You’ve been explaining for years what went wrong with government! If people would just have the sense to put you in charge, you’d show them how to fix it. The #1 reason was suggested by former minarchist Travis Eden who gives some credit for his conversion to Anarchy In Your Head. Thanx for the inspiration, Travis, and congratulations on your recent enlightenment!
Isn’t reason #1 a big part of the problem with statism in general? Everyone has their idea of the perfect government but we’re all different. But there are certain things that we can all agree on, right? And you feel confidently enough about it that you’re okay with threatening violence against innocent people to impose it on them. The founding fathers juuuuuust missed it, but if we give your ideas a chance, you’ll tidy up the loose strings because you’ve got it all figured out.
Or maybe this comic doesn’t describe you at all. There have been a lot of comments along this series by people complaining about exactly that. A couple of thoughts. First, it’s a top ten list. Every item isn’t supposed to describe everyone. You’d be one screwed up statist if every single item described you! It’s not an exhaustive list either. It’s a top ten. Maybe you’re 11 or 37. Secondly, it’s a COMIC STRIP!! It’s supposed to be funny. It’s not a science. Hopefully some of them will inspire a few people to think about things in a new light, and hopefully some people will get a few laughs, but I’m not doing my graduate thesis on the psychological origins of irrational belief systems. I’m doodling in my spare time. Geez. Don’t get your panties in a wad over this series.
Had to sense to put you in charge? Shouldn’t that be the sense?
Nice. Definitely saved the best one for “#1.”
28 <~~~~ has her panties spread out under this series..
(thanks Dale, enjoy your more relaxed schedule!)
Yes, typo fixed. Thank you.
There are 729 people in NH alone who would make fine “benevolent dictators,” including the cartoonist himself. I vote Dale for Minarchical Overlord/President/Czar!!!
Now, if we can just put Michael H. in charge of voting machines, Dale would win!
Let’s see…. Lauren C. for Secretary of State. Mary Ruwart for Dept. of Defense/Military. Ian for White House Communications Director. Treasury Department: Von Nothaus. Head of the IRS: Elaine Brown. Transportation? Russell Kanning.
This list could go on and on…
6~8 months ago I was here. This was one of my last steps out of minarchism.
Thats why you all need to revolt and make me dictator.
I will not build machines to support a system of oppression.
Ruwart should have been the LP nominee for POTUS. Ruwarchy is ok by me. Dr. Psul would make a good Sec. of Defense and it realy would be a Dept. of Defense in that case.
$
” I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed, or numbered.”
– Number Six
Wait… is that a caricature of Rich A.?
“…but I’m not doing my graduate thesis on the psychological origins of irrational belief systems.”
hehehe. Nice.
#Susan28: “has her panties spread out under this series..” not sure what this means, but I’m going to take it as a sexual euphemism (as I take most things).
USA was the first and last experiment with mini statism. It failed, get over it. Anarchy is next. Period.
Buwahah!
Is he the philosopher king?
Anarchy has been tried in America and it has failed every time it has been tried.
Is that a picture of Mark?
Would you vote for freemarket anarchy if it was an issue on a voting ballot? Would you campaign in favor of it?
No.
I like the comics, but don’t understand the name, “The top 10 causes of Minarchism,” which is another word for libertarian, really. It doesn’t really seem like a libertarian wanting to be king so he could fix everything really jibes with being a cause for minarchism. I’m not playing dumb, and I’m not dumb, but would someone please explain that to me?
Well, that really was the best excuse the U.S. government had for most of the 20th century – kicking commies’ butts is definitely a good thing. I’m not a big fan of the World Wars (which helped create and later save communism), but South Korea was definitely worth fighting for. Welfare & medicaid keep the plebtards from starting up a communist revolution. NASA has kept the Russkies from putting giant screens in space and projecting their revolutionary propaganda on them to be seen by billions of people. Etc. That doesn’t make the U.S. government good – just tolerable, to a degree. In the 1990s, those excuses started to run out…
Oh, here’s how I’d fix the government….
(1) Phase in a massive federal matching funds program: instead of running its own “public good” bureaucracies, the government would just match private spending and donations to private charities, educational institutions, medical organizations, transportation infrastructure providers, space agencies, and so forth. You still have to pay taxes, but the money goes to a mesh of organizations that compete amongst themselves, thereby reducing centralization of power and improving cost-efficiency. This is a first step on a long road toward an all-voluntary society – government institutions (including roads and schools) can then be privatized without anyone screaming “but what about the poor”. If we AnCaps are right about the free market and private charity being able to fill the gap then the need for government money will disappear over time.
(2) Military costs don’t exist in a vacuum, they are inter-related with the economic costs of trade barriers, revolution risks (which are far more serious than the risks of military invasion or foreign terrorism), and other economic side-effects of the governments that U.S. tends to fight against. Why would you be more willing to let socialist dictators like Saddam tax you indefinitely (oil prices affect all other prices) rather than letting Uncle Sam tax you to solve this problem once and for all? The best way to cut those costs for the long haul is to achieve overt capitalist world domination first! Any country on the bottom of the Economic Freedom Index should be enslaved by force until they reform, at which time they can become one of America’s semi-puppet states like Japan was after WW2, and earn their way toward the first-world status over the next couple of generations.
(3) Make drastic increases to legal immigration quotas — as much as 1 million per year — while keeping the screening process tight and controlled. Why should some Mexican fruit-picker wearing a Che t-shirt have an easier time getting into this country than an anti-communist Chinese dissident with a PhD?!
(4) Increase competition between local governments by ending federal homogenization of laws and moving all other governmental decisions down to the state, county, and municipal levels – the more local the better. The most drastic part of this effort would involve making it easier for states to divide into smaller states, including urban secession for socialist enclaves, because there’s a strong correlation between socialism and population density. The major metropolitan areas, including their suburbs, should definitely be granted statehood – this would pretty much destroy crummy states like New Jersey and Maryland, and make states like Illinois (minus Chicago), Buffalo State (just the up-state NY), Pennsylvania (minus Philly) and so on a lot less socialist. Democrats would never win a national election again until the Republicans would inevitably split in half between those that lean libertarian and those that lean “Christofascist” – each of those three major parties would get their way in some areas of the country, with socialism being mainly confined to cities and right-wing socialism mainly confined to the south. This would also enable greater autonomy for libertarian enclaves, like those that would eventually emerge in Montana and its neighbors, Alaska, as well as that small, seemingly-misplaced triangle of freedom known as New Hampshire.
That ought to do for the next ~40 or so years, at which time even more drastic changes would be possible.
(TROLL’d)
Actually, I suspect that it might be me. I am actually a live, in the flesh friend of Dale’s, and I can’t think of a minarchist who has given him more hell about it, so I should be the king of the minarchists.
OK, fine. I’m elected. Here is my minimal state:
This government shall have exactly one law: no other government shall be established in this territory. This law shall be enforced, if the citizens choose to enforce it, by whatever individuals or local militia(s?) as may choose to do so. And — Have a nice day.
It ain’t anarchy, it is, perhaps *the* minimal theoretical state. Pretty short constitution or whatever it is. Are you sure it’s not good enough? Are you sure that somebody working towards it is your enemy? Even if he reserves the right to go home and concern himself with impregnation rather than infiltration before we quite get there? The question is, can you work with imperfect humans, even those with whom you disagree on a point of theory? The evidence I see first hand is that you work with when we are present, but I fear that your characteristic quiet and friendly civility didn’t come across in the last 10 strips as well as it might have.
Of course, Dale, if that’s not me up there, put me down for a chorus of “You’re so vain…”
On second thought, it might not be me. He’s unarmed.
Rich,
>> This government shall have exactly one law: no other government shall be established in this territory. <<
And thus you fail. You’re describing a monopoly.
Then you go on and describe the enforcement of that monopoly, so it is a coercive monopoly. But you seem to add a weird caveat in that you allow the citizens to choose to enforce it, in which case it isn’t a coercive monopoly…. and I can establish an alternative “government”.
Of course, all of this doesn’t say a thing about what you mean by “government”. What do these people calling themselves government do in your minarchy? What exactly services do they have a monopoly on?
THE BEST THE BEST THE BEST
Keith says “Anarchy has been tried in America and it has failed every time it has been tried.”
Not hardly…hahaha…
Sincerely,
John and Dagny Galt
“Everyone has their idea of the perfect government but we’re all different.”
I could say the same thing about ideologies. I fact, aren’t you just saying that everyone has their own opinion on what’s right, “but were all different”? Don’t you want anarchy because you think it would be the best thing for all of us? “If only I could decide what the world was like, I’d show them how to fix things.”
If you (and I mean anyone who thinks I’m wrong in this comparison) get what I’m saying and want to respond, email me at hop_removethis_e.petter@gmail.com (but remove “_removethis_” first)
The fact that we’re all different is why no one should use violence to impose their views on someone else and that’s true whether it’s a form of government or an ideology or anything else. You can’t impose anarchy on someone by definition as anarchy is free choice. It’s the rejection of such violence. It’s not just another form of government any more than bald is a hair color or not collecting stamps is a hobby.
Okay, so the difference lies in imposing your own views on someone else.
In an anarchist world, if a person kills someone else, what happens to him? Can kill the murderer to stop further murders, and still be an anarchist? I am after all imposing my beliefs on the murderer. If I can’t kill him, then what should happen to him?
Petter, ask yourself what your ultimate goal is in this scenario. My goal would be to reduce harm/death, particularly from this person. Then think of it as a problem to be solved. Hypothetically, imagine there is no State to help you so you’ll have to figure something out. I propose the State is an elaborate fiction anyway. They certainly haven’t solved the problem of crime and I think they’ve made it worse. Here are a couple of posts of mine that I feel address this common question; not answer, mind you, but address, hence the title of the first post.
http://anarchyinyourhead.com/2008/11/28/anarchy-isnt-the-answer/
http://anarchyinyourhead.com/2009/09/29/evolving-beyond-retribution/
“It doesn’t really seem like a libertarian wanting to be king so he could fix everything really jibes with being a cause for minarchism”
Andrew, how many times have you heard someone explain how a government should be structured to fix all the problems? The implication is that they’ve figured out what’s wrong with it and can fix it if only they can shape into THEIR version of a perfect small government, which of course is a ridiculous scenario that’s never going to happen, that is unless you think we’re going to convince everyone to believe in benign dictatorship. As long as governments exist as a monopoly, they will be corrupted by collectivism.
It’s Sepero!
governance exists on a sliding scale with anarchism being zero and 100% control (way beyond even communism) being 100. The problem with anarchism, if you adhere to the etymological origin of the term is, It’s just as impossible as 100% control. Sooner or later, someone is going to be an F-tard and use force to make others do what he wants and he’ll have the ability to do so because he has superior force. That’s why I believe the solution is simply to push hard for a minimal government in place to protect against uninitiated force. Funding could be voluntary however. Also like L. Neil Smith’s idea (probably not his original) of self-representation in a democracy with the ability to assign an agent via proxy to represent one’s self in this minarchy.
Brian, read Anarchy Isn’t the Answer.