[Rich]

In theory, the RIAU relied on voluntary enlistment instead of conscription, however in practice conscription was used.[17]

I see nothing that refutes the claim about use of the railways. The Bolsheviks of course first conflict with other working class organisation after taking power was with the railway union. You can't fight wars without severe amounts of coercion. I think its facile to imagine you can run a police and justice system without monopolization of the right to legitimise force and taxation of some kind its complete cloud cuckoo land to think you can run a war that way. The Americans in their war of independence (first civil war) were lucky not to have railways so that was at least on area of individual liberty and one sanctity of property that they didn't have to piss on.

[SolarCross]

Sadly in a war expediency tends to trump moral finesse and the Black Army faced some pretty fucking nasty forces on all sides, germans, austrians, white russians and the bolsheviks.. so I think we can forgive the odd occasion when the halo slipped.. their opponents never let their devil horns slip..
We can only speculate how things might have been if the free territories could have had even just 5 minutes of peace...

[lucky]

Either punishing criminals is a violation of the NAP and the government is right to stop you, but not right to arrest criminals. Or punishing criminals is not a violation of the NAP and the government has no right to stop you.

Let's say we're living under your NAP-based "system" (whatever that means).

Now, a friend of mine farts in my presence. I have to somehow decide whether that's a crime and what the appropriate punishment is. For that purpose, I consult my uncle Jimbo, whom I call "the lawmaker and the judge". He says "5 lashes". So I take out a whip and administer the lashes, and nobody else has a "right to stop me" (whatever that means). Am I on the right track?

[Rothbardian]

Sadly in a war expediency tends to trump moral finesse and the Black Army faced some pretty fucking nasty forces on all sides, germans, austrians, white russians and the bolsheviks.. so I think we can forgive the odd occasion when the halo slipped.. their opponents never let their devil horns slip..
We can only speculate how things might have been if the free territories could have had even just 5 minutes of peace...

Statist militaries are indeed very expedient for war. Not sure why anyone thinks this would be a good thing though.

[Rothbardian]

False: I am not an anarchist and I do not take that position. I don't think many people take such a position. The position can be interpreted in two ways, but neither applies:
- I am not betraying my own values by not being an anarchist since my values are not anarchist.
- I also don't take a position that society will cease to function unless anarchists betray their values. You guys are not that important.

Well you seem very sure of yourself. Would you care to specify what your values are exactly?

[Rothbardian]

You mean arrests and imprisons suspects. The NAP is ridiculous. Lets say I'm arrested. The alleged offence of course might not even be a violation of the NAP under my chosen legal arbitration body. But leaving that aside. I then call up my law enforcing body and get them to come over and arrest your officials for false imprisonment. You presumably then have to then arrest my officials for falsely imprisoning your officials. And so it goes on. Lets all remember that people would be free to wander around fully armed. Guns, anti tank, anti air weapons. There's no reason every pick up trucks couldn't have its own built in mortar. Even cars could be armed with White Phosphorous. So arresting a person wouldn't necessarily be easy. Anyone's free to try to arrest anyone they want if they consider them to have committed a crime. They can try them by any method they choose. Use any standards for evidence they want. Set any punishment scheme they want. Anyone is free to resist. Everyone only has to answer to their conscience and their own higher legal body which could be themselves if they want it to be.

First of all I'm curious how a statist can say potential corruption makes voluntary systems 'ridiculous'.

Second of all, no one would ever voluntarily participate with any organization that conducts itself in this manor. I understand your assumption that voluntarist systems would act the way statist systems do, since you clearly do not understand how the involuntary nature of the state affects the social dynamics involved.

All human societies have a centralised monopoly on the legitimisation of violence, whether that's a clan elders council, a clan chief, a local Mafia boss or the federal government. Where the boundaries bewteen those polities are unclear and dispute we get war. That's why tribal societies have endemic warfare and the Roman empire was relatively peaceful.

If that were true then we wouldn't have governments, people would monopolize naturally. This has never happened. No government or Mafia has ever polled the residents in areas it moves into and asked for their consent to be ruled. Tribal systems could at best be described as anarcho communism.

As to your last comment about the Roman empire, all I can ask is, are you completely detached from reality? An empire built on rampant pillage and maintained by slavery? It was peaceful for the mob, sure. That's a rather narrow and sadistic view to focus on, though.

[Nunt]

Let's say we're living under your NAP-based "system" (whatever that means).

Now, a friend of mine farts in my presence. I have to somehow decide whether that's a crime and what the appropriate punishment is. For that purpose, I consult my uncle Jimbo, whom I call "the lawmaker and the judge". He says "5 lashes". So I take out a whip and administer the lashes, and nobody else has a "right to stop me" (whatever that means). Am I on the right track?

Your example does indeed show that you do not know what the NAP means. So if that was the point you were trying to make, you were succesful.

[Rothbardian]

Your example does indeed show that you do not know what the NAP means. So if that was the point you were trying to make, you were succesful.

Imagine if we could voluntarily participate with 3rd party arbitrators that can offer protection and commiseration for offenses like people whipping you? No, there's no way we ignorant peasants could ever manage such a thing. Not without a government anyway.

Now let's just hope the government doesn't mandate whippings for public flatulence. I'm sure we'll be smart enough to vote against this, even though we're too stupid to prevent it on our own.

[lucky]

Imagine if we could voluntarily participate with 3rd party arbitrators that can offer protection and commiseration for offenses like people whipping you? No, there's no way we ignorant peasants could ever manage such a thing.

Why not, what's stopping me? I described how I go ask a 3rd party arbitrator, uncle Jimbo.

Your example does indeed show that you do not know what the NAP means. So if that was the point you were trying to make, you were succesful.

Thanks. You're right, you understood that part right, that's why I went and asked uncle Jimbo to make the judgement.

If you're not referring to the story but rather just saying "you don't understand and hence you're stupid", or something like that, as an argument, then that's not really helpful.

In any case, you didn't answer the question.

I'll get straight to the point. Can my guest appeal the verdict? You indicated that he can't, at least not to something he calls a "government": "the government has no right to stop you". So does an entity (going by the name "government", say) have a right to consider and potentially change the verdict, or not?

[Rothbardian]

Why not, what's stopping me? I described how I go ask a 3rd party arbitrator, uncle Jimbo.

Did your friend also accept Uncle Jimbo as a mediator?

You seem to be stuck in the statist mentality of oppressing people whether they accept your oppressor or not. Small wonder you don't understand the non aggression principle.

[lucky]

Did your friend also accept Uncle Jimbo as a mediator?

He did initially look in his direction when I asked him to voice his opinion, so in a sense yes, but then when Jimbo said "umm, that really smells. 5 lashes", my friend only said, I quote, "screw you guys, I'm going home", before the punishment started.

You seem to be stuck in the statist mentality of oppressing people

Hmm yes I think so too. My mentality is complex, but it's not something I wanted to discuss.

[Eran]

lucky,
You are not debating in good faith. It is very easy to mock any system of organising society, if that is what you are determined to do.

Rather than mock, it would be much more productive to actually try and understand the system as proposed.

In a stable state, society will have settled on judicial norms regarding what constitutes an appropriate way of resolving disputes. There would be established institutions (e.g. respectable arbitration firms) whose judgement most people would accept as binding, at least absent strong evidence to the contrary.

Before stability is achieved, a budding democracy is no better than an anarchy. For a live example, observe the riots in Egypt. Everybody agrees that Egypt ought to be a constitutional democracy, yet violence is rife.

[Rothbardian]

He did initially look in his direction when I asked him to voice his opinion, so in a sense yes, but then when Jimbo said "umm, that really smells. 5 lashes", my friend only said, I quote, "screw you guys, I'm going home", before the punishment started.

Hmm yes I think so too. My mentality is complex, but it's not something I wanted to discuss.

Sarcasm is useful for deflection. It's too bad you can't take your own position seriously.

Let's consider something first. You're attempting argument ad absurdum because that it is only in the absurd that you feel your position makes any sense. I can sympathize with that but at the same time, I don't see why I should take you any more seriously than you are taking yourself.

If your friend is willing to accept an arbitrator that will give out 5 lashes (to a friend no less) for something as silly as that, then I have to ask you, what exactly is the problem here, in your eyes? If that's how people want to live, that's no business of mine. You are a statist though, you feel that it's not only acceptable, but a societal obligation, for people to violently impose on each other.

Which leads to my second point. If your friend did not accept your uncle as an arbitrator, then he's under no obligation to accept '5 lashes'. If that was me, I wouldn't be friends with you in the first place. I am going to assume that in your scenario, you are as slack jawed as your uncle Jim Bob and actually intend the 5 lashes. So suppose you actually go ahead with it, against my will.

Congratulations, you've successfully described statism! You went ahead and voted for the arbitrator, and are cheering him on, maybe even participating, as his will is imposed upon me involuntarily. Hell, history as well as mondern day news are repleat with governments doing worse to people, with less reason.

It's odd to me that a statist would describe the very system he espouses and claim it's a flaw of stateless systems, but I can't say it surprises me considering the hypocrisy inherent in the system.

In a stateless system, I have my own arbitration. If you actually go ahead and do it, then congratulations. You've now got my arbitration, and I assure you I am going to sign on for something more concrete than 'uncle jim bob's lashin's r us'. They are likely going to come after you financially for restitution of the expenses they have incurred from providing me health care necessary to recover. Assuming you can't get another mortgage on your trailer or simply don't want to pay, you're now socially ostracized. In a stateless system, that means you can't use our roads, you can't trade with us, you're completely blacklisted from the rest of us in humanity that are reasonable.

Of the two, I would rather risk the odd freak occurrence of running into someone like you that hasn't already been blacklisted to having someone like you force me to live with uncle jim bob. I'm willing to let you live with uncle jim bob, all you have to do is let me make my own choices as well. It's hard to deny me that and still pretend to be reasonable. Such a lack of empathy would lead me to ask you if you've been tested for sociopathy.

Your mind is indeed complex. So complex, it's stuck in an endless self contradictory loop. It's sad to watch. Rather, it would be sad to watch if you at least realized that taking a self contradictory position is wrong, but you obviously don't see anything wrong with it.

So you and your inbred kinfolk are welcome to wall yourselves off and live your lives

[lucky]

In a stable state, society will have settled on judicial norms regarding what constitutes an appropriate way of resolving disputes. There would be established institutions (e.g. respectable arbitration firms) whose judgement most people would accept as binding, at least absent strong evidence to the contrary.

Indeed: that's the definition of the judiciary! There would also be a widely accepted legislature and an executive, in other words a full government, in a stable society.

I was responding to Rich's and Nunt's ideas that:

Everyone only has to answer to their conscience and their own higher legal body which could be themselves if they want it to be.

I think yours are somewhat different. Frankly, it seems to me that more-less you're just slowly reinventing the political philosophy of Enlightenment under your banner of anarchy.

[Eran]

Indeed: that's the definition of the judiciary! There would also be a widely accepted legislature and an executive, in other words a full government, in a stable society.

NO.

Neither the judiciary nor the institutions effectively covering the legislative and executive functions need to be either coercive or monopolistic. Absent their being coercive and monopolistic, they wouldn't constitute "government" in the normal sense. They would be part of the governance of society, the need for which is not in dispute.

[Rich]

I think I see where your coming from Eran. You give the example of the American, Canadian border. The vast majority of people accept the legitimacy of this border so neither the US or Canada need an army to defend against the other. Similarly for much of Europe their is a huge consensus on borders. So your argument is could we not extend this if their was a much bigger consensus on property rights? Well yes in the abstract. If everyone accepted the NAP an essentially singular interpretation of the NAP and were reasonable people willing to give and take, then yes. A society such as yours could work. There would be no need for monopolisation of force.

However I for one don't accept the legitimacy of National borders. I and others wish to overturn even the consensus that does exist. I have as much moral right to a share of Texan oil as a Texan voter, similarly of course the Texan is morally entitled to a share of North Sea oil. But note also how in such places as Northern Ireland or the Basque territory it only requires quite small numbers of people to not accept the status Quo and armed, monopoly, liberty taking, force become necessary. We've also got millions of authoritarian Muslims in Europe who would soon take advantage to impose their tyranny on others if the European Liberal states were to disband. If Global warming or other forms of continental and global scale pollution, or natural resource costs increase as a proportion of total income the I expect we will see even the consensus that currently exists on National borders will break down.

[Eran]

Consider the stability of a constitutional democracy.

Such stability is not guaranteed merely by the existence of a written constitution and a set of formal institutions. History contains ample examples of constitutional democracies degenerating into dictatorships.

Egypt today furnishes us with a rare insight into why stable constitutional democracies work. In the US, the thought of a President unilaterally taking for himself additional powers is unthinkable. In some countries, it is unexceptional. In Egypt we see what happens when there is a gap between public expectations and political will - the president appears to be backing off.

In a stable democracy, the vast majority of people accept the legitimacy of the democratic process. The majority supporting the democratic process is much greater than the majority (or plurality) supporting the current leadership. Nonetheless, it need not be an absolute consensus. There can be a small number of anarchists (or separatists) without significantly altering the stability of the system. Nor is it necessary that everybody perfectly agrees on the constitutional interpretation, as long as people can agree on a peaceful process for resolving disputes (e.g. adhering to the decisions of the Supreme Court).

The exact same thing would hold in a stable anarchy. An anarchy would be stable if and only if there is a large majority acknowledging the NAP as the basis for the legitimate use of force. There need not be (1) a perfect consensus, nor (2) a perfect agreement on the meaning of the NAP.

If the group of opposers is small enough, law-enforcement mechanisms within society will handle them (just as they handle people who accept the legitimacy of the system in the abstract, but choose to become criminals).

Differences in interpretation of the NAP are not fatal either, as long as people agree on peaceful mechanisms (e.g. appeal to a neutral and reputable arbitrator) to resolve those differences.

[Rothbardian]

Indeed: that's the definition of the judiciary! There would also be a widely accepted legislature and an executive, in other words a full government, in a stable society.

If it's so widely accepted, why does it have to be imposed?

If it's not widely accepted, why impose it?