I care most about the rules of the social order being upheld. I care about order and the rule of law being enforced. It’s not that I don’t care about people. It’s that I think the trade off between two hours of some random people’s time and catching a criminal seems worth it. Robbing the bank is not objectively evil but it does represent a clear disregard for the established rules of our social order. You’re not supposed to rob banks. Why? I don’t really have an ultimate reason or a grand objective rule yet. It probably has something to do with the evolutionary adaptive response to those who take things in a personal context but I really can’t say yet I’m still searching for the answer.
Right but that sort of fear is amplified when it’s understood that there’s no one else to turn to. There is one law, one set of rules, one source of authority. That makes them that much scarier to deal with which is preferable in my mind to the private alternative. I don’t want people thinking they get a choice as to who they obey. I want them to understand that there’s no alternative. That’s the kind of fear that only a monopoly on force can create. Does it have its drawbacks? Absolutely. But I feel it’s absolutely preferable to the private alternatives I’ve seen proposed.
Reference?
Exactly that’s what makes such a system a nightmare to me. I don’t mind living in a society where people can choose what kind of toothpaste they buy but I don’t want everyone to have a choice over what laws to obey. I want there to be only one choice for everyone, take it or leave it (or try to elect people to formally change it.) Who in their right mind would want to live in a social order where the law and its executors openly and intentionally served the desires of men as opposed to the letter of the law itself?
Because they couldn’t have singular authority otherwise. Now why wouldn’t you want them to have that monopoly? So that the law would be more responsive to you? That really sounds appealing?