I have a question about aggression and freedome of speach.
Lets say I have a gun, I threaten someone with it and say: "If you don't hand over your money I'll shoot you".
As long as I don't actually fire a shot at a human I don't have commit ed aggression have I? Is freedom of speech absolute or can you be convicted of threating someone, or be taken into custody?
Another question, if I fire a shot and it miss, have I commited aggresion?
Cheers.
If you don't fire the shot, you have still used the threat of force to coerce ther person to act against your will. The threat of force is no less a violation of a person's rights than the use thereof. The fact is that you are forcing them to choose between their life and their worldly possessions.
This act, furthermore, is not covered under "freedom of speech." The old saying is that "your rights end where my rights begin!" In other words, your rights are infinite on the condition that the assertion of your rights do not violate the right of another to be free from coersion. Your verbalization of a threat is an act of coersion, violating my fundamental right to be free from said coersion (stemming from my possession of a rational mind as a human being). Therefore, you do not have the ability to plead that your threat was an exercise of free speech.
If you fire a shot and miss, you have most certainly committed an act of aggression. You have no longer threatened to do physical harm, but you have attempted to do so. The attempt to commit an act of aggression is still an act of aggression, even if the act fails.
CShirk:If you fire a shot and miss, you have most certainly committed an act of aggression. You have no longer threatened to do physical harm, but you have attempted to do so. The attempt to commit an act of aggression is still an act of aggression, even if the act fails.
Really? Butters is guilty of attempting to exterminate humanity?
February 17 - 1600 - Giordano Bruno is burnt alive by the catholic church. Aquinas : "much more reason is there for heretics, as soon as they are convicted of heresy, to be not only excommunicated but even put to death."
Freedome? lol.
Perhaps a better way to word it would be to tack on, "in such a manner that there is credible danger to life" or perhaps that the act should actually be possible to perform.
Ludwig von Mises Institute | 518 West Magnolia Avenue | Auburn, Alabama 36832-4528
Phone: 334.321.2100 · Fax: 334.321.2119
contact@Mises.org | webmaster | AOL-IM MainMises
Mises.org sitemap