circumstances. Who is correct?
[/quote]
</p>
<p>For that reason, I'd prefer to call our discussion "ethics" from now on since these are rules subject to consistency and scientific rigor. Morals do not apply to anybody but that one person; they are preferences. Ethics can be objective.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Just because our limited (VERY limited) Westphalian views do not have ways to deal with the tragedy of the commons doesn't make it acceptable.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Well, so long as there is no objectivity in prescriptions, anything goes. It'd be like asking about the ethics of antibiotics in the 10th century when nobody knew about antibiotics. Nowadays, the lack of knowledge for property rights on water can be attributed to governments and their threats of violence upon people when they (government employees) have never even set sail to where these other people are staking their claims.</p>
<p>
[quote]
As for your private vs. public arguments, put down the Rand. Morality is not as simple as objectivism. Try reading Rousseau, Hobbes, and Locke, as well as Kant. Morality is not nearly as simple as you make it out to be-- or as simple as Rand claims it is.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Who said anything about Rand? I don't get why you attribute individualism to Rand and objectivism. There are tons more individualist philosophers like Rothbard, Spooner, and Tucker in addition to individualist economists (e.g. the Austrian school) like Menger, Hayek, Mises, etc. Furthermore, your recommendations are not arguments, they are appeals to authority. If you believe something else to be a superior system of property, then the burden of proof is on you to prove it.</p>
<p>Furthermore, I never said ethics (remember now, we changed the word to ethics; read my above regarding why) were so simple. I just said that it needs to be consistent to be valid.</p>
<p>
[quote]
What makes it "legitimately" obtained, though? Money? Labor? A contract?
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I spelled this out for you before. In short: mix your labor with it. I'll just link you to a short article.
States</a> cannot own property - Mises Economics Blog</p>
<p>Here is a short excerpt that succinctly explains it:
[quote]
Working land is one requirement for coming into ownership of it. The other requirement is that the tools you use to work it were rightfully yours in the first place. If I steal your plow to work a plot of land, that plot of land isn't legitimately mine. If I enslave you to plow a plot of land, that land isn't legitimately mine.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>
[quote]
Who says that because I stake a claim to it, therefore I am morally in the right to control it and suck it dry? For instance, am I in the right to dump toxic waste in my backyard?
[/quote]
</p>
<p>So long as it doesn't go into other people's property, I guess so. The only time a problem arises is when another person's property is affected (e.g. a form of force).</p>
<p>
[quote]
So you'd rather see potentially millions die than have ten thousand give up some of their surplus goods to ensure that they at least live? Sorry, but my head spins with the implications of this. Is a human life really less important than property?
[/quote]
</p>
<ol>
<li>These are assuming your projections are true. For a very different view of food scarcity, see this article:
Are</a> We Running Out of Food? - Kel Kelly - Mises Institute</li>
<li>I will deal with your question later in this post since you pose a very similar question in your next post.</li>
</ol>
<p>
[quote]
Life is not black and white.</p>
<p>Repeat after me.</p>
<p>Life is not black and white.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>So, is a mafia gang threatening all those within a given area with violence if they choose to not pay their protection money not a "black and white"? </p>
<p>Tell me, did your parents ever steal and tell you its okay? Maybe I'm debating over something I am not good with treating (e.g. psychological issues). If so, just let me know so I do not further waste my time.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Actually, just answer me this question afruff:</p>
<p>Is property necessarily more important than human lives?
[/quote]
</p>
<p>For somebody who mentioned Locke twice in a single paragraph, you think that person would already know the answer to this simple question. Humans are self-owners and are their own property. Your question fundamentally makes no sense. It is like asking if apples are more important than red apples.</p>
<p>Furthermore, let us just go along with this question. Is threatening a non-violent person with violence not the VERY thing you were trying to stop (i.e. the survival of a person)?</p>
<p>The violence is very real and around you. These are not abstract concepts; they happen all the time and all you need to do is to wash away all the silly wordplay (e.g. patriotism, taxes, and in this case food regulations). See how these things play out on the individual level and you will see they are contradictory to any decent non-violent human being's sense of ethics.</p>
<p>afruff,</p>
<p>I've decided we aren't going anywhere with this. I'm respectfully bowing out of this mutual tail chasing. I just don't see any reason to continue when we can't even find mutual ground. Thanks for the interesting discussion.</p>