Surprise! Walter Block is still a raving lunatic.
From Libertarianism vs Objectivism; A Response to Peter Schwartz, Reason Papers, Summer 2003.
Suppose that there is a starvation situation, and the parent of the four year old child (who is not an adult) does not have enough money to keep him alive. A wealthy NAMBLA man offers this parent enough money to keep him and his family alive – if he will consent to his having sex with the child. We assume, further, that this is the only way to preserve the life of this four year old boy. Would it be criminal child abuse for the parent to accept this offer?
Not on libertarian grounds. For surely it is better for the child to be a live victim of sexual abuse rather than unsullied and dead. Rather, it is the parent who consents to the death of his child, when he could have kept him alive by such extreme measures, who is the real abuser.
The Prime Directive 
I was molested as a child, and I can tell you it sure as hell isn’t as bad as starving to death. I’m still here. The kid who starves to death is done. And it is a miserable painful death.
And if you to disagree with me, you’re saying that you’d rather I be dead, which would be revealing about your character.
Uh yea… talk about completely missing the point, Anonymous. Selling your children to NAMBLA fans is not being proposed as a serious solution to child poverty.
“The kid who starves to death is done. And it is a miserable painful death.
And if you to disagree with me, you’re saying that you’d rather I be dead, which would be revealing about your character.”
The point is that child abuse and selling your children to criminals are crimes, even if these crimes are lesser crimes than leaving your child starving to death.
Block and his ancap lackeys are idiots when they support child labor (even if it’s not the business of the State to rule against it in other countries), child slavery and child prostitution.
Yeah, he’s got a nice false dilemma fallacy going there. Where’s “beg for money” or”steal money to buy food” or just “steal food” in the fathers options? No, it’s either whore the kid out, or he dies.
Back when the awesomeness of torture was all the media talked about, you regularly had these guys show up on TV to relate this ridiculously melodramatic 24-inspired “ticking bomb” scenario. It was weird, no matter what facts were being related, they would always bring up this insanely contrived situation where you had NO CHOICE but to strap electrodes to some guy’s testicles.
But as somebody pointed out, you could probably come up with some really contrived scenario where lives were at stake and you just HAD to expose yourself to a room full of children to save them, but if you keep bringing this scene up again and again, talking breathlessly about it? People are going to suspect it’s not really about saving lives with you.
” Where’s “beg for money” or”steal money to buy food” or just “steal food” in the fathers options? No, it’s either whore the kid out, or he dies.”
I agree!
Yeah, and even if you do suppose that, say, the father has no arms or legs and can’t beg for some reason, his choices are still
A) actively harm his own child for food right now or
B) passively allow the child to be harmed by continued starvation for the next three weeks or so.
During that time, some better alternative could easily come up, since it takes quite a while to starve. Maybe a week from now, a non-pedo benefactor might show up, in which case the “objective” person would have *whored his own son out for nothing.*
This scenario is really a stretch.
It’s not a stretch, it’s a fucking retarded scenario. I can’t ever, EVER think of a social situation, save for a rape scene where someone was holding a gun to your head, where the only options were 1) succumbing to rape and 2) DEATH.
I’m beginning to think that Walter Block just comes up with these stories in order to make libertarians look like assholes.
Leanna, the idea of Walter Block being a double-agent is actually very credible, but that would mean he’s been pretending for more than 40 years. Sadly, Occam’s Razor tells us the alternative is more likely.
Easy solution……………..Take the money from the rich guy and give it to the poor family and then shoot the rich SOB in the head for wanting to have sex with a child!!! Problem Solved, just ask RED CHINA how THEY woukd handle this situation.
The child a family live and we rid the world of more SCUM quick and fast.
Joyce
I’ve never been able to work out whether Walter Block is actually evil, just stupid or enjoys playing devils advocate too much.
At first, I was like “well, child prostitution could hypothetically be voluntary”, but then I found out Block was talking about a four year old. Fuck you, Walter Block.
Also, is it just me, or does this whole scenario imply a positive right to life which overrides the negative right of non-aggression?
“I’ve never been able to work out whether Walter Block is actually evil, just stupid or enjoys playing devils advocate too much.”
I don’t think he’s playing devil’s advocate. I think he really believes the bullshit that he writes. Whether he is evil or extremely stupid is a matter that shall probably remain under debate forever, although I would tend to take the “extremely stupid” option as a default unless it was proven otherwise.
[…] explicaré detalladamente. Todo viene a raíz de un artículo de Francois Tremblay (que puede verse aquí), en el que llama “lunático” a Walter Block y posteriormente reproduce lo siguiente de […]
[…] wealth earned by others constitutes theft and does not help them in any case. Sexual harassment and child rape advocate Walter […]
I know that this conversation is a bit old but I felt like there was a lot of hate aimed at Block because of his arguing style, not because the point made was incorrect. He does have a tendency to use argumentum ad absurdum in the most vicious way possible and quite often it upsets the pathos of his audience. There should never be any situation in which a 4 year old must be whored out in order to live but if there were, it would be in the interest of the 4 year old to keep living so he would have to be whored out. Block would disagree with the morality of the people who are taking advantage of the situation (the solicitor of sex) but economist do not argue about morality but instead assume that the market will provide the best answer to societal pressure. His use of the murder amusement parks and his talks about impoverished black people have gotten him into a ton of trouble in the past but I think his aim is to bring ethical topics to the forefront in a way that disregards (often violates) emotional responses.
There’s so many things wrong with what you said, I don’t even know where to start.