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"they simply don't believe in a monopoly of laws and law enforcers" Ahahahahaah! That's the same as not having laws! And even then, what you're saying is they

• JohnBooty 13y ago
  "Ahahahahaah! That's the same as not having laws!" I'm nearly as far away from libertarian as one can be, but no - it's not the same as not having laws. Example: Old (American) West-style "frontier justice" where a bunch of townspeople form a posse or a lynch mob or whatever to right some (real or perceived) wrong. (edit: I do understand that this is only one possible scenario, and not what all or even many libertarians want)
  • brnstz 13y ago
    Mob justice is not law. For an illustration of this, check out the very first scene of the TV series Deadwood. There's a lynch mob outside the sheriff's office, and they want to kill the person in the jail. The sheriff fends them off so he can legally hang him instead. The creator originally wanted to do a series on ancient Rome, about the birthplace of civilization. The studio wanted a Western. He said, oh, perfect, that works, too.
    • MrZongle2 13y ago
      Perhaps citing a television show is not the most credible evidence one can bring to a discussion? Edit (since I cannot reply directly, apparently): why is it not credible? Can I start citing the X-Files or Star Trek? How about a broadcast of the Nancy Grace show?
      • dinkumthinkum 13y ago
        You really have trouble with this kind of discussion? I'm not sure what would fix this thinking ... Maybe you should read books or learn thought experiments or just start with basic metaphors ... hrrmphh! I'm stumped!
      • thaumasiotes 13y ago
        To illustrate a concept? Fictional media are ideal, as they can have the facts go however they want. What difference are you hallucinating between citing a philosophical paper discussing a thought experiment, and citing a television show?
      • brnstz 13y ago
        Why is it not credible? That scene illustrates a point even more abstract than the one we are discussing. If the result is the same (the prisoner dies), does it matter whether a legal authority performs the killing, or whether a mob does? I think it does. You may not agree with the legal authority's process or laws, but at the very least it is written down.
      • steveklabnik 13y ago
        > (since I cannot reply directly, apparently) HN hides these links to prevent very quick back-and-forth. Either wait a few minutes or click the 'link' link.
        • MrZongle2 13y ago
          Thank you. I wasn't aware of that.
    • shpxnvz 13y ago
      And yet mob justice is exactly what we have in US, though sometimes with a legislative session's worth of delay. A constitutional republic protects against mob justice through individual guarantees of property and liberty, and further through strict limitations on the state's power. Our government, of course, has long since managed to rid itself of most of these limitations.
      • brnstz 13y ago
        Laws are not perfect. Sometimes you need a revolution (i.e., a mob).
  • arg01 13y ago
    I'd have to say that the law looks like a monopoly to me. If the only way I can avoid being subject to the local law is to move a large distance and that's the only way to opt out how is this not a monopoly, or rather how is it any less the case than it is now?
  • mpyne 13y ago
    The thing to keep in mind is that the whole idea of a state is that it is the organizational entity (call it a posse if you like) that has the legitimacy to use force in the first place. If multiple such groups have the "right" then you have either a coalition state or tribes with warlords, but even that only really changes the level of jurisdiction. It seems to me that some libertarians try to claim theoretical victory by defining their legal enforcement to be a private contractor or somesuch, but as soon as they do that they've simply re-defined the government to be that private contractor (or whoever is controlling them) instead. There's still a state and still governance, whatever you happen to call that particular rose.
  • muteh 13y ago
    You just said "lynch mob" like it was a good thing. Try again.
• toolz 13y ago
  ..and this my friends is what political discussion looks like. You know, even if you were/are/will become right, laughing at someone else's ideals benefits no one. It just deepens the abyss that separates logic from political differences.
• abueesp 13y ago
  Polycentric Law http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polycentric_law http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polycentric_law + Wealth of the networks (instead of monopolistic centralism base upon territory, population and gov 300years old model Wealth of the Nations/States). Move forward. Even it is not possible eventually to have a complete monopoly of the law, except in the case of a dystopian totalitarism.
• abueesp 13y ago
  Polycentric Law http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polycentric_law http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polycentric_law + Wealth of the networks (instead of monopolistic centralism base upon territory, population and gov 300years old model Wealth of the Nations/States). Move forward. Even it is not possible eventually to have a complete monopoly of the law, except in the case of a dystopian totalitarism.
• dinkumthinkum 13y ago
  No, it's more like you use your money and you get your own police force and set of laws and I'll use my own and get the same and then we'll figure out our grievances ourselves. Sounds like a workable system. :)
• btilly 13y ago
  I've been having conversations on this topic recently with a libertarian who grew up in the Soviet Union. Let's just say, when you've seen laws and law enforcers monopolized by villains, it becomes quite hard to accept that justice is whatever the government and courts say it should be. While I personally like law and order, when the choice is mob justice or a police state, there are some definite advantages to mob justice.
  • redthrowaway 13y ago
    That actually alludes to something I noticed recently: Libertarians tend to come from countries with shitty governments, which makes sense. You're likely to be far more suspicious of the idea of government regulation if your government has a history of incompetence and malice than if you come from a country whose government, while imperfect, mostly just works.
    • iopq 13y ago
      That's true, I'm a libertarian from a country with a shitty government (United States)
      • redthrowaway 13y ago
        And you rarely see libertarians here in Canada. For all its warts, our government mostly works: healthcare is pretty good, education is pretty good, regulations are generally not onerous, taxes are pretty low, crime is pretty low, etc. It's a solid B- government, and that seems to apply regardless of who's in power. So while you get disagreements on what government should or should not do, you don't really get disagreements about whether or not government is good: it's mostly ok. I agree, the American government (on all levels) seems to be particularly dysfunctional, so it makes sense that many Americans would look at it and conclude that government writ large is bad. Combined with the American propensity for introspection and self-criticism, the very real observation that American government is bad leads to the (imho erroneous) conclusion that all government is bad, ignoring the fact that most western governments, while flawed, are nowhere near as flawed as yours is.
• joe_the_user 13y ago
  Oh, I think the libertarians want something like the old posses that once went around stringing-up cattle thieves, so they would do something to the thieves if they caught them - unless fear of the state prevented this (why they think the state is unjust). Not that there aren't multitudes of other problems in their schemes.
• redthrowaway 13y ago
  >Ahahahahaah!... You're killing me my friends. Just killing me here. You can make the same argument without being an ass about it.
  • locusm 13y ago
    You are far too easily offended if that's being an ass.
  • baddox 13y ago
    Probably not, because it's not a very good argument.
  • Kequc 13y ago
    I dunno man. I agree with you on that, of course you're right. But, people have limits not everyone wants to talk at length to a libertarian so mockery is employed.
    • janardanyri 13y ago
      In a public general-interest Internet conversation, when you reach the limit of your willingness to productively engage, it may be prudent to cease engaging.
      • sabbatic13 13y ago
        I wouldn't write off mockery as unproductive. It's been an element of perfectly productive political discourse since the beginning of recorded political discourse. If done well and in an informed fashion, it ends up dispelling the illusion that any ignorant bit of pseudo-theory someone can conjure up is worthy of the public sphere.
      • deleted 13y ago
        [deleted]
  • Crito 13y ago
    If he were the sort of person that were capable of making this argument without being an ass about it, then this entire thread of discussion would not have been started in the first place. Whether you are a libertarian bitcoin drug dealer, a communist bitcoin drug dealer, or a politically apathetic cold-hard-cash drug dealer, governments don't enter the "I got ripped off, what are my options?" equation. That's just the reality of the business. Politics is a rather uninteresting tangent here, brought up really only to start a flamewar. Seriously, who gives a shit about the political opinions of drug dealers? I don't know where my dealer stands on economics, taxation, or civil rights, and I don't have any reason to care.
• banachtarski 13y ago
  This guy is an asshole. Just move along guys nothing to see here.
• nbody 13y ago
  Your comment seems more appropriate for YouTube than HN. Anyway, I guess the point is that Libertarianism has some different views but the main takeaway is about having more choices and a more lightweight state.
• deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
• baddox 13y ago
  It's not the same thing as not having laws. That's like saying that a competitive market for food is the same thing as having no food.
  • pekk 13y ago
    a war of all against all is not law.
    • gweinberg 13y ago
      It's also something that has never existed outside Hobbes' imagination
      • mpyne 13y ago
        It's rather the opposite, Hobbes's treatise explains why you didn't witness it throughout recorded history. Once a population group got large enough to have to worry about silly things like common property it ended up having leaders/warlords (either homegrown or due to conquest from abroad). But even so, you certainly saw it in recorded history when government was weaker. "Highwayman" used to connote a very scary idea, something that is most relevant in modern history to those driving in convoys in Afghanistan or Iraq. Another very good example was the actions of the FLN in French-run Algeria starting in the 1950s, where they actually more or less incited that "war of all against all", and did so from an organization that was not very centralized at all.
        • einhverfr 13y ago
          > It's rather the opposite, Hobbes's treatise explains why you didn't witness it throughout recorded history. Once a population group got large enough to have to worry about silly things like common property it ended up having leaders/warlords (either homegrown or due to conquest from abroad). Is there any evidence that humans ever weren't large enough to worry about common property? I mean populations evolve, not individuals, right? And even families have common property within the household, right? If humans are social creatures, then it seems to me that this view of history can't be right because humans have always formed governments as required by our social nature. > But even so, you certainly saw it in recorded history when government was weaker. "Highwayman" used to connote a very scary idea, something that is most relevant in modern history to those driving in convoys in Afghanistan or Iraq. But bandits have almost always been a reaction to the formation (often by distinct government policies) of a destitute class. You see a major increase in banditry following the confiscation of the Monasteries under Henry VIII, for example, because this was instrumental in creating the destitute masses that would power the English Industrial Revolution. The FLN is a good example of the use of a war of all against all as a tactic to weaken governments. I don't think it is a good example of what happens without strong government though. A much better example would be blood feuds in medieval Iceland, or in weak government areas today. Blood feuds though are complex institutions. They don't really form a war of all against all. Rather they form a way for bad behavior to be punished. If a man in Papua feels that his wife has dishonored him and kills her, her brothers will likely do the same to him. This will spin around until everyone gets tired of it and decides to reconcile with some sort of settlement. As Jesse Byock has pointed out, one can see significant evidence that in medieval Iceland, the blood feud was an institution which provided a similar form of social control and stabilization to what we might think of as law and order. In short, blood feuds are law and order by a different means.
• iguana 13y ago
  zedshaw being an asshole. I'm shocked, shocked!
  • jrockway 13y ago
    How is he being an asshole? He is exactly right. Watching Bitcoin from a detached and neutral position is absolutely pure entertainment. "Hey y'all, let's make a web page for transferring money and drugs!" "But I'm not very good at programming." "No worries, there's CRYPTO!!!!!" "Oh excellent, we'll sure screw over our oppressive government now! Down with the rule of law!!" <time passes> "Uh boss, someone just untraceably and anonymously stole all of our untraceable and anonymous money!" If you're not rolling on the floor laughing, you're missing out on life.
    • lurkinggrue 13y ago
      I'm finding it quite funny and saw this coming a mile away.
    • smtddr 13y ago
      >>How is he being an a__h___? He is exactly right. Being a a__h___ and being right aren't mutually exclusive. :) Sidenote: BTW, now that we're talking, if you have a coworker at Google who can get this comment[1] removed from my channel, I'd appreciate it. I reported it as hate-speech like a month ago or something. 1. https://www.youtube.com/user/SMTDDR/discussion https://www.youtube.com/user/SMTDDR/discussion For posterity's sake - http://i.imgur.com/6kpYvcM.png http://i.imgur.com/6kpYvcM.png
      • jrockway 13y ago
        That's pretty bad. I'll look into it.
        • smtddr 13y ago
          Thanks! I'm sure Google gets like a million of these a day. I'm probably in some queue somewhere.... and I've never dated a white girl. ;-)
• bmelton 13y ago
  All due respect, you're missing the point. The 'monopoly of laws' to which the parent refers are the ones like those against home distillers -- such that you're allowed to buy a distillation device, you're allowed to buy corn, you're allowed to buy sugar, yeast, etc., but you're not allowed to put them altogether to make whiskey, despite that you're allowed to buy whiskey. Another example is the Lacey act, which, if construed narrowly enough, might make it illegal to eat a steak, or to fish, or to hike through the woods. Even the most staunch of minarchists wouldn't generally repeal the 'base' laws, which are those laws that, if violated, infringe upon the rights of others. Libertarians do not, for example, suggest that murder should be legal -- everyone has the right to life. Gun control is the nearest example I can think of, so pardon me if it doesn't fit the archetype 100%, but there are literally more than 20,000 laws on the books pertaining to guns, despite the fact that each of those are just derivatives of laws already on the books. Using a gun to steal is expressly against the law, and may carry a different penalty in many jurisdictions than just 'stealing'. Why? Stealing is already illegal, and the manner in which it's done carrying a different penalty likely is just a scheme to enforce mandatory minimums to fill the prisons. Alternately, laws which are predicated upon arbitrary distinctions, such that a person with 9 ounces of pot gets away scot free, while a guy with 10 ounces of pot must serve an obligatory 5 year prison term. You're of course welcome to hate libertarianism as much as you like, but if you're original post was sincere, you're woefully ill-informed on the subject. Edit: Re-reading, I completely misinterpreted the OP's use of 'monopoly of force', and ended up making an altogether unrelated argument. That said, I consider my point both salient and well-researched, so I'll let it stand.
  • mpyne 13y ago
    > Even the most staunch of minarchists wouldn't generally repeal the 'base' laws, which are those laws that, if violated, infringe upon the rights of others. Libertarians do not, for example, suggest that murder should be legal -- everyone has the right to life. The set of laws is not really the problem then. Literally everyone agrees that "government should be as small as possible", the problem is that no one ever agrees as to how small that can possibly be. As soon as you're accepted the state, the "men with guns" whom the libertarians trot out as their boogeyman, the existence of a judicial system and police, etc. then the libertarians are suddenly not that far different in practice from many other parties and are even closer in theory (since apparently everyone agrees that courts and police are OK now...)
• deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
• joyeuse6701 13y ago
  Fools always laugh the hardest.
  • steveklabnik 13y ago
    A witty saying proves nothing.
    • Floegipoky 13y ago
      Is that recursive irony?
      • steveklabnik 13y ago
        Yes.
• fredgrott 13y ago
  ah the Frank Zappa method.. for those that do not know the story.. Frank Zappa disarmed someone that tried to shoot him and than refused to call the cops
  • RankingMember 13y ago
    I think that's a Zappa myth. It's been told various ways, including yours, but also another in which he encourages the attacker to walk with the group Zappa's with to a lake, wherein they then throw their belongings into it, including the gun.
• TeMPOraL 13y ago
  Zed, I'm sorry, but at this point your comment has jumped the shark. You're full of crap, that's all. I'm yet to see a person who truly understands an idea and then proceeds to laugh it off just like that. For me, it's a good indicator that the person laughing doesn't know shit, and doesn't even try. It's easier to make people you disagree with feel bad about themselves than to actually engage with their arguments. (note I'm not referring to the drug dealers who lost money, but to the off-hand dismissal of ideas many honest people hold)