...and so on. Legitimate just means lawful. That law has been around since the founding of the country. It's lawful because the laws of a country apply to the territory of a country.
That's a tautology and doesn't establish anything. Certainly not anything factual. The 13 colonies had law. Before that, individual communities had law. America is a territory operating under elements of British common law going back several centuries.
Legitimate does mean lawful, but the law is as Thomas Jefferson put it, from God, not the state.
There can be nothing lawful about violating the rights of an individual, and yet you persist in arguing that the state is lawful and necessary, while at the same time trying to build a case for the illegitimacy of pollution.
I like the cognitive dissonance because it makes my job easy, but I am beginning to wonder if you even recognize that you are arguing against yourself.
You can't prove a direct causal link. I can't prove that a particle of pollution that came from you damaged me, but I can prove pollution in general damaged me.
And? Would that hold up in a court of law? Could you actually accuse someone of a crime if you can't prove who did it and how?
Can you list the elements of a crime?
Every citizen is a shareholder in the state.
There is no such thing as a citizen. A citizen trades an oath of loyalty in return for a duty of protection. The US Supreme court has ruled that there is no duty to protect on behalf of the government, or its agents. So there cannot be a citizen/state relationship.
Also, the shareholder stuff is just another assertion, one which doesn't make any sense. The American government has shareholders, and you aren't one of them.
Then where did it emerge from? Who created it?
Lots of ways. Conquest, original claim, purchase.
So you're saying the state is legitimate, or lawful, but that it can acquire land through violence. Are you then saying that violence is lawful?
If violence to seize property is lawful, then what isn't lawful?
Let me guess. Whatever the state says is not lawful.
By that argument, the Nazi extermination of Jews and undesirables was lawful. The Soviet genocide of the Ukrainians was lawful. The millions of deaths by Mao in China were lawful.
Is that really the argument you're making?
You own it as long as the state doesn't see a need to remove it from you. That might not fit your definition of ownership though.
Ownership is exclusive use. That's not my definition, that is the definition.
Thank you for acknowledging that we cannot own anything under the state.
A collection of things (individuals) behaving similarly. A collective behavior.
"Individual behavior that can be grouped similarly" is the definition of collective behavior.
Right, just an abstraction. Grouping is simply a mental abstraction.
Again, all human action is individual. To have collective action, the way a body acts collectively, would mean humans as individuals would cease to exist. This is the goal of collectivism, or socialism, which quite frankly, is the doctrine you seem to support.
You can find the sources of pollution. It's at every tailpipe, every smokestack, every drainage pipe. But you can't necessarily find the source if you have no authority to enter property to look for it. You also can't always prove direct causality.
I have linked you to an article explaining how property rights solves these issues, and where there is no direct causality, how can you direct blame?
Once again, you're proposing a guilty until proven innocent type system that shifts the burden of proof onto people who cannot possibly prove their innocence. What you are arguing, over and over, is a logical fallacy called an argument from ignorance. It's not even good rhetoric, so I don't understand why you persist.
So if my paint peels due to acid rain, who do I go after pay for my damages? Really, who? The polluter? It's everyone.
Including yourself?
I don't deny any of that. I just disagree with your viewpoint on it. I think private property denies people access to and travel through the land, which I feel is wrong.
The common law addressed this.
But don't you see the irrationality of your position? It is ok for people to travel, but it is not ok to own a car or bicycle if the state says it isn't.
When I go into the woods and see 'private property - no trespassing' signs, or I'm walking on the beach and come to a private section of beach, it upsets me. No one would stop an animal from going where it pleases, why should I be stopped?
I have a few thoughts on this.
1. Animals cannot go where they please. We don't live in forests. You're welcome to want to be an animal, but if you live in society and try to behave like an animal, you will be killed.
2. Why do you have trouble respecting what is acquired justly by others. On the one hand, you say it is ok for the state to acquire things, then on the other hand, you argue against people acquiring things.
3. As in #2, you come off as being fundamentally anti-human. Anti-human rights, anti-progress, and anti-peaceful exchange. As you have said I should climb into a boat, if you really believed that, why haven't you gone to live in some forest? You obviously reject all civility and modernity. You don't seem to like other people, and you have little interest in respecting their rights to exist peacefully and pursue their own happiness.
4. Property rights are necessary to avoid conflicts. How would you like it if we all moved into your house, and ate your food, and wore your clothes? The truth is, you reject property when it inconveniences you, but I really doubt you would allow everyone to use, take and occupy that which you call your own.
I mentioned earlier in this thread or another that you do not respect the golden rule. This will put you perpetually into conflict with other people and civil society at large.
And therein lies the problem. In the case of pollution, harm can be proven.
In a court of law, harm alone is not sufficient.
But you cannot prove who exactly did it.
So you don't have a case.
Otherwise, rape victims who can't remember their assailant could charge every man for having a penis.
You know A causes B, you know X is doing A, but you cannot prove X is directly responsible for B. It is however, highly likely, that X contributes to B to some degree. Therefore I contend that X shares responsibility for B, and that regulation is then justifiable.
That's another non sequitur where you assume the answer. You can't prove that they are responsible, so you just contend it. Which is another way of saying you have proven something which you just admitted has no proof.
I still want you to answer how you have shifted the burden of proof and how that is going to work with our dispute resolution traditions.
If I accuse you of child molestation because it happens, and you have a penis, how will you prove you did not?
If I accuse you of acid rain, when you accuse me of acid rain, how will you prove your innocence?
Substantive answers please, I am going to start skipping the parts of your responses where you repeat yourself without adding anything new.
