Also, our rights are natural, we are born with them, they are not granted by man nor government, so your claims of our rights being a check only on government are false.

Unless you are in the top 2% of earners, your tax argument falls flat on its face. The fact of the matter is the average middle class American is paying more to the government than ever before and it is nothing short of criminal.

As for our being more free than ever, I find your examples lacking, they deal with laws that affected very few people, whereas today these laws affect us all.

Anarchy has worked in the past, your examples of third world countries where it didn’t not withstanding.

I don’t call people names on here or purposely twist their screen names into veiled insults, so why Kevin feels he can do it to me is amazing.

As for Adam calling me out for claiming there are Statists on here, I didn’t. I merely said we seem to be able to get along, but WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO ABOUT THE STATISTS?

You all seem to think that when we leave our property, we leave our rights there too. I completely disagree.

they were employed by the citizens of the towns or territories they lived in.

Or the town’s elected officials. Or by popular election. Pretty much the same as they are today.

You are stuck on that warlord crap like most folks who haven’t been trying to think though a Stateless society. No evidence that so-called “warlords” would take over anything, except maybe in the ghetto.

I didn’t need to “think through” a stateless society. I was there to see it firsthand. And I studied it extensively for my job. As for the imaginary warlords, I could name Ismail Khan, Rashid Dostum, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, Mullah Omar…all of these people seized and consolidated power, violently, in the absence of a Afghani government. All of them violated individual rights to do so using coercive methods, many regions of the areas they ruled were forced to go along unwillingly. As for the “ghetto” crack, I assume you’re talking about the poor and minorities. They’re a part of human society too…unless you’re thinking that they’re undeserving of being a part of your Great Society, in which case I question just what sort of free society you’re attempting to champion and who you see as being deserving of rights in it.

While it is true the IRS rates are lower than in the past, take a long hard look at all of the others taxes you pay. Right now you are paying more in taxes than ever before. Property taxes (I would hope, since all of you claim to be such staunch defenders of property rights, you will agree these henious taxes are illegal as they are proof you do not own your property) up, gas tax up, sales tax up, tobacco taxes up, liquor taxes up, SS & medicare taxes up and new taxes being invented and implemented on almost a daily basis. Face it, you are paying more than ever before.

I’m still paying far less than 90%. In fact, I think it’s actually around 50% all things considered, counting property tax, sales tax, etc. with quite a bit left over for disposable income. Could I pay less? Sure, and I’m all for that. But I also recognize that I’m better off than my folks were back in the 70s so I don’t see the gloom and doom that you do.

Don’t give me that butterfly effect nonsense, you well know what I am talking about.

Yeah, and it’s a myopic viewpoint. You’re a part of an intricate society and even in a society based entirely on voluntary interaction where no regulation exists unforseeable bad outcomes for individuals sometimes result. So get over yourself.

Better off than we were 5, 10, 20, 30, 50 years ago, certainly much freer, are you kidding me? For one, there are now more gun control laws on the books than ever before in the history of this country, like the Gun Control Act of 1968 for example. There are more regulations governing every aspect of life, from what you can build on your property to what color you can paint it, permits licensing, etc. I grew up in the 60s and 70s and I tell you, we are certainly not moer free than we were then.

People can get out of miserable marriages, women are generally no longer treated as property, Jim Crow laws are history, interracial marriage isn’t illegal in half the states, who you sleep with is generally considered your own business by the government, and anyone with a home computer is able to share their thoughts on any topic with the entire world. Sounds a lot freer than when I was a kid.

I do not agree that a company has the right to your bodily fluids unless they show cause, like you are a train engineer and you are involved in an accident.

Sorry Bill, but the other guys were right…you can’t be for anarchy whenever it suits you personally and against it every time it inconveniences you personally and think that’s a persuasive argument for anarcho-capitalism. As for probable cause, that’s for the government, not private individuals. If I’m the owner of a company and I want to drug test my employees that should be my right as long as they give consent. If they don’t it should be my right to get other employees. That’s how individual rights, property ownership and free association work.

Billy is an An-Cap

Now I’m really confused. Bill, if you don’t believe in government, how do you plan to prevent an employer from demanding a drug test and then firing you when you refuse to comply with their demand? I have a very hard time imagining a consistent An-Cap thinking that these sorts of voluntary transactions should be prohibited in some way.

Bill, to get what you want requires that the government regulate the private workplace and the voluntary, private transactions of employer and employees. Is that what you want?

Most of the regulations you complained about earlier came about because of that sort of thinking.

That’s a private transaction, between you and your employer. They don’t have a “right” to drug test you. It’s a voluntary, private transaction. Changing that would require government regulation. Is that really what you want? Do you really want the government to further regulate the private workplace?

Billy is an An-Cap.

That’s a private transaction, between you and your employer. They don’t have a “right” to drug test you. It’s a voluntary, private transaction. Changing that would require government regulation. Is that really what you want? Do you really want the government to further regulate the private workplace?

I think the better way to put it is that an employer has the right to make pre-employment and random drug screening a condition of employment, and to set sanctions if one fails such a test. The prospective employee has the right not to agree to those conditions and find another job.

I do not agree that a company has the right to your bodily fluids unless they show cause …..

That’s a private transaction, between you and your employer. They don’t have a “right” to drug test you. It’s a voluntary, private transaction. Changing that would require government regulation. Is that really what you want? Do you really want the government to further regulate the private workplace?

But what about the die hard Statists who think everything wonderful and good flows solely from the government?

Name one contributor here that fits that description. Provide evidence for it.

Adam,
Most of what you are complaining about in the past, we have today so I am failing to follow your so-called point. At least in the past, most of these transgressions were repealed, nobody’s talking about repealing any of it today.

Really? Can you show me an 88% income tax rate in this country? How about the President putting significant numbers of state and city officials in prison without due process (i.e. suspending habeas corpus). Or public works programs comparable in size, scope and scale to those of Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union or Fascist Italy? Hundreds of thousands of American citizens in concentration camps? The President has not seized property without due process (as happened in the Civil War) either. Private ownership of gold is legal. Alcohol is legal.

Come on, join the real world. I grew up at the same time you did Bill, and I agree that we are regulated to death. But, really egregious stuff, like concentration camps, slavery, fascist public works programs, are not happening.

I talk about the problems a lot, but I do my darndest to not overstate them. Going too far that direction convinces people that you are not in touch with reality. Then they stop listening.

You are stuck on that warlord crap like most folks who haven’t been trying to think though a Stateless society. I have been guilty of that in the past myself. No evidence that so-called “warlords” would take over anything, except maybe in the ghetto.

While it is true the IRS rates are lower than in the past, take a long hard look at all of the others taxes you pay. Right now you are paying more in taxes than ever before. Property taxes (I would hope, since all of you claim to be such staunch defenders of property rights, you will agree these henious taxes are illegal as they are proof you do not own your property) up, gas tax up, sales tax up, tobacco taxes up, liquor taxes up, SS & medicare taxes up and new taxes being invented and implemented on almost a daily basis. Face it, you are paying more than ever before. Couple that with the inflation since the creation of the Federal Reserve and we are being royally screwed.

Don’t give me that butterfly effect nonsense, you well know what I am talking about.

Better off than we were 5, 10, 20, 30, 50 years ago, certainly much freer, are you kidding me? For one, there are now more gun control laws on the books than ever before in the history of this country, like the Gun Control Act of 1968 for example. There are more regulations governing every aspect of life, from what you can build on your property to what color you can paint it, permits licensing, etc. I grew up in the 60s and 70s and I tell you, we are certainly not moer free than we were then. Shirley you jest!;)

I do not agree that a company has the right to your bodily fluids unless they show cause, like you are a train engineer and you are involved in an accident.

Adam,
Most of what you are complaining about in the past, we have today so I am failing to follow your so-called point. At least in the past, most of these transgressions were repealed, nobody’s talking about repealing any of it today.

Horatio,
A combination of #2 & #4 is what I have decided to do. The others aren’t really options are they?

“Amen, Brother!”

You’ve both stated the case very well. Bill yearns for a world that has never existed within the framework of the US Constitution. Fair enough – I can appreciate his desires. However, he wants to opt out of what is admittedly a rigged game. So what are his options?

1 – Do nothing
2 – Get involved in the game – along with others who think the way he does – and try to persuade people to his way of thinking.
3 – Leave the US for green pastures if they exist elsewhere and hope the game doesn’t follow him
4 – Ignore the game, live his life and do what UCrawford does – that which is in his best interest as he defines it accompanied by risks that he is willing to take
5 – Start a 2nd American Revolution – good luck with that one in a day and age where more and more Americans dine at the public trough

The fact is that this period of war has had the least intrusion into civil liberties of any war where the American people felt directly threatened.

And I suspect that’s only because people have the ability now to check up on what their politicians were doing, read through bills before they’re passed, and fact-check stories that don’t sound right to them without having to depend on the media to provide them with the information. If we still had the same resources now that we did back then to find out what was going on, I suspect Comrade Bush would happily start up the camps again and suspend all our civil liberties.

I love the Information Age.

Bill, what if I told you that we would have an absolute prohibition on alcohol and most narcotic drugs, public works program on a scale as broad as any seen in Nazi Germany or Fascist Italy, tax rates at nearly 90%, private ownership of gold made illegal, rallies to promote government programs, a leader establishing a cult of personality and signing Presidential Directives to put hundreds of thousands of native born American citizens in concentration camps and deprive them of their legal property. What if I told you that we would keep 1/10th of our population in chattel slavery, the President would suspend habeas corpus without Congressional authorization and the property of citizens would be seized and disposed of without due process? What if I told you that a President would institute wage and price controls, threaten to pack the Supreme Court if the Court didn’t go along with him and launch an illegal and undeclared naval war against a nation that had not initiated hostilities against us? What if I told you that we would have a government that used blatantly false racial stereotypes to demonize an enemy in wartime?

Would you say that could never happen in America? Every bit of it did. Some is Civil War era, some is Great Depression and some is WWII.

The fact is that this period of war has had the least intrusion into civil liberties of any war where the American people felt directly threatened. It has had the least ugly racism, propaganda and ugly stereotyping. And it has been characterized by a significant lack of government intrusion into the marketplace, unlike the Civil War, WWI or WWII.

None of that excuses any of what has happened, however it is not nearly as bad as in past wars and eras of unrest.