First, something that may appear a quibble at first glance. Governments have other tools for raising revenue; as recently as a century ago, significant amounts were obtained from “domians”, pools of revenue yielding assets, though these were even then being handled more and more like taxes proper.

Second, even stipulating that certain things are necessary, just for the sake of argument, it does not follow that these things should all be undertaken by governments. In many times and places they have been carried out by other institutions. It’s just that state intervention has largely crowded these out.

These other approaches were funded far more by the domain approach, which works far more conveniently all round in a distributed and decentralised system. Consider the policing role carried out by the Knights of St. John in the 17th and 18th centuries, for just one example.

And that’s even before arguing about just what things are indeed necessary, although pretty obviously much of today’s necessity, while real, is artificially constructed by past state action. It would need to be engineered out, one way or another, but all the same there is no ground for the state perpetuating that tangle.

Aside from that, to repeat, I find nothing in the Constitution that gives the Federal government any sort of police power, although the Supreme Court does not agree with me. The Federal Government does appear to have police powers in Washington, D.C., the military and outside state boundaries, both international and US territories that are not states.

Adam, which government? Federal? State? Which federal laws according to the Constitution are the feds responsible for enforcing? From my reading they are more responsible for protecting liberties and freedoms than enforcing anything. It doesn’t seem logical or reasonable that after fighting for independence against an en(forcing) kingdom they would be too thrilled to continue with enforcement policies.

I’m just looking at the Amendments, I found one they’re supposed to enforce:

Amendment XIII
Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

Section 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

Another one:

Amendment XIV
Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Section 2. Representatives shall be apportioned among the several states according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each state, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the executive and judicial officers of a state, or the members of the legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such state, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such state.

Section 3. No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any state, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any state legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any state, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.

Section 4. The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any state shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.

Section 5. The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.

And another, this time in the original Articles:

Article I, Section 8. The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States; but all duties, imposts and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;

To borrow money on the credit of the United States;

To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes;

To establish a uniform rule of naturalization, and uniform laws on the subject of bankruptcies throughout the United States;

To coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin, and fix the standard of weights and measures;

To provide for the punishment of counterfeiting the securities and current coin of the United States;

To establish post offices and post roads;

To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries;

To constitute tribunals inferior to the Supreme Court;

To define and punish piracies and felonies committed on the high seas, and offenses against the law of nations;

To declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and make rules concerning captures on land and water;

To raise and support armies, but no appropriation of money to that use shall be for a longer term than two years;

To provide and maintain a navy;

To make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces;

To provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the union, suppress insurrections and repel invasions;

To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the militia, and for governing such part of them as may be employed in the service of the United States, reserving to the states respectively, the appointment of the officers, and the authority of training the militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;

To exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten miles square) as may, by cession of particular states, and the acceptance of Congress, become the seat of the government of the United States, and to exercise like authority over all places purchased by the consent of the legislature of the state in which the same shall be, for the erection of forts, magazines, arsenals, dockyards, and other needful buildings;–And

To make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by this Constitution in the government of the United States, or in any department or officer thereof.

He makes one good point, which is that the current system of law enforcement is unlikely to stop someone determined to kill him.

The point was more rhetorical than anything. I was trying to make the point that there would be no legal consequences and no deterrance from me getting a gang to kill him and his loved ones and steal his property. In Anarchocapistan, there are no serious consequences for this action. If the private police force hired by his estate find me, try to arrest me, and try to take me to the private court; I can tell them to fark off with no consequences. If they try to force me to go with them, my heirs can take legal action against the private police (for all the good it would do) In addition, I can drag out neogotiations to pick the private court I want to face and finally, if worse comes to worse, I can simply buy the judge, who’s only harm would be to his reputation (which can be cured a good advertising firm).

However, if I tried to tell the cops to fark off under our current system; out comes pepper spray and probably a resisting arrest charge to my docket. If I tried telling the judge to fark off, he’d probably slap a contempt of court charge against me on top of the other charges. If I tried to buy the judge, he’s deterred from accepting it by the law, which mandates jail time and loss of livelyhood if he’s found guilty. In addition, it would get me nowhere because there’s still the jury; but there are procedures in place to limit contact between the defendant and the jurors.

Finally, under an Anarchocap system of justice; what’s to prevent the private police agencies and private courts from committing civil rights violations against the citizenry? Remember, the only reason why the current police and law enforcement system has anything resembling checks on their power is because of the Bill of Rights and various civil rights laws on all levels of government. In an Anarchocap system, those protections are gone.

Yes, I did mean TLP.

Whether we like what you have to say, or not, we welcome the comments and discussion.

I assume that by “this website” you mean TLP? If so, thank you for the compliment.

I can think of no enumeration in the Constitution that requires any branch to deal with solutions of social problems. I have never read anything at LRC that suggests or hints that Jefferson or Madison were socialists. I think you are confused and are confusing issues regarding the feds and the states.

Nowhere do I refer to “the Libertarian Movement” and/or its origins. Read a little closer. Very little research required.

He also makes the typical response of a hardcore Libertarian that anyone who believes in any sort of government solution is advocating socialism. This, of course, means that Jefferson, Paine, Madison, et al were socialists.

I’m the person who founded this site, I’m the person who set up the comment policy and I am the person who installed the anti-spam software. I’m no longer an active contributor here, although I sometimes comment. We do not delete comments, except when they run afoul of our comment policy. In the 14 months this blog has existed, no one’s comment has ever been deliberately removed by an administrator or contributor. If your comment was caught by the anti-spam software accidentally, all you had to do was read the comment policy, email me and I would have checked up on it and cleared it for publishing. If you choose not to read and then accuse us of silently deleting comments, you can, of course. We won’t even remove your comments when you do.

Or, you could notice that we haven’t removed any other comment of yours, even when you accuse us of just such behavior.

Now, about your assertions.

1. This site is not libertarian, either big or little L.
2. This site is not Republican either, except that we tend to advocate a republican form of government.
3. You are incorrect and Eric Dondero is correct as to the origin of “the Libertarian Movement”. Do a little research.

http://www.thelibertypapers.org/2006/05/12/bias-moral-relativism-and-hipocrisy/

I’ve had comments deleted on this site. I speak from experience. I’ll not dig up the post, but suffice to say it features repeated misspellings of “hypocrisy” as “hipocracy” and begs deference toward acts of terror, so long as practiced only by “legitimate governments”. My comment on that particular post was, as noted, deleted within the hour.

The only comments that are deleted are spammers. We do not censor commentors who disagree with us or even act like asses in threads.

What post were you censored on? You made the allegation, so dig up the post.