See posts from Adam Haman below.
Related: re the Flagpole:
— Adam Haman (@Rerazer) November 15, 2025
Adam Haman, David Friedman, LiquidZulu, and two errors in understanding the Non-Aggression Principle., Haman Nature substack (Nov 15, 2025)
Hey folks!
I don’t normally visit you on a weekend, but this article was bubbling up inside me today and out it sprang! Enjoy!
A couple days ago, I criticized something LiquidZulu (LZ) (@liquid2ulu) said in a recent video critical of Dave Smith (@ComicDaveSmith). My article in full is here.
The statement in question was this:
“Give it a shot, Dave. Ask me any hardcore NAP question and watch me bite the bullet like you’re incapable of doing. Watch me tell people to their face they should not steal a penny to stop the Martians from blowing up the entire planet.”
I thought that was silly and said as much.
Of course, steal the penny. Save the Earth. You have committed a crime, so prepare for the legal consequences. I would hope both the victim and any judge would take the extenuating circumstances into consideration, but if not, so be it.
Law and morality are not necessarily identical in all cases.
LZ saw my post and claimed I ignored a different video (that he mentioned) wherein he demolishes my criticism. Fair enough. I checked out that video. You can as well, if you like here. The relevant section begins around the 1:25:00 mark.
It’s a good video and I agree with much of it, but I also believe that LZ has made an error in his understanding of the Non-Aggression Principle (NAP) and what it is.
Twin errors about the NAP:
Error 1) Reject the NAP entirely.
There are some libertarians (David Friedman, famously) who think the NAP is useless, since it doesn’t prescribe what you should/will do in each and every situation, and is therefore useless.
Friedman likes to give the example of a neighbor of yours who lives on the 9th floor of an apartment building and has a flagpole sticking off the balcony. You live above him on the 10th floor. He has told you often (perhaps even in writing) that you do not have his permission to touch his flagpole under any circumstances.
Suppose, then, you accidently fall off your balcony and will perish unless you grab onto your neighbor’s flagpole. Obviously you will do so, revealing a performative contradiction of principle. Therefore David Friedman et al think the NAP is a dumb, useless fiction.
This reveals a basic misunderstanding of what the NAP is. The NAP is not primary. It relies on a libertarian understanding of property rights, without which we wouldn’t be able to define what actions constitute aggression.
We then use this principle along with the libertarian understanding of property as the foundation for a legal system (see my original article for citations on this point).
Let’s return to Friedman’s example.
You will almost certainly grab that flagpole and be in violation of the law. You will owe some kind of restitution or penalty or what have you. Ideally, non-insane judges or arbitrators will examine the context, look at your neighbor, shake their heads, and be lenient with you.
Error 2) NAP “maximalism”.
There is another group of libertarians who are similarly confused about the NAP, but in an almost inverse way. These people (LZ, et al) view the NAP as more than just the principle underlying a legal system and a political philosophy, but rather a maximum moral prohibition on all actions involving other people and their property, with zero exceptions.
These people admit that the NAP does not say what you should do in all cases, but it does say what you may not do in all cases. In this “NAP maximalist” view, they would say (for example) that one “shouldn’t steal a penny, even if doing so will save the Earth from complete destruction”.
I say that’s completely silly. Legality is one thing. Morality is another. Often they intersect, but not always.
In this wildly improbable scenario, I submit that the moral thing to do is to steal that penny, save the Earth, and then admit to the crime, apologize to the victim, make restitution, and hope they (or appropriate judges or arbiters) take these exigent circumstances into consideration.
A proper understanding of morality and law clears up this confusion.
I’d love to see more libertarian theorists who have a deep understanding of law. We have the great Stephan Kinsella (@NSKinsella) of course, but we need more. These misunderstandings of what the NAP is are category errors – people misunderstanding the nature of law and that of morality.
In the flagpole scenario, or the steal-a-penny scenario, or any lost, starving, and freezing in the woods scenario, NAP maximalists insist that one should never violate the NAP, regardless of all context and proportionality. I say they these people are confused – sort of trapped in a logic loop.
I freely admit that stealing the penny, or grabbing the jerky neighbor’s flagpole, or unlawfully entering the cabin are crimes, for which I will take my lumps. But to say it is immoral to do these things, and lose my life, or my family’s lives, or the lives of everyone on the entire planet, is to make a serious ethical mistake — at least in these extreme cases.
The reason I will stand for my crime is that I have broken the law. Period. And while I think it was justified, I may be wrong. I am not omniscient. I can’t just shrug and say, “Yeah, I stole the penny, but it was for a good cause. So, there!”
No. I broke the law. I will plead my case and hope the courts see things my way, or that my “victim” forgives my trespass. If I’m considered to be wrong, then so be it.
Another example to spark (so to speak) intuition: It’s (probably) morally right to trespass into your neighbor’s house (even if he hates you and previously said you must NEVER come on his property) to save the man’s child, if the child is trapped in a burning house w/ nobody else around to help.
Right? C’mon… right?
Let’s not “armchair logician” our way into lunacy and barbarism, shall we?
I say one should break the law in emergency cases – when it makes sense to you. Admit to the illegality. Perhaps you were justified, perhaps you weren’t. But the NAP, incredibly useful as it is as a principle upon which to build a legal/political foundation, does not tell one how to act in each and every circumstance.
I suspect things would become more clear if everyone involved/interested were to read The Foundations of a Free Society by Stephen Kinsella. Heck, perhaps one day we can all live in a society based on The Universal Principles of Liberty, or similar.
Naturally,
Adam
***
Misunderstanding the NAP: LiquidZulu attacks Dave Smith… and punches himself in the face. Adam Haman Nov 13, 2025
Misunderstanding the NAP: LiquidZulu attacks Dave Smith… and punches himself in the face.
I just watched (because I’m a masochist) a video over 3 hours in length by a fellow with the handle “LiquidZulu (LZ)”. He used that time to blast Dave Smith for being unsound on libertarian theory and “afraid to debate him” or something.
I don’t know LZ and I am uninterested in his beef with Dave. Dave can handle that business himself.
But I was interested in something LZ said that seems not only wrong, but batshit insane.
In a segment (around the 1:15:00 mark) where LZ was lambasting Dave for being wishy-washy (or unknowledgeable) about the Non-Aggression Principle (NAP) he said the following:
“Give it a shot, Dave. Ask me any hardcore NAP question and watch me bite the bullet like you’re incapable of doing. Watch me tell people to their face they should not steal a penny to stop the Martians from blowing up the entire planet.”
Welp, that statement is just nuts, folks. And it’s also a huge misunderstanding of the NAP.
The NAP is just a shorthand term for a libertarian legal theory that is based on property rights*. It states the principles that are at the heart of a libertarian legal order. It says (or roughly points to, as principles do) what the law should be.
See the magnificent new Universal Principles of Liberty recently created by Stephen Kinsella (and others) for a taste of what I’m talking about. Or see here. And for a fuller explanation, see Kinsella’s magnificent Legal Foundations of a Free Society, chapters 2, 6, and 14.
According to libertarian theory, it is illegal for you to steal the penny in order to (by your estimation) save the planet Earth from destruction by the Martians.
But does that mean (as LZ insists) that one “should not steal a penny” to prevent the Earth’s destruction and (presumably) the death of all humanity?
No. Of course not. Don’t be stupid.
LZ’s error is to insist that legality is identical to morality. That isn’t remotely true. The two things often align, but they are by no means the exact same thing.
I submit that the moral thing to do in LZ’s bizarre hypothetical is to steal the penny, save the Earth, and then confess your crime and prepare for the legal consequences.
Explain the (massive) exigent circumstances and throw yourself on the mercy of the court/victim/arbiter/what-have-you.
I’m guessing the punishment will be slight, if any. Perhaps you will have to apologize and return (or replace) the penny.
Libertarians are often ridiculed for being strident, and autistically blind to the real world outside their armchair philosophizing. LZ’s weird statement in this video is an example of why that caricature is often apt.
In an emergency situation, it is possible to violate the law and still have acted morally. It depends on the circumstances. It is also subject to interpretation and dependent on a complete moral theory, which libertarianism doesn’t pretend to be.
If my wife and I are stranded in the woods, lost, cold, and starving and come upon a locked cabin where food and shelter await within, we am not going to knock on the door, shrug, and walk further into the freezing woods cursing our bad luck if nobody was home to invite us in.
I’m going to violate the law (and the cabin owner’s property rights) and enter. We will eat his food and sleep under his roof and warm ourselves up with his blankets. Then, once the emergency is over, I’m going to admit to my violation of the law, beg forgiveness, explain why, and make restitution.
If the victim and/or the legal system punishes me — fine. I did, in fact, commit a crime.
But did I act immorally? That’s not clear. Is saving our lives “worth more” than the minor damage and theft ( for which I will happily reimburse the fellow) I caused? That’s unclear. Legally, I am in the wrong. Morally? That’s a deeper question.
In the case of the stolen penny versus the destruction of the Earth, I’m going to go out on a limb and say it was completely moral to steal that cent. Yes, illegal, according to libertarianism, but moral.
And of course it is moral, good, and proper to pay the penny back as quickly as you are able.
Libertarianism isn’t idiotic. It also doesn’t force us into mass suicide for lack of one penny.
What libertarianism is is a political philosophy that describes the principles for a legal order. Let’s not get nuts and let the Martians blow up the planet because our moms took a wee bit too much Tylenol during pregnancy.
Naturally,
Adam
*As Kinsella says in Legal Foundations of a Free Society (linked above) “The nonaggression principle is also dependent on property rights, since what aggression is depends on what our (property) rights are. If you hit me, it is aggression because I have a property right in my body. If I take from you the apple you possess, this is trespass, aggression, only because you own the apple. One cannot identify an act of aggression without implicitly assigning a corresponding property right to the victim.”
***
In last Friday’s article, I mentioned two groups of libertarians that I thought made near mirror-image errors about the Non-Aggression Principle (NAP).
In it, I said that some libertarians consider the NAP a moral absolute that should guide/restrict your behavior 100% in all conceivable situations, even going so far as to say that they wouldn’t steal one penny to save the Earth and everyone on it from being destroyed by space aliens.
There are other libertarians who say that since the NAP can’t tell a person what they should or shouldn’t do in 100% of all conceivable situations that it is therefore completely useless and should never be mentioned again.
It was this latter group that I mistakenly lumped David Friedman into.
In my opinion, the correct view of the NAP is that it is a moral principle that rests on a libertarian conception of property rights, and that these things together make a wonderful foundation for a libertarian legal system. I also pointed to works by the great libertarian legal theorist Stephan Kinsella to support my argument.
In regards the bizarre hypothetical created by a member of “group 1”, I said I’d go ahead and steal the penny, save the Earth, and rely on the kind understanding of my “victim” and any court/jury/arbiter that are called to consider the matter. Oh, and I’d repay the penny, of course.
Again, check out my article for a fuller explanation.
I lumped David Friedman into the wrong bucket based on a debate he had with the great Gene Epstein of the Soho Forum at PorcFest in 2023. The resolution was something roughly like: “The right way to persuade people of libertarianism is by showing that its outcomes are superior by their own standards, and not rely on the ‘flawed’ NAP”.
In his opening statement, David Friedman said that the NAP, as it’s usually presented, is an absolute rule. And if that’s the case, then nobody (including libertarians) believes in the NAP, as evidenced by the flagpole example (originally coined by Bill Bradford of Liberty Magazine) I mentioned in my previous article.
During the whole debate, David drags the NAP around the yard and kicks the heck out of it, which is why I misremembered his actual stance. What I forgot was his caveat about the NAP “as it is usually presented — as an absolute rule”.
David Friedman’s actual position on the NAP, which he made in a comment to my article on Substack is the following:
“My position is, and has been for a very long time, that the NAP is a useful rule of thumb but not an absolutely binding constraint, to be violated only when there is a very large cost to obeying it.”
I think “rule of thumb” is a rather drab way to describe a foundational principle of a legal order, but essentially, I think his view lines up exactly with mine.
So, I’m very sorry, David. My mistake.
I’ve invited David on my show Haman Nature to apologize “in person” and talk about this and other interesting things in the realm of economics or anarchism. I hope he accepts. I think he will. He’s a brilliant and fascinating man.
Naturally,
Adam
PS: I still think Gene Epstein argued the correct side in that debate. Check it out. If you do, you’ll notice I cribbed a lot of my arguments and perspective directly from him.
Thanks, Gene!
