Re: POLITICS Libertarianism and Anarchism (was protestors considered suspected terrorists)

[Guest guest]

> Before the time of the Kings, commentators of all stripes have noted

> that Israel was arguably the most libertarian society in the history

> of the world. They had no king, no congress, no legislature, no

> potentate of any sort. There were no taxes in Israel. Yes, they were

> required to support the priesthood for both worship and non-worship

> functions, but there was no means by which this was enforced by a

> governmental entity. The courts were private in nature. There were no

> jails since the Mosaic code provided for restitution in the event

> someone was found guilty. The law was the same for the stranger and

> citizen alike, and strangers were not assessed a tax of any sort, even

> when the nation was going to war, which is the only time a census was

> allowed and a poll tax could be taken.

They also had a very strong national identity bound together by a

religious agreement, and they had universal law by which they were

judged, bound up in that religious agreement.

I think this makes a theocratic anarchism much different from a

non-theocratic anarchism. Today, we have a national identity bound up

in our common political agreement and we have universal law under

geographical areas provided by the political apparatuses that oversee

whichever given territory.

If we take away what the state provides, we have a vaccum where Israel

had a theocratic agreement. We would have neither a national identity

nor a universal law.

Certainly, private firms could enforce contracts to some degree. But

when the contract falls between the jurisdiction of two or more firms,

it seems there would be insurmountable practical hurdles. Moreover,

much of the contract of libertarianism (or other law-based political

theories) is implied, such as the non-agression axiom. Exactly what

constitutes aggression, exactly how to judge the magnitude of

aggression and how to remedy or require restitution for it has to be

made explicit, whether by individual contract or my legislation.

Israel had theocratic legislation but we, absent the state, would have

none.

Must I made a specific contract with every individual I might happen

to come across? That is clearly impossible. So what, then, could

provide any remote degree of consistency in the enforcement of implied

contract?

Moreover, what would stop firms from engaging in malfeasance for the

sake of profit or collusion with other firms? Or, for that matter,

becoming aggressive and establishing a state?

> Even libertarians who can't stand Christianity, and their number is

> legion, begrudgingly acknowledge that ancient Israel was a libertarian

> society, even if they don't like the type of libertarian society that

> it was.

Yes, but it had universal law as per above..

[snip]

> Whatever else we read in the Bible, this is the standard that God has

> set in the civil realm - not the Kings, not the Roman Empire, and not

> any post-resurrection Christian governments. This is the civil model

> which was ultimately rejected by Israel when they determined to adopt

> the practice of the nations that were around them, ***and the very

> nations they were displacing***.

There may be some support for this being the ideal. There is, in the

prophecies, a note about such a system returning. But, aside from it

being radically different from the system of competing secular,

for-profit security firms supplying all the functions of the state

advocated by modern anarcho-capitalists, I don't see any clear

indications that any alternative system is a matter of injustice in

the way Rothbard, who was an agnostic, argued. In other words, while

God may have favored the system of theocratic anarchism, there is no

evidence that I can see whatsoever that God saw the monarchy as an

inherent injustice and the king as nothing but a thief. Rather, the

king is " God's annointed. "

> When they asked for a King, it showed they were doing what the

> surrounding nations were doing, putting their trust for mercy and

> justice in the state and not God. In the ancient world, and

> functionally today, though openly then, the state apparatus was

> considered divine. That is one reason why it was such an affront for

> Israel to be asking for a King.

> Notice also that they *asked* for a King, but it was God who

> instituted, ordained if you will, the rule of the Kings. Even though

> he warned them of the dangers, nevertheless He gave them what they

> wanted. As can be the case, God often meets us where we are, even if

> it is not the best thing for us. Clearly in this instance He ordained

> an institution that was less than ideal. Israel was no longer willing

> to recognize His Kingship via the Judges, and so this is what they got

> (the Mosaic law by the way predicts this would happen).

There is a huge difference between " less than ideal " and criminal.

The Rothbardian viewpoint would say that the king is a criminal. The

Bible says the king is " God's annointed. " Rothbard says taxes are

theft. The Bible says " give taxes to whom taxes are due. "

> Now unless there is something that clearly states or implies otherwise

> we can assume that God still holds that model valid, and that states,

> of any sort, are going to do what he said the King would do, i.e. take

> the first of their production and the best and brightest of their

> children - without their consent - to further the cause of the state.

> And that is exactly what states did/do, ancient or modern, before

> Israel and after Israel.

States are not the only aggressors. But in any case, I agree that

there are downsides to having a state. But I do not see a Biblical

case for arguing that the state is criminal. Nor do I see how it is

feasible to have a workable system of protecting and enforcing

liberties and rights that does not involve at least some minimum of

geographical universality of law, whether it is provided by a state or

some other source, like divine revelation. And if you want a

pluralistic society, you can't get it from divine revelation.

>> Why is King Josiah reckoned the greatest of all kings

>> for some of his fairly un-libertarian actions (especially regarding

>> the idolatrous priests), for example, if government compulsions is

>> inherently and consistently eschewed?

> Well first of all coercion and Christianity do not go together. Love

> is not marked by coercion, and is in fact the very anti-thesis of

> love. As one writer put it " it is a violation of free will and a

> failure to acknowledge the image of God in the other person. This is

> true whether or not the coercion is legally permitted, for the law of

> man cannot contravene the Law of God. "

I think that is largely true, but not completely. No one could

seriously argue that a parent who loved their child would not forcibly

prevent them from doing something that would put themselves in great

danger, and I don't think one could seriously argue that it would go

against love to forcibly prevent someone from killing someone else.

To take it a step further, if someone were to forcibly prevent someone

from voluntarily and contractually submitting themselves into lifelong

slavery, I think you'd have a difficult case trying to use that to

prove one person didn't love the other.

> The entire Old Testament law is expressly summed up in the New

> Testament as love God with everything you have and love your neighbor

> as dearly as you love yourself. Given that, I wouldn't expect to find

> any exceptions to the law of Love codified in the OT law.

Ok.

> Second, I don't find it anywhere stated that Josiah in regards to the

> warnings gave Israel about getting a king, did anything

> different. Whatever else he might have done, he was still engaging in

> theft and slavery, although it was now a recognized " legitimate "

> function of government.

So, where does it ever call taxes theft and authority slavery? Where

does it call the kings criminal by virtue of their kingship alone?

> The Mosaic code forbade the forcible taking of

> money (theft) and conscription (slavery), both which were routinely

> violated after the rise of the Kings and I don't see anything that

> suggests Josiah did otherwise.

So why are the kings often criticized for criminal acts, but taxes are

never described as criminal?

[snip]

> That said, Josiah was a great King because he attempted to uphold the

> Law and brought spiritual revival to Judah and what little was left of

> Israel. Given this was freely done with the consent of the people,

> there was nothing unlibertarian about his actions.

This is only true if you refer to the people as a collective, but

libertarianism doesn't do that. He certainly didn't execute the

priests of Baal with their own individual consent, did he? How does

it not violate the non-aggression axiom to execute individuals in the

name of the collective people?

> When he began tearing down the high places and getting rid of the

> idolatrous priests, where do you think those high places and priests

> came from? If you read all the chapters previous to Josiah's reign, it

> is pretty obvious it wasn't from the people but rather from previous

> Kings! He was trampling on the people in some godawful unlibertarian

> fashion, but simply clearing out all those un-Mosaic practices

> **unlawfully** instituted by his predecessors!

So anything done in the name of the people is libertarian? I thought

that was democracy, mob rule, and whathaveyou?

[snip]

> King Josiah didn't impose himself on the people. He brought them

> together for the reading of the newly re-discovered book, the Old

> Testament. They **voluntarily** committed themselves once again to

> God's Law, and Josiah went about making things right in accordance

> with the law, as freely submitted to by the people.

But did he not impose the *law* on the idolatrous priests whom he executed?

[snip]

> Now many anti-Christian modern libertarians would not want to live in

> such a society. But since there was no or only minimal coercion

> involved, they do recognize its libertarian nature, even under the

> Kings, which was a very limited gov't compared to the modern state.

Limited, yes, but also a state. And upholding the universal law that

Israel had even without the kings.

> Before the Kings Israel lived in a state of anarchy, after the Kings

> they lived under a minarchy. By the time we get to the New Testament

> era, they are an occupied nation living under one of the largest

> welfare/warfare states in the history of the world, the Roman Empire.

Right, but even under anarchy, they had a national identity and a

universal system of law.

Chris

[Guest guest]

,

> For the moment, lets assume they did [contract voluntarily for service in the

> revolutionar war]. The American Revolution was not

> a war against government but a war against the British government.

> Once the war was over it was business as usual, just under local

> government. In fact net taxes went up after the war was over.

They would have had to, in order to pay for the war debt, just like

the British needed to tax them for their war debt. I suppose you

could say, however, that each individual did not take on her or his

share of the war debt voluntarily.

> I'm not saying there aren't localized exceptions to one particular

> practice or another, just that as a matter of principle no civil gov't

> has given up its power to conscript and to tax, at which point it

> would cease to be a gov't and just another voluntary society..

I don't think they necessarily go together. Taxation is much more

common than conscription. Did we have an episode of conscription

prior to the Civil War?

[snip]

>>> Industrialization in general has cleaned up pollution around the

>>> world. And the biggest polluters of all have always been gov'ts, or

>>> more specifically places where property rights have traditionally been

>>> held in low value.

>>

>> Even if the gov't is the worst polluting entity, there are much more

>> private entites than there are governments, and technology has also

>> led to new ways to pollute. I'd think that, altogether, much more

>> pollution comes from the private sector.

> Very few companies, big or small, pollute on the scale of the former

> Soviet Union or even modern day China. And usually, it is governmental

> interventions and funky notions about the commons that allow companies

> to get away with imposing its external costs - via pollution - on

> others. A vigorous enforcement of property rights would put a stop to

> that, and quite possibly usher in a wave of technological innovation

> for anti-pollution devices and measures, including air, noise, and

> water.

So, why would a private firm enforcing property rights be less swayed

to uphold the ability of financial elites to tread on the right of

others than would a public government?

> So directly or as enablers, I would still argue that gov't is the

> biggest polluter.

That only makes sense if a) a compelling case can be made that a

private firm would be much more likely to enforce those rights and

the government prohibits such a firm from doing business. But

certainly the government isn't directly responsible merely for

inaction.

Chris