Well, what if the mugger belongs to a known organization that stops people on the street and mugs them. If they resist, they get kidnapped, and if they resist kidnapping, they get killed. So, you know (by knowing the organization that the mugger belongs to, whose membership he displays loud and proud) about the implied threat of deadly force.
Re: retribution: thanks for the link. (Btw, not that it’s relevant here, but in the original text, “eye for eye” meant monetary restitution, not knocking out someone’s eye, according to the majority interpretation.)
The ancient rabbis were quite wise overall, imho. As the wiki points out, the rabbis humanized the principle. Whereas Hammurabi’s code was actual retribution, the rabbis eventually worked it out to restitution. I think this is a general human tendency, that people would prefer being made whole instead of making the other suffer. After all, if your wife was murdered, would you rather her murderer be executed or somehow undo your wife’s murder? Of course, you might be against executing the murderer anyway, but the point is that I think most people would prefer undoing the crime if at all possible. Reciprocal retribution is a limiter on violence. Instead of killing any person who has wronged you, you may only do to him what he has done to you.
But there must be violence or the threat thereof for there to be restitution. If we were to rely upon criminals to grow consciences and then pay restitution, we would be very lucky indeed if victims ever saw restitution. Reciprocal retribution limits the violence that can be used or threatened in order to receive restitution. Of course, the victim might decide he prefers the retribution to the restitution, but in a system of customary law, this would be the exception rather than the rule. See Clayton’s post on A Praxeological Account of Law for why this is likely.
Well, this is getting into knowledge of social norms and customs, and it is entirely relevant. If a mugger is part of a group that kidnaps and kills people who resist, that knowledge is entirely relevant to the matter at hand. Perhaps there are some libertarians who believe that it is irrelevant and that only the immediate facts of the case are relevant, but I think it would be foolish to throw out the extra knowledge. If there is an implicit threat of deadly force, there is still a threat of deadly force. What constitutes an implicit threat can only really be known through social norms and customs, but they are still threats nonetheless.
I suggest that you do not have a right to conduct a violent revolution until the point when voting in change is no longer possible.
That is, when tyranny is total.
At that point, you could say the state’s control over you is analogous to an individual being assaulted to the point of being overpowered, at which point a fight to the point of death may legitimately ensue.
Yeah. Overall I like your idea of seasteading much better than any revolution, and if they attack us from there, that would be the justification to retaliate.
The problem is, with something like seasteading, there are so many things that could go wrong, the main thing being that the government could easily suppress the free flow of goods essential to making a place like that prosper.
I don’t think any of us want it. I know Brian Doherty once said something like libertarians will always go to a bookstore before an armory. I think the whole thing about this thread is that we’re just examining that if it would be a just conflict under the NAP.
Duh. Obviosly we have a legitimate right to revolt and repel the aggression against us and it is impossible to argue against a rising on doctrinal grounds, only on grounds of tactics or aestetics if you lean that way.
Hypersensitivity is a matter of opinion. If this is your way of saying, “I think you’re being hypersensitive”, then let me inform you that I couldn’t care less.
I do not know the context of any other of your debates however given my reading of this thread Autolykos’ interpretation of one of your posts as a threat is uncharitable. Your later post is about who would be a legitimate target is a good question one in fact Walter Block begins to answer here
Also please refrain from calling him the Idea Pig- even if he is, which I’m far from saying, it is out of place on a discussion forum.
Can I simply suggest that not only are there peaceful things we can do, there are probably certain types of discussions that don’t advance our cause but can only become sound bites on national media after arrests are made? Discussing any kind of violent response in society might be one of those things.
Anyone involved in the FSP? While there’s some silliness going on with a couple of the guys that insist on getting arrested, I’ve continued to think that even the 1000 that moved can make a big difference through activism and education. Might take much longer (20+ years) than they may have thought initially.