Can someone give me a proof that government is coercive, and a good responce to the "just leave" argument?
Governments prevent competition within themselves (leaving aside the reification for the moment). Usually, they are financed by taxation, which is "give me your money or I'll throw you in jail". If that's not coercion, I don't know what is.
As for "just leave", ask them this: if they were being robbed in the middle of a park they normally go to, should they have to not go to that park again, or should the robber not have assaulted them?
What would happen if you just stopped paying your taxes? The statists claim that they are voluntary after all.
Or decided to engage in some victimless crime?
Wanted to smoke in a bar where the owner could care less as long as you didn't combust?
But it is voluntary!
-Jon
The chill that you feel is the herald of your doom! Irenicus' Diaries.
i understand your assertion and agree wholeheartedly, but i was wondering if there was a good source on objections such as "just leave" other than the ownership argument and the argument that you can't "Just Leave". sorry if im being difficult, but i really want to get an answer to some of these objections.
lidphi: i understand your assertion and agree wholeheartedly, but i was wondering if there was a good source on objections such as "just leave" other than the ownership argument and the argument that you can't "Just Leave". sorry if im being difficult, but i really want to get an answer to some of these objections.
Supposing you lived in an anarchist community in which everything was voluntart. Then one day the other houses come round and say, "Hi, we have clubbed together to provide security". You reply, "No thanks I'll sort it out myself" They respond, " I don't think you understand- you have to join up".
In this situation that there is coercion and this is analgous to the present situation of the state. Thus the just leave argument fails.
Every time drug enforcers have a huge success it is actually like taking drugs: it feels good at the time but produces more problems in the future.
lidphi: Can someone give me a proof that government is coercive, and a good responce to the "just leave" argument?
The problem with the love it or leave it argument is that it assumes precisely what it must prove, I.E. that the state legitimately owns or controls the entire territory (and all that is within it, including the people themselves) to begin with. This places a massive burden of proof on the statist.
There are only two basic options: (1) one can aknowledge self-ownership and that your home or land is yours, and hence you should be able to disassociate from the government while still keeping your home or (2) dive head first into the absurdity of demonstrating that the government homesteaded or voluntarily exchanged for the entire territory, despite the fact that such a land monopoly is based on a combination of land theft, blatantly long-term absentee ownership (even by Rothbardian property standards) and barriers to entry to what truly is unused/unowned land.
Also, the love it or leave it argument is disingenous in that you are not truly being given a meaningful option between staying and going off to live without a state, since what we are really talking about here is the "choice" between different states (territorial monopolies); which still once again assumes the legitimacy of these other territorial monopolies. The love it or leave it argument does nothing to establish legitimacy, it merely assumes it. Hence, the whole thing begs the fundamental questions of legitimacy (at which point I would suggest this mock debate between an anarchist and an agent of the state as possible food for thought: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X397LSLrINQ).
There is alot more intricacy to the matter than this, but I see this as the fundamental problem.
Unfortunately, if you are a Canadian, you can't just "leave it".
Stuff you can do to further libertarianism (please contribute!)
Well, I have my own think tank. .... Someday it will rule the Earth - in an anarchic way. - Roderick Long
Thank you for helping me by expanding on this question.
liberty student: Unfortunately, if you are a Canadian, you can't just "leave it". Canadian citizenship: you’re stuck with it
Yes you can. Anyone can leave Canada.
scineram:Yes you can. Anyone can leave Canada.
Right, but everywhere you go, you are a Canadian, subject to their tax treaties. You cannot stop being a slave to the Canadian system if you do not want to be part of it.
If Fred rents owns you, and rents you to Farmer John, at the end of the day, you're still a slave, and you still belong to Farmer Fred.
One response to the 'love it or leave it' comment is that YES I do love WHERE I live - that's why I'm there (like duh?!?). But I don't have to like being imposed upon by others simply because they all blindly follow something they don't understand to begin with. The few times I've gotten the 'love it or leave it' remark said to me, I have to admit that I mentally discount the speaker of this tired cliche BIG TIME in my own mind. If I thought the idiot would 'get it', I'd like to reply - "I think I'll stay here just to upset YOU." After all, that is exactly what they have done to you isn't it? .
Jain
Anytime somebody asks me "why don't you just leave?" I usually reply that I'm not a coward.
Pro Christo et Libertate integre!
I'm beginning to question this approach. Maybe we should all just leave and go stateless. Go somewhere and resettle. Let the statists have their country, let them pay taxes and die in the state wars. When a slave can see an escape route, he should make a dash for it, instead of staying on the plantation, thinking he will outlast the master.
I've been thinking along these lines for a few weeks now.
liberty student: I'm beginning to question this approach. Maybe we should all just leave and go stateless. Go somewhere and resettle. Let the statists have their country, let them pay taxes and die in the state wars. When a slave can see an escape route, he should make a dash for it, instead of staying on the plantation, thinking he will outlast the master. I've been thinking along these lines for a few weeks now.
Sure, but what if the State follows you? Certainly we are in the state(no pun intended) we are in because States know no boundaries except those forced upon them.
That's the million dollar question. Again, it's something I have been considering recently, it is not yet a final thesis, so the feedback is appreciated.
The Southern states tried to leave and look what happened to them. I'm sure we would all leave, with our property, if we thought we would not be suppressed with violence.
Of course you can leave at the moment, why do you think they're so keen to build a new Berlin wall?
"The relationship between libertarianism and conservatism is one of praxeological compatibility, sociological complementarity, and reciprocal reinforcement"
Professor Hans-Hermann Hoppe
I don't buy that. I think that people dislike the state, but don't truly feel like slaves. We complain as libertarians about injustice, regulation, taxation, coercion, but for the most part every day, we get from A to B, we have a hot meal, we continue working, paying taxes etc.
There are radicals in speech, but I would like to know where the radicals in action are. Talk is, in North America at least, remarkably cheap.
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