Article: Europe's pain is coming America's way

[MachineGhost]

You still haven't convinced me that ANY government whatsoever is legitimate given the reasoning that our current government is not legitimate because coercion is involved.  If a democracy isn't legitimate, how the hell is a bunch of rich white men coming together deciding what the gov't should do, and that only rich white men get to vote??  

I don't think you're getting at what the difference is between legitimate and illegitimate when it comes to association.  Since I can't quickly give you the entire history of Anglo-Saxon, Judeo-Christian and Aristotlian thought, the Rational Enlightenment, the circumstances leading up to the Magna Carta, Declaration of Independence, etc., the simplified version is essentially that the Rule of Law relies on Sanctity of Contract.  I claim that from a moral perspective, that so-called social contracts forming illusionary "governments" (as per Animal Farm, some animals are more equal than others) are illegitimate in-so-far as they do not follow such common law principles that the rest of civilization functions on.  Why does this matter?  Because disrespect for the Rule of Law and Sanctity of Contract will eventually breed contempt, corruption, cryonism and injustice on the part of those ignoring it.  Like breeds like.  Today, that fault likes majorly with the ruling class, most especially black-robed judges, as such are in the hallowed position of being gatekeepers for the Rule of Law.  It should obvious that common law principles are long dead in favor of statutory (manmade) law, which means essentially: we can do anything we want as long as we get away with it.

I think it really comes down to the fact that you're not really anti-gov't, but, like most people, you don't like somethings that the government does, and your yusing inconsistent logic to assert illegitimacy.  A government that issues deeds to land that are backed by the threat of force is not small, and no more legitimate than a democracy that deeds land and has a few social safety nets... in fact I'd argue, the way the FF's set it up, it was less legitimate.  They had great ideas, but it was through a filter that was flawed given the times.  I actually give quite a bit of credit to the otherwise-unlikable Andrew Jackson for democratizing a decidedly Elitist elction system.

Actually, I'm anti-illegitimate government, but pro-legitimate authority.  We cannot have a corrupt moral foundation for a society, or it is doomed to failure.  History teaches us this over and over endlessly.  More of the same old status quo B.S. is not going to change the predictable outcome.

MG

[MachineGhost]

In a non-government setting, what happens to the "wealth gap"?  Would this not lead to revolutions and a more intense version of Occupy Wall Street?  Would we now have a plutocracy (or do we already have that?)?

I have a hard time seeing how a society can function without a leadership group, and in a leaderless society I have to think that eventually a leadership group would form, which would then lead to a sort of government.  For the majority of people I think they need/want to be told what to do, think, and believe -- although I wish this wasn't the case. 

Honestly, I'm pretty content with the system we have, it's not perfect, but I'd rather have the devil I know than don't know.

You've touched on the issue with all intellectual philosophies or rational methods of organizing a just society.  The dumbfucks with the below average IQ wll always resort to violence, not reason, because they have none and were not trained to think that way.  They will always hit below the proverbial belt.  Once they group together, you've got to deal with them and that provides an opening for the praetorian class to wedge its way in-between both groups.  I believe that in practical terms, anarchy will never be possible society-wide (due to all those dumbfucks in society) until technology reduces the profit/returns to wielding violence, most especially centralized.  That implies a heck of lot better individual defense systems than at present.  Ironically, the ruling class' greatest fear is an uprising of those dumbfucks.  It's not just nationless terrorists or other nation-states.

There's nothing stopping an anarchistic enclave from forming on an island but given the costs to do so, there's really not much in terms of reward to be had right now.  I can see better prospects for colonization of other planets.

MG

[moda0306]

MG,

Perhaps I have a bit more reading to do, and I certainly view some forms of government as "more legitimate" than others, but there is still a coercive aspect to governments that simply guarantee contracts & private property.

How are taxes collected?  Do individual contract-holders go to government to "seal" their contracts for a given price?  Then, and only then, might the gov't be legitimate by your rules because people that don't wish to have gov't enforce their contracts don't have to have ANYTHING to do with gov't, including taxes (based on anything but contract enforcement freely paid by those who enter it), regulation, war/draft, etc. Some people are ok engaging in contracts that they feel will self-enforce... why should they have to deal with gov't, or pay for it?  The coercion bell would ding if that were the case.

Also, I would include that deeding of land, which I believe is part of common law, is a very coercive-in-nature type of act, because now you don't simply have two parties approaching government to help recognize a contract, you have gov't dictating the ownership of previously unowned property.  This is activist gov't activity.  This is hardly passive and contractual in nature.  This allows certain parties to trade the products of the land they "own" for somebody else's labor.  I believe, when properly/fairly managed, having a system of deeding land is incredibly important to a functioning economy, but it's nothing more than mass coercion on an organized, "fair-enough" scale.  A legitimate gov't, using the coercion rule, doesn't have the authority to dictate the "ownership" of land, IMO.  It's a form of theft to assign ownership to something that was once everybody's/nobody's.

So what we're left with in most libertarian utopias is a system of gov't that is devoid of coercion, with the exception of the type that has had a historical tendency to significantly benefit the wealthy class.  That, or we go all the way to the true "non-coercive" gov't that simply acts as a free-to-engage arbitrator of contracts, at which point we have to completely reimagine what society would look like, as the lack of ownership of land makes it inherantly difficult for free people to use the land to its full productive potential.  I tend to think the "common law" is extremely flawed to that extent.... and what's this "rest of civilization" that functions on common law... if the US government is illegitimate, point me to one that IS legitimate.  In fact, has there ever been such a gov't?  Seems to me that the coercion on display in centuries past, when landonwers voted for wars that drafted non-voters to fight & defend the "private property" of landowners was a pretty sick, twisted form of legitimate gov't.

[moda0306]

MG,

You say "dumbfucks" like libertarians are intellectually superior than anyone who would ever think of bloody coercion as being even remotely acceptable.  Most libertarians I know have a decent philosophy and some good moral underpinnings, but are by no means intellectually superior than some of my friends who think that democratic government has some legitimacy to it.  Libertarians often misunderstand our monetary system, and many times are simply "convenient libertarians," because their dad made a lot of money and they believe they're entitled to all of it and have earned everything that's come their way.

This isn't a remark on anyone on this forum, but there are definitely people out there that call themselves libertarians that I could describe as "dumbfucks."  They want the gov't just as much as anyone else, but they simply want it to do their bidding, not provide social safety nets, but instead guarantee not only contracts, but enforce the ownership of something that isn't theirs.

[MediumTex]

I think that one point that doesn't get a lot of play when talking about libertarian ideas, anarchy, etc. is that most people don't necessarily mind the idea of government, so long as it is government that they have consented to live under.

To me, the problem with many governments is not so much their coercive power, their attempted monopoly on the use of force, or their confiscation of private property, but rather the fact that they don't derive "their just powers from the consent of the governed", as one writer once put it.

To use MachineGhost's vernacular, if you put two "dumbfucks" on a ballot in an election and tell me that I must choose between them and whether I do or not the election constitutes "the consent of the governed", I would say try again.  There were elections in the U.S.S.R. and in Nazi Germany.  Elections don't really have that much to do with the legitimacy of a government, IMHO.

I think that when it comes to these matters, there are two kinds of people in the world: The first group consists of people who see that the state represents a boot that will eventually step on the face of the individual, and this troubles them.  The second group consists of people who see the same boot that the first group sees, but fantasize that one day they will be wearing it, and this idea excites them.  Even if the second group never gets to wear the boot, they are content with the idea that as long as the boot is stepping on faces other than their own and they perceive that they are receiving more from the boot-wearer than is being taken from them, they will still be content with the arrangement.

I would say that one of the most powerful checks on the "boot-stepping-on-face" process is creating a system in which the boot wearer must obtain the consent of anyone who might get their face stepped on.  Since so few people desire this sort of treatment, the ability of such governments to drift into despotism is limited.  I think that it was this basic idea that Thomas Paine was touching on from many differeny angles in his writings that gave ideological shape to the American Revolution.

To me, one of the most elegant demonstrations of an ideal form of democracy is capitalism, where we are each more or less free every day to vote with our dollars for who the economic winners and losers will be.  It would be nice if there was some means of creating a political structure based upon this sort of concept (and I don't mean bribery).

[MediumTex]

Even though I just used it in my prior post, I suggest that we retire the use of the word "dumbfuck" for a while.

I don't think it's moving the discussion forward.

[moda0306]

MT,

At first in your post I thought what you were almost getting at was that "coercion isn't so bad as long as it's done with the collective consent of a relatively democratic body."  Since I can't think of too many other ways of imagining "consent of the governed" than some sort of representative republic/democracy.

Then you seemed to also be saying that this would only work as long as we're not being given two "dummy" predetermined candidates and are choosing between them.

But how does the boot wearer get the consent of those he might step on, in a more specific sense?  Isn't that going back to democracy, or is it more specific?  Does the person who's paying in FICA have a say in Social Security while the retiree does not (I don't think this is what you're saying, but just trying to visualize it?).

Simply put, besides a general representative republic like we have now, mixed between federal, state and local power, with a relatively (relative to other countries) healthy respect for private property, what more "consent" are you asking for?

[MachineGhost]

Perhaps I have a bit more reading to do, and I certainly view some forms of government as "more legitimate" than others, but there is still a coercive aspect to governments that simply guarantee contracts & private property.

I think the gist of what you're asking is how would a non-coercive society's legitimate Rules of Law be ultimately enforced?  That's a very high level of thinking.  While some thinkers believe that competing legal systems and private security forces would eventually go to war with each other over the differences in contracts and its enforcement (like Somali for a non-intellectual example), there are methods to set up such a system to have disputes resolved in a non-violent manner.  But I think realistically (due to all the dumbfucks in society), there has to be an ultimate arbitrator of enforcement that is respected by all of society's participants, not too dissimilar to the judges of our Supreme Court (but without all the coercion, graft and corruption, of course).  Respect implies legitimacy which implies voluntary consent.  Coercion is legitimate if it is not initiated.  If someone didn't like the ultimate decision of the eventual arbitrators, they won't have any choice to accept it or to wage war against all of society and that's a costly proposition of a flea against an elephant.  (But if it did, then that society would have long been perverted to justify collectivizing enough members for a civil war).

Natural rights, where we each own our own property, which includes our mind, body and the fruits of our labor, isn't dependent on any "government" for its existence.  This include land which becomes your property by staking a claim on it.  I think you're confusing defense of property rights with the appropriation of that role by "government".  Same with taxes (the non-coercive alternative is "liturgy" which was succesfully used to raise money for public works in Greece).  Are you aware the origin of "government" is actually those marauding bands of robbers during the Dark Ages?  They decided they were tired of being nomads rampaging, raping and murdering the countryside and decided to set up shop in the villages and start demanding "taxes" from the inhabitants...  or else!  So even that far back, you won't find any legitimacy in "government".  A rotten morality can disguise and surround itself with whatever idolatry it chooses, but it won't change its fundamental nature.

Really, its all about the use of intelligence, reason and the proper incentives and disincentive from neuroeconomics to organize a better society, not a free for all in a vacuum of power.  When I say anarcho-capitalism is "better", I really mean that voluntary association ("free markets", win-win exchange transactions for both parties) combined with non-coercive institutional incentives and disincentives enforced by technology is superior in terms of morality and utilitarianism than an illegitimate system based on brute force coercion and fear.  Society will still be like today, just much more advanced, more just, more free, without all the parasitical ruling elite pests and unelected bureaucrats doing useless make-work-to-justify-their-job jobs of ultimately making criminals out of everyone to imprison or collect tribute from.

MG

[moda0306]

Can't say I disagree with too much of the consistency of your philosiphy with the following exception:

"This include land which becomes your property by staking a claim on it."

I agree with the fruits of your labor & creativity being naturally yours, but I don't think people can naturally "stake a claim on land" beyond a certain, minimal degree.  I would deem it perfectly "natural" for someone to erect a modest structure on land with the expectation that it's a sovereign extension of his own body.  This doesn't seem like too much of a stretch, if a bit difficult to enforce by law that's not being coercive... but even a "dummy" can see that staking a claim on land, especially if you believe it to be enforced by government, is inherantly illegitimate.  You can't simply state something is yours, and have it be so.  What if others occupy the land?  Simply because they don't have a deed that says it's there's, you can take legitimate claim?  If the deed is what makes the claim legitimate, seems to me government has already fired up the coercive figurative engine.

This seems like pretty rotten morality to me... based a lot more on greedy coercion than sovereign legitimacy.

[MediumTex]

MT,

At first in your post I thought what you were almost getting at was that "coercion isn't so bad as long as it's done with the collective consent of a relatively democratic body."  Since I can't think of too many other ways of imagining "consent of the governed" than some sort of representative republic/democracy.

Then you seemed to also be saying that this would only work as long as we're not being given two "dummy" predetermined candidates and are choosing between them.

But how does the boot wearer get the consent of those he might step on, in a more specific sense?  Isn't that going back to democracy, or is it more specific?  Does the person who's paying in FICA have a say in Social Security while the retiree does not (I don't think this is what you're saying, but just trying to visualize it?).

Simply put, besides a general representative republic like we have now, mixed between federal, state and local power, with a relatively (relative to other countries) healthy respect for private property, what more "consent" are you asking for?

I would say that, in general, "consent" occurs when you volunarily make yourself subject to a set of rules.

For example, when I go to Chuck E. Cheese with my kids I consent to participate in their monetary system where I purchase their tokens, play their games and redeem my tickets for various prizes.  I understand the terms and conditions of the arrangement and by entering into a transaction I effectively consent to the terms.

When dealing with the government, however, there is rarely any consent, in part because the government has a monopoly when it comes to many products and services, and thus it is impossible to avoid the use of many products and services provided by the government. 

Without competition, it is very hard to have meaningful consent.  I think that the original intent of the Constitution was for the individual states to serve as a kind of free market for political ideas and structures, and people could simply choose to live in the state that most matched up with the kind of political system they would be willing to consent to living under.  With the incredible expansion of the scope and power of the federal government, which started in about 1860, this political "marketplace" has basically gotten a boot to the face from the federal government. 

It is ironic that Abraham Lincoln was the first to wear this boot during the period I mention above, considering that Lincoln was probably just an earnest and sincere guy from the country who was very personable and kind, but found himself in way over his head and went along with a program under which the federal government performed a sweeping power grab under the guise of good intentions (these things always occur under the guise of good intentions).  The southern states' central argument that if they had the power to join the Union, they surely had the power to leave the Union seems to get very little serious attention any more, even though it represents a very coherent response to the attack from the federal government on states' rights that has since turned into what is very much an attack from the federal government on individual rights. 

I would qualify all of the above with the comment that I always assume the federal government really thinks that it is helping individual citizens through its various actions, and some of the time maybe it it being helpful, but the point I am making is more about individual sovereignty, and whether it actually means anything to say that we as individuals are "endowed" with certain "unalienable rights" if those rights are ultimately taken away by the government on an essentially arbitrary basis.

[moda0306]

What did Lincoln's "power grab" consist of?  I'm not really schooled in this era?

Regarding the expansion of federal power, given the nature of interstate commerce today vs in 1850, I tend to think that federal regulations would naturally be a lot more expansive, even if the interpretation of that clause was still similar to back then.

I also wonder about what the "general welfare" clause truly meant, because that seems to be the general moral basis for some of our national safety net programs.

I agree that the Southern states had the natural right to secede, and tend to think the Civil War as just a horrible, unnecessary bloodbath... but I also tend to think that the slaves had a natural right to rise up and kill their owners... though 40 acres and a mule would have done nicely.

[MachineGhost]

I agree with the fruits of your labor & creativity being naturally yours, but I don't think people can naturally "stake a claim on land" beyond a certain, minimal degree.  I would deem it perfectly "natural" for someone to erect a modest structure on land with the expectation that it's a sovereign extension of his own body.  This doesn't seem like too much of a stretch, if a bit difficult to enforce by law that's not being coercive... but even a "dummy" can see that staking a claim on land, especially if you believe it to be enforced by government, is inherantly illegitimate.  You can't simply state something is yours, and have it be so.  What if others occupy the

How is it illegitimate if no other human being is harmed or coerced?  If you start going down that road, you start opening up yourself to rational socialism for protect the environment, to protect the hapless spotted owl, the innocent microbes, or Manifest Destiny by annihilating the Native Americans, etc..  Anything would be justified because there would be no innate checks and balances.  Even animals have an innante sense of private property as well as spontaneous co-operation.  None of it requires thugs thinking they are more equal than others, i.e. "government".

There's a branch of anarchism that believes property and the state are forever intertwined and that private property cannot exist without the state (this is what they view "Capitalism" as, as opposed to a free market).  Well, from a utilitarian perspective, the world simply doesn't work without private property.  It is the foundation for sanctity of contract and rule of law.  So if you believe that laying a non-coercive claim to physical objects its immoral, well...  you'er gonna be one of those uncivilized savages in Brave New World, becuase you wouldn't be able to compete with modern society anymore than the peaceful anarchy of the Australian Aborigines did to the Colonization.

land?  Simply because they don't have a deed that says it's there's, you can take legitimate claim?  If the deed is what makes the claim legitimate, seems to me government has already fired up the coercive figurative engine.

You can't stake a legitimate claim if its coercive, i.e. others are on the land, etc.  The deed isn't necessary to stake a claim, thats just the system that came about to deal with disputes and territory peacfully.  Unfortunately, the "government" appropriated that function also.

This seems like pretty rotten morality to me... based a lot more on greedy coercion than sovereign legitimacy.

No kidding, but that's exactly the system we have today and why I argue for a better approach.

MG

[MediumTex]

What did Lincoln's "power grab" consist of?  I'm not really schooled in this era?

Putting down the legitimate exercise of state sovereignty through violence and the suspension of constitutional rights.

Regarding the expansion of federal power, given the nature of interstate commerce today vs in 1850, I tend to think that federal regulations would naturally be a lot more expansive, even if the interpretation of that clause was still similar to back then.

No doubt, but the regulation of interstate commerce could be nothing more than standardizing the enforcement mechanism for contractual terms.  It doesn't have to be what it is today.

I also wonder about what the "general welfare" clause truly meant, because that seems to be the general moral basis for some of our national safety net programs.

I have always read the "general welfare" clause to mean that the general welfare will be promoted by keeping the size of the government small and thus its drain on society minimal.  Remember, when these documents were written one's own government had proven to be a far greater threat to the general welfare than any private party or foreign government.  Keeping this entity under control was clearly the primary goal.

I agree that the Southern states had the natural right to secede, and tend to think the Civil War as just a horrible, unnecessary bloodbath... but I also tend to think that the slaves had a natural right to rise up and kill their owners... though 40 acres and a mule would have done nicely.

The slavery issue could have been handled with a lot less killing.  If people had simply accepted that slaves were human beings, the rest of the argument for abolishing slavery should have fallen into place with little effort.  It's easy to say that today, but remember that back then women occupied a place in society that was often only a little higher than that of slaves.  Note, however, that women have almost completely come into their own in our society and no second civil war was necessary (though a few bras may have been burned).

[moda0306]

MG,

First off, I'm not talking about government owning or regulating land, but simply admitting it doesn't have the authority to issue deeds to it, so in no way am I talking about regulating how we treat owls or anything like that... so on to the next point...

Ok, maybe "staking a cliam" on land isn't coercion any more than me shooting at oak trees is coercion... but "staking a claim" is a bit vague in the absence of government until you start to get into the details.  Someone could occupy a plot of land, and start farming it... nothing coercive about that, really.  What if it was a bigger chunk of land, though... what if he "staked a claim" on the entire coast of San Diego?  Still not really coercive, until you get into what happens later.  What if somebody "staked a claim" on a long stretch of beach in Hawaii, and someone else happened upon that beach and built a shack to live in.  No real coercion.. until the "landowner" attempts to force the guy off of "his" land.  This could involve shooting at him, or burning his shack down.  I consider this coercion.  So, yes, staking a claim, for all intents and purposes, is coercion, because it implies a certain right that one can defend by force.

What limits are "natural" to what one can stake a claim of?  Everything you can see?  Everything you can build a fence around?  Everything you can till or build a permanent structure on?  Seems entirely contrived to me.

While it seems natural to interact with the land, the idea that you can coerce somebody else to stay off of it seems entirely unnatural to me.  Especially when we start asking government to help enforce that right for us.  What if multiple people over multiple periods of time stake a claim?  Who has natural rights to that land?

Once again, where are these civilizations that use a system you agree with?  It seems to me most, if not all governments of today and years past are illegitimate.

[moda0306]

MT,

So you're talking about the war itself and not anything that led up to the war?

I thought there was a lot stirring the pot before the war that lead to secession.  However, whoever it was that I half-remember listening to was asserting that they didn't think the secessions would have happened if not for the debate over slavery coming to such a head.

[moda0306]

MG,

If we're going to talk about "utility" and "competing in a Brave New World" you probably should take a step back, because now you're arguing for things the same way people that argue for government do... because there's utility that can be gained by "coercing" a group to do certain things, while gov't performs certain functions.  A stateless society would never be able to form a large, interconnected metropolitan area... how productive could it truly be?  How competitive could it truly be?

Please describe to me how the process of "staking a claim" on land works that doesn't involve coercion of others that might view the land as for their own use.  Seems to me like well-disguised enslavement and coercion if you ask me... maybe I need to read "Staking a Claim on Land For Dummies" and figure out how this land-grab thing works.

[MediumTex]

MT,

So you're talking about the war itself and not anything that led up to the war?

I thought there was a lot stirring the pot before the war that lead to secession.  However, whoever it was that I half-remember listening to was asserting that they didn't think the secessions would have happened if not for the debate over slavery coming to such a head.

I think that slavery was just one of many issues that led southern states to make the decision to secede.

Lincoln's complete misunderstanding of what was happening, including the Union's ability to respond effectively in 1861, almost certainly made the Civil War much longer and bloodier than would have otherwise been the case. 

It probably would have been smarter for Lincoln to impose an economic embargo on the South while mobilizing the North's weapons manufacturing capability, and then making quick work of the South in 1862 or 1863 with a stronger Union army and an economically depleted Confederacy.

But remember, Lincoln was a country lawyer whose primary skills were telling funny stories and managing a small law practice.  The way he has been memorialized in statues and monuments would probably make him laugh if he saw them.  It's sort of suprising that he is celebrated at all, since the mere occurrence of a civil war is usually suggestive of very poor political leadership.

[MachineGhost]

What limits are "natural" to what one can stake a claim of?  Everything you can see?  Everything you can build a fence around?  Everything you can till or build a permanent structure on?  Seems entirely contrived to me.

While it seems natural to interact with the land, the idea that you can coerce somebody else to stay off of it seems entirely unnatural to me.  Especially when we start asking government to help enforce that right for us.  What if multiple people over multiple periods of time stake a claim?  Who has natural rights to that land?

Once again, where are these civilizations that use a system you agree with?  It seems to me most, if not all governments of today and years past are illegitimate.

I admit I'm not up to speed on the "land use planning" aspects of a voluntary society, but I'm quite certain it's been addressed by others, otherwise the philosophy wouldn't have evolved so far.  Real property, and the rules thereof, are very much a foundation for any civilized society to exist.

The use of coercion per se doesn't make "government" illegitimate.  It's certainly a legitimate function when it comes to defense as all individuals have that natural right, just as animals do.  But if  "government" first creates itself through the use of coercion, then its certainly morally illegitimate for all the many reasons I've outlined before...  akin to a challenger alpha make gorilla attacking a harem and succeeding in killing the existing alpha male.  The female gorillas may consider that to be the "natural order of things" and consent to accepting their fate and not forment rebellion, but such a violent act would certainly be illegitimate by any standard in the world of human reason, logic and rationality.  Our natural rights don't include formenting violence against others or without recrimination; yet that is precisely what "government" wields as proof of its "legitimate authority" which is nothing more than a self-delusionary tautology.  Many, if not all, "powers" that "government" appropriate for itself (illegitimately) are illogical and explicitly designed to confuse its subjects into cognitive dissonance.  I believe Machiavellia first recognized this tactic.

Once again, where are these civilizations that use a system you agree with?  It seems to me most, if not all governments of today and years past are illegitimate.

None in the current modern world.  I view this due to the costs and returns of using centralized violence as very high [USA/Russia/China] along with a population that simply doesn't have a high level of thinking skills [Somali].  I'd say individual empowerment was favored in terms of the printing press up until the Industral Revolution.  In a way, we are currently living in the pre-Guttenburg, Catholic Empire era analog and the Internet and technology is once again shifting the power back to the individual.

MG

[MachineGhost]

If we're going to talk about "utility" and "competing in a Brave New World" you probably should take a step back, because now you're arguing for things the same way people that argue for government do... because there's utility that can be gained by "coercing" a group to do certain things, while gov't performs certain functions.  A stateless society would never be able to form a large, interconnected metropolitan area... how productive could it truly be?  How competitive could it truly be?

Please describe to me how the process of "staking a claim" on land works that doesn't involve coercion of others that might view the land as for their own use.  Seems to me like well-disguised enslavement and coercion if you ask me... maybe I need to read "Staking a Claim on Land For Dummies" and figure out how this land-grab thing works.

Utilitaranism would still have to be utilized in a legitimate way to maintain any moral legitimacy, i.e. non-coercively.  Needless to say, that restriction doesn't currently apply with all the world's many illegitimate governments -- which is exactly the danger thereof.  I think you're going to have to hit up the literature to have your questions fully answered.

Here's something interesting after a cursory search:

The growth of government during this century has attracted the attention of many scholars interested  in explaining that growth and in proposing ways to limit  it. As  a result  of this attention, the public choice literature has experienced  an upsurge  in the  interest  in anarchy and its implications for social organization.  The  work  of  Rawls  and  Nozick,  two  volumes  edited  by Gordon  Tullock,  Explorations  in  the  Theory of  Anarchy,  and  a  book  by David  Friedman,  The Machinery of  Freedom, provide examples. The goals of  the  literature  have  varied  from providing  a conceptual  framework  for comparing Leviathan and its opposite extreme to presenting  a formula for the operation of society in a state of anarchy. But nearly all of this work has one common aspect; it explores the "theory of anarchy." The purpose of this paper is to take us from the theoretical world of anarchy to a case study of its application. To accomplish  our task  we  will  first discuss what is meant by "anarcho-capitalism"  and  present  several hypotheses  relating to the nature of social organization in this world. These hypotheses will then be tested in the context of the American West during its earliest settlement. We propose to  examine  property  rights  formulation  and  protection  under  voluntary organizations such as private protection  agencies, vigilantes,  wagon trains, and  early  mining  camps.  Although  the  early  West  was  not  completely anarchistic, we  believe  that  government as a legitimate agency of coercion was absent for a long enough period  to provide insights into the operation and viability  of property rights in the absence of a formal state. The nature of contracts for the provision of "public goods" and the evolution of western "laws"  for the period  from 1830 to  1900 will provide the data for this case study. The West during this time often is perceived as a place of great chaos, with little respect for property or life. Our research indicates that this was not the case;  property  rights  were  protected  and  civil  order  prevailed.  Private agencies provided the necessary basis for an orderly society in which property was protected and conflicts were resolved. These agencies often did not qualify  as  governments  because  they  did  not  have  a  legal  monopoly  on "keeping  order."  They soon discovered  that "warfare"  was a costly way of resolving disputes and lower cost methods of settlement (arbitration, courts, etc.) resulted.  In  summary, this paper argues that a characterization  of  the American  West  as chaotic would  appear to be  incorrect.

Source: http://mises.org/journals/jls/3_1/3_1_2.pdf

MG

[MachineGhost]

But remember, Lincoln was a country lawyer whose primary skills were telling funny stories and managing a small law practice.  The way he has been memorialized in statues and monuments would probably make him laugh if he saw them.  It's sort of suprising that he is celebrated at all, since the mere occurrence of a civil war is usually suggestive of very poor political leadership.

What's not well known today is that the states only agreed to the Constitution with the implicit right to disband from the contract as they see fit, like if the Feds went off the reservation, just as they had under the Articles of Confederation.  That was part and parcel of acceptance.  

So the American Empirists (pre-larval form of today's NeoCons), of which Lincoln was a full-fledged participating member, had to whitewash the entire Civil War and one way to do that effectively would be to conflate the real issue with slavery.  After all, Lincoln only freed the slaves as a very last and very desparate, reluctant act to end the Civil War.  So it was never about slavery, but the rights of the states (the people) to determine their own sovereignty.  So as per er Gobbels' "the bigger the lie the more people will believe it", Lincoln is perpetually exalted, idolized and glorified to continue the whitewash.

If the Constitution could be originally declared legitimate due to voluntary consent of the governed, the Civil War turned the Constitution into an illegitimate contract and illegitimate contracts are null and void.  The way the Feds have been acting since that time, it might as well be de jure.

MG

[moda0306]

I definitely agree that the states had a natural right to secede, given the "contract" of the constitution... at leas that's how I tend to see it.

However, I hardly deem the southern states as legitimate to the degree even remotely acceptable or worth fantisizing about in terms of "what could have been."  In fact I think the ultimate justice is if the blacks had risen up, not the Union army marching down.  Non-landowners had only just obtained the right to vote a few decades earlier, Indians were treated like trash, blacks were property, women were not far behind.  After the Civil war the Southern states basically reengaged defacto slavery that continued through the mid-20'th century.  The south ended up, not 50 years after the war, voting for Woodrow Wilson in droves (not to mention, FDR another 20 years later).  The federal gov't may not have had the right to invade the South, but somehow I doubt that the South was the bastien of liberal economic thought that certain people try to claim when saying the war wasn't about slavery.  It was probably a combination of Plutocratic agricultural & other economic interests combined with the convenience of having an "exit clause" from the US that would promote those interests.

I've also heard something, the source I can't remember, that reasonably and persuasively asserted that while there were other big issues circling the drain during the Civil War, slavery was at the core of many of them, and that if slavery had not been an issue, the other issues would likely not been brought to enough of a head to lead to secession.  The economic loss of secession would have simply not been worth it.  The South was a Plutocracy, not some collection of philosophical Jeffersonian idealists... they had economics to worry about.  There was a huge amount of economic gain to lose if the new states of the West were to be held to the Abolitionists ideal, and a lot of the comprimises they were being forced to reach on slavery were tying their hands. This is me regurgitating info a bit, so pardon any mischaracterizations.

I really see nothing about the states of the confederacy as being very endearing vs the federalists in general (not jut Lincoln).... Two different strategies to an organized society... neither of which much more coercive than the other, IMO, both in their own ways.

[Xan]

It's all too tempting to cast our modern sensibilities on the North.  Everybody thought blacks, Indians, non-landowners, women, etc, were second-class citizens.  In fact, in some states in the North, it was simply illegal to be black.

You've bought what the revisionists are selling as far as the Yankee vision for the new Western states.  The fact is that they wanted those states to be whites-only, and coincidentally Yankeees-only as well.  They could get all that by casting it in terms of opposition to slavery.  (Surely there were some abolitionists who were pure of motive, but that's not what motivated the war.)

[MediumTex]

I definitely agree that the states had a natural right to secede, given the "contract" of the constitution... at leas that's how I tend to see it.

However, I hardly deem the southern states as legitimate to the degree even remotely acceptable or worth fantisizing about in terms of "what could have been."  In fact I think the ultimate justice is if the blacks had risen up, not the Union army marching down.  Non-landowners had only just obtained the right to vote a few decades earlier, Indians were treated like trash, blacks were property, women were not far behind.  After the Civil war the Southern states basically reengaged defacto slavery that continued through the mid-20'th century.  The south ended up, not 50 years after the war, voting for Woodrow Wilson in droves (not to mention, FDR another 20 years later).  The federal gov't may not have had the right to invade the South, but somehow I doubt that the South was the bastien of liberal economic thought that certain people try to claim when saying the war wasn't about slavery.  It was probably a combination of Plutocratic agricultural & other economic interests combined with the convenience of having an "exit clause" from the US that would promote those interests.

I've also heard something, the source I can't remember, that reasonably and persuasively asserted that while there were other big issues circling the drain during the Civil War, slavery was at the core of many of them, and that if slavery had not been an issue, the other issues would likely not been brought to enough of a head to lead to secession.  The economic loss of secession would have simply not been worth it.  The South was a Plutocracy, not some collection of philosophical Jeffersonian idealists... they had economics to worry about.  There was a huge amount of economic gain to lose if the new states of the West were to be held to the Abolitionists ideal, and a lot of the comprimises they were being forced to reach on slavery were tying their hands. This is me regurgitating info a bit, so pardon any mischaracterizations.

I really see nothing about the states of the confederacy as being very endearing vs the federalists in general (not jut Lincoln).... Two different strategies to an organized society... neither of which much more coercive than the other, IMO, both in their own ways.

I don't think the issue is about any more than the sovereignty of a political unit and the legitimacy of a foreign power applying military force to change the policies of a sovereign political unit.

I would have probably thought about as much about the Confederacy's policies toward slavery as I would have about Saddam Hussein's policies toward people in general in Iraq.  The world will always have thugs, thieves and slave drivers.  There mere existence of bad people or bad policies anywhere in the world is not, by itself, a rationale for attacking them militarily.  If this were the case we would be in a permanent state of war.

If we are talking about what a sovereign state is doing, I don't think we should be saying that our authority for a military attack is contingent upon who has the moral high ground.  Things get screwed up way too often when that line or reasoning is accepted.  See the second war in Iraq for a fine example of the problems with this approach.

[pershing83]

Let's not forget the "civilized tribes" (ie Cherokees etc) were black slave owners and had to be paid off before they were moved to Okla.

As for the constant talk of lobbyist and the IRS rules, which always has a negative connotation, often it is the federal gov't "lobbying" for what they perceive as a good thing: home mortgage interest deductions, the perfect eample. Not to say the real estate  folks don't want it, too.

[moda0306]

Xan,

If I wasn't clear, I look at the Civil War as an absolute disgusting affair.  I am giving no credit to those in the North, nor Indians, or any other group that you may assume I was trying to give praise to.

There were no Northern sensibilities I was giving credit to... just pointing out that there probably weren't many Southern sensibilities worth giving much credit to either.

MT,

I was almost about to use the Iraq war as an example.  I agree that the wrongs of the South should not have weighed in on our assault on them.  I think we're in pretty tight agreement... I really just wanted to calm what I felt was maybe a little bit of an attitude that the South was a bunch of Jeffersonian philosophers opposed to tyrranny.  I am actually quite amazed when I hear that so many historians, when polled, put Licnoln at or near the best president ever.  I'm sure he had about the most stressful and difficult job in the world, but plenty of things are difficult.  It's when people combine difficulty with justice and wisdom that I really start to respect them.