[105226] in Cypherpunks
Re: dbts: Privacy Fetishes, Perfect Competition, and the Foregone (fwd)
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Michael Hohensee)
Sun Nov 8 22:05:09 1998
Date: Sun, 08 Nov 1998 21:59:18 -0500
From: Michael Hohensee <mah248@nyu.edu>
To: cypherpunks@cyberpass.net
Reply-To: Michael Hohensee <mah248@nyu.edu>
Jim Choate wrote:
>
> Forwarded message:
>
> > Date: Sun, 08 Nov 1998 00:18:26 -0500
> > From: Michael Hohensee <mah248@nyu.edu>
> > Subject: Re: dbts: Privacy Fetishes, Perfect Competition, and the Foregone (fwd)
>
> > You missed my point. What I'm trying to point out is that no government
> > (or any other body, for that matter) can prevent someone from doing
> > something.
>
> Of that we agree. Which is why I will continue to believe the issues we deal
> with are not government problems but people problems.
Ah, but governments are just bunches of people. The problem with
government (which is just an organization) is that problematic people
use them to cause problems for others. That's why I'm against *having*
such organizations. That's why I'm an anarcho-capitalist.
> > All the state can do (and does, if you look closely) is
> > offer to punish anyone who disobeys it. It doesn't matter whether that
> > state is protecting individual rights or not --it can only punish, not
> > prevent.
>
> Well to be even more exact, they offer a guarantee of retribution if they
> can catch or prove somebody broke a law.
It's about the same thing. Of course, for it to do this, it must wield
sufficient power to exact that retribution, which, as I've been saying
over and over (as you've noticed) is the problem.
> Of course we could posit a government that pairs everyone up in groups of
> two (a perpetual no-lone zone), the ultimate police state.
>
> > I'm explaining why it is impossible for the state to protect individual
> > rights.
>
> I suspect we're playing word games here with 'protect'. I am not refering to
> what my neighbor does to me when he gets pissed off that my stereo is too
> loud. That obviously the government (local, state, or federal) can do
> nothing about a priori. Where the governemnt (at all levels) *CAN* in fact
> protect individual rights is the way they create the laws they enforce on
> all citizens (eg tax laws or dope-smoking laws). Those most certainly can be
> crafted to prevent abuse of civil liberties.
But they can only enforce laws after they have been broken. (assuming
that it's a "nice" state --some states'll kill you *before* you break
their laws). They do not protect people, they simply punish people they
catch doing certain things.
> Our own Constitution is a
> perfect example. The problem is the *people* who we elect believe they are
> above it and instead of asking "Do the laws we pass conform to the letter
> and intent of the Constitution?" instead state "It's a flexible document
> that is hard to interpet because of wording and changes in society". They
> want an out to not have to play by the rules. Nothing more and nothing less.
I agree, but I make no distinction between the government and the people
running it. The Constitution is a list of rules under which the
government is supposed to operate, and if it is violated, the government
no longer has any right to govern, and should by rights be shut down by
the governed.
The central problem is that if the government was weak enough that it
*could* be shut down immediately upon its first violation of its
charter, it would be so weak that it could not offer a plausible
guarantee of retribution for Constitutionally approved crimes.
> > I offer two mechanisms by which the state *could* _protect_
> > individual rights, and then point out why they are impossible. It is
> > something of a strawman argument, but if you disagree, I'm willing to
> > tear down any mechanism you might propose. :)
>
> See above. It isn't the rules that matter, it's the respect the arbiters of
> the rules have *for* the rules that matter. With that clearly in mind *any*
> mechanism is doomed to fail from the beginning.
Yup, but you cannot assume that the arbiters of the rules will always
have respect for the rules. Rules have no power on their own --only
that power given to them by people who agree with them. It is therefore
foolish to concentrate power to enforce rules over other people --you
cannot reasonably expect that the arbiters of said rules will not be
corrupt.
> > > > All any state can do is threaten to "retaliate" against (why not just
> > > > say "attack") people who disobey its edicts. In order for this threat
> > > > to be credible, the state must wield sufficient power to kill any
> > > > individual (or group of individuals) who would stand against it. If it
> > > > does not have this power, it cannot govern.
> > >
> > > This is a quaint and completely artificial distinction.
> >
> > Is it really? Then could you please explain to me exactly why I would
> > have to pay taxes (or otherwise make submission) to a state which did
> > *not* have the power to kill me?
>
> So you wouldn't have to stand there and watch your house burn to the slab.
> So you would have help finding the perpetrator who raped your daughter last
> night. So when you drive down the street it isn't a whole filled muddy tract
> through a economicaly impoverished wasteland. So when you write a check you
> know there is something behind it that is trustworthy. So when you have that
> wrech late some rainy night there is an ambulance and a hospital to take you
> to.
This is the standard line handed to anyone who argues for the abolition
of government. As such, it's pretty easy to tear apart. :)
First: You tell me that without government, I'll end up watching my
"house burn to the slab." This implies that fire departments wouldn't
exist if they were not subsidized by the state. This is incorrect.
After all, the first fire departments in the world were not publicly
operated. In a free market, either the homeowner or the insurance
companies will have an incentive to support fire departments. I'm
willing to pay the local fire department a fee to stand ready to come
and put out fires for me. Insurance companies would have even more
incentive --the faster the fire's put out, the less money they lose in
claims.
Second: You tell me that without the state, I would have no help
finding the perp who raped my daughter. This is also untrue. In the
first place, many other people would probably be interested in helping
me find the perp. Some because they're friends of me or my daughter,
others because they want to catch the guy, lest he rape their
daughters. I'm also willing, as in the case of the fire department
example, to pay for someone to be on call 24 hours a day to help me out
if I'm attacked, and to help me catch whoever attacked me. Such people
exist even today, they're called private investigators. Just because
the state goes away doesn't mean that there won't be any demand for
policemen.
Third: You argue that the state is the only way to maintain the
streets. This is also incorrect. It is in the interest of the people
living on the street to keep their street in good repair. They don't
want their cars to get all muddy and damaged from driving over those
nasty potholes. Also, the better maintained the road is, the easier it
is to get aid in and out quickly. We wouldn't want the firetruck to
vanish into that first pothole when it's coming to put out the fire.
Businesses will also want to keep the street they're on well paved. It
makes it easier for customers to get to them. As for highways, there
are many privately owned toll roads which are much better than their
public counterparts. You think that we *need* the state to keep our
roads in order? If there is a demand for a service, someone will act to
supply that demand.
As for your bit about the "economically impoverished wasteland", this is
pure grandstanding. The state doesn't create wealth --it just steals
and redistributes it.
Fourth: You say that without the state, our checks wouldn't have
anything trustworthy behind them. This is, I'm afraid, the purest grade
A bullshit. When I write a check, it is the bank which stands behind
it, not the state. Unless, of course, the state has taken control of
the banks (or vice-versa). In that case, you get to know that the fiat
money behind your check is backed up by the state, and that its value
will decrease as the state inflates the currency. There is no support
for your statement that we somehow need the state to carry on
transactions via banks.
Fifth: Something about how the presence of the state causes hospitals
and ambulances to exist. Again, bullshit. There is a demand for these
services, and people will supply that demand. Most likely, it will be
the same people that are supplying it now.
> Don't want to let your house burn down, fine. Let the fucker burn to the
> slab. Your daughter gets raped, fine. You figure out who did it on your own.
> Don't want to pay vehicle and related taxes, fine don't drive your vehicle
> on public streets.
This is scaremongering.
> Just face it. It isn't the threat of violence that pisses you off. It's that
> you have social responsibilities to those around you. Taxes represent a
> responsibility that you don't want and to hell with the consequences.
Oh, now we're getting personal? I'm very aware of my social
responsibilities. I'm willing to pay for anything and everything that I
use. I am *not* willing to pay for that which I don't use, nor am I
willing to finance the use of coercive force against people who are not
initiating force against anyone else.
As for you, just face it. You're terrified of other people. You want a
"good" state (defined as one which does what *you* want to other people,
and doesn't do anything to *you* that you don't want it to do) to
control all those other people. You're worried that if you don't
control them, they might do *anything*, and that scares you.
Most people suffer from this kind of insanity, having had it programmed
into them their entire lives in the hostile public schools. You, if
you're more freedom-minded than most, may have this to a lesser degree
than some of the worst tyrants, but it's only a difference of degree.
Unfortunately, some of you sometimes realize that the state is nothing
but an organization of just these other people. Your response to this
understanding is not to escape the state, but instead to take emotional
refuge in the way the state *should* work. Nattering on and on about
what's written on the state's charter, and consoling yourself with the
thought that everything would be fine, that the state would be
hunky-dory, if only it were staffed by *good* people.
And all this time you contradict yourself by understanding that we
cannot trust *anyone* or *any group* to run the state the way it's
"supposed" to be run.
It's amazing what doublethink can do to you, isn't it?
> > this in a physical sense, not a legal one-- then what is to stop me or
> > anyone else from telling it to fuck off? Such a state cannot govern
> > those who do not wish to be governed, and so would not be a government.
>
> No state can govern those who don't wish to be governed, violence or no.
True, but it does attempt to kill those who don't wish to be governed.
After all, if it didn't, what's to stop just anyone from deciding not to
be governed? If that were to happen, pretty soon the tax money would dry
up, and it couldn't pay its hired goons anymore.
> Malarcky. I'm familiar with the way bears and other mammals work and this is
> gibberish. Unless the bears are related one of them will be finding another
> bush pronto.
Very well, perhaps the bear example was a bad one. Nevertheless,
cooperation *does* occur in nature. Selfish violence is a good strategy
if you don't expect to have to live with the consequences of your
actions, but if you are living with other people, it is emphatically
*not* the best strategy. This is true if only because other people will
likely kill you for such antisocial behavior, and even if they do not,
you aren't likely to find it easy to get others to do things for you, or
have any friends.
Most people understand this, at a gut level. Ask anyone you meet if he
would want to do some of the things that you suggested would happen in
the absence of the state, if he thought that he wouldn't be chased by
any government agents for it. Unless he's a sociopath, he'll say no.
Michael Hohensee
