On Thu, Aug 13, 2009 at 3:39 PM, Zack Bass<zak...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> --- In LibertarianEnterprise@yahoogroups.com, Eric Pavao <rkbab...@...>
> wrote:
>>
>> On Thu, Aug 13, 2009 at 2:49 PM, Zack Bass<zak...@...> wrote:
>>
>> > ====================================================================
>> > ====================================================================
>> >
>> > Thus someone who uses Force against Initiators of Force could still be a
>> > libertarian - even if he set up or supported a Government that did
>> > exactly
>> > that and no more.
>> > Not all libertarians are Pacifists and Anarchists.
>>
>> But if this group you are calling a government didn't use force
>> against competitors or force its service on those who didn't want it,
>> it would be a private security company not a government.
>>
>
> Excellent! You have partially answered a question I have heretofore been
> unable to have addressed by Anarchists: What do you consider a Government?
> In your case at least, you do NOT object to an Agency that enforces NAP and
> does not Initiate Force, even when that Agency has a de facto Monopoly on
> Force (it is so powerful that no other Agency can stand against it in its
> performance of its mandate). Have I got that right? If so, then we have no
> conflict.
Yes, this is theoretically possible, but very unlikely that any one
agency could come to have "de facto monopoly" on force without
initiating force to squash its competitors. I think it is much more
likely that any large agency will have many competitors, both large
and small. Even if this one entity did not abuse its power many
people will refuse to do business with it simply because it has
accumulated so much power. Thus competition will spring up. Now if it
initiates force to crush this competition it has become a state.
> You might be surprised how much flak I have gotten from other Anarchists
> about this proposal. They usually call that a Government, or sometimes they
> call it a state; in both cases they disapprove.
I don't necessarily disapprove, I just don't think it is possible in
the real world for such an agency to exist for long without initiating
force. A similar example is that I don't in theory disapprove of a
group of people living in a voluntary commune under the principle of
"from each according to his ability, to each according to his need".
I just don't think it is possible for such a community to prosper (or
even long survive) without initiating force on its members and
neighbors, at which point I would appose it.
> Now for the hard part: What is a State? That is, when you yourself use the
> terms "Government" and "State", do you mean different things by those words?
> Consider that Hillary has said that Palestine has a Government but not a
> State; and that it is common for a Parliamentary State to have no
> Government. Each can obviously exist without the other, so they are quite
> different - it is not even true that one implies the other.
It depends on what you want to words to mean. If you beleive (as I
do) that anything that governs is a "government" and we should all be
able to govern ourselves then each and every one of us is a
"government". Thus a government can be voluntary, a state (by my
definition) can not. So I am anti-state, but pro-self-government.
This is all semantics. It just depends on your definition of the words
in question. I am against the initiation of force that is all.
--Eric
`When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone,
`it means just what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor less.'
`The question is,' said Alice, `whether you can make words mean
so many different things.'
`The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, `which is to be master -- that's all.'
--
------------------------------------------------------
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Terrorists Need Only Boxcutters
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