Monopoly government contradicts with liberty. You still have not responded to the article KoB posted for you, and I indicated you should read, no less than 3 times now. It clearly establishes the contradiction you continue to irrationally ignore.
You never answered my question. You completely evaded it.
Our history is one of irrational tyranny. You’re thinking inside the box, trying to post solutions outside the box.
A lot of us have spent a lot of time trying to debate with you, but you’re adamant about being a statist. A lot of clever word play and rhetoric that dances around the issue, and a lot of objectivist claptrap about rationality, when you’re clearly posting irrationally when faced with solid arguments.
I wish you well on whatever your journey is, but your position is wrong, and no less than a half dozen posters here have proven that over and over again.
Stephanie you advocate a Military State. Nobody can apply self-defense and since nobody can rise against this Military State monopoly, then it can kill off innocents that even try. Just cause the law says it can’t, doesn’t mean people follow the law. That’s hollow. What benevolent State ever professed to go against the best wishes of its’ subjects and against the law. The state is the law. It can do what it wants in a monopoly and especially in the Military State you advocate.
Right. And government doesn’t need to initiate force to maintain its monopoly. Government has a monopoly on what it is and what it does the same way car mechanics have the monopoly on being car mechanics.
The problem isn’t with government. The problem is with the law that government is asked to enforce. When the law by which everyone is evaluating each other and themselves is rational, the mechanism of government has a solid foundation by which to judge and be judged. What makes government work is rational law.
Freedom qua individuals is as much about having a boundary as it is about having the sense of unlimited horizons. Provided I do not initiate force against others, I am free to follow my judgment and do what I want.
When the law prohibits the initiation of force, government won’t and can’t have the right to initiate force on citizens because that would be a direct contradiction of its purpose, which is to enforce the law. Government is the mechanism of law enforcement.
When it comes to being paid, the people who perform the work of government should be like any other profession - they set their price for their labor the same as anyone else. If no one is willing to pay the price they ask, they’ll have to lower their price or find another line of work.
No, voluntary transactions and private individuals performing services or providing products to each other doesn’t distinguish any business from any other. Why should that be the case with those involved in providing governmnt services?
The law itself - that no one has the right to initiate force - is the law that governs everyone, including people doing the work of government. The purpose of banning the initiation of force is the achievement of the protection of individual rights. Government services therefore also involve mechanisms to record lawful ownership of all kinds of property as well as dispute resolution and crime prosecution branches.
Everyone ought to be self-governing, but other than that, most businesses aren’t in the business of providing government services as such. If that’s the kind of work you want to do, then you offer your services as a judge, bodyguard, policeman, professional soldier, that kind of thing. The kinds of work that qualify as “government” work are concerned with the protection of individual rights, dispute resolution and enforcement of lawful court orders. If you’re in the business of making cars, filtering water, growing food, building homes etc., you’re not in the business of “government” but you are subject to the same law as everyone else - you can’t initiate the use of force.
The free market needs exactly the same thing that every individual participating in it needs - freedom from the initiation of force. Being in the business of providing government services should not exempt one from having to abide by that same law.
The problem up to now has been, not in government itself, but in the laws that have been enacted for it to enforce.
How’s that working out with your monopolist provider?
That’s because they have been, as you desire, coercive monopolies. You absolutely cannot have defense against initiation of force while the agency to provide it initiates force against any would-be competitor. It’s not possible, Steph. You want a contradiction-in-terms.
If you want a non-contradictory government, then you want no government.
If you use that analogy, than it implies that all providers of a good or service have a monopoly on the good or service they provide. But, note this contradicts both uses of the term of monopoly, both the definition as a firm that drives competitors out of business with force, or a single firm that is the only provider of a good or service. If you are trying to utilize either of these definitions of monopoly for your first sentence, there is no argument. In other words, false analogy.
Problem today, the institution known as government does not obey that law.
The problem here, of course, is that car mechanics do not have a monopoly. Anyone who learns the trade may enter into the industry, and there is not a single company or individual in control of the entire industry. There are multiple firms in competition in the mechanic industry. You need to recheck the definition of “monopoly” because your above statement actually asserts that government should have NO monopoly in just the same way as mechanics do not have one. Which is correct, but I think the opposite of your intended meaning.
Oh YEAH. Why didn’t I think of this? Oh right, the clear fact that statism has killed hundreds of millions of people and enslaved many more throughout history kind of makes me wary about anyone’s ability to write a law document just so darn poetic and moving that people with unlimited power will stick to it. In a way though you are right. What would make governance (not government, per se) work IS rational law. The kind that affords monopoly and coercive power to no one.
And no one ever acts in contradiction to their stated intentions, right? Nope, people do that all the time. Besides, as has been stated before, if the “government” weren’t going to initiate force, then anyone else would be able to provide the services the government provides unhindered. Which leads to competing firms for providing government services… which is pure market anarchy. I klnow this has been stated before - I’m trying to make it clearer.
Who enacted these evil bad laws? I seem to recall that it is often the king, senate, president, ETC that pens these pesky things and then signs them into law. Government is the source of these evils. Plain and simple.
im just making a point between a tax collector who steals, and a mugger in the street that steals; they both initiate force and both are illegitimate, but a distinguishing feature of the first over the lattter is the self-claim that it is ‘legitimate’.
That’s the trivial use of the term “monopoly”. It’s as if to say we each have the monopoly over our own selves–it’s trivial, as Rothbard correctly pointed out.
Now consider this: McDonalds sells burgers. It’s the only burger place in a town for a while. Then Burger King comes in. According to your reasoning, McDonalds has the right to disallow Burger King from competition with them in that town. Yeah, that’s what you’re saying. If you disagree, then you need to check your premises, because you want government to be a monopoly and prevent upstarts from competing with it. That [size=24]REQUIRES[/size] the initiation of force. There is no way around it, period.
No, it is not. Sorry but I just cannot agree. The initiation of force is the initiation of force. Government is the system or policy by which a group of individuals is governed. Even free-market anarchy is a system of government.
What - so you can’t use force in retaliation against those who initiate it? What are you saying here?