No point in getting personal. Stating that government can do good, productive things, while it does unfortunately have to engage in some coercive acts to do so, is no different than saying that an individual can do some very good, productive things, while he might have to unfortunately illegitimately claim lordship over land and decimate it from its natural sate, dislocating any native animal or human populations, shooting trespassers, and potentially spewing out externalities.Libertarian666 wrote:Thank you. You have completely validated my opinion of you.doodle wrote:I don'tPointedstick wrote: We all take it as a given that the government is stupid, immoral, hurts people, etc. We get it. We build it into our mental models of the way the world works.
We're all on this island together. It might get a little bit fuzzy what constitutes illegitimate force, and if we can't avoid it, how we harness force to prevent the worst of it.
That's just his opinion. He's clear and honest about it. Which is more than we can say for most Americans who like to hide their true positions and motivations under ambiguous shrouds like "patriotism," or "equality," or whatever thing they want to use to excuse using force without addressing the subject of force on its own terms.
We've chosen to meet the people who want to discuss force on their turf. Just discussing organized forms of force, and never trying to justify it unless we see it as unavoidably prevalent in the first place.