Letter 1
From: The NAPster
Sent: Sunday, August 30, 2020 7:59 AM
To: Kenn Williamson ; Walter Block <[email protected]>
Subject: Typhoid Mary
Walter and Kenn:
Interesting discussion that you two are having.
I agree with Kenn in principle: libertarianism does not allow for punishing pre-crime (to use the term made popular in the movie, The Minority Report). Pre-crime is how most state regulation works: the state posits that action A might lead to damage, and thus prohibits action A, but that unnecessarily and immorally constrains all of those using their own property engaging in action A who don’t cause the theoretical damage. Only when damage is actually caused, or is imminent, is responsive force justified.
However, I would raise a slight issue with one thing Kenn said, namely, “Any person has the right to regulate who is coming into their property but they do not have the right to regulate the activity of others on their own property.” I think that it would be compatible with libertarianism to “regulate” (by which I assume Kenn means “use force against”) the activity of others on their own property if that activity were itself causing an invasion of one’s own property. So, to use Kenn’s example, if A had a fan that was blowing VINE-19 seeds onto B’s property, then B could use reasonable force to try to stop this. It would be no different than if A were firing bullets at B from A’s property.
Applied to Typhoid Mary, private-property owners could always exclude her from coming onto their property, but could only enter her property if she were somehow spewing forth her infectious disease from there.
Zack Rofer
Check out my book: Busting Myths About the State and the Libertarian Alternative
—
Kenn Williamson
Kenngineering LLC
Letter 2
From: Walter Block <[email protected]>
Sent: Tuesday, September 08, 2020 9:26 PM
To: ‘The NAPster’ ; ‘Kenn Williamson’
Subject: RE: Typhoid Mary
Dear Fellow Libertarians:
I don’t advocate punishing pre crimes. I suggest that violence is justified against threats.
Best regards,
Walter
Letter 3
From: Kenn Williamson
Sent: Monday, November 23, 2020 9:39 AM
To: Walter Block <[email protected]>; The NAPster
Subject: Re: Typhoid Mary
Dear Walter,
Are you wanting to discuss this more? I don’t disagree with the point that the NAP proscribes threats as well as violence.
I see how it would be legitimate to quarantine people who are “definitively” diagnosed as an asymptomatic carrier of the disease. However, my issue is with how such a determination could be made. It seems like it would be rife with well-intentioned mistakes as well as the possibility for serious abuse. So I would agree that it is legitimate to forcibly quarantine if we add the caveat that Rothbard has for pre-emptive law enforcement in general, namely that the enforcers would be open to false imprisonment, kidnapping, assault, and possibly murder (if the person died as a result of quarantine) charges if it was shown that the diagnosis of asymptomatic spread of the virus was false.
Best regards,
Kenn
On Mon, Nov 23, 2020 at 9:03 AM Walter Block <[email protected]> wrote:
https://www.lewrockwell.com/lrc-blog/threats-too-are-proscribed-by-the-nap/
Letter 4
From: Walter Block <[email protected]>
Sent: Monday, November 23, 2020 9:42 AM
To: ‘Kenn Williamson’ ; ‘The NAPster’
Subject: RE: Typhoid Mary
Dear Kenn:
I try to deal with this issue here:
Block, Walter E. and William Barnett II. 2008. “Continuums” Journal Etica e Politica / Ethics & Politics, Vol. 1, pp. 151-166, June; http://www2.units.it/~etica/; http://www2.units.it/~etica/2008_1/BLOCKBARNETT.pdf
Best regards,
Walter
3:58 am on April 9, 2021
