First, what is 'the NAP':
Supporters of the NAP often appeal to it in order to argue for the immorality of theft, vandalism, assault, and fraud. In contrast to nonviolence, the non-aggression principle does not preclude violence used in self-defense or defense of others. Many supporters argue that NAP opposes such policies as victimless crime laws, taxation, and military drafts. NAP is the foundation of most present-day libertarian philosophies.
Now, the NAP is the very beating heart of what libertarianism is and stands for, as a philosophy. It's not merely just for concepts of 'government' but really for general interaction with your fellow man. The whole idea is that the same moral principles good people apply to themselves and others are not exempted when it comes to government 'officials' of any sort - be it a police officer, soldier, representative, or the president himself. You can't give rights to others that you do not yourself have, even if you and a mob of 50 other people against 49 say otherwise.

But, before (fellow) libertarians decide to 'revoke my libertarian card' after reading my critique - know that I am a firm advocate of the NAP. Basically, I think the best justice system will be built around the NAP and that a society that follows the NAP most consistently will be the most 'just', as well as the most prosperous and happy.

That being said, far too many 'libertarians' et al say that the NAP is never to be violated, no matter what. They believe in a rigid adherence to the NAP - that it is some absolutist doctrine. I think this is a serious mistake and a failing of philosophy.

Another caveat. Understand that while I provide an example to illustrate my point, the example itself is irrelevant. The point, is the logic. If our philosophy relies on consistent theories and tests based purely on a priori reasoning, we must be willing and able to take it to its logically implied extremes for rigorous testing. Bad ideas, taken to their logical conclusions, produce extremely bad results. That's how you detect bad ideas. Good ideas are just the opposite, and are tested in the same way. Moderation is only good for stopping us from taking bad ideas too far. Also, we cannot remain intellectually honest and claim a priorism is the most important path to truth and knowledge, yet only cherry pick when we want to use it and when we don't.

So here we are. The NAP must be logically tested at its extremes just the same as we would (and should) concepts of corporatism, socialism, communism, and whatever other flavor of -ism you can come up with. We could really use any logical extreme, even ones we'd imagine are virtually or completely impossible to ever take place, and they would still be valid. For the sake of making the NAP zealots happy, we'll try to use a fairly realistic, albeit simple, thought-experiment.

Let's say it was 3:00 AM and you had to drive your daughter home (from wherever, for whatever reason). Suddenly, you realize that you (the imperfect human that you are) made a mistake and forgot her medicine (whatever it is), or that she ran out, or it was lost, or some other situation. She gets horribly sick and is potentially near death within five or ten minutes, unless you get medicine very quickly. You just drove by a closed pharmacy. What do you do?

Continued in Sentient Void's blog...