"...to bring about the rule of righteousness in the land, to destroy the wicked and the evil-doers; so that the strong should not harm the weak ... to further the well-being of mankind."
Or if you like
"We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."
The moment that you abolish government I will personally get a gang together to make you regret the action. The power vacuum will be filled, and given the opportunity I would much rather be the one wearing the boots than the one getting his face kicked in.
I like to think that most libertarians are mostly confused anarchists, and thus mostly imbeciles, but those that can deny the necessity of government altogether are beyond idiocy into an entirely separate plane of existence. It's beyond even opprobrium; we simply do not live in a world that would permit large groups of humanity to live without some form of government.
In other words, you'd rather have a really big and powerful gang that is impossible to fight, than many more competing small gangs? Totally sold me on the idea.
Setting aside the tendency of small gangs to become large ones, a gang is a form of government in most senses of the term, i.e. it is not anarchy. You'll also need to show that gang warfare is a desirous state.
A government is a local monopoly on the use of force. We do not live in a world that can be made free of violence, therefore government is an unpleasant necessity. Solve the violence issue, and we can talk about abolishing government -- although you should also be aware of the concepts of "market failure" and "natural monopoly".
Interesting. If you look at history, it is precisely governments and empires that produced more violence than anyone else. The bloodiest, most devastating wars are all the result of government action. Even the most bloodiest anarchist in the world cannot come close to what an average "peaceful" state has done in his lifetime.
Violence is inherent, at least at this point of our development, in human species. Question is, what brings about more violence. I would argue, that it's the idea that we need some sort of government. This very idea creates the incentive for sociopaths and bandits to get into politics and allows the ruling class to continuously keep fucking the population.
> I would argue, that it's the idea that we need some sort of government.
It's not an idea at all. It's what OP referred to as a 'power vacuum'.
An anarchy sits at the top of a local maxima, where a little nudge in any direction is enough to set the whole political situation careening toward violence and the acquisition of power all over again.
An anarchy can only survive until the first person gets enough allies to put their boots on the throats of the rest.
So while it's true that an anarchy is such that you can effectively only cause people nearby you to be killed, it is an inherently unstable political situation. Witness the stateless tribal areas of Pakistan; despite the lack of the state there is assuredly a boss. The power vacuum has been filled by local tribal warlords.
An anarchy surrounded by Western democracies might even be safe (that is, from external conflict), but a world full of anarchies will not remain a set of anarchies for that long.
Yeah, except that, you know, our government is supposed to be us.
But, you can be forgiven for forgetting that fact. It's really hard to remember these days.
Still, for the record, we should all be suspicious of anyone who seeks to disempower the government in a country wherein self-rule is supposed to be the law. There is a third option, and that is restoring the spirit of our government.
I don't understand this. "Supposed to be us" is a meaningless propaganda thing in any country. Much like "for your protection". What they are supposed to be has nothing to do with what they really are. You can't change the system by telling it what it's supposed to be and complaining. The system will listen and ignore.
Yeah, that was pretty much my point. It is propaganda at this point, but it doesn't have to be and shouldn't be.
I wasn't proposing that my HN post (or complaint, as you say) would change the system. I was noting that people have forgotten what the system is even supposed to be. There's a binary false choice between abolishing the "evil government" altogether or just dealing with its egregious violations. In either case, the implicit supposition is that it's this third thing that we're dealing with, outside of the people.
But, there is another choice (put simply, reclaiming our government) and I (and others) actually have ideas around helping to facilitate those changes. Maybe you'll hear about these ideas some day and want to be a part of the change.
But, in any case, it starts with people remembering what our government is supposed to be. And, as of right now, we're nowhere close to even that.
Because it's the only way to take proper care of the elderly and the disabled. No anarcho-syndicalist pipe dream has ever convincingly sketched me a scenario where the elderly (without family) do not just waste away in isolation, and the schizophrenics are rotting in the streets.
Now, a government is not a guarantee to fix this (see for example the NYC homeless), but without a government, the weaker groups in society are just shit out of luck.
Empirically speaking, government is utterly horrible about taking care of the elderly and disabled. The mentally disabled historically were far better treated by their communities before the government instituted sanitoria.
And government has been similarly horrible at taking care of the poor. a large part of social equalization in the 1900-1950 era was the ascendancy of private community associations, mutual benefit societies, and so forth. The remnants of these are the Kiwanis, Lions, Rotary club, etc... But these have been squeezed out by government sponsored programs, and we have seen economic inequity rise. Part of this is probably also because the poor have been squeezed by money printing - but that's another issue altogether.
Especially the way that the government engages in charity. By spending money that is borrowed to bail out the poor (the anti-austerity argument) - the government transfers funds to the poor (which, let's assume is fine) by borrowing from the rich and politically connected. But it's a loan, so the rich are getting paid back, with interest. The net resource flow is to the rich, even though you have paid the poor.
A bunch of people who organize on purpose to put forward a given political ideology is hardly representative of how the mass of the population can be expected to handle a similar social concern.
Sure, the kids may clean their room if you tell them they can have cookies afterwards, but what's the plan when the anarchists have already achieved their goal and removed that external motivator?
No, we don't. A great talk and an illustration about how law and protection could work in a stateless society: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTYkdEU_B4o by David D. Friedman (an economist AND a lawyer).
Interesting talk, thanks. Basically, rule of law under market conditions/forces. The main benefit is more individual power over law due to market choice by that individual, instead of political choice and the lack of power that offers due to dilution.
That is of course assuming we do not end up with the same M&A activity that leaves only a handful of law market/arbitration agencies (similar to what has happened in many arenas, such as media).
I am going to have to think about that one for awhile...
