Libertarianism and Morality

[John Dibble]

Is it ever moral to initiate force against someone?

Is it ever? Yes, because the question is broad enough that it covers every potential situation in which force could be initiated against another as well as every possible degree of force.

As tik points out, one such situation is initiating force against a criminal to defend the criminal's victim. Another situation where it could be considered moral is initiating it against a person who is taking actions that you know will inadvertently bring harm to other innocents when that force is necessary to stop that harm. And then there's the matter of degree. In many situations great force (say, lethal) can be considered immoral, while lesser force (say, a force that stuns but does no long term damage) would be acceptable.

[John Dibble]

When I say 'initiate' force, I mean that the person forcing is the first person to commit force, i.e. is commiting agression. You cannot 'initiate' force against a criminal, since they were the ones to do the initiation.

Fair enough, but as I said there are other situations where it may be considered acceptable.

[John Dibble]

Yes, I do believe the government has the right to:
1) Tax people

Why is theft illegal when commited by individuals but permissible when commited by a monopolistic organization?

That hinges upon the notion that taxation is theft. While you can draw similarities between taxation and theft, they are not always necessarily the same thing. If the government is taxing people only to line the pockets of the politicians, you could say that the taxation is theft and you'd get very little argument from anyone. However, if the money taken by taxation is being used to the benefit of the ones being taxed - you know, military and police protection, as well as other things that it would be difficult or damn near impossible for individuals to pull of that are regarded as necessary for a functioning modern society. (whether the thing the money being spent on meets that qualification is an entirely different matter, so let's not get into that)

So, I agree with ilikeverin that the government has the right to tax the people, but like many rights there are limits in which it can be acceptably exercised.

[John Dibble]

What if I do not want military and police protection?

Then I advise you distance yourself from civilization - it doesn't tend to last very long without those things.

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Again, there are similarities but it's not the same. A thief doesn't use your money to buy you stuff, he keeps it for himself. Certainly your tax money might be spent on things you don't want, but if it's being returned to you in some form or fashion it doesn't quite constitute theft.

[John Dibble]

Again, this thread is speaking purely about morality. Does it really make a difference how the thief spends money if it is not rightfully his?

Ok, if you want to play it that way. Admittedly taxation is to a degree an initiation of force. When that tax money is spent on military and police protection for the citizens whom are paying that money, it prevents greater initiation of force that would otherwise occur against them by warlords and criminals who care nothing for the rights of others. Given the people at large could not possibly live with their rights intact without these protections, and one views the maintaining of the rights of the people as moral, then the slight initiation of force required to fund these protections is moral at best or the least of all possible evils at worst.

Now with OTHER services that might be provided at the cost of taxation, there are other pros and cons to consider, and the merits of each should be considered individually.

[John Dibble]

JFK, if we are to assume that roads are publicly owned, than that implies that everyone owns them, and to expel a person from the road would mean that they cannot access their own property.

By that logic, if I want to take a jackhammer to the middle of a public road just to make it unusable I can because I own it. Or if I owned stock in a corporation, I could go down to their headquarters and bust into the CEO's office unannounced and take a leak on his desk without penalty - after all, the company is owned in part by me, and I can go wherever I want on company property. Of course, such actions screw over the other owners.

If anyone who jointly owns something with others can just do whatever the hell he wants with it, then it might as well be like the others don't own it at all. When it comes to joint ownership, all parties must come to an agreement on acceptable use of the property so that all the owners can get fair use out of it. In small companies the owners just get together and come to agreements. In larger companies the stockholders vote for a board of directors. For public property in a democratic state the voters (the public) vote on representatives to make rules in regards to the fair use of that property. Will everyone be perfectly happy with the rules that are decided upon in these situations? No, but it's better/more moral than allowing one jackass to screw everyone else who owns the property.

[John Dibble]

If people value military and police protection so much, I don't see why the money to fund it couldn't come voluntarily. I just don't think it makes sense to punish people who neither pay taxes nor are free-riding.

I don't see how you can have such a system where people who don't pay aren't free-riders at the same time. The only exception I could see is having volunteer soldiers or police not pay in cash for it, but they would simply paying with service rather than currency.

[John Dibble]

Taxation is not theft.  You choose to live in this society.  This society chooses to elect politicians that enact taxes.  Taxation is voluntary, as much as we hate it.  If you don't want to pay taxes, there are plenty of disorganized societies in Africa that are much easier to avoid being taxed by.

Society existed before government did. Government was formed to protect individuals' life, liberty, and property, not the other way around. If the government prevents me from paying taxes or paying someone else to protect my life, liberty, and property, then it cannot be said to be a voluntary agreement.

Nope. Government is society.

While government isn't necessarily the same thing as society, they are interlinked. Society didn't come before government - they've existed hand in hand. Just look at animals, their societies have governments of sorts. Of course, their government tends to be the alpha male and/or female of their group. Early human societies were the same way. The biggest, strongest, and/or smartest guy would manage to get himself in charge of everyone else in the group, all the while being in a power struggle with the shaman because the shaman was the only one who knew how to appeal to the fire spirits whenever more was needed. Meanwhile, both of them would be getting the best stuff from the tribe - that really nice pelt you got hunting would make a great offering to fire spirits, and your attractive young daughter would make a great new wife for the chief. Of course as groups got bigger and technology advanced government changed as well.

[John Dibble]

To reply about JFK's and Dibble's complaints about free-riding, any non-taxpayers would not be subject to police and military protection. They would either have to defend their property themselves or hire a private security agency to do it for them.

1. With police that's only partially true. Criminals would have no way of knowing who is protected by the police or not. They would be just as deterred as they would otherwise be. Furthermore, any dangerous criminals arrested by the police are removed as a threat to everyone, not just those who pay. There is also the fact that the police won't always know who's protected and who isn't - if a police officer sees a woman about to be raped, do you think he's going to ask if she's paid her taxes before he shoots the scumbag attacking her? So at the very least you'll get partial free-riding, if not full free-riding.

2. With military that's completely untrue. Military protection protects you from foreign invaders, and the military has to act with the notion that they protect certain geographical borders in order to be effective. It's not like they would allow invaders into our borders to take over only the property of people who don't pay taxes - they couldn't do that because the invaders could use those properties as staging posts to build a presence within the nation and take over everything else. Because of that simple logistical snafu in your logic everyone within the country's borders would be protected, and thus anyone who doesn't pay gets the full benefits and thus is free-riding.

[John Dibble]

Ok you two, it's time to let the thread die. You've already robbed it of any semblance of dignity it had left, so let's have mercy on the poor thing.