Wait!
Did I say “debate”? I simply misquoted myself. (Apologies to Charles Barkley.)
I meant to say “damned debate”! No! Not debate at all. Argument! Yeah, that’s it. No, wait. Oh, hell’s bells. Lyn, are you buyin’ any of this?
Uh, Lib?
What stops other countries from invading us now is the fact that we are one large and powerful country, not a bunch of individual countries. Unless of course you are proposing that all of your tiny kingdoms are forced to cooperate on a unified defense for the common good.
The main trouble with your “Libertaria” is that for it to work sucessfully, the whole damn world will have to be forced onto your system, because if just one large world power refuses to play your game, seeing the obvious advantages of being the biggest fish in this pond of individual guppies, you plan will fall apart so fast that within 50 years the word “Libertarian” will be synonymous with “Fool”.
Eagles may soar free and proud, but weasels never get sucked into jet engines.
Slythe
Is everyone you disagree with a fool? If I thought a man were a fool, then I would not communicate with him.
The Soviet Union was “bigger” than the US, and was utterly totalitarian, which would satisfy your arbitrary links among “big” “totalitarian” and “strong”, but it fell apart.
Your assumption about a bunch of tiny kingdoms is unnecessary. I submit that the collective that fosters the greatest freedom of individual expression will rise to the top naturally, since everyone in it can achieve to his own maximum. If you disagree, fine. But your disagreement does not automatically mean that I’m a fool.
Sorry, Lib, I don’t think you’ve answered the question. Say this guy isn’t a part of your collective, he’s made his own government (perfectly allowable in a Libertarian context). Now, the kid didn’t know this and cuts across this guy’s yard. The guy is a bit unreasonable, sees this as an incredible coercion and blows the kid away. So–can Libertaria do anything about this, or is this just seen as an unfortunate incident, like stepping out onto a busy highway and getting hit by a car? In our legal system, his actions are against the law, and he would be prosecuted. But what can Libertaria do about it?
I can see one way Libertaria could punish the guy for his temper without coercing him (we really don’t want people to be able to blow away kids with impunity, right?): they could refuse to sell him food until he starved to death. Now, that sort of slow lynching seems a bit extreme, so perhaps in Libertaria they decide to simply disallow him from moving from his property for, say, 20 years(they own all the property around him, in this example. If they don’t, they’d have to contract with any other governments around to keep him on his property, or else he’ll just sneak off). Of course, what if he really didn’t do it? Then we would be treating him unfairly, although apparently not coercing him (so it’s not against the law). So we’ll need an investigation and a trial of some sort (although of course you can’t coerce the guy to appear, so it might be a little difficult). In the end, this seems simply a funhouse mirror vision of our current system, only instead of a codified set of laws, the local poplace has the ability to take the laws into its own hands with impunity. I don’t particularly like this; say the locals are extreme too, and do decide to starve this guy to death. Can we make helicopter drops of food to him, or do the locals own all the air rights, too, and blow away the choppers for tresspassing? I just see a problem with lack of checks for people whose judgment is flawed. However, I think any “check” like that would have to be coercive (to at least some people) in order to be applied evenly and fairly. Where’s the way out of this dilemma?
Like all religions, the Faith of the Invisible Pink Unicorn is based upon both logic and faith. We have faith that She is pink; logically, we know She is invisible because we can’t see Her.
LIB says to me:
I have the sense that you’re far more paranoid than I suspected. Let’s take these in order.
-
I’m not much for “sniping” for sniping’s sake. I’m thoroughly aggravated by your repeated initiation of discussions of libertarianism, coupled by your inevitable refusal to follow those discussions through when things get too hot for you. I have brought up my reservations with your philosophy, and I have brought up my aggravation of what I perceive to be a habit of yours, but I have never “sniped” at you. I also find your very perception of it to be ironic, considering that you have referred to me as moronic, idiotic, hysterical, and worse. That’s sniping.
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Not finding your answers satisfactory is not the same as considering them dishonest. I have never felt you were dishonest in your responses; I have simply determined that you do not adequately answer the questions put to you, whether due to lack of ability or knowledge, or by design. Evasive? Maybe. People who cannot adequately answer the questions put to them tend to become evasion, to disguise the fact that they are at a loss. My perception is that when people (including me) ask you to further clarify your position, or attempt to tease your argument out to its logical conclusion, you immediately suspect them of some unstated nefarious motive of meanness against your personally. With all due respect, I don’t care enough about you to work that hard.
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I don’t hate you; I don’t know you. I don’t have any idea where you got the idea that my utter frustration with your inadeqate answers, coupled with your insistence on discussing the topic over and over and over again, would indicate a personal animus on my part. I would suggest that you might do better to read my (and other people’s) inquiries as just what they are – inquiries – instead of construing them as “red herrings” or as part of some “agenda” against you personally.
This is exactly what I’m talking about. Someone asks you to clarify an answer, and you assign them a motive of trying to “get” you, because, darn it, your initial answer was so clear! Well, your answers very often are not clear, and requests for clarification are not attacks.
Please do me the favor of assuming I ask you questions in order to obtain answers from you. You will also have to trust me that answers you apparently feel are crystal-clear are simply not.
All that is necessary to repair it is for you to follow through on the questions people ask you, including myself. I know you must feel like several people are attacking you when you post something like this and are in turn peppered with questions, but the questions simply show that we do not understand your position, not that we are out to get you.
I also have to tell you that I think it is unfair of you to repeatedly attack the real system this country functions under, which suffers all the problems of the real world, but only be willing to discuss you’re alternative – libertarianism – in the context of a hypothetical Libertania. If you want to discuss hypothetical systems, you should be comparing pure libertarianism with pure democracy – and the systems are not compatible, since democracy demands the individual bow to the wishes of the collective, even when they don’t agree with his own, while libertarianism unequivocally states that the wishes of the individual are in all cases paramount. Or, in the alternative, if you want to discuss the real-world problems of the existing system, I think you should be willing to discuss how libertarianism would improve things here in the real world. But to try to compare your hypothetical perfect system to our flawed real one strikes me as comparing apples and oranges.
I’m not going to state any of the questions your posts prompt in me, because I think you have enough on your plate with the questions put to you by others. You appear to be at least attempting to follow through with this thread, and that, in the end, is all I’m really asking of you.
Jodi
Fiat Justitia
What the hell, I haven’t played in a while, I’ll join Lib’s side.
Libertarianism would never work in the real world.
Two real-world examples of libertarianism in action:
Neighborhood block watches: Residents of a block get together to form a group that volunteers their time (and perhaps money, to purchase some safety equipment that will be jointly owned by the group), to protect their neighborhood from coercion from criminals. Some residents don’t want to participate, and they aren’t forced to. But then they get the benefit of the added security for free! And yet the block watch doesn’t fall apart, because there are enough people who feel that the protection is worth the price, even the price of carrying a few freeloaders.
Civic organizations (Kiwanis, Lions, etc.): Volunteers from a community agree that something must be done about this or that problem, and join a group whose goal is to help fix it. The group charges a price for membership, has rules, confers benefits to members, and tries to achieve its goal. The group doesn’t insist that everyone must join or the problem will never go away. And yet the group doesn’t disband, because there are enough people who feel that the goal is worth the price.
There are two government functions for you – protection against crime, and solving society’s problems.
What if I’m contracted with Crapitaria, and you’re contracted with Shitolia, and I trespass on your property? War? Huh? Huh?
This is my favorite one. Um, don’t we already have different nations on this planet? What happens when an American commits a crime against a Canadian? On Canadian soil? On American soil? Against another American while on Canadian soil? I assume these things happen, and that these questions have answers that vary if you substitute different nations. So whatever the US and Canada have worked out, maybe Crapitaria and Shitolia could work out, too. Unless national sovereignty “doesn’t work.”
Trespassing kids and trigger happy property owners.
Most libertarians favor a restorative justice system; punishment of a crime requires repayment to the victim, plus costs both to the victim and for the administration of the system itself. So if you take a dollar from me, I can’t demand a million dollars in return. Now when a kid trespasses, he’s depriving you of some use of your property. If you kill him, you are depriving him of something far more valuable – his life. He is demanding a million for the loss of a dollar. That’s why Libertaria doesn’t allow it. Wait a minute, though – Mr. Trigger doesn’t contract with Libertaria, he’s a government unto himself (perfectly allowable in a libertarian context.) Then it is simply a matter of jurisdiction, like the above. Libertarian governments are no less forbidden to demand justice from foreign criminals than non-lib govts are. Mr. Trigger is a foreign criminal, and a pretty stupid one, if he thinks he can get away with murder because he answers only to himself.
Russia, China, and France will overpower us!
Could happen if we did in fact have a thousand little independent states, instead of a few large ones that protect the citizens. But then, they could overpower many of the nations on the planet. China could take on Benin, you know. And yet they don’t. (Well, they did take Tibet.) We’re more worth the risk to these aggressive nations, though. But of course, the vast majority of us know this, and wouldn’t mind volunteering some resources to prevent it. So what if Joe Blow doesn’t pay? Doesn’t make the protection less valuable to you.
Who’s gonna pay for all this?
The same people who voluntarily pay for whatever they want. You want food, pay for it. You want to help the homeless, pay for it. You want to go to school, pay for it. You want a space program, pay for it. You want a boat, pay for it. If you do not want these things, then in a libertarian context you don’t have to pay for them. Same with this: You want protection of your property and your life, pay for it. Libertarians want that last one, and would gladly pay. Whose interest is it actually in, to force someone to pay for something they don’t want? “You’ll buy these widgets at my price or else! For your own damn good!” Seems more likely to be the seller than the buyer. Of course protection and justice aren’t widgets. But then again there is a much bigger market for them; no shortage of people who would voluntarily pay for them. But the poor can’t afford it! Payment based on ability to pay is an option.
Well that was fun.
Riboflavin
I have actually read the page in question before. Since I assume the definitions on said page are the ones behind the words used in your One Law of Libertaria, please explain to me how blowing the kid away is not use of defensive force. (the following quote is from the LP page you mentioned)
(Quoting pages in defense of your position only really works when they support your position. BTW, if you’re going to claim that the LP supports your idea of there being only one single law on the books, please cite a source for it since you’re the only person I’ve ever heard claim such a thing.)
Since I’m obviously not smart enough to understand the laws of the great Libertopia, please tell me exactly how my using force in response to the kid initiating force against me can in any way be construed as me initiating force.
And big rants about how horrible blasting kids with a shotgun is only show that you know your Libertaria laws won’t work. I’m suing this example to show that your single law DOESN’T prohibit something that neither of us wants to see happen; going on about how bad it is to blast children to bits is irrelevant to the question of whether it is legal in Libertopia.
How have I coerced him? I’ve told him not to use my property, which as property owner I’m perfectly within my rights to do, and he’s chosen to initiate force against me by using my property against my wishes. Do you now consider setting limits on what other people do on your private property ‘coercion’? Doesn’t sound like a very libertarian position to me.
Please explain to us how, exactly, defending my property against someone violating my property rights is an initiation of force or fraud. If you cannot explain this, then my blowing away the kid would not violate the one law of Libertaria. Remember, YOU stated that the one law of Libertaria would be all that was needed for the legal system.
So you’re just advocating a system like English Common Law, where there are technically no (or only a very few) laws, but there are reams and reams of precedent to be followed in deciding a case? That seems like a rather dishonest way to claim ‘only one law’.
This is an intellectually dishonest answer, Lib. You put forth a claim that your hypothetical Libertarian government ‘Libertaria’ would only need one law to function, and I pointed out that a basic action (which neither of us would want to see be legal) would be legal under Libertaria’s single law. You have simply evaded the question by proposing that I not participate in Libertaria; this answer has no relation to the issue of whether or not the situation I proposed would be legal in Libertaria, and conseqently is irrelevant ro whether the ‘One Law’ of Libertaria would actually function in the real world.
Also, out of interest, how does Libertaria protect you from initiation of force and fraud if all I have to do is join Riboflavland to be exempt from Libertaria’s laws? I mean, Libertaria SURELY isn’t going to nationalize my house if I decide not to be governed by them.
Kevin Allegood,
“At least one could get something through Trotsky’s skull.”
- Joseph Michael Bay
Lib:
My question simply asked you to clarify a position which you had taken. While I remain of the opinion that you value your ideology so much that it overrides your inegrity, there was nothing in the question you reference that was critical of you personally.
It is very easy to say, “my utopia would provide justice at a lower cost with only one law and no need for professional advocates.” It is perhaps less easy to convince others through reasoned argument that your system actually provides practical answers for the real world. Many of us are unwilling to take such ideas on faith.
The best lack all conviction
The worst are full of passionate intensity.
*
But the shooter is not a criminal, in the libertarian context. Sure, Libertaria may have set into place laws that say “no matter how pissed you are when someone trespasses, you can’t kill them.” But you have no right to force that law on the citizen of Psychotica when he has not initiated force against one of your citizens. You speak of the agreements between governments, but when each person can be a government unto himself, there is not the cool-headedness of large numbers of mostly reasonable people to steer a government into such a thing. I suppose you could get the sole denzien of Psychotica to contract with your government by blocking him from access to food or travel beyond his borders until he agreed; still, such a tactic, if not coercive, seems worse than having to obey a country’s laws simply because you were born there! At least I can move to another country and renounce my citizenship; if I was starved into a lifetime contact with Libertaria, I could never legally escape. If a kinder method is preferred, the citizens of Libertaria could bribe the citizen of Psychotica to contract with Libertaria; still, that doesn’t seem the greatest precendent to set, to reward people for being a nutjob just so you can actually do something if they overreact to an offense.
Like all religions, the Faith of the Invisible Pink Unicorn is based upon both logic and faith. We have faith that She is pink; logically, we know She is invisible because we can’t see Her.
But Gaudere, are you then saying that if Canada decided to pass a law that Canadians were free to shoot Americans for littering in Canada, that the US wouldn’t have any right to do anything about it? After all, it’s their country.
GILLIAN: If I may respond to your post:
You say:
The question, in my mind is not whether libertarian principles – less government, more personal responsibility, increased volunteerism – can work in our socieity; I think most of us arguing the other side of this would concede that they can. The question is whether those principles alone would be enough to constitute a sustainable system of governance. Neighborhood watch might work, but would your really want that instead of a police force? Do you really want the Kiwanians funding the schools – that is, if they feel like it? Part of the problem with the position Lib usually takes is that he is such a libertarian extremist. That, IMO, often makes his positions difficult to defend.
Are you saying that the private sector alone could handle these two functions adequately? Because that is the point at which I disagree.
Yes, we do, but the nations on this planet have and respect territorial borders, and the laws of the system of governance of each particular nation apply within its borders. In Lib’s hypothetical Libertania, if you don’t like the government, you can opt out of it and do your own thing. This would obviously lead to a patchwork of people believing and doing different things in furtherance of their own governance – a group without a definable territory or system of government – something that is not, in other words, a nation. Your analogy to nations with defined territories is therefore inapposite – precisely because nations do not allow their citizens to “opt out” of their rules/laws/taxes the way a libertarian society would.
Not if they’re libertarian, they can’t; because the citizens of the libertarian collective cannot be bound by the rules of their government without their express consent. Libertarianism exhaltation of the individual over the collective in all cases, is the antithesis of national soveignty. The question is how a libertarian society (which is not a nation and has no national defense) could protect itself against a true nation – be it communist, democratic, fascist, totalitarian, or whatever. Many of us have concluded that, in the face of an aggessor society that is effectively organized on a national level, a libertarian society would simply be overrun.
There is no national sovereignty in a purely libertarian society; that’s the point, and the fatal flaw.
So there is no true punishment for crime. If I am a billionaire, I can simply execute (murder) those I dislike and “repay” their family whatever they were “worth,” regardless of whether or not doing so pains me in the least? So crime belongs to those who can afford to commit it? Where is the fairness in that?
But why can’t he? If you hold him to some law he has not expressly consented to be held to, you are violating the Non-coercion Principle. He has not agreed to be held, tried, or convicted by the Libertarian system – a system that, by definition, only works with the participants consent. So by whose authority do you prosecute him? You could say, as most modern nations do, “if we catch you committing a crime here, we will prosecute you under our laws,” but then, again, you are obviously coercing the foreigner and violating the libertarian non-coercion principal.
But a thousand little independent states is precisely what libertarianism would foster. Don’t like the government? Opt out of it, and start your own. And you don’t have to leave, because your property is your own. The obvious end-result of that is a thousand little independent states, none strong enough to defend itself.
But if enough Joe Blows do not pay, there is not enough resources to mount an effective defense for anyone.
But the society the Libertarians live in, by definition, is not solely libertarian – because each individual can be whatever he wants. If we live in a town, and half the residents are libertarian, and half are not, how are the libertarians going to provide for only their own defense? They will have to provide for the defense of everyone? They can hardly let the invaders in and say “raid this house, this house, this house, but we’ll defend this one, this one, and this one.” Defense must be tendered to the territorial whole, regardless of whether those inside the territory pay for it or not. And if less than half do pay for it, there will not be an adequate defense. Who wouldn’t pay for their own defense? Many people would not, if they were convinced their neighbors would have to defend them for free, in order to protect their own interests.
We are not, at this point, talking about widgets. We are talking about a fair judicial system and national defense. In the former case, we “force” everyone to pay for it so that the system may be fairly open to all, not only those who can afford it; in the latter case, we “force” everyone to pay for it because everyone receives the
You also ask:
This is essentially correct. American respect for the sovereignty of other nations dictates that it not interfere in the laws of those other nations. That’s why you can be caned severely for spitting on the sidewalk in Singapore, or have you hand cut off for a petty theft in Iran. Those would not be acceptable punishments here, but they are the law in those respective nations. If Canada decided that littering was an offense punishable by death, there would be precious little the United States could do about it. And if you were caught littering in Canada, God help you, because besides registering a diplomatic protest, the United States likely will not.
Jodi
Fiat Justitia
Lib, I thought it was obvious that I was comparing the political term"Libertarian" to “fool”, not you personally.
I am afraid that you are under the same delusion as right-wing “patriots”-that everyone that uses the label believes as you do, thereby inflating to a great degree the people that will be in your group if you ever get a chance to form it. If your idea is ever implimented in this country, the number of individual “countries” would be staggering, the different trade agreements would require a hundred times the lawyers and diplomats we now have, and there would be NO, I repeat, NO chance of forming a common defense against any enemies that would see this as the fiasco it so obviously is.
Eagles may soar free and proud, but weasels never get sucked into jet engines.
The problem in Libertaria is that people do not have segregated countries where everybody obeys a set of laws. So your next-door neighbor might be a member of Psychotica, and you might have no way of knowing until you cut across his lawn and got blown away. Perhaps you should check out your neighbors, but what if you had just moved? What if you traveled to a new city? You’re not dealing with a country here, which it seems would be inclined to listen to reason since there are so many people involved; there can be single-person countries even in the midst of another country, and Libertaria is powerless against them so long as the citizen of Libertaria coerced first, even in so small a thing as cutting across a lawn. We all certainly know someone who is less than reasonable in retribution for the slightest of harms done to them.
Side note: what would we do, if, say, Canadians imprisoned for life without warning American children who cut across their lawn? Could we only negotiate? Or could we in fact coerce for such a reason? I think I trust entire countries to listen to reason better than I do single individuals (who may be psychotic, even if they are morally in the right by Libertaria’s system). If a person in our system declared his own country on a desert island, and condemned to death without warning an American child who littered—would we only negotiate? Or would we blatantly coerce and take the child away? I think we would coerce; and, though this is regettable, I think it a worse injustice to let the child die for such a small offense. The current system seems a lot fuzzier than Libertaria’s. But it does at least seem capable of taking strong measures against unjust punishments.
OK, Lib, I’ll jump back in now. Just to let you know, I’m not trolling you but trying to find out your theories so I can see the extent to which I agree with them (or not :)).
All of the discussion of the example of the kid crossing another’s lawn is very helpful. I think I’m starting to get the picture.
As I think I understand it (and please correct any misunderstanding that I may have), every person is allowed to voluntarily join a government, or not (i.e. they become a government unto themselves). Within the physical area that is controlled by individuals affiliated with that governement, the rules of that governement apply.
Now, under the rules of Libertaria, if two citizens of Libertaria have a dispute, they can get it resolved by an arbitrator as part of the package of services they obtained by “buying in” to become a citizen. The arbitrator would resolve the dispute based on the one law: “Every citizen shall be guaranteed freedom from initiated force and fraud.”
Now, to the example of the kid cutting across a landowner’s lawn (assuming that everyone involved was a citizen of Libertaria and it all took place within the physical territory of Libertaria), I would guess that the landowner is permitted to use whatever minimum level of force is necessary to get the kid off of his property. I would assume that up to that level of force is defensive force. However, if the landowner uses more than the minimum amount of force, he has begun to initiate force, which is prohibited. If he blows the kid away (assuming he has not tried every level of force below that to get the kid off his property), he has initiated force, and therefore would be liable to make right the damages caused by his force initiation.
Lib, please tell me if I am understing the justice system of Libertaria correctly, at least as it relates to conduct among those who have chosen to subscribe to the government of Libertaria and are acting within its boundries. And I guess that the question of justice with regard to those outside the boundries of Libertaria is a matter of international relations, rather than internal justice.
Anyway, I suspect that I’m trying to turn this into just a bit of an “Ask the Libertarian guy” thread, that is focused on justice and dispute resolution. If you’re willing, I’d like to understand how your system works, and I don’t mind excluding consideration of “international relations,” at least until I have gotten how internal justice works.
I don’t mind your taking as long as you need to respond. I like the opportunity to think before I post, and don’t mind a slow volley.
Thanks. And to keep this in the Pit: If you don’t answer, dammit, you’re a rotting rutabaga.
::chuckle:: Well, I will go with Jodih in her statement about respecting the sovreignity of other nations. I was trying to find a real-world examply to show how a “patchwork” system of vast numbers of tiny (even single-person) goverments would cause problems, but I guess in my example our government would respect the rights of the one-man country (How does one become a recognized country, anyhow? Somehow I suspect you can’t jusy say you are, assuming you find a bit of unclaimed land, and expect everyone to recognize it, but I could be wrong. Hm… ). D’oh! Fortunately, in our system we have reasonably clear borders, so people do not inadvertantly wander into Psychotica…
Gaudere:
Someone deliver a Toro Model 1332 Heavy-Duty Snowthrower to Hell; I’m gonna rise to Libby’s defense. Course, I’ll probably be wrong, but what the heck.
If I’m reading between the lines correctly, what Libertarian all this time has been intimating without necessarily saying is that in a libertarian context, self-interested people would spontaneously organize into a fairly small number of nations. So that upon the island of Manhattan, virtually everyone would either join, voluntarily, the country of manhattan or get sick of the very situation you describe and move, swapping property with someone equally sick of the oppression they have been experiencing in Gaudaria (you tyrant!). Sure, you’d have a few cranks who didn’t sign on, but pretty much everyone would know who they are. At least they’d know to the extent they already know who the people are in manhattan who already don’t obey my good and just laws. The people who live at the “borders” of manhattan would volunteer (or be required by their contract with me) to put up a sign on the border that explains the basics and warns people away from our “internal” non-citizens. And I guess the paint industry would love it, on account of my contract will require painted borders all over the place.
The result, if I’ve been reading correctly, is that manhattan would not look all that different than it does now, at least at first. As more and more people declined to renew their contract with me because they are ticked off at how much money I’m wasting on stupid stuff, I’d waste less, regain the volunteers, and people would be freer.
Personally, I think it’s both a pipe dream and immoral, but that’s my shot at explaining in real life terms how I think Libby’s Libertaria would work.
I’d add some profanity to keep this Pit-worthy, but I used up all my bile on the phone today with a company that missed its numbers.
Change Your Password, Please and don’t use HTML, as it has been disabled, but you can learn about superscripts here
And it goes without saying that in manhattan the good and just ruler would have the ability to fix UBB errors in whatever forum he chooses to post, not just the one he moderates.
The problem may be that people don’t swap property; they stay where they are and just join Manhattan by contract. Lib has been quite vehemently against the idea of having to move to be part of a different government, IIRC. And I think you underestimate the number of crackpots who would “opt out”; look around your city, manny, and see if you want some of these people to be able to kill you with impunity if you cut across their lawn… 
(and I say the same for Chicago, I assure you!)
And yes, I rule my demesnes with an iron fist. But there’s all the beer you can drink! (and I do my UBB codes correctly)
I think most people’s reaction to pure libertarianism is : “sounds cool, but impractical.” But Libby thinks we’re all stupid (or ignorant, or insane) when we say that. 
Since you’re joining Lib’s side, could you do us all a favor and point us to the bit in the LP’s platform that supports your idea of completely removing the concept of a single government for an area? What both of you are describing is more like anarcho-capitalism than what I’ve heard of Libertarianism. I personally get rather annoyed when Lib and the other anarcho-capitalists run around claiming ‘this is what libertarians believe’ when I’m not aware of any official libertarian position supporting what you say.
So you think neighborhood watches should be the sole and final arbiter of justice, with no possibility of appeal to higher law (like, say, the US constitution)? What happens when your neighborhood watch decides to start lynching different-colored people (as happened in the US earlier this century) or decides that the law should be ‘from each according to his ability, to each according to his need’? It seems to me that you’re setting up a system with all of the problems of a government without the protections of a constitution or established legal process, and even going so far as to say that it’s perfectly legitimate for bad things to happen as long as the people doing them don’t call themselves a government.
Modern neighborhood watch organizations work well because they operate within the confines of an existing legal system. It is rare indeed for a neighborhood watch to start building their own jails or executing people; instead they either provide a deterrant to crime (making the area unattractive to muggers, frex) or apprehend criminals by making a citizen’s arrest, then turning said criminals over to the justice system. Your idea is to remove the justice system and leave everything up to the neighborhood watch, with no appeals to written law or higher levels of law (such as the constitution).
Yes, and in the anarcho-capitalist society you describe, you would not have any nations, at least in the area under anarcho-capitalist rule. One of the requirements of a nation is that it
I’m amazed that you’re even asking this question. If anyone commits a crime against anyone on Canadian soil, they get tried by Canadian law. If anyone commits a crime against anyone on American soil, they get tried by American law. Diplomats and embassies are something of an exception to this (diplomats normally have diplomatic immunity, and embassies are considered part of the country they’re an embassy for), but in both cases they are specific, special exceptions that only occur in well-defined circumstances.
In a case where someone committs a crime in the US and flees to Canada, you get into the legal morass of extradition. The nations in question set up treaties regarding what to do in this case, which generally boil down to ‘if someone has committed a felony that we recognize in your country and is hiding out in our country, we will arrest them and hand them over to you for trial by your laws’. Extradition is a nasty mess of legal work (even between states in the US which are just subdivisions of a larger government), and if you’re going to set up a system where extradition proceedings between 50 different ‘governments’ are routing, expect enormous legal costs. No one even bothers with extradition proceedings for misdemeanors (like trespassing, petty theft, petty fraud, minor vandalism, minor assault etc) because it is too outrageously expensive to handle the paperwork. (This means that your multi-government style won’t effectively be able to do anything about small-scale initiations of force or fraud)
National sovreignty works because nations are, well, soverign in their territory. The problem with anarcho-capitalism is that you completely abandon the concept of sovereignity.
You’re equivocating now. My example of blowing away a kid with a shotgun was pointing out a specific flaw with the single law of the ‘libertarian’ utopia that Lib was advocating. There was NOTHING in the law that he stated would be the only law for Liberteria that forbids or restricts defensive force, which is what I would be using by blowing the kid away. Certainly, it would be EXCESSIVE force, but I would not be initiating force and so would not be in violation of the law in Libertaria.
Going on a tangent about some other system of laws in an attempt to ‘prove my example silly’ is just going on a random tangent; if you think that your ideal society would require more than the single law of Libertarian’s society, then you’re agreeing with me plain and simple.
Please point me to the words in the one law of Libertaria that forbid shooting the kid. As the property owner did not initiate force against the kid, it is not in violation of the one law that Libertaria has. Or are you agreeing with me that Libertaria would not work with just one law?
It was not murder, it was self-defense, and NOT ILLEGAL UNDER THE LAW OF LIBERTARIA. Please, would you or Lib please explain to me how use of defensive force violates a law that only forbids initial force?
Also, ‘murder’ is rather subjective; if I shoot someone who I find has broken into my house at night, is it self-defense or murder? If I have instructed someone to get off of my property while holding a gun and they go to another door and knock again, then charge screaming at me when I open the door and I shoot them, is that murder or self-defense? (A Florida Grand Jury ruled the last one self-defense, but a lot of Europeans and Asians seem to think it was murder). Why should Riboflavland accept your pathetic self-defens