Definitions

I need to get this post out of the way and in preparation for my next post.

Our schools teach us legislative theory (how laws are passed) not political theory (whether or not passed laws are moral).  The country couples this boring issue with nationalism and lies about our "freedoms".  The result is a contradictory and incoherent populace in matters of politics.  If you want to see how Orwellian our society has become just tell someone that roads should be privatized and the department of education abolished; "Freedom is Slavery!" perfectly sums up the responses I've heard.  Anyway, it's difficult to have a discussion on political theory for more than 30 seconds before losing someone in simple vocabulary.

Natural Rights - I do not mean "absolute rights".  We are born into this world with nothing but our bodies and therefore our first right is to self.  Our parents homestead the right to raise us by giving us food and shelter, and when we are ready to homestead or buy our own property (which includes food and shelter) then we become adults and have rights to those things we have acquired in voluntary exchanges (e.g. land, food, money).

Anyone who uses our property or our bodies without permission is aggressing against us and is violating our natural rights.  In other words, to check to see if I have the natural right to murder or steal (as absurd as this sounds, it's the most common response I get when talking about rights) I have to see if I am violating anyone else's natural rights.  Obviously, if someone has homesteaded property and by default homesteaded their own body, murder and theft are a violation of someone else's natural rights and therefore not persimissible by the theory of natural rights.

Other non-trivial examples are helpful including pollution, yelling "fire" in a crowded theater, loud neighbors, slavery (voluntary vs coercive).  I won't elaborate on each one of those because I'd just be repeating Rothbard and Block.  Maybe I'll do that in another post.

Voluntary - This does not mean donation (I know, does this really need to be clarified?  Sadly, yes).  If I'm selling strawberries, someone might come by and want a half-flat (the unit by which strawberries are sold).  In a voluntary society he would just take his strawberries and then decide if he is willing to voluntarily give me some money, right?  That would be stealing, violating my property rights that I obtained from homesteading the strawberry field or buying them from a farmer.  Voluntary means that we can agree to exchange money for strawberries, or barter, or I can gift them to him.  If he does not want to pay the price I'm charging (say $100) then we agree that the exchange is not mutually beneficial.  If I coerce him into buying them (e.g. "buy my strawberries or I'll plug you") then the trade no longer is voluntary and I'm guilty of stealing his money.

Aggression - This is a very important term to get right.  It's the term I've had to clarify more than any others.  It is not a synonym for coercion; I can coerce someone without aggressing against them.  Aggression is violating someone's rights, an act of unprovoked violence or the initiation of violence.  If someone breaks into my house and I point a gun in his face then who's aggressing against whom?  The one breaking into my house is violating my property rights and I am now coercing him out of my house.  The intruder is the aggressor and my coercion is justified under the political theory of natural rights.

Homesteading - taking previously unowned property, mixing it with my labor, and producing something of utility.  This is difficult to understand in a densely populated world, but the "origination of property rights" is fundamental to libertarian theory and so homesteading is an important if somewhat abstract concept.

If I tend to a garden - water it, fertilize it, cover it during a freeze, etc - then I obviously have the right to what the garden bears, right?  Well, not necessarily.  I might have violated someone's property rights in order to raise this garden.  I might have known my neighbors were going to be on vacation for 4 months and so I tore down their house and planted my garden.  When they came back and locked me up I might say "Can't you see? I homesteaded this garden, it's mine!"  Why do they have the right to get restitution from me?  The home owners negotiated some deal to buy their house, the area developers negotiated a deal to buy some land prior to that, and some family of farmers homesteaded that land for 200 years before that and this is how we get to home ownership as a natural consequence of homesteading and voluntary exchanges.

Well, that's good for now.  Let me know what other terms I should add.