Government also gave you the opportunity for a free public education. Government made sure first responders were there in case of a fire or other emergency. Government was there to make sure your place of employment did not expose you to unsafe conditions. Government was there to ensure that your food was of edible quality and that your medicine was tested and found safe before consumption. Government was there to make sure your sewage didn’t accumulate on your street and that your water was drinkable. Government, through the judiciary, was there to appeal to if your rights were violated or you were cheated in a transaction. No, it is not a perfect institution, but having government is very much preferable to no government at all.

I wasn’t going to comment here, but since I ran across it elsewhere tonight, I want to mention this Frederick Douglas quote (new to me), which uses much of that same “let them alone” language. Of course, that language does not mean the interdependence of humans is unimportant.
“What shall be done with the four million slaves if they are emancipated?… Our answer is, do nothing with them; mind your business, and let them mind theirs. Your doing with them is their greatest misfortune. They have been undone by your doings, and all they now ask, and really have need of at your hands, is just to let them alone. They suffer by ever interference, and succeed best by being let alone.”

As for that interdepended-ness, check out the Robert Wicks article ‘Anarchy and Chaos in Black Communities’ http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig7/wicks5.html or, while I’m on the topic of black anarchists, the very extensive Wilton D. Alston archive http://www.lewrockwell.com/alston/alston-arch.html

I just became aware of the Nigerian economic professor George Ayittey’s blog http://seunfakze.wordpress.com.....n-ayittey/

At any rate, I (a woman, btw) hope you commenters are open minded enough, charitable enough, to consider that maybe – just maybe – this discussion is much broader, and involves many more thinkers and writers around the globe, than is presented in the SPLC’s blog.

(and yes, i realize that marriage and divorce are products of the state and in anarcho-capitalism therefore there would be no marriage which lends more creedance to my belief that these anarcho-capitalists are mainly men’s rights mysognists but i still think the point holds (in fact that the anarcho-capitalists are men’s rights mysognists makes domestic violence much more likely)

That’s the first real spam I’ve seen on the site. It doesn’t bode well.

On another note, i still have to marvel at the psychology involved in anarcho-capitalism. Here you have people who totally distrust government – yet, they want to have private corporations conduct all of the functions of government. Hence, private security guards, private armies, etc. In fact, they even advocate giving private companies powers that are much more extensive than what governments do today and would rightly be condemned by privacy advocates.

i recently read something by a self proclaimed anarcho-capitalist advocating for private toll roads using microchip technology to track movements of the car and automatically deduct the tolls from a bank account or a credit card account (although as usual the anarcho-capitalist gave no details on how you would be able to have a bank or a credit card when the banker could just flee with all of your money or the consumer would be free to tear the credit card statements up and toss them in the trash and never be forced to pay).

Of course, forcing everyone to put satellite tracking technology on the windshield of their car to track where they drive has some pretty major privacy concerns. No doubt, the anarcho-capitalists would be the first to howl if the government provided such a program – imagine a government supercomputer somewhere with all of your personal travel and financial information on it somewhere. They would actually have a point that that would be an extremely scary development. Some religious types might even claim that that mandatory window chip for driving is way too close to the Mark of the Beast for comfort.

But to the anarcho-capitalist, despite the major privacy concerns such a consideration would entail, it would be perfectly okay to have that – if rather than government satellites, government roads, government microchips, and government computers, the satellites would be owned by a private company – say Halliburton. They would have no problem turning up all sorts of potentially intrusive private information which can be used against them to Halliburton. Of course, to me, giving Halliburton all of my private information is much scarier than the government. See, there are controls like laws, oversite, judicial review, and elections to provide protection against the government from setting up such a system and even then to keep them from misusing it. Halliburton would have no such controls.

And in any case, the reason why the gas tax was chosen over toll roads to fund roads was that it is way more efficient. The gas tax is included in the price of gasoline paid for by the consumer. Its actually a very efficient tax (much cheaper and more practical than toll roads) – its also been way too low for decades according to every mainstream economist which encourages overconsumption and has not been able to keep up with road mainatanance – but anyone who thinks that giving Halliburton the control over roads will make things better is delusional.

That is the real face of anarcho-capitalism. Even the anarcho-capitalist probably realize that advocating taking several economic steps backwards to a barter economy makes them sound stupid – so instead their solution to the obvious lack of money is to go with much more intrusive solutions. i’m sure that somewhere there is an anarcho-capitalist arguing for an actual Mark of the Beast where people must have a microchip inplanted in them to buy or sell anything. Really – what would BungalowBud say about that? i doubt it would be “its okay because its not the government doing it” :)

What the voluntary doctorine ultimately comes down to is essentially the equivilent of homeowners associations. That again makes me suspect that the anarcho-capitalists never ever bought a house. Homeowners associations are voluntary associations where people give up their right to use their property in the name of increased property values. In many people even pay extra for the privilege. Many do maintain some sort of benefit – maybe lawn mowing, a clubhouse, a pool, rent a cops, etc. However, people must give up their rights to receive it – for example, in a homeowners assocation you often must paint your house a certain boring color. That for me is already a dealbreaker because i want to paint my house in watermelon pink with bright green trim. Your lawn must have a certain type of grass (and kept extremely neat). Only approved flowers, bushes, and trees allowed. Noise levels are heavily restricted (much more so than normal) with private security guard patrols to enforce them. Some restrictions that homeowners assocaitions have would be blatantly unconstitutional if done by a government – such as restricting visitors, banning flags, signs (even political signs), lawn decorations, visible holiday decorations such as Christmas lights, sometimes even bumper stickers on cars. In fact, all of the restrictions are designed to assure a certain type of ant-like conformity of the residents.

The fact that such developments which restrict everything and assure ant-like conformity of residents (which i remind you, people have to pay extra for the prvilege of giving up their rights) are popular really should show you the flaw in your thinking. Already people are voluntarily giving up their rights to have higher property values, more prestige, a better school district (almost all of the houses in the best school districts here are subject to those riduculous agreements). Only a fool would assume that even if people enter into voluntary agreements that it would not be more restrictive of rights than is currently the case in the U.S. Especially since the most common instace of voluntary assocaitions (Homeowners Assocations) are in fact much more restrictive than the rules set up by the government. And of course, only a fool would enter into a voluntary agreement when there is no recongized enforcement mechanism.

The fact that you anarcho-capitalists would tolerate extreme restrictions in freedom and extremely intrusive actions as long as they are done by corporations and not governments says all we need to know about you. i hate to break it to you, but even with no government, the rich are not letting you into their clubs. And they are going to be able to afford mercanaries to keep you out.

And while i said that Mr. Peak seems really young, i looked at his website again and he’s almost as old as i am so he should really be old enough to know better. So read young as “immature” and likely “inexperienced in the real world” – if Mr. Peak is still around (and for all other college students/recent college graduates out there), a word of advice – no matter how desperate you get, law school is not the solution :)

Voluntarists are not as you are describing. I haven’t met anyone, Republican, Democrat, or Communist who meets your stereotypical description.

Majority rule doesn’t work for finding facts. Just because all your friends are telling you that you are right, doesn’t make it so.

To entrust your rights to self help, unenforceable “voluntary associations,” “private contractors” (mercanaries), large corporations, and ultra wealthy individuals is stupid and silly. There is no other way to put it.

And rey, thanks for the shark – it better be a small shark breed though, my mantal isn’t that big (and hopefully no anarcho-capitalist tries to steal it) :).

The fact is that your main objection to government seems to be that in a Democratic government you sometimes lose. Rather than acting like an adult about it, you act like a little child who wants to go home and cry to mommy that the mean girl is picking on you. Given that your position is compltely and totally nuts it is easily understandable.why the majority of people reject it.

Ultimately you and the other anarchy-capitalists position is nothing but a temper tantrum. You rant and rave that you live in a totalatarian society and yet you want to adopt principles that would inevitably lead to totalatarianism. Of course, the sum total of your complaint seems to be that you have to pay taxes – what do you think you’d have to pay if you lived without government? You’d have to pay a private company for every service that the government provides – likely a much higher price.

You’d also constantly live in fear because you know that there will always be someone out there with more guns, better guns, a better shot, etc. who could shoot you and take your things without legal consequence. Maybe you’d pick on the weaker some and maybe even get to fulfill your obvious dream by shooting some people.

The fact is that nothing will be leveled – instead billionaires will have their own private army and with no government force to stop them they will send in your private army take your precious bodily fluids oopsie, i mean guns and enslave you.

Your gun does nothing to protect you – those who live by the gun, die by the gun. Many very free societies (often much freer than the United States in many respects) have strict gun control – and more peace and prosperity than the U.S. The U.S. is also a very prosperious country but not always peaceful primarily because insecure morons like you cling to your guns like a security blanket through some childish fantasy that you with your deer rifle could hold off the 101st Airborne Division.

While we are overall a very free country (if you are white) – evidenced by the fact that we tolerate anti-government wackos like you. The fact is that we have an atrociously high murder rate and an atrociously high number of people in prison. Of course, because you are only concerned with rich white people who don’t want to pay taxes (and your entire complaint comes down to “i have to pay taxes and if i just shoot my neighbor because i don’t like the music she listens to, i’ll go to prison” – i’m also guessing that there are quite a few icky perv pedophile types in the anarchocapitalists ranks as well who object to the fact that the government doesn’t let them rape children (which after all, would be perfectly legal in the anarcho-capitalist world – the fact that rape would go completely unpunished in an anarcho-capitalist world is likely why the anarcho-capitalists tend to be male).

Of course, it is extrmely doubtful that you care about the fact that you would give a free reign for rapists and pedophiles because the primary victims of them will be women and you simply do not care about women. After all, they just laughed at you in high school and continue to laugh at you today – because you insecure little boys in man’s bodies are completely icky. Yuck! In fact, it is hard to imagine a more mysognistic position than seeing guns as a solution to the domestic violence problem. At best, the woman will wind up in prison or a mental hospital (you do realize that battered women syndrome qualifies as a mental illness and that rather than getting off a woman who prevails on that argument will be found NGRI and sent to a mental hospital right?) for taking the law into her own hands rather than going through legal channels to escape her batterer – at worst, the woman will wind up dead. Guns are a primary cause of the domestic violence problem and that is amply proven by statistics. Most batterers are in fact armed and use the guns to threaten the victim and often the children so she is placed in fear and cannot escape.

Guns might be useful for hunting, but place them in the hands other than legitimate authority and they are nothing but a tool to create create terror and oppression. Whether that illegitimate authority is a non-democratic government, a criminal, a terrorist, or a little boy in a man’s body who imagines himself a cowboy but is really a want to be vigilante does not matter – in every case, guns are being used for the purpose of oppression. You do not want your gun for protection – you want to use your gun to oppress people. Quite simply, you want to use the gun to get your way. Your gun is not there for protection – there are other much more effective ways to have protection than handguns. Having a dog is much more effective protection for your house than having a gun – and that is well shown by statistics. Buglar alarms are also fairly effective and inexpensive as well. Both dogs and buglar alarms will not accidential shoot your daughter coming home from her date either.

Your side reveals its true motive by not going with open guns (which if purely for defensive purposes is what you want. To quote Dr. Strangelove “what good is a Doomsday device if no one knows you have it?” – its the same with a gun. If you were being purely defensive with your guns, you would walk around carrying your shotgun or wearing a holster just like the real (movie) cowboy that you dream of being. Instead you want to have concealed weapons – your justify that by saying then the criminals will not know who is armed, but the fact is that a concealed weapon only serves as a weapon of offense. There is no legitimate protection purpose to have a concealed weapon – it is not even good defense or personal protection if you are concerned because the gun may not be easily assessible. It is also merely reactive rather than proactive. The fact is the reason why you morons want concealed weapons is precisely because they are offensive weapons. You gun nuts dream of being able to shoot someone. The concealed weapon is there so you can.

And proving what a childish infantile idea you anarcho-capitlists have, when people point out how childish and unrealistic anarcho capitlistm is and how such a system would destroy itself quickly you react with all the charm, wit, and alliance to facts that you’d expect from a preschooler throwing a temper tantrum.

But i guess you guys want to arm teachers so when that preschooler gets out of control in her tantrum, the teacher can just shoot her. And i thought that being paddled was bad :P

Most people grow out of throwing temper tantrums as they grow older and mature – not you anarcho-capitalists. That is perfectly consistent with the fact that your entire governmental system is based on an idea so childish that it is difficult to believe that anyone is actually stupid enough to believe it.

Yes, capitalism and the “free market” can bring great things if the market is balanced through a strong and fair tort law and/or governmental regulation to assure competition and safe products. In fact, i basically agree with Oliver Wendell Holmes, Learned Hand, and Richard Posner that a strong and fair tort law would be preferrable to government regulation since a strong and fair tort law would provide better incentives for companies to adopt new innovations when government regulation does not keep up with technologies. The fact that businesses – including gun manufacturers and dealers but this is especially bad in the pharmaceutical industry – now are successfully lobbying for immunity from tort suits if their products comply with government laws and regulations (which already are largely written by the large corporations themselves) which may well become outdated. However, we do not have a strong and fair tort system and it is probably impossible to obtain since litigation is expensive and deep pockets will always have an advantage. That is why governmental regulation is needed – otherwise, the free market system would destroy itself.

All of that governmental regulation that you hate did not destroy capitalism – it saved capitalism. It was not designed to protect big business – it was designed to set up a contervailing power which can (at least in theory) stand up to big business (see also unions).

You anarcho-capitalists would simply remove the middle man and create government by corporations. In political theory there is a name for a government where corporations and the government are merged into one. Let’s see, what was it?

All together now: Facism.

That is the real face of anarcho-capitalism. And if you think that once Exxon Mobil and Wal-Mart take power directly they will let you keep your guns you are delusional. After all, with a gun you might rob the cashier at your local Wal-Mart and that threatens their profits which according to you anarcho-capitalists is worse than killing someone. Smile when the jack booted government thugs from Wal-Mart take the guns and ammunition (which ironically enough you could have bought there)

Good thing that its likely that every adherent to anarcho-capitalism in the world has posted their screeds here – and of you guys, Mr. Peak was the only guy who showed any intelligence and politeness (of course, as a supporter of ESOPS he was also a bit of an anarcho-socialist and he was young and extremely naive – but he seems to mean well). the rest of you just seem to be looking for an excuse to turn your guns on unarmed people with no legal consequence and to not have to pay taxes. The rest of you anarcho-capitalists have all of the substance and charm of a toddler throwing a temper tantrum.

Erika dear, have you no concept of self-defense? It is so sweet that you live such a sheltered life. Like a child. Even though you hate guns and don’t want to carry, you benefit from those who do – police, soldiers, and armed citizens. Because some of us carry, criminals can not be sure it is safe to make you a victim.

What would your response be to a violent assault on yourself or a loved one? Dying for your belief in “macho insecurity”? Why do you think police and soldiers have guns? More insecurity? Or do wimps with guns become real men when wearing a uniform of the state, the better for you to lick their boots.

Real men and women do solve their disputes without resorting to violence. It is called civil society. Voluntarists such as myself seek to expand civil society. As soon as government becomes involved, civil society ends. Everything the government does is based on the use of force. Criminals and governments resort to fraud and violence. Good guys with guns discourage that.

Do you think there was no violence, no crime, and no murder before guns were invented a few hundred years ago? Have you seen the crime statistics from Japan and Great Britain where guns are illegal? Criminals can still get guns, and when they can’t they use knives, clubs, or brute force. The whole point of a gun is that it is just as effective for a weak person as a strong one, unlike fists.

Erika, have you ever been to a shooting range and met some of the “…scared little boys who dream of living out the worst action movie cliches without thinking of the consequences.”? First, you may find that the shooting sports are fun and challenging, and then you may find that shooting enthusiasts are some of the nicest people you could meet. Prejudice based on stereotypes is ugly regardless of your target, as anyone on the SPLC site should know.

If the AnCaps are so smart and we’re all so stupid, why is it you’re considered the fringe of the fringe, and we’re mainstream?

You can keep beating that dead horse as long as you want. Erika dissected every single one of your arguments. And yet you continue to call her a liar.

Now please tell me which of us is committing the Big Lie?

Erika’s fallacious, naive, and puerile attack is typical of those opposing an armed citizenry. Guns are not a necessary part of violence. They do change the balance of force whether they are actually fired of not.

Because most people are good, and vicious criminals relatively rare, expanding a simple means of self-defense to the general populace places criminals at a disadvantage. An armed populace is also less likely to tolerate totalitarian measures from the political class, leading to a more peaceful and prosperous society.

I must admit, a real-life version of Grand Theft Auto would be quite spectacular: the ability to commit any crime with near impunity is a very interesting concept.

Also, in one of the games there were jet packs. And dammit, it’s the future already; I want my jet pack!!!

The fact is that outside of the few people who still engage in subsidence hunting, the main reason why people have guns is due to insecurity – almost always male insecurity. Basing policy on a macho fantasy of being able to buy toughness is stupid.

The fact is that real men (and women) can solve their disputes without resorting to violence – little boys however turn to guns because that gives them the fantasy of being real men. If they lack other reasons to feel like men, at least they can have their very phallicly shaped subistute hidden away hoping that some punk makes their day and then giving them the excuse to shoot someone. You gun people care nothing about self defense – all you want is the ability to kill someone. Killing someone doesn’t make you big and strong – a weak little child can kill someone if you give them a loaded weapon (and depressingly enough that has happened many times) However, you gun nuts reveal yourself by being all too eager to shoot people as a first and only resort. Your little macho fantasy of wanting to play your school yard cowboy games with real guns and live ammunition shows what you really are – simply scared little boys who dream of living out the worst action movie cliches without thinking of the consequences.

The fact is that there will always be someone out there with a bigger gun. Once you accept that, sweetie, maybe you can leave your personal insecurity out of policymaking and leave the rest of us alone.

In fact, if you are so insecure that you feel the need to have a gun to leave the home, do us all a favor and stay at home. It doesn’t matter how many guns you an-caps have, you are still a bunch of whiny insecure little boys who seem way too eager to have the freedom to be able to shoot anyone you want to.

In fact, the more you anarchist capitalists post the more it is clear that about the only freedom you really care about is your freedom to decide who lives and who dies. Apparently simply voting Republican and killing people by denying poor people health care or eliminating workplace safety laws is not enough for you. You want to take a more active approach in killing the less fortunate.

Maybe if you little boys would stop hiding under your bed and try to find girlfriends you’d realize how stupid your little boy fantasy really is. You an-caps are almost as ridiculous as the men’s rights movement losers – infact, i’m betting that there is quite a lot of overlap – after all, in an an-cap society rape would be legal.

Some freedom there in the anarchy-capitalistic world – the freedom to be raped and killed by some little boy who is looking to turn the entire world into a real life version of Grand Theft Auto.

Ancaps simply believe they should be able to do as they see fit so long as they harm none. For this, you label them violent extremists who need to be stopped.

Anyone who believes in non aggression, is necessarily an anarcho capitalist, because once initiatory violence is eliminated from the list of options, the only things left are reason, free trade, and voluntary interaction.

I don’t expect hard core, state dependent slaves like yourselves to change your minds because of a comment on your hateful post, but I do hope some of your readers will notice that we’ve advocated nothing but peaceful and voluntary interactions, while you advocate nothing but government force.

You are the hate group, SPLC. Not the ancaps.