non-aggression, small government, links and issues?

[LibForestPaul]

Hi...
I had conversation with someone about libertarianism, non aggression principle, taxes, government. Seemed interested and understood the principles even with my terse definitions.

Any links to very good videos about small government, natural rights, non-aggression appreciated. Preferable videos, ADD fella, but good writings ok. Non-aggression video I saw once posted here not very well done, any others?

second, he quickly picked up on the one "issue" with libertarianism, Republicanism, and democracy; that being the enforcement of contracts and natural rights once they have been violated. The enforcers being not only violent, but having a monopolistic hold on violence. And how in a free market, one could just pay someone more to find in your favor or purchase more favorable rulings from others. Any further ideas on this, since I too see this issue as a necessary evil.

ex;
neighbor decides to open an dump next door. maintenance non-existent ,so infestation problems migrate onto your property. I stated this would be handle through civil, not criminal, courts, preferable by a jury, which would decide if indeed any of your property rights were violated, no need for zoning laws. He concurred, but then stated the judgment as well as the enforcement both require violence and coercion since in a purely free society, one would have multiple venues to choose from (voluntary association/arbitration) for judgment and enforcement. He picked this up quick, so I want to send him some videos.

[DamianTV]

Sunset of the State


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLCEXtpTNYU

I already posted that video, but it is exactly what youre talking about. It places Non Aggression at the Core of our Ideology, not Money.

[Vessol]

Don't play the game of "Well, what about THIS issue?"

The fact that you alone cannot answer every single issue and problem is reason enough for a completely free market where ideas would originate from multitudes of people and rise or fail. Not from a singular individual or body of individuals who hold a monopoly of "solving issues" with the use of force.

I try to focus on the moral issue of using violence. Arguing in favor of a free market being the most utilitarian solution is a short way to the long road of insanity. It doesn't matter if a free market is more or less productive, or if it can solve a certain issue or not.

The main issue is that you cannot use the initiation of violence to solve problems.

A few videos(I believe one may be the one you referenced in your post):


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=muHg86Mys7I

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGMQZEIXBMs

Jacob Spinney also made an excellent video on this, he talks about DRO(Dispute Resolution Organizations):


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KXNRzI64L9Q

[LibForestPaul]

Not from a singular individual or body of individuals who hold a monopoly of "solving issues" with the use of force.
See this, so what is to be done when someone does rob you of your property?
From first vid you posted, force and violence must be initiated against the thief, he will not return your property otherwise.

[Vessol]

See this, so what is to be done when someone does rob you of your property?
From first vid you posted, force and violence must be initiated against the thief, he will not return your property otherwise.

You wouldn't be initiating force against someone if they initiated force against you in the first place. You'd be defending yourself.

Unless you mean in the long term? Well there are multiple ways this could be done. One idea I've heard is various DRO's could blacklist the individual and make it very difficult, if not impossible, to interact with many portions of society. As I said in my first post, I won't sit here and say that I know the way that this particular issue will be fixed for sure, that's why we need a free market to solve these kind of complex problems. Just because they are complex problems that cannot be solve by one person though, does not mean you can say that you have to use violence and theft to protect people from violence and theft. That's called cognitive dissonance.

[osan]

You wouldn't be initiating force against someone if they initiated force against you in the first place. You'd be defending yourself.

exactly.


Unless you mean in the long term? Well there are multiple ways this could be done. One idea I've heard is various DRO's could blacklist the individual and make it very difficult, if not impossible, to interact with many portions of society. As I said in my first post, I won't sit here and say that I know the way that this particular issue will be fixed for sure, that's why we need a free market to solve these kind of complex problems. Just because they are complex problems that cannot be solve by one person though, does not mean you can say that you have to use violence and theft to protect people from violence and theft. That's called cognitive dissonance.

This is a non-starter. Once again, talk of the market finding a solution. The market CAN, but has not. Why? Because as far as I can see, nobody has sat down to the difficult and perhaps even unpleasant task of finding the real solutions.

Any move toward a liberty-oriented, non-aggression based culture needs to have the solutions well in hand prior to attempts to institute greater freedoms. The more sudden the intended switch, the more this is true. We, the people of this world are on the whole too far gone to be flash-cut to liberty. Were this to be done, their would exist a great danger of large swaths of the various populations going apeshit. Bear in mind that there is great power in the hands of those strongly interested in seeing that liberty be stamped out for the proletariat once and forever. Now think "provocateur". Now think about the phenomenon of mob mentality and consider the many examples of how it arises and rapidly runs amok. Great examples of this can be taken from the numerous instances of mobs running wild at sporting events where some invisible threshold is crossed and the next thing you know hundreds of people are destroying property that is not theirs and beating and even murdering their fellows. Think of the Watts riots and those in Newark in the late 60s. Recall the riots connected with the Rodney King incident. People in large numbers can go dangerously crazy. Without the means of dealing with such phenomena in the most practically correct and effective ways, the real danger of large scale chaos cannot be contained satisfactorily.

A state of true freedom probably must be phased in a little more slowly than from one day to the next. Having a fuller body of the knowledge of precisely how such a society of men would be maintained at the most practically functional levels is, IMO, absolutely necessary. Without the means of dealing with real world divergences from the path of behavioral rectitude - theft, violence and so forth - there would stand a real chance of a neo-feudalism rising within the perceived vacuum. Do not forget that there will always be tyrant-wannabes out there - clever opportunists who with their velvety tongues would take fast and adept advantage of such perceived holes with anyone who will listen, open them into gaping chasms as they point to the "failure of freedom" and make their impassioned calls for a return to the comfort of that which was known before. Do we not remember how, even years after the fact, the calls for reconstitution of the Soviet Union that arose in the wake of the great discomforts people felt with their newfound (comparative) liberty?

People who have been slaves all their lives cannot simply be set loose with no mechanisms in place for constraining their inevitable excursions from the paths of righteous behavior. That would be rank madness. A sufficient conceptual architecture must first be contrived in order that a drift away from slavery and into freedom will proceed with the greatest ease and the fewest problems possible.

I have recently started a pet project wherein I am endeavoring to build this minimally required architectural framework for a practically workable free culture; one where the fundamental principles of liberty serve as the cornerstones by which all human behavior is to be judged and whereby free men remain ungoverned, the only men upon whom governance is ever imposed being those who fail to govern themselves sufficiently. As simple as this arrangement is in principle, the practical problems that arise are correspondingly difficult to solve in many cases.

I have yet to settle on a name for this paradigm of human free society, but have considered thus far "nonarchy" and "sanarchy" (sane rule). The goal here is to see whether I can contrive a sufficient set of conceptual structures, rules, regulations, and procedures by which a society of humans would be able to live in a state of actual freedom, free from all tyranny. Note I wrote "able to" - there being no guarantee that they would so choose.

This project represents the "dirty work" in which nobody else appears to be willing to engage. Such work exposes the difficulties of practical implementation and is, therefore, unattractive to most because it not only does it represent difficult work, it also carries the "threat" of exposing potential contradictions in the ideals in question; sacrilege in the minds of screaming believers lacking the honesty and courage to see and accept that their ideals may not be perfectly translatable into practically workable solutions. There is no glamor here; nor is one likely to find the ease and comfort of philosophical black and white. What lies therein are all the challenges that arise in the conflicts between human ideals and human nature as theory is set to practice. This is precisely what is needed if there is to be any hope of achieving a state of liberty for even the smallest population.

With such a practically focused architectural corpus in hand, implementation of free societies would be difficult enough. Without them, real freedom is almost certainly out of reach in most practical terms. Since I have been unable to uncover anyone else willing to roll up their sleeves and engage in the grease monkey's work, I have decided I will give it a shot, come what may.

Thoughts?