> [Terry and Tom, et al,
> I'd like to say how much I appreciate participating in this
> thread. I might often seem bullheaded, but what I am actually
> doing is getting myself a very good education about a very
> specific topic - the quality of which I could probably get
> nowhere else (at least around here).]
"Getting [and helping to give] a very good education about a very
specific topic" is pretty much my entire reason for participating in
this thread (believe it or not, I friggin' HATE arguing about abortion).
More broadly, here's the thing:
We libertarians tend to "hang around" with each other, online and off,
and even when we disagree with each other, we tend to operate from the
same premises and take certain of the same things for granted.
Then when we get into a real-world debate in real-world politics with
real non-libertarians instead of the imaginary ones we slay day in and
day out in our little virtual coffee klatch, we think we "won" because
we were right ... but we didn't convince everyone else we were right.
Everyone else doesn't take the same things for granted that we do, and
as a matter fact, many people take a lot of very different things for
granted. And we're sitting over here twiddling our thumbs and patting
ourselves on the back for being right and wondering why we got one
half of one percent of the vote ... AGAIN.
Trying to persuade someone of a final point when they haven't grasped
and accepted your foundational arguments is like trying to hang siding
on a house before you've poured the foundation. There's nothing to
hang it ON.
As an example -- and this is not intended to be a jab at Mr. Ireland,
who has recently used it, we've ALL used it -- I offer the argument
from premises of self-ownership. Mr. Ireland takes self-ownership for
granted. So do I. So do you.
For some, the acceptance of the idea of self-ownership as foundational
to our philosophy and politics may have been epiphanous or visceral --
we heard it, it clicked, we adopted it, we never looked back. For
others, that acceptance may have occurred after a painstaking process
of validation from other premises. But either way, once we've accepted
it, we seldom feel the need to look back at its foundations ... it
BECOMES part of the foundation of our own arguments.
For most non-libertarians, that acceptance has not occurred at all, or
at most it is only partial. Most non-libertarians probably haven't
thought about it much from that particular angle, and THEY take for
granted that others -- society, government, a fetus, whatever -- has
some ownership stake in them and in everyone around them.
Until you've convinced them of the argument FOR self-ownership, any
argument you make FROM self-ownership might as well have been made in
bad Swahili for all the good it's going to accomplish. IF, THEN does
is not going to convince those who don't agree IF.
We have to be able to make arguments that people find persuasive. And
people will not find our arguments persuasive unless they accept the
same starting point for the arguments as we do.
Regards,
Tom Knapp
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