From: Michael Lorrey (retroman@together.net)
Date: Thu Oct 02 1997 - 17:28:59 MDT
Guru George wrote:
>
> On Wed, 1 Oct 1997 23:10:26 -0400 (EDT)
> Estacado66@aol.com wrote:
>
> >>Anyway, what do *you* think about the change of metaphor? It sure seems
> >less intuitively obvious that the woman has initiated coercion, than
> >when you think of some curmudgeon fencing in a bit of sod, doesn't it?<
> >
> >I've found through life experience and through extensive reading of
> >philosophy that "coercion" tends to be in the eye of the beholder.
> >Those who spin the right rhetoric and grease the right palms in
> >regards to their view of coercion get to create things we now
> >call "laws". Those of you that own a house or property and are
> >sure of your right to keep people out(because of laws,rights,etc.)
> >might want to ask a decendant of an American Indian what his
> >view on your "property rights" are.
> >
Well, we wouldn't think of considering our wives to be our property, but
the original Native American would. Despite the rhetoric of leftists,
and the claims of shamans, it is quite a mixed bag on the Native
American concept of ownership of land and other property. All recognised
a minimum concept that property inhabited and hunted by a tribe belonged
to the tribe as a whole, while others that did not live at such a
subsistence level and were not nomadic did acknowledge more individual
rights. This minimum concept as tribal land was the source of much
conflict among tribes. Less nomadic natives like the Iroquois and the
Algonquin did have established individual property rights that were in
their code of law that was administered by their organized government.
Europeans seem to look to Greece and Rome as the main source of
inspiration for the US model of government, but they are either not
aware of or ignoring the Iroquis Confederation that preceded the US
government by several hundred years, and is strikingly similar in
structure. The Articles of Confederation which preceded the US
Constitution by over a decade are in fact an extremely close translation
of the Iroquis Verbal Law as recorded in the late Iroquis period.
> Well I don't own a house, but if I did it wouldn't change my belief that
> in a lot of cases the land was, in the common definition of theft,
> stolen from the American Indians. That is precisely the gist of my
> argument.
>
> I don't think coercion is subject to as much doubt as you do. It is
> amongst leftists, but that's because they are so confused about it.;-)
>
However, after all this, I still don't understand why the concept of
implied threat of force as backing for rights of any kind is so
abhorrent. Humans are, after all, carnivores and the top predators on
this planet. It is our nature to be forceful. This is one more in a
never ending chain of examples of how liberals morality diametrically
opposes prosurvival behaviors which have proven their worth for millions
of years.
-- TANSTAAFL!!! Michael Lorrey ------------------------------------------------------------ mailto:retroman@together.net Inventor of the Lorrey Drive MikeySoft: Graphic Design/Animation/Publishing/Engineering ------------------------------------------------------------ How many fnords did you see before breakfast today?
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