greatest police badge number ever

[GerardWon]

I love you.


If you mean, people will need defense, you're probably right. But there is no reason they need to have a monopoly defense provider.

Anyone who has read Machinery of Freedom or any other well known libertarian text on this (The Tannehills for example) understands that security, like medicine and education, can be provided by the market.


If it is a monopoly and you teach your children to worship it, then yeah.

You too dude. You reached out to me when I first strolled in here many moons ago.


So you're going free enterprise with the defense system, that seems fair. fwiw the US really does have some wicked kickass shit that I helped pay for. just sayin.


I am Not disagreeing with you. Certainly it is the defense contractors that supply our best weapon systems, albeit not in the truest sense of free enterprise due to the inevitable kick-backs and favoritism that exist in Washington.

Interesting point. Personally, I worship self-improvement. My children know this.

 

[drave]

how does this thread get this far with no mention of the pinkertons -- the premier 19th century private security force that upheld whatever "law" that got them paid them the most?

why blabber all this hypothetical theoretical horseshit when we have real world evidence of what happens when security forces are private/for hire rather than public?

 

[p0ck3taces]

It is the antithesis of a property right.

Is this a definition thing? I still own it whether I took it by force or not.

So if you wrote in your diary, "Guerilla owes me $50" or "Guerilla has to do what I say" that makes those statements true?

This is called circular logic. The law is applicable to me because the law is applicable to me.


You've just done what everyone in the herd is doing. You're asserting something as a truth without any facts to substantiate it.

If I wanted to prove you owed me $50, I would have to do more than say, "he owes me" to prove it. I'd need a contract, a recording of a verbal agreement, a bill of sale, an IOU. Something. Some piece of tangible evidence that such a debt exists. Right? I mean otherwise, I could just say everyone in the country owes me $50, use the courts to collect and become rich.

Ya, you would need something like a sovereign nation, a governing body and a police force. Ya, that would probably do it.

So where is the proof (for the 100 millionth time) that the laws some asshole in Ottawa or Washington writes, are applicable to me? How did another human being gain dominion over my life, liberty and property? How "rational" is it to claim that they control my life to protect someone (Saddam Hussein, Barack Obama, Kim Kardashian) from controlling my life?

These ^^^ are the questions that need to be answered.

A sovereign nation gets to make up the rules of the land. Your individual sovereignty has been taken away. You only get to have sovereignty if you can defend it. What, you don't believe in god given rights, but you believe sovereignty cannot be taken away?

This aside, what if I said it was applicable by force? Does that make it any less applicable? It's applicable whether by force or consent.

Look, as an aside, I am me. I am not you guys. Some people like me, some people hate me. Some people agree with me sometimes, and disagree with me other times.

This entire discussion (which is probably a net "good" in my opinion) wouldn't be possible without someone like me, and someone like you. I don't want to live in a world, or be around people who don't disagree and question things. Implicit in that however is that people aren't scumbag liars or completely immune to rational, logical discourse.

Otherwise, you get something akin to the bleating of animals such as when Hellblazer posts.

Meh, or we could all just be enlightened. Who says we have to have people who don't get it.

I am pretty sure "just" is meant to be an abbreviated form of "justice". As in equitable.


I hate the definition game. Justice and law are not the same thing. So please pick one definition of the word that we can both agree on. Because it's dangerous to conflate law with justice.

Hitler put Jews into ovens and roasted them alive, because it was legal to do so in Germany. I am not sure those Jews would agree that such a law represented justice.

Of course there are thousands of other examples, but that is one that should be easy to grasp.

You're conflating whether the law itself is just with enacting a law that's in place.

It's probably cognitive dissonance.

Nope, because one can be good while the other can be bad. Like this next part.

Uhm, yes?

Nope. It was wrong of me to kidnap you. It was good of me to treat you nicely while I had you captive.

It's possible for me to love you by beating and raping you.

We wandered way off topic here.

So getting back to the meat of the discussion, do you have any PROOF the law is applicable to me?

Because you cannot defend your sovereignty.

 

[Unarmed Gunman]

Another point Anarchists seem to forget when asking the question of authority is that they are living on someone else's land. All land in the US is owned (and defended) by the US Government.

There is no such thing as private property in this country, not in the sense that you can ever truly own it. Try not paying your property taxes and see what happens if you don't believe that. Since you are living on the land of the US government they maintain control over that land, and that includes a set of rules and regulations that their subjects are required to follow.

That is the definition of authority. That is why the US Government maintains authority over you and requires you to follow certain rules, because you are living off of their land. I suspect this is the same for most if not all governments.

If you want to argue that the way they obtained the land was immoral, you can make that claim. Some of it was by force, some by treaty but the end result is they control all of the land and by extension anybody using their land. Therefore an individual has no legal claim to take some of that land from them and claim dominion over it UNLESS you are prepared to defend it by force as they have.

This is a problem that needs to be resolved if the idea of real freedom and property rights is ever going to actually take hold. But unless states will ever start granting true allodial title on property, I don't see it ever changing.

 

[guerilla]

Is this a definition thing? I still own it whether I took it by force or not.

I think you may be confusing ownership with possession.

Ya, you would need something like a sovereign nation, a governing body and a police force. Ya, that would probably do it.

But that's the entire discussion here. How do we get from me not being able to say you owe me $50, to the state being able to do so?

Don't get me wrong, I have said clearly that this happens. But I believe it's due to violence, not the nobility of the Constitution or the character of Supreme Court justices. It's not through some ethical agreement. The cop is not your buddy.

A sovereign nation gets to make up the rules of the land.

Let's try again, although I am seriously getting a bit bored of doing this.

Why?

Here is a similar statement, "Guerilla gets to make up the laws of the land". Why is that not true?

You only get to have sovereignty if you can defend it.

Or "you only get to run shit if you dominate people with force". Sound right?

This aside, what if I said it was applicable by force? Does that make it any less applicable? It's applicable whether by force or consent.

Yes it does. But you need to stop and think about this for a minute.

Are rape and love making the same thing? Is one bad? If so, why?

Meh, or we could all just be enlightened. Who says we have to have people who don't get it.

No offense bro, but I am not sure you understand me (forget agreeing with me) yet.

You're conflating whether the law itself is just with enacting a law that's in place.

If the law is not just, what makes it any different than no law?

The authority of the law is derived from its rightness or utility. If you demonstrate the law is bad...

I mean, this is the funny thing. I have libertarians arguing with me that the law is just. Not just Hellblazer, who is the biggest statist toady suckup coward of all time (unless it is a black man in office, then everything is bad, no racism pls). Libertarians by implication of their arguments, that taxation is ok, the drug war is ok, etc.

I wish I could communicate better. I truly believe that what I am talking about has very important implications, not just some arbitrary theory. I dunno.

Nope. It was wrong of me to kidnap you. It was good of me to treat you nicely while I had you captive.

I'd let this one slide. The only point you can make here, is that one offsets or whitewashes the other. And it doesn't. It's not ok for me to murder you if I feel bad later. It's not ok for me to steal from you if I give you a hug everyday.

Because you cannot defend your sovereignty.

Well then we're basically on the same page. You think the laws are just (equitable) because the strongest man enforces them. I believe the laws are unjust because the strongest man enforces them. Either way, we both agree the authority or applicability or validity of the law is based on violence.

You're ok with everything every great dictator has done to humanity, mass starvation, genocide the works, because in your mind, that's just because they were the toughest?

I got the impression that you're a libertarian from the Bitcoin fetish, but I guess I was wrong. The world is filled with interesting people with interesting ideas.

 

[guerilla]

YI am Not disagreeing with you. Certainly it is the defense contractors that supply our best weapon systems, albeit not in the truest sense of free enterprise due to the inevitable kick-backs and favoritism that exist in Washington.

Here is an idea. When you remove governments, you make military conquest a lot more difficult, not easier.

When governments fight, they conquer the other army and government. They conquer a taxing system.

No government, no taxing system, means individually conquering every single person in a country. That's damn near impossible I think.

There will always be violence, but IMO how we respond to it should always be up for discussion, particularly how we handle it.

 

[productionhead]

Another point Anarchists seem to forget when asking the question of authority is that they are living on someone else's land. All land in the US is owned (and defended) by the US Government.

There is no such thing as private property in this country, not in the sense that you can ever truly own it. Try not paying your property taxes and see what happens if you don't believe that. Since you are living on the land of the US government they maintain control over that land, and that includes a set of rules and regulations that their subjects are required to follow.

That is the definition of authority. That is why the US Government maintains authority over you and requires you to follow certain rules, because you are living off of their land. I suspect this is the same for most if not all governments.

If you want to argue that the way they obtained the land was immoral, you can make that claim. Some of it was by force, some by treaty but the end result is they control all of the land and by extension anybody using their land. Therefore an individual has no legal claim to take some of that land from them and claim dominion over it UNLESS you are prepared to defend it by force as they have.

This is a problem that needs to be resolved if the idea of real freedom and property rights is ever going to actually take hold. But unless states will ever start granting true allodial title on property, I don't see it ever changing.

Enlightening post.

 

[BigWill]

Free State Project - Liberty in Our Lifetime

 

[kingofsp]

Another point Anarchists seem to forget when asking the question of authority is that they are living on someone else's land. All land in the US is owned (and defended) by the US Government.

I agree, as long as we both recognize that when we use an abstraction like the "US Government," we know that such a thing doesn't actually exist, and it's really just a small minority of men and women with the legal right to fuck people up.

I handle all my parents bookkeeping since they are kinda old and what not, and recently I had to submit an electronic payment to LA county for over $5k for property taxes. This has little to do with my point, it's just that the wound is still fresh and I am in the grieving process.

Except we do know, because every society in human history has started out stateless, and every single one has eventually formed a government. It starts off with a need for common protection, and crowd funding for large projects and then grows from there.

I don't think anybody is arguing about the morality of using force to take taxes for these things (and more), I think the argument is about the reality of the inevitability of it.

Since stateless societies are the precursor to governments, many people see it as a step backwards, not a step forward.

I absolutely agree that a lot of people share that perception, but we can't ignore how far humans in general have come since primitive times, i.e. direct slavery, subjugation of women, etc. Not that these things don't still occur, but the prevailing opinion has shifted to "bad" for these things. I don't see any reason why this can't gradually happen as people begin to reject the idea of initiating violence against otherwise peaceful people. Once people fear social ostracization for certain beliefs/opinions, those particular ideas become exponentially unpopular (for better or for worse). And I believe the strategy to get there is to constantly point out the "gun in the room" and remind people that abstractions like "government" are just words, and there are real people in suits murdering/oppressing people all over the world and getting away with it.

Can we agree that we would both prefer to live in a world where the general consensus among adults was that it is immoral and unacceptable to initiate force against anyone, whether directly or through several degrees of state power separation?

I don't think feasibility is a big issue right now, because I doubt we will see such a world in our lifetimes, but I really do believe that it's inevitable (assuming we don't kill ourselves first). And for my own peace of mind and self-respect, I'd like to contribute to that shift in social consciousness however I can while I'm chillin on this pale blue dot.

And now a quote to punctuate my post:


"One of the greatest delusions in the world is the hope that the evils in this world are to be cured by legislation."

~ Thomas B. Reed

 

[Unarmed Gunman]

I agree, as long as we both recognize that when we use an abstraction like the "US Government," we know that such a thing doesn't actually exist, and it's really just a small minority of men and women with the legal right to fuck people up.

I handle all my parents bookkeeping since they are kinda old and what not, and recently I had to submit an electronic payment to LA county for over $5k for property taxes. This has little to do with my point, it's just that the wound is still fresh and I am in the grieving process.

But government does exist, if it didn't you wouldn't have made that electronic payment of $5k to them. Government is no more an abstraction than any other association or group of people.

In the case of the US Government, you have a group of people that have been delegated the tasks of maintaining order, building useless shit, bombing people etc on behalf of the governed. How do we know that? Because the governed have collectively decided to pay the taxes that fund "the government" and participate in elections granting "the government" the authority to act on their behalf. They could collectively decide to withdraw that support by refusing to pay taxes, and revolting - the fact that they do not implies consent.

Even in a voluntaryist society, you will never have unanimous consent. However, if you continue to participate in that community under those rules you are implicitly giving them consent and authority over you.

Can we agree that we would both prefer to live in a world where the general consensus among adults was that it is immoral and unacceptable to initiate force against anyone, whether directly or through several degrees of state power separation?

Yes, but it goes against human nature. We are biologically programmed to behave the way we do as a species.

 

[GimpSpack]

DAMMIT - I wrote a huge post and WickedFire completely fucked me thanks to some random servor error. Fucking bullshit.

In short, I agree with Guerilla to an extent. I believe laws are imaginary, rights are imaginary, and authority holds as much weight as literal interpretations of Old Testament allegories.

However, until human consciousness makes the next evolutionary leap, laws have to exist in the minds of the masses in order to preserve some semblance of peace. I know many sheep that demonstrate no self-control, lack respect for fellow humans, and would generally wreak havoc were it not for the looming threat of violence or incarceration. It's a sad truth, but it is a reality.

In the end, it's not the State that's the problem - it's the inherent flaws in human nature. These flaws will continue to exist regardless of the economic or political system in place.

Privatize defense? Eventually, you'd have militarized factions fighting each other for dominance. Privatize police? Good luck - same shit will happen.

In the end, the only thing a rational human being can do is create or join small, isolated communities separate from this fragmented bullshit we call "society."

Let the sheep continue to be herded and manipulated by an audacious few, while you watch the world crumble from a safe distance.

 

[drave]

still incredulous that anyone would put UG on ignore. that's fucking laughable.

 

[kingofsp]

But government does exist, if it didn't you wouldn't have made that electronic payment of $5k to them. Government is no more an abstraction than any other association or group of people.

In the case of the US Government, you have a group of people that have been delegated the tasks of maintaining order, building useless shit, bombing people etc on behalf of the governed. How do we know that? Because the governed have collectively decided to pay the taxes that fund "the government" and participate in elections granting "the government" the authority to act on their behalf. They could collectively decide to withdraw that support by refusing to pay taxes, and revolting - the fact that they do not implies consent.

But people don't collectively decide to pay or consent, they are forced to. If taxes weren't enforced with violence, people wouldn't pay them. The government has no voluntary support. It's all compulsory.

If I hold a gun to someone's head and tell him to punch a baby in the face and he decides he would like to live to see another day so he punches the baby in the face, does that mean he consented to punching the baby in the face?

The reason I (and I assume others) point out that "government" is just an abstraction is to remind people that regular old men and women working in "government" are somehow given the moral sanction to do things that we would never accept if attempted by Joe Schmoe (theft, murder, extortion, coercion, etc).

If theft is wrong, it is always wrong, no matter how people with a mind to do so tinker with semantics to try to justify it or make it more palatable to the general public.

 

[Unarmed Gunman]

But people don't collectively decide to pay or consent, they are forced to. If taxes weren't enforced with violence, people wouldn't pay them. The government has no voluntary support. It's all compulsory.

As I mentioned earlier in the thread, millions of people voluntarily vote to raise their own taxes every year through millages for police, fire, schools etc., so you can't say the only reason people pay is by threat of violence. For fucks sake, I just had a millage pass in my county last year to fund a museum. A fucking museum? So yeah, when you start talking military, police, fire, schools etc it's abundantly clear that most people have no problem with it.

And remember, 1776 was over a lot less than what we're dealing with now from the government, but for whatever reason people are content with the system as it stands. There was a threat of violence then too, but when enough people decided they no longer supported the system they told them to fuck off and it changed everything.

Nothing is stopping that from happening again. Do you really think the IRS can do anything if 300 million people told them to eat a dick? Or even 30 million? Hell I'd be surprised if they could do anything if 3 million people stood up and said "fuck you, shit is about to change".

That's less than 1% of the US population, and it could change everything. But the fact that not even 1% of the population cares enough to change the system implies an overwhelming majority are content with the "taxes for services" system as it stands.

 

[kingofsp]

It's still theft. Just because you have people trying to benefit from the current coercive system doesn't change the fact that it is by definition theft. There will always be people vying for control over the gun in the room so as to point it at someone else and away from themselves.

And even if all but one person living in the US got together and decided taxes were good and just, they would still be stealing from that one rogue nutjob.

The way I see it, most people accept taxes because they've been conditioned to accept taxes their whole life. To be honest I never really thought much about them until well past age 25. Like most, I went to public school. Public school, as I'm sure everyone knows, is shitty. And if you try and leave, you get busted. If everyone just stood up and left, they would be powerless, and we could all go to the park and smoke weed or whatever, but people fear punishment. That's why they pay taxes. They don't want to be the one kid to get up to leave in the middle of class and turn around and see everyone else still sitting down. I understand that. But whenever anyone uses the threat of violence to impose their will, it is wrong. There are no exceptions. Submission is not consent.

 

[guerilla]

You have come an amazing distance in a short period of time. Well done post.

The only thing I don't agree with is broad sweeping statements about human nature which are pretty easy to demonstrate in the opposite.

Laws created by monopoly do not lead to peace. America is not a peaceful place. People are not becoming increasingly more peaceful with one another. I live in an area where there is for no intents and purpose, any evidence of the state except for roads signs and income taxes. Yes, we even have a volunteer fire department that is amazingly effective. What creates peace is respect for property rights, and to a lesser degree, social cooperation that is only possible where people are able to realize their interdependence and embrace it. The "city" so to speak doesn't breed interdependence as much as competition.

The reason why I don't rape or kill has nothing to do with jail time or the death penalty but my own basic morality and my desire to be a rational, logical human being, capable of social relationships with other human beings.

I can't be the only exception to what you suggested was a norm.

As far as having a myopic view of humanity, I would suggest I hold the least esteem for humanity of almost anyone here, and yet I don't believe the idea that everything is a downward spiral or we're doomed to fail if we do something different than what we're already doing. In case you guys haven't noticed yet, what we're doing isn't working very well.

Anyway, I think you're on to something with moving and making life simpler. That's what I have been working on for the last two years and I couldn't be happier. In fact, I used to come to WF to commiserate with other angry and bitter people but now I mostly hang out to see what bitter people are like, and to appreciate how I no longer feel that way at all.

DAMMIT - I wrote a huge post and WickedFire completely fucked me thanks to some random servor error. Fucking bullshit.

In short, I agree with Guerilla to an extent. I believe laws are imaginary, rights are imaginary, and authority holds as much weight as literal interpretations of Old Testament allegories.

However, until human consciousness makes the next evolutionary leap, laws have to exist in the minds of the masses in order to preserve some semblance of peace. I know many sheep that demonstrate no self-control, lack respect for fellow humans, and would generally wreak havoc were it not for the looming threat of violence or incarceration. It's a sad truth, but it is a reality.

In the end, it's not the State that's the problem - it's the inherent flaws in human nature. These flaws will continue to exist regardless of the economic or political system in place.

Privatize defense? Eventually, you'd have militarized factions fighting each other for dominance. Privatize police? Good luck - same shit will happen.

In the end, the only thing a rational human being can do is create or join small, isolated communities separate from this fragmented bullshit we call "society."

Let the sheep continue to be herded and manipulated by an audacious few, while you watch the world crumble from a safe distance.

 

[Unarmed Gunman]

And even if all but one person living in the US got together and decided taxes were good and just, they would still be stealing from that one rogue nutjob.

OK, but there is no voluntaryist society in which you would ever reach unanimous consent on community projects either. The utopian vision of everyone agreeing on everything and only paying for things they agree with is not possible. I'd love to hear an example that proves otherwise. In small transactions sure, but it doesn't scale.

The way I see it, most people accept taxes because they've been conditioned to accept taxes their whole life. To be honest I never really thought much about them until well past age 25. Like most, I went to public school. Public school, as I'm sure everyone knows, is shitty. And if you try and leave, you get busted. If everyone just stood up and left, they would be powerless, and we could all go to the park and smoke weed or whatever, but people fear punishment. That's why they pay taxes. They don't want to be the one kid to get up to leave in the middle of class and turn around and see everyone else still sitting down. I understand that. But whenever anyone uses the threat of violence to impose their will, it is wrong. There are no exceptions. Submission is not consent.

All of that kind of ignores what I just posted about millages. Millages are voted on by the people. They aren't paid because people are conditioned to pay them, because until the millages are enacted they don't exist. There is nothing to condition them to. People in my county were not conditioned to raise their own taxes in order to fund a museum because until last year that millage did not exist. However, a majority of the people in the Metro Detroit area voted for it and passed the millage and now we're funding the DIA with our property taxes.

So the community votes on millages and voluntarily raises their own taxes. How is that different from a group of people in a voluntaryist society voting to all pitch in to build a road or hire protection? The threat of violence? If you don't pay your property taxes you don't go to jail, you just can't live in that community anymore, at least not as a homeowner. In a voluntaryist society you still need an enforcement mechanism and you'll never get unanimous consent so how is that different?

 

[hellblazer]

If taxes weren't enforced with violence, people wouldn't pay them...

No, you wouldn't pay them.

The vast majority of the citizenry who are fine with the current arrangement would still pay.

They might think the rates are a little high, but they would still pay.

 

[JakeStratham]

And even if all but one person living in the US got together and decided taxes were good and just, they would still be stealing from that one rogue nutjob.

It would be interesting to conduct a survey. Like so...

The "Do Over" Survey (Operation Reboot)

Dear resident,

From this moment forward, payment of all taxes is 100% voluntary. Ownership of all state-held assets (roads, bridges, buildings, etc.) will be sold via auction to private parties with the proceeds used to pay the national debt. Any residual debt outstanding will be written off.

All services hereafter will be provided by private parties as determined by supply and demand, or on a voluntary basis. No state licensure is required.

Given the above, please select one of the following choices...

[ ] I will continue to pay taxes to my elected representatives at a rate equal to last year's rate.

[ ] I will continue to pay taxes to my elected representatives, but at a reduced rate relative to last year's rate.

[ ] I will continue to pay taxes to my elected representatives at a higher rate relative to last year's rate.

[ ] I will no longer pay taxes.


* (me again) I suspect each category would have some takers. I'd just like to see where the number fall.

The way I see it, most people accept taxes because they've been conditioned to accept taxes their whole life. To be honest I never really thought much about them until well past age 25. Like most, I went to public school. Public school, as I'm sure everyone knows, is shitty. And if you try and leave, you get busted. If everyone just stood up and left, they would be powerless, and we could all go to the park and smoke weed or whatever, but people fear punishment. That's why they pay taxes. They don't want to be the one kid to get up to leave in the middle of class and turn around and see everyone else still sitting down. I understand that. But whenever anyone uses the threat of violence to impose their will, it is wrong. There are no exceptions. Submission is not consent.

This made me think of how circus elephants can be "trained" to remain in place with little more than a spike or wooden peg in the ground. It was probably similar for slaves in the U.S. before Lincoln freed them.*





* kidding about the Lincoln part.

 

[hellblazer]

It would be interesting to conduct a survey. Like so...

The "Do Over" Survey (Operation Reboot)

Dear resident,

From this moment forward, payment of all taxes is 100% voluntary. Ownership of all state-held assets (roads, bridges, buildings, etc.) will be sold via auction to private parties with the proceeds used to pay the national debt. Any residual debt outstanding will be written off.

All services hereafter will be provided by private parties as determined by supply and demand, or on a voluntary basis. No state licensure is required.

Given the above, please select one of the following choices...

[ ] I will continue to pay taxes to my elected representatives at a rate equal to last year's rate.

I think a much more interesting survey would be one where you can select which services you want when you enter a given country:

a) Military .5%
b) Police .25%
c) Firefighter .25%
d) EPA .25%

etc...

and you could just go down the list, selecting which services you want, adding up the tax as you go. Some people would select a bunch, some would select a little, some would select none, etc... You would receive exactly what you pay for.