Many probably don't remember but I authored a few threads a couple years ago on this forum.  I am not a conservative but I like to gain perspective by speaking to different parts of the political spectrum.  Since the 2016 Presidential campaign season is starting to heat up, I'd like to have a discussion with y'all on how you feel, which candidates you support and where we agree and where we disagree.

For those that forgot, I am a market anarchist which means that I believe the State is entirely illegitimate.  The reason is that political authority implies that people can delegate to an elite the right to commit actions that in any other context would be illegitimate and illegal.  There is an anarchist commentator named Larken Rose who offers a five question challenge to all statists.  The questions he poses are as follows:

1. Is there any means by which any number of individuals can delegate to someone else the moral right to do something which none of the individuals have the moral right to do themselves?

2. Do those who wield political power (presidents, legislators, etc.) have the moral right to do things which other people do not have the moral right to do? If so, from whom and how did they acquire such a right?

3. Is there any process (e.g., constitutions, elections, legislation) by which human beings can transform an immoral act into a moral act (without changing the act itself)?

4. When law-makers and law-enforcers use coercion and force in the name of law and government, do they bear the same responsibility for their actions that anyone else would who did the same thing on his own?

5. When there is a conflict between an individual's own moral conscience, and the commands of a political authority, is the individual morally obligated to do what he personally views as wrong in order to "obey the law"?

In my view the State as an institution must be abolished because it can never be morally justified. The issue is with consent. No State can ever have the consent of the people they rule. For authority to be legitimate, the people being subject to that rule must have fully consented.

Such is the case with a voluntary club or social order that spontaneously forms. Every person is free to enter and leave any such institution and only when they voluntarily participate in the system are they subject to the rules determined by such a voluntary authority.

Under any State system, the ruling political faction has the legal right to forcefully dominate those who expressly did NOT grant consent. They enact political policies funded through coercive taxation that a substantial number of people subject to that rule find morally repugnant.

Furthermore it is illogical, as Larken Rose points out in his five questions. People can only delegate rights to a third party to act on their behalf if they have the right to do those things themselves. For example, I am free to voluntarily delegate the right to self defense to a defense agency who will defend my life and property along with a voluntarily participating community. Each member of a community has the right of self defense so they can collectively delegate that right to a defense agency.

However, no person in a community has the right to forcefully steal the property of their neighbor in order to fund their idea of defense. Therefore they cannot delegate the right to forceful taxation to a political authority.

The belief in political authority is a barbaric relic that ought to be relegated to the dustbin of history along with the other grossly offensive institutions such as slavery and human sacrifice. Civilized people came to the realization that chattel slavery was a moral abomination yet these people continue to believe that they have the right to point the guns of the State at their neighbor to compel them to act as they would have them act.

It is about time that we reassert moral consistency and affirm that coercion is a moral abomination that is not fit for civilized people. Cultured, decent people choose voluntary interactions and persuasion to achieve their shared objectives. Barbarians and sociopaths choose the initiation of violence to achieve their goals.

Most of you probably consider yourselves anti-Statists of some sort, seeing as you identify with the Tea Party.  But compared to myself you are Statists and defenders of big government.

I appreciated and supported Ron Paul in the 2008 and 2012 election cycle.  I agree with Ron on probably 85 to 90% of what he says.  Unfortunately, his son is proving to be a massive disappointment on nearly all fronts.  So, it is looking likely that I won't vote at all this time around because there is no one speaking the plain truth about foreign policy, about economics or about individual rights.

My libertarianism is informed first and foremost by my strict opposition to war and military empire, to police abuse and the overt ways that the State displays its naked aggression.  If one is an anti-statist, they ought to focus on the worst actions committed by political power.  In my mind the worst things States do is take their country to war and abuse their citizens through police aggression.

You must understand the practical implications of that commonly stated phrase "there should be a law". What that means is that if people act in a manner that displeases you, you will unleash the violence of the State on those persons. For the most innocuous offense, it may begin with a threatening letter and a fine. But if the person resists, the coercion will soon escalate. The person who violates your opinion on how they ought to act will be taken from their friends and family and thrown in a cage where, statistically, they are likely to be repeatedly raped.

If a person resists further, an agent of State oppression can kill them on the spot. As the rise in police brutality persists, granting the pigs even more justification to kill civilians is, to say the least, extremely unwise.

This is such a depressing time of year for me. People get so worked up over which sociopathic thug will coercively dominate them "better" than the other.

Maybe you could try to convince me about how Cruz is "better" than Scott Walker or vice versa, but I hope you are able to snap out of the illusions of politics and take a principled stand against the State as an institution.  It is the initiation of violence that is morally obscene.  The State lacks legitimacy because it lacks consent.  It lacks legitimacy because there is no rational way for certain individuals to be granted the authority to commit aggressive acts that "we the people" who supposedly delegated this authority do NOT possess.

Weren't you with that JP guy?

Quote from: taxed on July 03, 2015, 12:26:58 AM
Weren't you with that JP guy?

No clue what you are referring to.

You may receive some answers, here, out of courtesy. Your premise, "I believe the State is entirely illegitimate," doesn't leave much room for discussion, except, perhaps, among other anarchists.

Browne and other Libertarians attempted to formalize usage by using the upper case in reference to the entities; e.g.,  Washington State, state of Washington, or the European states. When referring to the state as the political system, or to
statism, which Browne defined as the idea the central authorities should reign supreme, as in the "religion of statism," or, as  you have used it, "In my view the State as an institution must  be abolished...,"  Browne's suggestion is to use the lower case  to avoid confusion as a reference to the state we happen to be
living in. For example, if you were a Californian, saying the  State should be abolished, I could only assume you were talking about California.

Obviously, there is plenty of room for disagreement here on account of a lack of established conventions. Even the dictionary offers  little help. When you talk of abolishing the state, you mean doing away with the government, any government. That is such an extreme position as to be, really, just quirky.

I didn't write this to pick an argument, but rather in the interests of understanding. You might thank me, but, of course, you probably won't.  That's how the left rolls.

1. Yes. Administering lethal injection is an example.
2. Yes, in many cases. Individuals are prohibited from raising an army.
3. On paper, yes, as in dropping laws against homosexuality.
4. Pretty much, yes. That's why we have a Constitution.
5. In general, yes. Contrary actions are called civil disobedience.

Quote from: jrodefeld on July 03, 2015, 12:49:08 AM
No clue what you are referring to.

I don't mind your perspectives and opinions as long as they're consistent.   

There's always been a place for no flag at all in America.  I get that.  I don't believe in it, but I get it.  That's usually the difference between TEA and the left.  We tolerate.  They usurp.   

Quote from: kit saginaw on July 03, 2015, 04:53:11 AM
I don't mind your perspectives and opinions as long as they're consistent.   

There's always been a place for no flag at all in America.  I get that.  I don't believe in it, but I get it.  That's usually the difference between TEA and the left.  We tolerate.  They usurp.   

I was going to get into the assumptions about the Tea Party.  Now, I don't have to.

Quote from: jrodefeld on July 03, 2015, 12:15:17 AM

The belief in political authority is a barbaric relic that ought to be relegated to the dustbin of history along with the other grossly offensive institutions

It is about time that we reassert moral consistency and affirm that coercion is a moral abomination that is not fit for civilized people. Cultured, decent people choose voluntary interactions and persuasion to achieve their shared objectives. Barbarians and sociopaths choose the initiation of violence to achieve their goals.

Moral authority.......

Cultured decent people.......


You need to find some uninhabited island in the extreme wasteland of the South Pacific to establish your idyllic Mr Rogers like utopia......

Do you understand that man(in his pristine state) IS a barbaric creature who is the supreme predator. All authority or governance begins with the individual, self governance....DISCIPLINE....without discipline we have nothing, you cannot attain your culture or whatever you call decency without it.

Unfortunately many people lack discipline, the discipline to develop "moral authority", nowadays even more so than antique times. And even "cultured decent people" lose it every once in awhile.

And who better for the Barbaric to prey upon but the cultured decent people who don't believe in fighting back but foolishly think you 'voluntarily interact' or Persuade through charm or intellect, the uncivilized.

What you wish for can NEVER happen as man does not have it in him to control himself without some form of authority, be it parental, Spiritual or "the State".

I like the Asian summation of it best of all.

Man will always be Man......

Morals are often a matter of opinion, so what you consider moral I and others might consider entirely immoral.  In a civilized society, there must be leaders.  Anything else would lead to .....well, anarchy.  However, these leaders must act according to the wishes of the people who elected them.  Otherwise, we would have an oligarchy. 
Oh wait......

Quote from: jrodefeld on July 03, 2015, 12:15:17 AM
Many probably don't remember but I authored a few threads a couple years ago on this forum.  I am not a conservative but I like to gain perspective by speaking to different parts of the political spectrum.  Since the 2016 Presidential campaign season is starting to heat up, I'd like to have a discussion with y'all on how you feel, which candidates you support and where we agree and where we disagree.

For those that forgot, I am a market anarchist which means that I believe the State is entirely illegitimate.  The reason is that political authority implies that people can delegate to an elite the right to commit actions that in any other context would be illegitimate and illegal.  There is an anarchist commentator named Larken Rose who offers a five question challenge to all statists.  The questions he poses are as follows:

1. Is there any means by which any number of individuals can delegate to someone else the moral right to do something which none of the individuals have the moral right to do themselves?

2. Do those who wield political power (presidents, legislators, etc.) have the moral right to do things which other people do not have the moral right to do? If so, from whom and how did they acquire such a right?

3. Is there any process (e.g., constitutions, elections, legislation) by which human beings can transform an immoral act into a moral act (without changing the act itself)?

4. When law-makers and law-enforcers use coercion and force in the name of law and government, do they bear the same responsibility for their actions that anyone else would who did the same thing on his own?

5. When there is a conflict between an individual's own moral conscience, and the commands of a political authority, is the individual morally obligated to do what he personally views as wrong in order to "obey the law"?

In my view the State as an institution must be abolished because it can never be morally justified. The issue is with consent. No State can ever have the consent of the people they rule. For authority to be legitimate, the people being subject to that rule must have fully consented.

Such is the case with a voluntary club or social order that spontaneously forms. Every person is free to enter and leave any such institution and only when they voluntarily participate in the system are they subject to the rules determined by such a voluntary authority.

Under any State system, the ruling political faction has the legal right to forcefully dominate those who expressly did NOT grant consent. They enact political policies funded through coercive taxation that a substantial number of people subject to that rule find morally repugnant.

Furthermore it is illogical, as Larken Rose points out in his five questions. People can only delegate rights to a third party to act on their behalf if they have the right to do those things themselves. For example, I am free to voluntarily delegate the right to self defense to a defense agency who will defend my life and property along with a voluntarily participating community. Each member of a community has the right of self defense so they can collectively delegate that right to a defense agency.

However, no person in a community has the right to forcefully steal the property of their neighbor in order to fund their idea of defense. Therefore they cannot delegate the right to forceful taxation to a political authority.

The belief in political authority is a barbaric relic that ought to be relegated to the dustbin of history along with the other grossly offensive institutions such as slavery and human sacrifice. Civilized people came to the realization that chattel slavery was a moral abomination yet these people continue to believe that they have the right to point the guns of the State at their neighbor to compel them to act as they would have them act.

It is about time that we reassert moral consistency and affirm that coercion is a moral abomination that is not fit for civilized people. Cultured, decent people choose voluntary interactions and persuasion to achieve their shared objectives. Barbarians and sociopaths choose the initiation of violence to achieve their goals.

Most of you probably consider yourselves anti-Statists of some sort, seeing as you identify with the Tea Party.  But compared to myself you are Statists and defenders of big government.

I appreciated and supported Ron Paul in the 2008 and 2012 election cycle.  I agree with Ron on probably 85 to 90% of what he says.  Unfortunately, his son is proving to be a massive disappointment on nearly all fronts.  So, it is looking likely that I won't vote at all this time around because there is no one speaking the plain truth about foreign policy, about economics or about individual rights.

My libertarianism is informed first and foremost by my strict opposition to war and military empire, to police abuse and the overt ways that the State displays its naked aggression.  If one is an anti-statist, they ought to focus on the worst actions committed by political power.  In my mind the worst things States do is take their country to war and abuse their citizens through police aggression.

You must understand the practical implications of that commonly stated phrase "there should be a law". What that means is that if people act in a manner that displeases you, you will unleash the violence of the State on those persons. For the most innocuous offense, it may begin with a threatening letter and a fine. But if the person resists, the coercion will soon escalate. The person who violates your opinion on how they ought to act will be taken from their friends and family and thrown in a cage where, statistically, they are likely to be repeatedly raped.

If a person resists further, an agent of State oppression can kill them on the spot. As the rise in police brutality persists, granting the pigs even more justification to kill civilians is, to say the least, extremely unwise.

This is such a depressing time of year for me. People get so worked up over which sociopathic thug will coercively dominate them "better" than the other.

Maybe you could try to convince me about how Cruz is "better" than Scott Walker or vice versa, but I hope you are able to snap out of the illusions of politics and take a principled stand against the State as an institution.  It is the initiation of violence that is morally obscene.  The State lacks legitimacy because it lacks consent.  It lacks legitimacy because there is no rational way for certain individuals to be granted the authority to commit aggressive acts that "we the people" who supposedly delegated this authority do NOT possess.

Yawwwwnnnn!

History has proven that a society based on anarchy is not, and cannot be stable. Anarchy is a transitional state and the State that it usually transitions into an authoritarian form of government - Monarchy or Dictatorship.

Perhaps you've heard the expression "nature abhors a vacuum"?

Last I looked, we are a Republic, with a representative government.  We vote for our representatives that make the laws.  Don't like the law?  Put a different representative into office that will change it. 

Don't like the Republic?   Move somewhere else. 

Quote from: taxed on July 03, 2015, 12:26:58 AM
Weren't you with that JP guy?

I love how you kids think that a, No Govt, Govt, is workable.
People establish rules via Govt so as to go about business with set protections, this is known as society.
The SF Bay area was once a Libertarian Utopia, but as in all Libertarian societies, they are like an open wound for liberalism to gain a foothold, as what has happened to the Bay area.

The live and let live attitude was ripe for the picking, where you do your thing, and I'll do mine and we'll all live in harmony, was proven to be pure bull shit, Progressives are never happy till they own you and your ways and can impose their lack of values/standards on your society.
They have absolutely no interest in living by your code of ethics, because in their world, ethics and morality are barriers, as evidenced in the SF/Bat area.

Quote from: jrodefeld on July 03, 2015, 12:15:17 AM
1. Is there any means by which any number of individuals can delegate to someone else the moral right to do something which none of the individuals have the moral right to do themselves?

2. Do those who wield political power (presidents, legislators, etc.) have the moral right to do things which other people do not have the moral right to do? If so, from whom and how did they acquire such a right?

3. Is there any process (e.g., constitutions, elections, legislation) by which human beings can transform an immoral act into a moral act (without changing the act itself)?

4. When law-makers and law-enforcers use coercion and force in the name of law and government, do they bear the same responsibility for their actions that anyone else would who did the same thing on his own?

5. When there is a conflict between an individual's own moral conscience, and the commands of a political authority, is the individual morally obligated to do what he personally views as wrong in order to "obey the law"?

In my view the State as an institution must be abolished because it can never be morally justified. The issue is with consent. No State can ever have the consent of the people they rule. For authority to be legitimate, the people being subject to that rule must have fully consented.

Such is the case with a voluntary club or social order that spontaneously forms. Every person is free to enter and leave any such institution and only when they voluntarily participate in the system are they subject to the rules determined by such a voluntary authority.

Under any State system, the ruling political faction has the legal right to forcefully dominate those who expressly did NOT grant consent. They enact political policies funded through coercive taxation that a substantial number of people subject to that rule find morally repugnant.

Because I'm bored might as well give my 2cents.

1. To protect private property and "commonwealth" from outside aggression from which it is impossible for non-state organizations to mobilize sufficient force you need to have a force that is given the power to administer force/violence in order to protect said institutions. Another example would be a federal bank whose power it is to print and administer legal tender to make commerce predictable and safer thereby increasing economic activity.

2. Political power wielders have the right to impose the necessary institutions, violence and laws to protect for example the family as the fundamental building block of society (because it is by that institution the state replicates itself and achieves immortality/genetic mission). They have this power from the law and protected by it's own strength.

3. Stealing or plundering money is lawful and just when it is used for the defense and continuation of the political entity for it's long term maximization of power against rivals and the longevity of it's institutions for the protection of it's citizens. Another example is red_dirt example as defense of the family, the most important building bloc of the entity.

4. The strongest State is one who is able to root out and deal with internal corruption before imploding. State's or even just normal communal bureaucracies that does not have a sufficient/efficient counter system to the corrupting incentives of public entities will always fail.

5. The individual is subservient to the will of the political entity he is a part of. By that I don't mean he is not allowed to voice his concern, but when the action is taken and the die has been cast he needs to fulfill his duty to the state just as the state has fulfilled it's duty to him. Just as the son should obey the father until he has established his own family, but the contract between state and individual never expires. it goes both ways, I love how anarchists love to live under the protection of the state but hate the burden of responsibility that comes with stability.

Because men are NOT angels, there will ALWAYS be a need for government. Some men will ALWAYS strive to dominate over those who just want to live their lives in peace. So we come together to form governments to PROTECT the rest of us from the power mad. THAT is the ideal state the Founders gave us. It is the best system in the world.

Anarchists are naive and give the Libertarian a bad name. That's why I call myself a "Conservatarian."

Quote from: carlb on July 03, 2015, 10:40:50 AM
Because men are NOT angels, there will ALWAYS be a need for government. Some men will ALWAYS strive to dominate over those who just want to live their lives in peace. So we come together to form governments to PROTECT the rest of us from the power mad. THAT is the ideal state the Founders gave us. It is the best system in the world.

Anarchists are naive and give the Libertarian a bad name. That's why I call myself a "Conservatarian."

Nailed it!

The document which founded this nation is answer to the question of governance.

QuoteWe hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness, that to secure these rights, governments are established among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed...

The self evident truths laid out by the pen of Thomas Jefferson acknowledges FIRST that each and every individual is possessed of rights which are derived from God whom made us, and are therefore "inalienable", in that no man, nor group of men (nor women...) have the authority to take from us.

SECOND, Mr. Jefferson acknowledges that these inalienable rights need to be SECURED, because without some agency of force to secure our individual rights someone, somewhere, somewhen, WILL take them from us. Thieves will take our right to private property. Murderers will take from us our right to life. Others will take from us our right to pursue happiness.  Therefore, "...governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed..."

We consent to be governed because to do otherwise makes us vulnerable. No one person can possibly perform, for themselves, the task of securing their individual rights from all who would oppose them. Anyone with minimal wisdom recognizes that without some code of conduct (laws), there are those people out there who would act entirely according to their own selfish desires at the cost of others. So we knowingly consent to the concept of granting authority for government (ie: the state) to do things which would be amoral for any one person acting on their own. A task which is impossible for an individual to do - such as moving a large boulder from a field - CAN be accomplished through the cooperative efforts of many individuals. The cooperative effort may be as simple as many people assisting to move the boulder, OR could take the form in which one group cooperate in the invention and manufacture of tools which then allow the individual to move the boulder using those tools. In either case, it is the cooperative effort of many individuals which performs the task which is impossible for one person to do.

Similarly, what is amoral for one person to do within a society can be made moral through the cooperative efforts of all in society working together. This is the theory behind government: that people cooperating - even if the "cooperation" is the cumulative effect of many opposing groups supporting differing, sometimes even mutually exclusive ideologies. The net result is the creation of a body (government, state, whatever) in which the People repose the authority needed to secure their "safety and happiness".

Among the authorities granted the state (government) are the authority to write laws and to enforce them; to penalize those who break the laws. Government then has the MORAL authority to perform these tasks because the People of said government CONSENT to that authority. To do otherwise is utter foolishness.

Of course, many of the problems we face today stem from the very fact that brings about the necessity of instituting government in the first place. "Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." By granting government authority to secure the rights of the citizenry, we necessarily give the sate power, which in turn results in corruption by those who seek authority through being appointed in government. The more power we grant government, the more people who seek power will corrupt themselves and government by seeking yet more power in a ever-expanding cycle until all authority resides in those who govern, no power is allowed the governed. Then the People invariably end up revolting against the UNJUST authority of a government which rules WITHOUT the consent of the governed. Or, to once agian quote our founding document:

Quote...that whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends it is the right of the People to alter or to abolish it and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form as to them shall seem most likely to affect their safety and happiness.

Note that Jefferson still acknowledges the need for government. Simply abolishing that government which no longer rules justly, that no longer performs the duty of securing the rights of the People, is not enough. We still NEED TO SECURE OUR RIGHTS, and the ONLY way to do that is to institute authority in a body of government (state) which we CONSENT to allow to perform tasks which are amoral for an individual to do.