Whether voting should be anonymous

@ Fred Bartlett (Post 38)

I don't think we disagree, Fred.  So long as we (a majority) can agree on the basics of non-agression and self defense rules, then no monopoly of enforcement or arbitration will arise or be necessary.

My only remaining question is whether this still qualifies for the term "government".  A minor point, of course, but it seems that what you propose is a single set of rules but no single set of people claiming monopoly power to "administer" those rules.  Great.  I agree.

John Howard wrote in post 41:

So long as we (a majority) can agree on the basics of non-agression and self defense rules, then no monopoly of enforcement or arbitration will arise or be necessary.

Assuming there is no government, which what you call for....

1.) How do we do this agreement?  Who makes up the language whereby those basics are defined?  Who is doing the asking of the individuals in the nation for their agreement or disagreement?  Who is doing the counting of the "votes" to see if the majority was achieved?

2.) If a majority was achieved on a clearly specified set of rules, can they be enforcemented against those who didn't agree?

3.) Can I hire someone else, a private contractor to do the enforcing for me, and if so, why can't the government be an enforcer for everyone?

4.) Without a single set of rules, with a central locus for enforcement, what will stop some gang from deciding to enforce a set of rules they made up that are in total conflict with those that the majority agreed on?

5.) Does the system you envision also protect against military agression against this country? If so, who supplies the military.

6.) If a person engages in something like serial murder, who would catch him and imprison or execute him?  In general, how does your system handle retaliatory force against those who initiate violence?  Or, does it?

(Edited by Steve Wolfer on 10/18, 3:09pm)

John:

It's perhaps true that my thought experiment nation does not have what we today regard as a 'government' in the sense of what we know governments to do.   The reality of what governments do and how they act and how the evolve is far from anything like my thought experiment.  Instead of being the guardians of freedom, by doing things like adhering to a rational set of knowable core principles and inhibiting unchecked coercive power, they themselves act in such a way as to be the monopolists of coercive power; what I've called "monopolists with guns" since long before registering here with that exact phrase as my 'pet peeve.

The American experiment came closest, once.   I wish I'd been alive to see it.   That America was gone long before I was born.

The on average, we're average inevitability of what America became is an incoherent mess, a 'mix' of health and poison(as if that was ever a reasonable thing to do.)    

America no longer (has long no longer) adheres to a rational set of knowable in advance core prinicples.  We wait and twitch in response to the next power seekers campaign to spark The Majority Enough into granting unlimited power to the latest lucky winner.  We cheer our favorite colored red or blie horse in the latest tag teaming carcass carvng of the nation.   Period.     When power seekers pollute the culture with inconsitant concepts, on average, we let them get away with it, and like termites, those shortcomings, both of power seekers and the on average we're average electorate, end up eating those core principles.  The latest -- its been an endless stream for generations-- has included America letting Obama get away with using the word 'ask' to describe his advocacy of 'tell', as in, 'What is wrong with asking(when we are telling)the wealthy to provide a little more?"  (And its forever 'a little' more, when in fact, it is just endlessly 'more.')    We end up with an electorate raised and even educated on the idea that, for instance, America is like a pure Democracy, ruled by The Majority.       Well, I'd argue, that is -exactly- similar to having no government at all.    The (roaming) Majority is just like the biggest momentary slobbering beast in the Jungle, and if its primary justification is "We're the Biggest Beast In The Jungle" then where is the ethical  foundation?   It is reduced to raw power, period, and let the steel cage death match struggle for domination, 51% to 49%, begin.     Not on issues that are appopriate for public debate or decision, but ... any issue imaginable.  Every aspect of our lives.   Might as well be anarchy.

Our global adversaries, with totalitarian leanings anathema to freedom,  once used this argument(pure democracy/majority rule) and similar manglings of American principles to overwhelm us.   They knew what choke points to apply pressure on(the open campus Ivies in our open borders nation), and they succeeded in turning what was once an external threat to American freedom into an internal threat, long after they openly failed on the world stage and their system ended up smoking on the trash heap of history.

To which our response has been, so far, "Hang tight, we'll be right there with you."

There was a kind of naive sappy faith -- promoted by those who were aiming their knives at America's throat -- that American's so loved their freedom, that the religion of Freedom was so Holy and Powerful, that it could stand up against any amount of termites in the foundation, and amount of lies and deceit and rot, and that in the end, why, those B17s would fly in noisely over the horizon in great numbers and so on and save the day for God, Freedom, Liberty, Mom, Apple Pie, and the America Way.    Cunning aimed at hubris, when our response should have been to not tolerate a single termite at all.

To understand why our global totalitarian competitors could not tolerate even one free nation in a world of 190 or so is not only obvious but readily observable from history; with one free nation left in the world, they couldn't build the walls high enough or the barbed wire thick enough to keep human beings from fleeing tribal tyranny and pursing freedom.    The pathetic scenes of folks throwing them into barbed wire fences trying to flee East Berlin and make it into West Berlin, to face the machine guns of forced association trying to keep the cattle in the pen, is the undeniable bottom line of a truly evil tribal disease: the social disease.

In this ... free for some mayhem ... there is little ethical justification to adhere to the willy nilly random laws being endlessly churned by these monopolists with guns.   And so, no basis to criticise those who disobey them using every means at their disposal, every fibre of their creative being.     There is a large and growing -- it can't grow too much more because the nation is saturated -- complete lack of faith in our institutions of ... monopolists with guns.   Becuase they've sold out and this nation let them -- encouraged them in the name of The Holy Majority -- do so.   And so, we occasionally read about the latest poor victims of the monopolists with guns getting caught in this war on freedom, but to be honest, rarely.    What we mostly read about is the fumbling and corruption of the monopolists with guns that results in no action or change whatsoever.

And so, today's economies of waiting.   (For what?  This isn't going anwhere until monopolists with guns vanish, and they are clinging to the Gig until their fingers -- and the nation's ass -- bleeds.)

So what's a rational person to do in this tribal cluster fuck we call America?

Hide in plain site.  Don't support it, to the best of one's ability, using every creative fibre of one's being, and live one's life as best one can.   Let what should rot, what deserves to rot, what has worked overtime trying to rot, rot.  Because at this point, rushing in with spades and shovels and trying to stave off the foregone is like pre-paying your own ransom.  Sometimes ships sink at sea.   Will alone was not going to keep the Titanic afloat after it hit the iceberg.   And so with America.

America didn't survive the global pandemic sweep of totalitarianism.   We didn't win the Cold War.  We caught the Cold.   Long ago.

regards,

Fred

John Howard,

How have you been?  It's been nearly a year since I've looked at my screen and received your salute.

You wrote:

 He [Steve] is claiming that only a ruling elite holding a monopoly on law enforcement should perform these functions....

That's not entirely accurate.  I would never use the term "ruling elite" since we aren't ever talking about how the government officials were chosen.  Maybe they are selected at random for a single term... How would that be an "elite" and if they are never exercising any law that isn't defending individual rights, then it wouldn't be "ruling" in a degrogatory sense.

Further, there must be a monopoly on the laws, but a monopoly on the enforcement is a different thing.  If the society in question is made up of nearly all Objectivists, then there would be little need for enforcement, and enforcement might be handled, to a large extent by a few private security guards.  But if the society is more like what we see in a large city today, then it might require some police personnel that answer directly to the government.  The make-up of society has to be part of the equation.

The monopoly on the laws is a requirement because they are intended as the expression of the individual rights.  But the way they are enforced, as long as it is known in advance, and stable, is a practical matter.  E.g., What works best?

I know that you have written that you don't argue against a single set of rules.  You wrote in Post 26:

I have already made very clear that I agree to a single set of right rules, but object to anyone having a monopoly on the enforcement of those rules or arbitration concerning those rules.

I've probably said it before (after almost a year, I don't remember) but I'll say it again.  Rules that aren't enforced aren't really rules.  They are just wishes or lies on the part of those agreeing or pretending to agree with them.  And people change their minds, particularly when in conflict, and decide that they have a right to do something that they earlier agreed not to do (e.g., take some property by force).
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You write: "The moral principal that you violate is the NAP." (None Aggresson Principle)

1. This is a kind of dogmatic approach to the issue of how do we live together in a way that is universally best.  It causes one to get lost in parsing each single action till the goal we should seek is lost.  The question that should be asked is what kind of implementation of what political system will give us the greatest reduction of aggression.  If one doesn't keep that broader purpose in mind, one won't achieve it in the end.

2. There will be (actually there already are) supporters of this absolute form of NAP, torn loose of any context, that will start to see micro-aggressions.  (In speech, in attitude, in language, in whatever)  And that kind of going-off-the-rails is made possible by not focusing on the goal of a society, that in practical as well as theoretical terms, provides the least violation of individual rights.

3. The NAP-only approach uses NAP as the base, as if it were the foundation.  But it is indiviual rights that give the moral status to NAP.  Individual rights is the more fundamental and required understanding.  With individual rights we understand that a person who initiates force against another gives up their rights in the act.  Making it moral to have a government that engages in retaliatory force.

4. Even individual rights, which are moral principles, must be seen as guiding princples, not as the final product. They are a litte like the map is to the journey, a little like the engineering principles are to the process of building a bridge.  We measure our progress with each step forward by these principles but always in the context of achieving the kind of social environment where individual rights are most observed.  And the true end product is in the individual's purpose which is their own pursuit of their own happiness.
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John Howard writes:

Most amazing is his [Steve's] dismissal, in Post 27, of my claim that majority rule and individual rights are mutually exclusive.  Either the majority has a right to rule a minority by force or they do not because the individuals in that minority have the same rights as the individuals in the majority.

My belief is that a majority can only "rule" over issues that do not violate individual rights - if they are to behave morally.  In other words they can do things like choose a representative, or a judge, or amend the constitution to better protect rights.  It is only a mechanism that spreads the authority of government over a wider base and reduces the chance of absolute totalitarianism.  I have never stated that a majority has the right to violate the right of an individual.

It is a very complicated and sophisticated task to reason out, much less implement, a political system that will ensure the individuals in a society the maximum amount of liberty.  It is about separating initiation of force from the marketplace where we all meet socially and commerically.  We can't do this without creating a single set of laws to define boundaries to behaviors that can be taken without another's choice.  And it requires a set of structures and procedures to implement those laws.  Without those it would be like talking about crossing a river where a bridge is needed, but declaring that the use of any kind of materials to build a bridge wasn't allowed.  It is nonsense.  It is, as Ayn Rand said, a floating abstraction.
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John Howard is an anarchist.  He believes in an unworkable and destructive political theory.   I have no hope that anything anyone could ever say will sway him.

Steve,

With respect, I don't think your responses to John are on point.  You've written a lot and brought up a number of interesting points, but your answers are largely beside the main point of his objection.  John's basic argument is that a monopoly on retaliatory force is inconsistent with the principle of individual rights, i.e., with the non-aggression principle, because if some people (i.e., agents of the government) have the right to engage in retaliatory force, then so do others.  If the government prevents them doing so and thereby assumes a monopoly on retaliatory force, then it is violating their rights by preventing them from doing exactly what it claims the right to do.  This is a well-known argument that's been around for a long time.  It was made initially by one of Ayn Rand's critics, Roy Child, back in 1969.  You need to address that argument by showing why the government's exclusive right to employ retaliatory force does not constitute the initiation of force.

Harry Binswanger has addressed the issue as follows: http://www.hblist.com/anarch/htm

A proper government is restricted to the protection of individual rights against violation by force or the threat of force. A proper government functions according to objective, philosophically validated procedures, as embodied in its entire legal framework, from its constitution down to its narrowest rules and ordinances. Once such a government, or anything approaching it, has been established, there is no such thing as a "right" to "compete" with the government—i.e., to act as judge, jury, and executioner. Nor does one gain such a "right" by joining with others to go into the "business" of wielding force.

To carry out its function of protecting individual rights, the government must forcibly bar others from using force in ways that threaten the citizens' rights. Private force is force not authorized by the government, not validated by its procedural safeguards, and not subject to its supervision.

The government has to regard such private force as a threat—i.e., as a potential violation of individual rights. In barring such private force, the government is retaliating against that threat.

Note that a proper government does not prohibit a man from using force to defend himself in an emergency, when recourse to the government is not available; but it does, properly, require him to prove objectively, at a trial, that he was acting in emergency self-defense. Similarly, the government does not ban private guards; but it does, properly, bring private guards under its supervision by licensing them, and does not grant them any special rights or immunities: they remain subject to the government's authority and legal procedures.

John, do you disagree with Binswanger's argument?  And if so, could you specify exactly where you think he errs?

Thanks John.  By the way, how are you doing, buddy?  It's been a long time since we last saw each other.  San Francisco circa 1965 was it?  But my memory isn't quite what it used to be.  I wonder what your old friend Alva is doing these days.

I agree 100%, Steve, but you implicitly ask a much deeper question. 

SW: (December 10, 2012): "The reason for anonymous voting to reduce the chances of people being intimidated (threatened) into voting against their own choices."

SW: (October 16, 2014): "As to secret ballots, it is a nice bit of privacy and it is a protection from a government that is moving towards tyranny.  Look at how our government has been using the IRS to target conservatives and libertarians and NSA to spy on journalists."

 

 

The secret ballot is called the Australian ballot because Australia was founded as a prison colony and criminals do not - cannot, dare not - trust each other. (Hence the "prisoner's dilemma" of game theory.  Real prisoners seldom make the minimax choice.) In America, we say "Stand up and be counted."  We have - once had, and now should have - a culture of toleration (not tolerance), that included the loyal opposition. Moreover, we once respected those who stood up for their beliefs. The controvery raging around Kim Davis brings much of that former respect into question.

In Massachusetts, they still have the town meeting. Everything is open to discussion.

I am not so sure, Peter. In the 1800s, voters were gathered up and taken together to the precinct polls in wagons. Today, if you need a ride, some party or other will provide one. You can vote any way you want, but the easy assumption is hard to argue against.