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Post 40

Friday, April 23, 2010 - 8:45amSanction this postReply
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Jim:

John -- re post 34 -- are you advocating compulsory citizenship of every person residing in a country's borders?


You might as well have said:

"Are you advocating compulsory respect of my human rights?"

It sounds like Jim you want to say that giving a moral sanction to someone's rights is a compulsory act? I suppose you can put it that way if you'd like, but that's like saying "I am compelling you to stop compelling me", which sounds like a definition of retaliatory force to me. Do you have a problem with retaliatory force?

You are saying I am arguing against my own principles, on the contrary it seems that you are, by defining a demand that you respect a moral principle, specifically rights, as coercion.

What I am advocating is similar to the U.S. doing away with automatic birthright citizenship, and saying that upon reaching the age of majority, each person born in the country must actually apply to continue to be a citizen and consent to the terms of that citizenship. And, if they choose to not be a citizen, they would still be allowed to live in the country so long as they chose to conform with the laws. Similarly with immigrants -- they could freely enter the country if they had no criminal background, and reside there so long as they conformed with the laws, but to become a citizen they would have to demonstrate good conduct over a period of years and then take an oath of citizenship.


You lost me here. I don't really understand what your point to 'citizenship' is, if everyone, citizen or non-citizen, must obey the law. Are you saying there should be some kind of moral obligation for a citizen that a non-citizen does not have to adhere to? I don't get it.



(Edited by John Armaos on 4/23, 8:51am)


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Post 41

Friday, April 23, 2010 - 9:01amSanction this postReply
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John, that is the heart of this. Anarchists think that it is okay to violate the rights of someone... as long as that is what the person chooses to do. But they won't admit to that, and they adopt a fantasy where magically rights don't get violated. How? Well, they say, people won't put up with it, they will act voluntarily in ways that evolve true justice. Oh, you mean by instituting a government that establishes a monopoly of laws based upon individual rights? No, because then people couldn't choose to be murders and thieves, but some other way [Blankout].
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If the only thing that minarchy prohibits is violation of rights, then the only thing that anarchy supports in comparison is... violation of rights.


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Post 42

Friday, April 23, 2010 - 10:21amSanction this postReply
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Something just occurred to me. If by calling a government's monopoly on law "socialistic," Block means that the government would enforce its laws on unwilling citizens (i.e., on those who don't agree with them), then an anarcho-capitalist defense agency would do the same thing. It too would enforce its laws on those who don't agree with them. So, by Block's definition, how is an anarcho-capitalist defense agency any less "socialistic" than a government?

- Bill

Post 43

Friday, April 23, 2010 - 11:21amSanction this postReply
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Steve / John: Let me take another try at explaining my point:

We agree on 3 out of 4 categories of interactions -- citizens interacting with citizens, citizens interacting with outlaws, and outlaws interacting with citizens. In all those cases, the society would enforce the rights of citizens. In no cases would anyone be allowed to harm citizens without retaliatory force being applied.

Where we disagree is for the interactions of outlaws with other outlaws, i.e. between people who do not accept the NIOF principle and reject the authority of the code of laws based on it, AND refuse to pay voluntary dues to support the legislature and administration needed to uphold the asserted monopoly of laws for citizens, AND refuse to join or pay for membership in a law enforcement agency to enforce those principles, AND refuse to join or pay for membership in an adjudication agency (the equivalent of courts and arbitration services).

So, how would you propose paying for all the expenses necessary to uphold the "rights" of these outlaws who reject this code of rights and refuse to pay anything to support this code? Suppose an outlaw gets in a dispute with another outlaw and shoots them, badly wounding them.

Are you saying all the law-abiding citizens should be involuntarily compelled -- i.e., taxed, a NIOF violation -- to pay out of their pockets to hire people from a private protective service to enforce the "rights" of the wounded outlaw who refused to purchase their own coverage from any such service, by arresting the outlaw shooter?

And then further tax the citizens to haul the outlaw shooter before a disputes resolution agency, even though the wounded outlaw also refused to purchase such coverage from such an agency?

And then tax the citizenry yet again to hire people to attempt to force the outlaw shooter to make restitution to the person he (or she) shot?

In short, are you saying that law-abiding citizens should suffer multiple NIOF violations, in the form of compulsory taxation, in order to provide free services -- i.e., welfare -- to outlaws who deliberately declined to buy those services and who reject the NIOF code, all in the name of upholding the NIOF principle?

Now, arguably people who felt like you do about the "rights" of non-participating outlaws might want to voluntarily contribute to a fund to provide charity coverage for such outlaws, and I would have no problem with that -- provided the "outlaw" in question accepted your charity.

But, if they rejected your charity, and told you to bugger off because they felt they can deal with problems on their own, are you going to foist your charity upon them anyway without their consent in the name of protecting their "rights"? Would you insist on protecting their NIOF rights by inflicting a NIOF violation upon them?
(Edited by Jim Henshaw on 4/23, 11:39am)


Post 44

Friday, April 23, 2010 - 11:33amSanction this postReply
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Bill -- re your post 42 -- Walter Block is saying in the quote (and in the article) that minarchists are socialists only in those areas where they advocate that services be provided by non-market, governmental and political means. He is saying that any areas where services and goods are provided by market-based transactions are NOT socialistic.

Thus, an anarcho-capitalist private defense agency would not be socialistic at all, because individuals would voluntarily purchase coverage from that agency in a non-coerced, mutually beneficial transaction. The result of that transaction would be that the agency would protect the rights of the individual who purchased the coverage. It wouldn't be giving away anything to anyone. It wouldn't be giving away anything to a criminal it applied retaliatory force to on behalf of a client.

The only way it would be socialist would be if it provided "free" services as I outlined in post 43 to outlaws who were transgressed upon by other outlaws, and paid for those "free" services by levying involuntary taxes upon others.

Post 45

Friday, April 23, 2010 - 11:33amSanction this postReply
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Sorry Jim I still don't understand what you're saying. You have to explain to me what is the difference between a citizen and a non-citizen in your imagined scenario. Since both have to respect the law, which we assume the law should be only that which sanctions appropriate retaliatory force, what is the difference between these two different classes of people? It's a simple question. Plus I don't understand why you keep saying I want to forcibly tax people?

What exactly is an outlaw besides someone who breaks the law or refuses to follow it? Why should an outlaw not suffer retaliatory force for his initiation of force? I don't get it. Can you give me an example of what it means for an outlaw to get into a dispute with another outlaw? What would be their dispute?
(Edited by John Armaos on 4/23, 11:36am)


Post 46

Friday, April 23, 2010 - 11:58amSanction this postReply
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John -- OK, take three (or four, or whatever I'm up to).

In this scenario, a citizen is someone who agrees to abide by the code of laws drawn up by a law making service agency, a code of laws based on the NIOF principle, and said citizen pays a (presumably very minimal) fee to that agency for drawing up the laws and periodically elaborating on them to clarify ambiguities that arise in practice and application (the rough equivalent of a Supreme Court), and administering the membership rolls of that agency as it adds new members who agree to abide by this code, and cancels the membership for cause of people who violate the code and refuse to compensate and atone for their transgressions.

A non-citizen would be everyone else.

Citizens would consent to respect and abide by the law in their treatment of everyone, citizens and non-citizens alike, including being allowed to use appropriate retaliatory force against those who transgress against them, either personally or via proxies.

Non-citizens would not so consent, though in practice they would find it prudent to not violate the asserted rights of citizens, since any such violation would bring retaliation upon them. They might not respect the law, but they would fear the retaliation for breaking the law as regards a citizen.

Non-citizens would have to work out their own rough justice or lack thereof when dealing with other non-citizens, sort of like how pirates aboard pirate ships drew up their own code of conduct when dealing with each other, a code that was not recognized by the ships of the various royal navies that were sent out to capture and hang the pirates.

Post 47

Friday, April 23, 2010 - 12:14pmSanction this postReply
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The much shorter version of post 46:

People would be either law-abiding citizens who agree to abide by a code of conduct drawn up by a private agency akin to a Supreme Court and legislature, or parasitical looters who don't agree to abide by that code, but who rightly fear the wrath of the retaliatory force that be employed against them if they harm any law-abiding citizens.

The parasitical looters would be free to try and prey on other parasitical looters, who might return the "favor".

Post 48

Friday, April 23, 2010 - 12:25pmSanction this postReply
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So Jim, are you asking what would happen to people who were victimized but do not seek or want any kind of protection?

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Post 49

Friday, April 23, 2010 - 1:27pmSanction this postReply
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Minarchist: How many different governments can you have in this land where there is not a single set of laws that apply to everyone?

Anarchist: Lots, you could have more governments than you have people if that was what some anarchists wanted. But probably you'd only have a couple of dozen and probably in a given area there would only be three or four. But don't call them governments, they are protective agencies.

Minarchist: Why wouldn't one of them become government-like and try to impose it self on people who subscribe to a different agency?

Anarchist: Because people wouldn't let it.

Minarchist: But people nearly everywhere and through out history have been oppressed by the takeover of an existing government by another government.

Anarchist: These aren't governments. They are agencies and they compete for customers. People aren't compelled to use a protective agency. Those agencies that make their customers happy will flourish and the others will go out of business.

Minarchist: But they can't compete in a free market since some of them will use initiatory force - that means that you don't have a free market form of competition. That means that any agency that feels powerful enough can become a looter and take everything away for customers of other agencies. After all they each make up their own rules

Anarchist: [no answer]

Anarchist: Your system has compulsory taxation.

Minarchist: No it doesn't.

Anarchist: Your system compels people to be citizens.

Minarchist: No, they can renounce their citizenship, be here without being a citizen, legally or illegally, but nothing they do will ever give them the legal or moral right to violate the rights of another - no matter who the violator or the victim are or what there citizenship status is.

Anarchist: My system lets outlaws do what they want to other outlaws but not to citizens.

Minarchist: If you have a dozen agencies, then you have a dozen different kinds of citizens and each one is an outlaw to each of the other agencies. Everyone in the country is an outlaw to some agency. And some people might be outlaws to all agencies. In that confusing mess, you will never figure out what to do to whom and more importantly no way to stop one agency from using force against other agencies. I don't think the NeoNazi agency will respect your agency's rules.

Anarchist: No, you don't understand. Each defense agency must abide by the NIOF rule.

Minarchist: You compel them to abide by this? Do you mean that you actually have a monopoly law under which everyone in the geographical area (the entire country) must abide by?

Anarchist: No, they don't have to become citizens or to agree, but they will find themselves in big trouble if they violate the rights of citizen - because there will be retaliation.

Minarchist: Yes, but your NIOF anarchists are going to be outlaws from the perspective of the Democratic Socialists. They require everyone, citizen or not, to participate in the sharing of wealth. No way you can stop them... beyond fighting a war. And that is where anarchy always leads. Because without a monopoly of objective laws based upon individual rights force and fraud and theft get to compete in the markets - they are not free markets. And this will tend to escalate till the nature of the force is such that you can call it war.

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Post 50

Friday, April 23, 2010 - 7:56pmSanction this postReply
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John: "So Jim, are you asking what would happen to people who were victimized but do not seek or want any kind of protection?"

I am asking if one is obligated to sacrifice by providing various services to other people who not only declined to purchase those services, but who also do not recognize your own rights and may victimize you if given the chance.


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Post 51

Friday, April 23, 2010 - 8:29pmSanction this postReply
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John Armaos Post 12: You do not have a right to any particular good or service. That includes police protection. A monopoly of law does not mean a monopoly of service. It is not anarchy to have competing police agencies so long as they abide by the law...

William Dwyer Post 18: To advocate a monopoly on the law is not to argue against competing police agencies, since we already have competing security guards and even private police in some U.S. cities. 

Ed Thompson Post 21:   ...   they idealize the rights and hold them in their minds as a stable, but floating, abstraction. They say: "Don't tax me to pay for the police because it violates my property rights!" -- but the police are the only logical way to ensure the protection of their property rights. ...  Anarchists who say that paying for police violates their rights also want this kind of absolute (context-free) freedom.

[In an earlier post on another topic, Ed Thompson said that he understands that police services can be competitive.]

Dean Michael Gores Post 25: "Police: To have a "monopoly on law" you need to have a group of people that enforce it. ... The people who hold the "monopoly on law" must also enforce the law. They must forcefully compel people to reimburse.

Steve Wolfer Post 28: ...  you can have firms compete to supply the police functions. Same for the courts. We have security firms, and the courts could let security firms compete for contracts, and we have private arbitration firms. We could also have a mercenary army.

 


The assumption seems to be that the government is the default provider of these services, but that private providers would be "allowed" to compete against the government. 

If we grant for now the existence of an objective code of laws (a monopoly on law), then what purpose do the government police serve?

By what right does the government provide these services at all? 


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Post 52

Friday, April 23, 2010 - 8:59pmSanction this postReply
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Michael,

The government has the right to self-defense that is delegated to it by the people. But no one has to explicitly delegate a right to self-defense since anyone that is violating individual rights loses their own rights and is fair game for a government.

We focus so much on the detail level of individual rights - on the single, specific act and how to treat it politically, that we overlook the importance of creating and maintaining the environment of stable, long-lived property rights that can be trusted to exist in the future. This is a large, complex set of structures: courts, legislators, lawyers, laws, jails, county registrars, patent office, etc. and all together, they are a key part of our society and culture. Our ability to flourish is to a large degree dependent on those rights-protection cultural structures.
----------------

Outsourcing versus hiring directly are just business decisions. Having and implementing an objective set of laws based upon individual rights is the job government must fulfill. And fulfilling that means creating and maintaining those aforementioned structures.

By what right does an anarchist deny a minarchist government that is supported by voluntary contributions?

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Post 53

Saturday, April 24, 2010 - 4:08amSanction this postReply
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Steve Wolfer:  By what right does an anarchist deny a minarchist government that is supported by voluntary contributions?

Here we have the problem of the unnamed collective.  And we have the problem of the strawman argument. 

Personally, speaking only for myself, if you go back over everything I wrote, you might find something to take out of context -- another problem -- but you will find that I never said that you don't have a right to form your own govenment.  You do.  You and your minarchist friends can do whatever you want (up to the point where my rights begin).   If people somewhere want to acknowledge a hereditary Grand Duke they can do that. 

I trust that I am not wrong in saying that nothing in what you, Steve Wolfer, recognize as "objective government" is impossible to a hereditary Grand Duke. 

As you say, as long as the objective government has objective laws, how they organize the clerks is a detail. 

I never said that everyone ought to do what I want them to.   All I ever said was that what you call "anarcho-capitalism" (or just "anarchy") is how the world really works. 

Multinational corporations are anarch-capitalist enterprises that supersede local laws.  They pick the laws they want to obey by shopping among places to locate, and taking the costs of business into account. 

They do not open fire on each other when they have a dispute. 

Do  have object law?  Hard to see how they could not!  They have the same interests -- see Rand on the non-existence of conflict of interest among rational men -- and they seek only to come to mutually acceptable terms.  We hear of egegious court cases in which businesses sue each other over life and death of the corporation, but most often, if General Motors had a problem with a shipment of brake pads from Siemens, that one disagreement did not sour the long-term relationship.

(Edited by Michael E. Marotta on 4/24, 4:45am)


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Post 54

Saturday, April 24, 2010 - 4:33amSanction this postReply
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Law Without Government

I have written several times about The American Arbitration Agency.  Their URL is www.adr.org becaucse ADR stands for alternative dispute resolution.  Here are some of their commercial rules.  And here is their standard arbitration clause. 

Another example of transnational law comes from the International Criminal Court in the Hague.  How do you create international criminal law? Basically, legalists (from different traditions and different schools) come together to find universal principles, i.e, objective law.

In the Dissent Forum I wrote about the Hague Conference on Private International Law from 1893. 
 
What do you do when someone in Belgium inherits a bank account in Switzerland and their cousin in Greece wants to contest the will?   Ayn Rand would have you believe that the citizens call their armies and the nations go to war.  (Maybe if one of them was an archduke who was shot...  but that would be a problem of having government, rather than law...)  Mostly, people work things out peacefully because that is the reality-based expectation.

Wolf DeVoon is a lawyer who has some web presence as an author of fiction as well as an Objectivist.  An anarchist, he sees government as one way to instantiate the law.  For Devoon -- as for Aristotle, and, I assert, for any Objectivist -- the law comes first and we find ways to make it happen.  His novella, The Good Walk Alone, takes place in a future Costa Rica where policewomen of Hollywood proportions enforce objective law.

Most of the world's 200+ constitutions were copied in form, content, or intent from the U.S. Constitution.  Our constitution evolved over 100 years, actually, as colonies attempted to meet common problems.  So, it was not a gift from Olympus as much as from Darwin.  But ours was first.  But copying it has not brought our virtues to their societies.  Most often, the fine words are ignored -- or the new junta issues a new constitution. 

So, too, does "objective law"  as proposed on RoR have the problem of objective culture.  You cannot reverse cause and effect.  If you want objective government, you need objective law first.  And the first objective law you need is the law of identity.  When enough people truly recognize that, then the rest will follow. 

Reality is real: to the extent that trade and commerce flourish, that is the extent to which people have discovered objective philosophy, whether explicitly or implicitly.

(Edited by Michael E. Marotta on 4/24, 4:49am)


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Post 55

Saturday, April 24, 2010 - 8:53amSanction this postReply
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Jim wrote,
Bill -- re your post 42 -- Walter Block is saying in the quote (and in the article) that minarchists are socialists only in those areas where they advocate that services be provided by non-market, governmental and political means. He is saying that any areas where services and goods are provided by market-based transactions are NOT socialistic.

Thus, an anarcho-capitalist private defense agency would not be socialistic at all, because individuals would voluntarily purchase coverage from that agency in a non-coerced, mutually beneficial transaction. The result of that transaction would be that the agency would protect the rights of the individual who purchased the coverage. It wouldn't be giving away anything to anyone. It wouldn't be giving away anything to a criminal it applied retaliatory force to on behalf of a client.

The only way it would be socialist would be if it provided "free" services as I outlined in post 43 to outlaws who were transgressed upon by other outlaws, and paid for those "free" services by levying involuntary taxes upon others.
If that's all he's saying, then why does he state, "The government, no matter how it is constituted, must either compel payments for its 'services' and/or forcibly preclude competition with itself, at least on “its” territory." (Emphasis added)

Excuse me, but an anarcho-capitalist defense agency must forcibly preclude competition with itself at least on "its" territory (the territory of its customers) by an agency with a different set of laws (one that violates individual rights). Otherwise, it is not defending its own customers against a violation of their rights.

- Bill

Post 56

Saturday, April 24, 2010 - 9:28amSanction this postReply
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Michael,

You reply to me by saying, "Here we have the problem of the unnamed collective. And we have the problem of the strawman argument."

I have no idea what you mean by "unnamed collective" or "strawman argument." You put a sentence at the bottom of post #51, in bold, where you asked where government gets the right to take certain actions. I answered your question directly, and then asked by what right an anarchist would deny minarchy.

It seems to have flustered you. What I am asking is what is the moral basis for anarchy that supersedes the moral basis I, and others, have argued in favor of a minarchy that is supported by voluntary contributions. That is reasonable question.
---------------

You said, "I never said that everyone ought to do what I want them to." I'm sorry to hear that your 'wants' and 'oughts' are out of alignment. But I'm not surprised. If someone preaches a system as dangerously unworkable as anarchy, then it makes sense that they wouldn't want people to actually accept and implement what they are calling for.
--------------

Your positions make no sense. You redefine anarchy as anything and everything. You claim that because a multinational corporation operates in different countries, and does so in ways that benefit it, they are anarchists. Is a person who emigrates an anarchist because they have 'shopped' for the best set of laws to be under? Patent nonsense.

You mention that multinational corporations don't resolve their disputes by opening fire on each other. I take it that you imagine that to be a fact that supports your belief that a) they are anarchists, b) they operate in a state of anarchy, and c) that anarchy works... because they don't fire on each other. This is what happens when you have a fixed idea... you redefine bits and pieces of reality all around you to support that fixed idea. First, corporations operate within different geographical areas each with its own jurisdictional boundaries. They adjust their behaviors to attain their goals - including shopping for the best set of laws to work under for given operations. All evidence that they are not anarchists, but rather 'citizens' of one or more jurisdictions and that anarchy isn't just another way of saying 'how the universe works' - they are shopping for different monopolies of laws withing an area. And they don't shoot at each other because they are contrained by laws to resolve differences via courts, arbitrators, voluntary agreements, etc. - not by force. Laws, property rights, treaties, courts and governments that back these up are what make multinational trade possible - no anarchy there.

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Post 57

Saturday, April 24, 2010 - 9:42amSanction this postReply
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Michael,

In post #54 you say, "What do you do when someone in Belgium inherits a bank account in Switzerland and their cousin in Greece wants to contest the will? Ayn Rand would have you believe that the citizens call their armies and the nations go to war. (Maybe if one of them was an archduke who was shot... but that would be a problem of having government, rather than law...) Mostly, people work things out peacefully because that is the reality-based expectation."

Making up a false statement about Ayn Rand won't make your weak argument strong. Rand is the one who understood what you don't - that a proper government is what makes good laws work and that is the way to make a peaceful environment suited to trade. The absence of government, anarchy, your favored system, is exhibited by Somalia - a nice peaceful place [sarcasm]. Mostly people work things out peacefully because that is the reality-based expectation for people that have instituted governments that support trade and prohibit theft. (You left that last part off - and it is what makes the case for government).

Government without objective law is tyranny. Objective law without government is wishful thinking. Government with objective law is how we institute justice.

Post 58

Saturday, April 24, 2010 - 10:19amSanction this postReply
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Michael -- sanctioned your posts 51, 53, and 54. Well said!

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Post 59

Saturday, April 24, 2010 - 11:15amSanction this postReply
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Steve: your post has some statements I do not fully agree with. Let me address my areas of agreement and disagreement one by one, your remarks in quotes:


"The government has the right to self-defense that is delegated to it by the people."

Governments don't have rights. Only individuals have rights. Governments have powers, allegedly granted to them by the alleged consent of the subjects they claim the power to rule. And governments aren't some disembodied thing, they are composed of individuals who each assert they have various powers over other individuals, and use other individuals to coerce obedience to their commands.

"But no one has to explicitly delegate a right to self-defense since anyone that is violating individual rights loses their own rights and is fair game for a government."

The right to self-defense is an individual right. If some random person walks up to me and claims that they have the power to enforce that right of self-defense for me, and demands cash for this "service" they offer, and are vague about how they intend to go about enforcing that power they claim to have, and don't bother to ask me if I agree with all these assertions, am I obligated to accept this offer whether I like it or not?

Now, what if this is not some random person, but a person carrying a gun and saying they are from an organization -- let's call it a "government" -- is this individual somehow different than the individual in the paragraph above?

Everyone has the right to delegate their natural right to self-defense. Anyone who is violating an individual's rights maintains all of their rights except for those rights they have ceded via this act of aggression. If you rob me of a stick of gum, you do not lose ALL your rights, you lose whatever rights I may need to trammel upon to defend my right to my property you have stolen. I do not, for example, have the right to pull out a gun and murder you in response to your act of gum-stealing.

So, anyone that violates my right does not lose all their rights, nor are they "fair game for a government". I have the right to defend my rights, either personally or via people I have specifically delegated that power of enforcing my rights to. Notice my deliberate use of "power" versus "rights" in the previous sentence -- the two are NOT interchangeable terms.

"We focus so much on the detail level of individual rights - on the single, specific act and how to treat it politically, that we overlook the importance of creating and maintaining the environment of stable, long-lived property rights that can be trusted to exist in the future."

Who is this collective "we" you are referring to? And what is this "environment"? If by "environment", you mean "government", those entities have a terrible track record on the "stable, long-lived" part, since the particular government entity that I have actually worked in and observed at painfully close range -- the Hawaii State legislature -- is composed of individuals who, with only a handful of exceptions, are dedicated to chipping away at and undermining our rights, bit by bit, session by session, however much they may rationalize their actions to themselves. Our federal government only appears to be marginally better.

"Our ability to flourish is to a large degree dependent on those rights-protection cultural structures."

Our ability to flourish is dependent to some extent on other individuals sharing our valuation of natural rights -- the "culture" and the "structure" you refer to are an artifact of the result of the summing up of those valuations, not the cause. If you could push a button that would instantaneously change all those individual values to the NIOF principles, the culture and the structures would almost overnight morph to comply with them. If the button pushing resulted in everyone having thoroughly statist values, the opposite almost overnight shift in the culture and structures would happen.

"Outsourcing versus hiring directly are just business decisions. Having and implementing an objective set of laws based upon individual rights is the job government must fulfill. And fulfilling that means creating and maintaining those aforementioned structures."

I must object to your use of "must" in "must fulfill". Who is going to enforce that "must"? There isn't a government on the earth anywhere, and never has been, that has had a purely objective set of laws. Some come closer than others. The actual governments on every level that impose their rule upon me right now all appear to be moving further away from such laws.

"By what right does an anarchist deny a minarchist government that is supported by voluntary contributions?"

To the extent that individuals given authority by that minarchist government try to violate the natural rights of an anarcho-capitalist, the A/C has the right to oppose that initiation of force (though they may find it prudent to yield to some or all of these usurpations due to not having sufficient firepower to resist). If the minarchist government does not violate the rights of the A/C, then the A/C should be content to let other minarchist individuals consent to be ruled by, and periodically have their rights violated by, the government those minarchists have given their consent to.

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