Quote:
Originally Posted by OccultHawk
I think everyone should be able to live without being hassled by the man or anyone else. That's why I try not to hassle people. I admit that government can and does help people who are being hassled unfairly. I don't believe that everything government does is bad. I would still rather live a life ungoverned and fend for myself, even if I couldn't manage. I would like to take my chances in the wild of freedom.
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Essentially a libertarian perspective, as I interpret it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by OccultHawk
I don't think you should 'own' something just because you paid for it. I think you own it if you have a real connection. I think I own my apartment not my landlord who legally owns it. Nobody owns the **** in a Walmart and that's why taking 'their' stuff for free isn't stealing.
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That last conclusion doesn't follow even from your initial premises.
To make things clearer we should perhaps consider what it really means to 'own' something, because that seems somehow bypassed and misinterpreted. Simply put, owning something means that you have the exclusive right to use it. Stealing something is one way of violating that right, simply by taking it away from said owner. To buy something (i.e. exchanging values) is to gain ownership which means that you legally secure your right to use it at any given time.
In a store (like Walmart in your example) the goods on the shelves are owned by either the store owner or by the producer who rents a certain space to put up their goods for sale. The 'use' in such cases is not actually using the goods for what they were made for, eating the bread, brushing your teeth with the toothbrush, wiping your bottom with the toilet paper etc., but the use of it all is to be sale commodities which is just another instance of the ownership. The ultimate value of a given commodity is pending while owned by the store, as is the money we pay for them with to gain ownership, but they are definitely 'owned' and thus it's stealing if you violate the store owner's/the producer's exclusive right to use the commodities (i.e. putting them up for sale).