How do we deal with a murderer or rapist, in a free-market world?
I understand self-defense, but let’s say you were raped anway, and the rapist got away? Or maybe s/he is caught later.. what do you do? Do you shoot the rapist? Take them to a free-market court?
We can apply this to a murder, too. Say, your dad was killed. Does the right to defend the now dead “property” (ie. dad’s body) null with the death of the body? or if, you run into the murderer later, you corner him/her, and you run’em over with your car or shoot’em.. is this acceptable?
What do you do with people who dont change or who lie about changing but do not?
What do you do if they seem sincere? How long and how many chances do you give them?
This question, in my experience, always overestimates the occurrence of such crimes - whether in a truly free market or under current circumstances. This is not to say that these things aren’t problems (because they are), rather that their importance is exaggerated beyond reason.
I’m going to throw this out there: I am a pacifist generally speaking, but I have no substantive qualms against vigilante justice. As long as the vigilante understands that he may not be the final arbiter.
But this brings us to another problem with this sort of retribution, namely: certainty. Are you 100% certain it’s the same guy, and not someone who looks much like him? The question you asked presupposes 100% certainty, it’s like watching a cop show on TV and you know the guy with the mustache is the bad guy, so you don’t feel bad when the cop slams his face with a telephone. In the real world, however, you often don’t know these very important facts, and that really changes the rules of the game. You can’t just go around shooting everyone you think is guilty of something or other.
As a matter of pragmatism, I’d encourage you to check out Stefan Molyneux’s podcast, I think titled “Caging the Beasts” or something like that. It’s one of his earlier podcasts, and it answers the question of how a stateless society might deal with not only criminals, but also accused criminals.