[KrisKrinkle]

"For the libertarian, however, it is virtually impossible to construct a hierarchy of rights and freedoms."

All else aside, such an impossibility would promote the extensive use of force in settling conflicts in rights.

"Many would argue that political and social rights, especially freedom of speech and press, are the most important of liberties, the rights that most directly keep despotism at bay. "

Freedem of speech is a natural right inherent in a sentient being born with the ability to speak. Freedom of the press is at a minimum, derivateive of freedom of speech and contingent on the ability to construct or obtain a press or its equivilent. I offer that as a two level hierarchy to counter the impossibility argument noted above.

"You could even make an argument that if we do not own ourselves, if we do not assert complete control over our actions (subject to circumstances, limitations and exigencies of the human condition) we cannot be truly moral beings or be held accountable to a higher power."

If you can't transfer ownership of yourself can it be said that you truly own yourself?

[jackbob]

If you can't transfer ownership of yourself can it be said that you truly own yourself?

Not relevant. Of course you can transfer ownership of yourself. Self surrender is as much a protected right, as self ownership. The problem occurs, when one chooses to reassert ones self ownership after once surrendering it to another. This is because the restriction is not upon the slave claiming self ownership, but upon the master who chooses to enforce the slavery.

A market economy might grant the purchaser of such acquired ownership a civil award for contract violation, and could under certain circumstances go as far as laying a criminal penalty for fraud upon an individual reclaiming self ownership after once surrendering it (or selling it). But the condition of slavery can not be enforced.

I would suggest that in a libertarian society, only a fool would purchase another's self ownership, as no means would exist to collect, except by way of a continual voluntary transfer on the part of the surrenderer.

Saying one can not own, that which they cannot transfer, is like saying one cannot own their imagination, which they cannot transfer in full. Only the state can legally lay claims to such immoral and impossible ownership.

It is that kind of state that needs to pass into history.