That is exactly how most seem to see libertarians and AnCaps, and it couldn't be further from the truth. I believe that I live in a community, and that I have responsibilities for it. I just think that my responsibilities should be voluntary, and that by "forcing" this responsibility on everyone, the government is essentially teaching everyone to completely abdicate their own responsibilities. Why should people care and be responsible if the government will just take their money and take care of things itself? The low voter turnouts pretty much show that people mostly don't care what their money goes to, and don't want to be responsible for how it's spent. Also, note that the point of doing taxes for everyone is to end up paying as little as possible. So, not only is the government teaching people to abdicate responsibilities, it's teaching them to avoid paying for as much of it as possible, too.
I could similarly argue that your side is the selfish one, where you are projecting your own selfishness on all people in general, believing that everyone is as selfish as you, and only contribute to society because they are forced to, not because they feel responsible for it.

If you have empathy and compassion, why wouldn't you support those people voluntarily in an AnCap society? Just think, instead of just $500 of your annual $7,500 bill going to the needy, you could send them the entire $7,500?
Or is it that, by "compassion," you mean that you are compassionate enough to force others to take care of them, while giving the minimum effort yourself?

Boycotts, protests, ostracism, public shaming, vigilantism that doesn't wait for a legal process, angry mobs, and if it comes down to it, outright guerilla warfare and destruction of property. These may not be as clean, but they can and have been very effective.

They're not really responsibilities if they are basically forced on us. If I were to give money to a local school, I'd be taking on the responsibility for funding and growing our local education and workforce. Instead, I just see a bunch of money leaving my paycheck, and I have no idea where it's going. I can only assume a part of it is going to the school, but the "responsibility" is essentially forced upon m me.

That's a problem that would quickly solve itself. Those not being responsible with their lives (such as not buying insurance, not taking care of their health, and not saving money for retirement and emergencies) will very quickly find themselves as horrible cautionary examples for others, since there won't be a nanny state to take care of them. And those who are dodging the rules at other's expense will be quickly forced to pay for those expenses, since there won't be a complex lengthy legal thing to fight through, and those who do take responsibility for whom they associate with will avoid you.

First, think you either don't understand what "to react" means, or are just really stretching definitions beyond what they typically mean.
And second, in what world is someone not responsible for their actions, even if they were forced? I'm pretty sure in your world the Nuremberg Trials would have been very short and unproductive.

Reactions aren't forced. They are chosen and deliberate, and the person choosing to react bears responsibility for his actions, just as the person to whom this reaction is in response to is responsible for his initial action.
What's your point?

Doesn't bode well for any system of crime and punishment, whether anarchy with NAP, or democracy with a police force. So, either a government with a police force, and people practicing NAP privately don't exist, or there is something wrong with your premise.

One is luck, the other is skill. For every 1,500 BTC ahead that you show me, I can show you a bunch of people who are 1,500BTC combine behind

Let me try this...

• If you believe that man has free will, then what really counts in terms of aggression is a person's decision on how to act, their inner intentions. Every intrinsically human act is therefore initiatory. Whereas reactions or responses, especially ones that are completely predictable and logical, are indistinguishable from a machine. Machines are "event-driven" and are only capable of responding to external stimuli, based on their sensory inputs: push a button -- something happens in response. If man has free will, there must be something else that cannot be explained by the known laws of physics (or at least Newtonian physics).
• If you believe that man does not have free will, this could suggest a deterministic world where everything that happens is an unavoidable consequence of all the things that occurred before. Taken to its logical conclusion, there is no such thing as aggression or initiation of force -- all human activities are forced responses to a complex interplay of sensory inputs, genes, cosmic rays flipping a switch, etc. Even the decision-making process and appearance of free will is just an illusion.

I'm sure there are other views and variations of the above, but I think I've covered the two main camps. Neither view allows a government sanctioned legal system to function properly.

If Free Will doesn't exist:
One is forced to adopt a left-leaning view that all apparently aggressive actions are really a consequence of everything else. All police responses to force are genuine, including merciful 'decisions' that take into account all the unavoidable circumstances, including the fact that force initiated by the government is never really initiated by the ultimate act of free will.

Yeah, it makes just as much sense...

You are making up a fake world with very restrictive rules, and then saying that the NAP cannot exist in such a world. I would agree with you. But what you described isn't the real world that we live in, so it's rather irrelevant.

Also, it seems you are implying NAP is some strange scenario where nothing happens while no one messes with each other's stuff, but as soon as someone does, guns go blazing. That's also not how the real world works. If your neighbor messes up your yard or shoves you while passing by you, you don't immediately get into a brawl or call the police, you figure out what happened, why, and what can be done to resolve it. People practice NAP every day of their lives. We just propose extending it to the rest of the government.

Why wouldn't you take up aggression if someone was doing something harmful? It could be as simple as boycotting their products and encouraging others to do so (they even have apps for that now), taking them to court, or outright violence against their person and property. Hit them in their checkbook, even if it means they have to spend a lot more on beefed up security.
And also, what do you do if the laws do NOT asset that right? For instance, what if a law states that only a certain amount of arsenic is allowed to be leached into the surrounding water, but that level is way too high, and is toxic to you and your plants? Or a law says that the fine needed to pay for cleanup of a spill is actually way too little to actually cover the costs of the spill cleanup, or to be punitive enough to make the company try to stop spilling? In both cases the entity doing the harm is well within their legal rights, and you are forced to agree to it. (FYI, the later happened with the BP oil spill, where BP agreed to pay a fine in exchange from being protected from being sued again, but the fine they paid is way less than what it is costing to clean up the gulf)


I think I have just shown that it's actually the other way around. People who want to externalize their impact usually have professional people who help write laws to make their impacts legal, thus binding those who get harmed to just accept it, whereas, without the government being there with tax payer funded police and military, there would be nothing to prevent an angry mob from storming the place and taking it out of commission, laws be damned.

Thank you. I definitely still need that, as I'm still forming my own views on all this.

What Dalkore said

Uh, it kept my neighbors and myself on friendly terms that involve us respecting our individual yards despite the lack of fences? Just one tiny example.

I'm not a fan of the "aggression" term, either. Just think of it as:
Aggression - fucking with me or my property.

That's not initiating aggression, that's responding to someone else's.

None, you're right.


Not sure what you're trying to get at. NAP is a society-based understanding, similar to offering extra rights to a few selected ruling elite being a society-based understanding. It's not an individual preference.
Would you prefer an outcome where you are being hunted down or denied goods and services because earlier you preferred to initiate aggression against someone else?
The bigger issue, though, is that in our current state-run society we have some people who are allowed to initiate aggression, and some who aren't, regardless of whether the people involved prefer it that way. It essentially make some people "more equal" than others, simply because society agreed on it, and at times even when it didn't.

Edit: Holy crap typos!

What does my, birthplace or me being born to my parents, have to do with my contract with a landlord I'd be renting from? And conversely, if I had been born in an apartment, why can't the landlord of that apartment force me into a contract where I owe him $500,000 paid over my lifetime, from the time I was a baby, and without me ever even agreeing to it, simply because I was born in his apartment? That sounds like it would be a great deal for landlords, so why can't they do it?


Why not? I'm sure many would, and there are plenty of state offered services I would choose to forfeit, too.


I was under 18 when I moved, so it wasn't voluntary, and moreso, even if I had moved here voluntarily, I doubt I would have been given a copy of the contract that lists all the agreements and responsibilities that both I and the state agree on. The only pertinent question that immigrants get asked when moving here is "will you join the army and fight for this country if you are called?" Nothing about any other responsibilities or benefits.

Only one I'm aware of is my little, yellow, three-person inflatable boat that I have, whenever I row it out far enough into the ocean. Can't really live on it for too long (great for tanning and relaxing though)