Hmm. I have been thinking about this lately. I don’t think your arguments here are great - most fit the pattern of a double straw man. I also think there is an assumption that existing governments are sustained by cooperation, that’s highly questionable, perhaps “exceptionalist” rather than being at all as general as you imply.
I have been telling my kids that the only morally legitimate authority proceeds from the consent of the governed, - quoting from the Declaration of Independence - and that only about three states in history have ever achieved this in practice even briefly - Switzerland, England in 1688, America in 1776 et seq. Pretty much every other state (maybe with a few exceptions) is the rump of something imposed by a violent minority on a peaceful majority.
I quite strongly believe that the path to your minimal state utopia, and perhaps beyond it to anarchy-utopia, lies first with a return to something like 1789. Let’s get there and then see how we go.
Explain which arguments of mine are a double straw man, and why.
Also, you make a straw man by characterizing "my" path to a minimal state utopia." Utopia is a loaded smear, so it is not an argument. Also, I do not advocate a minimal state, but rather, a the non-existence of a state. No authority exists.
You also question my assertion that government is a result of cooperation. But it is: most people are complicit in government, They accept it, put their faith in it, rationalize it, make excuses for it, follow the politics circus, and keep voting. This is cooperation on a massive scale. Government exists because people cooperate, and tacitly agree to obey the same structures.
Fair call for me to explain myself - I will say it was tired when I wrote that. First of all what do I mean by a “double straw man”? I mean you are using a second straw man (your own) to attempt to debunk what you posit as someone else’s (first) straw man. I don’t think the first straw man is genuinely alleged as an argument and whether it is or not, I don’t think your second straw man dispenses with it.
From memory you want to counter “without government there will be chaos”, but your presumed rebuttal actually presupposes that “without government” has never occurred, so this cannot be a rebuttal of the proposition of what might or might not happen if there were no government. The first straw man is the objection of someone who has given the matter little or no thought, but your response, what I’m calling the second straw man, is approaching a non sequitur rather than a rebuttal. It would have been better (and perhaps valid) to say “that (first) proposition has never been tested”, but it is incorrect to believe you have rebutted it.
Anyway that’s the explanation for that remark of mine. I don’t think I’m going to read the rest of your reply “below the fold” because I sense a long dispute. So take my offered remarks for what you make of them, if anything.
Mad Mad > Mad Max
For a minute I thought this was a software engineering article.
Hmm. I have been thinking about this lately. I don’t think your arguments here are great - most fit the pattern of a double straw man. I also think there is an assumption that existing governments are sustained by cooperation, that’s highly questionable, perhaps “exceptionalist” rather than being at all as general as you imply.
I have been telling my kids that the only morally legitimate authority proceeds from the consent of the governed, - quoting from the Declaration of Independence - and that only about three states in history have ever achieved this in practice even briefly - Switzerland, England in 1688, America in 1776 et seq. Pretty much every other state (maybe with a few exceptions) is the rump of something imposed by a violent minority on a peaceful majority.
I quite strongly believe that the path to your minimal state utopia, and perhaps beyond it to anarchy-utopia, lies first with a return to something like 1789. Let’s get there and then see how we go.
Explain which arguments of mine are a double straw man, and why.
Also, you make a straw man by characterizing "my" path to a minimal state utopia." Utopia is a loaded smear, so it is not an argument. Also, I do not advocate a minimal state, but rather, a the non-existence of a state. No authority exists.
You also question my assertion that government is a result of cooperation. But it is: most people are complicit in government, They accept it, put their faith in it, rationalize it, make excuses for it, follow the politics circus, and keep voting. This is cooperation on a massive scale. Government exists because people cooperate, and tacitly agree to obey the same structures.
Fair call for me to explain myself - I will say it was tired when I wrote that. First of all what do I mean by a “double straw man”? I mean you are using a second straw man (your own) to attempt to debunk what you posit as someone else’s (first) straw man. I don’t think the first straw man is genuinely alleged as an argument and whether it is or not, I don’t think your second straw man dispenses with it.
From memory you want to counter “without government there will be chaos”, but your presumed rebuttal actually presupposes that “without government” has never occurred, so this cannot be a rebuttal of the proposition of what might or might not happen if there were no government. The first straw man is the objection of someone who has given the matter little or no thought, but your response, what I’m calling the second straw man, is approaching a non sequitur rather than a rebuttal. It would have been better (and perhaps valid) to say “that (first) proposition has never been tested”, but it is incorrect to believe you have rebutted it.
Anyway that’s the explanation for that remark of mine. I don’t think I’m going to read the rest of your reply “below the fold” because I sense a long dispute. So take my offered remarks for what you make of them, if anything.