They tried to start one of these in Madagascar. Even had the backing of the current head of the country.
His advocacy of creating a free economic zone was spun by his political enemies as giving land to foreigners and foreign corporations for free, yada yada, and he was forced to pull support for his own political survival.
I think the only way this would work is to create floating properties off the coast of these territories so as to deny the sort of political problem using existing territory would cause.
As opposed to what, anarchism? You’re only going to have a state replace a state.
I consider my floating city concept more viable because when was the last time a government allowed something like this to actually happen? Never. You can buy islands, I guess, but not one big enough to actually support a free society of any size. Unlike with my suggestion where size is an open question.
You’d have a frontier situation. And in a frontier situation, bordering on anarchy, where everyone’s a law to themselves, they would inevitably group together to hire a sheriff, or something along those lines, and now you have a state.
You’re not going to be able to get away with a stance that a power vacuum is a principle position that can last. All around the world, people have created governments because it fulfills a need we have, multiple needs. It’s not just tradition, it’s a necessity.
I suggest the best government is principled min-cap. That’s something people can latch onto. I really don’t think as situation of zero political existence is one that’s going to last for long. All you need is your first major criminal and the calls for a posse develop, and when vigilante justice gets out of hand now you need laws to restrain them, and a “sheriff” to enforce them, blah.
What in the world is this supposed to mean? How in the world does this make any sense at all?
That’s nice. I couldn’t care less what you think, so this is meaningless to me and proves nothing.
What in the world is this supposed to mean? How in the world does this make any sense at all?
LOL
It’s a shame you have your head so far inside a small box.
Explain to me just what exactly you mean by “everyone’s a law to themselves”. Then please prove - since you’re claiming it’s inevitable - that everyone would “group together” (LOL WUT) to hire only one “sherrif” (LOL WUT). I’m not deterred by your weasel phrase “or something along those lines”.
Explain to me just what exactly you mean by “power vacuum”. Note that, in order to do this, you’ll need to explain to me just what exactly you mean by “power”. I am then going to hold you to those definitions and call you out every single time you equivocate on them.
After that, please prove that government is necessary. This requires logic, not (anything claimed to be) empirical evidence.
Are you being deliberately obtuse about anarcho-capitalism? I suspect you are.
If you don’t have a state you have anarchism. It’s basically a binary option. What’s not to understand?
It’s not what I think, it’s a historical reality. You don’t have to get personal about it. I harbor you no ill will, let’s keep it civil.
When I thought about what sorts of property governments actually sell, islands are the only example. But no one’s going to sell Sicily. They sell tiny islands. How is this hard to understand? It’s what you said–buy territory from governments.
That’s not a response. In a floating territory, you can make as much or as little land as you need. What’s your solution? Islands aren’t extendable, and no government is going to sell you mainlad. So what then.
Wow. You just go through saying that that every property owner in your proposed scenario would be their own sovereign. That’s what it means to be a law to yourself–it’s your unchallenged jurisdiction.
It’s just a matter of historical fact. It’s exactly what happened in the frontiers where there were no established governments. They banded together for protection and hired the first government representative–the sheriff. You think that wouldn’t happen in your society? Prove that, because that’s the odd claim here, not what I said.
Power vaccum: A territory with no government or law.
Power, public sanction to use coercion in the enforcement of law.
Fine.
No, empirical evidence is enough. Logic can only help us grok why human beings find governments to be necessary. It’s a given that we find governments to be necessary, since we’ve always chosen to have them. They are fulfilling a need. We use logic to pick apart that fact, to analyze that need, that historical reality. Again, your claim is the weird one in this covnersation. Show us a society where there is no government–that’s the weird situation. And there have existed exactly zero long-term anarchist societies. So why is the onus on me to prove that we need government? The onus is on you to show or make any reasonable claim as to why it could be possible for there to be an anarchist society.
No, I just reject the term “anarch” within an-cap. So I will use min-cap from now on. It’s an accurate term for my ideal society, minimalist government with capitalism. There’s no anarchy in that equation.
Well no, that doesn’t seem to be what you’re saying at all. Rather, you seem to be saying that there’s no real option at all. After all, you essentially wrote earlier that anarchism would lead to a state replacing a state - in spite of “anarchism” meaning “absence of a state”.
You’ve already gotten personal about it, what with you injecting things like “my floating city concept” and the like.
I was referring to the notion of “big enough to actually support a free society of any size”. You leave entirely unexplained what you mean by this. Are the rest of us supposed to be mind-readers? Or do you presume to have the godlike power to transmit your thoughts directly into our brains?
It was a response, just not one that you liked. Oh well. Sorry but I’m not here to please you. My point was to show how hilarious I think it is that you keep plugging for your own pet project.
Now then, you asked my what my solution is. Why do I need a solution at all in order to attack yours? (I don’t.)
Then property ownership is sovereignty, is it not?
I take this as tacit admission that it’s not inevitable that everyone would “group together” to hire only one “sheriff”.
And what is this about “your society”? It wouldn’t be my society. I wouldn’t own it, run it, or anything like that.
Are you using the words “government” and “law” with implicit connotations of monopoly?
So then a better definition of “power vacuum” would then be “a territory without public sanction to use coercion in the enforcement of law”, right?
That’s right.
No it isn’t.
I couldn’t care less how “weird” my claim is to you. Calling a claim “weird” certainly doesn’t magically shift the burden of proof onto one’s opponent.
What you mean “we”, Paleface? How have I chosen to “have” a government?
You’re the one who asserted that government is necessary. Therefore the burden of proof rests with you to logically defend that assertion.
Oh come on. You know full well that I was referring to your characterization of anarcho-capitalism: “All you need is your first major criminal and the calls for a posse develop, and when vigilante justice gets out of hand now you need laws to restrain them, and a ‘sheriff’ to enforce them, blah.” Now answer my question. Are you being deliberately obtuse about anarcho-capitalism? Yes or no?
Well, regardless of what I said before, here’s what I think: that the absense of a state, ie: anarchism, actually means the establishment of a tribal group as the highest authority. That’s a step backwards, because a tribal group substitutes loyalty to the group for loyalty to principles in the form of laws.
I maintain that two people can have a discussion that’s more akin to a dance than a war, in a dance both sides benefit when it’s over. I’m not sure your philosophy of discussion, but you seem to take a harder stance and get flustered. I don’t get flustered.
Well, that’s really not an honorable motive.
Again, a discussion shouldn’t be about “attacks”.
Yes. Unless you’ve given up some of that sovereignty and invested it in a local government, which is what people do all the time and would do in my concept of a floating nation. You want perfect sovereignty you can go live in the woods. People don’t generally do that however.
I think you’re equivocating on “only one”, the number of sheriff’s was not essential to the discussion.
Not necessarily.
A territory with any entity posses that public sanction, sure. Of course that’s assuming a republic. Power can just as easily be filled by one whom takes power without public sanction, becoming a tribal leader or dictator, as they would in your preferred scenario of anarchism.
You’re making a claim. Burden of proof is on you. So, I disagree. Show us any historical support for the viability of an anarchist society. It’s not like it should be hard, since all people groups began originally in a state of anarchy!
I did defend it. I point at all of recorded human history. Proved. Done. Mankind needs at least some government. The actual historical problem is that we’ve gotten too much of it. Every people group, bar none, has chosen to invest power in a government of some form at least to keep peace if nothing else. It happens spontaneously, but surely.
At least we can say, if there were any people groups that decided to remain anarchistic, they have not survived.
No. I mean everything I’m saying. You seem deliberately obtuse about my idea for how we can rectify things.
I reject anarchism. I find a proper role for government: enforcement of basic rights and no more.
You, an anarchist, look at the problems of government and conclude there must be nothing government can be legitimately used for. You’re throwing the baby out with the bath-water.
The proof that government can be a positive thing if limited to a certain set of behaviors is contained in the nature of coercion itself.
In analyzing coercion, we find that coercion is not always wrong. We group coercion into two opposing moral categories: the initiation of coercion–known as aggression, and responsive coercion designed to stop the former–known as justice.
You, and the other anarchs, propose to dispense with justice because you can’t stand aggression. But you’ll find that no society can exist without the upholding of justice.
So, again, I call you and the other anarchs naive. Not as an insult, because I do respect you as a poster, but as a state of being involving these questions and considerations.
If you want t talk about history and empirical evidence, Anenome, the state is a relatively modern creation. The world has existed for a much longer period of time absent the state than with it.
Well you said “…We’ve ALWAYS chosen to have them.” But this is not the case. But even since the state’s creation, what about the 1,000 year long Ancap society that was Celtic Ireland?
The English failed multiple times to conquer them…After a thousand years of trying they succeeded. I’ll take that. Either live under a thug, or live in freedom. Even if a thug eventually conquers you, at least you lived without the thug for a time. If you want to truly deter the thugs, live under a thug.
Just scanning the first couple of pages of that link tells me the Irish had kings. Had Brehons who functioned as something less than kings but were part of an upper class.
How does that escape your conception of “having a government”? The Irish clearly had kings, clearly had a legal system in place, including a sophisticated legal order and tradition. Where is the abolishment of the state in a civilization replete with kings?
No, the Irish clearly had a state.
They were conquered because of the modern notion of national identity, of cultural groups forming nations, whereas the ancient world was about large cities and provinces.
Venice, for instant, never thought of itself as Italian in the ancient world. Its citizens were ‘Venetians’. And it didn’t want to give up its identity when the modern era came, but was nonetheless swept under the tide of nationalist sentiment and as a defense agaisnt foreign invaders.
In my idea of an ideal state, we’d return to city-based ruling jurisdictions, under a confederal government whose only job is to protect individual rights and see to national defense.
“Ireland lasted for 500 years of invasion by the British.”
"But if Ireland was essentially an anarchistic (or libertarian) society, how was law and order maintained? How was justice secured? Was there not incessant warfare and rampant criminality?
To answer the last of these questions first -of course there were wars and crime. Has there ever been a society statist or otherwise - without war and crime? But Irish wars were almost never on the scale known among other civilized* European peoples. Without the coercive apparatus of the State which can through taxation and conscription mobilize large amounts of arms and manpower, the Irish were unable to sustain any large scale military force in the field for any length of time. Irish wars, until the last phase of the English conquest in the 16th and 17th centuries, were pitiful brawls and cattle raids by European standards.
The contemporary Irish historian, Kathleen Hughes, has remarked that one reason why the English conquest, begun in the 12th century under Henry II and completed only under William III in the late 17th century, was so long in being achieved was the lack of a wellorganized State in Celtic Ireland.
A people not habituated to a Statist conception of authority are incapable of considering a defeat in war as anything more than a temporary limitations upon their liberty. Submission to the enemy is viewed as no more than a necessary and temporary expedient to preserve one’s life until opportunity for revolt and recovery of liberty presents itself. The English, of course, considered the Irish notorious in their faithlessness (they repeatedly repudiated oaths of submission and allegiance to their English conquerors); they were repeatedly characterized by English commentators as natural-born, incorrigible rebels, barbarians, savages who refused to submit to the kind of law and order offered by the English State. The Irish, unfettered by the slave mentality of people accustomed to the tyranny of the State, simply refused to surrender their liberty and libertarian ways."
An ingenious idea by all means. I could only add that it still contains too much planning: after all the host government must determine the location, extent of rights, governance system and so on.
I’d propose for a simple sale of “sovereignty rights” entitling the owner to sovereignty for a given period (say 50 years) on any piece of land he legally owns within the country (100’000 rights to one square meter could be issued by auction, for example). Whether many such sovereigns would chose to aggregate into a city or spread out, that would be for the market to settle. And of course they’d be treated as sovereign government within their area.
This is the same thing as what you said before. Somehow anarchism - the absence of a state - becomes the presence of a state. Only this time the state is tribal in nature.
I hope I make myself perfectly clear by saying the following: in no way whatsoever do I think I benefit from you continually plugging your pet project of a floating city that you’d (presumably) rule over as your own little fiefdom.
See above. I don’t think your motives here have been entirely honorable to begin with.
I meant “attack” in the sense of making logical counter-arguments. So again, why do I need a solution at all in order to make logical counter-arguments against yours? (I don’t.)
Every time you’ve used the word “sheriff” it’s been with a singular indefinite article, i.e. “a sheriff”. That implies one and only one, doesn’t it? It certainly does to me. Territorial monopoly is essential to your position. If multiple independent sheriffs operate over the same area, there’s no territorial monopoly, is there? So no, I’m certainly not equivocating on “only one”. My use of “only one” has been consistent this entire time.
Either you are or you aren’t. Which is it? I’m not going to let you weasel your way out of this one, sorry.
Do you mean “a territory with any entity possessing that public sanction”? Or what?
Lovely, another strawman attack against anarchism.
You previously defined “power” as “public sanction to use coercion in enforcement of law”, so you can’t logically say that one can take power without public sanction.
I should’ve added the word “alleged” before the word “claim” in my last post, because what claim did I explicitly make?
All I see is you making an explicit claim, namely that government is necessary. The burden of proof for that claim rests entirely with you, no matter how you might try to evade it.
Historical support is irrelevant for logical debate, which is what I see us having. Understand yet?
Wrong. That in no way constitutes logical proof, which is of course what I was talking about.
I’m not being deliberately obtuse about it - I just couldn’t care less about your pet project. Every time you insert it into a debate is an unnecessary and unwarranted self-promotion IMHO. But as an aside, I also don’t see it as a way to rectify things.
I can’t make sense of this until you explain to me just what you mean by “government” in the context of this thread.
That’s a strawman if I’ve ever seen one. Per my definition of “coercion”, namely “the use or threat of physical force”, I in no way consider all coercion to be morally wrong. Not all coercion is aggression - only initiatory coercion is. Haven’t I explained this to you before? This is what I mean by you being deliberately obtuse.
We will, will we? So you know the future? Can you prove it (i.e. logically)?
Calling me “naive” has no effect on me whatsoever. You have a fundamental misunderstanding of my position. To be honest, I think you maintain this misunderstanding - perhaps dishonestly - because the implication of my position is that you wouldn’t be able to legitimately rule over a floating-city empire.
So… any counter? Or are you accepting it. Not sure I’d call a tribal group a ‘state’ since the idea of a state requires law, which means written rules. A tribal group may have a leader and some structure, but it’s ruled by whim of the ruler, not law. Which is a step backwards in terms of civilization.
You keep presuming without asking. I do not intend to “rule over” it. Stop assuming. It’s a libertarian concept, how am I going to create a libertarian system and then propose to become tyrannical over it.
And this isn’t about my idea, but rather your discussion style in general, which is cantankerous. You don’t want to talk about my idea, don’t, I don’t care.
Of course, you have only assumed my motives, without proof or even asking. Right.
That’s my point, you’re using the metaphor of warfare as your model of discussion.
Why don’t you start asking instead of assuming based on implications. It is not a reasonable inference given our discussion. Nowhere did I say “only one”, the context is that of a western border town which would have a sheriff. Obviously a larger territory would have more than one law-man.
See, this is where you make a mistake. Because law by its nature has a territorial monopoly. You cannot get around that. You can only mitigate it. I’ve designed my system to mitigate it. If this is your big problem with my proposed society, it’s not going to change. And you may as well get mad at water for being wet, because it is the nature of the beast.
It’s a monopoly of LAW, not of its enforcement. So, you lose me again.
It’s a confederal society. So, is there a monopoly when you can freely get out from under an jurisdiction at will, and leave or join the confed at will? I’m looking at monopoly in terms of citizen-capture. If a legal system cannot capture systems and prevent them from leaving their jurisdiction, then they do not have a monopoly on those citizens. So, not, no monopoly. However, if you’re asking whether a set body of law will have a legal monopoly within its jurisdiction, then yes, because there is no alternative, and you cannot propose one either.
Don’t say competing governments, because that cannot work and will devolve into tribal groups.
Meaning an actual institution.
It’s always a strawman when you don’t like the implications But I don’t hear a counter-argument.
Of course I can. I’m refining. Initially I defined power in a republic. Then I realized that your anarchist scenario allows for dictators to take over and broadened the definition to include the method by which they take power–without public sanction and by coercion.
That’s fine. I’m perfectly willing to justify my conclusions. However, you’re making claims about anarchy that you’re not supporting as well.
I believe induction is a valid logical tool. And via induction one speaks in terms of likelihoods. In the inductive method, past evidence is logically admissible. Don’t act as if deduction were the world’s only logical tool, or are you that naive about logical evidence. Historical proof is not only not irrelevant, it’s the heart of the issue. In every instance of historical anarchist conditions, the result has been chaos, not stability.
How is it self-promotion when I’m trying to discover the best way to build an anarchist society. Wouldn’t I have to be gaining something for it to be self-promotion. Let’s say I had a book for sale that I plugged in every post. THAT would be self-promotion. Or if I urged people to go to some website I owned. That would be self-promotion. All I’m interested is how anyone could make the best actual libertarian society. This is a libertarian website, last I checked. Seems to me most everyone here should be keenly interested in how to actualize their beliefs.
Are you just a committed anarchist, or are you a libertarian? Actualizing anarchist beliefs would show you the error of your ways. I intend to actualize my beliefs in the real world, maybe you think that offensive because it is audacious. Maybe you don’t have the courage to actualize your beliefs. I dunno. Audacious or not, I’m doing it.
The reason we’re talking about this in this thread is because my concept for an actualized libertarian society is built around charter cities, each competing for citizens, and with citizens empowered to subscribe to jurisdictions at will. Government would exist along essentialist lines (my term), meaning only that which cannot be done without and still call it a government. I’m open to negotiation and discussion on what those essential things may be.
The crux of your argument with me up to this point has been that you don’t think anything is essential to a free capitalist society. However, you want capitalism while denying what makes it possible: the guarantee of individual rights. In an anarchist society you have only the rights you can take for yourself, and the strong man takes what he likes and the weak man has zero non-physical recourse. Thus, anarchism is tribalism and together the constitute the complete break-down of civilization, not its establishment.
In a civilized society, people confer their right to recourse to a dispassionate 3rd party legal process, known as a court. So, in a civil society, when the strong man takes something from the weak man, the weak man sues him. Thus, intertribal war doesn’t break out, like it would in an anarchist society.
The essentials of government: objective law, national defense, courts of las resort (civil and criminal). That’s it. My schema is a unique mix of those, unique structure, and many structures are possible.
Uh, that’s exactly what I said, dude -_- I said not all coercion is wrong. It’s in that paragraph. I said aggression was wrong and explained responsive coercion which is the moral version, which I call administration of justice. I’ll give you a pass on this one cause it seems you just read too fast. Read it again, then address my comment.
You, as an anarchist, want to get rid of the state for its aggression. You don’t believe a state can be limited to only moral forms of coercion. This latter should be the crux of our discussion.
It is proved historically, and I can make the statement inductively that it’s a likelihood I consider so likely as to be virtually a certainty. Considering that I have historical examples of anarchism destroying societies and you have no historical counter showing positive and successful anarchistic societies, which is more likely? If you deny my point, aren’t you also “predicting the future”, because absent doing that you would have to maintain an agnostic viewpoint, that is if you relied purely on deduction. I dunno, maybe you do think that way. But it would be foolish.
A. I don’t want to rule. I want to create a new way of living and set it loose on the world.
B. Please explain your position. You make no reference to it here except in general terms so I have no idea what you’re referring to.
I would sum our past arguments as two things:
You don’t accept that a body of law can limit a government to only responsive coercion–ie: justice, forbidding it from aggression.
You don’t think there’s anything logical in my essentialist position of things the state cannot do without and still be called a state.
You think individual rights best guarantor is a society free of any government institution at all and think a large scale society is possible without any such institutions.
You pick nits largely irrelevant to the issue and are unwilling to extend the benefit of the doubt. You’re a bit of a prickly poster because of this. It’s a shame, because you seem to have a fine mind but discussing stuff with you is more chore than fun :\ I don’t see why it shouldn’t be fun to talk about actualizing our beliefs, but you’re insistent on being antagonistic.
Did I not provide a counter-argument? It does not logically follow for the absence of a state to still be a state, does it? Of course it doesn’t. That’s my counter. Come on.
In that case, we may have different definitions of the word “state”. Perhaps you’d like to explicitly lay out your own definition - or have you done so already somewhere? Is it the same as your definition of “government”?
I couldn’t care less whether you think my “discussion style in general” is “cantankerous”. Understand? But guess what. I’m going to continue to assume that you’re more interested in ruling over your libertarian system (you do think it’s yours after all, don’t you?) than just how libertarian it actually is. I have no idea why you’d continue plugging your idea unless you’re looking for people on here to support it.
… And you didn’t do the same about my motives? Right. But see, I do think there’s evidence for the motives I ascribe to you. I use the word “evidence” here instead of “proof” because there is the possibility that I’m wrong.
The phrase “attacking one’s arguments” wasn’t coined by me, you know. But in no way am I going to adopt your own apparent model of discussion, which seems to be one of negotiation and give-and-take. No thank you. Principles IMHO are not subject to negotiation. If you want to call that “warlike”, go right ahead - it won’t affect me in the slightest.
See, you just did it again. “A sheriff”. That implies one, doesn’t it? Yes or no? If it didn’t imply one, why would you use the singular indefinite article? And this single sheriff would have a territorial monopoly, yes? I don’t think I need to ask - it seems to be all laid out for me. You just don’t like the fact that I keep holding you to what you say.
Asserting a thing doesn’t prove it. Perhaps you’d like to lay out a deductive proof for how law “by its nature” has a territorial monopoly. Classical syllogistic form would be preferred. Note that this will require you to define “law”, among other things.
And how do you define “law”? You still haven’t answered that question.
Excuse me, but I consider you to have no authority whatsoever to tell me what to do and not do. So I will say whatever I feel like saying, thank you very much. You are powerless to stop me, understand? I sure hope so.
And that institution possesses public sanction? Yes or no?
You haven’t proven the implications, so it’s not a question of me liking them or disliking them. I don’t need to present a counter-argument in order for you to prove them.
You just admitted to equivocating over the word “power”. You do understand that equivocation is a logical fallacy, don’t you?
What claims do you think I’m making? Regardless, I’m waiting on you to prove (i.e. logically, i.e. deductively) that government is necessary.
The phrase “government is necessary” says nothing about likelihoods - it’s a statement of certainty*.* If you had said “I think government will be necessary for the forseeable future”, I wouldn’t be harping on you about deductive proof. But that’s not what you said. Now I’ll ask you this: do you take “government is necessary” to be a conclusion or a premise? I don’t think I asked you that before, and I’ve been assuming that you take it to be a conclusion, but I could be wrong. If you simply take it as a premise, then I’ll simply reject it as such. Something tells me, though, that you don’t take it as a premise.
I don’t see you trying to discover anything. You seem to believe you have it all figured out already, and all you’re trying to do is gain followers.
Claiming things like “government is necessary” has nothing to do with actualization.
Again, I think this is irrelevant - and worse, a red herring. Sorry but I’m not biting.
No, the reason I’ve been going back and forth with you in this thread is because you made logically positive claims against anarchism. I’ve asked you to prove those claims, and instead of even trying to do so in a logically deductive manner (which is required for logically positive claims), you’ve done everything else but that. If you expect to wear me down to the point that I stop calling you out on this, I think you’re gravely mistaken.
The notion that you expect me to negotiate with you on the essential features of government is so ridiculous to me that I can only consider it yet another red herring. Still not biting.
To my knowledge, I’ve presented no positive claims (let alone arguments) to you. I’ve simply questioned your positive claims. Here you present an other positive claim: “In an anarchist society you have only the rights you can take for yourself, and the strong man takes what he likes and the weak man has zero non-physical recourse.” The burden of proof once again rests with you to prove that this must always be the case (as that’s how you’ve implicitly phrased the claim).
So perhaps you’d like to also prove your (implicit) positive claim that anarchism is not and cannot be civilized.
Did you or did you not accuse anarchists, however implicitly, of thinking that all coercion is wrong? Hmm? Because it sure looked to me like you did.
I don’t need a “pass” from you, “dude”. You know that already.
The crux of our discussion, as I see it, is your refusal to provide logically deductive proofs for your logically positive claims.
So then go ahead, make the inductive statement. Surely you’re not afraid to lay it out for me explicitly, in a rigorous fashion.
Of course I have an agnostic viewpoint about the future, because the future is inherently uncertain. Agnosticism is the only logically valid viewpoint about the future. I think you’re the foolish one for claiming that you know the unknowable. Do you get it yet?
I don’t believe you.
Explaining my position is not necessary for you to prove, in a logically deductive manner, the logically positive claims that you’ve made.
And you proceed to list four things…
I’d say there’s no way that a body of law can guaranteefor all time a limit on government to only responsive coercion. Note that that doesn’t embody a logically positive claim.
Because I’m still not sure just what exactly you call a “state”.
Honestly, I’m not quite sure what to make of this, because your definitions for things like “individual rights”, “government”, and “large scale society” seem to be all over the map.
I don’t care how much you complain about it not being “fun” to discuss stuff. I don’t even consider myself to be discussing anything with you. What I’m doing (or trying to do, at any rate) is debating. When I see you make sleight-of-hand strawman claims against anarchism, I will challenge you on them. And I won’t stop.
Problem is, I’m not the one who called it a state–you did. I said anarchism results in a condition of tribalism. You haven’t disagreed yet, you simply called it a state by default and dismissed it.
I would say a tribal group has no government, meaning no legislators, no rule of law, no institutions of administration. If you’re defining state as “any place that’s ruled by anything or anybody” then please explain how the strong-man in an anarchistic society is not a de-facto ruler, and therefore by your own definition a de-facto state.
Just to annoy me, I see how it is. Again, you’re arguing in bad faith.
Let’s see, it’s a concept I came up with. So, yeah, the idea is mine. Why you insist in conflating my ownership of the idea of the system with a desire to rule tyrannically over the idea’s actualization is beyond me. Legally, I have a copyright on the idea. I know I told you I began that idea as part of a thought experiment for a novel.
My idea is not fully formed. I “plug” it because I want to discuss it and find potential problems with it, refinements of it. Actually, the process of discussing it has paid off big time in terms of refining the idea. Only not in my discussions with you, since you’re more interested in a philosophic commitment to anarchism than min-cap.
There you go assuming again and extrapolating erroneously. You’ve invented this idea of discussion as negotiation. I never intimated that, nor implied that. The metaphor of a discussion as a dance mean both people are uplifted by the discussion, rather than a war where both are damaged by it. I am philosophically against an idea of discussion as a negotiation of principles–which you should have given me the benefit of the doubt for since I’m a libertarian.
Haha, you’re ridiculous man. I’m tired of the ratio of unproductive discussion to productive discussion that discussing anything with you results in :\
Again. You’re silly. So, no one can broaden a definition when talking to you. They must be 100% sure of everything the instant they write anything–even when that writing is exploratory.
If I wasn’t, I wouldn’t be talking about it.
Lol, you continually refuse to put any skin in the game. It’s funny, really Well, I’m done being trolled.
Nope. That would be silly. I merely said that coercion has moral usages, thus attacking the anarchist claim that government aggresses and should be done away with entirely. If the gov can use coercion in a moral way, and could be thus limited, it would be a good thing.
No, the crux of our argument is I want to discuss principles and you demand “logical proof” for every conclusion you don’t like. You have no other mode of discussion apparently.
Me: The sun will come up tomorrow (implied inductive statement based on past evidence and known physics).
You: That’s a statement about the future impossible to predict! You can’t possibly know that!!!
Me: Dude, chill.
You: You can’t tell me to chill!!! rageface
From a deductive point of view, you’re correct. However, not from an inductive view.
Lol.
Wow, you’re a real jerk, lol.
That may be true, but you’re only interested in destroying, in skepticism, and have nothing positive to give back. Why should I bother.
Omg, you’re actually saying something. Hallelelujah. The funny thing is I agree, which I why I advocate both a confederal government and a right of political separation via charter cities. You’ve never actually gotten to the point of considering those two ideas together in our discussions and how that undermines any notion of government monopoly.
You wrote earlier: “As opposed to what, anarchism? You’re only going to have a state replace a state.” Do you renounce that or not?
I define “state” as “a territorial monopoly over the legitimate use of coercion”. Note that that definition doesn’t imply nor require legislators/legislation or any other particular/special institutions. With that said, you once again make an implicit positive claim - that anarchistic society will necessarily be rule by one or more “strong-men” (which implies that you don’t define “anarchistic society” as “society without the state”, at least using my definition of “state”).
If by “arguing in bad faith” you mean “arguing under suspicion of your motives”, then yes you’re correct.
Thank you for the confirmation.
That’s right. Why should I care about “min-cap” except to refute it? Hmm?
Well you certainly seem (to me) to use the language of negotiation quite often in your posts. You seem to expect us to reach some sort of compromise. That won’t happen, because I won’t let it. My focus is entirely on refuting your statist principles. I’m not concerned in the least with “improving” your proposed statist system. Have I made myself clear?
I don’t care. I’m going to continue to focus on refuting your statism.
I consider it a dishonest tactic to change the definition one’s using for a word without explicitly announcing it. As I see it, you’ve done that on at least one occasion. And I accept your implicit concession that you did, in fact, equivocate over the word “power”.
What discovery is involved in your strawman claims against anarchism?
Except I’m not trolling you. I have skin in the game of refuting your statism. I have skin in the game of challenging your strawman claims against anarchism. If that’s not the game you want to play, then I suggest not writing such things. So you can be done all you want, but I’m not done. I’m going to continue to challenge your strawman claims against anarchism. I’m going to continue to demand that you provide logically deductive proofs for your claims.
A monopoly over the legitimate use of coercion can only be maintained by some amount of aggression.
So I’m supposed to just lay down and agree with you when you spout nonsense like “government is necessary” and launch strawman attacks against anarchism? Really? I hope you’re joking here.
I’m not intimidated in the slightest by your mockery. Saying “the sun will come up tomorrow” in no way indicates to me an implied inductive statement. Rather, it indicates to me a positive claim implying knowledge about the future, which is impossible. If you want me to understand that you’re talking about induction, then I suggest you be explicit about it.
Correctness (in the logical sense, of course) doesn’t apply to induction. As Wikipedia states, “Inductive reasoning allows for the possibility that the conclusion be false, even where all of the premises are true.”
I still think you’re the foolish one for claiming that you know the unknowable.
I don’t care. I still don’t believe you.
See, this is exactly why I accuse you of treating our discourse as a negotiation. I’m not obligated to “give anything back”. Understand?
If by “destroying” you mean “refuting”, then yes, I’m only interested in destroying.
I’ve been saying lots of things. You just haven’t been listening.
If you agree, then why do you apparently assert the contrary proposition - that it is possible for a body of law to guarantee for all time a limit on government to only responsive coercion?
I’ve asked you this before, but I’ll ask you again to put it on record in this thread: do you accept secession of any and all private property? Yes or no?
But none of this has anything really to do with your assertion that government is necessary (a gnomic proposition) or your strawman claims against anarchism. I’m not going to let go of those.
It’s the only way that statement can be understood. The hell is wrong with you.
Lol, the sun will come up tomorrow. And I’ll still be right when it does. Not because I know the future, because obviously no one does (which is why it’s obviously an implied inductive statement).
By that I don’t mean give an inch on your principles. But rather discuss your vision of an ideal society and its actualization. That would be a fun exchange of ideas. You don’t want an exchange, you offer only an attack.
I don’t assert that. Again, for like the third or fourth time now, I suggest that a political right of separation and individual choice of jurisdiction means that any citizen can escape a jurisdiction that began to move into aggression, thus kneecapping all attempts at ramping up government power, and ensuring that only responsive coercion is used. A society without jurisdictional citizen-capture does not have a monopoly on citizens, though it by nature must have a jurisdictional monopoly on law (two bodies of law cannot rule the same jurisdiction–even though you question that, it’s obvious with about three seconds of thought).
Yes, I do. Which is why, in my proposal, you can choose immediately to leave a jurisdiction and take all of your property with you, and why there’s a confederal government, not a federal one (while acknowleding that I’ve used ‘federal’ in the past; another one of those refinements). For anti-citizen capture to be effective you must be able to secede totally.
In fact, calling it a right to secession is a much better term than what I’ve been using, the so-called “political separation” so I’ll use that from now. Wow, I actually got something out of discussing something with you, I am in shock.
Let’s do a quick thought experiment. If I was able to guarantee that a state would not become an aggressor–let’s just hold that constant–would you agree that a state limited to responsive coercion would be a good thing? Let’s see if you have any intellectual honesty whatsoever, or where the exact crux of your opposition is. Because, I don’t believe you’ll be able to say it is. And that means you simply hate any idea of the state, perhaps any authority, and it’s not really about principle for you. But I’ll give you a chance to surprise me.
Not until you try proving to me - in a logically deductive sense, of course - that government is necessary.
In my opinion, nothing is wrong with me. “The sun will come up tomorrow” is a claim of necessity about the future. If you simply think the sun will come up tomorrow, then you’d say “I think the sun will come up tomorrow”. Keep in mind that I’m not talking in the context of loose everyday language here - I’m talking in the context of logical debate.
You’re contradicting yourself there. You’re implying certainty about the future, and then turning right around and saying there’s no certainty about the future. It can’t be both certain and uncertain.
As I’ve already stated, I’m not interested in your idea of a “fun exchange of ideas”. I’m interested in refuting your statism. You understand this, I think, and that’s why you’re trying to dance around it. You don’t want your position to be weakened. Well, too bad, so sad.
Earlier you wrote, “You don’t believe a state can be limited to only moral forms of coercion.” Since you haven’t provided me your own definition of “state”, I’ll insert mine there: “You don’t believe a territorial monopoly on the legitimate use of coercion can be limited to only moral forms of coercion.” That’s right. By definition, it isn’t limited to what I would call “moral forms of coercion”, as I consider the coercion it must use to maintain its monopoly to be immoral. But anyway, what you said earlier sure sounds to me like you believe the converse, i.e. you believe that a territorial monopoly on the legitimate use of coercion can be limited to only moral forms of coercion. Notwithstanding your alternative definition of “state” (which you have yet to offer), this means to me one of two things: either you think the coercion that it must use to maintain its monopoly is moral, in which case we’re simply at a moral impasse; or you don’t think a territorial monopoly on the legitimate use of coercion must use coercion to maintain its monopoly.
Now then, regarding your notion of “political right of separation and individual choice of jurisdiction”, that means people can escape a jurisdiction without having to move, right?
You can’t really take land and other immovable property with you.
What in the world do you mean by “anti-citizen capture”? You keep introducing new terms without explaining what they mean.
… Okay. I feel no different.
How magnanimous of you.
I’m not going to hold that guarantee constant, because a territorial monopoly on the legitimate use of coercion must use coercion to maintain that monopoly - coercion that I consider to be aggressive.
By the way, it’s this kind of thing which keeps leading me to believe that you view our discourse as some kind of negotiation.
But I don’t hear a counter-argument.
Well, I’m done being trolled.