The non aggression principle is no less sound because the majority does not consciously recognize and adhere to it. We are, after all, learning creatures… animals even.

I don’t believe anyone is claiming the cause of liberty to be easy, or common in human history, though with some contextual appreciation, we might be able to recognize the difference between governmental schemes throughout the ages when it matters, rather than when it’s convenient for proving some arbitrary point which suggests liberty doesn’t matter.

In other words, what’s eating you?

“You guys want to be truly political so bad, but your philosophy commands that you hate yourselves in the end. It’s tragic, you think I’m full of shit, but what does it matter.”

What a joke. First off, that’s a generalization. Second, it’s a collectivist generalization. Third, the ideology itself is foremost a personal one, and not a political one. Without internalizing the principles of liberty, how can one manage to apply it toward others via government? That’s a trick question: You cannot assert liberty through government. The lack thereof, of course!

You seem to be projecting some kind of hatred. Maybe you’re frustrated?

Xerox has got our number, we are so full of self-loathing. ;)

I am continually amazed by the number of people on the Internet that can type a coherent sentence yet are self evidently batshit-insane.

FTA: “The coercive restraint of human liberty is inherently evil. Control of ones person, property, and behavior should be the exclusive province of the sovereign man.”

FTA: “The only legitimate limitation of liberty is that which prevents transgression on the liberty of others, or which compensates those transgressed upon.”

Compensation for transgression is good, but it does not justify transgression.

FTA: “Without a disinterested arbiter, maintaining a monopoly of legitimate force with which it resolves disputes and enforces compacts between men, the liberty of the weak will be abrogated by the will of the strong””

In a matter of speaking, yes. You have to settle for what the market can provide, even in justice, which is far superior to monopolized justice which is highly arbitrary and violent.

FTA: “For example, I think it’s perfectly reasonable to kill someone who is planning to kill you, before they ever pick up a gun. To a strict non-aggressionist, this is unethical and morally wrong.”

This is the challenge. It helps that one be able to prove motive if their situation is considered before some voluntary dispute resolution service.

FTA:”I also believe that you are responsible not just to yourself, but to your wife and children for example; and that they are responsible to you. I also believe that it is perfectly acceptable for you to make choices for your kids to protect them, until they are able to do so on their own.

Again, the non-aggressionists think that is wrong.”

It’s wrong if you state it as an ideologically valid position. I think that’s an individual’s choice, and your choice is that there is some shared responsibility in your family.

You must have faith in the marketplace to be understanding. It usually is, but if you choose security over liberty, you will not have the opportunity to live in a voluntary society. Most people will understand if you act in behalf of your child.

FTA: “I believe that without governments, at least as voluntary collectives; the strong will inevitably violate the rights of the weak; until the strong are too powerful to be resisted, at which point they will enforce tyranny.”

At least your ideology allows for striking first at those who would desire to suppress you. However most people don’t think assassinating tyrants is worthwhile.

FTA: “Non aggressionists believe that because no government can be perfect, according to their interpretation of the philosophical system of liberty; all government is therefore illegitimate and cannot be allowed to exist.

Personally, I believe that strict non-aggressionism is a voluntary mental illness.”

Minarchy is not an ideal. Yet there is no perfect situation. ‘Vigilance towards liberty in perpetuity’ is consistent and functions for individuals even when they live in police states. All government is illegitimate if it does not obtain consent of the governed. In practical terms, I distinguish a difference between government (systemic control schemes) and governance (individual-based growth of accountability/responsibility).

FTA: “Amazingly to me, at least on an emotional visceral level (I understand it to be true intellectually, and some of the reasoning behind it, I just think it’s absurd, or even obscene); is that this whole idea is uncomfortable, or frightening, or simply preposterous to many people.”

Exactly. Good ideology does not try to define the nature of the world in one breath while advocating a specific scheme of government in the other. This applies particularly to ideologies such as socialism, or the green party which argues the ‘balance’ of ‘nature’ is out of whack, therefore ‘impose our system/choices on everyone else’. That is a sickness.

Read Franz de Waal’s Good Natured: The Origins of Right and Wrong in Humans and Other Animals. He surveys the great apes and primates and observes that in the absence of hostile environments and predation monkeys become solitary. The species that form socials groups, especially the ones that form groups that are recognizably analogous to the hunter gatherer tribes of humans are ones facing predator pressure.

Nor is libertarianism radically individualist, other than emphasizing that people should be free to take on obligations voluntarily. I have never heard a consistent libertarian denounce the notion of people joining a kibbutz, for example. We have no problem with people helping each other out. It is the notion that it is acceptable for A to point a gun at B in order to get help for C that angers us, not the idea of A or B helping C.

As to libertarianism being lost in the sea of pop culture, I would expect no different. Most people don’t care about philosophy and never will.

If you are certain some guy wants to kill you, killing him first is fine. The question is what do you base your certainty on? If the guy is shooting at you, then you can preemptively kill him despite the fact he hasn’t killed you yet since it’s pretty obvious that his intentions are to kill you or seriously injure you.

If, on the other hand, your daughter comes home and tells you that she heard from Marsha, who heard from Cindy, who heard from Ferris, who hear from Carlos, who heard from Juanita that some guy who looks like your neighbor was talking about capping someone named Chistopher, then blowing away your neighbor is clearly wrong.

Simmilarly, if my neighbor looks like she is being raped, there is nothing wrong with me leaping to her defence – providing of course that my intervention is appropriate for the scenario playing out – it might be that she’s merely having rough consensual sex with a new boyfriend.

When it comes to nation states, though, we non-interventionists are opposed to coerced intervention. For example, if you decide that you want to join the Abraham Lincoln brigades fighting int he Spanish civil war, that is one thing. If you want to force me to pay for your bullets whether I want to or not, then you have crossed the line.

If you want to break the Russian arms blockade encircling Chechnya, it’s none of my business. If you want to involve me in a conflict I know nothing about, even make me a target for Russian retaliation, that is another.

The sad fact is that the incentives for people in the government to use the power of the state to satisfy personal desires are quite strong. Inevitably, some politician will involve his government in supporting some group despite the fact that some portion of the populace have no interest in getting involved in the conflict.

Exactly. You have no recourse with either. I’ll take the stateless society and keep the other half of my income. I can use it to buy actual security/policing services.

Same thing happens WITH governments.