Following the Jan. 8 attempted killing of Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and murder of several others, the Libertarians Party soon after released a press statement saying how libertarians support the non-aggression principle and that they condemn the killing of innocent people. That is fine and good. Several innocent people were wounded by gun fire and others were killed.

But that does not speak to the guilt of Giffords as an elected member and supporter of a decision-making body responsible for the death of hundreds of thousands of people killed in aggressive wars. If the media were as self-righteous about the deaths caused by police violence or the human destruction of foreign occupations, we would have a better society.

We can see from the reaction of every political stripe that no one wants to appear sympathetic to the killer’s cause. We are fortunate that people are not willing to accept open violence to solve political problems. They would rather political violence be hidden away, which is why libertarians are scorned for pointing out just how violent government is.

For those who seek liberty, there is no good reason for supporting political violence. Foremost is that government knows exactly how to respond to violence, with greater violence. They will always have a greater stock of helicopters and guns. It also gives government an excuse to point to a looming, shadowy threat in order to play the victim for the rest of the population to unite behind. A third reason that political violence is counter-productive is because it destroys the limited wealth that would be need for economic recovery. All the way around, political violence against the government has no place in a movement to promote liberty.

But the anti-market conception of freedom is only recognizing the “yoke of external nature,” as anarcho-communist Mikhail Bakunin called it. Or like Wesley Bertrand on a recent “Complete Liberty” podcast said, “Life is the freedom to starve.” This yoke cannot be removed so long as we are alive. It is the everlasting condition underlying every action we make: to live or die, to improve our material condition or suffer. To say that a starving man is not free is to reverse cause and effect. Consumption only becomes possible after production. It is only through production that an individual can provide for his well-being. A starving man has fewer opportunities to take advantage of his freedom, but also at no other time is his freedom of more value. Without it, his mind would be paralyzed to think, ensuring his destruction.

The root conflict between my understanding of liberty and someone like Bakunin, for example, is I believe that indirect and direct physical force are the only means of violating someone’s rights. All libertarians committed to non-aggression would agree that if a starving man is prevented by physical force from engaging in productive action, then he is not free. Bakunin is correct that the right to liberty is only of significance in the realm of interpersonal relationships, but I contend that that the only way of impeding someone’s rights is by force. We can be victims of our neighbor’s irrationality or bigotry. But so long as that injustice is not manifested in the unauthorized use or abuse of another’s rightly controlled property or person, the damage is psychological and not physical. We remain free to use our minds and the products of our mind as we see fit. We remain free to use the property in question to inform others of the injustice we received.

For those of political power, freedom is an outright threat to the existence of their power. That is because its origin is vested in violence and sought through favoritism, so the static quantity of its influence must increasingly become cartelized into fewer and fewer hands. That system can distribute wealth, but it cannot create it. Their power extents only so far as they can project authority over others or convince others they too can benefit from that power. For those of economic power, they are insulated from the harsh realities of tyrannical governments and can position themselves to profit from partnering with the state. So it is natural for the two to protect each of their interests. One has a legal monopoly on coercion, but not the ability to create wealth of its own. The other has wealth, but not supposed the authority to initiate the use of physical force.

It is important not to forget that political and economic interests acquire power from fundamentally different sources. The former confiscates wealth and subjugates individuals as a matter of course, while the latter serves to disperse power through mutually beneficial exchange (to the degree it does not cling to political power). Economic power, when not acquired by physical force, is a product of the limitless creative process, consensual regulation, market competition, and organized labor.

Confusing the two as one in the same leads to the support for less liberty and less opportunity. An example of this is the famed anarchist Noam Chomsky, who actively supports the expansion of state control. While justly viewing the state as a tool of domination and privilege, he looks to the state for protection from the same interests he believes are manipulating it in their favor.

In an interview, he said:

I’m not in favour of people being in cages. On the other hand I think people ought to be in cages if there’s a sabre-toothed tiger wandering around outside and if they go out of the cage the sabre-toothed tiger will kill them. … And there is a cage, namely the state, which to some extent is under popular control. The cage is protecting people from predatory tyrannies so there is a temporary need to maintain the cage, and even to extend the cage.

Under a banner of protecting people from the infringement of political privilege, Chomsky has become a tool of entrenched political interests. It is also not lost on me that economic power disparities can be seized upon and manipulated in favor of one side of an exchange more than another. No political model can guarantee that people will act justly. But one can minimize the consequences of injustice and promote the occurrence of mutually positive interactions. To do this, a just society would need a widespread recognition for private property rights, but that is not sufficient to ensure that freedom would have much meaning. Here, I agree with Bakunin that individuals are only capable of achieving emancipation once they have recognized their same humanity in others. As Mary Ruwart said in “Healing Our World,” when we seek to control others, we find ourself the one controlled.

As a practical matter, a lasting libertarian society would more likely come about by a widespread cultural shift of accepting the choices of others, treating others equally as individuals, and becoming less obedient to oppressors. Most people do not become libertarians out of a duty to the non-aggression principle. They are attracted to the sense of justice and fairness inherent in equal liberty.

A free market would be a more abundant society and would radically expand the scope of economic opportunity. It would also be more efficient at helping the disabled and poor, who are often the most devastated victims of political favoritism. Without the expense of tax collection and tax compliance, together which gobble up two-thirds of welfare revenue received, those in need would experience dramatic increases in charity. It should go without saying that when I am talking about the free market, I am not apologizing for economic conditions as they exists now in America or elsewhere. I am working analytically to explain the economic consequences of an unhampered market process. To the extent that an unhampered market existed, one could expect these consequences to follow.

A practiced and still principled way of promoting a libertarian society is by addressing people’s legitimate concerns of what would happen to the less fortunate in a free society. Direct action, like mutual aid, social ostracism, and counter-economics, should be potent models to demonstrate the validity of equal liberty while also challenging the status quo. The downside of charity is that it tends to be a short-lived solution, so I do believe mutual aid would be a better way of promoting social harmony and overcoming the root cause of despair — if we are going to be free, not by vote, but as a matter of virtue.

I still have the same support for open immigration today but for different reasons, of course. What I mean to say is that support for open immigration is not exclusive to anarchists, though I do believe they have a deeper understanding of why immigration should be unregulated. Support for open immigration is not universally adopted by anarchists. One example would be Hans Hermann Hoppe, who claims that open immigration is equivalent to “forced integration.” I believe Sheldon Richman has sufficiently eviscerated that argument though.

Another libertarian unfortunately caught in the current immigration scare is Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX). He has called it “an invasion.” Constitutionally, congress has no expressly delegated power to regulate who may immigrate to or emigrate from the country, only how to become a citizen. The framers of the constitution had intended that states would be responsible for their own immigration policy but never envisioned such a welfare state either. In the interim, until government welfare is no longer subsidizing immigration, Paul and other constitutionalists dumbfoundingly insist that government needs additional powers to alleviate the consequences of the immigration problem it created.

Using Paul’s own premise of the necessity of political government, I believe it is self-evident that the only practical and ethical immigration policy is to open the borders. I do not happen to share Paul’s premise that government is necessary or proper, but I think I understand his stance after being a minarchist for several years myself.

Through Minarchist Glasses

Accepting for a moment that the state, as commonly understood, is necessary for the protection of individual rights, an open immigration policy would be a necessity. With that said, open immigration does not mean letting anyone into the country for any old reason whatsoever. A minarchist government could still require immigrants to register and pass a screening check to ensure they are neither perennial aggressors nor intent on committing aggression in the future. Additionally, a government could establish its own guidelines for becoming a citizen.

The argument against open immigration, as I understand it, is that government has the final say who can enter its territory. For this to be true, two conditions must both be true, that the government’s territory is legitimately controlled and that government can properly be assigned powers outside the scope of the defensive protection of individual rights.

First, I have said before that a stipulation on whether property is legitimately controlled is the means by which it was acquired. Government property, presently, is commonly acquired under coercion and with stolen money. Mandatory taxation is one form of theft, even to minarchists like Rand and Andrew Napolitano, who support the idea of a voluntary taxation paid in exchange for government services. Presently, no state in the history of civilization has met this fist condition, so no state in the history of civilization has the legitimate power to exclude peaceful, honest immigrants.

So far, I have made the gross assumption that government is necessary for the protection of individual rights. Simply looking at it as a thought experiment, I’m going to imagine that a government had aquired its territory by just means. The second hurdle a government would have to prove is that it can properly be assigned powers that are outside the scope of its legitimate function of defending individual rights. But this is objectively impossible. In the ontological sense, an individual or a group of individuals may not transfer power to a government other than those which are used expressly for the defense of individual rights. Government by its nature is coercive. That coercion may be used defensively or aggressively. Any government action that does not involve the defensive protection of individual rights must necessarily be used in aggression, even if everyone in the society agrees beforehand to grant government additional powers. To say that somone has the right to violate my inalienable rights is contradictory, so government can have no proper powers beyond the scope of the defensive protection of individual rights.

Rand said, “To take rights like those of property and contractual freedom that are based on a foundation of the absolute self-ownership of the will and then to use those derived rights to destroy their own foundation is philosophically invalid.”

Transferring additional rights other than those necessary for the defense of individual rights would require being able to transfer one’s free will, which is impossible, of course.

In the same way, a group of people could not form a government wherein someone becomes a voluntary slave. Free will is not transferable, in whole or in part, so a voluntary slave can never exchange his free will. The notion that property like roads and parks, neither of which are necessary for the protection of rights, can properly be granted to government would still require a transfer of free will but only to a lesser scale and in a slightly augmented way. At worst, a voluntary slave could be looked upon as a making a promise. A slave who breaks that promise could be ostracized, but it would not be legitimate to use force against him.

Basically, just as someone cannot be held liable for agreeing to voluntary slavery, one cannot properly assign rights or powers to a government other than those which make forming a government a necessary function of society. This is important because a government that goes beyond its proper function could no longer operate as an objective referee who enforces objective rules. A government is given this exception of having a legal monopoly to determine the proper use of force, according to minarchists like Rand, because free will could not function in any practical sense without the existence of a limited government to defend rights and enforce lawful agreements.

Further Implications as a Minarchist

Property that is currently under the unjust control of government does have an owner. It just so happens that proper claims are made so murky that it would be practically impossible to determine who deserves restitution and to what degree, making property under unjust government control de facto unowned.

Sentimentally, I agree that someone with long-standing ties to the community or the original owner has a higher moral claim to that property than a recent mover. But when left with the alternative of leaving it in the hands of an oppressor or liberating that stolen property, the emphasis should be to reduce the harm being inflicted as soon as possible.

If government property is being used to violate individual rights, that property should revert [Edit May 6, after some reconsideration] to whoever is being aggressed against. If someone were to destroy that property or liberate it, then the government responsible for violating rights would be morally responsible for providing restitution to the willing legitimate owner.

Back in Reality Mode

My thoughts are that citizenship under political government is just an embellished form of voluntary slavery, making it void and in contradiction with human nature.

The questionable land acquisition of nearly every government in existence is an obvious point in favor of anarchism. But that debate usually breaks down into how consent of the governed can be achieved. My deeper concern is whether granting final decision-making authority to a single organization could result in a just social order. Often, we can see how relationships based on power are exploitative without either party resorting to aggression. After all, the state minimizes its naked aggression because it can rely on the inertia of majority will, propaganda, or its overwhelming military presence to command obedience. Many libertarians or so-called anarcho-capitalists I read do not seem to object fundamentally to these power structures, which is disappointing, because they do overly focus on the low-hanging fruit of the state’s land acquisition process. So, I associate a pro-liberty mindset with more just anti-statism but with a more robust expression of opposition to collectivist authoritarianism in general.

It is still an on-going process in my own mind to understand, and I am open to criticism (including the ones I mentioned above). If anyone would like to discuss this off-site, let me know.

[Note: This post was compiled from an e-mail discussion.]

To the loved ones of Mr. Stack and his victims, I offer my condolences. For Stack, I have nothing but condemnation for his acts. His brutality was needless and heartless.

I agree with Stack that what the IRS does is evil. Taxation is extortion.

What is easy to overlook is that the vast majority of people who advocate for government intervention into peaceful people’s lives do not see it that way. That’s just the way it is, they say.

Part of it is a lack of education. They have not read the books we have or heard the speeches we have. They have never studied agorism or read How I Found Freedom in an Unfree World by Harry Browne. And so they are still indoctrinated in government slavespeak.

Part of it as well is they believe that with enough government intervention and threats of violence, they can overcome circumstances they dislike in society. The only practical solution they see is violence. To offer voluntary and consent-based solutions to their problems seems so foreign them. In fact, in Stack’s suicide note of sorts, he said “[V]iolence not only is the answer, it is the only answer.”

So if the news reports are accurate and this man did do this, then he would have been acting under the same failed premises as those he intended to attack. He was a frustrated, desperate man who was willing to take his life rather than become a victim of the IRS any longer. But that is not how he will be remembered. He did not advance the cause of liberty one inch. He set it back. I’ve written before why violence is not the path to liberty.

For those of us whose highest political end is individual liberty, I believe one of our missions is to explain why violence and threats of violence are at best temporary antidotes to social ills — like heroin to an addict. Luckily, most everyone lives by the non-aggression principle everyday; it only takes making them aware of this and convincing them that the same principle applies to government too.

I would suggest reading Stack’s letter. An excerpt is below.

I can only hope that the numbers quickly get too big to be white washed and ignored that the American zombies wake up and revolt; it will take nothing less. I would only hope that by striking a nerve that stimulates the inevitable double standard, knee-jerk government reaction that results in more stupid draconian restrictions people wake up and begin to see the pompous political thugs and their mindless minions for what they are. Sadly, though I spent my entire life trying to believe it wasn’t so, but violence not only is the answer, it is the only answer. The cruel joke is that the really big chunks of shit at the top have known this all along and have been laughing, at and using this awareness against, fools like me all along.

He was obviously an intelligent and lucid man. He was angry at an unmerciful system that cripples ingenuity and compassion. He hoped to be a martyr in the revolt; but really, he is just a killer.

His particular justification is the social contract (compact) theory, an ex post facto excuse for a dominant majority to subjugate the will of a minority while simultaneously attempting to evade their own psychological trauma for doing so. There are many versions of the social contract, some larger in scope than others, but his happens to be quite limited. He believes a social contract obliges adults to defend the rights of others in the community and to deliberate in an assembly to make legitimate changes to the government.

We’re going to take things away from you on behalf of the common good. — Hillary Clinton

This is all well and good, but I didn’t understand how a social contract could be established or what happens to those who disagree that a social contract had been established. As it turns out, individuals agreeing to pool their resources to defend against threats to their liberty (or rights) are forming a social contract. In doing so, a society is innately created, and as children become adults, they inherit this social contract and further these obligations of protection and deliberation onto their children, and so on and so on. Already, we can see the circular argument in this theory. Liberty and rights are a function of living in a society; societies cannot be formed for the protection of liberty since the concept of liberty is meaningless and has no value before joining a society. (For someone concerned about protecting liberties, forming a government is doubly confusing since governments are the greatest violators of liberty to have ever existed.) Ludwig von Mises said, “Society is division of labor and combination of labor.” The protection of liberty is not the purpose of society, but it is a fortunate consequence. Instead, the purpose of joining or maintaining a society is to form a division of labor, making the efficient protection from criminals one of the society’s many byproducts. Society is a mental pursuit, first. It is an attempt by individuals to quell some easiness about their existence, to improve the material conditions they experience. Some individuals in a society may make an explicit loyalty oath among themselves to defend each other from criminals, to educate the young, or to share their food in common, but those are not a necessary condition for a society to be created. In theory, a group of self-sufficient families who otherwise never interacted could form a self-defense compact, but they would get none of the benefits of a society. If an obligation of protection were a necessary component of forming a society, then it could equally be stated that there is an obligation to feed, to house, and to care for, and to educate the less fortunate, neccessitating an intrusive government that redistributes income. While I agree that it is moral to lend assistance to those who are deserving, I also agree with Lysander Spooner that those are acts “which each man must be his own judge, in each particular case, as to whether, and how, and how far, he can, or will perform them.”

Another justification, I was told, was that the majority support the social contract, yet the vast majority of people are not legislators. By what right may legislators make laws if they are so greatly outnumbered? Supposedly, these legislators are chosen by the people in the society — who have reached a certain age, have not committed one of the several thousand vague laws or regulations, have filled out paperwork correctly within a certain number of days before the election, have citizenship approval of the government, and have attended the polling station on a certain day within an allotted number of hours every two years. In 2008, only 31 percent of United States citizens chose who would be in control of the government’s thermonuclear warheads, and most polls give Congress a job approval rating of less than 30 percent. Worse still, government regulators — the ones who interpret and enforce the laws to their own liking — never stand for election. Setting aside the immorality of majoritarianism, it is impossible to prove the intent of those supporters. It is possible that the support of anyone who chooses to remain within a territory was contingent on preserving some liberties or being made a slave. If my only options are to live in a neighborhood prone to terrorism or a neighborhood prone to vandalism, I could probably live with some random vandalism. That decision is not an approval of vandalism as much as it is an objection to being killed. In a stateless society, there exists an additional option, to form your own community or not participate, just as individuals can provide their own services, which ensures that the market has the possibility of satisfying the smallest minority of one.

I don’t know of anyone who believes that the majority will should be followed all the time, so there must exist a higher standard. Others believe that the will of the majority may be fallible but nevertheless should be given priority. Can the will of the majority be accurately determined by the political process? Voters are never given the choice of none of the above, so it is impossible to determine if a candidate won an election because he or she was the true favorite or if he or she was the “lesser evil” who actually stood a chance of winning. Determining the will of the majority is preposterous, but perhaps this centralized bureaucracy with no financial incentive to provide timely, efficient service had a crystal ball in its possession that could read the mind of every resident. It would still be necessary to prove that the will of the majority had not been tampered with by bribes or propaganda from the government. Nothing could be less true. Those in the government give one another special favors; they bailout failing companies, stymie competitors, offer discounted credit, and give preferential treatment to politically connected laborers. That is what they do. Government-approved education is compulsory during a child’s most formative years. In 2008, H. Walter Croskey, a California appeals court judge, in essence made homeschooling illegal in the state, saying that “A primary purpose of the educational system is to train school children in good citizenship, patriotism and loyalty to the state and the nation as a means of protecting the public welfare.”

Well, maybe the government’s crystall ball can see past the theft and propoganda of the government. Even still, a social contract, since it is not material, in no way makes clear that the agreement is perpetually binding on everyone except those who intentionally opt out. Implicit contracts are unenforceable because the terms of the agreement are not objective, so any enforcement is capricious. If someone is obliged to defend the rights of others in the society, how many times, to what extent, and by what means? Who knows. For this reason, individuals ought not enforce implicit contracts; and individuals acting in concert under the guise of a government have not moral claim to enforce them either.

If nothing else, the social contract is a self-defeating idea because it violates the premise of its own existence, the protection of liberty, since a coercive majority may impose the social contract on a minority. (There are also the tiny discrepancies that no government has ever been established this way and that United State Supreme Court justices have ruled since 1855 and subsequently that agents of the government do not have an obligation to protect residents from “killers or madmen.”)

When I confronted the scholar with some of these seeming contradictions in the social contract theory, he said that if I knew of a mortal threat to the community, “[Y]ou had better respond and do your part, or I will hang your ass.” At that point, I knew there was no purpose in continuing the discussion. Once a person resolutely accepts evil and proudly brandishes it (at your throat no less), rational discussion ceases.

He continued that the social contract exists to serve “the group” as a whole since it “may not be rational for the individual member.”

How many things that are good for you, that you will benefit from, need to be imposed on you … with force? — Brett Veinotte

Contemplating the risk and reward of negating the peaceful will of another human being for the sake of the collective is moral cannibalism, giving man the same status as a sacrificial animal. Insofar as force is applied, the only tool available for human beings to progress and flourish — his reasoning mind — is lost.

Immigrants and their friends and families, many of whom have experienced or witnessed government persecution, could have been the most receptive audiences of a consistent message of liberty. Instead, they may have permanently associated the message of liberty with a perceived hostility toward immigrants. In the long term, that is going to create some challenges for future candidates wanting to promote a message of individual autonomy. They recognize the common objection — that some immigrants take far more from the government trough than they contribute — as a spurious argument, at best, since some government employees and some government contractors take all of their resources from the government, yet immigration foes do not propose deporting them. For that matter, legal immigrants are far more likely to acquire government welfare than unsanctioned movers.

What brings this to mind is the announced immigration platform of one of Paul’s supporters, Texas Republican gubernatorial candidate Debra Medina, someone to whom I have donated my own time and money. For the most part, she sounds a lot like Paul in that she really dislikes the federal government. She wants to nullify the enforcement of some federal laws she believes are unconstitutional and to end property taxes. Thumbs up on my end, though I would prefer nullifying all federal laws and ending all taxes. As someone opposed to non-consensual monopoly government, I can’t enthusiastically endorse any policy other than to disband. However, that shouldn’t discourage me from critiquing existing political proposals or from identifying that some ideas are better or worse than others.

Some of her proposals, like wanting to reduce the scope of gun regulations and to nullify sham free-trade treaties like NAFTA that primarily benefit corporate special interests, would be great. Her most disagreeable idea is to assign “sufficient numbers of Texas National Guard and Texas State Guard” to help local law enforcement. Ethically, it is an abandonment of the non-aggression principle (NAP) as she openly calls for the use of aggressive force to solve what she perceives to be a social problem. The troops and all their resources are funded by the use of force, taxation. In turn, they will initiate force against peaceful movers and foreign entrepreneurs. (Insert the obvious caveat that not all individuals wishing to cross the border are peaceful.) The result will be failure, as all government prohibitions are. It will increase the violence on the border, breed corruption among those guarding the border, and cost a fortune. She also plans to target documented movers convicted of a state or federal law. So for those who break a non-violent federal law, which is done by each individual on average three times a day, they could get tossed, again violating the NAP.

What a Consistent Immigration Policy Looks Like

Since Medina has already shown her support for nullification of unconstitutional federal law, let’s start with all federal immigration laws. The constitution provides no existing expressed powers for the federal government to make immigration policy, only for the naturalization process of becoming a citizen. In fact, the Texas constitution that congress approved after Reconstruction had a Bureau of Immigration, as did most other former Confederate states.

Step two would be to end all government welfare benefits. Then fully re-legalize the prostitution, drug and arms trades. It would completely eliminate the need for anyone to enter the country by sneaking across the desert or trespassing on private property. The vast majority wanting to cross the border conventionally would be those wanting to earn their own way. The fear is that gangs would run wild, causing chaos in the streets. That is unfounded since dishonest criminals who could no longer sustain themselves on inflated black-market profits can in no way compete on the open market. Those wanting to live off the government or engage in criminality would remain in their own country.

We could reduce the scope of government, relieve taxpayers of an extra burden, and demonstrate the fruits of freedom. Government meddling and excuses to circumvent the Bill of Rights would be curtailed, which might get the ire of conservatives in the Republican Party who would rather imprison strangers rather confront the reality of emancipating themselves. If there were ever a litmus test for empathy for the oppressed, immigration surely is it.

An Examination of Alternatives

But maybe I am being too hard on Medina. She’s running a state-wide race in Texas, after all. It is extremely unlikely voters would support a candidate who took such radical steps. We can’t expect someone to be agreeable on every issue, and she would certainly be better than the any other credible choice. The other candidates in the running would have no qualms about some academic non-aggression principle. I agree with all that. But I presume that she has read Paul’s books and articles, in which he has advocates his support for the NAP. In “End the Fed,” he said for example, “We must reject the initiation of violence by individuals or governments as morally repugnant.” Apparently, even Ron Paul does not get the full impact of that idea. His claim is that it is an “invasion,” yet his emphasis is on curtailing it through economic means by removing the welfare incentives. Medina lists that at the very bottom of her of proposals and puts the state guard patrol at the very top, a complete reversal of Paul’s priorities.

My primary and probably only significant purpose in participating in electoral politics is to spread the ideas of liberty. I readily concede that if I want to participate in electoral politics, I can’t expect ideological purity. Engaging the government in any manner, driving on government roads or attending government school, is a regretful concession. I suppose that “When one gets in bed with government, one must expect the diseases it spread,” as Paul declared. The temptation is to bite one’s tongue. That is my source of resentment for electoral politics. It offers this simple, elegant solution, making it very seductive. The danger is that by not expressing criticism of supposed pro-liberty candidates who abandon that message, assuming that is their highest political goal, we come across as just another empathetic-less political movement wanting to impose our beliefs on others. I don’t even ask that a politician be opposed to all forms of aggression to receive my support, only that he or she oppose increasing the present scope of violence against the peaceful. In this respect, Medina readily and consistently advocates increasing the use of government violence against largely peaceful immigrants. If I were to vote for her in the March primary or the November general election, I would necessarily be sacrificing the interests of an already exploited group of people for my own interests.

I think it is more practical to practice libertarianism consistent with its principles. There are steps that have already proven more effective and more immediate. Primarily, they focus on liberating ourselves to demonstrate firsthand how beneficial living by these principles can be. That is, if you want freedom, you don’t have to participate in the elaborate resource-depleting, shame-inducing rituals of voting and petitioning for a band of thieves to recognize your humanity. Those rituals and institutions are in place to obscure the violence behind it all. Once the glaring blessings of liberty are realized, all mystic pretenses for an intrusive government will be shattered. Now I’m not saying that being right is easy, for if it were easy than it would have already been done.

Two glaring complications arise from this justification. First, the state causes artificial scarcity by limiting competing services in the fields of defense and conflict resolution. Secondly, if the ultimate decision maker is in conflict with another party, then the state has a conflict of interests as it is both decision maker and participant in the dispute. As such an institution is able to create conflicts and then rule in its own favor, individual liberty rests on a whim, its whim. Additionally, individuals acting through the state are more inclined to support violence behavior, to tax other people’s wealth or regulate others, for example, because they can do so without any liability. So, it seems that governments would be much more inclined to create conflict than would individuals acting on their own, further marginalizing the liberty the state was designed to protect.

Even the idea that a government is necessary to protect rights better makes that case that rights do not actually exist, because there would need to be government watchdogs to ensure that the government was effectively protecting rights. But then, there would need to be watchdog watchdogs to ensure the watchdogs did their jobs. It breaks down into an infinite regression, and a blank check, until the only way you are free is unless the government taxes every dime you have in order to pay all those watchdogs.

A more contemporary justification is to correct negative externalities, which individuals could address through more defined contractual relationships. In fact, the state encourages negative externalities by increasing regulations and improperly defining property rights. Modern liberals and conservatives have further justifications, meanwhile, such as to impose their own cultural or religious preferences.

Minarchists (those who support a minimal state that enforces agreements, ensures for a common defense, and perhaps provides minimal infrastructure) generally recognize the inefficiencies of the state and support personal independence in relation to political authority. Rightly, they fear illegal theft, yet they insist on legalizing it and calling it “taxation.” They fear a coercive organization taking control of individual autonomy, yet they create their own and call it “government.” Don’t believe me? Here are few questions for illumination.

1. Does a group of individuals have any right that an individual does not?
2. Does government have any right that an individual would not have to stop acts of coercion (such as force or fraud)?
3. Can an individual delegate a right to the government he or she does not have?
4. Are the ethical judgments of the behavior of government different from non-government behavior?
5. If it is legitimate for one group of individuals to secede from a government, is it also legitimate for a an individual to secede from a government. If not, why not?
6. Is it legitimate for the government to force an individual to fund services he or she does not wish to use?
7. Is it legitimate for the government to hold a territorial monopoly or somehow mandate, by the threat of force, that competitors receive permission before offering competing defense or conflict resolutions services?
8. If a government is needed to enforce agreements and providing conflict resolution among individuals, is another such organization designed to enforce agreements and providing conflict resolution among governments also needed. If not, why not?
9. Does an individual have the right to use force against someone who has the capability to initiate force first but who has not threatened do so?

Anarchists and minarchists would agree that the answer is “no” on the first four questions. These are straightforward questions that libertarians have long dealt with.

The split begins on Question 5. Anarchists and a subset of minarchists called MINOs, or minarchists in name only, would say that an individual does have the right of secession. MINOs insist they support an organization called government that shares none of the fundamental characteristics of a government as it is not territorially monopolistic nor individually non-consensual. It would be like calling people thieves who prevent others from stealing your property; it just creates confusion. The most prominent MINO is Michael Badnarik, who said in a debate with Stefan Molyneux that he does support individual secession. However, minarchists would object to individual secession, yet they have already stated groups do not have additional rights than individuals in Question 1.

For questions six and seven, minarchists support the use of force, albeit regrettably, to compel funding of a service and submission to the state. Else, it would be de facto anarchy. Anarchists and MINOs disagree, believing that forced taxation and forced submission to the state contradict individual liberty. Minarchists agree that protection and dispute resolution should be provided by the state, but hardly address how many resources should be spent on these services, something the market can answer based on supply and demand.

On Question 8, minarchists would have to support a type of government’s government to enforce agreements with other governments. Otherwise, governments would exists in a state of anarchy with every other government, a point minarchists already conceded is not acceptable for individuals.

Question 9 is the syncher. Reluctantly again, I think that minarchists have displayed support for using force on the mere possibility of others using force against them. It is the most epic self-fulfilling prophecy, an endless preemptive war on individuals. In and of itself, the state’s claim of territorial monopoly is not a violation of rights had property owners consented without duress. Property is similarly a monopoly claim, but its lineage of ownership, if valid, has been consensual.

In practice, the justification for the state is the subjugation of the politically weak to the politically connected, from what Samuel Edward Konkin III called the economic class to the political class. It is blunt force. Minarchists serves as the wedge of that force, but they will never wield the hammer.

Update

A reader had this comment.

While anarchy may be viewed as a Utopian state, so long as a single individual wishes to undermine the rights of their (sic) neighbor, the response will always be a de facto government. As soon as you have de facto government, you will have those that will advocate that the role of that government extends out into providing services that are viewed to be not efficiently achieved individually.

Total liberty as a function of society is therefore not achievable and the degree of liberty achievable is reliant on the morality of those that control government’s decisions.

“… it was the fact that life, liberty, and property existed beforehand that caused men to make laws in the first place.”

To advance a state of anarchy is to advance that man has another alternative for the protection of life, liberty and property. Time and time again, man has come to the conclusion that only laws will protect and therefore has rightfully rejected anarchy.

She said, “Forcing me to get a license on my property is like using the aggression of the law to take what is rightfully mine.” Quoting from Bastiat’sThe Law , she said, “When a portion of wealth is transferred from the person who owns it — without his consent and without compensation, and whether by force or by fraud — to anyone who does not own it, then I say that property is violated; that an act of plunder is committed.”

Mayor Bill Lanford then responded to Katy. In one exchange he said, “I want to rebut the idea that your property is yours and we have to leave it all alone. That’s not true; that’s not true. It never has been true.” The mayor also admitted they were committing an act of violence by using force against residents, saying “We forcibly take your tax money; we make you pay taxes.” Calling liberty a “half-truth,” he said aggressive force is necessary to create a sense fear, or what he deemed “responsibility.”

Katy responded, “I do fundamentally disagree because before there were laws, we had rights. Our rights are derived from property; our rights are derived from God. When we keep putting registration on people, when we keep asking people to pay taxes on things they have worked so hard to own, then we are violating people’s rights.”

During a break in the meeting, I interviewed assistant city manager Chuck Barnett. I asked what should happen to someone who refuses to obey or pay the fine. He said it was acceptable to imprison someone who does “challenge the system.”

We’ll try to better organize opposition to the proposal next time. The council did not set a hard date for reintroduction, so we don’t know when it will be heard again. The most frustrating thing for me was to hear little principled opposition, like debating with a pirate how deep the sword should go. That’s election politics. I can only hope that the council members ask themselves what is it about their psychology that they are willing to use force against peaceful people.

I forgive them, of course, for their transgressions, but it is still wrong.