Do you understand the difference between the initiation of force and the use of force in retaliation (i.e. self-defense)?
Force is coercion. There are two basic kinds of coercion/force - initiatory and retaliatory. One is bad and one is good.
Delegating one’s right of self-defense to government means placing the use of retaliatory force in the control of an institution charged with investigating allegations of wrongdoing, hearing evidence from all interested parties, and making as informed a decision as possible as to who is in the wrong. Then it means deciding on the proper punishment/restitution. To enforce that ruling requires the use of coercion.
Yet it’s a monopoly. How is it going to maintain that monopoly? How will it be funded? Voluntary payment? What’s voluntary about it when it has the monopoly?
I and others do not so delegate. What will the monopolist do to us to maintain the monopoly?
And what’s so objective about this collective entity (made up of individuals) that renders the individuals as subjective and thus unable to render retaliatory force properly?
If we can ever get rid of the current thieving system of government, and actually take proper control over our lives for once in our species’ history, then what will stop the government from becoming criminal is the law.
I honestly don’t see how the government can enforce its monopoly or even why it would bother. If people want to try to resolve their disputes themselves, they are free to do so. They just need to be aware that if they rush to judgment and target the wrong person, that wrongly accused person would have a strong case in court.
The government is not going to run round and make sure people are coming to it for assistance with their disputes. It just won’t happen. What WILL happen is that when someone takes a vigilante action, and is wrong in their choice of target, the new victim will be within his rights to bring a lawsuit.
The right of self-defense is in an individual right. In a proper civilization, people would delegate the right to the government as being the most efficient way to obtain redress for wrongs done them. Delegation of the right of self-defense does not leave the individual without recourse in the event of an attack against him.
if you do not wish to delegate your right of self-defense to the government, why would you choose to live in this country? I reckon you wouldn’t.
Can you clarify your second question? I think you are asking what makes the judges objective, when they’re individuals too, and what makes the parties in a litigation subjective? Behaving objectively - i.e., not allowing subjective bias to enter into their decision-making, cannot be achieved without objective laws in the first place. The individuals who are involved in the dispute are understandably subjective - they each think they are right.
According to what laws are you rendering retaliatory force?
Ok, thanks. You kept saying that was it’s role and I was concerned that you weren’t spotting the obvious flawed premise.
This contradicts your previous answer. Retaliatory force is not protecting rights, in fact, as you have written, retaliatory force is punishment or restitution. It has nothing to do with protecting rights from the initial violation. It is ex post facto.
There is absolutely no reason to give up the right of self-defense, because it is impossible for the government to stop coercion from being initiated, without using coercion itself to control every person.
That is, unless your first answer was wrong, in which case, I will have to ask again, how can the government prevent coercion without initiating coercion first?
What is voluntary is that people don’t have to pay for something they don’t use. If they are able to conclude their contracts without incident, and to protect their property they have no reason to go to court. So they won’t be forced to pay for government services - they have the choice to pay for them, to contribute to police, to armed forces, to buy contract insurance in case they want to sue or to protect themselves in case they are sued.
Just because something is a monopoly does not mean it ipso facto has the right to compel people to pay for it if they don’t intend to use it. If you figure you don’t need the courts, you wouldn’t buy court insurance. If you want to pay for private security, you wouldn’t contribute to the police. I certainly wouldn’t force you to pay or advocate that you be forced to pay.
Yet it is a monopoly. Why can’t they pay some other entity? Don’t you see that you’re trying to have your cake and eat it, too? Your monopolist must initiate force against all upstarts–making it actually something involuntary. There is no choice when you want to use a service-type it provides–you go to it or you go to it.
An individual who uses retaliation would have to justify it, if the person against whom he used it brought a lawsuit. An individual who repels the attack of a thief, rapist or would-be murderer can clearly and unequivocably show that he was using self-defense. A person who comes home, sees his house has been robbed and runs to the home of his neighbor with whom he has frequently argued, and breaks in to steal back what he thinks are his own possessions, may be completely in error.
The point of delegating the right of self-defense to government is contribute to the orderly prosecution of wrong-doers, rather than making hot-headed and ill-founded accusations and effectively becoming a judge, jury and executioner as it were.
An individual’s action becomes arbitrary in this scenario because while he views his own actions as “retaliatory” those actions take on the appearance of the initiation of force. The government must act only in accordance with objective principles of conduct.
I realize it is difficult to imagine how govenrment would be confined to behaving objectively and not become the same kind of entity that it has historically.
Why should someone have to leave a country because they don’t want to be a part of your monopoly? Are you going to use coercion to either (A) get them to participate, or (B) force them to leave? If no, then you’re an anarcho-capitalist. Your monopoly will dissapear, and your ‘government’ will have to compete with other ‘governments’ on the market. Or, more correctly, businesses.
Why should the government behave ‘objectively,’ when you have no faith that individuals can?