competence, copyright, incorporation, free will

Harland Harrison wrote:

HH) It is absurd to define force and fraud as "attempts to make choices for others". (HH

The sentence in question doesn't attempt to define force and fraud.  It merely highlights the core feature of force and fraud that makes them objectionable.

HH) People have a right to take the risks they choose to take, and nobody else should have the power to judge their level of understanding. (HH

As the father of a 3-year-old, and a friend of couple stroke victims, I'll just have to disagree with you on this one.

HH)  if you want to increase the right to copy, it should say something like: "We SUPPORT the right to freely reproduce COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL when doing so ..." (HH

That would implicitly endorse the concept of copyright, which no LP platform has ever done.

HH)  You say your sentence is "not about copyright at all," and then say that "it's about e.g. the DMCA",  (which stands for the Digital Millennium Copyright Act). (HH

You chopped my phrase in half.  I wrote "e.g. the DMCA and reverse-engineering".  Wikipedia begins its summary of the DMCA like so: "It criminalizes production and dissemination of technology, devices, or services intended to circumvent measures (commonly known as digital rights management or DRM) that control access to copyrighted works. It also criminalizes the act of circumventing an access control, whether or not there is actual infringement of copyright itself."  These are the reasons that the DMCA is notorious, at least among technologists.

HH) The present laws give "producers" power to stop "consumers" from copying, but at least includes some limits on those powers.  Your addition appears to take all rights away from consumers. (HH

I give each side precisely the same right -- namely, the right to either engage in trade or decline to do so. It's simply bizarre to assert that repealing the DMCA would take away rights from consumers.

BH) It opposes all restrictions on private parties' ability to negotiate how they use information voluntarily disclosed to each other. (BH

HH) I can't understand what it means, why it applies to secret recordings but not blackmail for example. (HH

It means that if you voluntarily disclose information to me, you can't complain about me recording it or repeating it -- as long as I obey any terms we negotiated for the disclosure.

HH) No, the "risk" sentence only applies to "media and substances". (HH

No, grammatically the two clauses are peers, with the "and" just avoiding repetition of the "adults have the freedom and responsibility" preface.

HH) Whatever you mean [by "peaceful adults"] is unclear, and that does not "defends" candidates it leaves them open to more criticism. (HH

I readily concede that the two words "peaceful adults" won't let you build a machine that automatically separates the U.S. population into two non-overlapping groups. That's a trivial problem compared to the fact that our platform currently opposes all laws preventing children from buying guns. Some libertarians may favor the right of children to keep and bear arms, but most of us don't, and we don't want the LP accused of favoring that.

HH) just saying one person is "responsible" does not protect the citizens unless that person has enough money to pay for damages. (HH

I never said it did.  No language -- not even your "full insurance" -- can guarantee that no tort will ever cause damages beyond the tortfeasor's ability to arrange compensation. Would you have some government agency constantly monitoring each corporation for all its potential torts, and then comparing their risk exposure to the financial health of its insurers, and their re-insurers, etc.?

The point here is that incorporation allows a group of people to commit torts without any of them having the last-penny financial liability that at least one of them would have in the absence of the government's granting of corporate privilege. I still can't tell if you agree that the LP platform should oppose such privilege.

BH) What it opposes is subsidies for that. (BH

HH) Then don't single it out. (HH

It's one of the biggest subsidies, and third-party payments for routine healthcare are one of the biggest drivers of healthcare costs.

HH)  if an immigrant with an LA visa went to San Francisco he might get Healthy San Francisco medical care,and the proposed language says somehow he should be billed for that. (HH

That this language opposes migration-for-rent-seeking is a feature, not a bug.

BH) The pre-Portland platform's call for unrestricted immigration is gone, and won't be coming back in 2010. (BH

HH) How do you know?  Don't the delegates get any choice? (HH

The fact that it will be the choice of the delegates is how I know what the result will be.  To learn more about free will, see http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/compatibilism/.