I recall twice encountering libertarian writers explaining that it is circular to say, “the government is not illegitimate coercion because you are free to leave.” (The reason being that in doing so, one is assuming as a premise that the government has legitimate authority over the land, which is the very thing to be proved.)
Unfortunately, I am unable to recall either of the two sources where I encountered this argument. I think one might have been a journal article solely on this point.
So I’m hoping someone can point me to a/the source for this argument.
The “love it or leave it” principle is not something that I have heard from “libertarians”. But, as I’ve said elsewhere, British law is not strictly based on geography.
I’ve considered replying to this by saying, “OK, if I’m free to leave can I secede from the country? Would you let me live on my land and stop paying for the military, etc.? What about my neighbors, if a whole bunch of us want to leave, can we all secede together?”
I’m not sure how the statist would respond to this. Has anyone tried this argument?
That would be a non-sequitur. He would naturally say that you can’t do that, because the government owns all land, and it has the right to dictate what its tenants can or cannot do. A tenant can’t secede from it’s landlord without moving, because the house isn’t his.
The best way to confront it is arguing that the government does not own all land, and that the statist should be required to argue why he thinks the state does, like Roderick T. Long did in that paper. Drawing analogies can alway help of course.
In that case my argument would be useful against conservatives/minarchists. Those people already admit that the state doesn’t own all the land, so by asking for succession, they are forced to admit that democratic government is just mod rule and a violation of rights.
Yes, plenty. Just look at the IRA, the Basque and countless others who tried (tries) to get out of government control. So, ultimately, the issue is not as simple as “just leave”. Where do you go to? With the exception of the south pole (where countries have “territories”) or a random two km^2 island in the middle of the pacific ocean, there’s no escaping some form of government control.
Most sophisticated minarchists don’t make this point. Its just a latch ditch effort to derail the debate. You need to call them on it.
Anarchist: “And taxes and social security are stupid and don’t work and no politician cares because they are only temporary caretakers of the country”
Statist: “Well if you don’t like it you can get out!”
Anarchist: “I’ll come back to it later, but that doesn’t really rebutt my claims that the system is superbroken”
Statist: “But if you don’t like it you can leave.”
Anarchist: “So you’re NOT defending the US government anymore?”
Statist: “Whoops. That’s a non sequitur. I must have just gotten cognitive dissonance and tried to change the subject to avoid shattering my chauvanistic worldview.”