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Originally Posted by Undertoad
The majority doesn't see the government's actions as force, and so they don't accept your premise.
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Ask most people on tax day if they want to pay taxes, or if they pay them because they are forced to do it. Ask them what happens to them if they don't pay the taxes.
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Originally Posted by Undertoad
The majority will always have the bigger guns, so whether it was right or wrong, the net result is you are dead. As a dead person your rights are no longer a concern.
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They will have more guns, but that doesn't matter. Only 5% of the people in the Colonies actually fought against the British, and they won. I know for a fact that the overwhelming majority of American soldiers would NOT fire on other Americans, even if they were taking the government back. In fact many would help out in returning the government to the Constitutional Republic we started with.
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Originally Posted by Undertoad
The current government has something very important: the consent of the governed. The vast, vast majority does not always agree with government, that's clear; but they agree to be governed in this way. They don't agree with the government, but they agree with the system of government.
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Saying it has the consent of the governed is debatable. I can't consent to steal my neighbors car. I have no right to offer such consent. So the "consent" you're talking about is false. The government doesn't so much have consent as it has apathy, and ignorance thanks to government funded schools.
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Originally Posted by Undertoad
We know that the government does not have your consent to govern you in this way. But they will govern you in this way. You will have to find a compromise between your rights and how the government you find to be governed by, allows you to live. May I suggest moving out of California, as a good first start.
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I already live in California. I'm on the Executive Committee of the statewide Libertarian Party.
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Originally Posted by Undertoad
You say that the only valid government is one that doesn't initate force. But you can't find a government on earth that operates that way.
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Actually I said a valid government only initiates force for the defense of rights, and the common defense of the nation from outsiders and pretty much nothing else. It doesn't use force to tell people how to live thier lives, it only uses it to defend them when a crime has been committed against them.
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Originally Posted by Undertoad
This is not a coincidence. Human nature itself, abhoring disorder, defines force differently than you do. The only answer, in the long term, is education and evangelism, because we see through history that education has a transformative effect on people (and their ability to make choices based on abstract things like "freedom").
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Libertarians don't believe in a utopian government. We just want one that allows us to live the way we want as long as our actions don't PHYSICALLY harm or endanger non-consenting others or their property or violate their equal rights.
This is not utopian. It's a form of government we actually had in America.