god or no god?

[Becker]

It's not a false choice, you can either support voluntary actions, or aggressive ones. Which is it?

“Economic power,” then, is simply the right under freedom to refuse to make an exchange. Every man has this power. Every man has the same right to refuse to make a preferred exchange.

Now, it should become evident that the “of the-road” statist, who concedes the evil of violence but adds that the violence of government is sometimes necessary to counteract the “private coercion of economic power,” is caught in an impossible contradiction. A refuses to make an exchange with B. What are we to say, or what is the government to do, if B brandishes a gun and orders A to make the exchange? This is the crucial question. There are only two positions we may take on the matter: either that B is committing violence and should be stopped at once, or that B is perfectly justified in taking this step because he is simply “counteracting the subtle coercion” of economic power wielded by A. Either the defense agency must rush to the defense of A, or it deliberately refuses to do so, perhaps aiding B (or doing B’s work for him). There is no middle ground!9

~ Murray N. Rothbard, Power and Market: Government and the Economy (Menlo Park, Calif.: Institute for Humane Studies, 1977), p. 229, emphasis in original.

I support whatever is available and whatever is the better option at the given time. Are you telling me you ALWAYS AND ONLY support voluntary choices no matter what the cost and benefit to you?

 

[Deborah K]

... then you completely miss the whole point of libertarianism. No doubt you'd have supported slavery back in the day aswell, since you do so now (just not chattel).

Why are you even here?

Conza. Serious??? Really? Is your goal in life to run off new members with your condescending bullshit? Why are YOU here?

 

[Conza88]

yes I support Ron Paul, and I support government.
If Ron Paul ever said he's for the overthrow or abolishment of government completely, rather than preserving limited amount of government necessary for protecting property and life, then I will no longer support him.

What is a "political" philosophy? A philosophy that presupposes the existence of government?

And why do you support Ron Paul? . Side question: When has there ever been a government that has ever remained limited? Ever, in the history of the world? Never. It is completely utopian, and idealistic. It has nothing to do with reality, or pragmatism.

A political philosophy;

"Libertarianism, then, is a philosophy seeking a policy. But what else can a libertarian philosophy say about strategy, about “policy”? In the first place, surely-again in Acton’s words-it must say that liberty is the “highest political end,” the overriding goal of libertarian philosophy. Highest political end, of course, does not mean “highest end” for man in general. Indeed, every individual has a variety of personal ends and differing hierarchies of importance for these goals on his personal scale of values. Political philosophy is that subset of ethical philosophy which deals specifically with politics, that is, the proper role of violence in human life (and hence the explication of such concepts as crime and property). Indeed, a libertarian world would beone in which every individual would at last be free to seek and pursue his own ends-to “pursue happiness,” in the felicitous Jeffersonian phrase."
- TEOL, chp 30​

"Libertarianism is not and does not pretend to be a complete moral, or aesthetic theory; it is only a political theory, that is, the important subset of moral theory that deals with the proper role of violence in social life. . . . Libertarianism holds that the only proper role of violence is to defend person and property against violence, that any use of violence that goes beyond such just defense is itself aggressive, unjust, and criminal. Libertarianism, therefore, is a theory which states that everyone should be free of violent invasion, should be free to do as he sees fit except invade the person or property of another. What a person does with his or her life is vital and important, but is simply irrelevant to libertarianism." ~ Rothbard.​

It is not the intention of this book [The Ethics of Liberty] to expound or defend at length the philosophy of natural law, or to elaborate a natural law ethic for the personal morality of man. The intention is to set forth a social ethic of liberty, i.e., to elaborate that subset of natural law that develops the concept of natural rights, and that deals with the proper sphere of ‘politics’, i.e. with violence and nonviolence as modes of interpersonal relations. In short, to set forth a political philosophy of liberty.~ 14 Rothbard: The Ethics of Liberty, p. 25​

 

[Conza88]

Conza. Serious??? Really? Is your goal in life to run off new members with your condescending bullshit? Why are YOU here?

Deborah. Serious??? Really? New member was negative rep'd, offering nothing but mindless responses. I asked a question Deborah, it wasn't rhetorical. It was a legit question.

I'm here supporting Ron Paul who is a voluntarist. Helping him spread the message of liberty. Why are YOU here?

 

[Revolution9]

It's not a false choice, you can either support voluntary actions, or aggressive ones. Which is it?<snip appeal to authority>

I support life sustaining actions. Like I told ya..your choice is a false dichotomy. Ya see, this is what happens when you drag your yatterings outside the hallowed halls of BS and use the real world and the experiences it teaches to draw conclusions from. To sustain my life I may at times need to cooperate in voluntary actions like hold a job or mate and raise a child. At others I may have to use aggressive action like backing down a thug intent on taking what's mine and harming me. I am also eyeing the deer and turkey roaming the nearby woods. Do you suggest I make a voluntary contract with them to add them to the meat larder?

Rev9

 

[Deborah K]

Deborah. Serious??? Really? New member was negative rep'd, offering nothing but mindless responses. I asked a question Deborah, it wasn't rhetorical. It was a legit question.

I'm here supporting Ron Paul who is a voluntarist. Helping him spread the message of liberty. Why are YOU here?

I know you are but what am I. Grow up. Apparently, you aren't aware of the fact that you don't help Ron Paul or anyone in the freedom movement by acting like an ass toward new members or people who don't agree with you. Try looking up the word "tact" cuz you lack it big time and without it, the only people you will ever convince of anything are weak people who can be bullied.

 

[Revolution9]

I'm here supporting Ron Paul who is a voluntarist. Helping him spread the message of liberty. Why are YOU here?

Ron Paul is a Republican candiate in the primaries for election to The Office of President of the united States. We hope that using the apparatus in place will allow that to occur and he can go on to landslide Obama, to restore proper constitutional freedom and liberty to all the peoples in the various states so they can choose the laws they wish to enforce to allow them to liv a prosperous and crime free life within their respective states.

BTW..yer spreading of a message of liberty is in doubt. It looks to many that you are shilling for anarchy and using voluntaryism as the wedge much like commies use democracy as a wedge to open the door with. Then the question remains..why are you here. There was no question mark as it was a rhetorical statement.

Rev9

 

[Conza88]

I support life sustaining actions. Like I told ya..your choice is a false dichotomy. Ya see, this is what happens when you drag your yatterings outside the hallowed halls of BS and use the real world and the experiences it teaches to draw conclusions from. To sustain my life I may at times need to cooperate in voluntary actions like hold a job or mate and raise a child. At others I may have to use aggressive action like backing down a thug intent on taking what's mine and harming me. I am also eyeing the deer and turkey roaming the nearby woods. Do you suggest I make a voluntary contract with them to add them to the meat larder?

Rev9

Haven't showed how it's a false dichotomy at all.

"A thug intent on".... lol, you do realize that defense of your property isn't aggression? Right?

To answer your question - no... lmao.

'Yet scarcity, and the possibility of conflicts, is not sufficient for the emergence of ethical problems. Obviously, one could have conflicts regarding scarce resources with an animal, yet one would not consider it possible to resolve these conflicts by means of proposing property norms. In such cases, the avoidance of conflicts is merely a technical, not an ethical, problem. For it to become an ethical problem, it is also necessary that the conflicting actors be capable, in principle, of argumentation.' Hoppe, Economics and ethics of private property, p411.

Unless this deer & turkey of yours can argue..

Ron Paul is a Republican candiate in the primaries for election to The Office of President of the united States. We hope that using the apparatus in place will allow that to occur and he can go on to landslide Obama, to restore proper constitutional freedom and liberty to all the peoples in the various states so they can choose the laws they wish to enforce to allow them to liv a prosperous and crime free life within their respective states.

BTW..yer spreading of a message of liberty is in doubt. It looks to many that you are shilling for anarchy and using voluntaryism as the wedge much like commies use democracy as a wedge to open the door with. Then the question remains..why are you here. There was no question mark as it was a rhetorical statement.

Rev9

"Anarchy"? Rev... mate, haven't you heard - labels are so 20th Century? Seriously, I support what Ron Paul supports. Good luck proving otherwise. You are yet to engage or put forward any arguments to the contrary. Nor do I think you ever will. Argument Ad nauseam isn't a valid response.

 

[Conza88]

I know you are but what am I. Grow up. Apparently, you aren't aware of the fact that you don't help Ron Paul or anyone in the freedom movement by acting like an ass toward new members or people who don't agree with you. Try looking up the word "tact" cuz you lack it big time and without it, the only people you will ever convince of anything are weak people who can be bullied.

"You started it"... What's that thing about people in glass houses, shouldn't throw stones? . I lack 'tact' with intellectually dishonest folks.. folks, who are unable to answer simple questions in a straight forward manner. Who refuse to acknowledge the arguments put forward, instead dodge, twist and turn... to do anything but have contempt prior to investigation.. people thoroughly unprincipled in their actions.

I have no time for such people. So I have no tact. This member is new. Great. And yet he'd already received negative rep... enough times to be in the red. SO, if you are claiming I have misjudged this person... you're also claiming everyone else in the forum who has neg rep'd this person has aswell. So?

 

[Becker]

Conza. Serious??? Really? Is your goal in life to run off new members with your condescending bullshit? Why are YOU here?

he's here to tell people that he's the only guy who has Ron Paul figured out, being a person who's accomplished nothing, doesn't work in politics, and doesn't live in the US.

 

[Becker]

Conza's logic, because limited government has never happened, therefore all alternatives are equally realistic.

Otherwise, what is your point? That anarchism will self sustain and last longer? Or just better, even though it doesn't last as long, or longer?

Limited government is not utopian, governments expand and shrink depending on who's in charge, not all governments collapse, and not all governments expand out of control.

And why do you support Ron Paul? . Side question: When has there ever been a government that has ever remained limited? Ever, in the history of the world? Never. It is completely utopian, and idealistic. It has nothing to do with reality, or pragmatism.

A political philosophy;

"Libertarianism, then, is a philosophy seeking a policy. But what else can a libertarian philosophy say about strategy, about “policy”? In the first place, surely-again in Acton’s words-it must say that liberty is the “highest political end,” the overriding goal of libertarian philosophy. Highest political end, of course, does not mean “highest end” for man in general. Indeed, every individual has a variety of personal ends and differing hierarchies of importance for these goals on his personal scale of values. Political philosophy is that subset of ethical philosophy which deals specifically with politics, that is, the proper role of violence in human life (and hence the explication of such concepts as crime and property). Indeed, a libertarian world would beone in which every individual would at last be free to seek and pursue his own ends-to “pursue happiness,” in the felicitous Jeffersonian phrase."
- TEOL, chp 30​

"Libertarianism is not and does not pretend to be a complete moral, or aesthetic theory; it is only a political theory, that is, the important subset of moral theory that deals with the proper role of violence in social life. . . . Libertarianism holds that the only proper role of violence is to defend person and property against violence, that any use of violence that goes beyond such just defense is itself aggressive, unjust, and criminal. Libertarianism, therefore, is a theory which states that everyone should be free of violent invasion, should be free to do as he sees fit except invade the person or property of another. What a person does with his or her life is vital and important, but is simply irrelevant to libertarianism." ~ Rothbard.​

It is not the intention of this book [The Ethics of Liberty] to expound or defend at length the philosophy of natural law, or to elaborate a natural law ethic for the personal morality of man. The intention is to set forth a social ethic of liberty, i.e., to elaborate that subset of natural law that develops the concept of natural rights, and that deals with the proper sphere of ‘politics’, i.e. with violence and nonviolence as modes of interpersonal relations. In short, to set forth a political philosophy of liberty.~ 14 Rothbard: The Ethics of Liberty, p. 25​

 

[Becker]

Deborah. Serious??? Really? New member was negative rep'd, offering nothing but mindless responses. I asked a question Deborah, it wasn't rhetorical. It was a legit question.

I'm here supporting Ron Paul who is a voluntarist. Helping him spread the message of liberty. Why are YOU here?

it was a legit question according to your idealist brain, and citing that I was neg rep'd while pointing out that I use "ad populum", tu quoque hypocrisy much?

I'm a voluntartyist too, I just disagree with you what rights a person has, what to do when people do wrong.

 

[Becker]

"You started it"... What's that thing about people in glass houses, shouldn't throw stones? . I lack 'tact' with intellectually dishonest folks.. folks, who are unable to answer simple questions in a straight forward manner. Who refuse to acknowledge the arguments put forward, instead dodge, twist and turn... to do anything but have contempt prior to investigation.. people thoroughly unprincipled in their actions.

I have no time for such people. So I have no tact. This member is new. Great. And yet he'd already received negative rep... enough times to be in the red. SO, if you are claiming I have misjudged this person... you're also claiming everyone else in the forum who has neg rep'd this person has aswell. So?

you answer mine now

I support whatever is available and whatever is the better option at the given time. Are you telling me you ALWAYS AND ONLY support voluntary choices no matter what the cost and benefit to you?

 

[Revolution9]

Haven't showed how it's a false dichotomy at all.

"A thug intent on".... lol, you do realize that defense of your property isn't aggression? Right?

To answer your question - no... lmao.

And if my neighbors assist me in keeping my goods safe that is community. If we band together communities in a wider area to have jurisdiction over roving thieves that is a county and a number of those seeking the same jurisdictional powers of enforcement against common law criminals is a state. Under the thought experiment of your philosophy and its inherent throwing of the baby out with the bathwater I have to always be vigilante against criminals due to their being no support mechanism in place as communities do not exist, ergo they cannot bond together to create the jurisdiction of counties where the seat of the highest law enforcement officer is local to, nor bind into the larger jurisdictional construct known as the state.

The reason you sound like an anarchy shill is your constant decrying of the state, not taking into account that it is a malleable construct. This was a commie agitprop mechanism and anarchists and commies are in bed with each other.

Rev9

 

[Deborah K]

"You started it"... What's that thing about people in glass houses, shouldn't throw stones? . I lack 'tact' with intellectually dishonest folks.. folks, who are unable to answer simple questions in a straight forward manner. Who refuse to acknowledge the arguments put forward, instead dodge, twist and turn... to do anything but have contempt prior to investigation.. people thoroughly unprincipled in their actions.

I have no time for such people. So I have no tact. This member is new. Great. And yet he'd already received negative rep... enough times to be in the red. SO, if you are claiming I have misjudged this person... you're also claiming everyone else in the forum who has neg rep'd this person has aswell. So?

It doesn't surprise me that you would deflect my entire point. You feel justified in your tactless methods because someone new has been -repped and in the red? When you're new, one -rep can put you in the red if you don't have many +reps, so your justification is based on ignorance. If you don't have time for such people then why do you make the effort to insult them?

Conza, everyone who knows you in these forums knows you're on a mission to convert people to anarchy. No mystery there. I understand the position and respect it, although I don't accept it as viable - understanding human behavior as I do. However, you could learn a thing or two from people like Tom Woods, who I consider to be a friend, and the chairman of the advisory board for the Revolution Pac of which I am a member. As snarky as Tom can be, I doubt he would ever dream of trying to "spread the message of liberty" the way you choose to do it by verbally bashing people in the head with your ideology. It's old and tiresome, and it hurts more than it helps and you need to just accept that and change your tactics.

 

[Conza88]

it was a legit question according to your idealist brain, and citing that I was neg rep'd while pointing out that I use "ad populum", tu quoque hypocrisy much?

I'm a voluntartyist too, I just disagree with you what rights a person has, what to do when people do wrong.

I don't have an idealistic brain, I deal only with is, not ought's. Those who support a state are engaged in a performative contradiction. Their actions are unjustified.

Sure, if you want to re-define voluntarist. So you accept the concept of self-ownership and original appropriation? What's wrong with this then ?

Daily Bell: How would law and order be provided in this society? How would your ideal justice system work?

Dr. Hans-Hermann Hoppe: In a private law society the production of law and order - of security - would be undertaken by freely financed individuals and agencies competing for a voluntarily paying (or not-paying) clientele - just as the production of all other goods and services. How this system would work can be best understood in contrast to the workings of the present, all-too-familiar statist system. If one wanted to summarize in one word the decisive difference - and advantage - of a competitive security industry as compared to the current statist practice, it would be: contract.

The state operates in a legal vacuum. There exists no contract between the state and its citizens. It is not contractually fixed, what is actually owned by whom, and what, accordingly, is to be protected. It is not fixed, what service the state is to provide, what is to happen if the state fails in its duty, nor what the price is that the "customer" of such "service" must pay. Rather, the state unilaterally fixes the rules of the game and can change them, per legislation, during the game. Obviously, such behavior is inconceivable for freely financed security providers. Just imagine a security provider, whether police, insurer or arbitrator, whose offer consisted in something like this: I will not contractually guarantee you anything. I will not tell you what I oblige myself to do if, according to your opinion, I do not fulfill my service to you - but in any case, I reserve the right to unilaterally determine the price that you must pay me for such undefined service. Any such security provider would immediately disappear from the market due to a complete lack of customers.

Each private, freely financed security producer must instead offer its prospective clients a contract. And these contracts must, in order to appear acceptable to voluntarily paying consumers, contain clear property descriptions as well as clearly defined mutual services and obligations. Each party to a contract, for the duration or until the fulfillment of the contract, would be bound by its terms and conditions; and every change of terms or conditions would require the unanimous consent of all parties concerned.

Specifically, in order to appear acceptable to security buyers, these contracts must contain provisions about what will be done in the case of a conflict or dispute between the protector or insurer and his own protected or insured clients as well as in the case of a conflict between different protectors or insurers and their respective clients. And in this regard only one mutually agreeable solution exists: in these cases the conflicting parties contractually agree to arbitration by a mutually trusted but independent third party. And as for this third party: it, too, is freely financed and stands in competition with other arbitrators or arbitration agencies. Its clients, i.e., the insurers and the insured, expect of it, that it come up with a verdict that is recognized as fair and just by all sides. Only arbitrators capable of forming such judgments will succeed in the arbitration market. Arbitrators incapable of this and viewed as biased or partial will disappear from the market.

you answer mine now

I support whatever is available and whatever is the better option at the given time. Are you telling me you ALWAYS AND ONLY support voluntary choices no matter what the cost and benefit to you?

Right. But you ALWAYS support an institution that initiates aggression and threatens others, that is a the ultimate decision maker in society and taxes i.e the state?

Would you like to provide an explicit example? If you're going to use a lifeboat scenario, make it a good one. The contention is whether such actions are JUSTIFIED or not. I would not be justified in stealing a puppy from someone, but if they were going to burn it - right in front of me, I'd do what I could to protect it.

To what extent? Take it out of harms way. Would I be justified in doing so? No. Would I be subject to punishment? Yes. Would I object? No.

That however, is the difference between the utilitarians who propose end of the world scenarios, kill one person to safe the world? They say the killer would be justified, and he should get off scott free. Negative. He's still a murderer. The question is what individuals have a RIGHT to do, not what they should or ought to do... that is completely irrelevant to libertarianism.

 

[Conza88]

he's here to tell people that he's the only guy who has Ron Paul figured out, being a person who's accomplished nothing, doesn't work in politics, and doesn't live in the US.

No I'm not. Lot's of people have RP figured out, I just saw it a bit before most. Accomplished nothing? LOL I've accomplished more than you have. Working in politics, means what exactly? Living in the US means what exactly? Are you claiming the US isn't trying to be the policemen of the world?

Conza's logic, because limited government has never happened, therefore all alternatives are equally realistic.

Limited government is not utopian, governments expand and shrink depending on who's in charge, not all governments collapse, and not all governments expand out of control.

Conza's logic:

"A tax-funded protection agency is a contradiction in terms - an expropriating property protector - and will inevitably lead to more taxes and less protection. Even if, as some - classical liberal - statists have proposed, a government limited its activities exclusively to the protection of pre-existing private property rights, the further question of how much security to produce would arise. Motivated (like everyone else) by self-interest and the disutility of labor, but endowed with the unique power to tax, a government agent’s answer will invariably be the same: To maximize expenditures on protection - and almost all of a nation’s wealth can conceivably be consumed by the cost of protection - and at the same time to minimize the production of protection." ~ Hans-Hermann Hoppe​

"As noted, the government is the ultimate judge in every case of conflict, including conflicts involving itself. Consequently, instead of merely preventing and resolving conflict, a monopolist of ultimate decision-making will also provoke conflict in order to settle it to his own advantage. That is, if one can only appeal to government for justice, justice will be perverted in the favor of government, constitutions and supreme courts notwithstanding. Indeed, these are government constitutions and courts, and whatever limitations on government action they may find is invariably decided by agents of the very same institution under consideration. Predictably, the definition of property and protection will be altered continually and the range of jurisdiction expanded to the government's advantage. The idea of eternal and immutable law that must be discovered will disappear and be replaced by the idea of law as legislation - as flexible state-made law." ~ Idea of Private Law Society​

Otherwise, what is your point? That anarchism will self sustain and last longer? Or just better, even though it doesn't last as long, or longer?

I don't support "anarchism". I support voluntarism / private law / self-government / anti-monopolism.

What's my point? It's true liberty. It's the only system that is justifiable. It's supported by Ron Paul as an end goal. I, like him, support limited government as a means to that end. If you're not going to argue against that, then I have no problem.

 

[AFPVet]

Wow... this thread has sunk. Is God real? That is up to each individual person... it is up to you to find the answer to that.

 

[Becker]

I don't have an idealistic brain, I deal only with is, not ought's.

LMAO, you don't deal with oughts? Then why are you here? Just to tell us the world isn't perfect? Thanks, we know that.

 

[Conza88]

And if my neighbors assist me in keeping my goods safe that is community.

And if you pay someone to do it, if you have a valid contract with them. If there are competing firms, organisations offering the service of protecting your stuff: that is called a PRIVATE DEFENSE AGENCY. INSURANCE COMPANIES would offer lower premiums to individuals who signed up with them. It is in everyones self interest to do so. You don't want to? Fine, insurance companies would probably offer lower premiums to those that protect themselves and their homes - via gun ownership etc.

If we band together communities in a wider area to have jurisdiction over roving thieves that is a county and a number of those seeking the same jurisdictional powers of enforcement against common law criminals is a state.

It's not a state in the proper sense of the word AT ALL.

Further, of the state, defined as "the ultimate authority to which in a given territory no recourse to a higher authority exists," Radnitzky states, "that coercion is not a characteristic that is implied in its definition. If (per impossibile) the contract theory were a tenable theory, then the institution would not be coercive and yet qualify as a state." Certainly, one is free in one's definitions, but not all definitions are fruitful.

According to Radnitzky's definition, for instance, the founder-proprietor of a settlement - a gated community - would have to be considered a state, because he decides about membership (inclusion and exclusion) and is the ultimate authority in all settler-conflicts. However, the founder of a community does not exact taxes, but he collects fees, contributions or rents from his follow-settlers. And he does not pass laws (legislates) regarding the property of other, but all settler-property is from the outset subject to his ultimate jurisdiction.

Similarly, it is conceivable that all private land owners in a given territory transfer their land to one and the same person, for instance, in order to so establish the ultimate authority which according to Hobbes is necessary for peace. Thereby, they sink from the rank of an owner to that of a renter. Radnitzky would also term such a proprietor, established in this way, a state. But why? It is contrary to common terminology and hence confusing.

And which purpose would be served, to label something entirely different with the same name: namely an institution, which derives its status as ultimate authority neither from an act of original appropriation nor from a real estate transfer on the part of original appropriators? It is this difference in the genesis of the institution, that lets us speak of (coercive) taxes and tribute and of laws and legislation instead of voluntarily paid rents and accepted community standards and house rules. Why not, in accordance with conventional speech, reserve the term state exclusively for the former (compulsory) institution?

However, regarding this (compulsory) state, then, this must be kept in mind: that its institution is even then 'unjust', if (per impossible) it rested on unanimous agreement. Consensus does not guarantee truth. A state-agreement is invalid, because it contradicts the nature of things. At any given point in time (and absent any pre-stabilized harmony), a scarce good can only have one owner. Otherwise, contrary to the very purpose of norms, conflict is generated instead of avoided.

Yet multiple ownership regarding one and the same stock of goods is precisely what state-agreement implies. The consenting parties did not transfer all of their land to the state but consider themselves as free land owners (not renters). Yet at the same time they appoint the state as ultimate decision-maker concerning all territorial conflicts and thus make him the owner of all land. The price that must be paid for this 'unjust' - contrary to the nature of things - agreement is permanent conflict.

Conflict is not unavoidable but possible. However, it is nonsensical to consider the institution of a state as a solution to the problem of possible conflict, because it is precisely the institution of a state which first makes conflict unavoidable and permanent.
​

Under the thought experiment of your philosophy and its inherent throwing of the baby out with the bathwater I have to always be vigilante against criminals due to their being no support mechanism in place as communities do not exist, ergo they cannot bond together to create the jurisdiction of counties where the seat of the highest law enforcement officer is local to, nor bind into the larger jurisdictional construct known as the state.

And that's a strawman. Individuals exist. They are free to associate and form groups of organisations in a voluntary manner. Some will do so with the goal to provide protection as a service on the market. They will offer security... EXACTLY like private security firms do NOW. What you are struggling with his how private law would work, correct?

The reason you sound like an anarchy shill is your constant decrying of the state, not taking into account that it is a malleable construct. This was a commie agitprop mechanism and anarchists and commies are in bed with each other.

Rev9

That's because the enemy IS the state! Classical liberals of old even new this. They hated the state. They never sought to defend it.

I can think of hardly a single limited governmentalist of the present day who is radical – a truly amazing phenomenon, when we think of our classical liberal forbears who were genuinely radical, who hated statism and the States of their day with a beautifully integrated passion: the Levellers, Patrick Henry, Tom Paine, Joseph Priestley, the Jacksonians, Richard Cobden, and on and on, a veritable roll call of the greats of the past. Tom Paine’s radical hatred of the State and statism was and is far more important to the cause of liberty than the fact that he never crossed the divide between laissez-faire and anarchism.

And closer to our own day, such early influences on me as Albert Jay Nock, H. L. Mencken, and Frank Chodorov were magnificently and superbly radical. Hatred of "Our Enemy, the State" (Nock’s title) and all of its works shone through all of their writings like a beacon star. So what if they never quite made it all the way to explicit voluntarism? Far better one Albert Nock than a hundred anarcho-capitalists who are all too comfortable with the existing status quo.

Where are the Paines and Cobdens and Nocks of today? Why are almost all of our laissez-faire limited governmentalists plonky conservatives and patriots? If the opposite of "radical" is "conservative," where are our radical laissez-fairists? If our limited statists were truly radical, there would be virtually no splits between us. What divides the movement now, the true division, is not voluntarism vs. minarchist, but radical vs. conservative. Lord, give us radicals, be they anarchists or no.

To carry our analysis further, radical anti-statists are extremely valuable even if they could scarcely be considered libertarians in any comprehensive sense. Thus, many people admire the work of columnists Mike Royko and Nick von Hoffman because they consider these men libertarian sympathizers and fellow-travelers. That they are, but this does not begin to comprehend their true importance. For throughout the writings of Royko and von Hoffman, as inconsistent as they undoubtedly are, there runs an all-pervasive hatred of the State, of all politicians, bureaucrats, and their clients which, in its genuine radicalism, is far truer to the underlying spirit of liberty than someone who will coolly go along with the letter of every syllogism and every lemma down to the "model" of competing courts.​

Ron Paul is all about abolition. IRS, CIA, Dept. Of Labor, FBI, Bring Troops Home, FED, Dept. of Education etc etc. He's a radical. He never defends the state. He leaves a glaring vacuum.