Now, your proposed way to dismantle it isn't bad, but it should instantiate a more fundamental premise. First, you ignore in the attack of the Commons of Opportunity the very simple pointing out that in nature, work required no permission. Indeed, for all the wealth this nation offers, finding a job requires permission from a human being. No matter how much opportunity a job may offer that's better than nature, nature was glorious in not giving nor requiring permission. If you had a hand, you simply took the apple. No amount of silicon emblazing or leather luxury can make up for the simple joy that comes from absolute freedom where nature is the only judge of work, not another man.

But, let's skip past that. You attack my premise from the very core, don't you? You say that the state of nature was a brutal land, and that Americans "created value from nothing." Secondly, you said that "private property isn't the sin [I] make it out to be." You talk about how the state of nature and its resources was replaced by abundant opportunity. Let me dissect each one of these. After that, I'll talk about something grander.

I want to first stress that I never said that private property is a sin. Private property is not a sin. On the contrary, private property is one of, if not the, greatest things to ever exist. Saying that I think private property is a sin greatly mischaracterizes my argument. I cannot tolerate you mischaracterizing what I'm saying like that. I hold private property dear, and I am in no way saying and have not said anything to the contrary. The concern is not that private property is bad. Again, it is the exact opposite. The concern is the fact that private property has been stolen, it is based on the greatness and importance of private property.

Second, you say that my argument is based on a lie, but you fail to identify exactly what that lie is. You say it's because in America the state of nature was brutal, and Americans created a land of amazing property. But you leave out the fact that creating more opportunity in many ways does not matter if that additional opportunity leaves out the natural impartiality of that opportunity. No matter how generous an employer may be, you still need permission. You can start a business, but you need initial capital, and when once a man at least had the chance to accrue that by taking their own chances in nature (even if it was brutal), they now no longer even have that chance. This is unnatural. No amount of additional opportunities in the realm of iPhone, trucks, and medicine can equate to the fundamental impartiality, aside from any human judge, and where capital can be accrued from literally nothing, from raw nature–nothing can make up for that. I agree that if you leave the one principle of impartiality and from literal zero accrual aside, then there is far more opportunity that would make the equation balanced on your side. But human beings derive value from work fundamentally not from the dollar amount, which comes second, but from the fact they voluntary and of their own volition created that work without oversight, from natural nothingness.

But, let's step back a bit. No matter how many times I say this, you will disagree with me, because I think our disagreement is based on a more base grasp of what property and the state of nature is. Let's step back, and remember that private property is integral to my argument, because it is important and good. The very fact I love private property is why I argue this. I would argue you seem to hold private property in less regard. However, let us hold off on that question momentarily and step back a bit.

Picture the state of nature. I want to see where we agree and exactly, if wherever, we disagree. So, I'm going to ask you a few questions. I want you to carefully reply with whether you agree, yes or no, in your reply.

So let's picture the state of nature. In it, are there resources? Yes or no?

Okay, if you agree there are resources in nature, then, in this state, who owns them? Who owns the resources of the commons? You would probably agree nobody. Therefore, everybody owns them. That's why it's acceptable for anyone to pick an apple off of a tree and eat it, if they need it. You would have to agree that a man in nature has a right to pick an apple off of a tree, because otherwise you would argue all people should starve. He can do this because he, like everyone has an equal claim to it. It is the only reasonable explanation for why a man has a right to eat an apple off of a tree.

Of course, he cannot take more apples than he needs. He cannot take more apples than to fulfill some nobler purpose, like starting a garden. And he cannot take more from the common store than would leave it good for everybody else. Are you with me so far?

I think that is something we can all agree on. You can't disagree that a man has no right to eat an apple off a tree. You can't disagree that he can't take all the apples from everybody else so they'd starve. So our disagreement very likely extends elsewhere. But I want to establish first that we agree on these things. Don't we?

So, let's keep going. If we agree, we agree that in nature, the people have a right to the goods of the commons. They have a right to those goods and the fulfillment that comes from harvesting them, because of what we established and likely agree on. The right to these commons extends to every property of those commons: their plenty, their fulfillment of harvesting, and to the impartiality of their existence and reward. It's that last point I should have made more clear. But let's dissect that.

Do you agree that nature is impartial? Yes or no? When a man picks an apple off of a tree, he may fail, he may get eaten by a tiger, or he may not find that apple and starve. Yet nature is still always indifferent. That is what gives man such joy from picking the apple in that state. He may fail, but he will always fail naturally. Nature is not like a human deciding, through reason or some other human form, whether he will succeed in picking the apple. Everybody is equal under nature in this regard. So, you must agree that at least nature is indifferent.

So, we agree, if we do, that: nature is plentiful, nature is fulfilling, and (new) that nature is indifferent.

The rights that people have over the goods of nature extend over every portion of nature's goods. That they are plentiful, fulfilling, and indifferent.

Do we agree on that?

So, fast forward to today when there are no longer any commons; they have all been picked by the government and by others. A man cannot go out, like in a natural state, and "start a business." Starting a business in a true natural state would be like going out and picking apples yourself. But there are no more apples. To start a business today, you need some apple's already in possession. Do we agree on that? Do we agree that today, you cannot start a business from zero capital?

If we do, then that is a key difference. In nature, you could "start a business" from nothing, which is why it was so fulfilling. Today, you cannot. You must have some startup capital. That is unnatural. Remember that we hopefully agreed that in nature your rights over its fruits extended to all properties. Nature is fundamentally indifferent: it cares not what you want nor what you already have. Even if you have nothing, the apple tree does not care. But to start a business now, you must indeed have something. We probably agree that you need something to start a business, and that you don't need something to pick an apple tree, and that the rights to the commons extend to all its property, that one of those properties is indifference, and that indifference means indifference over what a person already possesses. Therefore, you cannot reject the conclusion that the vast opportunities today, no matter how glorious, violate the law of nature by not being indifferent: they require you to have startup capital, or ask for human permission.

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I said to be reasonable. You are mischaracterizing a few of my points, like by saying I'm missing the fact that a person can take many apples to create a garden, but I explicitly said you can take apples from nature in high numbers if it is for a higher purpose. Regardless, you're besides a few things like that being generally reasonable, and in an actual conversation with the opposition I might expect things like that to happen in the heat of battle, so I'll allow it somewhat.

But, how would I respond to this counterargument? Let's start by clarifying the things that were mischaracterized. For example, I would ask what your logic talking about who owns the common land of nature is based on. We arrive at the same conclusion, mostly, but you argue that nobody owns nature. This contradicts the Lockean principles on which this country was based, and on which all rights like liberty and property are based. Here, I will quote Locke's Second Book of Two Treatises of Government, the principles on which our rights were and are heavily based.

"25. God, who hath given the world to men in common, hath also

given them reason to make use of it to the best advantage of life and

convenience. The earth and all that is therein is given to men for the

support and comfort of their being. And though all the fruits it naturally

produces, and beasts it feeds, belong to mankind in common, as they are

116/John Locke

produced by the spontaneous hand of Nature, and nobody has originally

a private dominion exclusive of the rest of mankind in any of them, as

they are thus in their natural state, yet being given for the use of men,

there must of necessity be a means to appropriate them some way or

other before they can be of any use, or at all beneficial, to any particular

men. The fruit or venison which nourishes the wild Indian, who knows

no enclosure, and is still a tenant in common, must be his, and so his—

i.e., a part of him, that another can no longer have any right to it before

it can do him any good for the support of his life.

26. Though the earth and all inferior creatures be common to all

men, yet every man has a “property” in his own “person.” This nobody

has any right to but himself. The “labour” of his body and the “work” of

his hands, we may say, are properly his. Whatsoever, then, he removes

out of the state that Nature hath provided and left it in, he hath mixed his

labour with it, and joined to it something that is his own, and thereby

makes it his property. It being by him removed from the common state

Nature placed it in, it hath by this labour something annexed to it that

excludes the common right of other men. For this “labour” being the

unquestionable property of the labourer, no man but he can have a right

to what that is once joined to, at least "

You are correct that by mixing property with nature man gains an exclusive right to that resource. But the idea that nobody owns nature–what exactly was that based on? Is that just something you feel, that you made up? It's not based on the principles of this country or our rights. That's not a conservative position.

I could say more, and I can provide a full rebuttal, but first I want you to create a guide for how you'd rebut that premise, and begin by unraveling some things the opposition seemed to have simply got factually wrong. I think it's clear that if I am going to be successful, I need to go carefully step by step and provide sources for each and every individual claim.

Another example of that arduous step-by-step approach would be things like less logical jumps. Even if it does make sense, I need to go extremely slow so the opposition can get it irrefutably. For example, I state that there are resources in nature, and then prove that nature is impartial, it seems. But I then also state that nature is plentiful and fulfilling without proof. I don't think that directly came up in our disagreement, but it's things like that that contribute to my argument not being unassailable. But yes, it seems one of our disagreements is on this lack of proof. We agree that nature is impartial, but then you state that this impartiality is a bad part of nature, and that it's not what leads to it being fulfilling. So I need to prove why nature is fulfilling, and how it connects to impartiality. I can do that, but you can lay out a general roadmap as to how you'd do that.

It's this part, too, that confuses me. The opposition said "[y]ou have no right to indifference" (internal quotations omitted). That it's not a property to be owned or transferred. Then goes on to say it's a chaos to be overcome. First, whether or not you think chaos should be overcome is irrelevant in deciding whether a man possesses a property retained in its original form. If he possesses that right, it exists regardless of whether it should exist; that is a separate issue. I need to find a way to keep the opposition on track. He's bringing up points that are unrelated. I get what he's saying, but he's bringing up points for a different topic when talking about a single topic. I need to find some way to nail the conversation down to only the topics at hand. I think that goes back to being very deliberate, and step by step, painstakingly so, really, so that the opposition cannot get off track because the road I've laid out is so concrete. The thing is, the opposition seems to be blatantly wrong on the core issue of this point, that you have no right to indifference. If he focused on that and that alone, I could probably get them to see that. We agree that nature is indifferent already. Also, it's a basic deduction of the following:

1) An object that has properties possesses all of those properties no matter what shape the object assumes.

2) People who have a right over an object have a right over all that object's properties.

3) The fruits of nature have the properties of plenty, fulfillment, and indifference.

Therefore:

4) The various shapes the fruit of nature assumes, like being converted to orchards by government, retain their properties of plenty, fulfillment, and indifference, and

5) The people therefore necessarily have a right to the orchard's plenty, fulfillment, and indifference, in equal proportion to the amount they should expect to receive from genuine action in the state of nature from their labor.

That argument, if all its premises are correct, makes the conclusion seem to be guaranteed. Right? The problem is, again, in proving the premises. Take premise 3. I need to prove that:

The fruits of nature have the properties of plenty, fulfilment, and indifference.

I can attempt:

1) The fruits of nature are plentiful. This should be simple to accept, as apples seem to grow off of trees in plenty, berries off of bushes, and so forth. I cannot foresee this being denied.

2) The fruits of nature are fulfilling. This is where I begin to fall apart. How can I prove the fruits of nature are fulfilling? That's why my opposition gets a foot in the door. First, let's dissect this. Does man derive pleasure from picking an apple? The opposition at length described how brutal nature was, and how this was bad. I agree. Nature's brutality can be harsh. Yet, this is beside the question. The question does not have to do with all the time man fails to pick the apple, all of that harshness. The question is whether when the man does successfully pick the apple in nature, does he derive pleasure? Is that act of labor fulfilling? The answer must be yes, because it seems to be the very definition of pleasure: actions which advance one's life. The fact that man may fail for seemingly arbitrary reasons does not change the fact that when he succeeds, he is satisfied. If we focus only on whether the man derives pleasure from success in the apple, which is my only question and premise, then the answer is a simple yes. This is watertight, I think, if I can focus only on that one question. I need to be extremely clear that that is all the question is about.

3) The fruits of nature are indifferent. This is also important. The fruits of nature are indifferent in harvesting them. We already agreed on this, but I need to once again stress the importance of the single focus. The opposition got out of hand by mischaracterizing my argument, by saying "You speak of the joy of this impartiality as if it were a pleasant afternoon hike. The reality...is a life of constant, grinding fear" (internal quotations omitted). But again, that is not the question. The constant, terrible fear of nature with its tigers, snakes, and indifference have nothing to do when asking whether on those times the man does succeed in picking an apple, he is satisfied. And it has nothing to do with whether or not this indifference of nature is a good or bad thing. Nature is no afternoon hike in the opposition's opinion, but that does not matter when simply assessing whether the fruits of nature are indifferent. I need to make it clear that is the only question. I asked whether the fruits of nature are indifferent. That's it. That's all I'm asking. If you think they are indifferent but that's bad, that's okay. But the question is a yes or no as to whether the fruits of nature are indifferent. I need to get him to just respond directly to that, and not go off track. Because when he goes off track, he begins mischaracterizing quite often, and it prevents the discussion from being as principled as it should be.

Anyway, these are some principles my rebuttal needs to possess. I want you to craft your rebuttal, how you'd respond to the opposition, based on these principles and the guidance I've provided. We'll need to keep them on track, go step by step, provide sources where possible, and be undeniably clear on each singular portion. We need to figure out a way to prevent them from mischaracterizing or going on tangent. The opposition seems to be mostly reasonable, but at times they make what seem like somewhat emotional statements that do not logically follow or mischaracterize the question. This is to be expected in a real conversation, so I have to find a way to prevent that to keep them undeniably grounded and cut out any emotional daggers.

Maybe I can really stress these Lockian principles, that Locke is the foundation of natural rights, how much the Founding Fathers were inspired by him and based their principles of America and the Constitution on those ideas, and even point to specific parts of the Constitution that embody it or writings from the Fathers. That's ambitious, but doable. I could try to cite Supreme Court cases, too, which exemplify this, but I fear that may be being too detailed. If I get into case law I may just lose my opposition and sound like a lawyer speaking legalese. I should leave it at the Constitution, Locke, and the Founders. Yes, that's better, because that's conservative. Conservatives uphold that the most. They like Court Cases, but it all goes back to the Constitution, Founders, and natural rights exemplified by Locke.

So I should say that, then finally stress, the significance–I should remind them of how dearly they, as a conservative, uphold the Constitution and that on which it is based. I should end it with a question, asked not rhetorically, but in earnest, something along the lines of: what is it they truly value most out of the Constitution and the rights it protects? Let that be open ended, but regardless say something like, because their answer must be something a conservative would say if it's a genuine question, I'll say something like if you truly embody that so much, then don't those very principles demand they accord with their origin? You get the point. I should come up with my rebuttal in full on my own. But come up with how you'd tackle this based on my guidance, and addressing each of these points carefully to make my argument unassailable and something the opposition can't misconstrue.

–-

When the argument makes illogical claims but that aren't central to rebutting them, do I ignore them and get to the meaty part, or should I call them out? Will that strengthen my position by making them seem logically untenable even on unimportant points, or just detract from my true message?

I think it will help to point even the non-central points out. The argument demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of even what indifference is, yet goes on to talk about why I misapply it in this context. He tells me I cannot apply it, when he cannot even define the word! The opposition says nature's indifference allows "a stronger man to take your food without consequence." I'll assume the opposition means physically stronger, unless he means to say that thievery and rape are a sign of strength, which they are not. A man stealing your food is not a sign of nature's indifference. A human being is not natural. A human thief is not an act of nature. That has nothing to do with nature's indifference. The opposition lectures me about how I apply indifference incorrectly to the fruits of nature, yet they cannot even use the word properly from the beginning, let alone in nuanced situations.

Now, moving on to the central claim: the opposition makes what seems like a compelling case, but they fundamentally miss something concerning the rights of the governed. They claim that man traded the indifference of nature's fruits for the abundance of civilization. The problem with that claim is that the rights to the commons are possessed by each individual man, and the right to property, I'm sure you would agree, is fundamental. It cannot be ceded in the sense you describe.

Let me pose an example. You swear by the right to keep and bear arms without restriction. That right is inherent. You can own and carry guns. What would your stance be on someone saying that as a society, however, we traded the dangers of anyone carrying guns for the safety of regulations, where the government can deny you because they think you are dangerous? You would be against that, because individuals possess that right. You cannot say that society collectively cedes it on behalf of all individuals. An individual may decide not to express their right to bear arms, but that is their decision. We as a society never agreed to collectively strip away the right to self-defense from men. We gave it them, and they may not exercise it for fear of doing others harm, but they cannot strip it away. They always possess it. In the same way, we as a society possess the right to property. That's the foundation of this country, and it's in the 5th Amendment, "No person shall be deprived of life, liberty or property, without due process of law," and applied to the States by the 14th. We agree that humans have a common right to the property of the Earth. There is no law, and no agreement, just as with bearing arms, that restricts this right. Human beings retain the right to the public commons of the Earth to which they are entitled. They may choose not to exercise that right, and be satisfied with human-made plenty that exists. (Just as a person may choose not to exercise their right to bear arms, but be satisfied with the police's protection.) But they still possess that right, and may express it at any time.

You are confusing your desire for society's fruits, your acceptance for that, with the consent of everybody else accepting that as a substitute for that right. But nowhere in the Constitution or anywhere else did we agree on that, and I certainly don't. Americans have a right to property, that property includes the fruits of nature, and we may choose to express it at any time no matter what some members of society may choose to do with it.

Let's get this straight: you may be willing to accept society's fruits as sufficient compensation. But would you be willing to support the police as protection, and that we traded that for the right to bear arms?–therefore, you can no longer bear arms? I and many do not accept society's fruitful replacement, and I retain the right to own my property. Whether you choose to exercise that right or not has nothing to do with whether I possess it, and you cannot prove that we agreed to trade it, because we did not. Checkmate.

–-

You did not answer my question. Let's look at this closely. I asked you what was this Great Transaction. You say it's the Constitution, because it grants the government power to provide just compensation. Okay. Where is the Transaction that showcases that the people, as you claim, together lawfully and willfully authorized the government to take the public commons and replace it with what it has?

Are you trying to argue that the government can automatically do it, because it has provided "just compensation"? Wrong. Because the government has not provided just compensation. Remember that an object possesses its properties in all shapes. We agreed that a property of nature's fruits is its indifference. The new shape that you claim the government has transformed the public property into is not just, because it does not assume all of the properties of the original. Therefore, that is no Great Transaction, because it has provided no replacement. Although it is plentiful, and it can be fulfilling for you or others, that does not make it indifferent. We agreed that modern resources lack that indifferent property, but that nature's fruits don't. Since you agree the transaction must be just, and since you agreed your sole basis was the 5th Amendment and the Constitution, your argument fundamentally falls apart because it has not provided this just compensation. Unless you retract one of your core principles, you are wrong.

The rest of your argument continues to go down an indefensible trajectory. It's worth covering even if it's already fallen apart. You claim that the right to the commons is a finite resource, so it's different. That has almost no bearing in a distinction, because we agreed that nature is plentiful. We agreed that there is more than enough for all people in nature. It being finite, therefore, doesn't matter like you say it does in this distinction.

And if you want to talk about the Supreme Court, that's okay. The Supreme Court decided in D.C. v. Heller and in New York State Rifle & Pistol Ass'n v. Bruen that the Courts of the country cannot decide to sacrifice inherent individual rights because of a public demand, no matter how urgent that public demand is. Some Courts justified banning firearms, as you know, because they thought public safety was a greater concern. They would judge the right to bear arms against the fact the community kind of decided (not in any law or ordinance, just kind of general sentiment) that public safety was a greater concern. Bruen and Heller ruled that this is unconstitutional. The rights enumerated in the Constitution, the Supreme Court says, exist in their own capacity and cannot be judged against external factors like public safety. You do not get to say that the public feels that this new shape is better (even if it is in technical violation) or that firearms are dangerous, so the rights do not apply. They exist, and no matter how you feel, this is a country governed by a Constitution, the very Constitution which you claim to uphold. The Court made it clear that this principle of the jurisprudence of rights applies to all rights in the Constitution, even it if focused on bearing arms; it expressly made that clear. The unambiguous law of the land and its interpretation explicitly says your entire premise is mistaken. You cannot feel that your public desire is more important than the Constitution, and weigh that in the calculation.

Unless you seek to abhor the Constitution you abide by, or reject what we've agreed on, you need to admit you are wrong. Human beings have a right to those common goods in nature, and they can choose to express it any time. You don't have to; if you want to not express it, you can do that like anyone can choose not to arm themselves. But you cannot deny it to others. You cannot deny its existence. And you cannot weigh that feeling or preference into assessing the existence of a fundamental, Constitutional right expressly encoded in the Constitution and affirmed by the Court. Stop arguing with the law of the land.

–-

You miss the solution. The solution is not to reject all of society; that would be nonsensical and itself deny people their right to private property as well. Remember: although people have a right to the commons together, one man may take it for a nobler purpose. Buildings, iPhones, and ships are a nobler purpose. So people have a right to keep that: this position does not detract from the fact that these things were mixed with just labor.

It just means that the small, reasonable portion that a man would expect to profit from nature needs to be restored, in all its plenty (yet, as you say harshness, so it should not be very much), its fulfillment, and its indifference. This just means that people have a right to, if they wish, a small sum of cash that is representative of the work which they could have with integrity performed upon nature in the state before government. But this does not mean, either, the cash should be "free," if this misaligns with people's principles. As the Courts stated, these rights should go to the people and their officials. Let the states decide how that resource representative of the state of nature's fruit should be gained, and how it should be picked. Through civic duties, through volunteering, through voting. Not a handout, nor a denial of the private property which men of America rightfully own. People still need to go out and pick that fruit. It's only a bare minimum that represents the apples of nature they commonly own.

That's it. The noble property of America is something we have a right to individually if we worked for it. That will never change, because we only took it for a good reason. But we neither can take more than what others would be able to take for themselves in good supply, so we owe them the right, if they wish, to what they would be able to pick in nature, if they are willing to pick it, indifferently, with fulfillment, and in plenty or harshness.