From: Jim Choate <ravage@einstein.ssz.com>
Date: Sun, 4 Oct 1998 08:57:35 +0800
To: cypherpunks@einstein.ssz.com (Cypherpunks Distributed Remailer)
Subject: RE: GPL & commercial software, the critical distinction (fwd)
Message-ID: <199810041400.JAA31111@einstein.ssz.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text



Forwarded message:

> From: Matthew James Gering <mgering@ecosystems.net>
> Subject: RE: GPL & commercial software, the critical distinction (fwd)
> Date: Fri, 2 Oct 1998 02:26:21 -0700 

> > In what way are the resulting markets different from
> > either the producers or consumers view?
> 
> Views on intellectual property and the obvious marketplace changes due
> to an IP or lack of IP framework would be the major difference IMHO. I

Explain further, from your description of the differences there are no
fundamental mentionings or views of intellectual property. As a matter of
fact the specific role of the individual is never even mentioned in either
definition.

It's almost like there is something poping out of thin air...

> > Explain further what you mean by abolition of force is a 
> > prerequisite please.
> 
> Basically no person (or entity) can use force (or its derivatives)
> against another person (or entity). Your long history of criminal law,
> except stripped of all victimless crimes.

So people don't have a right to self-defence? I agree consensual crimes are
not crimes.

> > And what specificaly do you mean by proper role of government?
> 
> "What, then, is law? It is the collective organization of the individual
> right to lawful defense. 

Is it? Or is it simply another sort of coercion to cooperate with the
collective? Is it not actualy the embodyment of ideals, an attempt at utopia
if you will?

> Each of us has a natural right--from God--to defend his person, his
> liberty, and his property. These are the three basic requirements of
> life, and the preservation of any one of them is completely dependent
> upon the preservation of the other two. For what are our faculties but
> the extension of our individuality? And what is property but an
> extension of our faculties? 

I'm interesting to see how you reconcile the belief nobody has a right to
use force yet has a right to defend their life.

By facluty I assume you mean our emotional and psychological makeup coupled
with our sensory record of them.

I'd say that such issues are not a facet of individualism but rather a
characteristic of life itself.

As to property, it is a consequence of our biology, if that is a consequence
of our faculties, and not visa versa, I'd doubt.

> If every person has the right to defend -- even by force -- his person,
> his liberty, and his property, then it follows that a group of men have
> the right to organize and support a common force to protect these rights

No it doesn't. You must first prove that a group of individuals have some
right that as individuals they don't have. For one thing, even in your
definition, rights are a fundamental aspect of birth as an individual.

Something I've yet to see.


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