nimble

I'm not very good at seeing other people's views, and that may prevent me from seeing what you don't get. Morality is the realm of oughts. For instance, if food is a requirement of survival of man qua man, then he is morally obligated to eat, when he opts not to he is acting against his interest and is acting to literally kill himself. In that instance the moral necessity for food was backed with the claim that in order to be moral you must produce and eat food. But in contrast to that, the claim that government is necessary in order to be moral is not backed by the claim that you (or anyone) must produce government services. Do you see the difference? I can claim you must eat in order to be moral (or even alive), and back it up with the claim that you have a moral obligation to produce the means to feed yourself and eat in order to be moral. Where as with the government circumstance you don't follow up with the 'you must produce it in order to be moral' part. You just claim there ought to be a government, and then go with the contradictory statement that no one individual ought to produce it. ***Ignore this last sentence if it trips you up, the bulk of my argument is above and I don't want to get tripped up in semantics, if the last part was worded poorly. But I have to go to work now!***

I think the phrase moral obligation works just fine. Moral is the realm of oughts, and oughts are obligations, things that should/must be done in order to be moral. I am not saying that there won't be any people who want to be in government. I am saying that an institution that must exist in order to have a moral society, should have some group of individuals that must create and maintain it, or else the moral case for it having to be in place falls short.

The difference is that you have a moral obligation to feed yourself, you don't have a moral obligation to be in government. So that critique does not hold.

Well, I usually don't like rewordings of what I write, mostly because I am suspicious of a loss of intention, when people change words. However, I would say that this is fairly good rewording of what I said. I believe that individuals have no duties to others, no obligations of time or effort that is. I am almost to th point of believing that government is necessary, but not there yet, however I know that is the Objectivist stance. Lastly, yes what if no one is interested in government, could you imagine Dagny or Hank wanting to be a Senator and give up their dreams of metal and railroads, just because it is something that society needs?

I am sorry to have left this forum and this debate for so long. The last time this discussion happened I had to do some real self evaluation to regrasp where I stand. I now pose this socratic puzzle in an attempt to finally switch my position back to minarchism. I can't get passed seeing this triad of conflicting beliefs: 1. Objectivists believe that you have no moral obligation to serve society or the state (or easier said, they don't believe in duties). 2. Objectivists believe that a state is morally necessary. 3. It is possible for no person to even want to participate in government, meaning that no person would want to make laws (legislator), or enforce laws (police man/judge). Also every person may opt not to provide any funds to that state. Thus it is possible given those three premises that a state is morally necessary and that no person has any moral obligation to create it. How can that be so? Nimble

He also wrote on rationality, that I think is his best book. I think its called the nature of rationality. I'm going to bed now so please forgive me for not capitalizing his book title.

"Market forces" don't provide "optimum allocation" of services to those in need, it provides allocation to the largest number of individuals possible, without discriminating by need. Market forces aren't some magical things that distributes services to everyone who ever wants anything. But what they do, do is provide a service at the lowest possible price (at that particular time) to the greatest number of people. If that price isn't low enough for some people, that doesn't mean that they should be favored to get that scarce good above a person who can pay for it. How would you justify that? Also, nothing says they can't work on themselves or have you work on them for free. Except maybe government regulations of the medicine industry.

Hi, I am back, now that I have internet again. And to the creator of this thread, may I ask what exactly did YOU think was impractical about laissez-faire? I hope you weren't convinced with all the little theoretical tests that neo-classical economists and keynesians come up with to show how free markets fail given X situation. I swear they sit up all night just trying to find one instance where free markets don't maximize GDP, they usually mention monopolies, externalities and public goods as a defense of the mixed economy. If you had any questions about any of these issues I would be more than willing to go through each issue and show how that not only would free markets be morally superior, but that their assertion that the markets fail in these situations are fallacious and often based on faulty definitions.

Nope, this worked fine. It might not work as well if the two debaters are antagonistic to one another, but we seemed to stick to points and keep it clean.

I would like to address this part first, so that I clear up any misconceptions you may have, and so that you know where my thoughts are right now, because at this point I don't know what exactly to think. I don't think you have provided the type of case I would have liked to be persuaded to accept government, however you have shaken my stance as I previously held it for anarchism. Let me explain, and maybe things will pan out. No, there is no such right to NOT consent to the ban. No one would have the right to resist the authority of the institution that enforces that ban. So you are correct on that point. I have never argued that moral laws don't exist, and I have never advocated that people have the right to break these moral/normative laws or have their rights taken from them, unless one contractually forfeits their rights or commits a crime. Really what you are asking here is what happens when the supposed necessary thrid person arbiter becomes a first person arbiter? And you are right when saying that a first person arbiter is subjective, if you would have stated it in the terms I just used I would have noticed earlier, and conceded this point. However, this flaw in what I once thought doesn't show the necessity of the state. The jump from the statement “Each person must delegate retaliation to an impartial third party” to “There must be an impartial third party to whom each person delegates retaliation”, would be an example of the fallacy of composition, wherein one infers from, e.g., “Everyone likes at least one TV show” to “There’s at least one TV show that everyone likes." To answer your first sentence, those rules that PPAs can only use force when justified are called normative laws. They exist with or without an institution to enforce them. Whether a person lives morally or not or even acknowledges morality does not negate the fact that there is right and wrong. Hopefully you can agree that morals and ethics exist with or without institutions to enforce them. The second part of the quoted section again asks, what if a PPA becomes a first party arbiter? I agree with you that that is wrong, it is subjective. But what happens when a government becomes a first party arbiter? When a president commits a war crime? creates a bad law? Or if a judge sentences an innocent man? So the same applies to government, but... I am arguing that what ought to happen is that any man who commits a crime does need a third party arbiter to decide whether he was in the right or the wrong. However, a third party arbiter costs money, and requires that some man or men actually play that role as the arbiter. The reason I guess that is really behind why I don't completely buy into government is that it actually forces some person to pay the costs and to act as the arbiter of a case that they may have nothing to do with and don't want anything to do with. So my solution is that someone's need for a third party arbiter does not constitute a claim on others to pay the burden and act as the arbiter. Thus the only moral solution is where people pay for their own arbitration when needed via PPAs. This is what I speak of when I try to separate ought from is. There ought to be a third party arbiter, but that doesn't gaurantee or even necessitate that there will be (is) one. You are right. I shouldn't do the same thing you are doing. I apologize. I only use Russia to show that a constitution means nothing if the free willed actors (citizens) don't uphold it. The amount of rights that can go unpunished is potentially infinite in any "scheme", government or PPA. So you are making a false assumption by saying that. First, it is not morally okay for the land owner to violate rights of anyone. However, if he was his own PPA and she was her own PPA, and neither actually paid a third party, both were taking significant risks and essentially saying that they didn't need or want protection. This is much like the man who opts to live on a desert island, or in a remote area, where government is basically non-existent. It is not morally right for someone to aggress him or for him to aggress others, but when you do not live under the protection of some agency, government or private, you are taking a risk. Looking back on my posts I realize I may have implied that it is okay for people to violate rights as long as it is on their property and they act as their own PPA, or even a bad PPA makes bad laws. But I don't approve of violating rights in any way shape or form except in the scenarios where people contractually gave up their rights by paying a "bad" PPA. When a PPA enforces a bad law on someone who hasn't contractually forfeited that right, then it has morally over stepped its bounds and hopefully another third party will set it straight. This is the same thing that I have to say about government, I don't believe a government should enforce bad laws on anyone who hasn't contractually forfeited rights or committed a crime. And if a government does overstep its bounds, then I hope some other party sets it straight. But realistically, in both cases, anarchy and government, that chance is slim because arbitrating costs money and requires people to get involved in things that are seemingly 'not their problem.' Practically, it wouldn't enforce its rules on your territory, because it costs money and man power. But morally, it would have the right to. I guess the fundamental difference between a PPA and a government that I am just now learning because of this discourse between us, is how it is funded. A (current government with taxation) government might be more inclined to enforce its laws on other areas, because it would appear to be driven more by principles than money, since it has a seemingly unlimited supply of money. Now how your system of government, which essentially has no gauranteed income would do this, I don't know. I think you are making me hate politics in general, since neither will be ideal. Both can easily fall into a subjectivist trap, and end up utterly useless or even harmful. No, they have rights, however depending on the situation they may have no practical means of protecting those rights. I believe rights exist, as I have said before, with or without government or PPAs, but our problem lies in enforcing those rights. Thank you for bringing up this point. I guess this would be the equivalent of a state gone wrong like Iran. All this adds is a collectivist aspect to it, where majorities rule. And the number of votes needed to get a bill passed is arbitrary and does not really matter in this subject. 269 votes compared to 300 million Americans is less than 1%. So if 1% of Americans like that law, then it can get passed. I'm sure I can find a situation where a PPA's laws meets a 1% approval rating. But I don't want to go there, I don't think the number of votes needed is an issue. And as for PPA's the market would act as the multiple levels of checks and balances. But I hope we can open the floor up now to more people. I am a bit confused now, I am not sure I like anarchy as much, and I still don't like limited governments, so I am kind of in a pickle. Neither seem like a practical solution, and I still don't think that one group of people or a collective have a right to monopolize force by determining threats, while none of its citizens have that right. I don't see how a group can have a right that none of the individuals in that group possess. THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS COLLECTIVE RIGHTS. If you are okay to opening up more responses from people, I would be okay with it. Your turn, AisA. Thank you for the debate thus far, it's really made me think a lot. Nimble EDIT for spelling and grammar.

AisA, regardless of how you feel about my position or my arguments, or vice versa, how I feel about yours. You have actually refined my stance quite a bit with this debate. It wasn't until about a day ago that I thought about PPAs matching Rand's definition of government, or being able to be obejective arbiters that act as the last arbiter of disputes. I think that if you would have argued with me about a 8 months ago, I wouldn't have even had responses for a lot of your points. But because of this exchange I think I have learned a lot. Nimble

I want to elaborate on this. If each of these groups' PPAs violates the rights of their customers, it would be only through contract. All of the people under the PPA have PAID for these laws, if they end up having their rights violated, it is only because they have contractually forfeited them. So if a world government that protected rights existed, you would argue that there should never be another separate government created again, at least until this world government started to violate rights? I am just curious. Please address my other argument first, because all of this post is irrelevant if we can solve something from the previous post.

"The problem with what you propose is that it ties the authority to use force to land ownership alone. It means that if I own land, I can declare it a territory and declare myself a PPA." I guess you could, although it wouldn't be smart, someone could walk onto your land with a gun, and if you couldn't adequately defend yourself you wouldn't be in a good position, so nearly everyone would be under the enforcement of some PPA. But this is not a sufficient argument to your point. Let me move on. You have the right to realize what a threat is, not arbitrarily dictate what a threat is. And you don't have the right to just kill any one who steps onto your land. You keep confusing ought with is, and it is making your argument fallacious. What happens when people in some remote area of the earth mutilate their babies, or kill first borns or wives or anyone for that matter? Do other governments go there and make sure that everyone's rights on the entire earth are never violated? No! They ONLY watch out for the territory they enforce rules upon. Rand's idea of government ties the authority to use force to land ownership alone, if that's what is meant by geographical area. So this situations holds true with governments too. If I and my wife are on a desert island, and I kill her, does the nearest government come to her rescue? In another example, let's say that I kill her in Canada and somehow I bribe a judge and get away with the murder, would the US step in and prosecute me? No, it only watches its territory. States only take authority over the land that they own. The exact same thing that a PPA would do. This is an ought. I agree individual rights exist for everyone at all times. However, the IS, is how are we going to protect them. I argue that PPAs can do better than states. Secondly, you have evaded the issue I raised that a PPA exactly matches Rand's definition of a state, which at the very least suggests that it is a functional equivalent of a state. So do you concede that there should be one world government? If a man does not have a PPA, then commits a crime in my PPA's territory, and thinks he can escape capture by running back to his home, he will be mistaken. If he is his own PPA, the situation would be handled accordingly. My PPA can take diplomatic or military actions against him to get him to hand himself over. My guess is that one man wouldnt fight a war by himself, so he would just hand himself over. But if he didn't and resisted, he would be taken down accordingly. Just like if a terrorist from Iran bombed some US building, and then ran back to Iran. We would ask Iran to hand him over, and if they didn't military or diplomatic consequences would ensue. First I thought Objectivists don't like the idea of necessary and sufficient conditions. Second, if consent is a necessary condition, how can you justify forcing people under a government they don't like? You are right the only legitimate power for a PPA or government is to protect rights, everywhere in ITS territory, at all times. When they don't they are in the wrong. Both governments and PPAs could be guilty of this. It won't have authority over everyone unless it is a world government. No it shows what happens when men uses government coercion to acheive their ill ends. A lot of these leaders would not have gotten to power in a free society where power is diffused and social rule enforcement could only be done by those who pay for their services. Could their be a terrorist PPA? Sure. Are their terrorist supporting governments? Yes. Anything could happen in either system, and I think these worst case scenario arguments are getting us no where. The only ones who would be under the control of the christian territory are the christians. The only ones who would be under the control of the environmentalist territory are the environmentalists. Why would we want a system where if anyone of these people came to power, they could enforce their views on everybody in that arbitrarily defined area. Also, you never responded to how governments objectively define their territory. To me it seems arbitrary if it does not somehow relate to the territory its citizens own. ***MOD HELP*** I can't get the quotes to work. I tried to edit to fix them, but it won't work.

Also, I want to make a correction to an earlier post where I said "argumentum ad absurdum" and not "reductio ad absurdum." Someone brought it to my attention, and I apologize for the mistake, I typed that response in haste.

If anyone has any comments, please contact me on AIM or through PM. I'd like to hear what others think about my last post.

Yes, that is what I am really asking. As the economist Murray Rothbard said: “Once one concedes that world government is not necessary, then where does one logically stop at the permissibility of separate states? If Canada and the United States can be separate nations without being denounced as being in a state of impermissible “anarchy,” why may not the South secede from the United States? New York State from the Union? New York City from the state? Why may not Manhattan secede? Each neighborhood? Each block? Each house? Each person?” (Power and Market, 7) Good I am glad that we agree on that. This will help us solve a lot of our problems. It shows that the men in legislation are the same type of men that may compose a CEO board of a private protection agency. -At this point I was planning to go point by point that you made and illustrate how you were either misunderstanding the nature of government or show you that these bad circumstances you describe in anarchy are the same things that will or could happen under government. But I am deciding to go another way with this argument, and if you think that I need to go back later and critique the issues you brought up, then I will. Anyway, here it goes--- Okay, so Miss Rand defines government as “an institution that holds exclusive power to enforce certain rules of conduct in a given geographical area.” After thinking about it, I realized all of my arguments consist of showing you how government has the same qualities as anarchy as I see it (not anarchy in the sense that anyone can do anything, i.e. chaos). This is leading me to believe that my definition of a private protection agency (PPA) is the same or similar to that of what you would call government. A PPA is an institution, thus it meets the first criteria of Rand’s definition. It would hold the exclusive power to enforce certain rules of conduct in a given geographical area, thus it meets the second criteria. Let me explain though, because you are probably confused about this last point. A private protection agency only would enforce laws on its constituents, its constituents would only pay the protection agency if it enforces laws that they can agree with. So we have a group of people who pays for laws that they all agree to. The PPA will only enforce the laws on the specifically defined area that is all the land that its constituents own, and it will hold the exclusive domain of enforcing rules in that area. Now it won’t be an arbitrarily defined area like that of a normal government, its power area will only be all the property that its constituents own. I think our arguing comes from misinterpretations of what I am advocating. There won’t be one PPA that says, ‘I control all of what is currently known as America’ and another agency which competes inside of that same plot of land. Their areas won’t conflict, they will be objectively defined by the property lines of their constituents. For example let’s say there is a big square of land divided into 4 square areas, with 4 people each owning a plot of land. The man in plot 1 may pay PPA1 to protect his rights along with the man in plot 2, and the men in plots 3 and 4 pay PPA2 to protect their rights. Now although they are living side-by-side they have two different institutions to protect their rights, those institutions don’t enforce their rules on that of the other’s territory. So PPA will handle any disputes objectively between any of its constituents, it essentially is THE FINAL ARBITER OF DISPUTES in a given area. It has the obligation to enforce rules on all those under its constituency. PPA1 and PPA2 are not competing for territory, at the very most they are only competing for customers, not much different than how states try to create circumstances to make their population grow. This is also much like neighboring countries. The US and Canada have a similar border, they are different governments with different laws, and people who live on the border can literally walk a few feet and be subject to different laws. If the people in Canada don’t like Canada they can leave and patronize another country, or in anarchy’s case, a different PPA. Or they can risk it and live without a PPA, and hopefully they will be able to protect themselves, but most likely just about everyone would patronize some PPA. Now you may say, what if PPA1 has a customer that has a dispute with PPA2? Well, what if a man in Canada has a dispute with a man from America? Most likely, they will work it out, but in rare cases bad things can happen either in government or anarchy. Maybe a war will start, who knows, but worst case scenarios are non-sequitor and are getting us no where. In anarchy, PPAs would only exist if there is a market for them, dictator-like figures and self appointed rulers would not get in the enforcement market unless there where consumers who wanted that type of lawmaker and enforcer. And I can illustrate that the same could and has happened in government too, if people want that type of law maker, no constitution of a government will stop it (Soviet Russia). So that critique does not hold. What happens when a man from Canada kills an American, then flees back to Canada? Either Canada could harbor him, and face military or diplomatic consequences, or they could realize that their man is in the wrong and hand him over. The same would apply to PPAs, if this event happened on my property and I paid PPA1 to enforce laws there, they would try to apprehend this man. Maybe he flees back to his property so that his PPA will protect him, but will his PPA be willing to wage war for a man who is in the wrong? This means their costs will skyrocket, they will have to raise their prices, they will lose customers. Chances are they would comply peaceably and hand the man over. Could it turn into a war? Yes. But is it LIKELY to? No. I agree, you are correct. It is also a fallacy to say that because anarchy might fail, that it WILL fail. All I can say here is that to anarchy’s defense all of these things happened under a constitutionally regulated government, and not in anarchy. But you are correct, they COULD happen. And from here I leave the floor to you. Thank you for bringing up these issues, it has made me think a bit more on the subject. Hopefully, the first part of my post about Rand’s definition and the definition of a PPA will lead us eventually to some agreement. But we’ll see when you post.

Thank you for the compliment, and I agree that it challenges one's understanding. Now that I am thinking about it more, I think the best point you made thus far has to do with the example of the wife and the murderous husband. You may not know why I think that, but I think it is a good point not for the reasons you suggested, but because it challenges the primacy of private property...how would one get on to his property to investigate? You didn't make that point exactly, but I will make it for you, because I need to have an answer for that. Nimble

Fair enough. This is why I said that this post was not my stance, it was just an attempt to use argumentum ad absurdum. Hopefully, my last sentence above cleared this up. It is not my stance that no man should be able to decide what a threat is. Obviously I think that one should or else I wouldn't be an anarchist. But what followed was my position. You asserting it does not make it so, but let's read on to see what example you use to justify that position. The man can declare that it is self-defense, but if it wasn't then his declaration was a lie. The man does not have a right to his dead wife's body. You cannot own people, and since she is not alive, she does not have a right to opt not to have an autopsy. So anyone who is curious enough has the right to investigate it, and this man has no moral grounds to stop them. And like I said before, your previous post contained a lot of information that requires a well thought out response, so I will post on that later.

A is A, you are usually not on late when I am. I liked your response and thought it was well thought out. I will post a reply later tonight after I review your response more in depth and have the time to make a reply. If you are on late tonight, maybe we will catch each other. Nimble

I'm sorry to add this before you respond, but I thought one of my points could use clarification. Let's assume that your stance is correct that no man may determine what is a threat and what isn't a threat. This logically implies that any collection of men has no such right either to determine what is a threat and what is not, since a collection of men is nothing other than a specific number of individuals. If the individuals don't have the right to determine what is a threat and what is not a threat, then a group can have no more rights than that of the individuals composing it. To paraphrase Rand, 'there is no such thing as collective rights.' If the citizens don't have this right, then the group of men in government do not have this right either. This ultimately leads to the conclusion that governments (being a collection of men) would not have the right to determine what is threat and what is not. Also I want to repost a section of my response to best illustrate this point and to show where I derived it from: Note*-Those limitations and designated functions are written and created by humans, and they are enforced and followed by humans. ****Now this is not my stance, but I am just showing you where your argument and line of thinking will ultimately take you. I hold the position that individuals do have the right to self-defense and only they can OPT to give that right to an institution. A group of men (government) does not have the right to coercively claim dominion over individuals land to enforce its rules and steal their right to self defense, by electing itself to be the "rational solution" and the only ones who can truly enforce good laws and freedom.

Yes I have read this essay. I will address the parts I think are most important and then we will go from there, okay? -Rand states in the first sentence that "A government is an institution that holds the exclusive power to enforce certain rules of social conduct in a given geographical area." First, I would like to point out that a government is composed of men of free will. I will grant that it is more than just the men that compose it; it includes the functions and limitations designed into it as well (through a constitution). However a constitution is not necessary to have objective law (Great Britain), nor is it any type of real restraint (even Soviet Russia had constitutional limits on its government, yet the government completely ignored those limits) Long, Anarchism as Constitutionalism. I only point this out because I want to dispell a common misconception that government is somehow a more objectively defined institution than any other. It too is no better than the people in the government. Second, I ask if a government enforces rules and has an EXCLUSIVE power to do so, in an area, how do governments function inside of governments, such as the states and our federal government? This leads me to another point I would like to make about secession. Let's say the southern states disagree with the northern states about death penalty or some other debatable issue, so they secede. Then suppose Mississippi leaves that union because they disagree about abortion, and so on and so on branching off into smaller and smaller governments, what is there to logically stop these secessions from creating tons of small essentially competing governments? 2) I am merely claiming that men have a right to retaliate against those who initiate force against them. I will quote Rand's essay to illustrate this, "The necessary consequence of man's right to life is his right to self-defense." I don't think it inherently creates conditions inimical to man's survival, and let me explain. When a government is being constructed who determines what constitutes as the initiation of force? Do constitutions and laws just fall out of a vacuum, or do rational humans observe their nature and create rational laws, which because they are observable, they gain support and are thus able to be implemented without too much opposition? In our current system, isn't that the exact job that a judge often has? How about we call our judge "person A." Then your critique of anarchy reveals the same flaws in a system of minimal government. You might respond that judges do make close calls sometimes, but on average their job is just to read the laws and rule on them and not make those type of decisions, as above. But then we can go to the senators and representatives that maybe define and write the laws, they probably argued and debated and one of them decided that "a threat consists of a suspicious look and bulge in one’s pocket that might be a weapon." Then my point would still stand. Use your statement and instead of using "person A" just substitute senator, judge, president, etc and you will have a critique of government. I agree. If this man with the gun was the only man who was allowed to decide who and what is a threat, then he would be very threatening. However he is not. Others can gain knowledge of what constitutes a threat and what does not, and if the man with a gun shoots someone using his own arbitrary concept of what force is and he is in the wrong, and this is observable to others, they have the right to apprehend this man, because he is 'himself inherently threatening and constitutes an initiation of force' on the rest of society. (I paraphrased you). This is where you and I disagree. The man has the right to carry the gun and has the moral imperative to act in self defense. If he makes a poor decision and shoots a man without it being in self defense then he is in the wrong and that can be observable to anyone, not just a government. A man breaking a normative law is not a sufficient argument for government. Anyone can observe that he shot a man for pulling a bulgy wallet out of a pocket, and it can be found to be wrong. I agree that there are normative laws (oughts), but the actual enforcement of those objective laws (is) is a entirely different story. The police officer or judge of a government who would arrest that armed man is no better than just about anyone else to enforce that. This is the case in any system. Let's say the US only enforces rational laws (which is not the case in reality), Iran, Russia, Iraq, Syria, etc can do the same and create an institution which does not enforce only rational laws. When we conflict with them there is no central agency to act as the final arbiter of disputes. I think this line of thinking logically leads to the conclusion that the only proper government is that which holds dominion over the whole world, so that there will always be a final arbiter. Governments have the ability and the motive to do the same, but what stops them usually is that a vast majority of people are rational and won't tolerate it. Anarchy and private agencies provide the same and better incentives to deter retaliatory institutions from enforcing unjust laws. Rational people won't pay to have bad laws enforced in their areas, and the best part about private companies is that they don't have the ability to regulate currency so that they can't print money when people revolt against them to fund their war. A government on the other hand can print money, wage civil war, and then tax the losers when they reclaim a seceding territory. Why do you always speak of government as if it is some omniscient, infinitely just institution? How is the collection of men in congress any more objective than the collection of men that might compose a CEO board of a private legal enterprise? I agree, let us debate for a while, then maybe if both of us agree, we will open it up for others. Edit to make the quotations work.

Someone may have already said this, but here it goes. Any government that is willing to decree, "it's okay for David Kahn to rob a bank" is the type of morally corrupt government that would allow for a law that says "its okay for John to rob David Kahn". Thus supporting that type of government won't be beneficial to you in the long run.

Thank you that means a lot to me coming from you. And if you want, I just started the debate thread, so you can go watch when you feel like it.

Here is what I was thinking the rules would be. 1. No personal attacks and posts must remain friendly. 2. Responses should first address the response of the previous poster, then continue on to make a point of its own. 3. Responses should be pretty free in general, so that it kind of mocks reality and how one would deal with this type of discussion in the real world (since the point of this subforum is to show people how to be activists). 4. Stick to the issue, use opinion, history, fact, and citations (if possible) when quoting others. 5. When a point is thoroughly refuted, drop that argument. 6. I have a feeling that our disagreement will stem from another branch of philosophy, if we uncover that that is the case, then please let's hold off on this argument and move to the appropriate branch of philosophy. Since philosophy builds on itself, we should address the more fundamental issues before moving to the higher ones that way observers and arguers fully understand where there position comes from and how one arrives at that position. 7. Oh, and one last rule. Responses should be within about 48 hours. If a poster leaves the debate for an extended period of time, the debate will be considered to be over. And as for the actual argument itself, I will leave AisA to make the positive case for government since he is making the positive claim that governments should exist, thus the onus of proof is on him. Well, I will leave it to you. I look forward to your response. Nimble (I do hold the position that anarchy is morally favorable to government, so I am NOT playing devil's advocate). EDIT to add rule 7.

Well, I thought the idea was for me to debate ONE person on ONE topic. I'm not trying to be difficult, I just want it to be a debate rather than a discussion where everyone of the 1000 members on this site is against me.