You’ve also clearly shown that yes, you perform “standard usage” without knowing what you mean. In politics or other sectors of life it’s called being a populist or a nationalist.
You can’t define your concepts. You defined many, but clearly have not defined “observer-independent”. Scroll back you’ll see you don’t know this word you use. So you can try to flip this on me, but you, unfortunately, can’t define the very words you speak/type. When you know what you are talking about… til next time. Good night.
P.S. I usually don’t find it necessary to care what concepts people use, but when you simply state, “It’s objective.” Somehow that supposed to make it right and nobody is to question it. “Oh, it’s objective. So it must be right, right?” Maybe if you knew what this “justifier” actually meant it would help.
Juan, the definition of any word could be at issue and must be settled if it’s central to the discussion: Iimportant words require definition. “Meaning” itself needs a definition too.
Achieving agreement on the meaning of key terms is Step 1. However, it becomes stupidly obstructive to continue insisting on “standard” definitions when those definitions are not working.
There is no longer a need to have “self-interest” and “selfish” stand for “too much self-interest.” We have “self-absorbed” and “selfless.” Not having a self means being ripe to being taken advantage of and made into someone’s slave.
Let’s face it, people who are willing to pay taxes are willing to be slaves.
It’s the fact that government is permitted to fund itself by force where the trouble begins. If those purporting to offer their services to provide defense for the whole group, then it stands to reason that the only way to fund any or all such offers is by voluntary choice. Caveat emptor. All are subject to the Law of Human Interaction which strictly prohibis the initiation of force by anyone for any reason. Transgressors may be prosecuted.
I copied this from someone just now - thanks
“as much as some might try to give it up to representatives and avoid the inevitable - reason can’t be represented so you’re going to have to think for yourself anyways so you might as well get better at it.”
“Think for Yourself cuz I won’t be there for you.” George Harrison
Were he self-represented, even a judge’s secretary would find it odd that the clerk is more concerned about the death of the thief than grateful for being rescued from a robbery.
To be pleading the case of the dead thief sounds like someone who has lost his partner in crime.
I’d definitely want to know why the clerk says he’s so concerned about the thief that’s it important to sue the shopper for killing him (since that iis probably the one way the case would come to court in a free society.
Killing someone for making a ratchet? Could this be grasping at straws?
Feeling and doing are separate things. Was this customer free to leave? If not he was a fellow victim. If yes, then your objection fails as simply leaving could have alleviated this feeling.
Naturally, killing someone because of a noise disturbance is extreme and likely psychotic. However, I am just pointing out that a third party can certainly be disturbed by a dispute / action by two other people. Can we settle on a middle ground? Say, instead of killing, can the third party demand that they keep the noise down? it they do not keep the noise down, can a third party take action? I think the answer is yes in both cases.
The difference between feeling and doing is irrelevent because the scenario already involves him taking action. We are examining possible justifications in him defending his actions.
What I am getting at is that the customer has an argument: he can justifiably say he was under threat too. Be reasonable. The customer / bystander to a violent crime would be a fool to not even consider that he would be next.
Alright, since you couldn’t come up for the definition of “observer-independent” for objectivism, I’ve been thinking about it and I think I found an answer. Let me know what you think. I think it is good.
Since objectivism is independent of the observer, meaning, has nothing to do with the observer, then let’s say you are the observer. I am independent of you/observer. I am of Natural Law. I am a human. It is in my nature, my human nature to reason. Via free will I reason and freely come to the conclusion of what Natural Law is. I can’t say for sure I know everything about Natural Law, but it will naturally come to me as I reason. Since I am independent of you, and you are the observer, therefore, if you observe this Natural Law conclusion that I’m trying to convey to you by naturally typing here in this forum, then you are observing this happen independent of the observer aka you. Now if you do the same, then I will observe and therefore objectively be able to observe Natural Law radiate independently from me for it will be freely coming from you.
What do you think?
I find it beautiful and harmonious. Like a bird singing a song on a late winter’s morning when the day’s are warm.
How is this Amish situation comparable to the theif/clerk/shopper situation?
I don’t support the current iteration of government. it doesn’t really deserve to be called “government” since it is wreaking havoc on everything it touches. That’s what happens when you try to base a system of government on non-objective law and then permit it to initiate force.
poor use of “non-objective”… Also… Again this government is based on Natural Law, read the Constitution, especially the Bill of Rights. And yet again, the problem is not Natural Law it is the government.
Hang on - his Amish scenario was stating that the federal government kills people on the Amish’ behalf - is that Natural Law? That’s surely not the government either of us is envisioning here, wilderness.
And the problem IS non-objective law. There are the laws that are clearly an abridgement of rights, such as tax law and land expropriation laws, as well as all clearly subjective law (the vast majority of the laws on the books today.) Subjective law is someone’s prejudice, bias, or desire enacted into law, which covers everything from mandatory education to the age of adulthood, tariffs, quotas, anti-trust, all the interventions into the economy. The Federal Reserve, minimum wage, so on and on.
“Government” is the policy or system by which the people of a given geographical area are governed. The concept of “government” doesn’t automatically tell you what kind of policy or system is being employed. You won’t eliminate the problems by “getting rid of government.”
It is the laws the government enforces that have to be examined and where they are non-objective, repealed. The laws government is asked to enforce are where the problem is to be found, and corrected.
And we talked about the errors & problems in the Constitution before, and I thought we’d agreed about that issue.
ok, I’m not sure what the Amish stuff is about either. But this government is based on Natural Law.
I don’t understand why you equate a government monopoly that doesn’t allow for competition and therefore must coerce to eliminate competition, I don’t understand why you perceive that to be justice.
No, I agreed on the Statism incorporated into the Constitution, such as a need for the three branches of government and taxes, etc… that came from European attachments to government. You still attach to European needs of a government. The Constitution is based on Locke’s limited government which is about a government is still necessary for protection. The Constitution and those founders such as Ben Franklin, Adams, and Jefferson were well versed in Natural Law. You find Natural Law in the Declaration of Independence and all throughout the Constitution. Locke’s ideas about a limited government are all professed as Natural Law. The idea of Natural Law goes back at least to Aristotle and he even argued that Natural Law needs a State. So Locke’s and others use of Natural Law have been clearly debunked and those older understandings are understood to be corrupted concepts and practices of Natural Law. So you’re still holding on to Lockes limited government to protect the people and that’s what the U.S. is based on (this is not a secret, when the founders came up with the U.S. many pointed out Locke influenced what kind of Natural Law government they established). Natural Law is clearly not that. As I said, it’s been debunked over and over again that government need remain to protect the people, debunked by many Natural Law philosophers for over a 100 years now. The Leviathan State is another name that has been given to what the Military State is called I believe.
Now you see why I pointed this out. Your whole argument has been lived out in real-time already called the U.S. and it has become an Empire, the largest the world has ever seen. And there is a fear that a much stronger Military State could emerge from it some day. So you see you need not think to hard about your “overarching government”. It is all around you if you live in the U.S.
I know! It struck me as simply a red herring to avoid dealing with the first scenario.
You mean the government we’re talking about creating or the one we have already?
The government ought to have the monopoly on the use of retaliatory force/coercion. The use of that retaliatory force must be strictly spelled out. The govenment cannot have the right to compel people to pay for its services before they agree of their own volition to do so. It is the compulsory/mandatory aspect of government funding that opens the door for corruption.
There cannot be competing governments within one country/nation/geographical area/call it what you will. But let’s use “country” for the sake of simplicity.
To have a government that protects individual rights requires first of all that we understand what rights are and why compulsion is the antithesis of respecting rights and so why protection against compulsion/initiation of force is needed.
It’s not just European, it’s the nature of mankind. We need laws to protect our rights. We need government to enforce the law.
No. What has been debunked is non-objective law. THAT is what abrogates rights and compromises the means to protect them.
In our discussion re the Constitution, we agreed on the parts that trample rights. The error was made with the idea that government ought to have the right to compel the citizens: whether to pay for it, or to compel them to fight on its behalf, or the right to compel them to attend school etc.
Setting a price for government services, which is to be paid at the time one launches a lawsuit, or by buying a lottery ticket to contribute to the police are proper ways to pay voluntarily. That is not quite the same as compelling people to just fork over X percent in income tax or pay X percent of every purchase they make (sales tax). The fact that government is permitted to levy taxes is how corruption got in the door in the first place. Without the ability to take money by force, the government could not fund the enforcement of the billions of subjective laws.
No, it has not. The U.S. government began by using the same old methods of funding and labor: tax and slaves. Those were its biggest errors, and those are why it’s collapsing today.
An overarching government as I use the term means the mechanism by which to enforce the law prohibiting the initiation of force. I’s basically the only law I can see that applies universally to all individuals at all times. It’s clearly not the law as we have it today anywhere. All governments employ mandatory funding laws – taxation – by which the government simply confiscates wealth.
A government that is made to abide by the law prohibiting the initiation of force is a government that protects against the initiation of force. Such a government is passive, not active. It does not run out and initiate lawsuits. It has to be activated by a plaintiff who alleges wrongdoing and on whom the onus of proving wrongdoing rests.
Unfortunately the one we have. Natural Law is a reasoned position that the Law is from Nature, that it is universal. It is the same concept in physics such as the natural law of gravity. What we are discussing is the Natural Law based on human nature. What is human nature? We reason, we are rational animals. And then differing positions since ancient Greece have emerged quite possibly even before then, but I know the historical records show ancient Greece.
So that government you advocate will therefore break its’ own law by using coercion to stop competition. That’s not justice. It provides no natural incentive to thereby force this government to abide by its own law for once an agency or group of people rise to self-defense they will be seen as “thugs” (as you put it) and this government will then proceed to break its own law. Breaking laws is injustice.
That’s Aristotle’s position. He said we need a State. It is natural for people to have a State to protect our rights. It was Natural Law in his eyes. And you do know who the student of Aristotle was? - Alexander the Great (the Empire builder for State is necessary as his teacher said).
No, Rothbard among others debunked the idea that only government could provide protection. The free market can. It happens everyday and night now (security guards, etc…). The free market is already here. One needs to look for it. Here’s a youtube on the supposed first, Gustave de Molinari, to debunk a government monopoly on security protection:
Natural Law has evolved. This is the problem with hardened objectivist. I wouldn’t be too concerned. This culture makes 'em everyday. Hardened objectivists don’t notice emergence, change, or evolving ideas. Even physics has evolved. As objective as they were 200 years or even 100 years ago in physics, they even began to declare nothing left to discover in physics in the late 1800’s, but of course, they were wrong. They didn’t have all the facts and that limited their worldview. Physics now is actually in a moment with very creative new theories on the drawing board. They are being objective, yes, but being objective is noticing the facts “out there”, but the problem is we don’t know all the facts and thus limit our theories especially when individuals think they are being objective and that somehow means they know all there is to know about something. Being objective isn’t a monopoly on truth. What is perceived to be objective today will change and a new “what is objective” will emerge tomorrow. That’s what’s fascinating about life. Always new discoveries. So anyways Natural Law has evolved and thus the universals on what human nature is has evolved tremendously since ancient Greece. Do I stick with Natural Law? Of course. Do I know of anything better? No. And this is what people need to do in life and we do it everyday. Sometimes we just have to do it. We may not know if something is better or not to come, but we just go with it and keep with a principle. Hopefully the principle we, as individuals, keep, is a good principle that doesn’t go around destroying everything (like Keynesian or Obamaism). That’s what’s touch and go with life. We think we know what’s right and best. We go with it, and then maybe latter on find out we were all wrong and luckily we found something better. I’m a principled individual, so, I think Natural Law based on natural property is excellent. I think it is as truthful and factual as an electron or atom. But will the ideas on what an electron or atom change? Quite possibly, maybe even change enough to create a huge shift in physics all together like the huge shift physics is in right now (String Theory or Standard Theory or Quantum Mechanics or Theory of Relativity, or maybe it’s to be something else, etc…). Or maybe it’s radical enough that Natural Law and natural property will need to take a different approach. I have a hard time believing it would, but I keep an open mind. History is full of new discoveries.
Well nothing in the Constitution compelled anybody to fight on its behalf until the Supreme Court (can’t remember the time period) pointed to the thirteenth amendment and said it allows for the military draft. Thirteenth Amendment:
Thirteenth Amendment
Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
Ok you point to me where it says it’s ok for a military draft. This Amendment is clearly a natural right based on the non-aggression principles, but the Supreme Court said the military draft can still occur. Governments don’t follow their own laws!
Same goes for compelling to go to school. Constitution says nothing about that. Why? Cause governments don’t follow their own laws!
And yes we agree about the taxation part, excise tax is in the Constitution and a later Amendment was made for more taxation.
The Constitution is Natural Law. Read it. It will be familiar. Yes other laws have been passed since then, but that’s what governments do, they are inherently corrupt.
You see money in government as worse than the government having a gun monopoly. That’s injustice. No way to self-defend against a coercive government that will not allow competition.
All governments are built on the premise that they are looking out for the little guy. That they will help people live a better life. A government that you advocate that doesn’t allow a competitive self-defense will say this self-defending group of people appear “thuggish” and these so called “thugs” are actually freedom fighters but will be actively deterred for the government you propose already states it will not allow competition. It can not allow anybody to stand up to it.
Natural Law has a deep history Stephanie and has been around for a long time argued by many philosophers and the U.S. and other countries have had Natural Laws instilled into their governments. What is different about the U.S. is it wrote a Constitution (Britain has no written Constitution) and wrote out Natural Law principles. The Bill of Rights is a Bill of Natural Rights. This was added by two representatives, I believe, at the last moment cause they said they were fearful the government would grow large and people would not know their natural rights (which come from Natural Law). People who opposed the Bill of Rights opposed them cause they didn’t understand how people could forget freedom and the basics of natural property. Well, people have forgotten and without those Bill of Rights this country would have either (A) been in another revolution long ago or (B) I would be living in a full blown Military State right now.
Natural Law evolves. What is considered objective evolves. Objective is a specific kind of perspective that notices facts, but facts change. Objectivity isn’t somehow locked onto absolute truth in some magical way. That’s like locking this world into stagnation where the sun won’t come up tomorrow and we are robots. We are not. We have free-will and life on this earth changes and is rhythmic. We have values and live freely in a free market society. It is that the State has intervened beyond the point of recognition for some people as to what the free market actually is and what freedom and natural property actually are.
Even though this discussion has sidetracked I’d like to comment on the original post.
I say the shopper has a claim of self defense regardless of what the shop owner says. The robber has shown clear, present/immediate and overt aggression. The shopper was clearly close enough to be in danger based on the fact that he was close enough to clobber the robber.
I see it this way. If you were in the middle of a shooting rampage where the aggressor was about to kill someone and you were in the position to stop him. Would you wait till the shooter shoots his target and then points the gun towards you so that you can then claim that you are in danger yourself. No, once the shooter began to threaten whoever with his weapon, he became a danger to all around him.
Back to the store example. The robber became a danger to everyone once he brandished that knife and threatened the use of it either by pointing it at someone or saying so. So the shopper clearly had the right to use whatever means to stop that threat.
I think it comes down to the reasonable presumption of danger when it comes to taking any action against an aggressor. In this case the robber threatened the shop owner which gives people around him the right to assume that he is a danger to them. If you brandish a weapon and you threaten to use it against someone then the people around you have the reasonable presumption that you are a danger to them.
If it came down to intentions then nobody would be able to defend themselves because nobody can read minds. I can point a gun at you and say I won’t shoot you until it is too late and you have a hole in your head. If you point a knife or a gun at someone you become a danger to everyone around you, even if the gun is not loaded and the knife is dull. The presumption of danger is there.
Rothbard on this issue does allow the use of force against criminals by outside parties other than the victim as long as the criminal is guilty and it is proportional to the crime committed.
"We may qualify this discussion in one important sense: police may use such coercive methods provided that the suspect turns out to be guilty, and provided that the police are treated as themselves criminal if the suspect is not proven guilty. For, in that case, the rule of no force against non-criminals would still apply.
Suppose, for example, that police beat and torture a suspected murderer to find information (not to wring a confession, since obviously a coerced confession could never be considered valid). If the suspect turns out to be guilty, then the police should be exonerated, for then they have only ladled out to the murderer a parcel of what he deserves in return; his rights had already been forfeited by more than that extent. But if the suspect is not convicted, then that means that the police have beaten and tortured an innocent man, and that they in turn must be put into the dock for criminal assault.
In short, in all cases, police must be treated in precisely the same way as anyone else; in a libertarian world, every man has equal liberty, equal rights under the libertarian law. There can be no special immunities, special licenses to commit crime. That means that police, in a libertarian society, must take their chances like anyone else; if they commit an act of invasion against someone, that someone had better turn out to deserve it, otherwise they are the criminals."
In the store example the robber is clearly without a doubt a criminal and definitely deserves it. The question is if implicit violence is proportional to explicit violence. I think it is. Say the Shop owner stabs and kills the robber. Would the shop owner be accused of using disproportional violence?
And we are volitional, and have free will. Which in practice means we are individuals of the species that has the ability to choose badly as well as to choose not to think. Recognition of that part of our nature is why we need a mechanism to protect our rights.
You can’t debunk Aristotle on account of the actions taken by his student.
The problem with this is that it becomes tribal warfare, with “tribes” being denoted not by physical groups living in the same area, but by private defense agencies.
Having security services available on the market does not obviate the need for government to be available in case of a dispute between consumer and provider of said services.
How has Natural Law evolved? Are you saying we as a species have evolved, that we somehow no longer possess rationality and volition? How has our basic nature changed in the last umpteen thousand years? Answer: it hasn’t.
Actually, being objective IS a monopoly on truth. It is how an individual recognizes all these changes and works with them. Still doesn’t change our BASIC nature as human beings.
The fact is - slavery had to be amended to be taken OUT of the Constitution. They began originally with it, yes?
So they follow the law when it suits them. There are so many laws now that the whole mess works at cross-purposes.
And just because the U.S. government has become such a mess doesn’t mean that a future iteration of government has to ipso facto be a mess too.
There was sloppy wording in that Constitution, IIRC along the lines of “government is to provide for the general welfare” which is how they were able to weasel their way into dictating re schools, social security and so forth.
Government should be passive, not active. It should stand ready to protect rights when individuals have an issue/dispute with another person or group of persons.
I blame non-objective law for that corruption. Government is a neutral concept. It means the policy or system. It does not have to be corrupt. It’s like a computer in a sense. What you feed in is what determines what you get out. If you put irrational, non-objective law into your Constitution or whatever you call your Governing Document, you will reap a corrupt entity.
I disagree. The government I propose isn’t “looking out for the little guy” as opposed to “looking out for the biggest corporation there is or ever could be.”
The government I propose is to protect the rights of all citizens. It is not an active government, running out to attack any and all who challenge it by offering competing services. The government should be ready only to deal with problems/issues/allegations of wrongdoing which are brought to its attention in the form of lawsuits. As far as military against foreign attackers is concerned, the government has to be given the means (money and personnel) by voluntary agreement on the part of its citizens to deal with those attacks. The government cannot have the right to go out there and attack other countries.
Ahem. The U.S. has its Constitution and it has its Bill of Rights and still it has deteriorated. The only thing propping it up is the memory of freedom.
The fact that “facts change” is not a condemnation of objectivity! Objectivity is absolutely capable of noticing facts that change. This argument does not make sense.
I agree with you about the State - it HAS intervened and must be stopped from doing so. The only way to do that is to ban it from initiating force. To remove its right to tax the citizens for any and all purposes and to remove its right to pass interventionist laws.
I can think of just one law that applies to all regardless of status, race, creed or gender. No one has the right to initiate the use of force.
An individual can hold off on thinking, but thinking is unavoidable. It’s impossible for a human to avoid thinking. It happens whether we try or not.
I like what you said about volition, free will and our ability to choose badly.
The point is Aristotle thought the State was a Natural Law. He was wrong.
That’s your opinion. I disagree. The old American Frontier with the pioneers, Ireland before British conquest, and practice of Roman law (was private not state) are real-time examples of Natural Law cultures without State intervention. But I know tribes exist too. But Natural Law has been played out in real-time which is my point without State intervention. People live now without tribalism in the U.S. and other countries. The State has nothing to do with our free market other than perverting and corrupting it.
State/government need not. There are third party private market dispute services already available. Here’s where you can find education on dispute negotiations. It was a quick search on the internet. Not hard to find:
I’m pretty sure, but admittedly not very aware of this area, that there are ways to learn how to third party free market negotiate with Natural Law of non-aggression principles and thus natural property in mind. It wouldn’t be difficult. People are inclined to reason this way and be good negotiators. I don’t even understand what a government is anymore. It provides nothing that human’s reason on our own. The government isn’t some Super-Human or some magical creature. It merely involves everyday people that can reason, but with all the errors of the State inherent contradictions. So their job can’t be performed very well at all sadly.
Well basically it is humans that have evolved in our reasoning skills. We are more precise on what the laws of nature are. There was no law of nature called gravity before Newton came along and discovered it. So gravity was here, but individuals could not reason this natural law of gravity until Newton. As I pointed out Aristotle thought the State was a natural law. It is not. That is wrong. We do not naturally need a State. People make it through the day without a politician calling us up and directing us. We reason our way through life. The State is actually irrational and very socialistic in it’s application. That’s what politics has turned into now a days. Going with the social popular flow instead of sticking with good reasoned principles.
See now you’re recognizing that there is a basic nature in humans. Good. Which I’m sure you knew was present, simply stating. But to nonchalantly say something is objective isn’t a qualifier for truth. That’s a blanket statement with no real quality or substance. Now if you reason out this objective fact you’re trying to discuss, then you are reasoning this out and trying to show convincing arguments. Being objective, all by itself is nothing. Being objective and showing the reasons why and what, etc… Those reasons may reveal the truth, not simply by saying “it’s objective”. What’s been objective, as I pointed out, has changed through time. And yes our objectivity helps us change with the facts, all well and good, but I want to know the facts and hear the rational, not hollow terms like objectivity without qualifiers.
What’s IIRC mean? Also that’s the problem with government, and now we get to the problem of your government. It violates natural rights. It sees freedom fighters as “thugs”.
Well, you’re trying to put a non-objective corrupt law into your government now with this monopoly on coercion. It’s total contradiction. And don’t just say, “No, it’s objective.” And leave it at that. That’s a straw man argument. It means nothing without qualifiers.
And arguments of natural rights. Freedom is the basics of natural rights. So you gave a no-argument here.
Well to simply state something is “objective” without qualifiers doesn’t make sense. It’s a straw man. Anybody can say, “It’s objective,” but when the actual argument is reasoned out it clearly may not be objective. War is objective. It is a fact. Show qualifiers about what objectivity you’re showing or else it’s just a straw man.
And sadly Aristotle thought the State was a Natural Law. I know Alexander the Great took his word on that. Aristotle was a very convincing philosopher and still is and he’s been dead for almost 2300 years.
Well, at least we agree on the non-aggression principle! But I think you’re government would misuse your good intentions. It’s a contradiction from the get-go. Good day. [:)]
You’re right that some kind of activity takes place in people’s heads, but given the state of the world today, I wonder what it is that’s going on.The choice to avoid focusing on a given topic/issue is something that happens all the time these days.
That’s not enough information for me to assess his position. What did he visualize the State doing?
I agree with you to some extent. The only role for government is to protect individual rights. The government has no active role to play in a free market (only a passive role, of a security guard/policeman). It is not for the government to dictate how many bushels of wheat to produce, how buildings should be built, nor any of its myriad other laws it has passed dictating to business how to conduct itself.
Not surprising given the way it’s become perverted. But it is what I’ve been saying - simply the policy or system. “A government is an institution that holds the exclusive power to enforce certain rules of social conduct in a given geographical area.” (Ayn Rand)
That is an example of an increase in knowledge, not a change in our basic nature.
I do agree with most of what you say here, everything except the idea that we don’t need a State (if by that term you mean a synonym of government. If you mean to denote all that a government improperly does, then I agree we don’t need “the State.” But we do need a means of self-defense that is placed under objective control, which means under objective law.) What is missing from government (the State) is objective law, that is, law formulated with reference to the facts of reality and validated by a process of reason. That is why I agree with Mises about getting the government out of the economy. Government intervention in economic matters is an initiator of force and thereby contradicts government’s proper reason for existing (i.e., to be “the means of placing the use of retaliatory force under objective control”.).
Ok, I’ll do my best. I think I know what you mean.
If I recall correctly.
My government does not violate natural rights. Its only task is to protect rights by making the use of retaliatory force subject to objectively verifiable rules. It is only by codifying the method of evidence evaluation, perpetrator identification and other objectively verifiable steps, that we can provide for ourselves certainty that the actual criminal or malfeasor is being punished.
What is an example of an objectively verifiable law? It is a law that can be verified by a process of reason with reference to the facts of reality. A law such as " no one has the right to initiate force" is the result of the answers to a great number of questions. What is it about the initiation of force that abrogates rights? What is a right? Why do men need rights? Why do men need to be free to act on their own judgment? In what way can a man be compelled to act against his judgment? Why is that wrong? How can we protect ourselves against the initiation of force?
The basic right is the right to one’s life. Rights are moral principles that define and sanction freedom of action in a social context. Man is volitional - he has to choose to think, to act, to live, as a human being. He needs to be free to work to gain the values that sustain his life - the food, shelter, clothing - the property necessary to sustain life. He needs the right to keep what he has earned. The right to property is a corollary of that basic right to life. Without the right to property, the right to life is meaningless, since man needs property to sustain his life. Because some men will choose not to sustain their lives by their own effort but instead choose to steal what others have produced, man needs a means of protecting himself against such thiefs and parasites.
Since the initiation of force is the only way to compel a man to act against his own judgment and the only way to take against their will from those who have produced, it is the initiation of force itself that must be banned.
That is what is delegated to the government to do - to be the means of the use of retaliatory force against those who initiate its use. It’s a vitally important role, one which has been forgotten by the welfare states of our times.
Ok. War is the result of one country initiating force on another usually by invading its borders, killing its citizens or taking them hostage, taking goods or destroying them.
One could say the State itself has declared war on its own citizens.
I’ll be interested to hear what you have to say to my earlier comments in this post.
But I’ll say this: government that is permitted by law to have the authority to establish tariffs, quotas, minimum wage laws, mandatory pension contributions, on and on and on - is an immoral institution. “Government” does have a proper purpose but it requires an objectively verifiable law, which is a law that can be checked with reference to man’s nature as a rational, volitional being. The prohibition against the initiation of force is based on the recognition of the needs of man’s nature - to be free to act on his own judgment and to keep the product of his labor.
No government in power today is based on that principle. That is an indictment of subjective law, not of the institution of government.
The robber is clearly claiming higher ownership over what is owned by others, and I would say that is all one needs to do for self-defense to be justified.