I just did not want us to waste time talking about two different things and talking past each other. Have a great weekend.

The metaphysical question might be interesting, but I think it is poorly formed as originally stated, not necessarily as you stated it.

Unfortunately, I don't have 1-1/2 hrs to watch an entire presentation like this, so if I mistook the question, so be it. I would think, however, that the metaphysical roots of the discussion would be relevant, however, as the assertion was a question about primacy. What I was trying to point out was that BOTH were derived rights from a common source. To me, both fulfill complementary roles. To put them in contest with each other seems rather pointless.

Yaron Brook nailed it. I'm afraid our gov't and Constitution is being shredded by BO. One more year of of what he is doing with his pen and phone and his mental disorder: Lament for his Father is going to ruin this country. Why can't the citizens of this country see this? For us on the Gulch the choice is either going Galt, creating New Atlantis, secession of states or REVOLUTION/CIVIL WAR!

Blarman, the question was about freedom of speech, that is about politics, not about metaphysics.

Yaron Brook was not asking whether metaphysically we have free speech or metaphysically about whether we own ourselves. I suspect his answer to the first would be of course. His whole talk was about Muslims trying to silence speech using violence and the Western governments failing to support free speech - a natural rights - political issue.

"You seem to be making a sort of metaphysical epistemology argument."

I thought that was what was requested.

"Show me how free speech lead logically to property rights..."

I think you are thinking of only the expression of free speech when it comes to voicing your opinion in a public forum, i.e. persuading others of one's opinion. If that is the case, then expression of speech becomes dependent on someone else to hear that speech, and I would agree that that would beg the issue of self-identification as a precursor.

I am looking at expression of thought in its infant stages - when there are no other agents present. Rights exist independent of others, or so I am told, so I am examining the concept of freedom of expression within that sphere - an absence of other agent entities. Within that absence, there would be only one agent: one entity with the cognizance of self separate from environment. But is recognizing one's own bounds by definition "ownership"? I don't think so. Again, ownership is a result of responsibility and ability to act, which are dependent on not only thought, but the ability to turn thought into motion, i.e. expression. Without action, there is no ownership because there is no responsibility and no expression. Ownership is void under these circumstances.

Thus I can only conclude that ownership is subsequent to
A) thought itself,
B) recognition of self separate from environment,
C) capacity to affect environment (i.e. motion, energy conversion, etc.) and
D) conscious acceptance of responsibility for some part of the environment.

Blarman we may be talking on different planes. You seem to be making a sort of metaphysical epistemology argument.

This discussion is about natural rights, ethics, and politics. Show me how free speech lead logically to property rights, to understanding why murder is wrong, burglary, contracts, torts, etc. All of this and free speech follow from property rights and self-ownership. From free speech nothing follows. Does free speech mean you have to give me a microphone, a printing press, a radio station?

Yes, but this is a reactive measure to self-identification and separation from one's environment, is it not? One can not own what one has not identified and separated from environment. And ownership in and of itself is meaningless. Ownership implies responsibility to ACT with respect to the identified entity. So as thought must of necessity precede action, I can only conclude that ownership is a result of thought and not a precursor. Thus primacy remains with thought.

Expression of that thought similarly is the conscious act of manipulation of one's environment to some degree or another. Now I can readily see the argument that by the very act of manipulation one is similarly claiming "possession" or "ownership" of any item one manipulates - even if only temporarily. The expression to interact presupposes both the capability and the permissibility to act, but again, both suppositions are the result of thought - not the result of possession because until one actually attempts to manipulate the entity within the environment, one actually does not assert one's "ownership", which I assert is only evidenced by action on its behalf. Thus I must conclude that property rights are an assertion based on expression of thought.

good points. but in order to own your thoughts don't you have to take ownership of yourself?

Free speech is a result of free thought, which holds primacy. It is only through thought that we even recognize ourselves independent from our environment. Then we have to choose how we are going to react with our environment - also a matter of thought. Free speech is the right and ability to choose how to interact with our environment. Property rights install bounds on what I may do and with what. Thus speech holds primacy over property rights.

There's a 19 yr old, born at home with a mid wife, and then home schooled that is having a terrible fight right now in TX trying to prove here identity. Apparently her Mom was pissed when she moved out into the real world and won't provide whatever's needed to satisfy the government.

Even papers to fly across a state.

I remember being weirded out by that. My sister in law left the hospital not yet settled on a name (procrastinators) somehow she slipped through the cracks. She had to turn it all in to the hospital when she went back for the PKU. I can't remember how much time passes before you get that.

Excellent speech.

"CG says somehow his kids left the hospital without them having filed anything. "
I didn't mean to say that. They had SSNs early b/c we opened an investment account the months they were born. They probably did get them at the hospital b/c I don't recall taking newborns to a gov't office. I was extremely sleep-deprived, so who knows.

I was born in '75, and I seem to remember being around ten (10) when I got my SSN.

That is an experience I am glad to have missed, but it still irks me that someone is 'not allowed' to take their child home unless they jump through some hoops. (Unless the baby is on life support or some such, of course.)

Jan

I never tried it. :( CG says somehow his kids left the hospital without them having filed anything. I think it has given rise to lots of off the grid families who give birth at home not to get birth certificates or SS numbers. I remember how excited I was when my mom and dad took me t the post office, we got the forms, filled them out and then the card came. It seemed like a grownup right of passage. now I know better lol

Good comments, Zenphamy.
Your id is your essence. To destroy your id is to destroy your essence. ("anti-human.")
O.A.

Really?!

What if you just pick up the baby and walk away?

Yikes.

Jan

I like K's question. It is a version of the old chicken/egg question. In the case of free speech vs. property rights, pretty easy to figure out which came first, but which is more important is another issue. Property rights without free speech is unsustainable, but free speech without property rights means that there's nothing to free speech about. 'Tis a puzzlement!

white house muslim.

yes, it is an argument that ends up losing freedom, taken to the absurd, I do not have to leave my house or give birth in a hospital. But the govt can impose martial law and your baby isn't going home until you filled out the Social security information and turned it in.

Riding a horse or walking on a road does not require a license. Driving a car on a road does require a license, which is often stated to be 'a privilege, not a right'. So when did 'use of a road I have paid for by my taxes' become a 'privilege'? Why do I have the right to use that road using Mesolithic methods of transportation but not using modern methods of transportation? When did riding in a commercial transport that uses government organizational superstructure that I have paid for with my taxes become a 'privilege'? I do not 'have to' get on an airplane to travel; I do not 'have to' get into a car to use a road. But that is what I want to do.

Maybe I should just ride my horse amongst the clouds, eh?

Jan

"free speech rights support property rights." if you have property rights you can derive free speech, but not the other way around. The purpose of free speech is to protect the primary things which are important-the right to yourself, for example. While people focus on cartoonists having freedom of speech, they completely miss that by 2016 you will need "papers" in order to fly across a state line.

I have had the pleasure of meet Yaron and spending time with him. He is as good as it gets when someone is needed to present the ideas of Ayn Rand.

Unfortunately he will never get though to the muslim world or muslims in general. he certainly will never get through to the white muslim. The all do not think at all. Thinking is not something the muslim world choses to try.

As he says in the talk, free speech rights support property rights.

Much of it seemed obvious, but that's his point, I think: the enlightenment gave us these things that we now take for granted. And there are people today who want to go back to the dark ages.

I liked the part about free speech under attackin Europe. I haven't been to continental Europe in in 15 years, but one thing that struck me was how people thought exceptions to free speech related to the Holocaust were fine. According to Brook, it's gotten worse since then.

I had mixed throughts on his call for US presidents to respond with aggressive language to anyone who threatens someone because of something he says or writes. I like to think any president thinks that and maybe writes a scathing "you don't dare!" message, but he deletes it and writes a measured political response. I'm glad Brook raises the question: if gov't's only legitimate job is to protect liberty, why pussyfoot around when someone threatens it.

I didn't like his comparison at the very end of gov't profiling in search for a specific murderer out on the loose to a blanket right to question anyone who looks guilty of something. He immediately says a blanket policy could be taken overboard, and he's not for that.