You know, that’s actually a more intelligent argument than anything Lib or Erislover have offered. It really only boils down to ‘oh boo hoo, you called Lib on his rampant intellectual dishonesty and sanctimoniousness, you’re so mean’, but at least it’s coherent.
Libertarian
I have a question. Since the Libertarian police (to which I pay a fee to protect me from coercion) needs to be powerful, what prevents them from arrogating power? What if they become corrupt, take money from certain people and violate the contract I signed with them?
Sure, I can choose to opt out but where do I go? Their reach is everywhere and I have no power to fight them. I would then be forced to lead a coerced existence subservient to other interests purely to honor my survival instinct. Take the example of a corrupt regime, and you will find the masses powerless, but carrying on with their existence muttering words under their breath. The natural consequence of this is the formation of a rich class exploiting the poor class.
Is the system you describe fundamentally better with respect to upholding egalitarian principles (what you term as “rights”) than the extant system in any democracy. I ask this because to me, the key issue is the upholding of the rights, not the mere recognition of it on paper.
Well, you can be sure my argument amounts to more than an equivocation of “govern” and “the application of force”.
No, Sparky, try to keep up. It boils down to “you have a major hardon for libertarians in general and Libertarian in specific, and it’s draining the blood from your brain.”
Not to speak for Lib, but I think these are not such difficult problems.
You pay the government, not protection money to the police. You would file for arbitration against the individual corrupt police officer, I think.
You don’t have the choice of one government or none. If you don’t like the one you’re using, you choose a better one when your contract is up. (If you can afford it.)
Folks, I’m really serious here. What does it mean to be governed?
Don’t make me take this back to GD!
Based on common usage and history, I interpret Ribo to mean it’s “If you have to follow their rules to stay out of jail/alive, then you’re governed by them.”
I have a much less clear idea of what eris says it means, but I gather it’s something along the lines of “A government should serve the collective interests of the people it governs.”
Is there a conflict between these two perspectives in theory? I definitely see one in practice!!
(I intentionally omit the term ‘citizen’ here because I think that it muddies the waters.)
I am not governed by criminals who would kill me to take my wallet. To take one extreme example.
nog
The government is ethically bound, though to maintain a believable level of reciprocal force. If not, the other governments will constantly be at war with it. This doesn’t help you individually much, but in the aggregate, it does tend to keep governments behaving themselves.
Honestly, I’m not sure. I don’t happen to be young and black, but if I were, I might like to try my luck with choosing a government that would respond pretty smartly if I was harassed, rather than being stuck with the myriad local governments in the US that seem to have a passion for it and still make me pay taxes to them.
I do think you’re being a little extreme in your characterization of my comment; I don’t think implied individual rights are worthless or that government do whatever they can get away with. I see your reasoning, I just think there are other fair conclusions to reach-- namely that everyone’s rights could be protected on the whole, and that the existence of competing governments could keep governments in line.
Oh yeah, “If I have to follow Libertaria’s laws while on my own property then they’re governing me” is just equivocation. I think the screwey definition of “govern” is yours, where you’re “governed” only if you’re a citizen of a particular country. As I pointed out and you ignored (as usual) numerous countries (go back and read the list) have governed huge swaths of people that were not citizens of said countries by any reasonable definition of ‘governed’.
I think there’s something to both interpretations of government. In realpolitik, whose rules you have to obey governs you. In a libertarian utopia, who you elect to protect your rights governs you.