So here's the basic problem with your attitude: it proceeds from comprehending only your half of a fundamental equation. You feel no responsibility toward those less fortunate than yourself, but at the same time you expect them to feel a general responsibility to respect your property rights. Why should they? Because it's in the Bible or written in law books? In the wild there are no property rights, no individual freedoms. What keeps the poor from your door when they realize that the responsibility is one-sided?

> In the wild there are no property rights

In the wild there is ownership (or possession), and animals defend it with brute force. Property rights regulate this and tend to enforce the concept of ownership in a civilized way.

Without property rights, we'd be back to defending ownership with violence, even on the individual level. Few people want that, and I'm not one of them.

No, there is no "ownership" in the wild. Posession is not ownership. Ownership is a concept. Posession is a physical fact. Any connection between the two is based on ideas in your head.

By the way, we are not at risk of going back to defending ownership with violence, for the simple reason that we haven't left that situation. Property is defended with violence and the threat of violence every day in the most civilized of countries. That's what police and prisons are: violence.

> By the way, we are not at risk of going back to defending ownership with violence, for the simple reason that we haven't left that situation. Property is defended with violence and the threat of violence every day in the most civilized of countries. That's what police and prisons are: violence.

True. That's why I added "even on the individual level". It's difficult to explain what is different about the way say a lion defends his territory by attacking any intruder and the way a man defends his house by calling the cops when burglars show up, but I'm sure there is a difference, and I believe it makes sense to say that one of the method is civilized when the other is not.

What a repellent atitude. "Fuck you got mine" in all its glory.

I'd rather sum it as "live and let die"

I wonder, does the suffering of your fellow man mean nothing to you? Make you feel bad? How do you manage to feel such callous disregard for the agony of others? I'm really curious about how one can be so coldly and consciously cruel.

"suffering", "agony". It's not like we're talking about people being tortured.

Right, even torture has some legal limits. One cannot deprive someone from sleep, food, or clean water for longer than certain reasonable periods during torture, poverty on the other hand has much less certainty.

Oh, so edgy. I bet you'll howl the minute you think your property rights are being infringed, though.

Again, disappointed. This attitude is the source of so many of the world's problems.

The only thing stopping someone stronger than you taking all your stuff are the rules society makes up. That's reality.

Those rules are enforced with an even stronger force than any individual can muster.

Fair point. I guess Reality is what we make of it, so I stand corrected.