In the most general terms, yes. But ownership of effective means of self-defense does so much more to ensure these rights than a flat-screen TV or a lawnmower.
Likewise, political encroachments on matters of personal defense further monopolize state protection services. They create dependent and fearful subjects, just as or even more so than welfare addiction.
I’d hate to sound nutty, but modern firearms, usable by anyone with three functioning fingers, are a perfect expression of the idea that no man should be ruled by another. They are the epitome of personal responsibility, self-determination and self-reliance.
It’s a shame that this image has been replaced by the Hollywoodesque notion of “firearm = either police or criminal”.
My guess is that you just have a problem with religion and want a way to rationalize it. So you do what most people here do when the topics comes to religion and you point to the relationship between the Christianity and the state and tell people how evil those damn Christians are because of it. Here’s the thing: if you want a stateless society you’re going to need institutions with enough power to step between individuals and the state, of which religion is one. On the other hand, if you want some kind of “individualism” as the Randians and the modal libertarians do, you’re best off appealing to the state to remove such institutions as the church and the family in order to get it. Don’t be pissed off when you get the totalitarian state that follows if you do that though. See Robert Nisbet on this point, he makes an excellent case for it.
As I’ve said before, if you want to bash religion, tradition and culture in the name of individualism/ libertarianism, that’s fine. I just don’t think that the Mises Institute is the best place to do it, since its populated by religious, traditionalist scholars. Cato, on the other hand…
The cognitive dissonance of the lefties when it comes to these issues is astonishing. It’s as if they forget that business, money, their own PC agenda and just about everything else has also been corrupted by the state and focus entirely on the church. Perhaps it’s not cognitive dissonance though, just dishonesty.
With all due respect, the religion practiced in the mega churches is more similar to theocratic government than a benevolent organization, the difference in the two is that while the government is in place, there is no way to make religion compulsory. Do I think the lessons of Christianity are bad, no, in regard to treating the other people, it is what people do in regard to religious dogma, that is, take it upon themselves to judge those that break dogma, that I disagree with. The heart of the matter is, if I am going to break ties with the government because of the unjust power over my life, why am I going to hand the power to another group of individuals? This also supposes that you misunderstood that I (in transition of ideas) was a Minarchist, and if I was going to support a limited government, I find it hypocritical to support such with the notion of giving the government the power to enforce dogma on the individual populace. The other portion of your flaky argument for religion never appreciates that fact that there is competition in religion, I am sure you are under the supposition that Christianity will fit the ends of a stateless society, but what do you do if it does not, do you accept totalitarianism in the name of religion? I am more in agreement with Pastor Chuck Baldwin’s article about Civil Liberties and mega religious entities (ones that would have the power to challenge the government):
This is a blatant attempt to scare those who do not agree with dogmatic ties to go away, and you should be ashamed, it shows intellectual dishonesty in the best case…
I love that you go to straw when it comes to defense of dogma, I love that it is apparently leftist to decide that moral choices are of the individual, and not of some megalithic organization that would in historical example replace government to no better an end…
What did you like about Hasnas’ “The Myth of the Rule of Law”?
I originally read it after I became an anarchist, and I didn’t find it too striking. I just reread it and I think he makes some good points about how the law is inherently political, and that the conception of law as “neutral rules that are objectively applied by judges” is a chimera. His comments on blueprinting are also valuable (although a little strong IMO). But he takes a long time to get his message across and the article needs to be more structured.
First of all, I have NEVER lied about being an Ancap if anyone asked me, but I have sold the message in a way showing how government is unjust and inefficient. I tell people how, in specific cases, the government fails. This tends to rattle people’s foundations and become a part of the liberty movement. All I do is that I sell the message in a way that people wouldn’t know I’m an anarcho-capitalist, but I still use the same arguments of any anarcho-capitalist.
For example, look at Rothbard’s For a New Liberty. In that book the anarcho-capitalism is very subtle, and at a casual glance, many people wouldn’t think Rothbard is writing as an anarchist. Is Rothbard being deceptive? I don’t think so.
It’s all about marketing. Politics is just like sales.
Purposely deceptive, anyways I thought you were a Constitutionalist in politics but an Ancap in ‘academia’? Now you are saying you use AnCap arguments without calling it such.
Back in the 70’s a radical libertarian was an anarchist. It has only been since the conception of the Libertarian Party that the word libertarian has been warped.
I have not seen anyone seriously try doing that. David Friedman has said he is going to, but I’m skeptical. In any case, why can’t there be market-anarchist societies as well as minarchist “micro-states”? They’ll be scattered all over the place, so I’m sure they’ll be some options available. It’s not like there’s only going to be one seastead colony if your scenario happens. If they want to go off and try to form a micro state, so be it. Right now, I’m not willing to give up on reformism. Reformism is a horribly slow and stupid process that involves all kinds of temporary compromise and well-crafted selling points, but it is the only tool that I have right now. I don’t know anyone who has the resources to create some kind of microsecession revolution.
Uh huh. Let me tell you what happens when I see vulgar ancaps speak. I’ve seen this many, many times. A man walks up to a crowd and talks about how we should secede and start a new society with market anarchy. I agree, but everyone else just walks away, giving him strange glances. Meanwhile the term “libertarian” is associated with people the public find nuts. I know he’s right, but people are too damn scared to accept that message. Believe me, it doesn’t make the “moderates grudgingly follow in small steps” it makes them run in the opposite direction with giant leaps.
The state isn’t a tree that you can cut the roots out and everything crumbles.
Consider the analogy.
The state is a cancer that you have to shrink the matastisis before you operate on the mother tumor. Constitutionalists/minarchists are the chemotherapy, anarchists are the surgeons, but if the surgeons operate before the tumor is shrunk by the chemotherapy, the patient dies. However, the anarchists are fully qualified to administer the chemotherapy because it’s just a simple IV drip, but in adminsitering the chemo, the surgeon does not give up his ability to do surgery.
It’s Patri Friedman and the Seasteading Institute. They actually received a $500K grant from Paypal co-founder Peter Thiel. The project looks promising.
Of course there can be lots of different societies; that’s the whole point of decentralization. But this just proves my point: anarchists and minarchists are not necessarily travelling in the same direction. The anarchy/minarchy debate cannot be postponed to a distant future where government has been stringently limited. Because we face the choice of anarchy or minarchy right now, we must address the question right now.
They’re doing it wrong. To quote Boettke again: “Never compromise the truth for the sake of persuasion. Instead, be persuasive about the uncompromised truth.” The vulgar ancaps, being brash and thoughtless, are being truthful but not persuasive. At the other end is the right-opportunists who sacrifice principle to gain influence. Boettke’s quote captures the middle ground: Instead of taking the easy way out and watering down the truth to be persuasive, put in the effort and do the work required to be persuasive about the truth.
Actually, that’s exactly the analogy I use. I even made up a “Tree of Statism”:
I think the tree analogy is helpful because without the root of monopoly courts and police, the government cannot pursue any of the branch policies. Hence, the best strategy is to strike the root.
Your cancer analogy applies somewhat to reformism. But it doesn’t hold at all for secession or seasteading. You don’t need to progressively limit government to secede or build an ocean platform. You do need to gradually build a critical mass of anarchists to control public opinion, but then it’s just one big leap: cutting the root.
I meant if, as you say, what a libertarian means is warped, then serious dialogue would overcome such a barrier to explain ones own position on what it means to be a libertarian (or what it means not to be a libertarian).
Libertarianism essentially meant an order of no authority (ie. Liberty) however it was taken over by small government utopianism. It tried to establish that we can have liberty and little government.
The Libertarian Party did this, but I believe it went this way: Rothbard was part of establishing it and recognized it left its roots and so he left the L. Party. He went back to “The American Heartland” as he put it and left behind trying to go through government to achieve what he saw as his goal. He went back to the people to mingle in his ideas, spread, and potentially have them grow that way instead. At least that’s the way Hoppe discussed it in the ‘introduction’ to, I think it was, “Ethics of Liberty”.
Now how much Rothbard left trying to go through the government, I don’t know. I’ve seen posts here say he voted, but I don’t know if gave up voting latter in his life for what I described above was latter in his life (ca. late 80’s, early 90’s). Or maybe he voted until he died. I don’t know.
Anyways, that’s the Libertarian Party and to strive of liberty only to give up on the originally stated efforts and to fall back into statist, miniarchist wheel-spinning is not a new occurrence within the ‘Liberty Tradition’ as noted in this article on the First Leftists.