Power Couple Religion and Politics File for Divorce! (News of the Week/Month, Feb. 10, 2013 Edition)

Lol! Great cartoon Norman. Good to see you posting!

Just read the abortion article. I believe the writer is absolutely right. Abortion is a pretty clear violation of the NAP and should be punished exactly the same as any other murder. Of course, it is a crime that’s easy to get away with, but that’s not really relevant to anything. You can only do what you can do. And that is to punish it when you can prove that it happened, however rare.
The “Contract” argument seems a bit weak in the case of rape, however. I’ve taken the position that its not really justified (To force a woman to carry the pregnancy in cases of rape) but that murder is even more unjustified and so still ought to be a crime, albeit one with very strong mitigating factors in that case.
Also, I don’t think Walter Block actually said that evictionism is “The only libertarian position on the issue.” Block has acknowledged Ron Paul as a libertarian even though Ron Paul takes the pro-life position. And I recall to one of Block’s blog posts on LRC recently saying that there isn’t necessarily any libertarian position on abortion (It was when he was basically asking aloud why that Jonas guy was saying he wasn’t a libertarian.)
Of course, Block does believe evictionism is the correct theory, and I believe he’s incorrect on that issue. I don’t agree with him on voluntary slavery either. And then there’s the fact that I’m not an anarchist. But hey, if we all agreed with each other on everything it wouldn’t be as fun:)

I assume he did pick the title, especially since IIRC most of LRC does take the pro-life position. Its funny since I know he’s also said that abortion is an unsettled issue in libertarianism. Perhaps he’s being rhetoritcal there, like when he calls the Democrats commies? (Technically they aren’t communists, as much fun as it is to call them that).

In any case, I believe when you choose to bring a child into this world you have a duty to it. In most cases, after the child is born you can give the child up for adoption but in a theoretical case where you could not do so, you’re still definitely a criminal if you leave that child out on the street to die. It is, of course, difficult to define where childhood ends and adulthood begins, and I doubt there’s a perfect answer to the question, but I think such an age should be defined somewhere (I don’t see anything horribly wrong with 18) beforewhich parents do have to have a responsibility for their own children, or ensure that someone else does.

The logical conclusion of “Evictionism” is that after your child is born you can evict them from your house as long as you don’t kill them. Block actually agrees with this conclusion as long as the world is adequetely informed. He’s probably right that if the world was informed someone would probably take the child, at least unless it started happening all the time, but I think Block is, in fact, endorsing contract violation here. So did Rothbard. They just don’t/didn’t realize it.

Regarding rape, in that case only the rapist has a true contract, but even so, murder is worse than rape, and killing an innocent child is not self-defense. So it should not be legal in that case either, although this is admittedly trickier. However, if the rapist can be found, he should be imprisoned and forced to work to pay for the child’s upbringing, as well as damages to the woman just because he commited a crime against her.

I used to tell people “Kill the rapist, not the child.” Killing someone in retaliation for rape (As opposed to murder) may in fact be a violation of the NAP but I think the spirit of the comment still stands.

I think gun control may be 2013 issue-of-the-year, much like the TSA was the issue two years ago. It should be quite interesting to see how the story develops overall, and this is a good chance to express some serious dissatisfaction with the general regime.

I’ve talked with Walter a bit about this in the past, and I think he is rather circumspect of his own views. Yes, he thinks he is correct, but if he were presented with a better argument he would change his position.