| | Freedom without government is anarchy, pure rule by the most force. It is the difference between driving in America, and driving in Bangladesh. The missing elements are, respect for individual rights beyond mere physics/force(bangladesh) and respect for individual rights based on a principle(America.)
There is only one traffic law in bangladesh: biggest vehicle in any conflict goes where it wants, without any regard to any smaller vehicles. Pure physics.
The terminus of that missing principle isn't 'the most powerful individual rules.' The terminus of that missing principle is 'the most powerful mob rules.' (In a de facto theocracy like Bangladesh, that is their local gang of religious thugs.)
The missing principle is easily defined. Freedom isn't the freedom to sprint across the public sphere without regard to the existence of others(no matter how blinded we are by the glaring truth of our personal religious revelations, like a Paul Krugman.)
Freedom is the freedom to navigate the public sphere, mindful of the presence and freedom of others. (Not 'most' others, but all others.)
We benefit from the resulting freedom. The necessary government -- a loaded phrase -- must be paid for. To realize benefit without paying for it is stealing from those who do.
For that to work in the context of freedom, the loaded phrase -- necessary government -- must itself adhere to some principle -- some ethical principle-- in order for it to create an ethical obligation to pay for it.
If, instead, necessary government is defined simply as the result of brute force -- the brute force of simple numbers, a majority, bound by no ethics other than force -- then it has a murky ethical foundation.
What actions justify state intervention, in the context of individual freedom?
Murder?
Rape?
Theft?
Extortion?
Fraud?
Forced association?
Intervention/adjudication of the above costs money, and so,
Failure to pay for necessary government(same as theft) might/should be added to the list.
If there is a consistent principle at the root of that list, then it is forced/involuntary association (what I personally have shorthanded as, a violation of 'one skin, one driver.')
Where the definition of 'necessary government' goes astray is when its definition is permitted, in the context of freedom, to lurch into religious or similar grounds anathema to freedom, as if, through the mechanism of the state, the role of 'necessary government' was to implement a kind of theocracy, as opposed to simply establish the context of freedom -- freedom from the forced association of each other on anything other than well defined and limited terms, such as, the need to pay for the necessary common government necessary to secure our freedom, which is, ultimately, freedom from each other, except via free association, which freely occurs.
We see the results of freedom constrained by that principle every day in America. (We also see the freedom-eating consequence of ignoring that principle, the source of the political anger seething in America these days.)
Large trucks and small cars share the highways everyday, mindful of each others existence under a set of laws designed not to tell each other where to drive, or what our goals/destination are, but how to best navigate to those destinations mindful of each others presence, so that we can each get to where we are going in that public sphere.
Without that principle, driving would in fact be like driving in Bangladesh, where there is only one rule: physics. A place where, daily, in the world's most crowded urban areas, the sight of individuals in rickshaws flying end-over-end through space is a daily occurrence, met not with ambulances and helicopters rushing them off to trauma centers, but an angry crowd descending on the wreckage, berating the victims for causing a traffic disturbance(by not getting out of the way of the larger vehicles), and dragging both bodies and wreckage to the side of the road from where to fend for themselves.
That is Mad Max World. That is, freedom without effective government based on any ethical principle.
When America's imperfect union allows the definition of 'necessary government' to lurch into areas that can't be rationalized based on any ethical argument other than brute force (majority rule) or religious argument, then I can find no ethical basis to condemn those who resist such clumsy tribal forks using every means at their capable disposal, including, non-disclosed Cayman Corps and the buying of corruptible government officials, and generally, exactly the kind of broken 'economies-for-some' that our modern tribal lurch away from freedom has resulted in.
That look in Krugman's face is like a hint that he gets it, and his recent bitter laments further indication that he knows he and his royally screwed the pooch. He is itching to reach for the state's guns, and take the tribal lurch to the next level, because his polite political incantations have failed to bring about the theocracy he seeks.
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