The basis of self-ownership is the fact that each person has direct control over the scarce resource of his body and therefore has a better claim to it than any third party (and any third party seeking to dispute my self-ownership must presuppose the principle of self-ownership in the first place since he is acting as a self-owner).

My basic approach is to recognize that mainstream legal theories of contract have been muddied by unlibertarian and positivistic conceptions of law and rights. Questions about what rights are "alienable" or not, loose talk about how promises should be "binding," etc., highlight the need for clarity in this area. In my view, to sort these issues out one needs a very clear and consistent understanding of the nature of property rights and ownership.

The roots of copyright lie in censorship. It was easy for state and church to control thought by controlling the scribes, but then the printing press came along and the authorities worried that they couldn't control official thought as easily.

To be an anarchist only means that you believe that aggression is not justified, and that states necessarily employ aggression. And, therefore, that states, and the aggression they necessarily employ, are unjustified. It's quite simple, really. It's an ethical view, so no surprise it confuses utilitarians.

We must recognize that only scarce resources are ownable; second, that the body is a type of scarce resource; third, that the mode of acquiring title to external objects is different from the basis of ownership of one's own body.

I was always interested in science, truth, goodness and fairness. I have always been strongly individualistic and merit-oriented. This is probably because I was adopted and thus have always tended to cavalierly dismiss the importance of "blood ties" and any inherited or "unearned" group characteristics.

Because the state necessarily commits aggression, the consistent libertarian, in opposing aggression, is also an anarchist.