General

Re: What is wrong with this forum?

cab21 — Mon, 15 Oct 2012 03:59:50 GMT

where does god talk to many people and tell each of them about their eternal ownership of the land?

god told joshua, one person

god told moses, one person

all sorts of stories in the bible told by one person of god talking to one person.

secular here means people that don't beleive in god.

if the large number of people argument worked, jews would be cristians.

Re: What is wrong with this forum?

FlyingAxe — Mon, 15 Oct 2012 03:47:58 GMT

It is told by a large people, but its origins are one person's witness. One person can be deluded.

On the other hand, Jewish story's origin is an even that was claimed to have been witnessed by a large number of people. Large number of people is unlikely to have been liars, halucinating, or deluded.

In Judaism 'secular' means 'doesn't keep 613 commandments'. It doesn't mean that they don't believe in God or Torah. They just don't feel like keeping them. That's their problem.

But I was just describing one way that one can look at the issue: from religious point of view forming the basis for a libertarian argument.

Re: What is wrong with this forum?

cab21 — Mon, 15 Oct 2012 03:32:25 GMT

the muslim story is told by a large number of people who pass the story to their decendants just as much as the jewish story is. the christian story as well, as well i'm sure was tolled by people conqured by jews when they first optained the land from the people that had it before them. what about christians that say god no longer says the land belongs only to some people of certain genetics and certain religion? the ownership thing was a convenant and that was broken by rejecting jesus. jesus opened up a covenant to all that would accept jesus, no promises for a specific spot in the material world.

http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/opinion/god-s-promise-of-land-to-jews-has-deep-pull-on-secular-israelis-1.3294

this article says the majority of citizens are secular.

mayby the term libertarian needs to find a set universial definition for what property would be. at worst each is justified in a defensive fight and the arms war wins

Re: What is wrong with this forum?

FlyingAxe — Mon, 15 Oct 2012 03:02:44 GMT

Muslim 'evidence' is based on a story told by one person. Jewish evidence is based on mass evidence of a large number of people, who passed this story to their descendants.

But forget about that for a second.

Imagine that you have two libertarian societies. In one of them, the 'common law' recognizes property is something on which one has settled and altered the land in some way. In another, property is something on which someone grazes his cattle from time to time and loudly proclaims the territory to be his. As long as he grazes the cattle at least once a year, the society's custom declares the land to be his property.

People from the first society settle on what they think is empty territory. People from the second society come over and claim the territory to be theirs and bring witnesses that they grazed cattle on this territory once a year or more often. The first people say: 'so what?'

Private judges and arbitrators are called. The problem is: the arbitrators follow different codes of law from different society. Each declares his compatriots' actions as valid.

Re: What is wrong with this forum?

cab21 — Mon, 15 Oct 2012 02:44:55 GMT

muslims have just as much evidence, they wrote books as well.

you said if someone beileives they are right, they are following libertarian principles.

Re: What is wrong with this forum?

cab21 — Mon, 15 Oct 2012 02:43:54 GMT

with libertarian principles, do you still think they would be perceived as threats? core of the problem is in non libertarian principles.

the state of isrial is not being libertarian to it's own citizens.

Re: What is wrong with this forum?

FlyingAxe — Mon, 15 Oct 2012 02:39:15 GMT

cab21:

anyone is justified in doing anything in that case.

No. Because Jews have evidence, while 'anyone' does not.

Imagine I leave a tie downstairs in a hotel lobby. I come back and take it. Someone sees me and says: 'thief!'. But I know that the tie is mine. Could be I am confabulating, but the best I can tell, it's mine, and I didn't steal it.

Re: What is wrong with this forum?

FlyingAxe — Mon, 15 Oct 2012 02:30:10 GMT

Religious issues aside, here is the problem with the Right of Return:

60 years ago, there was a war, and a bunch of refugees left. There were a couple incidents when they were forcefully kicked out, but those were isolated. For the most part, people left either fleeing from the war or in a way of helping the invading armies.

After the war, I have heard two version of the story: 1) they refused to return, because they don't believe that the State of Israel can exist. They practically abandoned their homes. 2) They were not allowed to return, because they wouldn't pledge citizenship to the State of Israel, and it was feared that they would ally themselves with Arabs if those invaded again.

Meanwhile, their homes were resettled by the influx of Jewish refugees from Arabic countries.

60 years passed. Now, in order to bring back the Arabs, we have to displace thousands of Jews who have lived on the land they settled and improved for a few generations.

The world has moved on. The refugees need to be paid the value of the land that they abandoned (not the current value, but the value that it would have without all the improvements) -- which Israel is happy to do -- and allowed to settle wherever they wish.

At the same time, there is another nuance.

Imagine a libertarian society of Texas. It has a bunch of Mexicans living next to Whites. Then a war with Mexico starts. Mexicans leave to Mexico, and Whites defeat the Mexicans. Then the original Mexican Texans want to return to their homes. But the White Texans say: "We don't want you living next to us, because if ever a war with Mexicans starts again, you will pose a security risk. If we can demonstrate that this is the case, we have a right to defend ourselves against the risk that your presence poses."

It's true that this situation is against libertarian principles, but it does seem absurd that the White Texans must agree to the danger of living next to the allies of their enemies.

Re: What is wrong with this forum?

cab21 — Mon, 15 Oct 2012 02:25:00 GMT

anyone is justified in doing anything in that case.

Re: What is wrong with this forum?

FlyingAxe — Mon, 15 Oct 2012 02:20:07 GMT

cab21:

the historical jews only got the land in the first place through conquest, it's not like they were original homesteaders. same for the arabs, but peaceful jews and arabs and anyone else ought to be able to live in the area without some claim from a book that the area exclusivly belongs to some people over others.

Imagine if Uncle Bob dies and leaves his parcel of land to his 20 nephews and their families and descendants. Then the nephews are driven from the land. Then their grandchildren come back and drive those who settled in the land. They say: this land is ours, and it never stopped being ours, because Uncle Bob gave it to us.

Now, the problems is: some people don't believe that Uncle Bob ever existed. They believe that Uncle Bob's will is a mythical document made up by his supposed nephews.

But if a given nephew believes for whatever reason that this document is true, then his actions at removing the squatters don't contradict his libertarian views.

I believe that God gave Jews the land of Israel. Just because others don't believe that, it's their problem. The land was God's to give to whomever He wanted.

Also, we have a document, for example, that King David bought the land of Jerusalem and bequethed it to Jews and their descendants. Again, if someone thinks the story was made up, that's his problem. If the community of Jews living in Israel honestly believes that this story happened, and that Jerusalem was never sold, they are not contradicting their libertarian convictions.

Re: What is wrong with this forum?

Anenome — Sun, 14 Oct 2012 23:11:27 GMT

cab21:

the historical jews only got the land in the first place through conquest, it's not like they were original homesteaders. same for the arabs, but peaceful jews and arabs and anyone else ought to be able to live in the area without some claim from a book that the area exclusivly belongs to some people over others.

This may be true. But the question then is who has the best claim on the land then?

If the land was taken illegitimately from someone long ago, then the question is, is the current holder of the land the original thief? Certainly not, as no one can live for 3000 years. The current owners are their descendants generally.

Can the descendants of the original owners be found? In this case, not really. Most or all of those people groups have been lost to history. Though the Phillistines eventually became the Palestines (Palestinians).

If the thief is not the current occupier, and the descendants cannot be found, then the land must be considered unowned or abandoned, and the current holder of the land must be considered its first homesteader and thus legitimate owner.

After all, regardless of what your descendants have done, that does not make you a thief or illegitimate holder of land. And if the legit descendants cannot be found to give the land back to, then you've homesteaded it rightly by being the first user of unowned land.

Re: What is wrong with this forum?

cab21 — Fri, 12 Oct 2012 10:54:48 GMT

the historical jews only got the land in the first place through conquest, it's not like they were original homesteaders. same for the arabs, but peaceful jews and arabs and anyone else ought to be able to live in the area without some claim from a book that the area exclusivly belongs to some people over others.

Re: What is wrong with this forum?

Groucho — Fri, 12 Oct 2012 10:45:46 GMT

Well I have to say anything involving the country Israel sure seems to devolve into accusations of racism and bigotry mighty quickly! Just like global warming emotionalism. Sheesh! Calm down fellas.

But the thought of someone's ancestry granting them any ownership rights to something neither they nor their parents ever owned or possessed is absurd.

Yes, America screwed the Indians (teepee, not turban). But once the perpetrators, victims, and their immediate decendents are all dead, and indeed the crime took place long before any of the current parties were born, it seems impossible for ancestry to be a reasonable basis for ownership claims.

I mean, if somebody could prove they had neanderthal genes, would that give them a claim to part of Europe?

Re: What is wrong with this forum?

cab21 — Fri, 12 Oct 2012 05:05:20 GMT

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/07/gaza-israel-obama the people saw panflits, went into a school, and were bombed there

its a smaller percent of people that have rockets to the percent of people that got land stolen from them by the state.

its not new buildings being taken down that im talking about, but old villiages there before isrial even came into the land

part of it was kicking people off land, then leasing the houses to people as the original land owner had been kicked out.

the staying rather than leaving ishue, why should people have to leave if they don't like a state coming in and taking over and impossing occupations and agressive laws?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/israel/9010302/Israel-citizenship-ruling-slammed-as-racist.html here is one example of a marraige law.

Re: What is wrong with this forum?

FlyingAxe — Fri, 12 Oct 2012 04:11:59 GMT

Children get bombed as collateral damage. Not in the sense of "we will bomb Dresden just for the heck of it", but "we will try to strike the guys who are killing us. We will give a warning in advance for the people living in the vicinity that we will bomb the house X. If the terrorist's four wives and 16 children end up making a living barrier around him, we will still kill him."

I already answered about the bulldozing above. I don't agree with some of it, but most of it is done in response to aggression to the houses of those who helped the aggressor (including by allowing to use their houses to send the rockets from).

Some of it is done because of illegal building without permits. It's also done to Israelis. As a libertarian, I don't agree with it, but you can't expect any government of the world to ignore illegal building on what it considers its own land. US government will also bulldoze your house if you build it without a permit on a 'public' land.

Some of it is done in retaliation to terrorists' relatives in hopes to discourage future attacks. I condemn those kinds of bulldozings.

I don't know what racist laws Israeli Arabs incur from Israel. Most of them get welfare paychecks, including business owners. That's why they stay in Israel, even though they could emigrate. Non-Israeli Arabs are potential combatants and are screened as such upon entry to Israel. If I had a family of neighbors who from time to time shot rockets at my house, I would also screen them for bombs and weapons every time they entered my land to work on it (if I were stupid enough to allow them to work on my territory at all).