It was suggested that I be more tactful in my criticism of minarchy, so I took it into consideration… for about 4 and a half seconds.
July 1st, 2009
It was suggested that I be more tactful in my criticism of minarchy, so I took it into consideration… for about 4 and a half seconds.
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H. L. Mencken said it best with:
“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.”
Self Contradictory Comments (like all arguments for minimal coercion):
A: People will group together and take what they want, with as much force necessary, as long as there is no force big enough to stop them.
B: As a collective, a society, we can create guidance, rules, and restrictions, to protect ourselves, financed by the collective.
????
So, if people get together and call themselves a ‘group’ they will be evil, but if they get together and call themselves a ‘collective’ they will be good.
So, which is it? Are people mindless-raping-and-robbing-machines, or are they thinking individuals working for the greater good??
wow, hahaha
funny and very true.
I love this series, one may print up a small booklet of them all and give to people new to minarchism.
This is definitely one of my favorites of the series
. I think it really hits at the heart of why monopolistic government is unbenefiicial, not just immoral. People who believe in government tend to imagine their “minarchy” as exactly what they would do were they in charge of it, and a society without government as totally uncontrolled — so of course minarchy is what sounds appealing — they imagine themselves crafting and ruling it, and it always doing exactly what its told.
What they need to remember is that others, whether a majority or a select few, will ultimately be in control of the minarchy, and these individuals will be just as prone to corruption as anyone — with the addition that they now have a means to use coercive violence without consequence.
This same majority is what wields a great deal of the power in a system without government.
So, the question is not, “can I conceive of a government which will help protect people more than it harms them”, it is, “is the will of the majority more safely manifested through normal human interactions, or is it safer to put into the hands of that majority ready made power structures with the ability to use aggressive force on others?” I think the answer is obvious.
It is true that there are evil, power hungry people, and it is true that the majority of the masses currently often like to rule over their fellow man. Why give these evil men a ready made power structure to rule over others? Wouldn’t these efforts be more likely to fail if they were forced to grow out of nothing, with no aura of legitimacy?
“The key to understanding the American system is to imagine that you
have the power to make nearly any law you want. But your worst enemy
will be the one to enforce it.” — Rick Cook
In South Africa, you can hire a gang to go after someone of your choice. People use these gangs for hire to punish thieves and try to recover stolen property. Funny thing, though; there’s never a trial; it’s just rule by gang.
http://tinyurl.com/kwzjky
It’s the same here. It’s just there’s one gang that is worse than all the others and you have to be really wealthy and well-connected to hire them. Also, they go after everyone, all the time and do way more harm than all the other gangs. And the big gang isn’t even preventing the other little gangs from doing their thing. They don’t stop crime. They just monopolize it.
Grand Slam.
Dale, this one belongs on the back of a T shirt
.
People are bad, put people in charge.
SnowDog – as Dale notes, that’s exactly what we have, here.
Or, put another way, Statist governments murdered a quarter of a billion men, women, and children in the last century. They maimed, tortured, raped, abused, starved, imprisoned, enslaved, and oppressed billions more.
Every amateur gang could run wild, unchecked by organized opposition, and never hope to compete with the professionals…
“The two robbery suspects had already been viciously beaten, their swollen faces stained with rivulets of red. One of them could no longer sit up, and only the need to moan seemed to revive him into consciousness. The other, Moses Tjiwa, occasionally stared into the taunting crowd and muttered, “I didn’t do anything.”
I believe we are far safer, under the large gang, than we would ever be under smaller, anarcho gangs.
But my proposal, for those who haven’t seen it, is for principled minarchy.
http://bbs.freetalklive.com/index.php?topic=29560.2
SnowDog,
How exactly does your proposal include a monopoly? Your proposal, since it is principled, does not include the use of aggressive violence, so there is no monopoly on that. I assume that it would not prohibit violence in self defense, when engaged in by citizens, so that is not a monopoly …. what exactly is monopolized?
What you appear to be proposing is just a very popular protection agency.
Which I have no problem with btw …
It’s a monopoly simply by being the largest force of people, though it does not aggress. This is why I think anarchists can support this idea.
There are two predominant fears that people have, to eliminating the government: 1) There would be no justice; 2) There would be no way to defend ourselves from foreign aggression. The principled minarchy could respond to both of these fears.
For instance, the principled minarchy could pass minimum guidelines describing how independent courts should operate. One of the guidelines might be that everyone being jailed for a crime, be given a trial within 1 week of the date that the defendant requests it. Then, it could enforce the release of jailed suspects who are refused trial. It could also ensure that all those convicted of crimes, be given an appeal to an independent court, at their request.
Essentially, the principled minarchy could organize the voluntary society, to prevent the mob rule that everyone is so afraid of.
@SnowDog: it seems to me that what you’re describing is symptomatic of any incredibly poor section of society. For instance, take the last paragraph of this article about violent crime in some parts of Chicago: http://anarchyinyourhead.com/2009/07/01/top-10-causes-of-minarchism-6/
Statism of any size does not stop this sort of thing when the conditions are right. The only way to end it is the overall material elevation of society through a free-market so that they can hit the threshold on Maslow’s hierarchy where they can begin to understand and respect each other’s rights.
After reading the current comments we wanted to point out that in a totally free market virtually EVERYONE would have the skills, knowledge, and tools to defend themselves, their families, their neighbors, workmates, associates…you get the picture…
Snowdog’s comment regarding the gangs in south Africa(and those elsewhere for that matter) is accurate only because there was/is no free market and so the mother with an orange to feed her baby has that orange ripped out of her hand by the gang…
What SHOULD happen is that ANY potential thief/robber would be in such great fear of an instant death sentence for even attempting to touch the orange that the armed mother(and those other armed mothers and fathers around her) wouldn’t EVER be required to fire her weapon…
It should also be noted that Snowdog’s “principled minarchy” works quite well for the “Snowdoggie Principles” but not so well for those who aren’t interested in that dog’s smelly pile of puke and poop(no offense Puke)…
Sincerely,
John and Dagny Galt
Atlas Shrugged, Owners Manual For The Universe!(tm)
Starving The Monkeys, Start Starving Them Today!(tm)
.
As I say (friend said the original quote, I changed it a bit):
“And THIS is the contradiction of the Statist. People are evil so they need to be ruled over by a Government.
But who’s going to make up that Government aside from those same evil; who, of course, will likely end up being even more evil, because they will have absolute power while in control of a monopoly of the legitimate initiation of force and fraud?”
Well, Dale, this is good, but I see a very big flaw in the description.
Instead of reading: “You’ve been taught people are inherently evil and need to be controlled by some supreme authority, and you think costumes, badges, and votes magically transform them to be good.”
It should have read: “You’ve been taught people are inherently evil and need to be controlled by some supreme authority, and you think costumes, badges, votes and a magic scroll magically transform them to be good.”
I don’t know if the HTML tag will work, but I put it for emphasis anyways.
That captures the minarchist position better and makes it out for what it is.
FTFY
Well, Dale, you did make this to make fun of minarchists, so I’m just saying.
…but seriously, what do you mean by “FTFY”?
FTFY = fixed that for you
I bolded the thing you wanted bolded. You can do it yourself in the future with the “strong” html (not bbs, i.e. < instead of [) tag.
OK. Thanks.
Let me try it out:
Link mah boi!!, this peace is what all true warriors strive for.
Yay! It works.