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This would be a good point at which to raise questions: I don’t understand what you mean by “physical force”. Let’s consider two other kinds of rights-violations: punching a person in the face, and stealthily taking cash from their home (let’s say, unbeknownst to them, though this could also be with them seeing you do it, if that matters). I presume that you would consider the former to involve physical force, but if not, please clarify. How about the latter? In what way is ‘physical force’ involved? What about a friendly handshake, or accidentally touching a person on a crowded subway. Is that “initiation of force”? And finally… back to the punch in the face: suppose we’re talking about boxers or stuntmen in a movie. Are they initiating force and should they be imprisoned? If not, why not (don’t just say “they agreed to it” – you haven’t shown that agreeing has any bearing on what force is). You ask how a person can properly defend himself against breach of contract and fraud (“how can a person … properly defend himself against it”, where it can only sensibly refer to “fraud (n)or violations of contract”). If you are asking “how do you prevent this from this happening to you”, the answer is caveat emptor. If you are asking how you restore your property rights, that is what the legal system is for. You assuredly do not have the right to poke the guy with a knife, as you would if someone were actually beating you. The problem I see is that you’re attempting to put things under the umbrella of self-defense that have no business there. For one, it simply is not true that “self-defense must be implemented via a government”. If a man attempts to beat me or steal from me, I may quite rightfully defend myself forcibly, without the intervention of the government. It is however correct that such a use of force must be placed under the objective control of the law – every jurisdiction has laws permitting self-defensive force. Self-defense pertains to the immediate situation that arises when the government cannot intervene, i.e. when someone is beating on you right now and the cops are not there, or someone is taking your property right now. When it’s not right now, it’s not self-defense. Where you say “It is improper for anyone to use physical force or the threat of physical force to prevent or respond to that which another has the right to do”, I have two objections. First, “use physical force or the threat of physical force” is redundant, in fact whenever a principle is stated in terms of “A or B”, that should tell you that the principle is misstated. The mind does not deal well with arbitrary lists. Second, “prevent or respond to that which another has the right to do” misses the point, which I think is amply made in Rand’s writing, that the principle is about “forcing a mind”, and not the complex list that you set forth. I take the following two sentences from Peter Schwartz’s essay “Free markets and free minds” as the clearest explication of “force”: It is my judgment that if you were to focus on what “force” is (and basically accept Schwartz’s sentences, although I highly recommend the whole essay), many (though not all) of the issues that you are facing would go away.

That's hilarious. You'll accept whatever gender someone wants to be called, but you won't accept whatever screen name someone wants to be called.